A39669:598
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.
First, This makes it sincere and true obedience, when it flows from an inward vital principle of grace. The Hypocrite is moved by something ab extra, from without, as the applause of men, the accommodation of fleshly interests, the force of education, or if there be any thing from within that moves him, it is but a self-interest, to quiet a grumbling Conscience, and support his vain hopes of heaven: but he never acts from a new principle, a new nature inclining him to holy actions. Sincerity mainly lies in the harmony and correspondency of actions to their principles: from this infused principle it is, that men hunger and thirst for God, and go to their Duties, as men do to their meals, when they find an empty craving stomach.
First, This makes it sincere and true obedience, when it flows from an inward vital principle of grace. The Hypocrite is moved by something ab extra, from without, as the applause of men, the accommodation of fleshly interests, the force of education, or if there be any thing from within that moves him, it is but a self-interest, to quiet a grumbling Conscience, and support his vain hopes of heaven: but he never acts from a new principle, a new nature inclining him to holy actions. Sincerity mainly lyes in the harmony and correspondency of actions to their principles: from this infused principle it is, that men hunger and thirst for God, and go to their Duties, as men do to their meals, when they find an empty craving stomach.
O Reader, pause a little upon this ere thou pass on, ask thy heart whether it be so with thee: are holy duties connatural to thee? doth thy soul move and work after God by a kind of supernatural instinct? this then will be to thee a good evidence of thy integrity.
Secondly, From this infused principle of life, results the Excellency of our obedience, as well as the sincerity of it: for by virtue and reason thereof, it becomes free and voluntary, not forced and constrained, it drops like honey of its own accord out of the Comb,