having proceeded thus with M. Goodwin that a foundation may be the better laid for the removall of what he farther adds proceed to consider the progresse of sinne and to remarke from thence the difference that is betweene Regenerate and Vnregenerate men in their sinning The second thing proposed in the Apostles discourse of the Rise and progresse of sinne is the generall way that Lust proceedeth in for the bringing of it forth and that is Temptation every one is tempted of his own Lust This is the generall way that Lust proceeds in for the production of actuall sinne It tempts and he in whom it is is tempted There is a Temptation unto sin only and a Temptation unto sin by sin The first is no sinne in him that is so tempted our Saviour was so tempted he was tempted of the Divell Math. 4. 1. % He was in all points tempted like as we are without sin That his temptations were unto sin is apparent from the story of them but the Prince of this world coming had nothing in him John 14. 30. Found nothing in him to Answer and close with his Temptations and therefore though he was tempted yet was he without sin Now though this sort of temptations from Sathan are not Originally our sinnes but his yet there being tinder in our soules that kindles more or lesse in and upon every injection of his fiery darts there being something in us to meet many if not all of his Temptations they prove in some measure in the issue to be ours Indeed Sathan sometimes ventures upon us in things wherein he hath doubtlesse small hope of any concurrence and so seemes rather to aime at our disquiet than our sinnes as in those whom he perplexes with hard and blasphemous thoughts of God a thing so contradictory to the very principles not of Grace only but of that whereby we are men that it is utterly impossible there should be any assent of the soule thereunto to think of God as God is to think of him every thing that is Good Pure Great Excellent incomprehensible in all perfection Now at the same time to have any Apprehensions of a direct contradictory importance the mind of man is not capable Were it not for the unbeliefe causelesse feares and discontentments that in many do insue upon Temptations of this nature which are consequents and not effects of it Sathan might keepe this dart in his owne forge for any mischeife he is like to doe with it The Apostle speakes here of Temptations by sinne as well as unto sinne and these are mens sinnes as well as their Temptations they are Temptations as tending to farther evill they are sinnes as being irregular and devious from the rule Now this tempting of Lust compriseth two things First §. 33. The generall active inclination of the Heart unto sinne though not fixed as unto any particular act or way of sinne the motus primò primi of this you have that Testimony of God concerning man in the state of nature Gen. 6. 5. % Every figment of the thought of his heart is only evill every day the figment or imagination of the thoughts is the very roote of them their generall moulding or active preparing of the mind for the exerting of them so 1 Chrou 28. 9. % God understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts The figment of them The next disposition of the soule unto them and 2 Cron. 29. 19. Keepe this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of their hearts or keep their hearts in a continuall framing posture and condition of such good thoughts This I say is she first way of Lusts Temptation it makes a mint of the heart to frame readily all manner of evill desires and thoughts that they may as our Saviour speakes proceed out of the heart Mat. 15. 19. Their actuall fixing on any object is their proceeding antecedent whereunto they are framed and formed in the heart Lust actually disposeth inclines bends the heart to things suitable to it selfe or the corrupt habituall principle which hath its residence in us Secondly The actuall tumultuating of Lust and working with all its power and policy in stirring up provoking to and drawing out thoughts and contrivances of sin with delight and complacency in inconeiveable variety the severall degrees of its progresse herein being afterwards described In the first of these there is no small difference between Regenerate Vnregenerate persons §. 34. and that in these two things First In its universality In Unregenerate men every figment of their heart is only evill and that every day there is an universality of actings exprest positively exclusively to any actings of another kind every figment of their heart is only evill and of time every day whatever good they seeme to do or do whatever dutyes they performe that in them all which is the proper figment of their heart is only evill On this account take any duty they do any worke they performe and weigh it in the ballance and t' will be found in respect of principles and circumstances or aimes to be wholly evill That indeed there is nothing in it that is acceptable to God their hearts are casting minting and coyning sinne all the day long With Believers 't is not so there is also a good treasure in their hearts from whence they bring out good things there is a good Root in them that beares good fruit though they are or may be overtaken with many sins yea with great sins yet lust doth not tempt thē as it doth unregenerate men with a perpetuall continuall active inclination unto evill even some way or other in all the good they do The Spirit is in them will and doth in what state so ever they are dispose their hearts to Faith Love Meekenesse and actuates those Graces at least in the elicite acts of the will for a good tree will bring forth good fruit never any Believer is or was so deserted of God or did so forsake God as that every figment of his heart should be evill only and that continually That no one act of sinne can possibly expell his habit of Grace hath been formerly shewed neither is he ever cast into such a condition but from the good principle that is in him There is a panting after God longing for his Salvation with more or lesse efficacy the sparke is warme and glowing though under ashes Secondly In respect of power Lust tempts in unregenerate men out an absolute uncontrouleable dominion and that with a morally irresistible efficacy All its dominion as hath been shewed and very much of its strength is lost in Believers this is the intendment of the Apostles discourse Rom. 6. concerning the crucifying of sinne by the death of Christ. The power strength vigour and efficacy of it is so far abated weakned mortified that it cannot so effectually impell unto sin as it doth when 't is in perfect life and strength But you 'l say then
shall be startled in their sinnes troubled in their consciences forced to seeke out for a remedy and shall come so farre as to have some though but a light tast of the excellency of the Gospell and the remedy provided for sinners in Jesus Christ and then through the strength of their lusts and corruptions shall cast it off reject it and spit out of their mouth as it were all that of it whereby they found the least savour in it no creature under Heaven can be guilty of more abominable undervaluing of the Lord Christ and the Love of God in him than such persons What degree of Love Joy Repentance Peace Faith persons many times arrive unto when with Herod they have heard the Word gladly and done many things willingly c. hath been by others abundantly demonstrated This sufficeth our present purpose that they do make such a progresse in the wayes of God and finde so much excellency in the treasure of Grace and mercy which he hath provided in Jesus Christ and tenders in the Gospell that he cannot but look upon their Apostacy renunciation of him whereby they proclaime to all the world as much as in them lyes that there is not that reall goodnesse worth and excellency to be found in him as some pretend as the highest scorne and contempt of him and his Love in Christ and revenges it accordingly 2. To the second which consists of instances collected by the Remonstrants to manifest the use of the word tasting to be other than what we here confine it to I say 1. That the word as it is applyed to Spiritualls being borrowed and metaphoricall not in its Analogie to be extended beyond making triall for our coming to some knowledge of a thing in its nature the use of it in one place cannot prescribe to the sence of it in another no more than any other metaphoricall expression whatever but it must in the severall places of its residence be interpreted according to the most peculiar restriction that the matter treated of doth require If then M G. can prove that any thing in this place under consideration enforces such a sence all his other instances are needlesse if he cannot they are uselesse It might easily be manifested and hath been done by others already that in all the places mentioned by Mr Goodwin the word is not expressly significant of any thorough solid eating participation of that which is said to be tasted as is pretended But to manifest this is not our concernment there being no reason in the world to enforce any such sence as is contended for in the place under present consideration 2. To the third wherein he argues with his predecessors from our opinion concerning Faith a briefe reply will suffice That a faint weake perception and relish of heavenly things is sufficient to make a man a Believer is so farre from being our opinion that we utterly disclaime them from being Believers to whom this is ascribed if nothing else be added in their description from whence they may be so esteemed It is true Faith is sometimes little and weake in the exercise of it yea a man may be so overtaken with Temptations or so clouded under desertions as that it may not deport it selfe with any such considerable vigour as to be consolatory to him in whom it is or demonstrative of him unto others to be what he is but we say that the weakest lowest meanest measure and degree of this Faith is yet grounded and fixed in the heart where though it be not allwayes alike lively and active yet it is allwayes alive and gives life How farre Believers may fall into the guilt of enormous courses has been already manifested The intendment of the expression is to disadvantage the perswasion he opposeth We do not grant that believers may fall into any enormityes but only what God himselfe affirmes they may yet not utterly be cast out of his Love favour in Jesus Christ. Farther the weakest Faith of which we affirme that it may be true and saving though it may have no great perception nor deepe tast of Heavenly things for the present yet hath it allwayes that of adherence to God in Christ which is exceedingly exalted above any such preception of Heavenly things whatever that may be had or obtained without it so that from the consideration of what hath been spoken we may safely conclude that M.G. hath not been able to advance on steppe in his intendment to prove that the persons here described are true Believers I know no sufficient ground or reason to induce me to any large consideration of the other two or three expressions that remaine §. 34. that are insisted on by M.G. seeing it is evident from their associats which have been already examined that there is none of them can speak one word to the businesse in hand I shall therefore discharge them from any farther attendance in the service they have been forced unto The next priviledge insisted on which to these persons is ascribed is that they are made partakers of the Holy Ghost In mens participation of the Holy Ghost either the guifts or Graces of the Holy Ghost are intended The Graces of the Holy Ghost are either more common and inchoative or speciall and compleating of the worke of conversion that it is the peculiar regenerating Grace of God that is intended in this expression of being made partakers of the Holy Ghost and not the guifts of the Spirit or those common graces of illumination unto which persons not truly converted but only wrought upon by an effectuall conviction in the preaching of the word may attaine M G is no way able to prove And there is also this consideration rising up with strength and power against that interpretation viz. that those that are so made partakers of the Spirit as to be regenerated quickned sealed comforted thereby which are some of the peculiar acts of his Grace in and towards the soules of those that Believe can never loose him nor be deprived of him as was manifested before at large being sealed and confirmed not only in the present enjoyment of the Love and favour of God but also unto the full fruition of the Glory which is provided for them and therefore cannot fall away as these are supposed to do What there is in Mr Goodwins Discourse on this passage Sect. 23 24. to weaken in the least what is usually answered or farther to enforce his exposition of the place I am not able to apprehend and shall therefore proceed with what remaineth All that followes in the place of the Apostle under contest §. 35. is regulated by the word Tast they have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the World to come what the sence and importance of that word is hath been already declared neither can it be proved that the persons here described doe so tast of the good word of God as to
