A39669:2120
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.
Inference 1.
How miserable and deplorable an estate all unrenewed souls are in: who can lay no claim to Christ during that state, and 1therefore are under an impossibility of salvation. O Reader, if this be the state of thy soul, better had it been for thee not to have been Gods natural workmanship as a man, except thou be his spiritual workmanship also as a new man. I know the Schoolmen determine otherwise, and say that damnation is rather to be chosen than an annihilation: a miserable being is better than no being: and it is very true with respect to the glory of God, whose justice shall triumph for ever in the damnation of the unregenerate; but with respect to us, 'tis much better never to have been his creatures in the way of generation, than not to be his new creatures in the way of regeneration. So Christ speaks of Judas, that Son of perdition, Mark 14. 21. Good had it been for that man if he had never been born: for what is a being without the comfort of it? What is life without the joy and pleasure of life? A damned being is a being without comfort, no glimpse of light shines into that darkness: they shall indeed see and understand the felicity, light and joy of the Saints in glory: but not partake in the least measure of the comfort, Luk• 13. 28. They shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God, but they themselves shut out: such a sight is so far from giving any comfort, that it will be the aggravation and increase of torment. O 'tis better to have no being at all, than to have a being only to capacitate a man for misery: to ⟨p. 445⟩desire death while death flies from him,