A39669:2242
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 5.
If they that be Christs have crucified the flesh (i. e.) 1mortification is their daily work and study; then how falsely are Christians charged as troublers of the world, and disturbers of the civil peace and tranquillity of the times and places they live in? Justly may they retort the charge, as Elijah did to Ahab, It is not I that trouble Israel, but thou and thy Fathers house: it is not the holy, meek and humble Christians that put the world into confusion: this is done by the profane, and atheistical; or by the designing and hypocritical world, and laid at the innocent Christians door: as all the public calamities which from the immediate hand of God, or by foreign, or domestic enemies befell Rome, were constantly charged upon Christians; and they condemned and punished, for what the righteous hand of God inflicted, or the working-heads of the enemies of that State without their privity contrived. The Apostle James propounds, and answers a very pertinent question unto this discourse, James 4. 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you; come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? O if all men did but study mortification and self-denial, and live as much at home in the constant work of their own hearts, as some men do; what tranquillity and peace, what blessed halcyon days should we quickly see! 'Tis true, Christians are always fighting and quarrelling, but it is with themselves and their own corrupt hearts and affections: they hate no enemy but sin, they thirst for the blood and ruin of none but of that enemy: they are ambitious of no victory, but what is over the corruptions of their own hearts: they carry no grudge except it be against this enemy sin, and yet these are the