A57982:508
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.
4. Propos. It is a palpable untruth,1 that the elect by believing in Christ, and being translated from death to life in their conversion to God, are equally loved of God, before conversion as after conversion, if we speak of Gods love of complacency, for though the inward affection and love of God, as it is an immanent and indwelling act in God, be eternal, and have not its rise in time, and be not like the love of man to man, which is like the Sea ebbing and flowing; or the Moon,2 which admitteth of a cloudy and dark visage, and of an enlighted and full condition, yet as the same love of God is terminated upon sinful men, or rather that which is called, the love of complacency, which is indeed the effect of Gods love; it is not every way one and the same after conversion and before; as it is the same fountain and spring that runneth in its streams toward the South, which by Art and industry of men may be made to run toward the North, the change is in the streams, not in the fountain, yet we say the fountain now runneth not Southward, as it did afore, but Northward: also give me leave to doubt, if these same very visible Sun beams, that did fall upon Adam and Eve, doth this Summer fall upon us, yet I doubt not but the same Sun that did shine the ⟨p. 406⟩first six hours of the Creation, on the Garden of Paradise, shineth upon all our gardens and orchards that now are. So Gods love is one & the same toward the elect before time, and while they are wallowing in the state of sinful and depraved nature; and now when they are changed in the spirits of their mind. But it may well be said that God loveth his Church, as washed, as fair, and spotless, Cant. 4.7. and that he doth now say of her, Cant. 4.10. How fair is thy love, my sister, my Spouse! how much better is thy love then wine, and the smell of thine ointments then all spices? whereas the Lord said before of her, Eze. 16.3. Thy birth and thy nativity is of the Land of Canaan, thy father was an Amorite, thy mother an Hittite. 4. As for thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born, thy Navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee: thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all — 6. And when I posed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thy blood: I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live: and all this the Lord might speak to the same Church yet unconverted;