A57963:391
Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself
Christ dying and drawing sinners to himself, or, A survey of our Saviour in his soul-suffering, his loveliness in his death, and the efficacy thereof in which some cases of soul-trouble in week believers ... are opened ... delivered in sermons on the Evangel according to S. John Chap. XII, vers. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 ... / by Samuel Rutherford.Christ dying and drawing sinners to himself, or, A survey of our Saviour in his soule-suffering, his lovelynesse in his death, and the efficacie thereof in which some cases of soule-trouble in weeke beleevers ... are opened ... delivered in sermons on the Evangel according to S. John Chap. XII, vers. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 ... / by Samuel Rutherford.
London: printed by J.D. for Andrew Crooke, 1647
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.
Rule 7. Christ, in submitting his will,1 maketh the Prophecies, the revealed Gospel his rule: and in the matter of duty, is willing to be ruled by Gods revealed will; in the matter of suffering, he is willing that the Lords will stand for a Law, to which he doth willingly submit, and will in no sort quarrel with everlasting decrees. To be ruled by the one, is holiness; to submit to the other, is patience: For patience is higher then any ordinary grace, in regard its willing to adore and reverence something more and higher then a commanding, promising, and threatening will of God. It was a grace in Christ most eminent,2 in the Lamb of God, dumb, meek and silent before his shearers, the meekest in earth and in heaven, that he did not only never resist the revealed will of God, but never thought, motion, nor any hint of a desire was in him, against the secret and o•ernall decree and counsel of God. 3Christ will not have us to make Images of him, who is the invisible God; but, when in his works of justice, power, love, free grace, he setteth before us the image of his glorious nature and attributes, he will have us to adore him in these. According to his decree of reprobation, he raised up Pharaoh to be clay to all men; on whom, as on a voluntary and rational vessel of wrath, they might read power, justice, truth, sovereignty; in these works we are to tremble before him, and adore the Lord. So in works of Grace, that are the Image of the invisible God, the Lord is to be loved. 1 Tim. 1.16. In Paul, the chief of sinners, the Lord holds forth an image of the freest grace, no less then in the revealed will of God; for, 1. Christ made an example of mercy and free grace in him. 2. He made a speaking and crying spectacle to all Ages, an [Greek or Hebrew], a printed copy of crying grace to all the world: and in this we are to adore and submit to him. Such a limb of hell hath received mercy, not I, who before men was holier. O submit to this work of grace, as to the copy of his eternal decree, and be silent.
Rule 7. Christ, in submitting his will,