John Owen · 49 of 73

Chapter XII. Objections to the doctrine refuted. · Part 2

Sect. 4. Leaving the farther confirmation of his argument, he enters upon the removal of a plea insisted on to the justification of the doctrine opposed, and vindication of it from the crime wherewith here by him it is charged. This he tells you is, “That the exhortations, comminations, and promises spoken of, are means appointed of God for the accomplishing and effecting of the perseverance of the saints, which he hath made simply and absolutely necessary by his decree.” “This,” he saith, “hath neither any logical nor theological virtue in it for the purpose for which it is produced, but is a notion irrelative to the business, the accommodation whereof it pretends.”

Ans. It may be so. Suffer you to frame the objection, and who will doubt of your ability of giving an answer? But who, I pray, says that “God, by his decree, hath made the perseverance of the saints simply and absolutely necessary?” That it is certain in respect of the event, from the decree of God, we grant; but do we thereby overthrow the means whereby it is to be accomplished? yea, we establish them. We are of the mind that God hath purposed, and thereupon promised, the accomplishment of many things (as the selling of Joseph into Egypt, the bringing of the children of Israel from thence, and the like), which yet were to be carried on to their accomplishment and brought about through innumerable contingencies, by the free, rational, deliberative actings of men. If by “Simply and absolutely necessary” you intend that the thing decreed is to be wrought of men simply and absolutely necessarily by their operations, as to the manner of them, we simply and absolutely deny any such decree. If by those expressions you improperly intend only the certainty of the event, or accomplishment of the thing decreed, with respect to the means appointed and fitted thereunto, we say this establisheth those means; neither have they the nature of means to an end from any reason whatever, but as so appointed of God thereunto. But he proceeds in the proof of his former assertion, and says, —

“First, That the exhortations whereby the saints are exhorted to perseverance are no means by which the promises of perseverance made, as our adversaries suppose, to them are accomplished or effected, is thus clearly evinced: Whatsoever is a means for the bringing of any thing to pass ought not to contain any thing in it repugnant or contrary unto that which is intended to be brought to pass by it, for means ought to be subordinate to their ends, not repugnant; but the Scripture exhortations unto perseverance contain that which is repugnant to the promises of perseverance, if supposed such as our adversaries suppose them to be: therefore they can by no means effect those promises. The minor is evident by the light of this consideration. Such exhortations as these to the saints, ‘Take heed lest at any time there be an evil heart of unbelief in you, lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, lest you fall from grace, lest you receive the grace of God in vain, lest you fall from your own steadfastness,’ in their native and proper tendency import a danger, and serve to raise a fear in men lest the danger imported should come upon them; whereas such promises as these, made unto the same persons, and that not conditionally, as is supposed, that there shall never be a heart of unbelief in them, that they shall never be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, that they shall never fall away from the grace of God, exclude all danger or possibility of falling away, and tend directly to prevent or extinguish all fear in men of any such danger: therefore, such exhortations are in their nature and genuine import contrary to such promises in theirs, and consequently can be no means of bringing them to pass.”

Ans. 1. Exhortations are not so properly the means whereby the promises are accomplished as the means whereby the things mentioned in the promises are wrought, God by and through them stirring up those graces which he promises to work, continue, and to increase in his saints.

2. “Exhortations divine” must be so apprehended as to be subservient to an end, in respect of God foreknown and determined. It is true, we exhort men (or may) to those things of whose event we are wholly uncertain; but to God this cannot be ascribed. He doth foreknow and hath fore-determined the end and issue that every one of his exhortations shall have; and therefore such a nature, and no other, is to be ascribed to them as is consistent with and subservient to a determined end.

3. To the confirmation of his minor proposition the answer is easy, from the consideration, first, of the end of the exhortations insisted on unto perseverance, and then of the promises of perseverance themselves, which are no way inconsistent therewith. For the first, I say, those exhortations, “Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief,” and the like, are not given to ingenerate a fear of falling away (which is a thing in itself evil and opposite unto that steadfastness of faith and full assurance which we should press unto, so far is it from any act of faithful obedience that God should aim to work in the hearts of his, and apply means thereunto), but only to beget a holy care and diligence in them to whom they are made or given for the using of the means appointed of God for the avoiding of the evil threatened to follow upon a neglect of them; which directly falls in and sweetly conspires with the end and use of the promises of perseverance by us urged and insisted upon. Nothing is imported by them but only the connection that is between the things mentioned in them, as unbelief and rejection from God. This God aims at in those exhortations, in their particular respect unto believers, that by them they may be stirred up to the use of those means which he hath appointed for them, to be by them preserved in the grace and mercy which he hath infallibly promised to continue to them. And, —

4. The end of the promises of perseverance on which we have insisted being their “mixing with faith,” to establish the souls of the saints in believing the kindness and faithfulness of God in his covenant in Jesus Christ, they do not take away nor prevent all fear of perishing, and so, consequently, not that fear in any measure which stirs them up so to the use of means that they may not perish, but only are effectual for their deliverance out of those dangers which are apt and able of themselves to destroy them; as our Saviour himself prays for them, John xvii. 15, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world” (where, whilst they are, they will be sure to meet with dangers and perplexities enough), “but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” wherewith they must reckon to be exercised. There is not, then, the least contrariety or diverse aspect between the assurance of faith about the end which the promises tend unto, and the care and godly fear about the means instituted and appointed with respect to the end which exhortations do beget, and will, notwithstanding those promises.

5. The greatest inconsistency that can be imagined between exhortations and promises, as by us explained, is no more than this, that in one place God promiseth that unto us as his grace, which in another he requires of us as our duty; between which two whoever feigns an opposition, he doth his endeavour to set the covenant of grace, as to us proposed and declared, at variance with itself.

The whole ensuing discourse, unto sect. 12, drawing deep upon another controversy, — namely, “the manner of the operation of grace,” — and being for the most part borrowed from what is delivered on that head in the Arminian writings, might be passed over as not of any necessary consideration in this place. What we assign to the exhortations of the word, and their consistency with whatever else we teach of the saints’ perseverance, being already heard, this argument is at its proper issue. But the task undertaken is not to be waived or avoided; I shall therefore proceed to the discussion of it. Thus, then, he goes on:—

“If,” saith he, “such exhortations as we speak of be a means to effect the perseverance which our adversaries suppose to be promised in the saints, then must the act of perseverance in the saints necessarily depend upon them, so as that it cannot, nor will, be effected without them; that is, without the saints submitting themselves to them: but persevering upon these terms clearly supposeth a possibility of non-persevering; for whatsoever dependeth upon a mutable condition, and which possibly may not be performed, may be also possible never to come to pass.”

Ans. 1. Exhortations are improperly said to be “a means to effect perseverance.” We say only that they are means to stir up, quicken, and increase, those graces in the exercise whereof the saints, according to the purpose and promise of God, do persevere.

2. The perseverance of the saints doth consist in the abiding and continuance of those graces in them which those exhortations do so stir up and further or increase; and in that regard there is a connection between the perseverance of the saints and the exhortations mentioned, yea, a dependence of the one on the other. But this dependence ariseth not from the nature of the things themselves, whence such a certainty as is asserted would not arise, but from the purpose and appointment of God that they should be effectual to that end. And therefore, —

3. A “perseverance on these terms supposeth a possibility of non-persevering,” if you regard only the nature of the things themselves, and set aside all consideration of the purpose and promises of God concerning the end, which is to beg the thing in hand; yea, the promise of God extends itself to the certain accomplishment of the saints’ submission to those exhortations. So that the end aimed at doth not depend on a “mutable condition” (if I understand any thing of that expression, so unsuited to the business in hand), the performance of the condition (or the yielding of such obedience as is required to the essence of the saints’ perseverance) being certain also from the promises of God.

