A39669:1887
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.
Lesson 1.
First, They are taught of God, that there is abundantly more evil in their sinful natures and actions, than ever they discerned or understood before: the Spirit when he cometh shall convince the world of sin, John 16. 8, 9. Men have a general notion of sin before: so had Paul when a Pharisee, but how vastly different were his apprehensions of sin, from all that ever he had in his natural state, when God brought home the Commandment to his very heart! There is a threefold knowledge of Sin, viz. Traditional, discursive, and intuitive. The First is in the more rude and illiterate multitude. The Second, in more rational and knowing men. The Third ⟨p. 379⟩is only found in those that are enlightened, and taught of God: and there is as great a difference betwixt this intuitive knowledge of sin whereby God makes a soul to discern the nature and evil of it in a spiritual light, and the two former; as there is betwixt the sight of a painted Lyon upon the wall, and the sight of a living Lyon that meets us roaring in the way. The intuitive sight of sin is another thing than men imagine it to be: 'tis such a sight as wounds a man to the very heart, Acts 2. 37. for God doth not only show a man this or that particular sin, but in the day of conviction he sets all his sins in order before him, Psal. 50. 21. yea, the Lord shows him the sinfulness of his nature, as well as practice. Conviction digs to the root, shows and lays open that original corruption from whence the innumerable evils of the life do spring, Jam. 1. 14, 15. and which is yet more, the Lord shows the man whom he is bringing to Christ the sinful and miserable state which he is in by reason of both: