A39669:727
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.
What respect, Reader, wouldst thou have to that hand that should bring thee a Pardon when on the Ladder or Block! why, that pardon, which thou canst not read without tears of joy, is brought thee by the hand of faith. O inestimable grace! that clothes the pure righteousness of Jesus upon our defiled souls: and so causes us to become the righteousness of God in him, or as it is 1 Joh. 3. 7. righteous as he is righteous: non formali & intrinsecâ Justitiâ, sed relativâ: not with a formal inherent righteousness of our own, but with a relative imputed righteousness from another.
What respect, Reader, wouldst thou have to that hand that should bring thee a Pardon when on the Ladder or Block! why, that pardon, which thou canst not read without tears of joy, is brought thee by the hand of faith. O inestimable grace! that cloaths the pure righteousness of Jesus upon our defiled souls: and so causes us to become the righteousness of God in him, or as it is 1 Joh. 3. 7. righteous as he is righteous: non formali & intrinsecâ Justitiâ, sed relativâ: not with a formal inherent righteousness of our own, but with a relative imputed righteousness from another.
I know this most excellent and most comfortable doctrine of imputed righteousness is not only denied but derided by Papists. Stapleton calls it spectrum Cerebri Lutherani: the monstrous birth of Luther's brain: but blessed be God this comfortable truth is well secured against all attempts of its adversaries. Let their blasphemous mouths call it in derision as they do, putative righteousness, (i. e.) a mere fancied or conceited righteousness: yet we know assuredly Christs righteousness is imputed to us, and that in the way of faith. If Adams sin became ours by Imputation, then so doth Christs righteousness also become ours by Imputation, Rom. 5. 17. If Christ were made a sinner by the imputation of our sins to him, who had no sin of his own; then we are made righteous by the imputation of Christs righteousness to us, who have no righteousness of our own; according to 1 Cor. 5. 21. This was the way in which Abraham the father of them that believe was justified, and therefore this is the way in which all believers, the children of Abraham, must in like manner be justified.