A39669:483
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.
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.
And it's possible this may be the reason why some poor souls mis-judge the workings of the Spirit of God upon them selves, thinking they never had that wonderful and mighty power of God in conversion acting upon their hearts, because ⟨p. 76⟩they find all that is done upon their hearts that way, is done in the ordinary course and method of Nature: they consider, compare, are convinced, and then resolve to choose Christ and his ways; whereas they expect to feel some strange operations that shall have the visible Characters of the immediate power of God upon them, and such a power they might discern, if they would consider it as working in this way and method: but they cannot distinguish Gods acts from their own, and that puzzles them.