Wesley Corpus

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.’” Most sure, if you endure to the end. “Whosoever believeth in him” to the end “shall never die.” 77. “But, to come more home to the point: I say, this text is so far from militating against perseverance, that it greatly establishes it.” You are very unhappy in your choice of texts to establish this doctrine. Two of these establish it, just as this does, as we have seen already. Now, pray let us hear how you prove perseverance from this text. “Very easily. Here are two sorts of persons mentioned; he that lives by faith, and he that draws back to perdition.” Nay, this is the very question. I do not allow that two persons are mentioned in the text. I have shown it is one and the same person, who once lived by faith, and afterwards draws back. Yet thus much I allow : Two sorts of believers are in the next verse mentioned; some that draw back, and some that persevere. And I allow, the Apostle adds, “We are not of them who draw back unto perdition.” But what will you infer from thence? This is so far from contradicting what has been observed before, that it manifestly confirms it. It is a farther proof, that there are those who draw back unto perdition, although these were not of that number. “I must still aver, that the text is rightly translated; which I prove thus:-- “The original text runs thus: ‘Behold, his soul who is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.” (Hab. ii. 4.) “This the Seventy render, Exy vros sixntal, ex su?oxsi n Jux" as sw avra o 8s 3.xxios ex arissa; we &nts rai, “If a man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But the just shall live by my faith;’ that is, faith in me. “Now, here the man, in the former clause, who ‘draws back, is distinguished from him, in the following clause, who lives by faith.