“Look upon the sun, how it casts light and heat upon the whole world in its general course, how it shineth upon the good and the bad with an equal influence; but let its beams be but concentrated in a burning-glass, then it sets fire on the object only, and passeth by all others: and thus God in the creation looketh upon all his works with a general love, erant omnia valde bona, they pleased him very well. Oh! but when he is pleased to cast the beams of his love, and cause them to shine upon his elect through Christ, then it is that their hearts burn within them, then it is that their affections are inflamed; whereas others are but as it were a little warmed, have a little shine of common graces case upon them.”—Richard Holdsworth, 1651
Quoted in C. H. Spurgeon’s, The Treasury of David (Hendrickson Publishers, 1990), 1:118. Spurgeon attributes this to Holdsworth in 1651. The only work I can see by Holdsworth on that date is one edition of his The Valley of Vision (London: Printed by Matthew Simmons, and are to be sold at Alders-gate street next door to the Gilded-Lion, 1651), and yet I can’t find the quote in this book which contains 21 sermons. Another book of quotations attributes it to an early Holdsworth sermon preached at St. Paul’s in London in 1625.
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