Wednesday, May 31, 2006
from the ' Manual of Theology' by J.L. Dagg
The doctrine of final perseverance, properly understood, gives no encouragement to sluggishness or negligence in duty; much less does it lead to licentiousness. He who takes occasion from it to sin against God, or to be indololent in his service, not only misunderstands, and misapplies the doctrine, but has reason to fear that his heart is not right before God. Perseverance in holiness is the only infallible proof the heart is right; and he who ceases to persevere, on the presumption that his heart is right, believes without the proper evidence, and is woefully hazarding his eternal interests on his persumption. The doctrine is, that grace in the heart will produce erseverance to the end; and where the effect is not produced, the cause does not exist. Every man, therefor, whatever his past professions and attainments may have been, the greater is the occasion for alarm; because his case, if he falls away, will so much the more resemble that in which renewal to repentance is impossible.
To reject the doctrine of final perseverance, tends to fix the hope of salvation on human effort, and not on the purpose and grace of God. If, in God's method of salvation, no provision has been made, which secures the safe keeping of the regenerate, and their perseverance in holiness, their salvation is left dependant on their own efforts, and their trust must be in that on which success depends. All that God has done for them, will fail to bring them through, if this effort, orginating in themselves, be not superadded; and the eye of hope is necessarily directed to this human effort, as that on which the momentous issue depends. Thus the denial of the doctrine draws off the heart from simple trust in God, and therefore tends to produce apostasy. The just shall live by faith. Simple trust in God, is necessary to preserve the spiritual life; and to trust in man, and make flesh our arm, is to all under curse, and draw back to perdition. In our first coming to Christ we renounce all confidence in self, and put our entire trust in the mercy and power of God: and in the same faith we began, we must persevere to the end of our course. Worldy wisdom may encourage self-reliance, and regard it as necessary to success: but the wisdome that is from above teaches us to renounce and avoid it as runious to the soul.
p. 298-299
Dagg was a preacher in what became the Southern Baptist convention. He held to the doctrines of grace know as Calvinism.
He did not preach what today is know as cheap grace.
To reject the doctrine of final perseverance, tends to fix the hope of salvation on human effort, and not on the purpose and grace of God. If, in God's method of salvation, no provision has been made, which secures the safe keeping of the regenerate, and their perseverance in holiness, their salvation is left dependant on their own efforts, and their trust must be in that on which success depends. All that God has done for them, will fail to bring them through, if this effort, orginating in themselves, be not superadded; and the eye of hope is necessarily directed to this human effort, as that on which the momentous issue depends. Thus the denial of the doctrine draws off the heart from simple trust in God, and therefore tends to produce apostasy. The just shall live by faith. Simple trust in God, is necessary to preserve the spiritual life; and to trust in man, and make flesh our arm, is to all under curse, and draw back to perdition. In our first coming to Christ we renounce all confidence in self, and put our entire trust in the mercy and power of God: and in the same faith we began, we must persevere to the end of our course. Worldy wisdom may encourage self-reliance, and regard it as necessary to success: but the wisdome that is from above teaches us to renounce and avoid it as runious to the soul.
p. 298-299
Dagg was a preacher in what became the Southern Baptist convention. He held to the doctrines of grace know as Calvinism.
He did not preach what today is know as cheap grace.
