A55754:168
Sun-beams of gospel-light shining clearly from several texts of Scripture, opened and applied. 1.…Sun-beams of gospel-light shining clearly from severall texts of Scripture, opened and applyed. 1.…
Sun-beams of gospel-light shining clearly from several texts of Scripture, opened and applied. 1. A heavenly [sic] treatise of the divine love of Christ. 2. The Christians freedom. 3. The deformed form of a formal profession. 4. Christs fullness, and mans emptiness. By John Preston, doctor in divinity, chaplain in ordinary to King James, Mr. of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher at Lincolns Inn.Sun-beams of gospel-light shining clearly from severall texts of Scripture, opened and applyed. 1. A heavemly [sic] treatise of the devine love of Christ. 2. The Christians freedome. 3. The deformed forme of a formall profession. 4. Christs fulnesse, and mans emptinesse. By John Preston, doctor in divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to King James, Mr. of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher at Lincolnes Inne.
London: printed for John Stafford, 1644
Sermon 4 › A HEAVENLY TREATISE OF THE DIVINE LOVE OF CHRIST.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Consider this, the love of the Lord makes you 1a better man, gives you a greater excellency, which is a thing which all men desire. Look on the excellency of the creatures, it proceeds from their forms; as the excellency of a Pearl above other stones comes from its form: for we know that the matter of all these things is common. Now the object to the faculty, hath the ⟨p. 58⟩[…] ⟨p. 59⟩[…] ⟨p. 58⟩[…] ⟨p. 59⟩[…] ⟨p. 60⟩property of the form; for it gives name and distinction. Now this love makes God and spiritual things, as it were the form of the will. And according to this form is the Excellency of the man. Every man is better or worse, as his love is pitched on a better object. He that loves a base thing, is base; and he that loves a thing somewhat better, excels that man; but he that loves spiritual things, is the most noble. Look on the lower faculties, when the sensitive appetite enjoys its proper object, then a man hath his perfection in that kind. Thus, when the will is fixed on Jesus Christ, its best object, then a man hath his full perfection. If water be united to Wine, its made better; when the body is united to the soul, how glorious a creature is it! how glorious a creature then will thy soul be, when by love it is united to the Lord! This love puts a greater excellency on the soul, than the soul doth on the body. Love brings the soul to God, and makes him all in all to us; so that what we cannot desire, we may have in him: have ye not then cause to wish that ye loved the Lord? True, you have said enough to inflame us. But how shall we do it my brethren? if you are brought unfeignedly to desire it, half the work is done; when the Disciples prayed, Lord increase our faith, 2Matth. 18. Christ answers, If you have faith; but as a grain of Mustard seed, you may say unto