A53688:1427
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.
Hereunto you have a threefold Answer returned.
First, That God requires that it should be so; which is a downright begging of the Question.
First, That God requires that it should be so; which is a downeright begging of the Question.
Secondly, He puts a difference between the Obedience of Children to their Parents, and of the Saints unto God; The discourse whereof discovering some mysteries of the new Doctrine of Grace, much pressed and insisted on, take as follows. There is a very different consideration of the Obedience of Children to their Natural Parents, & of the obedience of the Children of God unto their Heavenly Father; The Obedience of the former, is but by the Inspiration of Nature, and is an act not so much raised by Deliberation, or flowing from the will, by an interposure of judgment, and conscience to produce the Election, as arising from an innate propension in men, accompanying the very constituting principles of their Nature and being; Whereas the latter, the Obedience of the Children of God, is taught by Precepts, and the Principle of it, I mean that Rational frame of Heart, out of which they subject themselves to God, is planted in the souls of men by the engagement of Reason, Judgement, and Conscience to consider those grounds, arguments, and motives, by which their Heavenly Father judgeth it meet to work and fashion them unto such a frame; So that though the obedience of Natural Children to their Natural Parents, be the more genuine and commendable, when it flows freely from the pure instinct of Nature, and is not drawn from them by fear of punishment, yet the Obedience of the Children of God is then most genuine and commendable, and like unto it self, when it is produced, and raised in the soul, by a joint influence and contribution, not of one or of some, but of all those Arguments, Reasons, Motives, Inducements whatsoever, and how many soever they be, by which their Heavenly Father useth to plant and work it in them; for in this case, and in this only, it hath most of God, of the Spirit of God, of the Wisdom of God, of the Goodness of God: in and upon this account it is likeliest to be most free, uniform, and permanent.