A39669:589
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, Having seen the nature and properties of the spiritual life, we are concerned in the next place to enquire 1into the way and manner in which it is wrought, and infused by the Spirit: and here we must say,
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First of all, That the work is wrought in the soul very mysteriously, so Christ tells Nicodemus, Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit: there be many opinions among Philosophers about the original of winds, but we have no certain knowledge of it: we describe it by its effects and properties, but know little of its original: and if the works of God in nature be so abstruse and unsearchable, how much more are these sublime and supernatural works of the Spirit so?
First of all, That the work is wrought in the soul very mysteriously, so Christ tells Nicodemus, Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit: there be many opinions among Philosophers about the original of winds, but we have no certain knowledge of it: we deseribe it by its effects and properties, but know little of its original: and if the works of God in nature be so abstruse and unsearchable, how much more are these sublime and supernatural works of the Spirit so?