A39669:2096
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, This New Creature is created in man upon the highest design that ever any work of God was wrought: the end of its creation and infusion is high and noble: Salvation to the soul in which it is wrought: this is both the finis operis, and the finis operantis: it is the design both of the work, and of the workman that wrought it: when we receive the end of our faith, we receive the salvation of our souls. Salvation is the end faith: as death is the end of sin, so life eternal is the end of grace. The new creature doth by the instinct and steady direction of its own nature, take its course as directly to God, and to heaven the place of his full enjoyment, as the Rivers do to the Ocean: it declares it self to be made for God, by its restless workings after him: and as salvation is the end of the new creature, so it is the express design and end of him that created it: 2 Cor. 5. 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God: by this workmanship of his upon our souls he is now polishing, preparing, ⟨p. 436⟩and making them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light, Col. 1. 12.
Fourthly, The new Creation is the most necessary work that ever God wrought upon the soul of man: the eternal well-being of his soul depends upon it; and without it no man shall see God: Heb. 12. 14. and Joh. 1. 3, 5. Except ye be regenerate, and born again, ye cannot see the Kingdom of God: can you be saved without Christ? you know you cannot: can you have interest in Christ without the new creature? my Text expressly tells you it can never be: for if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. O Reader, what ever slight thoughts of this matter, and with what a careless and unconcerned eye soever thou readest these lines; yet know thou must either be a new creature, or a miserable and damned creature for ever. If civility without the new creature could save thee, why are not the moral Heathens saved also? if strictness of life without the new creature could save thee, why did it not save the Scribes and Pharisees also? if an high profession of Religion without the new creature can save thee, why did it not save Judas, Hymeneus, and Philetus also? Nothing is more evident than this, that no repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformations, or ordinances without the new creation avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul: the very blood of Christ himself without the new creature never did, and never will save any man. Oh how necessary a work is the new creation! circumcision avails nothing, and uncircumcision nothing, but a new creature.