in this that one brings forth fruit and the other doth not farther the seed of wheate or the like brings forth its fruit in a naturall way and therefore whatever it brings forth followes in some measure the nature of the seed but that seed of the Gospell brings forth its fruit in a morall way and therefore may have effects of sundry natures that which the seed of Wheat brings forth is wheat but that which the Gospell brings forth is not Gospell but Faith besides what the wheate brings forth if it come not nor ever will to be wheate in the eare it is but grasse and not of the same nature and kind with that which is wheate actually though virtually and originally there be the nature of wheate in the roote yet actually wheat is not in the blade that hath not nor ever will have eare If the seed of wheate be so corrupted in the soyle where it is sowne that it cannot bring forth fruit that which it doth bring forth what ever it be is of a different nature from that which is brought forth to perfection by the seed of wheate in good ground Againe Faith is brought forth by the seed of the Gospell when the Promises and Exhortations of the Gospell being preacht unto men do prevaile on them to give assent unto the truth of it that every such effect wrought is true justifying Faith giving union with Jesus Christ Mr Goodwin cannot prove that effects specifically different may be brought forth by the same seed of the Gospell seeing to some it is a savour of life unto life and to some a savour of death unto death needes not much proving Some receive the Word and turne it into wantonnesse some are cast into the mould of it and are tanslated into the same image if the temper of the heart as is said is not able specifically to alter the Gospell but that there may not fruit of various kinds be borne in the heart that assents to it that receives it in the upper crust and skin of it is the question Neither is it a blade occasionally withering before the Harvest but a slight receiving of the seed so as that it can never bring forth fruit that is intimated In summe this whole Discourse is a great piece of Sophistry in comparing naturall morall causes in the producing of their effects a thing not intended in the Parable and whereabout he that will busie himselfe jungat vulpes mulgeat hircos this is that which our Saviour teacheth â—â—in the similitude of seed sown in the stony ground The Word is preached unto some men who are affected with it for a season assent unto it but not comming 〈◊〉 to a cordiall close with it after a while wither away and such as these we say were never true Believers a small matter will serve to make a man a true Believer if these are such What tendency this Doctrine may have to lull men asleepe in security when Christ is not in them of a truth may easily appeare be judged if men who are distinguished from other Believers by such signall differences as these here are may yet passe for true Believers Justifyed Sanctifyed Adopted ones solvi mortales curas the way to Heaven is layed open to thousands who I feare will never come to the end of the journey What remaines of M. G's Discourse on this text §. 44. is spent in answering some objections which are made against his interpretation of the place it growes now late and this taske growes so heavy on my hand that I cannot satisfye my selfe in the repetition of any thing spoken before or delivered which would necessarily enforce a particular consideration of what M. G. here insists on let him at his leisure Answer this one Argument and I shall trouble him no farther in this matter That Faith which hath neither root nor fruit neither sound heart nor good life that by and by readily and easily yeelds upon Temptation to a totall defection is not true saving justifying Faith The root of Faith taken spiritually is the habit of it in the heart a spirituall living habit which if it reside not in the heart all assent whatever wants the nature of Faith true and saving the fruits of Faith are good Workes and new Obedience that Faith which hath not Workes James tells you is dead dead and living Faith doubtlesse differ specifically Againe Faith purisieth the heart and when a heart is wholly polluted corrupted naught and false there dwelles no Faith in that heart it is impossible it should be in a heart and not at least radically and fundamentally purify it farther Mr Goodwin hath told us that true Believers are so fortified against Apostasy that they are in only a possibility in nor probability nor great danger of totall Apostasy and therefore they who presently and readily fall away cannot be of those who are scarse in any danger of so doing upon any account whatever but that the faith here mentioned hath neither root nor fruit good heart to dwell in nor good life attending it but instantly upon triall and temptation vanisheth to nothing we are taught in the text it selfe therefore the Faith here mentioned is not true no saving Faith That it hath no root is expressly affirmed v. 21. and all the rest of the qualityes mentioned are evidenced from the opposition wherein they who are these Believers are set unto true Believers they receive the Word in good and honest hearts they bring forth fruit with patience they endure in the time of tryall like the house built on the Rock when the house built on the Sand falls to the ground One word more with this witnesse before we part they who receive the Word in good and honest hearts and keepe it do bring forth fruit with patience and fall not away under temptation so saith the testimony but all true Believers recive the Word in good and honest hearts Ergo Which is the voyce of Mr Goodwin's fourth Witnesse in this cause The 2 Pet. 4. 18 19 20 21 22. §. 45. is forced to bring up the reare of the Testimonyes by M. G. produced to convince the world of the truth Righteousnesse of his Doctrine of the Saints Apostacy ending his whole Discourse in the mire Observatioas from the Text or context from the words themselves or the coherence to educe his conclusion from he insists not on Many excellent words we have concerning the clearenesse evidence of this Testimony the impossibility of avoyding what hence he concludes we want not but we have been too often inured to such a way of proceeding to be now moved at it or troubled about it were the waters deepe they would not make such a noyse The state and condition of men here described by the Apostle is so justly delineated to the eye by the practice of men in the world to whom the Gospell is preached that I do not a little wonder how any
assurance they have that those who are borne of God cannot shall not sinne unto deaths 1 Joh. 3. 9. seeing their own interest in that estate and condition may be clouded at least for a season and their consolation thereupon depending interrupted might occasion thoughts in them of very sad consideration but whilest besides all the beams raies that ever issued from a falling starre all the leaves and blossomes with abortive fruit that ever grew on an unrooted tree all the goodly turrets and ornaments of the fairest house that ever was built on the sand 1 Joh. 5. 7 8. there are moreover three that beare witness in Heaven the Father Sonne and Spirit and three that beare witness on Earth the Water Bloud and Spirit 1 Joh. 2. 20 21 whilst there is a teaching anoynting and assuring earnest a firme sealing to the day of redemption a knowledge that we are passed from death to life 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. the temptation arising from the Apostasie of Hypocrites is neither so potent nor unconquerable 2 Cor. 5. 5. but that by the grace of him through whom we can doe all things Ephes. 1. 14. it may be very well dealt withall Ephes. 4. 30. This I say Rom. 8. 16. supposing the ordinary presence and operation of the spirit of grace in the hearts of believers with such shines of Gods countenance upon them as they usually enjoy Let these be interrupted or turned aside and there is not the least blast or breath that proceeds from the mouth of the weakest enemy Psal 30. 6 7. they have to deale withall but is sufficient to cast them downe from the excellency of their joy and consolation The evidence of this truth is such § 8. that M. Goodwin is forced to say * Verè fidelit uti pro tempore praesenti de fidei conscientiae suae integritate certus esse potest ita de salute sui de salutiferâ Dei erga ipsum benevolentiâ pro illo tempore certus esse potest debet Farre be it from me to deny but that a man may very possibly attaine unto a very strong and potent assurance and that upon grounds every way sufficiently warrantable and good that his faith is sound and saving Cap 9. Sect 9. but unto this concession he puts in a double exception First That there is not one true believer of an hundred yea of many thousands who hath any such assurance of his Faith as is built upon solid and pregnant foundations I must by his leave enter my dissent hereunto and as we have the liberty of our respectiue apprehensions so neither the one nor the other prove any thing in the cause Setting aside causes of desertion great temptations and tryalls I hope through the riches of the grace and tenderness of the love of their father Act. Synod p. 182. decl sent Thes. 7. the condition is otherwise then is apprehended by M. Goodwin with the generality of the Family of God The reasons given by him of his thoughts to the contrary doe not sway me from my hopes or byas my former apprehensions in the least His reasons are First Because though the testimony of a mans heart and conscience touching his uprightness towards God or the soundness of any thing that is saving in him be comfortable and chearing yet seldome are these properties built upon such foundations which are sufficient to warrant them at least upon such whose sufficiency in that kind is duely apprehended For the testimony of the conscience of a man touching any thing which is spiritually and excellently good is of no such value unlesse it be first excellently inlightned with the knowledge nature proprieties and condition of that on which it testifieth and Secondly be in the actuall contemplation consideration or remembrance of what he knoweth in this kind Now very few believers in the World come up to this height and degree First Ans. 1. There is in this reason couched a supposition which if true would be farre more effectuall to shake the confidence and Resolution of beleevers then the most serious consideration of the Apostasies of all professors that ever fell from the glory of their profession from the beginning of the World and that is that there is no other pregnant foundation of Assurance but the testimony of a mans own heart and conscience touching his uprightness towards God and therefore before any can attaine that assurance upon abiding foundations they must be excellently inlightened in the nature properties and condition of that which their consciences testifie unto as true faith and uprightnesse of heart and be cleare in the disputes and Questions about them being in the actuall contemplation of them when they give their Testimony I no way doubt but many thousands of believers 1 Cor. 1. 26. whose apprehensions of the nature properties and conditions of things Jam. 2. 5. as they are in themselves are low weake and confused yet hauing received the Spirit of Adoption bearing witness with their spirits Rom. 8. 16. that they are the Children of God 1 Joh. 5. 10. and having the Testimony in themselves have been taken up into as high a degree of comforting and cheering assurance and that upon the most infallible foundation Imaginable 1 Joh. 5. 6. for the spirit witnesseth because the spirit is truth as ever the most seraphically illuminated person in the World attained unto Yea in the very graces themselves of Faith and uprightnesse of heart there is such a seale and stamp impressing the image of God upon the soule as without any reflex act or actuall contemplation of those graces themselves have an influence into the establishment of the soules of men in whom they are unto a quiet comfortable assured repose of themselves upon the love and faithfulnesse of God neither is the spirituall confidence of the Saints shaken Math. 7. 25. much lesse cast to the ground by their conflicting with feares Math. 16. 18. scruples and doubtfull apprehensions seeing in all these conflicts they have the pledge of the faithfulness of God Psal. 77. 10. that they shall be more then conquerours 1 Cor. 1. 9. Though they are exercised by them 1 Thes. 5. 23 24. they are not dejected with them 1 Cor. 10. 13. nor deprived of that comforting assurance and joy which they have in believing Rom. 8. 37. But yet suppose that this be the condition practically of many Saints of God that they never attaine to the state of the primitive Christians 1 Pet. 1. 8. to whose joy and consolation in believing the Holy Ghost so plentifully witnesseth nor doe live up to that full rate of plenty which their Father hath provided for them in his Family and sworne that he is abundantly willing they should enjoy and make use of Heb. 6. 17 18. what will hence follow as to the businesse in hand I professe
