A39669:1163
The Method of Grace
The method of grace, in bringing home the eternal redemption contrived by the Father, and accomplished by the Son through the effectual application of the spirit unto God's elect, being the second part of Gospel redemption : wherein the great mystery of our union and communion with Christ is opened and applied, unbelievers invited, false pretenders convicted, every mans claim to Christ examined, and the misery of Christless persons discovered and bewailed / by John Flavell ...The method of grace, in bringing home the eternal redemption contrived by the Father, and accomplished by the Son through the effectual application of the spirit unto God's elect, being the second part of Gospel redemption : wherein the great mysterie of our union and communion with Christ is opened and applied, unbelievers invited, false pretenders convicted, every mans claim to Christ examined, and the misery of Christless persons discovered and bewailed / by John Flavell ...
London: printed by M. White for Francis Tyton, 1681
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.
First, The guilt of sin, this is a mortal wound, a stab in 1the very heart of a poor sinner. 'Tis a fond and groundless distinction that Papists make of sins Mortal and Venial: all sin in its own nature is mortal, Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death: yet though it be so in its own nature, Christ can, and doth cure it by the Sovereign Balsam of his own precious blood, Eph. 1. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. This is the deepest and deadliest wound the soul of man feels in this world: what is guilt, but the obligation of the soul to everlasting punishment and misery? It puts the soul under the sentence of God to eternal wrath; the condemning sentence of the great and terrible God; than which, nothing is found more dreadful and insupportable: put all pains, all poverty, all afflictions, all miseries in one Scale, and Gods condemnation in the other, and you weigh but so many Feathers against a talent of Lead.
First, The guilt of sin, this is a mortal wound, a stab in 1the very heart of a poor sinner. 'Tis a fond and groundless distinction that Papists make of sins Mortal and Venial: all sin in its own nature is mortal, Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death: yet though it be so in its own nature, Christ can, and doth cure it by the Soveraign Balfom of his own precious blood, Eph. 1. 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. This is the deepest and deadliest wound the soul of man feels in this world: what is guilt, but the obligation of the soul to everlasting punishment and misery? It puts the soul under the sentence of God to eternal wrath; the condemning sentence of the great and terrible God; than which, nothing is found more dreadful and insupportable: put all pains, all poverty, all afflictions, all miseries in one Scale, and Gods condemnation in the other, and you weigh but so many Feathers against a talent of Lead.