A39669:573
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.
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 *as some have done: there be many changes made upon men besides this, many are changed from profaneness to Civility, and from mere Civility to formality and a shadow of Religion, who still remain in the state and power of spiritual death notwithstanding; but when the Spirit of the Lord is poured out upon us to quicken us with the new spiritual life, this is a wonderful change indeed: it gives us an Esse supernaturale, a new supernatural being, which is therefore called a new creature, the new man, the hidden man of the heart: the natural essence and faculties of the soul remain still, but it is devested of the old qualities, and endowed with new ones, 2 Cor. 5. 17. old things are past away, behold all things are become new.
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