Choice excerpts from John Flavel's "The Fountain of Life" When most lame and defective in themselves Happy were it, if puzzled and perplexed Christians would turn their eyes from the defects that are in their obedience, to the fullness and completeness of Christ's obedience; and see themselves complete in Him, when most lame and defective in themselves . By the hand of His own Father! To wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God without mixture—to the very torments of hell was Christ delivered—and that by the hand of His own Father! Surely then, that love is fathomless, which made the Father of mercies deliver His only Son to such miseries for us sinners! The most precious thing in heaven or earth In giving Christ to die for poor sinners, God gave the richest jewel in His cabinet; a mercy of the greatest worth, and most inestimable value. Heaven itself is not so valuable and precious as Christ is! Ten thousand thousand worlds—as many worlds as angels can number, would not outweigh Christ's love, excellency and sweetness! O what a lovely One! What an excellent, beautiful, ravishing One—is Christ! Put the beauty of ten thousand paradises, like the garden of Eden, into one; put all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness into one; O what a lovely and excellent thing would that be! And yet it should be less to that loveliest and dearest well beloved Christ—than one drop of rain to all the seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths! Now, for God to bestow the mercy of mercies, the most precious thing in heaven or earth , upon poor sinners; and, as great, as lovely, as excellent as His Son was—what kind of love is this!
A double spot "A lamb without blemish or spot." 1 Peter 1:19 Every other man has a double spot on him: the heart -spot, and the life -spot; the spot of original sin, and the spots of actual sin. But Christ was without either—His life was spotless and pure. "He did no iniquity." And though tempted to sin, yet He was never defiled in heart or practice .
O wretched idol O that dreadful house-idol — myself! We have need to be redeemed from ourselves, as much as from the devil and the world! I would like to make a sweet bargain, and shuffle out self , and substitute Christ my Lord in place of myself! Not I, but Christ! Not my will, but Christ's! Not my ease, not my lusts, not my home—but Christ, Christ! O wretched idol , myself! When shall I see you wholly cast out, and Christ wholly put in your place? The knife that stabbed Christ to the heart! "They will look at Me, whom they have pierced. Then they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will cry bitterly for Him as one cries for a firstborn son." Zechariah 12:10 Do you complain of the hardness of your hearts, and lack of love to Christ? Behold Him dying for your sins! Such a sight, (if any in the world will do it) will melt your hard hearts. It is reported of Johannes Milieus, that he was never observed to speak of Christ and His sufferings, but his eyes would drop tears. Are you too little touched and unaffected with the evil of sin? Look at the cross of Christ, and see what efficacy there is in it to make sin forever bitter as death to your soul. Suppose your own father had been stabbed to the heart with a certain knife, and his blood were still upon it. Would you delight to see, or endure to use that knife any more? Sin is the knife that stabbed Christ to the heart! Sin shed his blood! If God should damn you for all eternity If the death of Christ was that which satisfied God for all the sins of the elect, then certainly there is an infinite evil in sin, since it cannot be expiated but by an infinite satisfaction. Fools make a mock at sin, and there are but few people who are duly sensible of, and affected with—the evil of sin. If God should damn you for all eternity , your eternal sufferings could not pay for the evil that is in one vain thought! Perhaps you think that this is harsh and severe—that God should hold His creatures under everlasting sufferings for sin. But when you have well considered, that the One against whom you sin, is the infinite blessed God; and that sin is an infinite evil committed against Him; and when you consider how God dealt with the angels that fell, for one sin—you will alter your minds about it. O the depth of the evil of sin! If ever you will see how dreadful and horrid an evil, sin is, you must measure it either by the infinite holiness and excellency of God, who is wronged by it; or by the infinite sufferings of Christ, who died to pay its penalty; and then you will have deeper apprehensions of the evil of sin. Its ensnaring beauty "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mat. 20:28 Jesus did not come to amass earthly treasures, but to bestow heavenly ones. His great and heavenly soul neglected and despised those things, that too many of His own people too much admire and live