A39669:2106
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.
Secondly, This new Creation is the inchoative part of that great Salvation which we expect through Christ, and therefore without this all hopes and expectations of Salvation must ⟨p. 440⟩vanish: Salvation and renovation are inseparably connected. Our glory in Heaven, if we rightly understand its nature, consisteth in two things; namely our assimilation to God, and our fruition of God: and both these take their beginning and rise from our renovation in this world: here we begin to be changed into his Image in some degree, 2 Cor. 3. 18. for the new man is created after God, as was opened above. In the work of grace God is said to begin that good work which is to be finished or consummated in the day of Christ, Phil. 1. 6. Now nothing can be more irrational than to imagine that ever that design or work should be finished and perfected which never had a beginning.
Thirdly, So necessary is the new creation to all that expect salvation by Christ, that without this Heaven would be no Heaven, and the glory thereof no glory to us, by reason of the unsuitableness and aversation of our carnal minds thereunto: the carnal mind is enmity against God, Rom. 8. 7. and enmity is exclusive of all complacency and delight: there is a necessity of a suitable and agreeable frame of heart to God in order to that complacential rest of our souls in him: and this agreeable temper is wrought by our new creation, 2 Cor. 5. 5. He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God: renovation you see is the working or moulding of a mans spirit into an agreeable temper: or as it is in Col. 1. 12. the making of us meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light.