A39669:504
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.
Secondly, Let us take the Act of faith into consideration also, as it is here described, by the souls coming to Jes•s 1Christ, and you will find a necessity of the Fathers drawings, for this evidently implies that which is against the stream and current of corrupt nature, and that which is above the Sphere and capacity of the most refined and accomplished nature.
- 12.
First, It's against the Stream and Current of our corrupt nature to come to Christ. For let us but consider the Term from which the soul departs when it comes to Christ. In that day it leaves all its lusts and ways of sin, how pleasant, sweet and profitable soever they have been unto it. Isa. 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord: way and thoughts, (i. e.) both the practice and delight of sin, must be forsaken, the outward and inward man must be cleansed from it. Now there are in the bosoms of unregenerate men such darling Lusts, that have given them so much practical, and speculative pleasure, which have brought so much profit to them, which have been born and bred up with them, and which upon all these accounts are endeared to their souls to that degree; that it's easier for them to dye, than to forsake them: yea, nothing is more common among such men, than to venture eternal damnation, rather than suffer a separation from their sins.
First, It's against the Stream and Current of our corrupt nature to come to Christ. For let us but consider the Term from which the soul departs when it comes to Christ. In that day it leaves all its lusts and ways of sin, how pleasant, sweet and profitable soever they have been unto it. Isa. 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord: way and thoughts, (i. e.) both the practice and delight of sin, must be forsaken, the outward and inward man must be cleansed from it. Now there are in the bosomes of unregenerate men such darling Lusts, that have given them so much practical, and speculative pleasure, which have brought so much profit to them, which have been born and bred up with them, and which upon all these accounts are endeared to their souls to that degree; that it's easier for them to dye, than to forsake them: yea, nothing is more common among such men, than to venture eternal damnation, rather than suffer a separation from their sins.