A92141:451
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.
Ans. 11. The commands of circumcising our selves to the Lord, and of making a new heart, which are laid upon us, are materially Evangelic; but as they are charged upon unrenewed men they are formally legal, upon the Lord's intention also Evangelic to the chosen to fit them for Christ: Nor can these commands have this sense; I command and enjoin to you the omnipotent infusion of a new heart. 1. God lays no acts of the infinite and omnipotent God upon the finite creature. 2. It is not his intention, nay nor his will, that reprobates create in themselves, new vital principles of life, since no such supernatural principles of the life of Christ, was merited to them by the death of ⟨p. 134⟩Christ. 3. Its not physically possible to the Elect or to any to create a new heart to themselves from the very same principles in number, which they lost in Adam: for its a contradiction, that what is done, should not be done, and what is lost, should not be lost. Nor can the Lord command the glorified in Heaven, in whom the habit of holiness is perfected, to be now in glory justified by works; for as its a contradiction, that such as once broke the Law, can be said never to have broken the Law, so is it a contradiction, that such as have once sinned and fallen from Law-righteousness, should ever after,2 even for eternity be justified by that Law-righteousness which once they lost, or that they should be justified both by grace, or by the redemption that is in Jesus without works, Rom. 3. 15. Rom. 4. 1, 2, 3. and also should be justified by debt and hire and by works, as Paul opposeth the one to the other, Rom. 4. and no doubt all the glorified were once justified by grace without works; even Abraham, David, and all like them▪ how then can they be justified by works for ever and ever in Heaven? see Rom. 11. 6.