His 5th section is as followeth: “If it be said that the said exhortations are means of the saints’ persevering in this respect, because God by his Spirit irresistibly and unfrustrably draws and persuades the saints to obey these exhortations as means of their persevering, I answer, It cannot be proved that God doth draw or persuade his saints upon any such terms to obey these exhortations, nay, frequent experience showeth, and our adversaries’ doctrine, frequently mentioned, expressly granteth, that the saints many times are so far from obeying these exhortations, that they walk for a long time in full opposition to them, as in security, looseness, vile practices. Nor have they yet proved, nor, I believe, ever will prove, but that they may walk, yea, and that many have thus walked, I mean in full opposition to the said exhortations, to their dying day. Secondly, If God by his Spirit irresistibly draws his saints to obey the exhortations we speak of, he thus draweth them either by such a force or power immediately acted upon their wills, by which they are made willing to obey them, or else he maketh use of the said exhortations so to work or affect their wills that they become willing accordingly. If the former be asserted, then, 1. The said exhortations are no means whereby the perseverance of the saints is effected, but God irresistibly by his Spirit: for if the will be thus immediately affected by God after such a manner, and wrought to such a bent and inclination, as that it cannot but obey the said exhortations, or do the things which the said exhortations require, then would it have done the same thing whether there had been any such exhortations in being or no, and consequently these exhortations could have no manner of efficiency about their perseverance; for the will, according to the common saying, is of itself’ a blind faculty,’ and follows its own predominant bent and inclination, without taking knowledge whether the ways and actions towards which it stands bent be commanded or exhorted unto by God or no. 2. If the will of a saint be immediately so affected by God that it stands inclined and bent to do the things which are proper to cause him to persevere, then is this bent and inclination wrought in the will of such a person after his being a saint, and consequently is not essential to him as a saint, but merely accidental and adventitious; and if so, then is there no inclination or bent in the will of a saint as such, or from his first being a mint, to persevere, or to do the things which accompany perseverance, but they come to be wrought in him afterward: which how consistent it is with the principles either of reason or religion, or their own, I am content that my adversaries themselves should judge. 3. If God doth immediately and irresistibly incline or move the wills of the saints to do the things which accompany perseverance, the said exhortations can be no means of effecting this perseverance; for the will, being physically and irresistibly acted and drawn by God to do such and such things, needeth no addition of moral means, such as exhortations are (if they be any), in order hereunto. What a man is necessitated to, he needeth no farther help or means to do it. 4. The things which accompany perseverance import a continuance in faith and love to the end. If, then, the wills of the saints be immediately and irresistibly moved by God thus to continue, — I mean in faith and love to the end, — what place is there for exhortations to come in with their efficiency towards that perseverance? Need they be exhorted to continue in faith and love, or to persevere after the end? Thus, then, we clearly see that the former of the two consequents mentioned cannot stand. God doth not by his Spirit irresistibly draw or move the wills of the saints to do the things which are necessary for the procuring their perseverance immediately, or without the instrumental interposure of the said exhortations.”

Ans. First, the intendment of this, as also of some following sections, is to prove and manifest that the use of exhortations cannot consist with the efficacy of internal grace, and the work of the Spirit in producing and effecting those graces in us which in those exhortations we are provoked and stirred up unto; — a very sad undertaking truly, to my apprehension, and for which the church of God will scarce ever return thanks to them that shall engage in it! He was of another mind who cried, “Da, Domine, quod jubes, et jube quod vis.” Yea, and the Holy Ghost hath, in innumerable places of Scripture, expressed himself of another mind, promising to work effectually in us what he requires earnestly of us; by the one manifesting the efficacy of his grace, by the other the exigency of the duty which is incumbent upon us. Nay, never any saint of God once prayed in his life, seeking any thing at the hand of God, but was of another mind, if he understood his own supplications. To what is here urged against this catholic faith of believers, I say, —

That exhortations are the means of perseverance, inasmuch as by them, in their place and kind, and with them, the Spirit of God effectually works this perseverance, or the matter of it, in the saints. Those cloudy expressions of “Irresistibly and unfrustrably” we own no farther than as they denote the certainty of the event, and not the manner of the Spirit’s operation; which also they do very unhandsomely. We leave out, then, in the proposal of our judgment about the use of exhortations, which Mr Goodwin opposeth, those terms, and add in their room, “By and with those exhortations,” which he omits.

He saith, then, “This cannot be proved, because the saints live and die oftentimes in opposition and disobedience unto these exhortations.”

But obedience is twofold: First, As to the general frame of the heart, — obedience in the habit; and so it is false that the saints live at any time in an ordinary course, much less die in opposition to those exhortations. The law of God being written in their hearts, and they delighting in it in their inward man, they abide therein, the fruit of obedience for the most part being brought forth by them: and this sufficeth as to their perseverance. Secondly, It regardeth particular acts of obedience; and in respect of them we all say that yet they all sin (“Optimus ille est, qui mlnimis urgetur”): but this prejudiceth not their perseverance, nor the general end of the exhortations afforded them for that purpose.

But he adds, secondly, “If God by his Spirit irresistibly draws his saints to persevere,” ut supra.

But this is sorry sophistry, “which may be felt,” as they say, “through a pair of mittens;” for, —

1. Who says that God works by force immediately upon the wills of men? Or who makes force and power to be terms equivalent? or says that God cannot put forth the “exceeding greatness of his power in them that believe,” but he must force or compel their wills? or, that he cannot “work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” immediately working in and with our wills, but he must so force them?

2. Whence ariseth the disjunctive force of this argument, “Either by immediate actings upon their wills, or he maketh use of those exhortations?” as though the one way were exclusive of the other, and that the Scripture did not abundantly and plentifully ascribe both these unto God; both that he exhorts us to know him, love him, believe in him, and gives us an understanding and a heart so to do, working faith and love in us by the exceeding efficacy of his power and Spirit. I say, then, that God works immediately by his Spirit in and on the wills of his saints; that is, he puts forth a real physical power that is not contained in those exhortations, though he doth it by, and in, and with them. The impotency that is in us to do good is not amiss termed ethico-physica, both natural and moral; and the applications of God to the soul in their doing good are both really and physically efficient and moral also, the one consisting in the efficacy of his Spirit, the other lying in the exhortations of the word, yet so as that the efficacy of the Spirit is exerted by and with the moral efficacy of the word, his work being but grace or the law in the heart, the word being the law written. So that all the ensuing reasonings are bottomed upon things male divisa that stand in a sweet harmony and compliance with each other.

But Mr Goodwin tells you, “That if God work by his Spirit and his grace immediately on the wills of men, to cause them to persevere, then are exhortations no means of their perseverance.”

Why so, I pray? It seems we must have no internal effectual grace from God, or no outward exhortations of the word; but he tells you it must be so, “Because if the will be physically and irresistibly acted and drawn by God to do such and such things, it needeth no addition of moral means; such are exhortations thereunto.” That is, if the will be effectually inclined to the ways of God by his grace, there is then no need of the exhortations of the word. But yet, —

1. The Spirit of God, though he has an immediate efficacy of his own by and with those exhortations, yet by those exhortations he also inclines the will; and as he works on the will as corrupt and impotent by his grace, so he works on the will (as the will, or as such a faculty, is apt to be wrought upon by a mediation of the understanding) by exhortations.

2. To say, “Obedience would have been produced and wrought had there been no exhortations,” is not required of us, what efficacy soever we ascribe to grace, unless we also deny exhortations to be appointed of God and to be used by the Spirit of God for the producing of that obedience. Neither, —

3. Doth God work upon the will as a distinct faculty alone of itself, without suiting his operations to the other faculties of the soul; nor is grace to be wrought or carried on in us merely as we have wills, but as we have understandings also, whereby the exhortations he is pleased to use may be conveyed to the will and affect it in their kind. In a word, this is but repeating what was said before, “If there be any effectual grace, there is no use of exhortations; or if exhortations be the means of continuing or increasing grace, what need the efficacy of grace or immediate actings of the Spirit, ‘working in us to will and to do of God’s good pleasure?” What validity there is in these inferences will be easily discerned. God worketh grace in men as men, and as men impotent and corrupt by sin. As men he works upon them by means suited to their rational being, — by precepts and exhortations; but as men impotent and corrupt by sin, they stand in need of his effectual power to work that in them which he requireth of them. Of the terms wherewith his arguing in this case is clouded and darkened, enough hath been remarked already.

His second argument to this purpose, namely, “That the inclination of the will to good and to persevere in a saint must be after his being made a saint,” is as weak and no less sophistical than the former. That inclination is radically wrought in every believer at his conversion, the Spirit being bestowed on him, which shall abide with him for ever, and the seed of God laid in his heart, that shall remain and never utterly fail, with an habitual inclination to the exercise of all those graces wherein their persevering doth consist. Actually this is wrought in them according to the particular duties and actings of grace that are required of them; which they are carried forth unto by the daily influence of life, power, and grace, which they receive from Christ their head, without whom they can do nothing.

Neither is the third exception of any more validity, being only a repetition of what was spoken before, rendered something more impedite, dark, and intricate, by the terms of “physically,” “irresistibly,” and “necessitated;” which how far and wherein we do allow hath been frequently declared. The sum of what is spoken amounts to this, “God’s real work in and upon the soul by his Spirit and grace is inconsistent with exhortations to obedience;” which we have before disproved, and do reject it as an assertion destructive to all the efficacy of the grace of God and the whole work of it upon the souls of men.

What his fourth argument also is but a repetition of the same things before crudely asserted in other terms, let them apprehend that can: “If God work faith and love in the hearts of his saints, and support them in them to the end, what place is left for exhortations?” I say, Their own proper place, the place of means, of means appointed by God to stir up his to perseverance, and which himself makes, by his Spirit and the immediate efficacy thereof, effectual to that end and purpose. And I know no use of that query, “Are exhortations effectual to persuade men to persevere after the end?” it being built only on his false hypothesis and begging of the thing in question, namely, “That if God work faith and love, and continuance of them, in our hearts effectually by his grace, there is no need, no use of exhortations,” though God so work them by and with those exhortations.

And this is his first attempt upon the first member of the division made by himself, wherein what success he hath obtained is left to the judgment of the reader; and but that I shall not, — having now the part of one that answers incumbent on me, — turn aside unto the proof of things denied, I should easily confirm what hath been given in for the removal of his objections from the testimony of God, by innumerable places of Scripture.

