Answer 1. To fall totally is to have grace altogether dead in us, both in the act and in the habit; no life either in branches, bole, or root; no seed remaining in us, neither any root of the matter.

2. Finally to fall is never to rise again, never to recover by repentance; but to die in sin unrepented of and unpardoned.

Third Inquiry. What scriptural arguments can be assigned, or reasons given, to evidence that this special saving grace cannot be totally and finally lost?

Answer The following are the arguments and reasons assigned why the chosen of God cannot totally and finally fall away from grace.

1. Argument is taken from God the Father in His electing love. If the love of the Father to His chosen ones is an unchangeable love (Jer 31:3); if with Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, (Jas 1:17); if none can pluck out of the Father's hand (Joh 10:29), then His chosen ones cannot totally and finally fall away. Neither the force nor fraud of hell can prevail against the Father's electing love, which runs parallel with eternity. "God is love" (1Jo 4:8), the everlasting love must needs flow from an everlasting God. He looketh on His, and saith unto them, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love" and, therefore, as the effect of it, "I have drawn thee with the cords of loving kindness" (Jer 31:3). It is to be declared of and from the Lord unto the Church, that "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing" (Zep 3:17). Hence Paul, having spoken of some apostates falling away, comforts the minds of believers, saying, that their standing is firm, because of election, or rather because of electing love (2Ti 2:19). This he compares to a foundation and a seal, two things of the greatest validity and security. Believers stand as upon a stable rock, and they are placed as upon a mountain of brass, so cannot totally and finally fall; for the Father is not inconstant in his love; He doth not love to-day and hate to-morrow.

2. The second argument is taken from God the Son in His redeeming love, which is unalterable.

Thereby are all the members of Christ united unto their Head. Neither principalities nor powers shall be able to separate them from the love of God in Christ (Ro 8:38-39). And the gates of hell cannot prevail against His Church (Mt 16:18). If one member may be broken off from Christ, then all may; one having no more privilege than another in respect of their state and standing; so Christ may be supposed, upon this hypothesis, to be a head without a body or members and to have died in vain; both which are grossly absurd. Christ prayed for perseverance for His; that Peter's faith should not fail (Lu 22:32), and that His disciples should be kept from evil (Joh 17:15), yea, and all believers (Joh 17:20), and what Christ prays for, He is always heard therein (Joh 11:41,42). Christ also promises perseverance to His. "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me" (Joh 6:37). He will not utterly withdraw His mercy from them under their severest correction (Ps 89:31-33). "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loveth them unto the end" (Joh 13:1), and loses not one of them (Joh 6:39). He is a Saviour to all parts of the body (Eph 5:23). Saints are in Christ's hands (De 33:3), and it is as easy to pluck a star out of Heaven as a saint out of Christ's hands (Joh 10:28); they are all, and they shall all be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto eternal salvation. "Sanctified (set apart) by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called" (Jude 1:1 1Pe 1:5).

3. The third argument is taken from God the Holy Ghost, in His sanctification love. If the operation of the Spirit on the hearts of believers be a sure and certain operation, then true believers cannot totally and finally fall away.

The truth of this will appear in that the Spirit's operation is compared in Scripture; (1.) To an earnest. (2.) To a seal. (3.) To a witness.

(a.) To an earnest. "God hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit" (2Co 5:5). It is the earnest penny of our salvation, not the pawn or pledge, which is to be returned again. The earnest is a part of the bargain, and the first fruits of Heaven. Now the earnest would be lost if the bargain of salvation stand not, and he that hath the earnest be not saved; and if such an one be damned, he carries the earnest of the Spirit along with him into hell, which must needs be absurd.

"But Christ's to the end shall endure, As sure as the earnest is given; More happy, but not more secure, The glorified spirits in Heaven."

(b.) To a seal. Faith is our seal; assurance of faith is God's seal. He that believeth hath set to his seal that God is true (Joh 3:33). "After that ye believed ye were sealed" (Eph 1:13). They first believed and then were sealed, i.e., fully assured. God honours our sealing to His truth by His sealing with His Spirit; as the earnest makes the bargain, so the seal ratifies and confirms it. And the broad seal of Heaven must needs be more unalterable than that of the Medes and Persians.

(c.) To a witness. "He that believeth hath the witness in himself" (1Jo 5:10). And there can be no exceptions taken to this witness who abides for ever in the elect, and is called the Spirit of truth (Joh 14:17), which "teacheth you all things, and is truth, and is no lie" (1Jo 2:27); even the eternal Spirit (Heb 9:14), a witness that can neither die nor lie. So that believers, whose bodies are called "the temple of the Holy Ghost" (1Co 6:19), may not become a habitation of devils. This would make Satan rejoice and insult over God (as if stronger than He) could he so dispossess Him, as he is dispossessed by Him (Lu 11:21,22).

4. The fourth argument in defense of final perseverance respects spiritual enemies. If no spiritual enemy can prevail against a true believer totally and finally, then a true believer cannot totally and finally fall away.

(a.) Satan cannot; for that wicked one cannot touch them with any of his deadly touches (1Jo 5:18), but God treads him under their feet (Ro 16:20). The seed of the serpent may nibble at the heels of the seed of the woman, but cannot mortally wound the heart; for his armour is taken away (Lu 11:21), and his works are destroyed (Heb 2:14). Christ in them, the hope of glory, is stronger than he that is in the world (1Jo 4:4).

(b.) The world cannot; for Christ gives them faith to conquer the world (1Jo 5:4), yea, He Himself has overcome the world for them (Joh 16:33). He makes them to be higher-region men, above all storms (Pr 15:24); they are made kings unto God; they have a royal spirit to live above the frown and flatteries of the world; and the world, even all sublunary things, are beneath them under their feet.

(c.) Their fleshly lusts cannot; which have not dominion over those that are under grace (Ro 6:14). Though all real Shulamites find the presence of the two armies (So 6:13), the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh (Ga 5:17), so that they cannot be as they would; yet the issue of the contest is not doubtful. A troop may for a time overcome Gad; coming upon him like bees (as David's phrase is, Ps 118:12), yet Gad shall overcome at the last (Ge 49:19). Believers are more than conquerors, even triumphers, over all their spiritual enemies, through Christ who loves them; and no created power can prevail against them (Ro 8:35-39). Then "thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ" (2Co 2:14).

5. Then nature of saintship proves final perseverance; if saintship be a service, subjection, sonship and marriage, then saints cannot fall away totally and finally.

(a.) It is a service. The service of God transcends all other services; men take a servant for a year, and an apprentice for seven years, but our Heavenly master for life. We are to serve God in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives (Lu 1:74,75). A servant of God is like the Jewish servant that was bored through the ear, in token of perpetual servitude (De 15:17). Religion is a perpetual obligation.

(b.) It is subjection. It sets up God to be our King, and our allegiance is for life; it cannot be disclaimed (Mt 19:27). Born of God by the grace of God; and, if we be born subjects into the kingdom of this gracious Lord and King, we must die His subjects; there is no alienation.

(c.) It is a sonship. And this goes beyond the two former similitudes; a servant may be at liberty when his time is expired; a subject may change his earthly sovereign by removing out of his native country; yet a son cannot change his father, and he abides in the house for ever (Joh 8:35). Now as God hath begotten us of His own will by the Spirit of regeneration; causing us to come to him with weeping, and leading us with supplications, because he is our Father (Jer 31:9), and because of the relationship subsisting between Him and us He makes known His Abba love to our souls (Ga 3:26). Therefore shall we persevere; God is our Father, and we are called the children of God.

(d.) It is a marriage state, and that is for life too (Ho 2:19; Isa 54:5; Re 19:7; Ro 7:1-4), and in this state God hates putting away (Mal 2:16).

6. In respect to the saints themselves, If the names of the saints are written in Heaven; if they are kept for Heaven, as Heaven is kept for them; and if they are compared to things that neither fade nor fail, then they cannot totally and finally fall.

(a.) Their names are written in Heaven (Php 4:3; Da 12:1). "Rejoice because your names are written in Heaven" (Lu 10:20). To be enrolled in the book of life must needs hold our perseverance, for there is no blotting or blurring of that book; Satan cannot, for it is above his reach; and God will not, for then his work would not be perfect and glorious if it admitted of blottings.

(b.) Saints are kept as in a double garrison, or as with a guard; Heaven for them, and they for Heaven; they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation (1Pe 1:4,5). Christ is their Lord, keeper, and if God had intended the loss of one saint, He would not have invested Christ with all power in Heaven and earth to undertake for His children, and to save them to the very uttermost (Mt 11:27; Heb 7:25).

(c.) Saints are compared to a tree that fades not (Ps 1:3); to a cedar in Lebanon (Ps 92:12; Ho 14:5); to Mount Zion that cannot be moved but abideth for ever (Ps 125:1); and to a house built on a rock (Mt 7:24). Though they fall, God raises them up (Ps 37:24; Pr 24:16). The Lord is with them in their old age (Isa 46:4), and is their guide even unto death (Ps 48:14), so that they cannot totally and finally be lost.

7. The final perseverance of the saints may be argued, seventhly, from the unchangeableness of the covenant of grace.

That which stands upon two unchangeable persons, and ratified before an unchangeable witness, must be itself unchangeable, and the covenant of grace is so.

(a.) It stands upon two unchangeable bottoms, even the Word and oath of God. When God made promise to Abraham, He swore by Himself, He being "willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath" that "we might have a strong consolation" (Heb 6:17,18). God's Word is as gold purified, which loses nothing of its weight, though cast a thousand times into the fire. We commonly say that the bare word of an honest man is as good as a bond. How much more the Word of the God of truth that cannot lie? And this Word is confirmed with an oath, when God swears by His holiness that He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips.

(b.) It is made between two unchangeable persons (Mal 3:6; Heb 13:8). In this covenant there is a mutual stipulation. The Father, in covenant, gave to Christ a people (Joh 17:6; 9:12,24). The Son confederates to take man's nature upon Him in the fulness of time; and in that nature to obey, magnify, and make honourable the law, and to answer the demands of Justice in our room and stead, by shedding of His own most precious blood (Ps 40:6,7; Heb 10:5-7; Eph 5:26,27). Hence it is called the blood of the everlasting covenant (Heb 13:20).

(c.) It is ratified before an unchangeable witness, even the Holy Ghost. Indeed the Father and the Son, are their own Witnesses (Joh 5:32,36,37), yet the Holy Ghost is the Witness of that covenant, agreement and stipulation which was between them; as Christ hath a greater witness than that of man, so hath the covenant also, even the witness of the eternal Spirit. Thus the covenant is called "everlasting" (Heb 13:20; Isa 54:8,10; Jer 32:40), and "the sure mercies of David" (Isa 55:3). Sure on God's part, who cannot fail in His good will to the elect, and sure also on their part, who shall have no will to depart from God. The latter is equally covenanted for with the former; therefore though the covenant permits a fall, yet it always ensures repentance after the fall, as in David and Peter, etc. The covenant doth absolutely promise the grace of perseverance, and all things that accompany salvation to the elect, even to the end of their lives.

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