A39669:2256
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.
2. Motive.
As the comfort of your own lives which is much, so your 1instrumental fitness for the service of God which is much more, depends upon the Mortification of your sins. 2 Tim. 2. 21. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour; sanctified and meet for the masters use, and prepared unto every good work. Where is the mercy of life but in the usefulness and serviceableness of it unto God? It is not worth while to live sixty, or seventy years in the world, to eat and drink, to buy and sell, to laugh and cry, and then go down to the place of silence. So far as any man lives to God, an useful serviceable life to his praise and honour; so far only, and ⟨p. 481⟩no farther doth he answer the end of his being. But it is the purged mortified soul which is the vessel of honour, prepared, and meet for the masters use. Let a proud or an earthly heart be employed in any service for God, and you shall find that such an heart will both spoil the work, by managing it for a self end as Jehu did; and then devour the praise of it by a proud boast: Come, see my zeal. When the Lord would employ the prophet Isaiah in his work and service, his iniquity was first purged; and after that he was employed, Isa. 6. 6, 7, 8. Sin is the souls sickness, a consumption upon the inner man, and we know that languishing consumptive persons are very unfit to be employed in difficult and strenuous labours: Mortification so far as it prevails, cures the disease, recovers our strength, and enables us for service to God in our generations.