He proceeds, then, sect. 6, and says, “Secondly, Neither can the latter of the said consequences stand. God doth not make use of the said exhortations to influence or affect the wills of the saints upon any such terms as thereby to make them infallibly, unfrustrably, necessitatingly, willing to persevere, or to do the things upon which perseverance dependeth.

“For, first, If so, then one and the same act of the will should be both physical and moral, and so be specifically distinguished in and from itself. For so far as it is produced by the irresistible force or power of the Spirit of God, it must needs be physical, the said irresistible working of the Spirit being a physical action, and so not proper to produce a moral effect. Again, as far as the said exhortations are means to produce or raise this act of the will, or contribute any thing towards it, it must needs be moral, because exhortations are moral causes, and so not capable of producing physical, natural, or necessary effects. Now, then, if it be impossible that one and the same act of the will should be both physical and moral, — that is, necessary and not necessary, — impossible also it is that it should be produced by the irresistible working of God and by exhortations of this joint efficiency.

“It may be objected, ‘They who hold or grant such an influence or operation of the Spirit of God upon the will which is frustrable or resistible, do and must suppose it to be a physical action as well as that which is irresistible. If so, then the act of the will, so far as it is raised by the means of this action or operation of God, must, according to the tenor of the former argument, be physical also, and so the pretended impossibility is no more avoided by this opinion than by the other.’

“I answer, Though such an operation of God upon the will as is here mentioned be, in respect of God and of the manner of its proceeding from him, physical, yet, in respect of the nature and substance of it, it is properly moral; because it impresseth and affecteth the will upon which it is acted after the manner of moral causes, properly so called, — that is, persuadingly, not ravishingly or necessitatingly. When a minister of the gospel in his preaching presseth or persuadeth men to such and such duties or actions, this act, as it proceedeth from him, — I mean, as it is raised by his natural abilities of understanding and speaking, — is physical or natural, but in respect of the substance or native tendency of it it is clearly moral, namely, because it tendeth to incline or move the wills of men to such or such elections without necessitating them thereunto; and so comports with those arguments or exhortations, in their manner of efficiency, by which he presseth or moveth them to such things. By the way, to prevent stumbling and quarrelling, it no way follows from the premises that a minister in his preaching or persuading unto duties should do as much as God himself doth in or towards the persuading of men hereunto. It only follows that the minister doth co-operate with God (which the apostle himself affirms) in order to one and the same effect; — that is, that he operateth in one and the same kind of efficiency with God, morally or persuadingly, not necessitating; for where one necessitates and another only persuades, they cannot be said to cooperate or work the one with the other, no more than two, when the one runs and the other walks a soft pace, can be said to go or walk together. But when two persuade in one and the same action, one may persuade more effectually by many degrees than the other, may have a peculiar tact or method of persuading above the other.”

That which is now undertaken to be proved is, that God doth make use of exhortations as means for the establishing of the saints in believing and for confirming their perseverance. This is that which by us is assigned unto them, and this is all that the nature of them doth require that they should be used unto, the certainty of the event whereunto they are applied depending not on their nature, as such means, but on the purpose of God to use them for that end which he hath designed and promised to bring about and accomplish.

Before he ventures on any opposition to the intendment of this assertion, he phraseth it so as either to render it unintelligible to himself and others, or (if any thing be signified by the expressions he useth) to divert it wholly from the mind of them and their sense with whom he hath to do. Who ever said that “God by exhortations doth influence the wills of men upon such terms as to make them unfrustrably and necessitatingly willing to persevere?” Or, can he tell us what is the meaning of these terms, “Unfrustrably, necessitatingly willing to persevere?” Though it is easy to guess at what he here intends, yet it is far above my shallow capacity to reach the sense of these expressions. How any of these terms, relating to the event and issue of things, [are used,] and in what sense they may be used, I have often showed. As relating either to the manner of God’s operation in and upon the will, or the will’s elicitation of its own act (any farther than by relation to that axiom, “Unumquodque quod est, dum est, necesse est”), they express neither our sense nor any body’s else that I know. That which I shall make bold to take up for Mr Goodwin’s intendment is, that God doth not by exhortations effectually cause the saints to persevere. To be willing to persevere is to persevere; to be “necessitatingly willing” is I know not what. Now, if such an efficacy be ascribed to exhortations as teaches the certainty of the effect, so that the certainty of the effect as to the event should be asserted to depend on them as such means, this is nothing to us. We ascribe an efficacy to them in proprio genere, but the certainty of that event to whose production they concur, we affirm, as hath been abundantly declared, to depend on other causes.