You doe almost put an issue to the whole Controversy and at once overturne the strongest Forts of the opposers of this truth some men are truly ready to think that they never had experience of the nature of true Faith or Holinesse who can suppose it to consist in such like common gifts and Graces as are ascribed to this sort of men Yet as was said before if these may not passe for Saints if our Adversaries cannot proove these to be true Believers in the strictest notion and sence of that terme or expression actum est the very subject about which they contend is taken away such as these alone are concerned in the Arguments from Heb 6. 4 5. 2 Pet. 2. 1. c. yea all the Testimonies whch they produce for the supportment of their cause from Antiquity flow from hence that their Witnesses thought good to allow persons Baptized and professing the Gospell the name of Believers and being Regenerate that is as to the participation of the outward Symbol thereof whom yet they expressely distinguished from them whose Faith was the Fruit of their Eternall Election which they constantly maintained should never faile Of such as these M. §. 18. Goodwin tells us Cap. 9. Sect. 7. pag. 107 108. That if there be any persons under Heaven who may upon sufficient grounds and justifiable by the word of God be judged true believers many of the Apostates we speake of were to be judged such all the visible lineaments of a true faith wherein their faces Adde hos de quibus hic agimus non vulgares plebeios sed antesignanos eximios ac eminentes fuisse as farre as the eye of man is able to pierce they lived Godly righteously and soberly in this present World doth any true believer act zealously for his God So did they is any true believer fruitfull in good workes they were such yea there is found in those we now speake of not only such things upon the sight and knowledge whereof in men we ought to judge them true believers * but even such things further which we ought to reverence and honour as lovely and Majestick characters of God and holinesse Rem Ac. Syn. p. 267. therefore it is but too importune a pretence in men to deny them to have been true believers If the proofe of the first confident assertion concerning the grounds of judging such as afterwards have apostatized Ans. to be true believers were called into question I suppose it would prove one instance how much easier it is confidently to affirme any thing then soundly to confirme it And perhaps it will be found to appeare that in the most if not all of those glorious apostates of whom he speakes Psal. 78. 34 35 36. if they were throughly traced and strictly eyed even in those things which are exposed to the view of men for any season or continuance Job 27. 9 10. 2 Kings 10. 29. such warpings and flawes might be discovered in positives or negatives as are incompatible with truth of grace But if this be granted that they have all the visible lineaments of a true faith in their faces Ezek. 33. 31. Titus 1. 16. as farre as the eye of man is able to judge and therefore men were bound to esteeme them for true believers doth it therefore follow that they were such indeed This at once instates all secret hypocrites in the ancient and present Churches of Christ into a condition of sanctification and justification which the Lord knowes they were and are remote from Shall the esteeme of men translate them from death to life and really alter the state wherein they are What ever honour then and esteeme we may give to the characters of holinesse and faith instamped or rather painted on them as t is meet for us to judge well of all who professing the Lord Christ walke in our view in any measure sutable to that profession and with Jonadab to honour Jehu in his fits and hasty passions of zeale yet this alas is no evidence unto them nor discovery of the thing it selfe that they are in a state of faith and holinesse To say that we may not be bound to judge any to be believers and Godly unlesse they are so indeed and in the thing it selfe is either to exalt poore wormes into the throne of God and to make them searchers of the hearts and tryers of the reynes of others who are so often in the darke to themselves and never in this life sufficiently acquainted with their owne inward chambers or else at once to cut off and destroy all communion of Saints by rendring it impossible for us to attaine satisfaction who are so indeed so farre as to walke with them upon that account Rom. 12. 9. in Love without dissimulation Doubtlesse the Disciples of Christ were bound to receive them for Believers of whom it is said that they did beleive because of their profession so to doe that with some hazard danger loh. 2. 23 24. though he who knew what was in man would not trust himself with them because the roote of the matter was not in them I suppose I shall not need to put my selfe to the labour to proove or evince this Ground of our charitable procedure §. 19. in our thoughts of men professing the wayes of God though their hearts are not upright with him But sayes Mr Goodwin To say that whilst they stood men were indeed bound to judge them Believers but by their declining they discover themselves not to have been the men is but to begge the Question and that upon very ill termes to obtain it For my part Ans. I finde not in this Answer to that Objection But they had the lineaments of true Believers and therefore we were bound to judge them so that this did not at all proove them to be so any begging of the Question but rather a fair Answer given to their importune Request 1 Sam. 16. 7. that the appearance of the face as farre as the eyes of men can peirce must needs conclude them in the eyes of God to answer that Appearance in the inward and hidden man of the heart But Mr Goodwin further pursues his designe in hand §. 20. from the words of our Saviour Mat. 7. 20. By their fruit yee shall know them if faith he this rule be Authenticall we doe not only stand bound by the law of Charity but by the law of Righteousnesse or district Judgment it selfe to judge the persons we speake of true Believers whilst they adorne the Gospell with such fruits of Righteousnesse as were mentioned for our Saviour doth not say by their fruits yee shall have grounds to conceive or conjecture them such or such or to judge them in charity such or such but ye shall know them now what a man knowes he is not bound to conjecture or to judge in a way of Charity to be that which
of these Absolute and Immutable Purposes of God as to the Preservation of the Saints in his Favour to the End and whatsoever is by Mr Goodwin excepted as to the former Doctrine of the Decrees and Purposes of God in that part of his Treatise which falls under our consideration shall in the vindication of the respective places of Scripture to be insisted on be discussed The First particular Instance that I shall propose is that Eminent place of the Apostle Rom. 8. 28. where you have the Truth in hand meted out unto us full measure shaken together and running over It doth not hang by the side of his discourse nor is left to be gathered and concluded from other Principles and Assertions couched therein but is the maine of the Apostolicall drift and Designe it being proposed by him to make good upon unquestionable Grounds the Assurance he gives Believers That all things work together for Good to them that love God to them that are Called according to his Purpose the reason whereof he farther addes in the following words For whom he did fore-know he also did Predestinate to be conformable to the Image of his Sonne that he might be the first borne among many Brethren moreover whom he did Predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified whom he justified them he also Glorified What the Good aimed at is for which all things shall worke together and wherein it doth consist he manifests in the Conclusion of the Argument produced to prove his first Assertion v. 35. 36 37 38 39. Who shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ shall tribulation c. The Good of Believers of them that love God consists in the injoyment of Christ and his Love saith then the Apostle God will so certainly order all things that they shall be preserved in that injoyment of it whereunto in this life they are already admitted and borne out through all oppositions to that perfect fruition thereof which they ayme at and this is so unquestionable that the very things which seeme to lye in the way of such an Attainment and event shall work together through the Wisdome and Love of God to that end To make good this Consolation the Apostle layes downe two Grounds or Principles from whence the Truth of it doth undeniably follow the one taken from the Description of the Persons concerning whom he makes it and the other from the Acts of Gods Grace and their respective concatenation in reference to those Persons The Persons §. 12. he tells you are those who are called according to the Purpose of God That their calling here mentioned is the Effectuall call of God which is answered by Faith and Obedience because it consists in the bestowing of them on the Persons so called taking away the Heart of stone and giving a Heart of flesh is not only manifest from that place which afterwards receives in the Golden Chaine of Divine Graces betweene Predestination and Justification whereby the one hath infallible influencies into the other but also from that precious description which is given of the same Persons viz. that they Love God which certainely is an Issue and fruit of Effectuall Calling as shall afterwards be further Argued For to that Issue are things driven in this Controversy that proofs thereof are become needfull The Purpose according to which these persons are called is none other then that which the Apostle cap. 9. 11. termes the Purpose of God according to Election cap. 11. 5. The Election of Grace as also the fore-Knowledge and Foundation of God as will in the Progresse of our Discourse be made farther appeare although I know not that this is as yet questioned The Immutability of this Purpose of God cap. 9. 11 12. The Apostle demonstrates from its Independency in any thing in them or respect of them concerning whom it is it being Eternall and expresly safegarded against apprehensions that might arise of any causall or occasionall influence from any thing in them given thereunto they lying under this Condition alone unto God as Persons that had done neither good nor evill And this also the Apostle further pursues from the Soveraignity Absolutenesse and Vnchangeablenesse of the Will of God But these things are of another Consideration Now this Vnchangeable Purpose and Election being the fountaine from whence the effectuall Calling of Believers doth flow the preservation of them to the End designed the Glory whereunto they are Chosen by those Acts of Grace and Love whereby they are prepared thereunto hath coincidence of Infallibillity as to the end aymed at with the Purpose it selfe nor is it lyable to the least exception but what may be raised from the Mutability and Changeablenesse of God in his Purposes and Decrees Hence in the following verse upon the account of the Stability and Immutability of this Purpose of God the utmost and most remote Ende in reference to the good thereby designed unto Believers though having its present subsistence only in that Purpose of God and Infalible Concatenation of meanes thereunto conducing is mentioned as a thing actually acomplished v. 30. Herein also lyes the Apostles second Eviction of Consolation §. 14. formerly layd downe even in the indissoluble Concatenation of those Acts of Grace Love and Favour whereby the Persons of Gods Purpose or the remnant according to the Election of Grace shall be infallibly carried on in their present injoyment and unto the full fruition of the Love of Christ. If we may take him upon his word and he speakes in the name and Authority of God those whom he doth fore-Know or fixes his thoughts peculiarly upon from Eternity for the terme these is evidently discriminated the Act must needs be Eternall which in order of Nature is previous unto Predestination or the appointment to the end by meanes designed those I say he doth Predestinate and appoint in the Immutable Purpose of his Will to be conformed unto the Image of his Sonne as in afflictions so in Grace and Glory To fancy a suspension of these Acts of Grace some whereof are Eternall upon conditionalls and they not intimated in the least in the Text nor consistent with the Nature of the things themselves or the End intended casting the Accomplishment and bringing about of the designes of God Proposed as his for our Consolation upon the certaine lubricity of the Wills of men and thereupon to propose an intercision of them as to their Concattenation and Dependance that they should not have a certaine Influence on the one hand descending nor an Unchangeable dependance on the other Ascending may easily be made appeare to be so plaine an opposition to the ayme and designe of the Apostle as t is possibly capable of But because these things are really insisted on by Mr Goodwin I shall choose rather to remove them as with much Rhetorick and not without some Sophistry they are by him pressed then further anticipate
the Perseverance of the Saints from the impossibility of finding a subject to be affected with the notion of Apostasie if true Believers be exempted frō it for Hypocrites saith he cannot fall away nor can Believers saith Mr Goodwin but they are Apostates when they fall away that is it is a dead man that dyes or after he is dead he dyes after he is an Apostate he falls away Perhaps it would be worth our serious inquiry to consider how Believers can indeed possibly come to loose the Spirit of Grace which dwells in them with their habit of Faith and Holinesse For our parts we contend that they have an infussed Habit of Grace and that wrought with a mighty Impression upon their Minds and Hearts Faith being of the opperation of God wrought by the exceding greatnesse of his Power as he wrought in Christ when he Raised him from the dead Whether such an Habit can be removed but by that hand that bestowed it and whether it may be made appeare that God will on any occasion so take it away or hath expressed himselfe that he will so deale with any of his Children is I say worthy our inquiry But 2. Secondly he denies the Major Proposition and saith that those who are kept and preserved by Christ may possibly miscarry Boldly ventured what Want is there then or defect in the keeper of Israel that his flock should so miscarry under his hand Is it of Faithfulnesse The Scripture tells us he is a faithfull High-Priest in things pertaining to God Heb. 2. 17. Faithfull to him that appointed him Heb. 3. 2. And that he did the whole will of God Is it of Tendernesse to take care of his poore wandering ones He is otherwise represented unto us Heb. 2. 18. For in that he himselfe hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted and ch 4. 15 16. We have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all poynts tempted like unto us yet without sinne Isa. 40. 11 12. It is said of him he shall feed his flock like a sheapheard he gathers the Lambs with his Armes and carries them in his bosome and shall gently lead them that are with young And he quarrells with those sheapheards who manifest not a care and tendernesse like his towards his flock Ezec 34. 4 The diseased have ye not strengthned neither have yee healed that which was sicke neither have yee bound up that which was broken neither have yee brought againe that which was driven away neither have ye sought that which was lost all which he takes upon himselfe to performe v. 15 16. Or is it want of Power All Power is given to him in Heaven and Earth Mat. 28. 8. All things are delivered to him of his Father Mat. 11. 27. He is able to save to the utmost them that come to God by him Heb. 7. 