A92141:643
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.
5. There are some personal influences upon a single man that are more private, which are very desirable: But there be some more public influences on the Church; so the Lord walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks,1 and rains down Ministerial blessings on his Church, holds the stars on his right hand, and waters his Church. So Isa. 27. 2. A garden of red wine. 3. I the Lord do keep it: I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Beside protection that the Lord is the keeper of the Vineyard, and Christ answers for the vines, the mystical body is like a parcel of ground subject to drought and withering, and Christ with showers of influences must water our withering, and he leading captivity captive, and ascending on his coronation-day, sent down royal gifts, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors on his body mystical, which also is made visible by him. The times of sweet refreshing showers, and of the singing of the birds under the Messiah's Kingdom, require that we exercise our faith in looking toward these promises. When the heavens seem to be heavy, and (as it were) with child of Summer-rain, Ezek. 34. 26. I will make them and the places round my hill a blessing, ⟨p. 200⟩and I will cause the showers come down in his season, there shall be showers of blessings. It's not rain for grass or corn, but of spiritual influences upon Emmanuel's land, where floods and rivers run milk and wine, Isa. 55. 1. as also Isa. 32. 3. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 4. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly. Then is that true also Isa. 35. 1. The desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose. 5. The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. 7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of waters: in the habitation of dragons where each lay (shall be) grass with reeds and rushes. And that all this is a prophecy of showers of influences of grace upon the holy people under the New Testament, is clear v. 8.