A39669:1985
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.
The last use I shall make of this point, shall be a word of exhortation: both to them that never were yet effectually 1taught of God, and to them also that have heard his voice, and are come to Christ.
- 1Use 3.
First, To those that never yet heard the voice of God speaking to their hearts: and truly this is the general case of most men and women in the professing world: they have heard the sound of the Gospel, but it hath been a confused, empty and ineffectual sound in their ears: we have heard the voice of man, but have never yet heard the voice of God: the gifts and abilities of Preachers have in a notional and mere humane way improved their understandings, and sometimes slightly touched their affections: all this is but the effect of man upon man. O that you would look for something which is beyond all this: satisfy not your selves with what is merely natural, and humane in ordinances; come to the word with higher ends and more spiritual designs, than to get some notions of truth which you had not before, or to judge the gifts and abilities of the speaker: if God speak not to your hearts, all the Ordinances in the world can do you no good, 1 Cor. 3. 7. O remember what a solemn and awful ⟨p. 401⟩thing it is to come to those Ordinances, and attend upon that Ministration in and by which the eternal decrees of Heaven are to be executed upon your souls, which must be to you the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death; wrestle with God by prayer for a blessing upon the Ordinances. Say, Lord, speak thy self to my heart, let me hear thy voice, and feel thy power in this Prayer, or in this Sermon: others have heard thy voice, cause me to hear it: it had been much better for me if I had never heard the voice of Preachers, except I hear thy voice in them.