25. If he wants neither Care nor Tendernesse Wisdome nor Watchfullnesse Love nor Ability Will nor Faithfullnesse how comes it to passe that they miscarry and fall away into ruine whom he hath undertaken to keepe David durst fight with a Lyon and a Beare in the defence of his Lambs and Jacob indured Heat and Cold upon the account of Faithfullnesse And shall we think that the Shepheard of Israel from whose being so the Psalmist concludes he shall want nothing Psa 23. 1. who did not only fight for his Flock but layed downe his Life for them will be lesse carefull of his Fathers Sheepe his owne Sheepe which are required also at his hand for his Father knowes them and calles them all by name Yea but saies Mr Goodwin it may be thus §. 46. in case themselves shall not comport with Christ in his Act of Preserving them with their care and diligence in preserving themselves that is Christ will surely keepe them in case they keepe themselves Alas poore Sheepe of God! If this were the case of the Flocks of the Sonnes of men how quickly would they be utterly destroyed Doth the veriest Hierling in the World deale thus with his Sheepe keepe them in case they keepe them selves Nay to what end is his keeping if they keepe themselves◠Christ compares himselfe to the Good Shepheard which seeketh out and fetcheth a wandring Sheepe from the Wildernesse laying him on his shoulders and bringing it home to his Fold How did that poore Sheepe keep it selfe when it ranne among the Ravenous Wolves in the Wildernesse Yet by the Good Shepheard it was preserved This is the Spirit and comforting Genius of this Doctrine Christ keeps us provided we keepe our selves We hoped it had been he who Saved Israel that he gave us his holy Spirit to abide with ns for ever to Seale us up to the day of Redemption that knowing himselfe and telling us that without him we can doe nothing he would not suspend his doing upon our doing so great a thing as preserving our selves For let us see now what it is that is required in us if we shall be preserved by Christ it is to comport with him in his Act of Persevering us and to be diligent to keepe our selves What is this comporting with him in his Act of preserving us Our comporting with Christ in any thing is by our Believing in him and on him that 's our radicall Comportment whence all other closings of Heart in obedience doe flow so then Christ will preserve us in Believing provided we continue to Believe But what need of his help to doe so if antecedently thereunto so we doe Is not this not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only Unscripturall but also Unreasonable yea absurd and Ludicrous This is the flinty Fountain of all that Abundance of Consolation which Mr Goodwins doctrine doth afford Doubtlesse they must be Wise and Learned men like himselfe who can extract any such thing therefrom Let him goe with it to a poore weake tempted fainting Believer and try what a Comforter he will be thought a Physitian of what value he will be esteemed Let him tell him thou art indeed weake in Faith ready to decay and perish which thou maist doe every day there being neither Purpose nor Promise of God to the contrary great Oppositions and great Temptations hast thou to wrestle withall but yet Christ is loving tender faithfull and in case thou continuest Believing he will take care thou shalt believe That Christ will increase thy Faith and keep it alive by continuall influences as from a Head into its Members preserving thee not only against outward Enimies but the treacheries and deceits and unbeliefe of thine own heart of any such thing I can give thee no account Such Consolation a poore man may have at home at any time Further §. 47. what is that Act of Christ in Preserving them that is to be comported withall Ioh. 1. 16. Wherein doth it consist 1 Cor. 12. 13. Is
say hath Everlastingly Purposed to give and doth actually give his Holy Spirit to Believers to put forth such an exceeding greatnesse of Power as whereby in the use of meanes they shall certainely be preserved to Salvation This God can doe saies our Author This Concession being made by the Remonstrants in their Synodalia Mr Goodwin I presume thought it but duty to be as free as his Predecessors and therefore consented unto it also although it be an axe laid at the root of almost all the Arguments he sets up against the Truth as shall hereafter be farther manifested I draw now to a close of those places §. 55. which among many other omitted tender themselves unto the proofe of the stable unchangeable Purpose of God concerning the safe-garding and preservation of Believers in his Love and unto Salvation I shall mention one or two more and close this second Scripturall Demonstration of the Truth in hand The first is that eminent place of Ephes. 1. 3 4 5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the World that we should be holy and without blame before him in Love having Predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himselfe according to the good pleasure of his will verse 3. the Apostle summarily blesseth God for all the spirituall mercies which in Jesus Christ he blesseth his Saints withall of all which v. 4. he discovereth the fountaine and spring which is his free choosing of them before the foundation of the World That an Eternall Act of the Will of God is hereby designed is beyond dispute and it is that foundation of God on which the whole of the building mentioned and pourtraid in the following verse is laid All the Grace and Favour of God towards his Saints in their Justification Adoption and Glory all the fruits of the Spirit which they enjoy in Faith and Sanctification flow from this one fountaine and these the Apostle describes at large in the verses following The ayme of God in this eternall and unchangeable Act of his Will he tells us is that we should be unblameable before him in Love Certainly cursed Apostats backsliders in Heart in whom his soule takes no pleasure are very farre from being unblameable before God in Love Those that are within the compasse of this Purpose of God must be preserved unto that State and Condition which God aimes to bring them unto by all the fruit and issues of that Purpose of his which was pointed at before A Scripture of the like importance unto that before named is 2 Thess. 2. 13 14. God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and beliefe of the Truth whereunto he calls you by our Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus The same fountaine of all spirituall and eternall mercy with that mentioned in the other place is here also expressed and that is Gods choosing of us by an everlasting Act or Designing us to the end intended by a Free Eternall Unchangeable Purpose of his Will Secondly The end aimed at by the Lord in that Purpose is here more clearely set downe in a twofold Expression 1. Of Salvation v 13. He hath chosen us to Salvation that 's the thing which he aimed to accomplish for them and the End he intended to bring them to in his choosing of them and 2 ly v 14. The Glory of the Lord Jesus or the obtaining a portion in that Glory which Christ purchased and procured for them with their being with him to behold his Glory And 3 ly You have the meanes whereby God will certainly bring about and accomplish this his designe and Purpose whereof there are three most eminent Acts expressed 1. Vocation or their calling by the Gospel v 14. 2. Sanctification v 13. through the Sanctification of the Spirit And 3. Justification which they receive by beliefe of the Truth Thus much then is wrapt up in this Text God having in his Unchangeable Purpose fore-appointed his to Salvation and Glory certainly to be obtained through the effectuall working of the Spirit free justification in the Blood of Christ it cannot be but that they shall be preserved unto the enjoyment of what they are so designed unto To summe up what hath been spoken from these Purposes of God § 56. to the Establishment of the Truth we have in hand Those whom God hath purposed by effectuall meanes to preserve to the enjoyment of Eternall Life and Glory in his Favour and Acceptation can never so fall from his Love or be so cast out of his Grace as to come short of the end designed or ever be totally rejected of God The Truth of this proposition depends upon what hath been said and may farther be insisted on concerning the unchangeablenesse and Absolutenesse of the Eternall Purposes of God the Glory whereof men shall never be able Sacrilegiously to robbe him of Thence the Assumption is concerning all true Believers and truly sanctified persons are these Purposes of God that they shall be so preserved to such ends c. as hath been abundantly proved by an induction of particular instances and therefore it is impossible they should ever be so cast out of the Favour of God as not to be infallibly preserved to the End Which is our Second Demonstration of the Truth in hand CAP. IV. 1. An entrance into the Consideration of the Covenant of Grace and our Argument from thence for the Unchangeablenesse of the Love of God unto Believers 2. The intendment of the ensuing discourse 3. Gen. 17. 3. opened and explained with the confirmation of the Argument in hand from thence 4. That Argument vindicated and cleared of Objections 5. Confirmed by some observations 6. Ierem. 32. v. 38 39 40. compared with Cap. 31. v. 32 33. The Truth under consideration from thence clearely confirmed 7. The certainty immutability and infallible accomplishment of all the Promises of the New Covenant demonstrated 1. From the removall of all causes of Alteration 2. From the Mediator and his undertaking therein 3. From the Faithfulnesse of God 8. One instance from the former considerations 9. The indeavour of M. G. to Answer our Argument from this place 10. His observation on from the Text considered 1. This promise not made to the Jewes only 2. Nor to all the Nation of the Jewes proved from Rom. 11 3. not intending principally their deliverance from Babylon 11. His inferences from his former observations weighed 1. The Promise made to the body of the People of the Jewes Typically only 2. An Exposition borrowed of Socinus Rejected 3. The Promise not appropriated to the time of the Captivity and the disadvantage ensuing to M. G. cause upon such an Exposition 12. The place insisted on compared with Ezek. 11. 17 18 19
forgive their Iniquities and remember their sinnes no more Cap. 31. 34. The guilt of sinne shall be done away in Christ and that on termes of the greatest Honor and Glory to the Justice of God that can be apprehended God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousnesse for the Remission of sinnes that are past Rom. 3. 25. And for the latter that that may be throughly prevented saith God the care shall ly on me I will put my Law in their Hearts write it in their inward parts Cap. 31. 33. I will put my feare in their inward parts that they shall not depart from me Cap. 32. 40. So that the Continuance of his Love is secured against all possible interveniences whatever by an assured prevention of all such that have an inconsistency therewithall The Apostle Paul setting out the Covenant § 7. which God ratifieth in the Blood of Christ which shall never be broken takes the description of it from this place of the Prophet Heb. 8. 9 10 11 12. therein fixeth particularly on the Vnchangeablenesse of it in opposition to the Covenant which went before which was lyable to mutation when if these differed only in the Approbation of severall Qualifications they come to the same end For if this Covenant depends on Conditions by our selves in our owne strength with the advantage of its proposall to us attended with exhortations therefore by us to be fulfilled how was it distinguished from that made with the People when they came out of Egypt But in this very thing the difference of it lyeth as the Apostle asserts v. 6 7 8. The Immutability of this Covenant and the certaine product of all the Mercy promised in it might were that our present taske be easily demonstrated as First 1. From the Removal of all causes of Alteration When two enter into Covenant and Agreement no one can undertake that that Covenant shall be firme and stable if it equally depends upon both yea both it may be are changeable and so actually changed before the accomplishing of the thing engaged about therein However though the one should be faithfull yet the other may faile and so the Covenant be broken Thus was it with God and Adam it could not be undertaken that that Covenant should be kept inviolable because though God continues faithfull yet Adam might prove as indeed he did faithlesse and so the Covenant was disanulled as to any power of knitting together God and Man The Covenant betweene Husband and Wife the one party cannot undertake that the whole Covenant shall be observed because the other may prove treacherous In this Covenant the case is otherwise God himselfe hath undertaken the whole both for his continuing with us and our continuing with him Now he is one God is one and there is not another that they should faile disanull this agreement Though there be sundry persons in covenant yet there is but one undertaker on all hands and that is God himselfe It doth not depend upon the will of another but of him only who is faithfull who cannot lye who cannot deceive who will make all his engagements good to the utmost He is an Allsufficient one he will worke and who shall let him The Lord of Hosts hath purposed and who shall disanull it Yea he is an unchangeable one what he undertakes shall come to passe Blessed be his name that he hath not laid the foundation of a Covenant in the Bloud of his deare Sonne layd out the riches of his Wisedome Grace and power about it and then left it to us and our fraile will to carry it on that it should be in our power to make void the great work of his mercy Whence then I say should any change be the whole depending on one and he immutable 2. Seeing that God and man having been at so great a distance as they were by sinne must needs meet in some Mediatour some middle person in whom and by whose bloud as covenants usually were confirmed by bloud this Covenant must be ratified consider who this is and what he hath done for the establishing of it There is one God and one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2.5 He is the surety of this Testament Heb. 7. 