A53688:762
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. That this Promise is not made unto the Persons of any,1 but merely unto their Qualifications: like that, he that believeth shall be saved, it is made to the Grace of Trusting, Obedience, and walking with God, for threatenings are made to the evil Qualifications of men.
2. That this Promise is not made unto the Persons of any,1 but meerely unto their Qualifications: like that, he that believeth shall be saved, it is made to the Grace of Trusting, Obedience, and walking with God, for threatnings are made to the evill Qualifications of men.
- 1§: 14.
Ans. This it seems then we are come unto, and what farther progress may be made the Lord knows. The Gracious Promises of God, made to his Church, his People; in the blood of Jesus, on which they have rolled themselves with safety and security in their several generations, are nothing but bare declarations of the will of God; what he allows, and what he rejects: with the firm concatenation that is between Faith and salvation, Obedience and reward. And this it seems is the only use of them: which if it be so, I ⟨p. 141⟩dare boldly say, that all the Saints of God from the foundations of the World, have most horribly abused his Promises, and forced them to other ends, then ever God intended them for. Doubtless all those blessed souls, who are fallen a sleep in the Faith of Jesus Christ, having drawn refreshment from these breasts of Consolation, could they be summoned to give in their experience of what they have found in this kind, they would with one mouth profess that they found far more in them, then mere conditional declarations of the will of God: Yea that they received them in Faith, as the engagement of his heart and good will towards them, & that he never failed in the accomplishment and performance of all the good mentioned in them: neither will that emphatical expression in the close of the second verse, (which being somewhat too rough for our Author to handle, he left it quite out) bear any such sense. That the Promises of the Covenant are made originally to Persons, and not to Qualifications, hath been in part already proved, and shall be farther evinced, (God assisting) as occasion shall be offered in the ensuing discourse: The Promises are to Abraham and his seed: and some of them (as hath been declared) are the springs of all Qualifications whatever, that are acceptable unto God: what be the Qualifications of Promises of opening blind eyes, taking away stony hearts, &c. hath not as yet been declared. But it is farther argued.