A39669:508
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.
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.
Vertues, 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 denyal in Mahomet the Great, who being so enamoured with his beautiful Irene, would be perswaded 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 denyal which is exercised in our coming to Christ.
- 1Knowles History of the Turks.
Secondly, And if we look to the other Term to which the soul moves, we shall find it acting as much above the Sphere and ability of improved Nature as here it acts and moves against the stream and current of corrupted nature: for how wonderful and supernatural an adventure is that which the soul makes in the day that it comes to Jesus Christ!