A39669:1774
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.
Secondly, The life of the unregenerate consisteth in presumptuous hope: this is the very foundation of their carnal security. So Christ tells the Jews, John 8. 54, 55. Of whom ye say that he is your God, and yet ye have not known him. The world is full of hope without a promise, which is but as a Spiders web when a stress comes to be laid upon it, Job 27. 8. Unregenerate men are said indeed to be without hope, Eph. 2. 12. but the meaning is, they are without any solid well-grounded hope: for in Scripture account vain hope is no hope. Except it be a lively hope, 1 Pet 1. 3. a hope flowing from union with Christ, Col. 1. 27. a hope nourished by experience, Rom. 5. 4. a hope for which a man can give a reason, 1 Pet. 3. 15. a hope that puts men upon heart-purifying endeavours, 1 John 3. 3. it is in the account of God a cypher, a vanity, not deserving the name of hope: and yet such a groundless, dead, Christless, irrational idle hope is that which the unregenerate lives upon.
Secondly, The life of the unregenerate consisteth in presumptuous hope: this is the very foundation of their carnal security. So Christ tells the Jews, John 8. 54, 55. Of whom ye say that he is your God, and yet ye have not known him. The world is full of hope without a promise, which is but as a Spiders web when a stress comes to be laid upon it, Job 27. 8. Unregenerate men are said indeed to be without hope, Eph. 2. 12. but the meaning is, they are without any solid wellgrounded hope: for in Scripture account vain hope is no hope. Except it be a lively hope, 1 Pet 1. 3. a hope flowing from union with Christ,