A92141:289
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.
Q. But does not the Lord's withdrawing of his influences, since without his concurrence of that kind our actings are impossible, do violence to free-will, which must be indifferent to act or not to act, to do or not to do?
Q. But does not the Lord's withdrawing of his influences, since without his concurrence of that kind our actings are impossible, doe violence to free-will, which must be indifferent to act or not to act, to doe or not to doe?
Ans. This is a weak reason; for to our willing the influence of God is natural, and so is it to our nilling; the Lord •akes his influences, and the withdrawing thereof connatural ⟨p. 76⟩to all our actions to both willing and to nilling: dryness and barrenness is as connatural to the tree as budding and fruit-bearing, if God add his influences either to the one or to the other;1 yea, since the Lord's concurrence is suitable to the nature of second causes, the fire leaves not off to be fire, nor is its nature destroyed, if the Lord withdraw his influence, so that the fire burns not the three children: nor is violence done to nature, by the Lord's joining of his influence to the fire to burn in acts of righteousness or of sin; there is still nilling and willing. And suppose that the Martyr chose to die a violent death, for the confirming of the truth, there is no violence done to free will; nay, there is no miracle in the Lord's concurring to the material acts of sin.
Ans. This is a weak reason; for to our willing the influence of God is natural, and so is it to our nilling; the Lord •akes his influences, and the withdrawing thereof connatural ⟨p. 76⟩to all our actions to both willing and to nilling: driness and barrenness is as connatural to the tree as budding and fruit-bearing, if God add his influences either to the one or to the other;