Election Obedience
Some think that this apprehension of the immutability of God’s purpose of election, and the infallibility of the salvation of believers on that account, tend only to carelessness and security in sin; and that to be always in fear, dread, and uncertainty of the end, is the only means to make us watchful unto duties of holiness. It is very sad that any man should so far proclaim his in experience and unacquaintedness with the nature of gospel grace, the genius and inclination of the new creature, and the proper workings of faith, as to be able thus to argue, without a check put upon him by himself and from his own experience. It is true, were there no difference between faith and presumption; no difference between the spirit of liberty under the covenant of grace and that of bondage under the old covenant; no spirit of adoption given unto believers; no genuine filial delight in and adherence unto God ingenerated in them thereby,—there might be something in this objection. But if the nature of faith and of the new creature, the operations of the one and disposition of the other, are such as they are declared to be in the gospel, and as believers have experience of them in their own hearts, men do but bewray their ignorance, whilst they contend that the assurance of God’s unchangeable love in Christ, flowing from the immutability of his counsel in election, doth any way impeach, or doth not effectually promote, the industry of believers in all duties of obedience.
John Owen, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 602