A53688:759
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. The Promise only assures them that trust in the Lord, that they shall be preserved, but not at all that they that trust in him, shall be necessitated to do so still, or that so they shall do. So Paul saith, it was in my heart to live and dye with the Corinthians: but doubtless with this proviso, that they always continued such as ⟨p. 140⟩they then were, or as he apprehended them to be, when he so wrote to them.
1. The Promise only assures them that trust in the Lord, that they shall be preserved, but not at all that they that trust in him, shall be necessitated to doe so still, or that so they shall doe. So Paul saith, it was in my heart to live and dye with the Corinthians: but doubtlesse with this proviso, that they alwaies continued such as ⟨p. 140⟩they then were, or as he apprehended them to be, when he so wrote to them.
Ans. I must be forced to smite this evasion once and again, before we arrive at the close of this contest, it being so frequently made use of by our Adversary, who without it, knows himself not able to stand against the evidence of any one Promise usually insisted on. This is the substance of all that, which with exceeding delightful variety of expressions, is an hundred times made use of. The Promise is conditional, and made to those that trust in the Lord, and is to be made good only upon the account of their continuing so to do: but that they shall so do, that they shall continue to trust in the Lord, that is wholly left to themselves, and not in the least undertaken in the Promise; and this is called a discharging or dismissing of places of Scripture, from the service whereunto (contrary to their proper sense & meaning) they are pressed, a delivering them from the bearing the cross of this warfare, with such like Imperial terms and expressions. To speak in the singleness of our spirits, we cannot see any one of the discharged Soldiers, returning from the Camp, wherein they have long served for the safety and consolation of them that do believe. Particularly this Scripture detests the gloss with violence imposed on it, and tells you, that the end for which the God of truth sent it into this service, wherein it abides, is to assure them that trust in the Lord, that they shall be preserved in that condition to the end. That in the condition of trusting and depending on God, they shall be as Zion, and the Favour of God unto them as immovable mountains, he will for ever be with them and about them: And that all this shall certainly come to pass, Christ does not say, that they shall be as established mountains, if they continue to trust in the Lord, but they shall be so in their trusting, abiding for ever therein, through the safeguarding presence of God. For their being necessitated to continue trusting in the Lord, there is not any thing in Text, or in our Argument from thence, or in the doctrine we maintain, that requires or will admit of any such proceeding of God, as by that expression is properly signified. Indeed there is a contradiction in terms, if they are used to the same purpose: to Trust in the Lord, is the voluntary free act of the creature: