A53688:1578
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.
Thirdly it is confessed that ordinarily Believers sin at no worse a rate than that expressed by the Apostle; But what doth that contain? If would not, be referred to their doing of sins, then you grant that which all this while you have endeavoured to oppose, and are reconciled to your own contradiction in the first evidence sin cannot ordinarily or extraordinarily be committed but by an act of the will, and yet ordinarily, there is a dissent of the will also thereunto. If you adhere to your other former interpretation that the willing against sin committed, is antecedent to the commitment of it, & laid a sleep before the perpetration of any sin, then this also is imposed on you, that there are sins whereunto they may be surprised by temptations, that antecedently to the commitment of them, they do not, not-will; that as to them, the Spirit lusteth not against the flesh; which is notoriously false; for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and all the ways of it and all the fruits thereof, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, with all its ways and fruits.
Thirdly it is confessed that ordinarily Believers sinne at no worse a rate than that expressed by the Apostle; But what doth that containe? If would not, be referred to their doing of sinnes, then you grant that which all this while you have endeavoured to oppose, and are reconciled to your owne contradiction in the first evidence sinne cannot ordinarily or extraordinarily be committed but by an act of the will, and yet ordinarily, there is a dissent of the will also thereunto. If you adhere to your other former interpretation that the willing against sin committed, is antecedent to the commitment of it, & layd a sleepe before the perpetration of any sinne, then this also is imposed on you, that there are sinnes whereunto they may be surprised by temptations, that antecedently to the commitment of them, they do not, not-will; that as to them, the Spirit lusteth not against the flesh; which is notoriosly false; for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and all the wayes of it and all the fruits thereof, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, with all its wayes and fruits.
Fourthly it appears then that this being the description of a Regenerate man, which the Apostle gives, as to indwelling sin, and all the fruits thereof, that it is most ridiculous to exempt his frame in respect of such sins as they may fall into by surprisals of temptations, from this description of him, and so to frame this distinction to the Apostles general Rule, that it holds in cases ordinary, but not in extraordinary, when nothing in the whole Context gives the least allowance or continuance to such a limitation.