PERSEVERANCE

FINAL. According to the Calvin is tic system, the elect receive the grace of perseverance, so that when grace has once been received, they cannot finally fall from it. This follows from their view of election. But, according to the Catholic view of grace and of election, men may fall, and fall finally, from the grace they have once received. The reader is requested to refer to the article on Election ; this may be considered a continuation. Since the reformed Church of England (with the primitive and Catholic) regards election as an admi ion into the pale of the visible Church Catholic, not a nece ary and infallible admi ion into eternal glory, she obviously could not teach the doctrine of the a ured final perseverance of every individual among the elect; but, annexing a totally different sense to the word elect itself from that which is jointly advocated by Calvin and by Arm in i us, she consistently pronounces that the elect, as she understands the term, may finally fall away, and thence may everlastingly perish. To this moral po ibility of final apostasy the Anglican Church, as was felt by the Calvin is tic party in the conference at Hampton Court, alludes, though she does not specifically there define the matter, in her sixteenth Article. “After we have received the Holy Ghost , we may depart from grace given and fall into sin; and, by the grace of God , we may rise again, and amend our lives.” Here it seems to be not obscurely intimated, that the elect, even after they have received the Holy Ghost , may so depart from grace given, and may so fall into sin, that they either may, or may not, be restored by the influential grace of God . Such, accordingly, was doubtle perceived to be the case by the Calvin is tic party; for otherwise it is impo ible to account for their proposed alteration of the article, which would have made it speak the language of a ured personal final perseverance. They moved King James, that, to the original words of the article, “after we have received the Holy Ghost , we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin,” might be subjoined the following explanatory addition, “yet neither totally nor finally.” Had this addition been made, the seventeenth Article would doubtle have taught the doctrine of the final perseverance of all the elect. The wish to make it do so imported a consciousne that the reformed Anglican Church held no such doctrine. Nor was this consciousne ill-founded. The homily on “Falling from God ” as we might anticipate from its very title, distinctly a erts, in both its parts, the moral po ibility, in the elect, of finally departing from grace given, and of thus perishing everlastingly. The doctrine of the po ibility of the elect finally falling away, says Faber in his work on “Election,” from grace to perdition; a doctrine which, in truth, is nothing more than the inevitable and nece ary result of that ideality of election, which, from primitive antiquity, has been adopted by the Anglican Church, is very distinctly and very affectingly propounded also in her admirable and sublime burial service. “Spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour , thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.” The prayer before us is couched in the pluralizing form, and the persons who are directed concurrently with the officiating minister to use it, are those identical persons who, having been chosen in the course of Divine providence, and brought by baptism into the pale of the visible Church, have thence been declared to be the elect people of God . Consequently those who, in the judgment of the Church of England, are the elect people of God , are neverthele directed to pray, that the Lord would not suffer them, at their last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from him. Hence, as the English Church understands the term elect , it is po ible, from the very nece ity of such a prayer, that those who are elect may not only for a season fall away from God and be afterward renewed by repentance, but may even fall away from him totally and finally.