A39669:1688
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.
Inference 2.
How unreasonable, and wholly inexcusable is the sin of Apostasy from Jesus Christ? What is it but for a delivered captive 1to put his feet again into the shackles, his hands into the manacles, his neck into the iron yoke, from which he hath been delivered? 'Tis said, Mat. 12. 44, 45. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none: then he saith, I will return into mine house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished; then goeth he, and taketh with him seven other Spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even as a Prisoner that hath escaped, and is again recovered, is loaded with double irons. Let the people of God be content to run any hazard, endure any difficulties in the way of Religion, rather than return again into their former bondage, to sin and Satan. O Christian, if ever God gave thee a sight, and a sense of the misery and danger of thy natural state, if ever thou hast felt the pangs and throes of a labouring and distressed Conscience, and after all this tasted the unspeakable sweetness of the peace and rest that is in Christ, thou wilt rather choose to dye ten thousand deaths than to forsake Christ, and go back again into that sad condition.
How unreasonable, and wholly inexcusable is the sin of Apostasie from Jesus Christ? What is it but for a delivered captive 1to put his feet again into the shackles, his hands into the manacles, his neck into the iron yoke, from which he hath been delivered? 'Tis said,