for. He spent not an anxious thought about those things that eat up thousands and ten thousands of our thoughts. Indeed He came to be humbled, and to teach men by His example the vanity of this world, and pour contempt upon its ensnaring beauty . Cain's club! The greatest innocence and piety cannot exempt from persecution and injury. Who more innocent than Christ? And who more persecuted? The world is the world still. "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them." The world lies in wait as a thief for those who carry this treasure. Persecution follows piety—as the shadow does the body. "All who will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecution." Whoever resolves to live holy—must never expect to live quietly. All who will live godly, manifest holiness in their lives, will gall the consciences of the ungodly. Holiness enrages them, for there is an enmity and antipathy between them! This enmity runs in the blood; and it is transmitted with it from generation to generation. "Just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh, persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now." So it was, and so still it is. " Cain's club is still carried up and down crimsoned with the blood of Abel!" O that your spirits, as well as your conditions, may better harmonize with Christ. He suffered meekly, quietly, and self-denyingly. Be like Him. Let it not be said of you, as it is of the hypocrite—that he is like flint, which seems cold; but if you strike him, he is all fiery. To do well, and suffer ill, is Christlike. Holy Father, keep them in your name. "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name. " (John 17:11) The world is a sinful, infecting and disturbing place; it lies in wickedness. It is a hard thing for such poor, weak, imperfect creatures to escape the pollutions of it. And if they do, yet they cannot escape the troubles, persecutions, and strong oppositions of it. Seeing therefore I must leave Your own dear children, as well as Mine, in the midst of a sinful, troublesome, dangerous world, where they can neither move backward nor forward, without danger of sin or ruin; O, since the case stands so, look after them, provide for them, and take special care of them all. Holy Father, consider who they are—and where I leave them. They are Your children—left in a strange country. They are Your soldiers—in the enemies grounds. They are Your sheep—in the midst of wolves. They are Your precious treasure—among thieves. "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name. " (John 17:11) Cursed sin! O how inflexible and severe is the justice of God! What, no abatement? no sparing mercy? No, not even to His own Son! Cultivate a deep indignation against sin. Oh cursed sin! It was you who slew my dear Lord! For your sake He underwent all this! If your vileness had not been so great, His sufferings had not been so many. Cursed sin! You were the knife which stabbed Him! You the sword which pierced Him! Empty titles "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6:16) It is but a mockery to give Christ the empty titles of 'Lord' and 'King'—while you give your real service to sin and Satan. What is this but to be like the Jews —to bow the knee to Him, and say, "Hail master!" and crucify him? Here is honey in the tongue—and poison in the heart! O what a melting consideration is this! That . . . out of His agony, comes our victory; out of His condemnation, comes our justification; out of His pain, comes our ease; out of His stripes, comes our healing; out of His gall and vinegar, comes our honey; out of His curse, comes our blessing; out of His crown of thorns, comes our crown of glory; out of His death, comes our life! Great force and efficacy The believing meditation of what Christ suffered for us, is of great force and efficacy to melt and break the heart. "They will look at Me, whom they have pierced. Then they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will cry bitterly for Him as one cries for a firstborn son." Zechariah 12:10 Ponder seriously here, the spring and motive—it is the eye of faith that melts and breaks the heart. The effect of such a sight of Christ—they shall look and mourn; be in bitterness and sorrow. True repentance is a drop out of the eye of faith. The measure or degree of that sorrow, is caused by a believing view of Christ. You are the one who has done this! "I remained speechless. I did not open my mouth because You are the one who has done this! " (Psalm 39:9) Look upwards, when tribulations come upon you! Look to that sovereign Lord, who commissions and sends them upon you. You know that troubles do not rise out of the dust, nor spring out of the ground, but are framed in heaven. "This is what the Lord says: I'm going to prepare a disaster and make plans against you." Jer. 18:11. Troubles and afflictions are of the Lord's framing and devising, to reduce His wandering