A92141:436
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. What follows but that we are to pray that we may pray,1 and that we are to pray for our own prayers that they may be steeled with faith and strength of grace; And David prays for his own prayers, Psal. 5. 2. Psal. 28. 2. Psal. 88. 2. Psal. 141. 2. 2. Would the Objector relish prayers without influences of grace? can nature pray in the holy Ghost? can Christ intercede for the accepting of natures work?
- 1We are to pray for our own prayers.
Prop. 3. Because God only is Lord and Master of freewill and of the actings of all creatures,1 we are not to be idle, and upon that account to act nothing; for then should not the husband-man plough, sow, and labour; for God only is Lord and Master of the actings of the husband-man; and without the influences and blessing from on high, the husband-mans labours from the beginning of the year to the end, were no better then to plant Vine-trees in the bottom of the river Euphrates, or to sow Barley or Wheat in the Ocean sea. And so should the Sea-man never sail; for God only can create winds and tide, and God only is Master of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea, and of sailing, and of right steering of the Vessel; for since the Lord declares not his mind on the contrary, by forbidding men to pray,2 and others to plough and sail. 2. Since the Lord offers no positive violence to hinder these actings; And 3. because he commandeth us to do them, it becomes us to set to work, and to act with and under him, and to commit the event and blessing to him. Indeed, if the Lord were so Lord of our actings, as he did all and whole the work, and we did act nothing at all in praying, yea and in ploughing, but were mere dead and useless patients, as Libertines dream, something might follow to justify our idleness; but our corruption following Satan teacheth us either to sacrifice to our own net, and say vainly, either we do all, and God does nothing, and so we darken his glory who works all our