A39669:2015
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.
Rule 1.
Though the Spirit of God be given to us and worketh in us, yet he worketh not as a natural and necessary, but as a free and arbitrary agent: he neither assists nor sanctifies as the fire burneth, ad ultimum sui posse, as much as he can assist or sanctify, but as much as he pleaseth: Dividing to every man severally as he will, 1 Cor. 12. 11. bestowing greater measures of gifts and graces upon some, than upon others; and assisting the same person more at one season, than another: and all this variety of operation floweth from his own good pleasure: his grace is his own, he may give it as he pleaseth.
Though the Spirit of God be given to us and worketh in us, yet he worketh not as a natural and necessary, but as a free and arbitrary agent: he neither assists nor sanctifies as the fire burneth, ad ultimum sui posse, as much as he can assist or sanctifie, but as much as he pleaseth: Dividing to every man severally as he will, 1 Cor. 12. 11. bestowing greater measures of gifts and graces upon some, than upon others; and assisting the same person more at one season, than another: and all this variety of operation floweth from his own good pleasure: his grace is his own, he may give it as he pleaseth.