A39669:942
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.
Infer. 3.
How absurd, disingenuous and unworthy of a Christian is it to deny or with-hold from Christ any thing he hath, or by which he 1may be served or honoured? Doth Christ communicate all he hath to you, and can you with-hold any thing from Christ? On Christs part it is not mine, and thine; but ours, or mine and yours, Joh. 20. 17. I ascend to my Father, and your father, to my God and your God. But O this cursed Idol Self! which impropriates all to its own designs and uses. How liberal is Christ! and how penurious are we to him! Some will not part with their credit for Christ, when yet Christ abased himself unspeakably for them. Some will not part with a drop of blood for Christ, when Christ spent the whole treasure of his blood ⟨p. 177⟩freely for us: yea, how loth are we to part with a shilling for Christ to relieve him in his distressed members, when as yet we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich! O ungrateful return! O base▪ and disingenuous Spirits! The things Christ gives us are great, the things we deny to him are small: he parts with the greatest, and yet is denied the least. The things he communicates to us are none of ours, we have no right nor title by nature or any desert of ours to them, the things we deny or grudge to Christ are by all titles his own, and he hath the fullest and most unquestionable title to them all: what he gives to us he gives to them that never deserved it; what we with-hold from him, we with-hold from one that hath deserved that and infinitely more from us, than we have, or are.