A39669:250
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.
Fifthly, and Lastly, It is not a mere Moral Union by love and affection: thus we say, one soul is in two bodies, a friend 1is another self: the lover is in the person beloved: such a Union of hearts and affections there is also betwixt Christ and the Saints, but this is of another nature: that we call a Moral, this a Mystical Union: that only knits our affections, but this knits our persons to Christ.
Fifthly, and Lastly, It is not a meer Moral Union by love and affection: thus we say, one soul is in two bodies, a friend 1is another self: the lover is in the person beloved: such a Union of hearts and affections there is also betwixt Christ and the Saints, but this is of another nature: that we call a Moral, this a Mystical Union: that only knits our affections, but this knits our persons to Christ.
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Secondly, Positively, and First, though this Union neither 1makes us one person, or essence with Christ, yet it knits our persons most intimately and nearly to the person of Christ: 2the Church is Christs body, Coloss. 1. 24. not his Natural, but his Mystical body: that is to say, his body in a Mystery: because it is to him as his natural body: the Saints stand to Christ in the same relation that the natural members of the body stand to the head, and he stands in the same relation to them, that the head stands in to the natural members: and consequently they stand related to one another, as the members of a natural body do to each other.