22. The Mediator of this better Covenant established upon better Promises Heb 8. 6. neither is this surety or Mediator subject to change He is the same yesterday to day and for ever Heb. 13. 8. But though he be so in himselfe yet is the work so that is committed to him saith the Apostle all the Promises of God are yea and amen in Jesus Christ to the glory of God by us 2 Cor 1. 20. God hath in him and by him ascertained all the Promises of the Covenant that not one of them should be broken disanulled frustrate or come short of an Accomplishment God hath so confirmed them in him that he hath at his death made a Legacy of them and bequeathed them in a Testamentary dispensation to the Covenanters Heb 9. 15 16 17. and what he hath farther done for the Assuring of his Saints abiding with God shall afterward be declared 3. Thirdly the Faithfulnesse of God is oftentimes peculiarly mentioned in reference to this very thing the God that keepeth Covenant is his Name That which he hath to keepe is all that in Covenant he undertaketh now in this Covenant he undertaketh First That he will never forsake us Secondly That we shall never forsake him his Faithfulnesse is engaged to both these and if either part should faile what would the Lord doe to his great name The God that keepeth Covenant Notwithstanding the undertaking of God on both sides in this Covenant §. 8. notwithstanding his Faithfulnesse in the performance of what he undertaketh notwithstanding the Ratification of it in the bloud of Jesus and all that he hath done for the confirmation of it notwithstanding its differing from the Covenant that was disanulled on this Account that that was broken which this shall never be that being broken not as to the truth of the Proposition wherein it is contained Doe this Live but as to the succes of it in bringing any to God notwithstanding the Seale of the Oath that God set unto it they I say who notwithstanding all these things will hang the unchangeablenesse of this Covenant of God upon the slipperinesse and uncertainty and lubricity of the Will of Man let them walke in the light of the sparkes which themselves have kindled we walke in the light of the Lord our God When first I perused Mr Goodwin's Exceptions to this Testimony Cap. 10. Sect. 52 53 54 55 56. Pag. 219 220 221 222 223 224. finding them opposed not so much §. 9. nor so directly to our inference from this place as to the designe intendment and arguing of the Apostle Rom. 9 10 11th chapters and the
1. The Promise only assures them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved but not at all that they that trust in him shall be necessitated to doe so still or that so they shall doe So Paul saith it was in my heart to live and dye with the Corinthians but doubtlesse with this proviso that they alwaies continued such as they then were or as he apprehended them to be when he so wrote to them Ans. I must be forced to smite this evasion once and againe before we arrive at the close of this contest it being so frequently made use of by our Adversary who without it knowes himselfe not able to stand against the evidence of any one Promise usually insisted on This is the substance of all that which with exceeding delightfull variety of expressions is an hundred times made use of The Promise is conditionall and made to those that trust in the Lord and is to be made good only upon the account of their continuing so to doe but that they shall so doe that they shall continue to trust in the Lord that is wholly left to themselves and not in the least undertaken in the Promise and this is called a discharging or dismissing of places of Scripture from the service whereunto contrary to their proper sence meaning they are pressed a delivering them from the bearing the crosse of this warfare with such like Imperiall termes and expressions To speake in the singlenesse of our spirits we cannot see any one of the discharged Souldiers returning from the Campe wherein they have long served for the safety and consolation of them that doe believe Particularly this Scripture detests the glosse with violence imposed on it and tells you that the end for which the God of truth sent it into this service wherein it abides is to assure them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved in that condition to the end That in the condition of trusting and depending on God they shall be as Sion and the Favour of God unto them as immoveable mountaines he will for ever be with them and about them And that all this shall certainly come to passe Christ does not say that they shall be as established mountaines if they continue to trust in the Lord but they shall be so in their trusting abiding for ever therein through the safegarding presence of God For their being necessitated to continue trusting in the Lord there is not any thing in Text or in our Argument from thence or in the doctrine we maintaine that requires or will admit of any such proceeding of God as by that expression is properly signified Indeed there is a contradiction in termes if they are used to the same pupose to Trust in the Lord is the voluntary free act of the creature to be necessitated unto this Act and in the performance of it so that it should be done necessarily as to the manner of its doing is wholly destructive to the nature and being of it That God can effectually and infallibly as to the event cause his Saints to continue trusting in him without the least abridgement of their liberty yea that he doth so eminently by heightning and advancing their spirituall liberty shall be afterwards declared if by necessitated to continue trusting not the manner of Gods operation with and in them for the compassing of the end poposed and the efficacy of his Grace whereby he doth it commonly decryed under those termes be intended but only the certainty of the issue rejecting the impropriety of the expression the thing it selfe we affirme to be here promised of God But is urged 2. That this Promise is not made unto the Persons of any § 14. but meerely unto their Qualifications like that he that believeth shall be saved it is made to the Grace of Trusting Obedience and walking with God for threatnings are made to the evill Qualifications of men Ans. This it seemes then we are come unto and what farther progresse may be made the Lord knowes The Gratious Promises of God made to his Church his People in the bloud of Jesus on which they have rolled themselves with safety and security in their severall generations are nothing but bare declarations of the will of God what he allowes and what he rejects with the firme concatenation that is between Faith and salvation Obedience and reward And this it seemes is the only use of them which if it be so I dare boldly say that all the Saints of God from the foundations of the World have most horribly abused his Promises and forced them to other ends then ever God intended them for Doubtlesse all those blessed soules who are fallen a sleepe in the Faith of Jesus Christ having drawn refreshment from these breasts of Consolation could they be summoned to give in their experience of what they have found in this kind they would with one mouth professe that they found farre more in them then meere conditionall declarations of the will of God Yea that they received them in Faith as the engagement of his heart and good will towards them that he never failed in the accomplishment and performance of all the good mentioned in them neither will that emphaticall expression in the close of the second verse which being somewhat too rough for our Author to handle he left it quite out beare any such sence That the Promises of the Covenant are made originally to Persons and not to Qualifications hath been in part already proved and shall be farther evinced God assisting as occasion shall be offered in the ensuing discourse The Promises are to Abraham and his seede and some of them as hath been declared are the springs of all Qualifications whatever that are acceptable unto God what be the Qualifications of Promises of opening blind eyes taking away stony hearts c. hath not as yet been declared But it is farther argued 3. That this and the like Promises are to be interpreted according to the rule which God hath given for the interpretation and understanding of his threatnings unto Nations about temporall things and his Promises that are of the same import which we have Jer. 18. 7 8. Plainely affirming that all their accomplishment dependeth on some conditions in the Persons or Nations against whom they are denounced Ans. God forbid shall those Promises which are branches of the everlasting Covenant of Grace Heb. 7. 23. called better Promises then those of the old Covenant upon the account of their infallible accomplishment 2 Cor 1. 20. ratified in the blood of Christ made yea and amen in him the witnesse of the Faithfulnesse of God to his Church 2 Pet. 1. 3. and grand Supporter of our Faith exceeding great and pretious shall they be thought to be of no other sence and interpretation to make no other Revelation of the Father unto us but in that kind which is common to threatnings of Judgements expresly conditionall
which in and by themselves to a believing soule they cast upon it Now least any should think that there is the least tendency in such Promises as these as held out to Believers to turne them aside from close walking with God before I enter upon the consideration of any other this seeming of all others most exposed to Exceptions of that nature I shall give some few Observations that may a little direct Believers to whom I write and for whose sake this taske is undertaken into the right improvement of them The genuine influence which this §. 20. and the like Promises have upon the soules of the Saints is mightily to stirre them up unto and to assist them in answering what lieth in them that inexpressible Love and Kindnesse which their God and Father in Jesus Christ holdeth out unto their hearts in them This the Apostle inferreth from them 2 Cor 7. 1. Having these Promises that is those especially mentioned in the words preceding the conclusion and the inference the Apostle here maketh Ch. 6. v. 16 18. I will dwell in them and will be a Father unto them and they shall be my children therefore saith he let us cleanse our selves from all pollution of slesh and spirit perfecting holinesse in the feare of the Lord. Universall purity holinesse and close walking with God is that which these Promises doe presse unto and naturally promote in the hearts of Believers and in 2 Pet. 4. 5 6. that Apostle pursueth the same at large God hath called us to Glory and Vertue hath given us exceeding great and pretious Promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the World through lust Besides this giving all diligence c The exceeding great and pretious Promises which are given unto us in our calling are bestowed for this end that by them we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature they have no tendency to communicate to us the Nature of the Divell and to stirre us up to Rebellion Vncleannesse and hatred of the God of all that Love that is in them But lye indeed at the bottome the Root and foundation of the practice and exercise of all those Graces which he enumerates and from the receiving of those Promises exhorts us to in the following verse Some 〈◊〉 â—â—â—fesse doe or may turne the Grace of God into lasciviousnesse that is 〈◊〉 â—â—trine of grace and of pardon of sinne in the bloud of Jesus Christ and so the mercy mentioned in such Promises as these meerely as in them it is mentioned Grace and Mercy communicated cannot be turned into Wantonnesse but what are they that doe so Vngodly men men of old ordained to condemnation Jude 4. Paul rejecteth any such thoughts from the hearts of Believers Rom. 6. 1. Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid Nay suppose that that naturall corruption that flesh and bloud that is in Believers be apt to make such a conclusion as this Because God will certainly abide with us for ever therefore let us walke carelesly and doe him all the despight we can these Promises being not made for the use and exalting of the flesh but being given to be mixed with Faith which is carefully to watch against all abusing or corrupting of that Love and Mercy which is held out unto it flesh and bloud can have no advantage given unto it thereby as shall afterward be more fully and clearly demonstrated The Question is then what conclusion Faith doth will and ought to make of these Promises of God and not what abuse the flesh will make of them Let then the meanest and weakest Faith in all the World that is true and saving speake for it selfe whether there be any thing in the nature of it that is apt to make such conclusions as these My God and Father in Jesus Christ hath graciously promised in his infinite Love and Goodnesse to mee through him in whom he is well pleased that he will be my God and guide for ever that he will never forsake mee nor take his Kindnesse from mee to eternity And he hath done this although that he saw and knew that I would deale foolishly and treacherously that I would stand in need of all his Goodnesse Patience and Mercy to spare mee and heale mee promising also to keep me from such a wicked departure from him as should for ever alienate my soule from him therefore come on let mee continue in sinne let me doc him all the dishonour and despight that I can this is all the sence that I have of his infinite Love this is all the impression that it leaveth upon mee that I need not love him againe but study to be as vile and as abominable in his sight as can possibly be imagined certainly there is not any smoaking flax or any oruised reed there is not a soule in the World whom God in Christ hath once shined upon or dropped the least dramme of Grace into his heart but will look on such a conclusion as this as a blast of the bottomlesse pit a detestable dart of Satan which it is as proper for Faith to quench as any other Abomination whatever Let then Faith in reference unto these Promises have its perfect worke not abiding in a naked contemplation of them but mixing them with its selfe and there will be undoubtedly found the improvement before mentioned for the carrying on of Godlinesse and Gospell obedience in the hearts of Believers But this I shall have occasion to speake to more afterward Hosea 2. 19 20. §. 20. is pertinent also to the same purpose I will betroth thee unto mee for ever I will betroth thee unto mee in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto mee in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. The words themselves as they lye in the Text doe directly confirme our Assertion The Relation whereunto God here expresseth that he will and doth take his People is one of the most neer and eminent which he affordeth to them a conjugall Relation he is and will be their Husband which is as high an expression of the Covenant betwixt God and his Saints as any is or can be used Of all Covenants that are between sundry persons that which is between Man and Wife is the strongest and most inviolable So is this Covenant expressed Isai 54. 5. Thy maker is thine Husband the Lord of Hosts is his Name and this Relation he affirmeth shall continue for ever upon the Account of those Properties of his which are engaged in this his Gracious undertaking to take them to himselfe therein He doth it in Righteousnesse and in Judgement in Loving-kindnesse and in Mercies and in Faithfulnesse so that if there be not something in the Context or words adjoyning that shall with an high hand turne us aside from the first immediate open and full sence of these
