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and if his calling be without repentance, Rom. xi. 29:

If God's love be unchangeable and alters not, but whom God once loves actually, him he loves to the end, John xiii. 1:

If Christ's office of prophet, priest, and king, in his teaching, satisfying, and making intercession for, and in his governing his people, be after the order of Melchisedec, unchangeable and everlasting, he ever living to make intercession for them, Heb. vii. 21, 24, 25; and if his undertaking, in all these respects, with his Father, not to lose any whom he gives him, cannot be frustrated, John vi. 39; Luke xxii. 32; John xvii. 15:

If the seal and earnest of the Spirit be a constant seal, which cannot be razed; but seals all in whom it dwells unto the day of redemption, Eph. i. 13, 14:

If the word of truth wherewith the regenerate are begotten, be an immortal seed, which when once it has taken root, lives for ever, 1 Peter i. 23, 25:

If God be constant and faithful in his promise, and omnipotent in his power, to make good this his word and promise, saying, I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from my people and children to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me, Jer. xxxii. 40:

Then from all, and from each of these propositions, I conclude, that a man once indeed a member of Christ, and indeed in a state of grace, shall never totally or finally fall away.

The patrons of the doctrine of falling from grace, when they cannot answer the invincible arguments which are brought to prove the certainty of a man's standing in a state of salvation; make a loud cry in certain popular objections, such as are very apt to take with simple and unstable people.

They first come with suppositions, and ask this and like questions: If David and Peter had died in the act of their gross sins, whether should they have been saved or no?