John Owen · 27 of 73

Chapter III. The immutability of the purposes of God. · Part 7

6. Suppose it be granted that the words refer to the endeavours of the seducers in this place, yet they must needs deny their prevalency as to the end aimed at. It is asserted either to be possible that the elect should be so seduced, or not. If not, we have what we aim at. If it be possible, and so here asserted, the total of this expression of our Saviour will be resolved into a conclusion certainly most remote from his intendment: “If it be possible that the elect may be seduced, then shall they be seduced; but it is possible (say our adversaries), therefore they shall be seduced.” Neither doth that which Mr Goodwin urgeth, sect. 12, out of the Synodalia before mentioned, pp. 314, 315, at all prove that the words denote only a difficulty of the thing aimed at, with relation to the earnest endeavours of seducers. Πρὸς τό doth indeed intimate their endeavours, but withal their fruitlessness as to the event. Εἰ δυνατόν is not referred (as in the example of Paul,) to the thoughts of their minds, but to the success foretold by Christ. That emphatical and diacritical expression in the description of them against whom their attempts are, “Even the very elect,” argues their exemption. “And if by ‘elect’ are meant simply and only believers as such, how comes this emphatical expression and description of them to be used, when they alone and no others can be seduced? for those who seem to believe only cannot be said to fall from the faith,” say our adversaries. It is true, the professors of Christianity adhered of old under many trials, for the greater part, with eminent constancy to their profession; yet is not any thing eminently herein held out in that saying which Mr Goodwin calls proverbial in Galen, he speaking of the followers of Moses the same as of the followers of Christ. What else follows in Mr Goodwin from the same author is nothing but the pressing of, I think, one of the most absurd arguments that ever learned men made use of in any controversy; and yet, such as it is, we shall meet with it over and over (as we have done often already), before we arrive at the end of this discourse; and, therefore, to avoid tediousness, I shall not here insist upon it. With its mention it shall be passed by. It is concerning the uselessness of means, and exhortations unto the use of them, if the end to be attained by them be irrevocably determined, although those exhortations are part of the means appointed for the accomplishment of the end so designed. I shall not, as I said, in this place insist upon it; one thing only shall I observe. In sect. 17, he grants, “That God is able to determine the wills of the elect to the use of means proper and sufficient to prevent their being deceived.” By this “determining the wills of the elect to the use of proper means,” the efficacy of grace in and with believers, to a certain preservation of them to the end, is intended. It is the thing he opposeth, as we are informed in the next words: “He hath nowhere declared himself willing or resolved to do it.” That by this one assertion Mr Goodwin hath absolved our doctrine from all the absurd consequences and guilt of I know not what abominations, which in various criminations he hath charged upon it, is evident upon the first view and consideration. All that we affirm God to do, Mr Goodwin grants that he can do. Now, if God should do all he is able, there would no absurdity or evil that is truly so follow. What he can do, that he can decree to do; and this is the sum of our doctrine, which he hath chosen to oppose. God, we say, hath everlastingly purposed to give, and doth actually give, his Holy Spirit to believers, to put forth such an exceeding greatness of power as whereby, in the use of means, they shall certainly be preserved to salvation. “This God can do,” says our author. This concession being made by the Remonstrants in their Synodalia, Mr Goodwin, I presume, thought it but duty to be as free as his predecessors, and therefore consented unto it also, although it be an axe laid at the root of almost all the arguments he sets up against the truth, as shall hereafter be farther manifested.

I draw now to a close of those places which, among many others omitted, tender themselves unto the proof of the stable, unchangeable purpose of God, concerning the safeguarding and preservation of believers in his love and unto salvation. I shall mention one or two more, and close this second scriptural demonstration of the truth in hand. The first is that eminent place of Eph. i. 3–5, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” Verse 3, the apostle summarily blesseth God for all the spiritual mercies which in Jesus Christ he blesseth his saints withal; of all which, verse 4, he discovereth the fountain and spring, which is his free choosing of them before the foundation of the world. That an eternal act of the will of God is hereby designed is beyond dispute; and it is that “foundation of God” on which the whole of the building mentioned and portrayed in the following verse is laid. All the grace and favour of God towards his saints, in their justification, adoption, and glow, all the fruits of the Spirit, which they enjoy in faith and sanctification, flow from this one fountain; and these the apostle describes at large in the verses following. The aim of God in this eternal and unchangeable act of his will, he tells us, is, that we should be “without blame before him in love.” Certainly cursed apostates, backsliders in heart, in whom his soul takes no pleasure, are very far from being without blame before God in love. Those that are within the compass of this purpose of God must be preserved unto that state and condition which God aims to bring them unto, by all the fruits and issues of that purpose of his, which was pointed at before.

A scripture of the like importance unto that before named is 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14, “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” First, The same fountain of all spiritual and eternal mercy with that mentioned in the other place is here also expressed; and that is, God’s choosing of us by an everlasting act, or designing us to the end intended by a free, eternal, unchangeable purpose of his will. Secondly, The end aimed at by the Lord in that purpose is here more clearly set down in a twofold expression:— 1. Salvation: Verse 13, “God hath chosen you to salvation.” That is the thing which he aimed to accomplish for them, and the end he intended to bring them to in his choosing of them. And, 2. Verse 14, “The glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,” or the obtaining a portion in that glory which Christ purchased and procured for them, with their being with him to behold his glory. And, thirdly, You have the means whereby God will certainly bring about and accomplish this his design and purpose, whereof there are three most eminent acts expressed:— 1. Vocation, or their calling by the gospel, verse 14; 2. Sanctification, “Through sanctification of the Spirit;” and, 3. Justification, which they receive by “belief of the truth,” verse 13. This much, then, is wrapped up in this text: God having, in his unchangeable purpose, fore-appointed his to salvation and glory, certainly to be obtained, through the effectual working of the Spirit and free justification in the blood of Christ, it cannot be but that they shall be preserved unto the enjoyment of what they are so designed unto.

To sum up what hath been spoken from these purposes of God to the establishment of the truth we have in hand: Those whom God hath purposed by effectual means to preserve to the enjoyment of eternal life and glory in his favour and acceptation, can never so fall from his love, or be so cast out of his grace, as to come short of the end designed, or ever be totally rejected of God. The truth of this proposition depends upon what hath been said, and may farther be insisted on, concerning the unchangeableness and absoluteness of the eternal purposes of God, the glory whereof men shall never be able sacrilegiously to rob him of. Thence the assumption is, concerning all true believers and truly sanctified persons, there are purposes of God that they shall be so preserved to such ends, etc., as hath been abundantly proved by an induction of particular instances; and therefore it is impossible they should ever be so cast out of the favour of God as not to be infallibly preserved to the end. Which is our second demonstration of the truth in hand.