A39669:1853
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.
Secondly, let this be matter of serious consideration and caution to all such as have only felt some slight, transient, 1and ineffectual operations of the Gospel upon their souls: the Lord hath come nigh some of our souls, we have felt a strange power in the Ordinances, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes transporting our hearts; but alas, it proves but a morning dew, or an early cloud, Hos. 6. 4. we rejoice in the Word, but it is but for a season, Jo•. 3. 35. Gal. 4. 14, 15. they are vanishing motions, and come to nothing. Look as in nature there are many abortives as well as perfect Children, so it is in Religion: yea, where the new Creature is perfectly formed in one soul, there be many abortives and miscarriages: and there may be three reasons assigned for it, viz.
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First, The Subtlety and deep policy of Satan, who never more effectually deceives and destroys the souls of men, than in such a method, and by such an artifice as this: for when men have once felt their Consciences terrified under the Word, and their hearts at other times ravished with the joys and comforts of it, they now seem to have attained all that is necessary to conversion, and constitutive of the new Creature: these things look so well like the regenerating effects of the spirit, that many are easily deceived by them. The devil beguiles the hearts of the unwary by such false appearances, ⟨p. 369⟩for it is not every man that can distinguish betwixt the natural and spiritual motions of the affections under the word: it is very frequently seen that even carnal and unrenewed hearts have their meltings and transports as well as spiritual hearts. The subject-matter upon which the word treats are the weighty things of the world to come: heaven and hell are very awful and affecting things, and an unrenewed heart is apt to thaw and melt at them; now here is the cheat of Satan, to persuade a man that these must needs be spiritual affections, because the objects about which they are conversant are spiritual. Whereas it is certain, the object of the affections may be very spiritual and heavenly, and yet the workings of a mans affections about them, may be in a mere natural way.