people to Himself. You may observe much of divine wisdom in the choice, measure, and season of your troubles. Sovereignty, in electing the instruments of your affliction; in making them as afflictive as He pleases; and in making them obedient both to His call, in coming and going, when He pleases. Now, could you in times of trouble look up to this sovereign hand, in which your souls, bodies, and all their comforts and mercies are; how quiet would your hearts be! Oh, when we have to do with men, and look no higher, how do our spirits swell and rise with revenge and impatience! But if you once come to see that man as a rod in your Father's hand, you will be quiet. "Be still, and know that I am God." Consider with whom you have to do; not with your fellow, but with your God, who can puff you to destruction with one blast of His mouth; in whose hand you are, as the clay in the potter's hand. It is for lack of looking up to God in our troubles, that we fret, murmur, and despond at the rate we do. "It is the Lord. Let Him do what seems good to Him." (1 Samuel 3:18)
Let not your vain heart slight sin! "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46) How horrid a thing is sin! How great is to that evil of evils, which deserves that all this should be inflicted and suffered for the expiation of it! The sufferings of Christ for sin give us the true account, and fullest representation of its evil. "The law is a bright glass, wherein we may see the evil of sin; but there is the red glass of the sufferings of Christ , and in that we may see more of the evil of sin, than if God should let us down to hell, and there we should see all the tortures and torments of the damned. If we would see them how they lie sweltering under God's wrath there, it were not so much as the beholding of sin through the red glass of the sufferings of Christ." Suppose the bars of the bottomless pit were broken up; and damned spirits should ascend from thence, and come up among us, with the chains of darkness rattling at their heels, and we should hear the groans, and see the ghastly paleness and trembling of those poor creatures upon whom the righteous God has impressed His fury and indignation; if we could hear how their consciences are lashed by the fearful scourge of guilt, and how they shriek at every lash the arm of justice gives them. If we should see and hear all this, it is not so much as what we may see in this text, where the Son of God, under his sufferings for it, cries out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" O then, let not your vain heart slight sin , as if it were but a small thing! If ever God shows you the 'face of sin' in this glass, you will say, there is not such another horrid thing in all the world! Fools make a mock at sin, but wise men tremble at it. The best of our duties "It is finished!" (John 19:30) Has Christ perfected and completely finished all His work for us? How sweet a relief is this to against all the defects and imperfections of all the works which are wrought by us. There is nothing finished that we do. All our duties are imperfect duties; they come off lamely and defectively from our hands. O there is much sin and vanity in the best of our duties . But Jesus Christ has finished all His work, though we can finish none of ours. And so, even though we are defective, poor, imperfect creatures in ourselves, yet we are complete in Christ. His complete obedience being imputed to us, makes us complete, and without fault before God. The kings of the earth are but as little bits of clay! "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and worship God in reverence and fear in a way that pleases Him. For our God is an all-consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:28-29) O with what solemn reverence should we approach Him in worship! Away with light and low thoughts of Christ! Away with formal, irreverent, and careless frames in praying, hearing, receiving; yes, in conferring and speaking of Christ. Away with all deadness, and drowsiness in duties; for He is a great King with whom you have to do. A king, to whom the kings of the earth are but as little bits of clay! Lo, the angels cover their faces in His presence. Has He put you so many times into the furnace? You have a further advantage to a holy life, by all the chastisements with which God visits you. By these afflictions, God prevents your straying and wandering. Others may wander even as far as hell, and God will not spend a sanctified rod upon them, to reduce or stop them; but says, "let them alone!" Hosea 4:17. But if you wander out of the way of holiness, He will clog you with one trouble or other to keep you within bounds. Holy Basil was a long time sorely afflicted with an inveterate headache, he often prayed for the removal of it. At last God removed it, but in the place of it, he was sorely exercised with the motions and temptations of lust; which, when