A39669:2127
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 4.
If the work of grace be a new creation, let not the parents and friends of the unregenerate utterly despair of the conversion of their 1relations, how great soever their present discouragements are: if it had been possible for a man to have seen the rude and indigested Chaos before the Spirit of God moved upon it, would he not have said, can such a beautiful order of beings, such a pleasant variety of creatures spring out of this dark lump? Surely it would have been very hard for a man to have imagined it. It may be you see no dispositions or hopeful inclinations in your friends towards God and spiritual things; nay, possibly they are totally opposite and filled with enmity against them; they deride and jeer all serious piety wherever they behold it; this indeed is very sad: but yet remember the work of grace is creation work: though there be no disposition at all in their wills, no tenderness in their Consciences, no light or knowledge in their minds; yet God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, can shine into their hearts; to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: he can say to the dry bones, live; to the proud and stubborn heart, come down, and yield thy self to the will of God: and if he command, the work is done. God can make thee yet to rejoice over thy most uncomfortable relations, to say with the Father of the Prodigal, Luke 15. 24. This my Son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found: and they began to be merry: difficulties are for men but not for God: he works in conversion by a power which is able to subdue all things unto it self.