A53688:1314
The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance
The doctrine of the saints perseverance, explained and confirmed, or, The certain permanency of their 1. acceptation with God & 2. sanctification from God manifested & proved from the 1. eternal principles 2. effectual causes 3. external means thereof ... vindicated in a full answer to the discourse of Mr. John Goodwin against it, in his book entitled Redemption redeemed : with some digressions concerning 1. the immediate effects of the death of Christ ... : with a discourse touching the epistles of Ignatius, the Episcopacy in them asserted, and some animadversions on Dr. H.H. his dissertations on that subject / by John Owen ...The doctrine of the saints perseverance, explained and confirmed, or, The certain permanency of their 1. acceptation with God & 2. sanctification from God manifested & proved from the 1. eternal principles 2. effectuall causes 3. externall meanes thereof ... vindicated in a full answer to the discourse of Mr. John Goodwin against it, in his book entituled Redemption redeemed : with some degressions concerning 1. the immediate effects of the death of Christ ... : with a discourse touching the epistles of Ignatius, the Episcopacy in them asserted, and some animadversions on Dr. H.H. his dissertations on that subject / by John Owen ...
London: printed by Leon. Lichfield, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
First, the Spirit of God though he have an immediate efficacy of his own, by & with those Exhortations, yet by those Exhortations he also inclines the will; & as he works on the will as Corrupt & impotent, by his Grace, so he works on the will as the will (or as such a faculty is apt to be wrought upon by a mediation of the understanding) by Exhortations.
First, the Spirit of God though he have an immediate efficacy of his owne, by & with those Exhortations, yet by those Exhortations he also inclines the will; & as he workes on the will as Corrupt & impotent, by his Grace, so he workes on the will as the will (or as such a faculty is apt to be wrought upon by a mediation of the understanding) by Exhortations.
Secondly, to say Obedience would have been produced and wrought had there been no Exhortations, is not required of us, what efficacy soever we ascribe to Grace, unless we also deny Exhortations to be appointed of God, and to be used by the Spirit of God, for the producing of that Obedience. Neither
Secondly, to say Obedience would have been produced and wrought had there been no Exhortations, is not required of us, what efficacy soever we ascribe to Grace, unlesse we also deny Exhortations to be appointed of God, and to be used by the Spirit of God, for the producing of that Obedience. Neither
Thirdly, doth God work upon the will as a distinct faculty alone of it self without suiting his operations to the other faculties of the soul; Nor is Grace to be wrought or carried on in us, merely as we have Wills but as we have Understandings also, whereby the Exhortations he is pleased to use, may be conveyed to the will and affect it in their kind; in a word, this is but repeating what was said before; If there be any effectual Grace, there is no use of Exhortations; If exhortations be the means of continuing or increasing Grace, what need the efficacy of Grace or immediate actings of the Spirit, working in us to will and to do of Gods good pleasure; what validity there is in these inferences, will be easily discerned; God worketh Grace in men, as men, and as men impotent and corrupted by sin; As men he works upon them by means suited to their Rational being, by Precepts and exhortations: but as men impotent and corrupt by sin, they stand in need of his effectual power, to work that in them, which he requireth of them: Of the terms wherewith his arguing in this case is clouded and darkened, enough hath been remarked already.