The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance

Sect. 4. Leaving the farther confirmation of his Argument he enters upon the removal of a plea insisted on,¹ to the Justification of the Doctrine opposed and vindication of it from the crime wherewith here by him tis charged: this he tells you is, that the Exhortations, Comminations, and Promises, spoken of, are means appointed of God for the accomplishing and effecting of the Perseverance of the Saints, which he hath made simply and Absolutely necessary by his decree. This (he saith,) hath neither any Logical, nor Theological virtue in it, for the purpose for which tis produced: but is a notion irrelative to the business the accommodation whereof it pretends.

Sect. 4. Leaving the farher confirmation of his Argument he enters upon the removeall of a plea insisted on,¹ to the Justification of the Doctrine opposed and vindication of it from the crime wherewith here by him tis charged: this he tells you is, that the Exhortations, Comminations, and Promises, spoken of, are meanes appointed of God for the accomplishing and effecting of the Perseverance of the Saints, which he hath made simply and Absolutely necessary by his decree. This (he saith,) hath neither any Logicall, nor Theologicall virtue in it, for the purpose for which tis produced: but is a notion irrelative to the businesse the accommodation whereof it pretends.

1. 1§. 16.

Ans. It may be so, suffer you to frame the Objection, and who will doubt of your Abilities of giving an Answer; But who (I pray) says that God by his Decree, hath made the Perseverance of the Saints simply and Absolutely necessary; that tis certain in respect of the event, from the Decree of God, we grant; and do we thereby overthrow the means whereby tis to be accomplished▪ Yea, we establish them; We are of the mind that God hath purposed, and thereupon Promised, the Accomplishment of many things, (as the selling of Joseph into Egypt, the bringing of the Children of Israel from thence, and the like) which yet were to be carried on to their Accomplishment, and brought about through innumerable contingences, by the free rational, deliberative actings of men; If by simply and Absolutely necessary, you intend that the thing Decreed is to be wrought of men, simply and Absolutely necessarily by their operations, as to the manner of them, we simply and Absolutely deny any such Decree; If by those expressions you improperly intend only the certainty of the Event, or Accomplishment of the thing decreed with respect to the means appointed and fitted thereunto, we say this establisheth those means, neither have they the nature of means to an End from any Reason what ever, but as so appointed of God thereunto: But he proceeds in the proof of his former Assertion, and says