A39669:242
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.
So that the Spirits work in uniting or engrafting a soul into Christ is like the cutting off the graft from its native stock (which he doth by his illuminations and convictions) and closing it with the living stock when it is thus prepared, and so enabling it (by the infusion of faith) to suck and draw the vital sap, and thus it becomes one with it. Or as the many members in the natural body, being all quickened and animated by the same vital Spirit, become one body with the head which is the principal member: Eph. 4. 4. there is one body, and one Spirit.
So that the Spirits work in uniting or engrassing a soul into Christ is like the cutting off the graff from its native stock (which he doth by his illuminations and convictions) and closing it with the living stock when it is thus prepared, and so enabling it (by the infusion of faith) to suck and draw the vital sap, and thus it becomes one with it. Or as the many members in the natural body, being all quickened and animated by the same vital Spirit, become one body with the head which is the principal member: Eph. 4. 4. there is one body, and one Spirit.
More particularly, we shall consider the properties of this 1Union, that so we may the better understand the nature of it. And here I shall open the nature of it both negatively, and affirmatively.
- 12.
First, Negatively, by removing all false notions and misapprehensions