Misapprehensions of God’s Apparent Departures

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Joshua

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Samuel Rutherford giving some brotherly correction to a man’s misapprehensions of Christ (Letters, pp. 595-596):

I am sorry to hear you speak in your letter of a “God angry at you,” and of “the sense of His indignation;” which only ariseth from suffering for Jesus all that is now come upon you. Indeed, “apprehended wrath” flameth out of such ashes as “apprehended sin,” but not from “suffering for Christ.” But, suppose ye were in hell for bygones and for old debt, I hope ye owe Christ a great sum of charity, to believe the sweetness of His love. I know what it is to sin in that kind. It is to sin (if it were possible) the unchangeableness of a Godhead out of Christ, and to sin away a lovely and unchangeable God. Put more honest apprehensions upon Christ. Put on His own mask upon His face, and not your vail made of unbelief, which speaketh as if He borrowed love to you, from you and your demerits and sinful deservings. Oh, no! Christ is man, but He is not like man. He hath man’s love in heaven, but it is lustred with God’s love, and it is very God’s love ye have to do with. When your wheels go about, He standeth still. Let God be God. And be ye a man, and have ye the deserving of man, and the sin of one who hath suffered your Well-beloved to slip away, nay, hath refused Him entrance when He was knocking, till His head and locks were frozen: yet what is that to Him? His book keepeth your name, and is not printed and reprinted, and changed, and corrected. And why but He should go to His place, and hide Himself? Howbeit His departure be His own good work, yet the belief of it, in that manner, is your sin. But wait on till He return with salvation, and cause you to rejoice in the latter end. It is not much to complain; but rather believe than complain, and sit in the dust, and close your mouth, till He make your sown light grow again.​
 
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