Wesley Corpus

But you say, “It cannot be understood of eternal death; because they might be delivered from it by repentance and reformation.” And why might they not by such repentance as is mentioned in the thirty-first verse be delivered from eternal death? “But the whole chapter,” you think, “has nothing to do with the spiritual and eternal affairs of men.” I believe every impartial man will think quite the contrary, if he reads calmly either the beginning of it,-‘‘All souls are mine, saith the Lord God; the soul that sinneth, it shall die;” where I can by no means allow that by the death of the soul is meant only a temporal affliction; or the conclusion,-‘‘Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall * See a pamphlet, entitled, “The Doctrine of the Saints' Final Perseverance, Asserted and Vindicated.” 244 PREDESTINATION CALMLY CoNSIDERED. not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart, and a new spirit: For why will ye die, O house of Israel?” It remains then, one who is righteous in the judgment of God himself, may finally fall from grace. 70. Secondly. That one who is endued with the faith which produces a good conscience, may nevertheless finally fall, appears from the words of St. Paul to Timothy: “War a good warfare; holding faith and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made ship wreck.” (1 Tim. i. 18, 19.) Observe, (1.) These men had once the faith that produces “a good conscience;” which they once had, or they could not have “put it away.” Observe, (2.) They made shipwreck of the faith, which necessarily implies the total and final loss of it. You object: “Nay, the putting away a good conscience does not suppose they had it, but rather that they had it not.” This is really surprising. But how do you prove it? “Why, by Acts xiii. 46, where St. Paul says to the Jews, ‘It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: But seeing ye put it from you, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. Here you see the Jews, who never had the gospel, are said to put it away.” How !