A39669:2211
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.
Seventhly, In a word, he that denies the necessity of mortification, confounds all discriminating marks betwixt Saints and Sinners; pulls down the Pale of distinction, and lets the world into the Church, and the Church into the World: 'tis a great design of the Gospel to preserve the boundaries betwixt the one and the other, Rom. 2. 7, 8. Rom. 8. 1, 4, 5, 6, 13. but if men may be Christians without mortification, we may as well go into the Taverns, Ale-houses, or Brothel-houses, among the roaring or sottish crew of sinners, and say, here be those that are redeemed by the blood of Christ; here be his Disciples and Followers; as go to seek them in the purest Churches, or most strictly religious families: by all which the necessity of mortification unto all that are in Christ, is abundantly evidenced.
Fourthly, In the next place we are to enquire into the true principle of mortification: 'tis true there are many ways attempted 1by men for the mortification of sin, and many rules laid down to guide men in that great work: some of which are very trifling and impertinent things; such are those prescribed by popish votaries: but I shall lay down this as a sure conclusion, that the sanctifying spirit is the only effectual principle of mortification: and without him no resolutions, vows, abstinencies, castigations of the body, or any other external endeavours can ever avail to the mortification of one sin: the moral Heathens have prescribed may pretty rules and helps for the suppression of vice. Aristides, Seneca and Cato ⟨p. 468⟩were renowned among them upon this account: but yet as Lactantius well observes, moral Philosophy did rather abscondere vitia, quam abscindere, hide it, rather than kill it: formal Christians have also gone far in the reformation of their lives, but could never attain true mortification: formality pares off the excrescences of vice, but never kills the root of it: it usually recovers it self again, and their souls like a body not well purged, relapse into a worse condition than before,