T. Lewis.
PERSEVERANCE.— The apostolic doctrine of perseverance is (a) conceived in a purely practical experiential sense, and (b) comprises three parts: a religious persuasion, a moral endeavour, and the entire dependence of the latter on the former.
The former consideration distinguislies it at once from subsequent theological formuhe whether of mediiBval or reformed Christendom ; the latter exhibits its characteri.stic contents. There was little special interest directed to the subject, and no controversy, till the time of St. Augustine, who, impelled by his predestinarian idea, explicitly altirmed a ' donum perseverantiae ' to the justified, a supernatural gift of grace to the elect by which they are kept indefectible, t The gift was solely of the Divine mercy, unconditional ; it followed as a necessary sequence from personal election. All who are predestinated receive the Divine grace, are born again of the Spirit, shall certainly per- severe to the end, and can never fall away either totally or iinally from the state of grace. Their possession of the gift is further the source of assurance of final salvation. The ' final persever- ance of the saints ' is gratuitous, iiresistible, in- amissible, and certain.
The Augustinian positions continued throughout the Middle Ages to agitate, in the way of action and reaction, the thought of theologians. The Council of Orange t dealt with current perplexity, but in a superticial manner. The constructive genius of St. Thomas Aquinas systematized the general idea of St. Augustine in consistency with numerous points of doctrine that had emerged between St. Augustine's day and his.§ Of the Reforming divines both Luther and Calvin held to its strict statement : Calvin, like St. Augustine, treats of it particularly.il The Council of Trent, ostensibly opposing the Reformed heresies, de- parted widely from genuine Augustinianism. While condemning PelagianLsm in asserting that the justified cannot persevere without a special help of God, but with it can, it yet makes the power of perseverance to reside in the human will co-operative with Divine grace. The Divine gift, while wholly of God's grace, is neither irresistible nor indefectible : it may be lo.st not only partially and temporarily but totally and finally. Lost grace may be restored. Of final perseverance
* Areopagitica, ed. Oxford, 1894, p. 62.
t Cf. his de Dono perseverantim and de Correptione et gratia.
t Second Council, a.d. 629. It affirmed merely the general necessity of gr&ce to good works. Cf. C. J. Hefele, Councils of the Church, Eng. tr. iv. (Edinburgh, 1895] 162-167.
§ Cf. Summa Theotog., II. i. 109-114 (ed. Migne, Paris, 1896).
J Cf. Institutes, ch. ui. §§ 11-14.
there never can be full assurance. The one cer- tuiiity open to the Siiint is the obligation to the steadfast u.se of the whole ensemble of spiritual means whereby the human will is enabled to ])er- severe unto the end and so be preserved in the state of ^race. Of such means the chief are the impetrative power of prayer and the sacranients. The ' final perseverance of the saints,' while of Divine gratuity, is not irresistible nor inamissible, nor certain.*
Within Protestantism strict Calvinism sufi'ercd various mitigations at the hands of Calvinists themselves ; t and direct attack from the Armin- ians (later, Wesleyans), who opposed the doctrine on its unconditional side,* arguing that those who were once regenerated may by grieving the Sjiirit of God fall away and perish everlastingly. The Synod of Dort condemned Arminianism and re- affirmed ' high ' Calvinism. §
The controversy has in modem theology lost its force. Its vitality is seen to depend on a facile confusion of the two factors entering into the experience it seeks to explain : viz. the religious and the moral. It is part of the religious con- sciousness to ascribe sovereignty to God and to trace the causation of everything to the eternal purpose. This is a definite experience which can be seen in every prophet. He knows that there is nothing haphazard in his life ; that everything in it is caused not casual ; that the cause came as a call to which his soul responds ; that this, true in the smaller things of life, is equally true of the great things of the soul, in which, as it seems, the spirit of man is more a passive recipient than an active agent, for all the nigher reserves of the religious life are mystical. This religious conviction is dis- tinctive of all the supreme spiritual personalities. In their view there is no hint of a dual causality of the soul's life of grace. The religious conscious- ness is constituted by the sense of dependence upon God. The moral life is as truly constituted by the invincible exercise of independent force of character, and the more dependent the spiritual sense the more intense the moral independence. For grace and faith are ' lively ' — vital : they have moral energy impelling to action, not repose. Thus in the actual experience of the Christian life a firm belief in the doctrine of perseverance excludes all carnal security and laxity : it is ever accom- panied by a deep sense of the possibility of failure and of the absolute necessity of using the utmost etlort in order to win final success. There is no perseverance without conscious determined per- severing. These two constituent features are not to be separated, since they have neither independ- ent origin nor independent exercise.ll It is not that the one is of God's gift, the other of man's ettbrt and initiative. It is that the Divine grace besetting man's heart, when turned to Him, en- girds and subdues every interior faculty and quality (Ph 3'-'), implanting in each the dynamic of Divine afl'ection unto constant, increasing ethical issue, ' working mightily unto every good word and work.' The Christian faith and ethics co-exist in inseparable unity. The steady tendency of re- ligion is towards holiness ; the grace of God in Christ is wholly regulated by the inner purpose