God's Earnest Invitation, part 4

"There is a second love and mercy in God, by which he loves all men and angels, yea, even his enemies, makes the sun to shine on the unjust man as well as the just, and causes dew and rain to fall on the orchard and fields of the bloody and deceitful man, whom the Lord abhors, as Christ teaches us, Matt. 5:43-48.

Nor does God miscarry in this love. He desires the eternal being of damned angels and men; he sends the gospel to many reprobates, and invites them to repentance and with longanimity and forbearance suffers pieces of froward dust to fill the measure of their iniquity, yet does not the Lord's general love fall short of what he wills to them."


- Samuel Rutherford (1660-1661), from Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pp. 443-45 (1647).

God's Earnest Invitation, part 3

"Now this desire of approbation is an abundantly sufficient closing of the mouth of such as stumble at the gospel, being appointed thereunto, and an expression of Christ's good liking to save sinners. Expressed in his borrowed wishes, Deut. 5:29. O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments. Ps. 81:13. O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel walked in my ways, which wish, as relating to disobeying Israel, is a figure, or metaphor borrowed from men, but otherwise shows how acceptable the duty is to God, how obligatory to the creature. But the Lord's expostulations, Ezek. 18:31. Why will ye die, O house of Israel? Verse 32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies. In the Lord's crying to sinners, Prov. 1:20. Wisdom cries, she utters her voice in the streets. The word is to cry with strong shouting, either for joy, Ps. 81:2, or sorrow, Lam. 2:19, which expresses Christ's desire to save sinners."


- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), from Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pp. 443-45 (1647).

God's Earnest Invitation, part 2

"Isa. 55:1, Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that hath no silver, come buy, and eat

2. God loves, approves the believing of Jerusalem and of her children, as a moral duty as the hen loves to warm and nourish her chickens; and he hates, with an exceeding and unfeigned dislike of improbation and hatred, their rebellious disobedience and refusing to be gathered: but there is no purpose, intention, or decree of God held forth in these invitations called his revealed will, by which he says he intends and wills that all he makes the offer unto shall obey and be saved.

But it's to be observed, that the revealed will of God, held forth to all does not hold forth formally that God intends, decrees, or purposes in his eternal council that any man shall actually obey, either elect or reprobate; it formally is the expression only of the good liking of that moral and duty conjunction between the obedience of the creature and the reward, but it does not hold forth any intention or decree of God that any shall obey, that all shall obey, or that none at all shall obey."


- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), from Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pp. 443-45 (1647).

God's Earnest Invitation, part 1

"Isa. 55:1, Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no silver, come buy, and eat

As if the Lord were grieved, and said, 'Woe is me, Alas that thirsty souls should die in their thirst, and will not come to the water of life, Christ, and drink gratis, freely, and live.' For the interjection, 'Ho,' is a mark of sorrowing, as ah, or woe, everyone that thirsts. It expresses two things, 1. A vehemency and a serious and unfeigned ardency of desire that we do what is our duty, and the concatenation of these two, extremely desired of God: our coming to Christ and our salvation. This moral connection between faith and salvation is desired of God with his will of approbation, complacency, and moral liking, without all dissimulation, most unfeignedly; and whereas Arminians say, we make counterfeit, feigned, and hypocritical desires in God, they calumniate and cavil egregiously, as their custom is."


- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), from Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pp. 443-45 (1647).

Prayer

"Words are but the body, the argument, the outside of prayer; sighs are nearer the heart work. A dumb beggar gets an alm at Christ's gates, even by making signs, when his tongue cannot plead for him; and the rather, because he is dumb... Tears have a tongue, and grammar, and language, that our Father knows. Babes have no prayer for the breast, but weeping: the mother can read hunger in weeping."


- Samuel Rutherford (1600?-1661)

The Loveliness of Christ

"O pity for evermore that there should be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency, and sweetness, and so few souls to take Him! O, you poor dry and dead souls, why will you not come here with your empty vessels and your empty souls to this huge, and fair, and deep, and sweet well of life, and fill all your empty vessels? O, how Christ is so large in sweetness and worth, and we so narrow, pinched, so ebb, and so void of all happiness, and yet men will not take him! They lose their love miserably, who will not bestow it upon this Lovely One.


- Samuel Rutherford (1600?-1661), a Scottish divine and delegate to the Westminster Assembly. He wrote in his letters, "I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces: it hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ. I see He is jealous of my love, and will have all to Himself."