A39669:905
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.
The first is an Act. The second is a State.
There is an actual fellowship or communion the Saints have with Christ in holy duties: wherein Christians let forth their hearts to God by desires, and God lets forth his comforts and refreshments again into their hearts: they open their mouths wide, and he fills them: this communion with God is the joy and comfort of a believers life: but I am not to speak of that here. It is not any act of communion, but the State of communion, from which all acts of communion flow, and upon which they all depend; that I am now to treat of: which is nothing else but the joint interest that Christ and the Saints have in the same things: as when a ship, an house, or estate is among many partners, ⟨p. 167⟩or joint-heirs, every one of them hath right to it, and interest in it, though some of them have a greater and others a lesser part. So is it betwixt Christ and his people: there is a [Greek or Hebrew] (i. e.) a fellowship or joint interest betwixt them, upon which ground they are called co-heirs with Christ, Rom. 8. 17. This communion or participation in Christs benefits depends upon the Hypostatical Union of our nature, and the mystical union of our persons with the Son of God: in the first he partakes with us, in the second we partake with him; the former is the remote, the later the next cause thereof.
There is an actual fellowship or communion the Saints have with Christ in holy duties: wherein Christians let forth their hearts to God by desires, and God lets forth his comforts and refreshments again into their hearts: they open their mouths wide, and he fills them: this communion with God is the joy and comfort of a believers life: but I am not to speak of that here. It is not any act of communion, but the State of communion, from which all acts of communion flow, and upon which they all depend; that I am now to treat of: which is nothing else but the joynt interest that Christ and the Saints have in the same things: as when a ship, an house, or estate is among many partners,