A39669:2008
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.
In the last sense and signification, it must be taken in this place: for as to the common, assisting and ministering gifts of the Spirit, they are bestowed promiscuously upon one as well as another. Such gifts in an excellent degree, and large measure are found in the unregenerate, and therefore can never amount to a solid evidence of the souls union with Christ: but his special sanctifying gifts being the proper effect and consequent of that Union, must needs strongly prove and confirm it. In this sense therefore we are to understand the Spirit in this place: and by giving the spirit to us we are to understand more than the coming of the spirit upon us: the spirit of God is said to come upon men in a transient way, for their present assistance in some particular service; though in themselves they be unsanctified persons: thus the spirit of God came upon Balaam, Numb. 24. 2. enabling him to prophesy of things to come; and although those extraordinary gifts of the spirit be now ceased, yet the spirit ceaseth not to give his ordinary assistances unto men, both regenerate and unregenerate, 1 Cor. 12. 8, 9, 10, 31. compared: but whatever gifts he gives to others, he is said to be given, to dwell, and to abide only in believers, 1 Cor. 3. 16. know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? an expression denoting both his special propriety in them, and gracious familiarity with them: there is a great difference betwixt the assisting and the indwelling of the spirit: the one is transient, the other permanent. That is a good rule the Schoolmen give us, illa tantum dicuntur inesse, quae insunt per modum quietis: those things are only said to be in a man, which are in him by way of rest, and permanency, and so the spirit is in believers: therefore they are said to live in the spirit, Gal. 5. 25. to be led by the spirit, ver▪ 18. to be in the spirit, and the spirit to dwell in them, Rom. 8. 9. And so ⟨p. 408⟩much of the first thing to be opened, viz. what we are to understand by the giving of the spirit.