A39669:2099
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.
Sixthly, The new creature is an immortal creature, a creature that shall never see death, Joh. 4. 14. it is in the soul of man a well of water, springing up into eternal life. I will not adventure to say it is immortal in its own nature, for it is but a creature, as my Text calls it, and we know that essential interminability is the incommunicable property of God: the new creature hath both a beginning, and succession, and therefore might also have an end, as to any thing in it self, or its own nature: experience also shows us that it is capable both of increasing and decreasing; and may be brought nigh unto death: Rev. 3. 2. the works of the spirit in believers may be ready to dye: but though its perpetuity flow not out of its own nature, it flows out of Gods Covenant, and promises; which make it an immortal Creature: when all other excellencies in man go away, as at death they will, Job 4. 21. this excellency only remains: our gifts may leave us, our friends leave us, our estates leave us, but our graces will never leave us: they ascend with the soul (in which they inhere) into glory, when the stroke of death separates it from the body.
Sixthly, The new creature is an immortal creature, a creature that shall never see death, Joh. 4. 14. it is in the soul of man a well of water, springing up into eternal life. I will not adventure to say it is immortal in its own nature, for it is but a creature, as my Text calls it, and we know that essential interminability is the incommunicable property of God: the new creature hath both a beginning, and succession, and therefore might also have an end, as to any thing in it self, or its own nature: experience also shews us that it is capable both of increasing and decreasing; and may be brought nigh unto death: Rev. 3. 2. the works of the spirit in believers may be ready to dye: but though its perpetuity flow not out of its own nature, it flows out of Gods Covenant, and promises; which make it an immortal Creature: when all other excellencies in man go away, as at death they will,