A39669:571
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, What this spiritual life is in its nature and properties. Secondly, In what manner it is wrought or inspired into the Soul. Thirdly, For what end, or with what design this life is so inspired. Fourthly, I shall show this work to be wholly supernatural. And then fifthly, Why this quickening must be antecedent to our actual closing with Christ by Faith.
First, What this spiritual life is in its nature and properties. Secondly, In what manner it is wrought or inspired into the Soul. Thirdly, For what end, or with what design this life is so inspired. Fourthly, I shall shew this work to be wholly supernatural. And then fifthly, Why this quickening must be antecedent to our actual closing with Christ by Faith.
First, We will enquire into the nature and properties of 1this life, and discover (as we are able) what it is. And we find it to consist in that wonderful change which the Spirit of God makes upon the frame and temper of the soul, by his infusing or implanting the principles of grace in all the powers and faculties thereof.
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A change it makes upon the soul, and that a marvellous one, no less than from death to life, for though a man be physically a living man, (i. e.) his natural soul hath Union with his body, yet his soul having no Union with Christ, he is Theologically a dead man, Luke 15. 24. and Col. 2. 13. alas it deserves not the name of life, to have a soul serving only to season and preserve the body a little while from stinking: to carry it up and down the world, and only enable it to eat and drink and talk and laugh, and then dye: then do we begin to live, when we begin to have Union with Christ the fountain of life by his Spirit communicated to us: from this time we are to reckon our life