A39669:728
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.
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. Rom. 4. 22, 23, 24. Who can express the worth of faith in this one respect, if this were all it did for our souls?
I know this most excellent and most comfortable doctrine of imputed righteousness is not only denyed but derided by Papists. Stapleton calls it spectrum Cerebri Lutherani: the monstrous birth of Luthers 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 meer 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.