A39669:1245
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.
Thirdly, How this promised Mercy was performed.
First, Christ is the mercy, emphatically so called, the peerless, invaluable, and matchless mercy; because he is the 1prime fruit of the mercy of God to Sinners. The mercies of God are infinite: mercy gave the world and us our beings: all our protections, provisions and comforts in this world are the fruits of mercy: the after-births of Divine Favour: but Christ is the first-born from the womb of mercy: all other mercies compared with him, are but fruits from that root, and streams from that fountain of mercy: the very bowels of Divine mercy are in Christ, as in vers. 78. according to the tender mercies, or as the Greek, the yearning bowels of the mercy of God.
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Secondly, Christ is the mercy, because all the mercy of 1God to sinners is dispensed and conveyed through Christ to them, Joh. 1. 16. Col. 2. 3. Eph. 4. 7. Christ is the medium of all Divine communications: the Channel of Grace; through him is both the decursus & recursus gratiarum; the flows of mercy from God to us, and the returns of praise from us to God: fond and vain therefore are all the expectations of mercy out of Christ: no drop of saving mercy runs beside this Channel.