A39669:683
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.
Fourthly, Receiving Christ consists in the consent and choice of the will: and this is the opening of the heart, the opening and stretching forth of the soul to receive him: thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, Psal. 110. 3.
'Tis the great design and main scope of the Gospel to work over the wills of poor sinners to this: and this was the great complaint of Christ against the incredulous Jews, Joh. 5. 40. ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.
It is disputed by some whether faith can be seated in two distinct faculties, as we seem to place it, when we say it involves both the approbation of the judgement, and the consent of the will. I will not here entangle my discourse with that fruitless dispute. I am of the same judgement with those Divines that think Faith cannot be expressed fully by any one single habit or act of the mind or will distinctly, for that (as one ⟨p. 121⟩well notes) there are such descriptions given of it in Scripture, 1such things are proposed as the object of it; and such is the experience of all that sincerely believe; as no one single act either of the mind or will can answer unto: nor do I see any thing repugnant to Scripture or Philosophy, if we place it in both faculties. Consent (saith Vasquez) seems to denote the concourse of the will with the understanding: but to leave that, it is most certain, the saving justifying act of faith lies principally in the consent of the will, which consent is the effect of the almighty power of God,