T B Hoover on Adams and Perseverance

Although Adams' doctrine of salvation, from man's point of view, puts an emphasis upon faith and claims faith alone to be the means whereby man lays hold of the merits of Christ for his justification, it does not exclude man's works as irrelevant to redemption. He sees faith and works as inseparable in their relationship to each other. "Works are dead without faith, and faith is not alive without works." (I, 181.) In "Faith's Encouragement," lie speaks of saving faith as having the two properties of repentance and works. Concerning the latter, he says: "If It work not, it is dead; and a dead faith no more saves than a painted fire warms." (II, 203.) The relevancy of faith and works in Adams' thought is that of cause and effect.

He holds that faith is the root of all good works. Good works as such would not be considered by him as essential to salvation, but possible only where there is faith that saves. He answers the plea that God, in the last judgment, accepts men to life for their deeds of charity, feeding, clothing, et cetera by saying, "... the Scripture fully testifies, that God neither accepts these, nor ourselves for these, further than they are the effects of true faith, our persons being first justified by faith in Christ, then God will crown our works." (II, 230) In "The Christian's Walk," he speaks of some who "think that by building up a ladder of good works their souls shall, on meritorious rounds, climb up to heaven," and goes on to say, "These men, so confident in their good works, do but set their shoulders to heaven-gates, alas without comfort; for it is the key of faith that only opens them." (II, 410.) In his discourse upon the "Happiness of the Church" is found a clear conception of his thought on the relationship of faith and works in regard to salvation. Here he states that the gospel requires probation of faith by a good life - that as we believe, we must live, and affirms the failure of faith without works: "Thou shalt be saved for thy faith, not for thy works; but for such a faith as without works thou shalt never be saved." (II, 559) In this discourse, he shows that Paul's doctrine of faith must be expounded in light of James' doctrine of works, and that Christians are both those who believe and obey. He asserts that justice is ascribed to a Christian in two ways; First, a passive justice attained by faith. It is justice based on Christ's righteousness imputed to man, causing him to stand perfectly just before God, Second is active righteousness which is an effect of active justice and a testimony that the Christian is justified by Christ. He concludes this discussion of a dual nature of righteousness by saying, "He that will wear a crown in heaven must be all his life on earth preparing the gold to make it. Not that thy own virtues crown thee, but that God without thy virtues will never crown thee. The robe of glory that is worn there must be spun and woven here, - spun out of the side of Christ by faith, and embroidered with our good works," (II, 572)

This statement and others of a similar nature show Adams' theology in agreement with the Calvinistic principle of the perseverance of the saints mentioned earlier. In "Heaven-Gate," he speaks of blessedness resulting from perseverance, and says: "Our labours must not cease till we can see these gates open, and our Saviour offering to take us by the hand, and welcome our entrance. We know who hath taught us, that only 'continuers to the end shall be saved,' (III, 74). In the same sermon, he mentions Bernard and Augustine as teaching the need of perseverance - the first as saying that the good life is to suffer evil, to do good, and so continue to the end, and that perseverance is the perfection of virtues, the store-house of good works, a virtue without which no man shall see God. The second is shown to affirm perseverance to "be the main content of the Lord's Prayer in the petition "Hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done". Adams himself says that this grace perfects all graces. He writes;

We believe in vain, if our faith hold not out to the end; we love in vain, if our charity grow cold at last; we pray in vain, if our seal grows faint; we strive in vain at the strait gate, if not till we enter (III, 75)

Related to Adams' idea of perseverance as a necessary Christian virtue is his doctrine of sanctification

In "Heaven-Gate" he calls sanctification the second gate by which heaven is entered. The first gate lie calls adoption. For him, both adoption and sanctification are requisite for salvation. He thinks of adoption as preceding sanctification in order and being exclusively an instantaneous act of God whereby the sinner is made an heir of Christ upon his conversion; whereas on the other hand, he thinks of sanctification as an act in which there is divine and human participation, and in which there is development by degrees.

He conceives of sanctification as a way of living characterised by holiness and a sign of one's election as repentance is a sign of regeneration. He does not think of sanctification as being a state of perfection, and interprets Paul's prayer that the "God of peace to sanctify us wholly" (1 Thess 5:23) to refer to the necessity of sanctification being "communicated to the whole man, and universally propagated to every part, though it have in no place of man a total perfection." (Ill, 78). He thought of perfection as an attribute of man' s justification, but not of his sanctification on earth.

On earth there is a kind of perfection: all the faithful are perfectly justified, but not perfectly sanctified. ... Justification admits no latitude ... but the perfection of sanctity is brought by degrees ... Christ's blood doth never wholly take from us the guiltiness of sin, nob wholly the pollution of sin: that blessedness is reserved only for heaven. (II, 521) Though he thought of justification and sanctification as differing in degree, Adams thought of them as inseparable conditions for salvation. This is observed in the statement that "God will never accept Man for just that will not be holy; nor acquit that soul of her sins that will not amend her life." (II, 85) It is further evident from this statement and others in Adams' writings that he considered sanctification a partial responsibility of man. In "Man's Seed-Time and Harvest," this matter of holy living as a condition of salvation is defended by Adams against the claim that the doctrine of predestination eliminates the necessity of sanctification. Here lie says, God ordains not men to jump to heaven, but to climb thither by prescribed degrees. He that decreed the end, decreed also the means that conduce to it. If thou take liberty to sin, this is none of the way. ... Look thou to the way, let God alone with the end. Believe, repent, amend, and thou hast God's promise to be saved. To support his argument, he quotes Augustine as saying God's predestination helps many to stand and pushes none down. (II, 36). The same necessity for sanctification to salvation is found in a sentence from "Heaven-Gate:" "This corrupted man must be regenerate that he may be saved; must be sanctified that he may be glorified," (III, 8l)