Puritan, Andrew Gray on fickle love to Christ.

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Regi Addictissimus

Completely sold out to the King
"The grace of love is a royal and tender plant that cannot well grow in our untender hearts. The love of many that are within these doors is like Jonah’s gourd—it springs up in a night and perishes in a night. Our love is like the early cloud, and the morning dew, that quickly vanishes. If so we may speak, in a manner of love, we love Christ today, and we hate Him tomorrow. I would only say this to you: O that the divine and precious excellencies of the grace of love were known, that you might be provoked not only to pursue after it, but also to keep it, when you have attained it!" - Andrew Gray. Be Reconciled with God. http://bit.ly/Bereconciled

Andrew Gray is one of my favorite Puritans to read. For those who are not familiar with this gem, here is a short bio:

"Andrew Gray was born in Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, to Sir William of Pittendrum, a merchant and staunch royalist, and Egidia Smyth. He was the eleventh child in a family of twenty-one. As a child, he was convicted of the sin of ingratitude by unexpectedly witnessing a beggar pour out his heart to God in a field near Leith. Before long, Gray was brought to rest in the finished work of Christ for his distraught soul. Gray felt called to the ministry already as a boy. That gave impetus to his studies at Edinburgh and St. Andrews universities. He earned a Master of Arts degree in 1651 and at age nineteen was declared a candidate for the ministry. He was ordained in the Outer High Kirk in Glasgow by the Protestors on November 3, 1653, despite the objections of Robert Baillie and other Resolutioners. Gray was regarded as a burning light by thousands who heard him preach. William Blaikie, author of The Preachers of Scotland, wrote, “His knowledge of Christian experience was wonderfully extensive and minute; he knew well the joys and troubles, the helps and hindrances, the temptations and elusions of the Christian life. He had a remarkable power of probing the conscience; as James Durham remarks, ‘he could make men’s hair stand on end. ’ ” Both in preaching and in his personal life, Gray exhibited the need for holiness. He was a genuinely pious man. George Hutcheson spoke of him as “a spark from heaven.” That spark did not stay lit for long. Gray often preached of and longed for heavenly glory. When he was twenty-two, he expressed the desire that he would meet his Master in celestial bliss before his next birthday. Six months later, after a few days of fever, God granted that wish. Gray left behind a God-fearing wife, Rachel Baille (who later married George Hutcheson), and two children, Robert (who would soon die as a child) and Rachel. Gray’s body was interred in Glasgow Cathedral. “We may safely say that never in the history of our country did a man of his years make so deep a mark,” said Blaikie. God used Gray mightily in his twenty-seven months of ministry." - Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson. Meet the Puritans.
 
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