A39669:673
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, The receiving Christ necessarily implies the Assent of the understanding to the truths of Christ revealed in the Gospel, viz. his person, natures, offices, his incarnation, death and satisfaction; which assent, though it be not in it self saving faith, yet is it the foundation and groundwork of it: it being impossible the soul should receive and fiducially embrace, what the mind doth not assent unto as true and infallibly certain. Now there are three degrees of assent, 1conjecture, opinion, and belief. Conjecture is but a slight, and weak inclination to assent to the thing propounded, by reason ⟨p. 118⟩of the weighty objections that lye against it. Opinion is a more steady and fixed assent, when a man is almost certain, though yet some fear of the contrary remains with him. Belief is a more full and assured assent to the truth, to which the mind may be brought four ways.
- 1Vide Dr. Sclater in Rom. 4. 3.
First, By the perfect intelligence of sense, not hindered or deceived. So I believe the truth of these propositions, Fire is hot: water moist: honey is sweet: gall is bitter.
Secondly, By the native clearness of self-evidencing principles. So I believe the truth of these propositions, The whole is more than a part: the cause is before the effect.