A92141:46
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. 1. A reason ratio why any man sins, is, in good Grammar, a moral motive inducing a man to sin, and that works by way of persuasion. Let not the Reader be persuaded that we teach that the real influence of God, or that his holy concourse any way is a moral motive of obedience, or of sin, as if Adam had been persuaded to sin because he saw and felt the Lord did first withdraw his concourse or influence whither it predeterminate or move by predetermination, or collateral joining, therefore Adam was morally induced to sin; this is a goodly dream.
Answ. 1. A reason ratio why any man sins, is, in good Grammer, a moral motive inducing a man to sin, and that works by way of perswasion. Let not the Reader be perswaded that we teach that the real influence of God, or that his holy concourse any way is a moral motive of obedience, or of sin, as if Adam had been perswaded to sin because he saw and felt the Lord did first withdraw his concourse or influence whither it praedeterminate or move by praedetermination, or collateral joyning, therefore Adam was morally induced to sin; this is a goodly dream.
2. Ratio, a reason here must be taken for a physical and a real, not a moral cause; now the adversary abstained from the word cause.
2. Ratio, a reason here must be taken for a physical and a reall, not a morall cause; now the adversary abstained from the word cause.
And 1. we say Adam not through defect or want of the Lords holy predetermination, as if therefore, ideo, for that cause he sinned, because the Lord did withdraw his influences; but the adequate, culpable moral cause of Adams sinning, and of his choosing of a vicious action (for Adam in sinning is only and properly a moral cause under a law) is his own free-will, freely declining from the rule; there is no defect or moral want of Gods predetermination, because the sovereign Lord, who is above a law, was not obliged to join his praedeterminating influence to Adam, but rather obliged to withdraw his predetermination from the man, who in the same moment of time was willing to want that predetermination; for God out of holy sovereignty withdraws in the same moment his influence, in which Adam sinfully rejects the same influence.