A57982:421
The trial & triumph of faithThe tryal & triumph of faith
The trial & triumph of faith: or, An exposition of the history of Christs dispossessing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan Delivered in sermons; in which are opened, the victory of faith; the condition of those that are tempted; the excellency of Jesus Christ and free-grace; and some special grounds and principles of libertinism and antinomian errors, discovered by Samuel Rutherfurd, professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews. Published by authority.The tryal & triumph of faith: or, An exposition of the history of Christs dispossessing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan Delivered in sermons; in which are opened, the victory of faith; the condition of those that are tempted; the excellency of Jesus Christ and free-grace; and some speciall grounds and principles of libertinisme and antinomian errors, discovered by Samuel Rutherfurd, professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews. Published by authority.
London: printed by John Field, 1652
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.
13. Its true, the new creation and life of God, is virtually Seminaliter in these preparations, as the seed is a tree in hope, the blossom an apple, the foundation a Palace in its beginning; so half a desire in the Non-converted is love sickness for Christ in the seed, legal humiliation is in hope Evangelic Repentance and mortification: But as the seed and the growing tree differ not gradually only, but in nature & specifically; as a thing without life is not of that same nature and essence with a creature that hath a vegetative life and groweth, so the preparatory good affections of desire, hunger sorrow, humiliation going before conversion, differ specifically from those renewed affections which follow after: The former being acts of Grace, but not of saving grace, which goeth along with the decree of Election of Grace, and of like Latitude with it, the latter being the native and connatural fruits of the Spirit, of which the Apostle speaketh, Gal. 5.22.23. In which regard no man is morally and in regard of a divine promise such as this (Do this, and this, and God shall bestow on you the Grace of conversion) fitter and in a nearer disposition to conversion then another.2 1. Because, we read not of any such promise in the Gospel. 2. Because, amongst things void of life, all are equally void of life, ⟨p. 315⟩and there's here no degrees of more or less life, no intention, no remission or flacking of the degrees of life; for even as an Ape or an Horse, are as equally no men, as stones and dead earth are no men, though an Ape or an Horse have life common to them with men, which stones and earth have not; yet they are equally as destitute of reason and an intellectual life which is the only life of a man as a man, as stones and earth are. So Saul only humbled by the terrors of the Law, and sick of half raw desires of Christ, is no less yet a creature void of the life of God, then when he was in the highest pitch of obstinacy, spitting out blood and murders on the face of that Lord Jesus whom he persecuted; and in this regard, conversion is no less pure Grace every way free to Saul humbled, and so having only half a thirst and desire of Christ, then if he were yet in the fever of his highest blasphemy, thirsting after the blood of the Saints.