A92141:516
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.
In which dispensation, 1. Such as are more proud with plenty of means and plague themselves with abundance, occasion the truth of this; that Christ sends the rich empty away, and throws the mighty down from their seats, and their golden and silken chairs, Luke 52. 53. And the rich and the full (saith Hannah, 1 Sam. 2. 5.) have hired out themselves for bread. And since men will be plagued and poisoned with plenty, let it be so; and that lie upon them as a word of chiding,1 Deut. 29. 3. The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs and these great miracles. Ver. 4. Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear unto this day. And is the Lord complaining of himself in this place? No; he will not have them to search into the depth of sovereignty, ver. 29. because God gave them not an heart. Nay, but his scope is to complain of the peoples abusing of the plenty of means. I gave you the grace of outward means, but ye misgraced (to speak so) your own heart; therefore it is just that ye be blind and deaf, since ye wickedly wink and stop your ears; though it cannot be denied that God would have them humbled by reflecting on their own wilful winking and blindness, yet so as they should tremble and stoop at him, who can give a new heart and eyes and ears, but of sovereignty denies it to the reprobates; of whom he complains, that the chosen may tremble.
In which dispensation, 1. Such as are more proud with plenty of means and plague themselves with abundance, occasion the truth of this; that Christ sends the rich empty away, and throws the mighty down from their seats, and their golden and silken chairs, Luke 52. 53. And the rich and the full (saith Hannah, 1 Sam. 2. 5.) have hired out themselves for bread. And since men will be plagued and poysoned with plenty, let it be so; and that lie upon them as a word of chiding,1 Deut. 29. 3. The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs and these great miracles. Ver. 4. Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear unto this day. And is the Lord complaining of himself in this place? No; he will not have them to search into the depth of soveraignty, ver. 29. because God gave them not an heart. Nay, but his scope is to complain of the peoples abusing of the plenty of means. I gave you the grace of outward means, but ye misgraced (to speak so) your own heart; therefore it is just that ye be blind and deaf, since ye wickedly wink and stop your ears; though it cannot be denied that God would have them humbled by reflecting on their own wilful winking and blindness, yet so as they should tremble and stoop at him, who can give a new heart and eyes and ears, but of soveraignty denies it to the reprobates; of whom he complains, that the chosen may tremble.