A53688:1706
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.
2. An impossibility that is Physical, from the nature of the things themselves. So Jerem. 13. 23. %Can the Ethiopian change his skin? that is, He cannot. Mat. 7. 18. %A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. That is, nothing can act contrary to its own natural principles: And as we shall see afterwards, there is of this impossibility in the [cannot] here mentioned. They cannot do it, upon the account of the new Spiritual nature wherewith they are endued.
2. An impossibility that is Physicall, from the nature of the things themselves. So Jerem. 13. 23. %Can the Aethyopian change his skin? that is, He cannot. Mat. 7. 18. %A good tree cannot bring forth evill fruit, neither can an evill tree bring forth good fruit. That is, nothing can act contrary to its owne naturall principles: And as we shall see afterwards, there is of this impossibility in the [cannot] here mentioned. They cannot do it, upon the account of the new Spirituall nature wherewith they are indued.
Now there may be a third kind of impossibility in Spiritual things, arising from both these, which One hath not ineptly called Ethico-physical, or morally-natural, partaking of the nature of both the other. It is moral because it relateth to duty, what is to be done or not to be done. And it is Physical because it relateth to a cause or principle that can, or cannot produce the effect. So our Saviour telleth the Pharisees; How can ye being evil, speak good things. Or ye cannot Mat. 12. 34. %You cannot hear my words John 8. 43. It was morally impossible they should either speak or hear, that is, either believe or do that which is Spiritually good, having no principles that should enable them thereunto, having no root that should bear up unto fruit; being evil trees in themselves, and having a principle, a root continually, universally, uninterruptedly, inclining, and disposing them an other way, to acts of a quite contrary nature. Of this kind is that impossibility here intimated. The effect denied is morally impossible, upon the account of the internal Physical cause hindering of it.