A39669:507
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.
Let the gospel furnish its Table with the richest and costliest dainties that ever the blood of Christ purchased, such is the pride of nature, that it disdains to taste them; except it may also pay the reckoning. If the old Hive be removed from the place where it was wont to stand, the Bees will come home to the old place, yea, and many of them you shall find will dye there, rather than go to the Hive though it stand in a far better place than it did before. Just so stands the case with men. The Hive is removed, (i. e.) we are no more to expect righteousness as Adam did, by obeying and working, but by believing, and coming to Christ; but nature had as lief be damned as do this: it still goes about to establish its own righteousness.
Let the gospel furnish its Table with the richest and costliest dainties that ever the blood of Christ purchased, such is the pride of nature, that it disdains to tast them; except it may also pay the reckoning. If the old Hive be removed from the place where it was wont to stand, the Bees will come home to the old place, yea, and many of them you shall find will dye there, rather than go to the Hive though it stand in a far better place than it did before. Just so stands the case with men. The Hive is removed, (i. e.) we are no more to expect righteousness as Adam did, by obeying and working, but by believing, and coming to Christ; but nature had as lieve be damned as do this: it still goes about to establish its own righteousness.
Virtues, Duties, and Moral excellencies these are the Ornaments of nature, here is Nature set off in its sumptuous attire and rich embellishments, and now to renounce it, disclaim and contemn it as dross and dung in comparison of Christ as believers do, Phil. 3. 8. this I say is against the grain of nature. We reckon it the strange effect of self denial in Mahomet the Great, who being so enamoured with his beautiful Irene, would be persuaded upon reasons of 1State with his own hand to strike off her head, and that when she appeared in all her rich ornaments before him, rather like such a Goddess as the Poets in their ecstasies use to feign, than a mortal creature: and yet certainly this nothing is to that self denial which is exercised in our coming to Christ.