The Method of Grace

Every man that cometh to Christ is taught of God, that it can never reap any benefit by the blood of Christ, except he have union with the person of Christ, 1 Joh. 5. 12. Eph. 4. 16. Time was when men fondly thought nothing was necessary to their salvation but the death of Christ; but now the Lord shows them that their union with Christ by faith is as necessary in the place of an applying cause, as the death of Christ is in the place of a meritorious cause: the purchase of salvation is an act of Christ without us whilst we are yet sinners: the application thereof is by a work wrought within us, when we are believers, Col. 1. 27. In the purchase all the elect are redeemed together by way of price. In the application they are actually redeemed man by man by way of power. Look as the sin of the first Adam could never hurt us, unless ⟨p. 384⟩he had been our head by way of generation: so the righteousness of Christ can never benefit us, unless he be our head in the way of regeneration. In teaching this Lesson the Lord in mercy unteaches and blots out that dangerous principle by which the greatest part of the Christianized world do perish, viz. that the death of Christ is in it self effectual to salvation, though a man be never regenerated or united unto him by saving faith.

Every man that cometh to Christ is taught of God, that it can never reap any benefit by the blood of Christ, except he have union with the person of Christ,