After these was Gregory I., who, lib, i. Epist. xcix., speaks to the same purpose with them in these words: " Redemptor noster, Dei hominumque mediator, conditionis humante non immemor, sic imis summa conjungit, ut ipse in unitate permanens ita temporalia, occulto instinctu, pia consulens moderatione disponat, quatenus de ejus manu antiquus hostis nuUatenus rapiat, quos ante secula iiitra sinum matris ecclesise adunandos esse prse- scivit; nam et si quisquam eorum inter quos degit, statibus motus ad tem- pus ut ])almes titubet, radix tamen rectse fidei, quiB ex occulto prodit, divino judicio virens manet, quie accepto tempore fructum de se ostentare valeat, qui latebat." This is the sum of what we contend for, — namely, that all those whom God hath predestinated to be added to the church, receiving a saving faith, though they may be shaken, yet on that account the root abides firm, their faith never utterly perisheth, but in due time brings fortli accepted fruits again.
And most expressive to our purpose is that discourse of his which you have, lib. xxxiv. Moral, cap. viii. Saith he, " Aurum, quod pravis diaboli persuasionibus quasi lutum sterni potuerit, aurum ante Dei oculos nunquam fuit, qui enim seduci quandoque non reversuri possunt, quasi habitam sanetitatem ante oculos hominum videntur amittere, sed earn ante oculos Dei nunquam habuerunt."
The exclusion of those from being true believers who may be seduced and fall away doth most eminently infer the perseverance of all them who are so.
Add unto these CEcumenius (though he be one of a later date), and these shall suffice for the period of time relating to the Pelagian controversy. Saith he, in Epist. ad Eph. cap. i. 14, 'O «g3a£wv 'Trigrovrai to o\or Tivd rohvv v'/o8i(Jiav xai rcl fxupia uyada, 'inarov/j.s'jog 6 ©soc b'ibunsv doia^ojva rr/g s-ov^avlou x\7ioov('!jjiag to " Ayiov Ilvi\j,au. All is confirmed and ratified by the earnest of the Spirit, that is given to them that believe.
Of those that lived after the days of the forementioned (I mean all of them but the last), that I may not cloy the reader, I shall not mention
68 A PREFACE TO THE READER.
any, until the business of divinity and the profession of it -was taken up by the schoolmen and canonists; who, from a mixture of divine and human principles, framed the whole body of it anew, and gave it over into the possession of the present Romish church, moulded for the most part to the worldly, carnal interests of them on whom they had their dependency in their several generations.
But yet as there was none of those but, one way or other, was eminently conducing to the carrying on of the mystery of iniquity, by depraving, perverting, and corrupting, one truth or other of the gospel, so all of them did not in all things equally corrupt their ways, but gave some testimony more or less to some truths, as they received them from those that went before them. So fell it out in the matter of the grace of God and the cor- ruption of the nature of man. Though some of them laboured to corrode and corrupt the ancient received doctrine thereof, so some, again, con- tended with all their might, in their way and by their arguments, to de- fend it ; as is evident in the instance of Bradwardin crying out to God and man to help in the cause of God against the Pelagians in his days, in particular complaining of the great master of their divinity. So that notwithstanding all their corruptions, these ensuing principles passed cur- rently amongst the most eminent of them as to the doctrine under con- sideration, which continue in credit with many of their sophistical succes- sors to this day: —
1. That perseverance is a grace of God, bestowed according to predes- tination, or election, on men; that is, that God gives it to believers that are predestinated and elected.
2. That on whomsoever the grace of perseverance is bestowed, they do persevere to the end ; and it is impossible in some sense that they should otherwise do.
3. That none who are not predestinate, what grace soever they may be made partakers of in this world, shall constantly continue to the end.
4. That no believer can by his own strength or power (incited or stirred up by what manlike or rational considerations soever) persevere in the faith, the grace of perseverance being a gift of God.
It is true, that, their judgments being perverted by sundry other cor- ruj)t ])rinciples, about the nature and efficacy of sacraments, with their conveyance of grace " ex opere operate," and out of ignorance of the righteousness of God and the real work of regeneration, they generally maintain (though Bradwardin punctually expressed himself to be of another mind) that many persons not predestinate may come to believe, yet fall away and perish.
JSow, the truth is, it is properly no part of the controversy under con- sideration, whether, or how far, and in what sense, men, by reason of the profession and participation of ordinances, with the work and eflect of common grace upon them, may be said to be true believers ; but the whole, upon the matter of what we plead for, is comprised in the assertions now ascribed to them: which that it is done upon sutlicient grounds will be manifest by calling in some few of the most eminent of them, to speak in their own woi'ds what their thoughts were in this matter.