A39669:253
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.
Secondly, The Mystical Union is wholly supernatural: wrought by the alone power of God. So it's said 1 Cor. 1. 30. 1but of him are ye in Christ Jesus: we can no more unite our selves to Christ, than a branch can incorporate it self into another stock: it is of him (i. e.) of God, his proper and alone work.
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There are only two ligaments or bands of Union betwixt Christ and the Soul, viz. the Spirit on his part, and Faith on ours: but when we say faith is the band of Union on our ⟨p. 33⟩part, the meaning is not, that it's so our own act, as that it springs naturally from us, or is educed from the power of our own wills; no, for the Apostle expressly contradicts it, Eph. 2. 8. it is not of your selves, it is the gift of God: but we are the subjects of it, and though the act on that account be ours, yet the power enabling us to believe is God's. Eph. 1. 19, 20.
Thirdly, the Mystical Union is an immediate Union: Immediate I say, not as excluding means and instruments, for 1several means and many instruments are employed for the effecting of it: but immediate as excluding degrees of nearness among the members of Christs mystical body.