A92141:1129
Influences of the life of grace
Influences of the life of grace. Or, A practical treatise concerning the way, manner, and means of having and improving of spiritual dispositions, and quickening influences from Christ the resurrection and the life. By Samuel Rutherfurd, Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.Influences of the life of grace. Or, A practical treatise concerning the way, manner, and means of having and improving of spiritual dispositions, and quickning influences from Christ the resurrection and the life. By Samuel Rutherfurd, Professor of Divinity in the Vniversity of St. Andrews in Scotland.
London: printed by T.C. for Andrew Crook, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
3. And impatient longing for him are more useful then influences that accompanies sense. See how lively they are in David when he wants Sanctuary-presence, Psal. 42. 1, 2. Psal. 63. 1, 2. Psal. 84. 1, 2, 3, 4. In the Spouse, Cant. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4. Cant. 5. 6, 7, 8. compared with v. 10, 11, 12, 13, &c. Sense never brings forth such a love-song, so highly extolling Christ, as faith under absence.
3. Strong believing and resting upon the promises when the Lord hides himself under love-sickness and apprehended wrath, fetch sweeter influences then sense of presence: as may be clear in the godly, who 1. move questions, yet so as love and faith incline most to the edifying conclusion, and to faiths side rather then to the judgement of sense.1 Psalm 71. 7. Will the Lord cast off for ever? faith under a cloud believeth he will not cast off for ever: and will he be favourable no more? 8. Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? 9. Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? In these questions the flesh and unbelieving sense ⟨p. 323⟩have a great hand; the question in sense includes this, Is the Lord the Lord? and pure faith never moves such a question as that, but the aim and scope of faith is to beat down such questions; and the sense of faith in these is, the Lord hath not cast off for ever; the Lord will not leave off to be gracious for ever and ever; his mercy is not clean gone; his promise and covenant is everlasting, and fails not.