A39669:385
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.
First, This Efficacy and wonderful power is not from the 1word it self: take it in an abstract notion, separated from the spirit, it can do nothing: it is called the foolishness of preaching, 1 Cor. 1. 21. foolishness not only because the world so accounts it, but because in it self it is a weak and unsuitable, and therefore a very improbable way to reconcile the world to God: that the stony heart of one man should be broken by the words of another man, that one poor sinful Creature should be used to breath spiritual life into another, this could never be if this sword were not managed by an omnipotent hand.
- 11.
And besides, we know what works Naturally, works necessarily: if this Efficacy were inherent in the word, so that we should suppose it to work as other Natural agents do, then it must need convert all to whom it is at any time preached, except its effect were miraculously hindered, as the fire when it could not burn the three Children: but alas thousands hear it, that never feel the saving power of it, Isai. 53. 1. and 2 Cor. 4. 3, 4.
Secondly, It derives not this Efficacy▪ from the Instrument 1by which it is ministered: let their gifts and abilities be what they will, it's impossible that ever such effects should be produced from the strength of their Natural or gracious abilities: