The Southern Presbyterian Journal/Volume 13/Number 43/Perseverance
Articles on the Westminster Confession
by Gordon H. Clark
The Word of God (WCF 1)
Creeds
Knowledge and Ignorance
The Trinity (WCF 2)
A Hard Saying (WCF 3)
Providence (WCF 5)
Creation (WCF 4)
Healthy, Sick, or Dead? (WCF 6)
The Covenant (WCF 7)
Christ the Mediator (WCF 8)
Justification (WCF 11)
Sanctification (WCF 13)
Free Will (WCF 9)
Effectual Calling (WCF 10)
Adoption (WCF 12)
The Law of God (WCF 19)
Assurance (WCF 18)
Saving Faith (WCF 14)
Repentance (WCF 15)
Good Works (WCF 16)
Christian Liberty (WCF 20)
Perseverance (WCF 17)
Worship and Vows (WCF 21, 22)
The Sacraments (WCF 27)
Baptism (WCF 28)
The Church (WCF 25)
The Civil Magistrate (WCF 23)
The Lord's Supper (WCF 29)
Censures and Councils (WCF 30, 31)
Resurrection and Judgment (WCF 32, 33)
One evening as I was conducting the mid-week prayer meeting, an elderly, white haired gentleman asked for one of his favorite hymns: How Firm a Foundation. The hymn has six long stanzas, and as the meeting was informal I wondered aloud which of the six we could omit. Not the first, of course—it speaks of the word of God as the foundation of our faith; not the second because we need the aid and strength of God's omnipotent hand; the third or fourth? The old gentleman interrupted my wondering by insisting that this was a good hymn and that we could sing it all. We did, and as we reached the fifth stanza, everyone else in the room saw in it the picture of the grand old man who had requested the hymn:
E'en down to old age all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love.
And whom hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.
He too sang it with vigor, and he sang the sixth stanza too:
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to his foes.
Now it was a bit strange that this gentleman should have requested this hymn and should have sung it with such praise and devotion. For he did not like Calvinism; all his life he had been an Arminian; he did not believe in eternal security. He had told the people so for years. Or, had he now come to believe without realizing that the Arminian views of his earlier days had changed with the color of his hair? If it is strange that this lovely Arminian saint could become at least somewhat of a Calvinist without knowing it, it is far more strange that anyone who bases his faith on the firm foundation of God's word could ever be an Arminian. The Scripture verses are too numerous to mention.
But some may be puzzled at the doctrine of perseverance and think that it ascribes too much will power to frail humanity. Such an objection rests on a misunderstanding. The Confession says, "This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; the abiding of the Spirit and of the seed of God within them; and the nature of the covenant of grace; from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof."
What should be particularly noted in this section is how the doctrine of perseverance fits in with all the other doctrines. God is not irrational or insane. What he says hangs together; it forms a logical system. Election, total depravity, effectual calling, sovereign grace, and perseverance are mutually consistent. God does not contradict himself. But Arminian saints do. They may be grand old men, loved by all who know them. But not until the message of the Bible persuades them of God's sovereign, unchangeable love, can they really sing
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake.