A26923:1193
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Chapter 26: Of Confirmation, Perseverance, and Danger of falling away.
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.
§. 29. And the Doctrine of Perseverance hath its difficulties too as to mens comfort: For he that holdeth, That no man falleth from a state of Grace, and seeth many, that to all possible humane judgment, were once excellent persons, fall quite away, can himself have no assurance that he is so much as justified at the present, unless he be sure that he is better than the best of all those persons ever were, which doubt the other side are not cast upon.
§. 30. Q. XIII. Whether the Doctrine of Apostasy infer any mutability in God?
§. 30. Q. XIII. Whether the Doctrine of Apostacy infer any mutability in God?
Ans. No: there's no show of it, unless you hold, that his absolutely Elect fall away. It was no change in God when he gave us grace, and justified us; and it would be no more if he cease, than it was to begin. It was no change in God when I was born, and it will be no more when I die: The Change is only in Man, and his receptive Disposition. Even the Law of the Land, without any Diversity or Change, doth virtually condemn a thousand Malefactors, and justify the Just; and will cease to justify them, and begin to condemn them, if they cease to be just, and begin to be Offenders. The Changes that God himself maketh in all the World, are made without any Change in him: Therefore what man doth, or undoth, cannot change him.
Ans. No: there's no shew of it, unless you hold, that his absolutely Elect fall away. It was no change in God when he gave us grace, and justified us; and it would be no more if he cease, than it was to begin. It was no change in God when I was born, and it will be no more when I die: The Change is only in Man, and his receptive Disposition. Even the Law of the Land, without any Diversity or Change, doth virtually condemn a thousand Malefactors, and justifie the Just; and will cease to justifie them, and begin to condemn them, if they cease to be just, and begin to be Offenders. The Changes that God himself maketh in all the World, are made without any Change in him: Therefore what man doth, or undoth, cannot change him.