A55754:467
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
Christ's Fullness, and Man's Emptiness, &c.Christ's Fulnesse, and Man's Emptinesse, &c.
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.
So much for the first Corollary, which serves to rectify Judgements.
So much for the first Corollary, which serves to rectifie Judgements.
The next is for Practise. If all grace be received, then defer not repentance, for no repentance is accepted, but what proceeds 1from a Sanctifying grace, and that as you see is received, that is given by God as he will. It is not in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but he hath compassion on whom he will have compassion, and whom he will, he hardeneth, Rom. 9. 15. As I said before, the Spirit breatheth where, and when it listeth. Therefore we should as Millers, and Mariners are wont to do, who take the Gale when it cometh, because they know the winds are not at their command: Suppose a man were to pass the Seas within 20 dais upon pain of death, if the wind should blow the second day, third day, or fourth day, no wise man would omit the opportunity, because he knows the winds are not in his power; So, if the spirit shall breath into our hearts good motions of turning to God unfeignedly in our youth,▪ at 16. 17. or when ever, it is the greatest wisdom in the world to take the opportunity, and not to put it off, who knoweth whether they will be had again or no: How many thousand are now in Hell who thought to have repented, and did not because they neglected those breathings of ⟨p. 13⟩the Spirit where they were offered? For there are certain acceptable times, after which God offers Grace no more: happy he that knows that day of his visitation, and as our Saviour speaketh, the things which belong to his Peace, in that his day, which Jerusalem did not, which made Christ to weep over it, and which Saul did not: and the Jews in Jeremiah's time did not, when God forbade Jeremiah to pray for them. For as there were certain times when the Angel moved the waters in the pool of Bethesda, and he that then stepped in, was healed; so there are certain acceptable times, wherein God troubles the hearts of men by his spirit. Happy is he who then steps into a good course, that he may be healed to Salvation. I say there are certain times, wherein God doth (as it were) thaw and soften the frozen hearts of men. And it is wisdom then with the husband-man to put in the plough, while the ground is soft: for the heart in such a case is like iron in the furnace, easily fashioned, but stay till it be cold, and it will not be wrought upon.