[The Life of John of Barneveld 1609-23 by John Lothrop Motley]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of John of Barneveld 1609-23 CHAPTER VIII 5/29
Jesus Christ died for all; so, nevertheless, that no one actually except believers is redeemed by His death. III.
Man has not the saving belief from himself, nor out of his free will, but he needs thereto God's grace in Christ. IV.
This grace is the beginning, continuation, and completion of man's salvation; all good deeds must be ascribed to it, but it does not work irresistibly. V.God's grace gives sufficient strength to the true believers to overcome evil; but whether they cannot lose grace should be more closely examined before it should be taught in full security. Afterwards they expressed themselves more distinctly on this point, and declared that a true believer, through his own fault, can fall away from God and lose faith. Before the conference, however, the Gomarite preachers had drawn up a Contra-Remonstrance of Seven Points in opposition to the Remonstrants' five. They demanded the holding of a National Synod to settle the difference between these Five and Seven Points, or the sending of them to foreign universities for arbitration, a mutual promise being given by the contending parties to abide by the decision. Thus much it has been necessary to state concerning what in the seventeenth century was called the platform of the two great parties: a term which has been perpetuated in our own country, and is familiar to all the world in the nineteenth. These were the Seven Points: I.God has chosen from eternity certain persons out of the human race, which in and with Adam fell into sin and has no more power to believe and Convert itself than a dead man to restore himself to life, in order to make them blessed through Christ; while He passes by the rest through His righteous judgment, and leaves them lying in their sins. II.
Children of believing parents, as well as full-grown believers, are to be considered as elect so long as they with action do not prove the contrary. III.
God in His election has not looked at the belief and the repentance of the elect; but, on the contrary, in His eternal and unchangeable design, has resolved to give to the elect faith and stedfastness, and thus to make them blessed. IV.
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