height under their pressures that we have great cause of rejoycing in them all Yea but whence is this Do these Graces readily come forth and exert themselves with an efficacy suitable to this triumphing frame The ground spring of all is discovered v. 5. it is because the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us From this fountaine do all these fresh streames flow the Spirit that is given us that sheds abroad the Love of God in our Hearts and thereby sets all our Graces on worke He oyles the wheeles of the soules obedience when we neither know what to do nor how to performe what we know 5. This indwelling Spirit § 27. gives Restraint Restraining Grace doth mainly consist in morall perswasions from the Causes Circumstances and Ends of things When a man is disswaded from sinne upon Considerations taken from any such head or place as is apt to prevaile with him that perswasion so applyed and intended of God for that end is unto him restraining Grace By this meanes doth the Lord keepe within bounds the most of the Sonnes of men notwithstanding all their violent and impetuous lusts Hell shame bitternessee disappointment on the one hand Credit Repute quietnes of Conscience the like on the other binde thē to their good Behaviour God through these things drops an awe upon their Spirits binding them up from running out unto that compasse of excesse and ryot in sinning which otherwise their lusts would carry them out unto This is not his way of dealing with the Saints Jer. 31. 34. he writes his Law in their hearts and puts his feare in their inward parts that they may not depart from him making them a willing people through his owne Power Psal. 110. 3. By his effectually remaining Grace he carryes them out kindly chearefully willingly to do his whole will working in them to will and to do of his owne good pleasure yet notwithstanding all this often times through the strength of Temptation the subtilty of Sathan and his readinesse to improve all Advantages to the utmost the treachery and deceitfulnesse of indwelling sinne and corruption they are carryed beyond the bounds and lines of that principle or Law of Life and Love whereby they are lead What now doth the Lord do They are ready to runne quite out of the pasture of Christ doth he let them goe and give them up to themselves Nay but he sets an hedge about them that they shall not find their way He leades them as the wild Asse in her month that they may be found he puts a Restraint upon their Spirits by setting home some sad considerations of the evil of their hearts and wayes whether they are going what they are doing and what shall be Issue of their walking so loosly Even in this life what shame what scandall what dishonour to themselves their profession the Gospell their Brethren it would prove and so hampers them quiets their Spirits and gently brings them againe under obedience unto that principle of Love that is in them and the Spirit of Grace whose yoake they were casting off whereby they are lead Many times then even the Saints of God are kept from sinnes especially outward actuall sinnes upon such outward motives reasonings and considerations as other men are Peter was broken loose and running downe hill apace denying and forswearing his Master Christ puts a restraint upon his Spirit by a looke toward him this mindes him of his folly unkindnesse his former rash confidence and ingagement to dye with his Master and sets him on such Considerations as stirred up the principle of Grace in him to take its place and rule againe and in obedience thereunto he not only desists from any farther denyall but Faith Repentance Love all exerting themselves he goes out and wept bitterly It is so frequently with the Saints of God though in lesser evills by neglect and omission of duty or inclination to evill and closing with temptations they breake out of the pure and perfect Rule and Guidance of the Spirit whereby they ought to be lead instantly some Considerations or other are pressed on upon their Spirits taken perhaps from outward things which recovers them to that obedientiall frame from whence through violence of Corruption and Temptation they had broken Like an Hawke sitting on a mans hand eating her meat in quietnesse is suddenly by the originall wildnesse of her nature carryed out to an attempt of flying away with speed but is checkt by the string at her heeles upon which shee returnes to her meat againe We have an innate wildnesse in us provoking and stirring us up to runne from God Were we not recovered by some clog fastned on us for our Restraint we should often runne into the most desperate paths And this Restraint I say is from the indwelling Spirit He stirrs up one thing or other to smite the Hearts Conscience when it is under the Power of any Temptation to sinne and folly So it was with David in the Attempt he made upon Saul when he cut of the lappe of his Garment Temptation opportunity had almost turned him loose frō under the power of Faith waiting and dependance on God wherein lay the generall frame of his Spirit he is recovered to it by a blow upon the heart from some dismall Consideration of the Issue and scandall of that which he was about 6. We have hereby also the Renewall §. 28. daily Renewall of sanctifying Grace Inherent Grace is a thing in its owne nature apt to decay and dye it is compared to things ready to dye Rev. 3. 2. strengthen the things that remaine saith Christ to the Church of Sardis that are ready to dye It is a thing that may wither and decline from its vigor and the soule may thereby be betrayed into manifold weaknesses and backslidings It is not meerely from the nature of the Trees in the Garden of God that their fruit failes not nor their leaves wither Psal. 1. 4. but from their Planting by the Rivers of water Hence are the sicknesses weaknesses and decayes of the Spirit mentioned in the Scripture Should he who had the richest stock of any living be left to spend of it without new supplies he would quickly be a Bankrupt This also is prevented by the Indwelling Spirit He is the fatnesse of the Olive that is communicated to the branches continually to keep them fruitfull and flourishing He is that golden Oyle which passes through the Branches and empties it selfe in the fruitfulnesse of the Church He continually fills our Lamps with new Oyle and puts new vigor into our spirits Psal. 92. 10. thou liftest up my horne as the horne of an Vnicorne I am anoynted with fresh oyle or renewed supplies of the Spirit And this Psal. 103. 5. is called a renewing of Youth like the Eagles a Recovery of former strength and vigor new power and ability for new duties and
performances And how comes that about saith the Psalmist it is by Gods satisfying my mouth with good things he satisfyed his mouth with good things or answered his prayers What these good things are which the Saints pray for and wherewith their mouthes are satisfied our Saviour tells us your Father saith he knoweth how to give good things to them that aske them of him which expressing in another place he saith your Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that aske him of him He is given us and he renewes our strength as the Eagles making our soules which were ready to languish prompt ready cheerefull strong in the wayes of God To this purpose is that Prayer of the Spouse Cant. 4. 6. Awake O North wind and come thou South and blow upon my Garden that the savour of my spices may flow out let my beloved come into his Garden that he may eate of the fruit of his precious things Shee is sensible of the withering of her Spices the decayes of her Graces and her disability thereupon to give any suitable entertainment unto Jesus Christ Hence is her earnestnesse for new breathings and operations of the Spirit of Grace to renew and revive and set on worke againe her Graces in her which without it could not be done All Graces are the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 25 26. The fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Kindnesse Goodnesse Faith Gentlenesse Temperance if the Root doe not communicate fresh juyce and sappe continually the fruit will quickly wither were there not a continuall communication of new life and freshnesse unto our Graces from the Indwelling Spirit we should soone be poore withered Branches this our Saviour tells us Ioh. 15. 4 5. abide in mee and I in you as the branches cannot bring forth fruit of themselves unlesse they remaine in the Vine no more can yee unlesse ye abide in mee I am the Vine yee are the Branches he who abideth in mee and I in him he bringeth forth much fruit for separate from mee ye can doe nothing Our Abiding in Christ and his in us is as was declared by the Indwelling of the same Spirit in him and us Hence saith Christ have you all your fruit-bearing vertue and unlesse that be continued to us we shall wither and consume to nothing David in his spiritually declined condition intangled under the power and guilt of sinne cries out for the continuance of the Spirit and the restoring him as to those ends and purpose◠in reference whereunto he was departed from him Ps 51. 21 22. This the Apostle praies earnestly that the Ephesians may receive Ch. 3. 16 17. I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he will give unto you according to the riches of his Glory that ye may be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inward man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that yee being rooted and grounded in Love c. The inward Man is the same with the new Creature the new principle of Grace in the Heart This is apt to be sick to faint and decay the Apostle prayes that it might be strengthened how is this to be done how is it to be renewed increased enlivened It is saith he by the mighty power of the Spirit and then gives you particular instances in the Graces which flourish and spring up effectually upon that strengthening they receive by the might and power of the Spirit as of Faith Love Knowledge and Assurance the increasing and establishing of all which is ascribed there unto him He who bestowes these Graces on us and workes them in us doth also carry them on unto perfection Were it not for our inflowings from that spring our Cisternes would quickly be dry therefore our Saviour tells us that he the Spirit is unto Believers as Rivers of living water flowing out of their bowels Ioh 7. 38 39. A never failing fountaine that continually puts forth living waters of Grace in us This may a little farther be considered and insisted on being directly to our main purpose in hand It is true indeed it doth more properly belong unto that which I have assigned for the Second Part of this Treatise concerning the Ground or Principle of the Saints abiding with God for ever but falling in conveniently in this order I shall farther presse it from Ioh. 4. 14. whosoever saith our Saviour shall drink of the water which I shall give unto him shall not thirst for ever but the water which I shall give unto him shall be in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternall life The occasion of these words is known §. 29. they are part of our Saviours Colloquie with the poore Samaritan Harlot having told her that he could give her another manner of water and infinitely better then that which she drew out of Jacobs well for which the poore Creature did almost contemne him and askt him whence he had that water whereof he spake how he came by it or what he made of himselfe Did he think himselfe a better man then Iacob who dranke of that well which shee was drawing water out of to convince her of the Truth and reality of his Promise he compares the water that he would and could give with that which she drew out of the Well especially as to one eminent effect wherein the water of his Promise did infinitely surmount that which she so magnifyed for v. 13. he tells her for that water in the well though it allayed thirst for a season yet within a little while she would thirst againe and must come thither to draw but saith he whosoever drinketh of the Water I shall give him thirsts no more and this he proveth from the Condition of the Water he giveth it is a well of Water not a drought not a Pitcherfull as that thou carryest away but it is a Fountaine a Well yea perhaps in it selfe it is so a Fountaine or Well but he that drinkes of it he hath but one draught of that water Nay saith Christ it shall become a Well in him not a Well whereunto he may goe but a Well that he shall carry about in him He that hath a continuall spring of living water in him shall doubtlesse have no occasion of fainting for thirst any more This our Saviour amplifies and clears up unto her from the nature and energy of this Well of water it springeth up unto everlasting life in these last words instructing the poore sinfull Creature in the use of the Parable that he had used with her Having taken an occasion to speake to her of heavenly things from the nature of the employment that she was engaged in at present Two or three things may be observed from the words to give Light unto their tendency to the Confirmation of the Truth we have under consideration First §. 30. the Water here Promised by our Saviour is the Holy and Blessed Spirit this
