A57982:8
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.
MADAM,
I Should complain of these much disputing, and overwriting times, if I were not thought to be as deep in the fault, as those whom I accuse; but the truth is, while we endeavour to gain a grain-weight of Truth, it is much if we lose not a Talent weight of goodness and Christian love: But I am sure, though so much knowledge and light as may conduce for our safe walking in discerning the certain borders of divine truths, from every ⟨image 3⟩false way, & suppose that searching into questions of the time were a useful and necessary evil only, yet the declining temper of the worlds worst time; the old Age of time, Eternity now so near approaching, calleth for more necessary good things at our hands; it is unhappy, if in the nick of the first breaking of the morning sky, the night-watch fall fast asleep when he hath watched all the night: Its now near the morning-dawning of the Resurrection. O how blessed are we, if we shall care for our one necessary thing? It is worthy our thoughts, that an Angel (never created, as I conceive) standing in his own land; His right foot upon the Sea, and his left foot on the earth; hath determined by oath, a Controversy moved by scoffers, 2 Pet. 3.3. Yea and with his hand lifted up to Heaven, sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and things that therein are; and the sea and things that are therein, that there should be time no longer, Rev. 10.5, 6. If Eternity be concluded judicially by the Oath of God, as a thing near to us at the door, now about sixteen hundred years ago, it is high time to think of it: What we shall do when the Clay-house of this Tabernacle, which is but our summer-house that can have us but the fourth part of a year, shall be dissolved? Time is but a short Trance, we are carried quickly through it, our Rose ⟨image 3⟩withereth ere it come to its vigour: Our piece of this short-breathing shadow, the inch, the half-cubit, the poor span length of time, fleeth away as swiftly, as a Weavers-Shuttle,