A39669:590
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 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?
We are not able to solve the Phenomena of nature, we can give no account of our own formation in the womb, Eccles. 11. 5. who can exactly describe how the parts of the body are formed and the soul infused? it's curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, as the Psalmist speaks, Psal. 139. 16. but how we know not. Basil saith divers questions may be moved about a Fly, which may pose the greatest Philosopher: we know little of the forms and essences of natural things, much less of these profound, and abstruse spiritual things.