A39663:1076
The Fountain of Life Opened
The fountain of life opened, or, A display of Christ in his essential and mediatorial glory wherein the impetration of our redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun, carried on, and finished by his covenant-transaction, mysterious incarnation, solemn call and dedication ... / by John Flavell ...The fountain of life opened, or, A display of Christ in his essential and mediatorial glory wherein the impetration of our redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun, carryed on, and finished by his covenant-transaction, mysterious incarnation, solemn call and dedication ... / by John Flavell ...
London: printed for Rob. White, 1673
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.
Inference. 3.
Did Christ go to God thrice upon the same account,1 thence learn, That Christians should not be discouraged, though they have sought God once and again; and no answer of peace comes. Christ was not heard the first time. And he goes a second; he was not answered the second, he goes the third, and last time, yet was not answered in the thing he desired, viz. that the cup might pass from him, and yet he hath no hard thoughts of God, but resolves his will into his Fathers. If God deny you in the things you ask, he deals no otherwise with you, than he did with Christ. O my God (saith he) I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not, and in the night, and am not silent. Yet he justifies God, but thou art holy. Psal. 22.2. Christ was not heard in the thing he desired, and yet heard in that he feared. Heb 5.7. The cup did not pass as he desired, but God upheld him, and enabled him to drink it. He was heard as to support, he was not heard as to exemption from sufferings, his will was expressed conditionally, ⟨p. 292⟩and therefore though he had not the thing he so desired; yet his will was not crossed by the denial. But now when we have a suit depending before the throne of grace, and cry to God once and again, and so answer comes. How do our hands hang down? and our spirits wax feeble!
Did Christ go to God thrice upon the same account,1 thence learn, That Christians should not be discouraged, though they have sought God once and again; and no answer of peace comes. Christ was not heard the first time. And he goes a second; he was not answered the second, he goes the third, and last time, yet was not answered in the thing he desired, viz. that the cup might pass from him, and yet he hath no hard thoughts of God, but resolves his will into his Fathers. If God deny you in the things you ask, he deals no otherwise with you, than he did with Christ. O my God (saith he) I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not, and in the night, and am not silent. Yet he justifies God, but thou art holy.