A39669:347
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.
And here we find these six things implied.
First, it necessarily implies the defection and fall of man ⟨p. 48⟩from his estate of favour and friendship with God: if no war with heaven, what need of Ambassadors of peace? the very office of the Ministry, is an argument of the fall. Gospel Ordinances and Officers came in upon the fall, and expire with the Mediators dispensatory Kingdom, 1 Cor. 15. 24, 25. Then shall he deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father: thenceforth no more Ordinances, no more Ministers; what use can there be of them, when the treaty is ended? They have done and accomplished all they were ever intended and designed for, when they shall have reconciled to God all the number of his Elect that lay dispersed among the lost and miserable posterity of Adam, and have brought them home to Christ in a perfect state, Eph. 4. 12. &c.
Secondly, It implies the singular grace and admirable condescension of God to sinful man. That God will admit any treaty with him at all is wonderful mercy, it's more than he would do for the Angles that fell, Jude 6. they are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day. Christ took not on him their nature, but suffered Myriads of them to perish, and fills up their vacant places in glory with a number of sinful men and women to whom the Law a warded the same punishment.