he perceived, he heartily desired his headache again, to prevent a worse evil. You little know the ends and uses of many of your afflictions. Are you exercised with bodily weakness? It is a mercy you are so; and if these pains and infirmities were removed, these clogs taken off, you may with Basil, wish for them again, to prevent worse evils. Are you poor? Why, with that poverty God has clogged your pride! Are you reproached? With these reproaches God has clogged your sinful ambition. Corruptions are prevented by your afflictions. And, is not this a marvelous help to holiness of life? By your afflictions, your corruptions are not only clogged, but purged. By these God dries up and consumes that spring of sin which defiles your lives. God orders your wants to fill your wantonness; and makes your poverty poison to your pride. Afflictions are God's medicines , to purge ill humours out of your souls. Others have the same afflictions that you have, but they do not work on them as on you. They are both fire for the purifying; and water for the cleansing of your souls. Christ's blood is the only fountain to wash away sin. But, in the virtue and efficacy of that blood, sanctified afflictions are cleansers and purifiers too. A cross without a Christ never made any man better; but with Christ, saints are much the better for the cross. Has God been so many days and nights a whitening you, and yet is not the hue of your conversation altered? Has He put you so many times into the furnace , and yet is not the dross separated? The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness. By all your troubles, God has been weaning you from the world, the lusts, loves, and pleasures of it; and drawing out your souls to a more excellent life and state than this. He often makes you groan under your burdens. And yet, will you not be weaned from the lusts, customs, and evils of this world? |
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John Flavel (1628 - 1691)
Was an English Presbyterian clergyman, puritan, and author. Flavel, the eldest son of the Rev. Richard Flavel, described as ‘a painful and eminent minister,’ who was incumbent successively of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Hasler and Willersey, Gloucestershire (from which last living he was ejected in 1662), was born in or about 1630 at Bromsgrove.He was ejected from his living by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately till the Five Mile Act of 1665, when he retired to Slapton, 5 miles away. He then lived for a time in London, but returned to Dartmouth, where he labored till his death in 1691. He was married four times. He was a vigorous and voluminous writer, and not without a play of fine fancy. His principal works are his Navigation Spiritualized (1671); The Fountain of Life, in forty-two Sermons (1672); The Method of Grace (1680); Pneumatologia, a Treatise on the Soul of Man (1698); A Token for Mourners; Husbandry Spiritualized (1699).
John Flavel was an English Presbyterian clergyman. Flavel was born at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire and studied at Oxford. A Presbyterian, held livings at Diptford (in Devon) and Dartmouth. He was ejected from the latter as a result of the Great Ejection of 1662; however, he continued to preach there secretly. After the Declaration of Indulgence 1687, became a minister of a Nonconformist Church there.
He was a prolific and popular author. Among his works are The Mystery of Providence (1678), Husbandry Spiritualised (1669) and Navigation Spiritualised (1671), The Seamon's Companion (1676), titles which suggest some of his characteristics as a writer.
He died at Exeter, Devonshire, on 26 June 1691. Flavel is commemorated in the name of Flavel Road on Bromsgrove's Charford Estate.
John Flavel (or Flavell) was born in 1628 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a minister who died of the plague in 1665 while in prison for nonconformity. John Flavel was educated by his father in the ways of religion, then "plied his studies hard" as a commoner at University College, Oxford. In 1650, he was ordained by the presbytery at Salisbury. He settled in Diptford, where he honed his numerous gifts.
He married Joan Randall, a godly woman, who died while giving birth to their first child in 1655. The baby died as well. After a year of mourning, Flavel married Elizabeth Stapell and was again blessed with a close, God-fearing marriage, as well as children.
In 1656, Flavel accepted a call to be minister in the thriving seaport of Dartmouth. He earned a smaller income there, but his work was more profitable; many were converted. One of his parishioners wrote of Flavel, "I could say much, though not enough of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable, and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of Scripture; his talking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected."