Obs. They may be assured that they shall hold out to the end.
I think many of you think these two points to be so clear that it is un- necessary to divide them ; for if we be assured of our salvation, there must needs be perseverance to the end, for what kind of assurance is it to be in the state of grace to-day, and not to be to-morrow ?
But if you ask some degenerated followers of Luther, that leave him in his sweet and comfortable doctrines, and take up some errors of his, and some others that would divide these, hot they are against the papists for denying the doctrine of assurance of salvation ; but when they come to per- severance, they hold that a Christian may fall away altogether. These things cannot stand together, for undoubtedly it is most sure and just and right that these truths follow one the other, assurance of salvation and per- severance. And, therefore, if they maintain that we ought to be assured of salvation, and not doubt of God's love, surely then they cannot, with the same spirit and the same ground, doubt that God, that hath begun a work, will finish it to the day of the Lord. There is no question but that the one follows the other, because an earnest, as it assures us of salvation, so it assures of perseverance. Herein an earnest difiers from a pawn or pledge. A pledge, it is given, but it is taken away again ; but an earnest, when it is once given, is never taken away again, but as it is a part of the bargain, so it is
* Cf. Eichard Blachynden's exhaustive treatise, ' Whether a Certainty of being in a State of Salvation be Attainable,' &c. 1685. — G.
2 COKINTHIANS CHAP. I, VEB. 22. 409
filled and made up with the bargain. So grace is a part of glory, and is never taken away, but made up with perfection of glory.
From this we see, then, that he that is in the state of grace is unde- feasible, he perseveres to the end, because he hath the earnest of the Spirit. If God should take away his Spirit from him, he should take away his earnest, and if he takes away his earnest, he takes away that for which he gives it, assurance of salvation, and so should overthrow all. But God never repents of his earnest. Man ofttimes repents of his earnest, and wisheth he had not made such a fruitless bargain ; but God never doth, but where he gives the first-fruits, he makes up the harvest ; where he lays the foundation, he makes up the building ; where he gives earnest, he makes up the bargain ; where he begins a good work, he tinisheth it to the day of the Lord ; once his, for ever his. We cannot be so sure of anything as we may be of God's love for the time to come. We have a common speech amongst us, I know what I have, but what I shall have I know not. It is an ill speech. Thou knowest not what thou hast, for these worldly things, a man hath them so to-day as they may take to themselves wings and be gone to-morrow, for they are but vanity. I may be as rich as Job in the morning, and as poor as Job at night. So that a man knows not what he hath ; but for the time to come for grace and glory he may say. Though I know not what I have, or how long I shall have it, I know what I shall have, * I know that neither things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ,' Rom. viii. 38.
So that you see here a foundation of the sweet and comfortable doctrine of perseverance. Grace is the earnest of glory, and it doth but differ in degrees. The beginning of glory is here in grace, the consummation of it hereafter. We are anointed kings here, we shall be kings in heaven. We are sons here in this world, we shall be heirs in heaven. We shall be adopted there in soul and body, here we are adopted in soul. For in this life Christ's tirst coming was for the soul, his second coming is for body and soul. Therefore the resurrection is called the ' day of regeneration,' Mat. xix. 28, because then it shall be perfected: here regeneration is only begun.
So that in respect that the work of the Spirit, the graces of the Spirit are called an * earnest,' we may know and be assured of perseverance in grace, and that that which we have now in the beginning shall be accomplished. *
0 ! how should this set us upon desires to have the blessed work of the Spirit upon us, to have the Spirit to set his seal upon us, to be Christ's, to have this earnest, and to get more and more earnest till we have the full bargain accomplished in heaven.
Third! I/, I told you that an earnest is part of the whole : they therefore that have not the earnest cannot look for the bargain. The observation hence is, that — -