new Obedience and there will be the work of that Faith in purifying the Heart and mortifying of the sinnes supposed Farther the way here prescribed and limited to the Lord Jesus how he shall intercede for his and for what viz. not for actuall Perseverance and continuance in the Faith to be wrought in them by the exceeding greatnesse of the power of God but for meanes to inable them to preserve themselves we are perswaded he walkes not in And that much upon this account that the way whereby God begins and carries on Believers in the way of Faith and Obedience is not by such a supply of meanes as leaves them to themselves to work and effect the things for which they are so supplied but he himselfe workes in them to will and to doe of his own good pleasure fulfilling in them all the good pleasure of his Goodnesse and the worke of Faith with power giving them all their sufficiency and preserving them by his power through Faith unto salvation To make Faith and Perseverance therein to follow such a supply of meanes as leaves the production of them to the power of the wills of men so that after God hath done all that on his part is to be done or performed that is quickned them being dead giving them new Hearts Spirtis shone into their mindes to give them the knowledge of his Glory in the Face of his Sonne c. it is yet uncertaine whether â—ver Faith shall be wrought in their Soules or no or rather whether men so supplied with means will Believe and Persevere or no is an Assertion that will never be proved to Eternity nor whilest Truth is Truth it is capable of proofe The granting of such meanes and such a presence of his Spirit that men may be inabled to worke for themselves is an expression exceedingly unsuited to all the Promises of the new Covenant what ever either of the Spirit of Grace or the meanes of it is given out to Believers Christ intercedes that his Father would keepe them not that they should keepe themselves he was too well acquainted with our frame and our temptations to desire we might be our own keepers God forbid we should be left to our owne preservation to the hand of our owne counsell and power though compassed with all the supposed sufficient meanes that may be not eventually effectually God creates a defence upon our Glory and doth not leave it to our owne safegarding Our salvation is not in our own custody That the Father doth not keepe us or preserve us that the Sonne doth not Intercede that we may be so preserved that the Spirit doth not make us meete for and keepe us unto the Inheritance of the Saints in Light but that in the use of meanes we are as Adam was our own keepers are some of the Principles of that new way of administring consolation to Believers which Mr Goodwin hath found out This then is the utmost which Mr Goodwin will allow to be for disputation sake not that he really believes it granted that Christ intercedes for his Saints as to their continuance and preservation in that condition viz. That God would give them such meanes as they may use or not use at their liberty which may be effectuall or not effectuall as their own wils shall choose to make use of them which he also takes for granted to be common to all the World and not to be peculiar unto Believers But it is farther argued If Christ should simply and absolutely Intercede that no sinne or wickednesse whatsoever may destroy the Faith of any true Believer and consequently deprive him of Salvation should he not hereby become that which the Apostle rejects with indignation as altogether unworthy of him I meane a Minister of sinne Is therefore Christ the Minister of sinne God forbid or whereby or wherein can it lightly be imagined that Christ should become a minister of sinne rather then by interceding with his Father that such and such men how vile and abominable soever they shall become may yet be precious in his sight and receive a Crowne of Righteousnesse from his hand Or doth not such an Intercession as some men put upon him as they who make him to Intercede simply and absolutely for the Perseverance of Believers in their Faith amount to an Intercession of every whit as vile and unworthy Import as this Ans That this is the tenor of Christs Intercession with his Father for men let them become as vile as they will how vile and abominable soever yet that they may be still precious in his sight and that he would give them a Crowne of Righteousnesse M. Goodwin knoweth full well not to be the Doctrine of them he opposeth If he shall otherwise affirme it will be incumbent on him to produce some one Author that hath wrote about this Doctrine in what language soever and so stated it If he be ignorant that this is not their Doctrine he ought not to have ingaged into an opposition thereof if he argue that it is otherwise this procedure is unworthy of him That Christ Intercedes for his Saints that they may be kept from all such sinnes as would separate them from the Love and Favour of his Father for which there is no Remedy provided in the Covenant of Grace and that their Faith may not faile or perish under such sinnes as they may through Temptation fall into is the Doctrine which he opposeth or at least ought to oppose to make good his undertaking Now if this be so then saith he is Christ the minister of sinne why so He sees and foretells that Peter should deny him thrice yet he prayes that Peters Faith may not faile under that sinne and wickednesse is he therefore a minister of sinne because he Intercedes that his Saints may not be given up to the power of sinne nor every time they are assaulted lye conquered by sinne is he therefore a minister of sinne or rather a deliverer from sinne That very thing which M. Goodwin affirmes would make him a minister of sinne he affirmes himselfe to do in the case of Peter how he will free himselfe from this charge and imputation ipse viderit 2. What it is to Intercede simply and absolutely for Believers that they may continue believing we are not so cleare in Christ Intercedes that they may be preserved by the power of his Father in and through the use of those meanes which he graciously affords them and the Powerfull presence of the Spirit of God with them therein and that not on any such absurd and foolish conditions that they may be so preserved by his Father provided they preserve themselves and continue Believers on condition they continue to believe and if this be of a vile and unworthy import the Gospell is so too and one of the most eminent Graces that is inwrapped in the New Covenant is so too What there is farther in M. Goodwin Sect. 34. Pag. 249
them that are concerned therein And this I shall do in the Order that I have named giving the Preeminence unto their Obedience which more immediately respecting the Glory of God the honour of the Gospell is to be preferred before their Consolation yea though God should never afford his Saints any drop of that Consolation which we affirme to streame from the Truth discussed yet it is Honour unspeakable for them that he is pleased to admit them and inable them to do him Service in this life and it will be their infinite Consolation that they have done so to Eternity For the making our way cleare to the demonstration of that influence which the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints hath into their Obedâ—ence and close-walking with God and so to manifest what weight is to be lay'd upon it on that Consideration I shall give some previous Observations which may direct and give us light in our passage both concerning Gospell Truths Gospell Obedience and Gospell Motives thereunto I hope it will not be thought amisse if I looke a little backwards to fortify and cleare this part of our progresse there being no concernement of our Doctrine that is more clamoured by the Adversaries of it nor can any respect of it or any Truth of God more causelessly meet with such entertainement as I hope will abundantly in the progresse of our businesse be evinced to the consciences of all who know indeed what it is to walke before God in a course of Gospell Obedience and who have their communion with the Father and his Sonne Jesus Christ. For the first 1. Every Truth revealed from God is to be received not only with Faith and Love but with equall Reverence to any that is revealed though we are not able to discerne such an immediate tendency unto usefullnesse in our Communion with him as in some others we may The formall Reason whereunto our Faith Love and Reverence unto the Word of God is resolved is that it is His Now this is common to the whole for he is the Author of every part and portion a like And though perhaps we may want some part of it at a lesse fatall price then some other yet to reject any one title or jot of it as that which is revealed of God is a sufficient demonstration that no one jot or title of it is received as it ought upon whatever this Title Inscription is Verbum Jehovae there must we stoope and bow downe our soules before it and captivate our Understandings to the obedience of Faith Whatsoever then may hereafter be spoken concerning the usefulnesse of the Truth under Consideration and that comparative regard which in respect of others ought on that account to be had thereunto doth not in the least exalt it as it is in it selfe in respect of Faith and Reverence due thereunto above any other Truth whatsoever that is in Scripture revealed 2. That next to the Revelation of God his Will and his Grace the grand immediate tendency of the whole Scripture is to worke them to whom the Revelation is made into a conformity to himselfe and to mould them into his owne Image All Scripture the Apostle tells us 2 Tim 3.16 is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction in righteousnesse that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all Good workes Hereunto all Scripture tends and is usefull profitable for this end And the Gospell is called the Truth that is according to Godlinesse Titus 1. 1. As the end of the Law is Charity out of a pure heart and a Faith unfained 1 Tim. 1. 5. That which in respect of the prime Author of it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of God 1 Thess. 2 13. and in respect of the principall matter of it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of the Crosse 1 Cor. 1.18 in respect of its end and tendency towards us is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word or Truth that is according to Godlinesse The Word is that revealed Will of God which is our Sanctification 1 Thess. 4. 3. and the Instrument whereby he workes our Holinesse according to that prayer of our Saviour Sanctifie them by thy Word thy Word is Truth John 17. 19. And that which when we are cast into the mould of our Obedience is in some measure wrought Rom. 6. 17 the substance also or matter being written in our hearts is the Grace and Holinesse promised unto us in the Covenant Jere. 31.33 And that this is the Improvement which ought to be made by Believers of every Gospell Truth or rather that it hath an Efficacy to this purpose the Apostle tells us 2 Cor. 3. 18. We all with open face beholding as in a glasse the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord By apprehensions of the glorious Truths discovered in the glasse or mirror of the Gospell we are changed and moulded into the frame and Image therein discovered by the power of the Spirit effectually accompanying the Word in the dispensation thereof And unlesse this be done whatsoever we may pretend we have not received any Truth of the Gospell as it is in Jesus in the power of it Eph. 4. 20 21 22 23 24. Ye have not saith the Apostle so learned Christ If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the Truth is in Jesus That ye put of as concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in Righteousnesse and true Holinesse Whatsoever men may professe if we have learned the Truth as it is in Jesus it will have these Effects in us even universall relinquishment as to sinceritie of all ungodlinesse and a through change both as to principles and practices unto Holinesse and to Righteousnesse which the Gospell teaches us which if we have not learned we have not yet learn't it as it is in Jesus Tit. 2. 11 12. The Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godlily in this present evill world 3. Some Truths have a more immediate direct and effectuall tendency to the promotion of Godlinesse and Gospell Obedience then others This the Apostle emphatically ascribes as a priviledge to that Doctrine that reveales the Love of Christ unto us 2 Cor. 5. 14. the Love of Christ constraines us other things effectually perswade but the Love of Christ constraines us to live to him it hath an importunity with it not to be denied an efficacy not to be put off or avoided and what is in the things themselves as in the love of Christ that is in its manner in the
