A53688:380
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.
Thus then he proceedeth; By the Tenor of this Arguing it will as well follow that in case God should at any time withdraw his Love, and his Favour from a Nation, or body of a People, which he sometimes Favoured, or Loved, he should be changed: But that no such change of dispensation as this towards one, or the same People or Nation, argueth any change at all in God, at least any such change, which he disclaimeth, as incompetent to him, is evident from those instances without number recorded in Scripture, of such different dispensations of his, towards sundry Nations, and more especially towards the Jews, to whom sometimes he gives Peace, sometimes consumes them with Wars, sometimes he makes them the Head, and sometimes again the Tail of the Nations round about them.
Thus then he proceedeth; By the Tenour of this Arguing it will as well follow that in case God should at any time withdraw his Love, and his Favour from a Nation, or body of a People, which he sometimes Favoured, or Loved, he should be changed: But that no such change of dispensation as this towards one, or the same People or Nation, argueth any change at all in God, at least any such change, which he disclaimeth, as incompetent to him, is evident from those instances without number recorded in Scripture, of such different dispensations of his, towards sundry Nations, and more especially towards the Iewes, to whom somtimes he gives Peace, somtimes consumes them with Warrs, sometimes he makes them the Head, and sometimes again the Tayle of the Nations round about them.
The Love and favour of God to a Nation or People,1 here brought into the lists of Comparison with the peculiar Love of God to his Saints, which he Secures them of, upon the account of his Immutability, is either the outward Dispensation of Good things to them, called his Love, because it expresseth and holds out a fountain of Goodness, from whence it flows, or it is an Eternal act of Gods will towards them, of the same nature with the Love ⟨p. 42⟩to his own formerly described. If it be taken in the first sense, as apparently it is intended, and so made out from the instance of Gods dealing with the Jews in outward Blessings, and Punishments, Mr Goodwin doth plainly ([Greek or Hebrew]) fall into a thing quite of another nature, instead of that, which was first proposed. (Amphora cùm caepit Institui cur urceus exit?) There is a wide difference between outward Providential Dispensations, and Eternal Purposes and acts of Grace and Good will; To deal in the instance insisted on by Mr Goodwin: there being frequent mention in the Scripture (as afterwards shall be fully declared) of a difference & distinction in, and of that People,