A55754:46
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.
Whereby we cleave to him. Love inclines, and knits our hearts to him, as it did Davids to Jonathans. And so Barnabas exhorted them to cleave unto the Lord with full purpose of heart, Act. 11. Neither is this idle; but makes a man desirous to please the Lord in all things. A man is said to love the Lord, when out of a persuasion that Christ is most desirable, and willing to receive him, he cleaves to the Lord with a desire to serve and please him in all things. Faith ⟨p. 9⟩that begets Love, is not only a persuasion that the Lord will be merciful, and forgive us: (For a prisoner may see the Judge willing to pardon him, and persuade himself that he shall be pardoned, and yet love not the Judge, because he looks not on the Judge, as on an amiable person,) but a receiving and resting upon his amiableness. There is another affection; when the heart is so framed, it apprehends Christ for its only good, its happiness. Faith is not only an act of the mind, to believe that God will pardon us; but of the Will and heart also, to take Christ for our Husband; so that all the parts of the heart are inclined and bent after hem. If you believe with all your heart, saith Philip to the Eunuch, Act. 8. If a Spouse should see one willing to have her, that is not enough to make up the match; she may not think him fit, she may be unwilling. But suppose there be one that she loves above all, whom she thinks to be most fit for her, yea she thinks she shall be undone if she have him not: but yet she is not sure that he will have her, but thinks it is very probable that he may be induced unto it. So this is Faith, when a man sees Christ only worth his love, he would gladly be divorced from all, so that he might have Christ oh he cannot be without him, yet there is somewhat betwixt them, he cannot firmly believe that Christ loves him, but yet doth not think that he is wholly averse from him. Though thy persuasion be not full, yet if you have this thirst and desire, this hungering after ⟨p. 10⟩Christ, you may be comforted. This shuts out such as have a persuasion of the pardon of their sins, and yet have not this love, this prizing, this desiring after Christ; and takes in such as do thus love and prize him, yet find not that full persuasion of his love;