A57982:483
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.
So at the lowest condition of the weakest Faith that the believer is in, some fire and coal of love and Faith there is, and some smoking, though little fire, and possibly we cannot give it a name. Yet if the just live by Faith, there must be some measure of Faith. 2. Some smoking of love to Christ. 3. Some discerning of an ill condition. No man on earth in a sleep hath a reflect act to know that he sleepeth, no dead corps knoweth it self to be dead. Never sleeping man could say, nay, not Adam in his first sleep, when God formed the woman out of a rib of his side: Now I am sleeping. No man naturally dead can say, Now am I dead, and I lie amongst the worms and corruption. Death maketh no report of death: but the believer can say at his lowest condition, Cant. 5.1. I sleep but my heart waketh; and he who saith, Psal. 119. Lord quicken me, must say, Lord, I am dead; yet to say, Lord quicken me, and to feel and know deadness, are acts of the life of Grace. A Saint in this condition may love Christ through half a dream, and half sleeping, half waking, retain honourable thoughts of Christ, Job 13.15. Job 19.25, 26, 27. Some have said in hell they should love Christ. This truth is in it, that in such a pain and sad condition of suffering as the damned are in, (sin, despair, or Gods hating of them excepted) Saints can believe and love Christ, Psal. 22.1. at least ⟨p. 381⟩desire to have leave to love Christ, for the evil of sin may, the evil of punishment cannot quench the love of Christ, which is stronger then death, then hell, Cant. 8.6, 7. The soul at the lowest condition is like the man who hath engaged his lands for so great a sum, as may be a Just price to buy the land, and so in effect he hath sold the land, but with a reversion, he keepeth the reversion, and so by Law within such a time he may redeem his mortgaged inheritance. The weakest of believers at his lowest ebb, keepeth the reversion of Christ: He may by some grievous sin, be under such a terrible desertion, as to put the inheritance of Heaven to a too great hazard of being lost; and in appearance and in his own sense, and in the sense of many, all is gone; yet then to say nothing of the invisible chain of Gods unchangeable decree of Election, which the strongest arms of Devils and Hell cannot break; there is fire under the embers,