A55754:393
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
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.
But you will say, Do you altogether condemn natural and moral virtues? must they do nothing? yes, you shall have this use of them, that they will help as wind to drive the ship; only it is godliness is the rudder that guides it, and aims at the right haven: as for example, you are commanded to love your children, and your wives; you are bound to do this, if you had no natural affections in you; only having these affections in you, you do it with more ease; else you must drive the ship with oars, whereas now the wind fills the sails, and you do it with more facility and ease: and so likewise you are bound to be patient and meek, and you must be so, though your ⟨p. 11⟩natures be not so; but if your natures be so, you may the more easily be so, yet so as godliness must set the Compass, and steer the ship. Moral virtues are like good horses, that draw the Chariot, but godliness is the Auriga, the Coachman; without which, take the most excellent things that nature is capable of, if it be not guided by it, the Lord regards them not; for God regards nothing but that which draws the creatures unto him; but now moral virtues makes us rest upon our own bottoms, and so likewise all things whatsoever they be that beautify the flesh; for God will have no flesh to glory in it self; but let him that glories, glory in 1the Lord. Nay, I add more, take the graces of the spirit, wherewith God adorns his Saints, as an husband doth his wife with Jewels, if you magnify them, you do so much withdraw your hearts from God: therefore in heaven it is said there is neither Sun, nor Moon; now what is that? there is no excellency in any creature that is magnified there, but God is all in all, he is Sun and Moon: and therefore in the Revelation of Saint John it is said, and said to their honour, it is made their worth that they give all to God; Glory and power be to our God 2for ever; they fall on their faces, throw down their crowns, though created glorious creatures. When the evil Angels began to reflect upon themselves, it was their ruin, they fell from God: for the creature of it self is like a glass without a bottom; if it cometh to stand upon its own bottom, it falls, and breaks; and so the Angels when they would stand of themselves, they fell down to the ⟨p. 12⟩