A92141:116
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.
John Baptist is filled with the holy Ghost from the womb, Luke 1. 15. but (2.) the woman of Samaria, Matthew, Zachaeus, Magdalen, Abraham, ⟨p. 18⟩Saul, go on in a wretched state of nature, for some considerable tract of years, and then are visited with influences of life; and (3.) the Thief that was crucified with Christ upon the Cross, in his outgoing is converted, and not till then;1 except the sovereign liberty of God silence us, no other reason can occur of these things to mans understanding. (4.) In the Saints this liberty is clear; fewer falls in Joseph then in David; and so he must be nearer to daily influences to the one, then the other. So the Lord left Hezekiah to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart, 2 Chron. 32. 31. Thus much Noah his drunkenness, Lot his incest, David his adultery and murdering of Uriah, Peter his denying of Christ and his Judaizing, Gal. 2. proclaim to us, that though Saints are to believe perseverance, and so that in Christ, there shall be furnished to them outlettings of life from the fountain to bring them to glory, as touching the habitual tract of their journey to Heaven; yet hath the Lord reserved a liberty hic & nunc, to let out and withdraw influences; and the faith of believers is to rest upon the promise upon this condition, that they fret not at his dispensation, who by sad falls on Ice and slidery way must correct our sinful rashness, and teach children godly wariness; nor is there any thing in our folly to be seen but his wisdom. (5.) And sinful slips in us, and freedom of withdrawing in the Lord, bring us to be the engaged debtors of grace;2 and this sets the higher price upon our Advocate's intercession; when we sin 1 Joh. 2. 1, 2. his withdrawings usher the way to his own outlettings of grace; he knows how to dry us up, that we may, being withered, come under the debt of new watering; more of this hereafter.