A55751:57
The position of John Preston, Doctor in Divinity ... concerning the irresistibleness of converting…The position of John Preston, Doctor in Divinity ... concerning the irresistiblenesse of converting…
The position of John Preston, Doctor in Divinity ... concerning the irresistibleness of converting graceThe position of John Preston, Doctor in Divinity ... concerning the irresistiblenesse of converting grace
London: printed by J.G. for Nath. Webb and Will. Grantham, 1654
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.
So have you our opinion; according to which, a man is converted irresistibly, and yet freely, which that you may yet more fully understand, these Axioms follow from it, which are contrary to those of the Jesuits and Arminians.
So have you our opinion; according to which, a man is converted irresistibly, and yet freely, which that you may yet more fully understand, these Axiomes follow from it, which are contrary to those of the Iesuites and Arminians.
1. We do not say, that Free-will, or the faculty of the Will, as to spiritual things, is half alive and half dead, as the Arminians would have it, Confer. Hag. p. 300. or that it is like the power of moving in one who is bound in fetters; or as the faculty of seeing in one who is shut up in a dark place, as the Papists say: But we hold, That the faculty of the Will, as it respects a truly spiritual good, is wholly extinct, as the power of life in a dead man of motion in a slain man, of sight in him whose eyes are put out.
1. We do not say, that Free-will, or the faculty of the Will, as to spirituall things, is half alive and half dead, as the Arminians would have it, Confer. Hag. p. 300. or that it is like the power of moving in one who is bound in fetters; or as the faculty of seeing in one who is shut up in a dark place, as the Papists say: But we hold, That the faculty of the Will, as it respects a truly spirituall good, is wholly extinct, as the power of life in a dead man of motion in a slaine man, of sight in him whose eyes are put out.
2. They also defend, That the Will is only stirred up by moral or assisting Grace, knocking at the door of it, and admonishing it, not that it is changed by habitual Grace, healing and renewing it: For these are their words, There is no reason why moral Grace, that is morally persuading, may not make a natural man spiritual. But we suppose, that the will is quickened and renewed by the infusion of habitual Grace, that is of a new quality imprinted on the Will, which is as an inward principle enlivening and changing the Will, from whence all good inclinations and operations do proceed.