A92141:770
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.
Assert. 3. The habit of grace so far may cease to act and lie dead,1 as notwithstanding that the beloved Christ knocks and speaks heaven into the Church, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, &c. Cant. 5. 2. yet she opens not; the habit being under the ashes, yea, being a little frozen and blunted, the spouse shifts his presence; I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? And the habit of grace doth not hinder David, and Peter, and Lot, but upon the Lords withdrawing of actual influences they may fall into atrocious and heinous sins.
Assert. 3. The habit of grace so far may cease to act and lie dead,1 as notwithstanding that the beloved Christ knocks and speaks heaven into the Church, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, &c. Cant. 5. 2. yet she opens not; the habit being under the ashes, yea, being a little frozen and blunted, the spouse shifts his presence; I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? And the habit of grace doth not hinder David, and Peter, and Lot, but upon the Lords withdrawing of actual influences they may fall into atrocious and hainous sins.
- 1The habit of grace ceaseth not.
Assert. 4. Yet in some sense the habit of grace rests not. For 1. The habit of grace according to the degrees makes the man stronger: as John Baptist by the indwelling of the holy Ghost in some fullness is stronger against temptations of persecutors; and so is Steven fuller of the holy Ghost, then men not converted. 2. The habit of grace debilitates, weakens the acts of sin in the regenerate, that they sin not with full bensil of will; as the indwelling body of sin again weakens the acts of faith, and others the like flowing from the habit of grace; the combat betwixt the flesh and the spirit proves both the one and the other,