A92141:646
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.
3. How blessed then is that, this man and this man was born in Zion! To be born and dwell in a Land where Christ dwells, speaks mercy: To be a plant of a young Vine where the garden of red wine is, must be a mercy; to be a plot of ground that Christ ploughs; to be a branch that the Father of Christ purges that it may bring forth more fruit, is an incomparable mercy. You might have been born in China, in America, in Brasilia, where Satan dwells; but ye were born in a land of Vine-trees and Olive-trees. To be born in the Church (though men despise it) and in covenant with God, and to be baptized, is to be born in Paradise, ⟨p. 202⟩in the borders of heaven; for there is the Gospel and the Prince, who both can promise and give Heaven.
3. How blessed then is that, this man and this man was born in Sion! To be born and dwell in a Land where Christ dwells, speaks mercy: To be a plant of a young Vine where the garden of red wine is, must be a mercy; to be a plot of ground that Christ plows; to be a branch that the Father of Christ purges that it may bring forth more fruit, is an incomparable mercy. You might have been born in China, in America, in Brasilia, where Satan dwels; but ye were born in a land of Vine-trees and Olive-trees. To be born in the Church (though men despise it) and in covenant with God, and to be baptized, is to be born in Paradise, ⟨p. 202⟩in the borders of heaven; for there is the Gospel and the Prince, who both can promise and give Heaven.
6.1 Divis. Some are influences for the habit, others for the act of grace. Influences for the habit, as Isa. 44. 3. I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy off-spring. A land that rains showers of rain and milk, and rains down showers of glory and grace, must be the glory of all lands, and it must needs be an excellent and a glorious Sun that shines upon that land. 2. There are influences for heavenly dispositions. Christ speaks and opens the Scriptures to them, and their hearts burn within them,