An exposition of the Thirty-nine articles, historical and doctrinal. By Edward Harold Browne ...

SEC. II.] OF SIN AFTER BAPTISM. 395
2 Thess. iii. 3. Yet they are addressed to whole Churches, all the
members of which are not certainly preserved blameless to the
end. The confidence expressed concerning the Philippians (Phil.
i. 6) cannot have meant that it was impossible for any of them to
be lost; for St. Paul afterwards exhorts them to s" work out their
salvation with fear and trembling" (ii. 12), and to "stand fast in
the Lord" (iv. 1). So that we must necessarily understand the
Apostle's confident hope to result from a consideration of the
known goodness and grace of God, and also of the Philippians'
own past progress in holiness. "He conjectured," as Theophylact
says, " from what was past, what they would be for the future." 1
The passages which speak of Christians as sealed, and having
the " earnlest of the Spirit," (see 2 Cor. i. 21, 22; Ephes. i. 13;
iv. 30,) are thought to teach the indefectibility of grace; because
what is sealed is kept and preserved. But sealing probably only
signifies the ratifying of a covenant, which is done in baptism.
And though the giving of the Spirit is indeed the earnest of a
future inheritance, it does not follow that no unfaithfulness in the
Christian may deprive him of the blessing, of which God has given
him the earnest and pledge, because a covenant always implies two
parties, and if either breaks it, the other is free.
So again Jas. i. 17 tells us of the unchangeableness of God,
and 2 Tim. ii. 19 shows that He "c knoweth them that are His."
But neither proves that we may not change, nor that all who are
now God's people will continue so to the end, though he knoweth
who will and who will not.
The expression " full assurance of hope " (Heb. vi. 11) has been
thought to prove that we may be always certain of continuance,
if we have once known the grace of God. But the Apostle does
not ground the "assurance of hope " on such a doctrine. His
words are: " We desire that every one of you do show the same
diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end; that ye be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience
inherit the promises." This shows, that our assured hope will
spring from a close walk with God, and that slothfulness, or a
lack of diligence, is likely to impair our hope and disturb our
assurance. The more diligent we are, the more hope we shall
have; our hope not being grounded on the indefectibility of grace,
but on the evidences of our faith given by a consistent growth
in grace.
1 Arr -rv 7rape 9avmrev &Ka7 repl T1v (efvrvW aroTXa6tzevo. — Theophyl. in toc.
quoted by Whitby, whom see.