A39669:2107
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, 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.
From all which it follows, that seeing there can be no complacence or delight in God without suitableness and conformity to him, as is plain from 1 Joh. 3. 2. as well as from the reason and nature of the thing it self: either God must become like us suitable to our sinful, corrupt and vain hearts, which were but a rude blasphemy once to imagine; or else we must be made agreeable and suitable to God, which is the very thing I am now proving the necessity of.
Fourthly, There is an absolute necessity of the new creature to all that expect interest in Christ and the glory to come: since all the characters, marks and signs of such an interest are constantly taken from the new creature wrought in us. Look over all the marks and signs of interest in Christ or salvation by him which are dispersed through the Scriptures,