A53688:1639
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.
1. That the liberty of Believers, is a liberty to sin, which they may abuse to their own destruction. The Apostle is of an other mind, Rom. 6. 17, 18, 19. God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine, which was delivered to you; being then made free ⟨p. 353⟩from sin ye became the servants of Righteousness &c. 2. That there is no real efficacy of Grace that will certainly fulfil in Believers the good pleasure of Gods Goodness, and bring forth the fruits of an abiding Holiness, but what must needs deprive them in whom it is of their liberty: and suitably hereunto, 3. That God having through Christ made his Saints Spiritually free, from sin unto Righteousness, so that with the utmost liberty that they are capable of as Creatures, they shall surely do good, cannot by his Spirit continue them in that condition, infallibly without the destruction of their liberty. 4. That the Spiritual operation of God in, & with the wills of men, induceth a necessitation as to their manner of operation, that they must act on that account, as necessary, & not as free Agents: with such other the like supposals, which are so many gross figments whereof M. G. shall be able to prove no one to Eternity; For the removal then of all the fine words here tendered out of our way, it may suffice to tell their Author, that he who is made Redemption to his Saints, that sets them free from their bondage to sin, by his Spirit, which is always accompanied with Liberty, and makes them willing, ready, and free to Righteousness, and Holiness in the day of his power towards them, whose effectual Grace enlargeth and improves all their faculties, in their operations, with the choicest attendances as to the manner their of working, can, and doth, by, in, and with the perfect exercise of their liberty, keep them to himself, in their union, and communion with him for ever. That this pretended liberty unto sin, is a bondage, from which Christ frees his Saints, neither is any thing that can be imagined more derogatory to the glory of his Grace, than to affirm, that he cannot keep those committed to him, infallibly, to the end, without depriving them of the liberty which they have alone through him. Of Physical necessitation enough hath been spoken before;
1. That the liberty of Believers, is a liberty to sinne, which they may abuse to their owne destruction. The Apostle is of an other mind,