A92141:1253
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.
2. Thou dost not so much as try whether thou canst do or not: when a Master bids a Servant carry a sack of corn to the Mill, I cannot, says he; but cannot you try, says his master, cannot you go about it? no, he will not try; why, then he is wilful: if his master should see him sweating and striving to carry it, it were something, then he will say he stuck at a cannot; but when he will not be at the pains to try, he sticks at a will not; pag. 10. God offers the good motions of power, I will help thee, and I will enable thee, and thou wilt not be helped. Jer. 6. 17. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, they will not hearken.—O, sayest thou, I do hear the word, and I cannot hear it better; I do pray daily, and I cannot pray better; thus thou retortest upon God, as the unprofitable servant, Lo, here thou hast what is thine; lo, here is the best faith thy spirit helps me to, here is the best obedience, that thy power enabled me to do, &c. lo, there thou hast that is thine, thou helpest me with no more.
2. Thou dost not so much as try whether thou canst doe or not: when a Master bids a Servant carry a sack of corn to the Mill, I cannot, says he; but cannot you try, says his master, cannot you go about it? no, he will not try; why, then he is wilfull: if his master should see him sweating and striving to carry it, it were something, then he will say he stuck at a cannot; but when he will not be at the pains to try, he sticks at a will not; pag. 10. God offers the good motions of power, I will help thee, and I will enable thee, and thou wilt not be helped. Jer. 6. 17. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, they will not hearken.—O, saist thou, I do hear the word, and I cannot hear it better; I do pray dayly, and I cannot pray better; thus thou retortest upon God, as the unprofitable servant, Lo, here thou hast what is thine; lo, here is the best faith thy spirit helps me to, here is the best obedience, that thy power enabled me to doe, &c. lo, there thou hast that is thine, thou helpest me with no more.