John Howe (1630–1705) on Holiness and the Hope of the Life to Come

NKJ Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

NKJ 1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

NKJ Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:

In the words to the reader which preface his treatise on The Blessedness of the Righteous, John Howe said:

Methinks men should be ashamed to profess the belief of a life to come, while they cannot behold without indignation, nor mention but with derision, that holiness without which it can never be attained, and which is indeed the seed and principle of the thing itself.

John Howe, “The Blessedness of the Righteous. A Treatise on Psalm 17:15,” in Select Practical Works of Rev. John Howe and Dr. William Bates, ed. James Marsh (New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1830), 7.

Incidentally, I also like John Howe’s signature line on the same page:

A well-willer to the souls of men.

That may also be a better way to describe God's well-meant gospel offer. In proposing and offering Christ through the gospel call to all men, God is a "well-willer to the souls of men." That precisely targets what the hyper-Calvinists cannot stand to think in the case of the non-elect, which is one of the reasons why their theology is so reprehensible.