A39669:482
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.
'Tis true, they that close with Christ, close with his cross also: they must expect to save no more but their souls by him: he tells us what we must trust to, Luke 14. 26, 27. If any man come to me, and hate not his Father and Mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters; yea, and his own life also; he cannot be my disciple: and whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
To read such a Text as this with such a Comment upon it as Satan and our own flesh can make, is enough to scare a man from Christ for ever: nor is it possible by all the arguments in the world to draw any soul to Christ upon such terms as these, till the Lord convince it, that there is enough, and much more than enough in Jesus Christ to recompense all these sufferings and losses we endure for him.
To read such a Text as this with such a Comment upon it as Satan and our own flesh can make, is enough to scare a man from Christ for ever: nor is it possible by all the arguments in the world to draw any soul to Christ upon such terms as these, till the Lord convince it, that there is enough, and much more than enough in Jesus Christ to recompence all these sufferings and losses we endure for him.
But when the soul is satisfied that these sufferings are but external upon the vile body, but the benefit that comes by Christ is internal in a mans-own soul, These afflictions are but temporal, Rom. 8. 18. but Christ and his benefits are eternal: this must need prevail with the will to come over to Christ notwithstanding all the evils of suffering that accompany him, when the reality of all this is discovered by the Lord, and the power of God goes along with these discoveries. Thus the Lord draws in our own way, by rational Convictions of the understanding and allurements of the will.