A92141:43
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.
Answ. A compelling necessity everting the creatures liberty there was none, but a necessity by which the man was determined to one distinctively to stand or fall, not copulatively both to stand and not to stand, to obey and disobey, there was in created free-will, if we suppose there had been no decree. Now the holy decree brought no necessity, 1. Compelling, such as is of a man bound hand and foot. 2. No natural necessity, such as that of the Sun to give light, the fire to cast out heat. Nor 3. No brutish necessity void of a discoursing faculty, such as that of the swallow building her nest, the Bee making honey; but we must say there was some eminent, holy and spotless necessity of decree in Christs thrice rather then seven times praying: why King Joash smites the ground thrice and stays, and smites it not six times, ⟨image 13⟩2 Kings 13. 19. why the Lord writes in his book, Psal. 139. 16. such a number of drops of rain, such a number of drops of snow to make up such a treasure; and God determined, Job 38. 22. such a number of pound weights of mountains, Isa. 40. 12. and it was necessary the Lord should determine the names and number of the Stars, Psal. 147. 4. and why ten acres of a vineyard should yield one bath, not two; why every mans number of his months should be determined by the statute of a divine decree, Job 14. 4, 5.
Answ. A compelling necessity everting the creatures liberty there was none, but a necessity by which the man was determined to one distinctively to stand or fall, not copulatively both to stand and not to stand, to obey and disobey, there was in created free-will, if we suppone there had been no decree. Now the holy decree brought no necessity, 1. Compelling, such as is of a man bound hand and foot. 2. No natural necessity, such as that of the Sun to give light, the fire to cast out heat. Nor 3. No bruitish necessity void of a discoursing faculty, such as that of the swallow building her nest, the Bee making honey; but we must say there was some eminent, holy and spotless necessity of decree in Christs thrice rather then seven times praying: why King Joash smites the ground thrice and stays, and smites it not six times,