The case is clear, long experience hath made this manifest, it needs no proof. I grant we are apt, prone, and ready, to forsake God ; but is God as ready to forsake us? Our minds are changeable; is his so likewise? Whom God hath justified, hath not Christ assured, that it is “his Father’s will to give them a kingdom?” Which kingdom , notwithstanding, shall not otherwise be given them, than “if they continue grounded and stablished in the faith, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel;” “if they abide in love and holiness.” Our Saviour therefore, when he spake of the sheep effectually called, and truly gathered into his fold, “I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hands;” in promising to save them, promised, no doubt, to preserve them in that without the which there can be no salvation, as also from that whereby salvation is irremediably lost. (A Learned Discourse of Justification, Works, and How the Foundation of Faith Is Overthrown 26)
Happy Lord’s Day, everyone.
