Of Perseverance
1 Peter 1:5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation.
The fifth and last fruit of sanctification is perseverance in grace. The heavenly inheritance is kept for the saints (1 Peter 1:4), and they are kept to the inheritance in my text: Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation. The Apostle asserts a saint's stability and permanency in grace. The saints' perseverance is much oppugned by Papists and Arminians, but it is not the less true because it is opposed. A Christian's main comfort depends upon this doctrine of perseverance; take away this, and you much prejudice religion, and cut the sinews of all cheerful endeavors. Before I come to the full handling and discussing this great point, let me first clear the sense of it, which I shall first do by way of concession or grant. When I say believers do persevere, first I grant that such as are so only in possession, may fall away (2 Timothy 4:10); Demas has forsaken us. Blazing comets soon evaporate. A building on sand will fall (Matthew 7:26). Seeming grace may be lost; no wonder to see a bough fall from the tree that is only tied on. Hypocrites are only tied on to Christ by an external profession; they are not ingrafted. Who ever thought artificial motion would hold long? The hypocrite's motion is only artificial, not vital. All blossoms do not ripen into fruit. Secondly, I grant that if believers were left to stand upon their own legs, they might fall finally. Some of the angels who were stars full of light and glory, yet did actually lose their grace; and if those pure angels fell from grace, much more would the godly who have so much sin to betray them, if they were not upheld by a superior power. 3. I grant, true believers, though they do not fall away actually and lose all their grace, yet their grace may fail in the degree, and they may make a great breach upon their sanctification. Grace may be moritura, not mortua — dying but not dead (Revelation 3:2): Strengthen the things which are ready to die. Grace may be like fire in the embers, though not quenched, yet the flame is gone out. This decay of grace I shall show in two particulars. 1. The lively actings of grace may be suspended (Revelation 2:4): You have left your first love. Grace may be like a sleepy habit; the godly may act faintly in religion, the pulse of their affections may beat low. The wise virgins slumbered (Matthew 25:5). The exercise of grace may be hindered, as when the course of water is stopped and does not run. 2. Instead of grace exercising in the godly, corruption may exercise; instead of patience, murmuring; instead of heavenliness, earthliness. How did pride put forth itself in the disciples, when they strove who should be greatest? How did lust put forth in David? Thus lively and vigorous may corruption be in the regenerate; they may fall into enormous sins. But though all this be granted, yet they do not, penitus excidere, fall away finally from grace. David did not quite lose his grace, for then why did he pray, Take not away your Holy Spirit from me? He had not quite lost the Spirit. As Eutiches when he fell from a window (Acts 20) and all thought he was dead — No, says Paul, there is life in him — so David fell foully, but there was the life of grace in him. Though the saints may come to that pass they have but little faith, yet not to have no faith; though their grace may be drawn low, yet not drawn dry; though grace may be abated, not abolished; though the wise virgins slumbered, yet their lamps were not quite gone out. Grace, when it is at the lowest, shall revive and flourish, as when Samson had lost his strength, his hair grew again, and he renewed his strength. Having thus explained the proposition, I come now to the amplifying this great doctrine of the saints' perseverance.
Question 1. By what means do Christians come to persevere?
Response 1. By the manuduction and help of ordinances, prayer, Word, sacraments. Christians do not arrive at perseverance when they sit still and do nothing. It is not with us as with passengers in a ship, who are carried to the end of their voyage, and they sit still in the ship; or as it is with noblemen, who have their rents brought in without their toil or labor; but we arrive at salvation in the use of means, as a man comes to the end of a race by running, to a victory by fighting (Matthew 26:41): Watch and pray. As Paul said (Acts 27:31): Except you abide in the ship, you cannot be saved. Believers shall come to shore at last, arrive at Heaven, but except they abide in the ship, namely in the use of the ordinances, they cannot be saved. The ordinances cherish grace; as they beget grace, so they are the breast-milk by which it is nourished and preserved to eternity.
2. Auxilio Spiritus — by the sacred influence and concurrence of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is continually at work in the heart of a believer, to carry on grace to perseverance; it drops on fresh oil to keep the lamp of grace burning. The Spirit excites, strengthens, increases grace, and makes a Christian go from one step of faith to another, till he comes to the end of his faith — salvation (1 Peter 1:9). It is a fine expression of the Apostle (2 Timothy 1:14): The Holy Ghost which dwells in us. He who dwells in a house keeps the house in repair; the Spirit dwelling in a believer keeps grace in repair. Grace is compared to a river of the water of life (John 7:38). This river can never be dried up, because God's Spirit is a spring which continually feeds it.
3. Grace is carried on to perseverance by Christ's daily intercession. As the Spirit is at work in the heart, so is Christ at work in Heaven. Christ is ever praying that the saints' grace may hold out (John 17:11): Conserva illos — Father, keep those whom you have given me; keep them as stars in their orb, keep them as jewels, that they may not be lost. Father, keep them. That prayer Christ made for Peter was the copy of his prayer he now makes for believers (Luke 22:32): I have prayed for you that your faith fail not — [in non-Latin alphabet] — that it be not totally eclipsed. How can the children of such prayers perish?
Question 2. By what arguments may we prove the saints' perseverance?
Resp. 1. A veritate Dei, from the Truth of God. God has both asserted it and promised it. 1. God has asserted it (1 John 3:9): His Seed remains in him (1 John 2:27): The anointing you have received of him abides in you. 2. As God has asserted it, so he has promised it: The Truth of God, the most brilliant Pearl of his Crown, is laid a pawn in the promise (John 10:28): I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish. (Jeremiah 32:42) I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. God will so love his people, that he will not forsake them; and they shall so fear him that they shall not forsake him. If a believer should not persevere, God should break his promise (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever, in righteousness and loving kindness. God does not marry his people to himself, and then divorce them; he hates putting away (Malachi 2:16). God's love ties the marriage knot so fast, that neither death nor hell can break it apart.
2. The second argument is, a potentia Dei, from the Power of God. In the text we are kept by the power of God to salvation; every person in the Trinity has a hand in making a believer persevere. God the Father establishes (2 Corinthians 1:21), God the Son confirms (1 Corinthians 1:8), God the Holy Ghost seals (Ephesians 1:13), so that it is the power of God that keeps us. Alas, we are not kept by our own power. The Pelagians held that man by his own power might overcome temptation and persevere. But St. Austin confutes them: Man, says he, prays to God for perseverance, which would be absurd if he had power of himself to persevere. And says St. Austin, if all the power be inherent in a man's self, then why should not one persevere as well as another? Why not Judas as well as Peter? So that it is not by any other than the power of God that we are kept: as the Lord preserved Israel from perishing in the wilderness till he brought them to Canaan; the same care will he take, if not in a miraculous, yet a spiritual, invisible manner, in preserving his people in a state of grace, till he brings them to the celestial Canaan. As the heathens feigned of Atlas, that he did bear up the heavens from falling: the power of God is that Atlas which bears up the saints from falling. It is disputed whether grace of itself may not perish (as Adam's), yet sure I am, grace kept by the power of God cannot perish.
3. The third argument is taken ab Electione, from God's electing love; such as God has from all eternity elected to glory cannot fall away finally; but every true believer is elected to glory, therefore he cannot fall away. What can frustrate election, or make God's decree void? This argument stands like Mount Zion which cannot be moved. Insomuch that some of the Papists hold that such who have absolute election cannot fall away (2 Timothy 2:19): The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are his. The foundation of God is nothing else but God's decree in election; and this stands sure — God will not alter it, others cannot.
4. The fourth argument is taken, Ab Unione cum Christo, from believers' union with Christ. They are knit to Christ, as the members to the head by the nerve and ligament of faith, so that they cannot be broken off (Ephesians 5:23). What was once said of Christ's natural body, is true of his mystical — a bone of it shall not be broken. As it is not possible to sever the leaven and the dough, when they are once mingled and kneaded together; so it is impossible, when Christ and believers are once united, ever to be separated: Christ and his members make one Christ. Now is it possible that any part of Christ should perish? How can Christ lose any member of his body mystical and be perfect? In short, Si unus excidat quare non & alter? If one believer may be broken off from Christ, then by the same rule why not another? Why not all? And so Christ should be a head without a body.
5. The fifth argument is taken, ab Emptione, from the nature of a purchase. A man will not lay down his money for a purchase which may be lost, and the fee-simple alienated. Christ died that he might purchase us as a people to himself forever (Hebrews 9:12): Having obtained eternal redemption for us. Would Christ (think we) have shed his blood, that we might believe in him for a while, and then fall away? Do we think Christ will lose his purchase?
6. The sixth argument is, A Victoria supra mundum, from a believer's victory over the world. The argument stands thus: he who overcomes the world does persevere in grace; but a believer does overcome the world, therefore he perseveres in grace (1 John 5:4): This is the victory over the world, even your faith. A man may lose a single battle in the field, yet at last win the victory. A child of God may be foiled in a single battle against temptation (as Peter was) but at last he is victorious. Now if a saint be crowned victor, if the world be conquered by him, he must needs persevere. I come next to answer some objections of the Arminians.
1. The first objection of the Arminians is, if a believer shall persevere in grace, then to what purpose are all those admonitions in Scripture, Let him take heed lest he fall (1 Corinthians 10:12), and (Hebrews 4:1): Let us fear lest any of you seem to come short. These admonitions seem to be superfluous and vain, if a saint shall certainly persevere.
Answ. No, these counsels and admonitions are necessary to caution believers against carelessness; they are as goads and spurs to quicken them to a greater diligence in working out salvation. These admonitions do not imply the saints can fall away, but they are preservatives to keep them from falling away. Christ told some of his disciples they should abide in him, yet he exhorts them to abide in him (John 15). His exhorting them was not in the least to question their abiding in him, but to awaken their diligence, and make them pray the harder that they might abide in him.
2. The second objection is (Hebrews 6:4): it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have felt the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance.
This place of Scripture has no force in it; for the Apostle here speaks of hypocrites, he shows how far they may go, yet fall away. 1. They who were once enlightened.] Men may have great illuminations, yet fall away. Was not Judas enlightened? 2. They have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost.] The common gifts of the Spirit, not the special grace. 3. They have tasted the good word of God.] Tasting here is opposed to eating; the hypocrite may have a kind of taste of the sweetness of religion, but this taste does not nourish. There is a great deal of difference between one that takes a gargle, and a cordial: the gargle only washes his mouth, he tastes it, and puts it out again; but a cordial is drank down, which nourishes and cheers the spirits. The hypocrite, who has only some smack or taste of religion (as one tastes a gargle) may fall away. 4. And have felt the powers of the world to come.] That is, they may have such apprehensions of the glory of heaven, as to be affected with it, and seem to have some joy in the thoughts of it, yet fall away; as in the parable of the stony ground (Matthew 13:20). All this is spoken of the hypocrite; but it does not therefore prove, that the true believer, who is effectually wrought upon, can fall away. Though comets fall, it does not therefore follow that true stars fall: that this Scripture speaks not of sound believers, is clear from Verse 9. But we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation.
