A92141:1395
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.
2.1 If the will be corrupt, that it will not come to Christ, John 5. 40. and will not have Christ to reign, Luke 19. 14. the man cannot lend a seat to the Spirit and his actings to obey and follow God, until the fallow-ground of the rocky will be ploughed and broken, otherwise the man sows among thorns, and labours a husbandry to the flesh, and not to the Spirit; as Paul speaks Gal. 6. 8. and the harvest must be corruption and rotten fruit; judge then if the Spirit labours and tills a plot of ground to the flesh; and if the Spirit from on high can send down influences and divine impressions of dew and warm sun-beams upon the fleshes ploughed earth: or if nature intend that rain and Sun-heat shall make the rocks bring forth wheat. O how needful is a denied will, when Saul speaks of no will, but Christ's, and commits all to Christ's will, as if his own will were annil•ilated, though it was perfected, Acts 9. the man is fallen to the earth; And he trembling, and astonished, saith, [Greek or Hebrew] ▪ Lord, what will thou have me to do? There is a strong Emphasis in Lord, and in the word will; His own wicked will was playing the King or the Tyrant over the Saints; and when his will is down, and the will of Christ up, and the man hath been three days in this ⟨p. 411⟩condition fasting and praying, then comes the spirit to take his own chop and to act in Panl. v. 17. Ananias saith, Brother Saul, the Lord (even Jesus that appeared to thee in the way, as thou camest) hath sent me to thee, that thou mayst receive thy sight, and be filed mith the holy Ghost; a humble broken will, deadened to self, and to all things shall be rained on, and such as is rebellious shall be a land of drought, Zech. 14. 16. And it shall come to pass that who so will not come up, of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the king the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.