Word of Truth whereby it is revealed 4. That there is by all that walke with God great weight to be laid on those Doctrines of Truth which directly and effectually tend to the promotion of Faith Love Feare Reverâ—nce of God with universall holinesse in their hearts and waies this being that whereunto they are called and whereby God is glorified Jesus Christ and the Gospell exalted wherein his Kingdome in them consists on which their owne peace in their owne bosomes their usefulnesse unto others in this World their being made meet for the Inheritance of the Saints of Light doth much depend If these things be of weight or moment unto them as surely they are all that is so to Believers then doubtlesse great valuation and deare esteeme will be entertained of those helps and Assistances wich they have leading and carrying them on thereunto 5. That a Judgement of what Truths and Doctrines are peculiarly conducing unto the promotion of Piety and Godlinesse is not to be made upon the Apprehensions and reasonings of men wrested with a thousand Corruptions and prejudices full of darknesse and vanity but according to what the Scripture it selfe holds forth and the nature of the things themselves that is the Evidence and Consequence that is between the Truth revealed and Obedience doth require If the Testimonies of the Sonnes of men must be admitted in this case to determine what Doctrine is according to Godlinesse the cry and noyse of them will be found so various discrepant confused and directly contradictory to it selfe that none will ever thereby be lead to establishment Then Papists will cry out for their Merits Penance Vowes Purgatory the Socinians Familists Formalists all contend upon the foundation of their own perswasions as to their tendency to Godlinesse of their Abominations That Doctrine which hath no other proofe of its Truth and worth but that men some men professe it tends to Godlinesse and Holinesse of conversation I dare say is a lye and vanity and did never promote any thing but vaine legall superstitious counterfeit Holinesse Indeed upon a supposition of its truth it is of concernement for the Advancement of any Doctrine in the esteeme and opinion of the Saints to manifest that it leads to Godlinesse but to prove it to be true because men who perhaps never knew any thing beyond Formall Legall Pharisaicall Holinesse all their daies say it tends to the promotion of Holinesse is but to obtrude our Conceptions upon others that are no way moulded into the frame of them That the imbracement of such a Truth will further us in our Obedience and walking with God therefore value and prize it is good arguing but that such a Doctrine will further us in a way of Godlinesse therefore 't is a Truth when we may be mistaken both in Godlinesse it selfe and in the motives to it and furtherances of it is but a Presumption To commend then the Truth which we have at large otherwise confirmed to the Hearts and Consciences of the Saints of God and to lay a foundation for the full removall of those vaine and weake exceptions which on this account are laid against it I shall manifest what influences it hath into their Obedience and with what eminent efficacy it prevailes upon their Soules to perfect Holinesse in the feare of God For the more cleare Declaration whereof I shall give the Reader the summe of it under the ensuing Considerations concerning Gospell Obedience and the moâ—ves that are proper thereunto 1. That which I call Gospell Obedience §. 3. wherein the Saints of God are furthered by the beliefe of the Truth we have in hand is variously expressed in the Scripture It may in Generall be described to be a voluntary orderly subjection to the whole will of God I call it Obedience in reference unto the will of God which is the Rule and Patterne of it and whereunto it is a regular subjection The Psalmist expresses it to the full both as to the Root and fruit Ps. 40. 8. I delight to doe thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my Heart the Law in the Heart gives us to doe and to delight in doing the Will of God Peter calls it being holy in all manner of conversation 1 Pet. 1. 14 15. Paul a Cleansing of our selves from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit in the feare of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. or as it is more eminently described Rom. 12. 1 2. in that Patheticall exhortation of the Apostle thereunto I beseech you Brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service And be not conformed unto this world but be yee transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God as he had formerly at large described it in the sixth Chapter of that Epistle throughout And I call it Gospell Obedience not that it differs in substance as to the matter of it from that required by the Law which injoynes us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts but that it moves upon principles and is carried on unto ends revealed only in the Gospell In reference to our designe there are these four things considerable in it First the Nature of it Secondly the Principle in us from whence it proceeds Thirdly the Motives that are proper to the carrying it on the cherishing and increasing of it in them in whom it is Fourthly the Persons who are to be moved and provoked to a progresse therein By a briefe consideration of these things we shall make way for what we have undertaken namely to manifest the efficacy of the Doctrine we have insisted on for the promotion of this Gospell Obedience being accused and charged with the cleare contrary tendency whereof God assisting we shall free and discharge it in the progresse of this Discouse 1. § 4. First in the Nature of it I shall consider only these two things 1. The Matter or Substance of it what it is as it were composed of and wherein it doth consist 2. The Forme or Manner of its performance whence it receives its distinct being as such 1. The Matter or Substance of it containes those things or duties to God wherein it doth consist Now it consisting as I said before in Conformity Submission to the Will that is the Commanding revealed Will of God the matter of it must lye in the performance of all these things only those things which God requireth of Believers in walking before him I say all those things that God commandeth with an equall respect to all his Precepts The Authority of God the Commander and Law Giver is the same in every command And therefore was the Curse denounced unto every one that continued not in all things written in the Law to do them and the Apostle tels us that in the transgression of any one precept there is
included the transgression of the whole Law because the Authority of the Law giver both in the one and the other is despised James 2. 10 11. Whosoever shall keepe the whole Law and yet offend in any one point he is guilty of all For he that said Do not commit Adultery said also Do not kill And 2. I say it is only to the Command for in vaine do men worship him teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men The most stupendious indeavours of men the most laborious drudgery of their soules in Duties not commanded are so far from Obedience that they are as high Rebellions against God as they can possibly ingage themselves into I might farther distinguish the matter or substance of this Obedience into the internall elicite Act of our soules in Faith Love and the like Acts of morall and everlasting Obedience which are naturally necessarily and indispensably required in us upon the account of the first Commandement and the naturall subjection wherein we stand unto God as his Creatures improved and inlarged by the new Obligation put upon us in being his Redeemed ones wherein indeed the maine of our Obedience doth consist And the outward instituted Duties of Religion which God hath appointed for those former Acts of Obedience to be exercised in and exerted by But the former description of it with the Intimation of its universality may suffice 2. §. 5. Secondly the Formality if I may so speake of this Obedience or that which makes the performance of Duties commanded to be Obedience consists in these three things 1. The Principle that begins it and sets it on worke immediately in us and that is Faith without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb 11. 6. Could a man doe all that is commanded yet if he did it not in Faith it would be of no value hence it is called the Obedience of Faith Rom. 1. 5. not for Obedience to the Faith but the Obedience of Faith which Faith bringeth forth Therefore are Believers called Obedient Children 1 Pet. 1. 14. we are said to purifie our soules in Obedience to the Truth v. 22. Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith and without him we can do nothing John 15. 5. All that we do is no better seeing we can no way draw neare unto God with a true heart but in full Assurance of Faith Heb. 10. 22. 2. The Manner of doing it which consists in a due Spirituall regard to the Will of God in those wayes whereby he calls men out to this Obedience namely in his Precepts and Promises There is no Obedience unto God but that which moves according to his direction it must in every motion eye his Command on the one hand and his Promise whether of Assistance for it or Acceptance in it on the other Saith David I have respect unto all thy Commandements Psal. 119. and saith the Apostle having received these Promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse both of flesh Spirit perfecting Holinesse in the feare of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. 3. The principall End of it which is the Glory of God as a Rewarder for he that comes unto God must believe that he is and that he is the Rewarder of them that seeke him Heb 11. 6. The end of Legall Obedience was the Glory of God as a Rewarder according to Merit in strict justice the end of Gospell Obedience is the Glory of God as a Rewarder according to bounty free Grace and mercy under which consideration neither needs the Obedience rewardable to be commensurate to the Reward nor is the Reward procured by that Obedience If it were then it were of workes and not of Grace as the Apostle tells us Rom. 4. 4. So that the end of our Obedience is to exalt God as a Rewarder yet that being as a Rewarder of Grace and bounty the use of our Obedience is not to procure that Reward for that were to worke and to have a reward reckoned to us of Debt and not of Grace but only to make the Lord gracious and to exalt him in our present subjection and in his future guift of Grace in nature of a free bounteous reward This I say is that Gospell Obedience which by the Doctrine insisted on is promoted in the soules of Believers 2. Secondly §. 6. this being so as was said the Gospell Obedience whereof we speake it is evident what Principle it proceedeth from Whereas there are two contrary Principles in every regenerate man as shall more fully afterwards be declared called in the Scripture flesh and Spirit the Old and New man indwelling sinne and Grace which have both of them their Seats and Places in all and the same Faculties of the soule it is most evident that this Obedience flowes solely and meerely from the latter Principle the Spirit new or inner man the new Creature which is wrought in Believers The strengthning and heightning of this Principle the Holy Ghost layes at the bottome of the renewall and increase of Gospell Obedience Eph 3. 16. 17. 18. 19. I pray saith the Apostle that God would grant you according to the Riches of his Glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that yee being rooted grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth length and depth height and to know◠the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnes of God Their strengthning with might by the Spirit in the inner man is the foundation of their acting of and increasing in Faith Love Knowledge and Assurance unto all the fulnesse of God It is the New man which after God is Created in Righteousnesse and Holinesse that carries men out unto all acceptable Obedience as c. 4. 23 24. of the same Epistle Look whatsoever influences the other Principle of the flesh hath into our Obedience so farre it is defiled for that which is from the flesh is flesh Ieh 3. 6. all the fruits of it are abominable Hence are all the pollutions that cleave to our Holy things Yea if at at any time poore and meere selfish considerations do put men upon dutyes of Obedience and abstaining from sinne as feare of vengeance and destruction and the like which is made almost the only motive to Obedience by the Doctrine of Saints Apostasie their Obedience in doing or abstaining is but as their feare of the Lord 2 Kings 17. 34. who were taught it by Lions abominable unto him This then being the nature of Gospell Obedience and this the Principle from whence it flowes it is evident 3. Thirdly what are those motives which are suited to the promotion and carrying of it on in the hearts of Believers and what Doctrines have an eminent and singular tendency thereunto §. 7. is also to be considered now these must all of them be such as
are suited to the cherishing of that Principle of the new or inner man in the heart to the nourishing and strengthning of the new creature such as are apt to ingenerate Faith and Love in the heart unto God such as reveale and discover those things in his nature mind and will as are apt to endeare and draw out the heart to him in Communion discouraging perplexing Doctrines doe but ill manure the soyle from whence the fruits of Obedience are to spring and grow Look then I say whatsoever Gospell Truth is of eminent usefulnesse to warme foment stirre up and quicken the Principle of Grace in the heart to draw out increase and cherish Faith and Love that Doctrine lies in a direct immediate tendency to the promotion of Holinesse Godlinesse and Gospell Obedience Yea and whereas to the carrying on of that course of Obedience it is necessary that the contrary Principle unto it which we mentioned before be daily subdued brought under crucified and mortified there are no Doctrines whatsoever that are of such and so direct and eminent a serviceablenesse to that end and purpose as those which inwrappe such discoveries of God and his good will in Christ as are fitted for the improvement also of the principle of Grace in us Hence the worke of Mortification in the Scripture Rom. 6. 2 3 4 5 6. is every where assigned peculiarly to the Crosse and death of Christ Rom. 8. 13. his Love manifested therein and his Spirit flowing therefrom Rom. 7. 7. The Doctrine of the Law indeed humbles the soule for Christ Gal. 3. 23. but it is the Doctrine of the Gospell that humbles the soule in Christ It is the Grace of God that hath appeared 2 Cor. 5. 15. that teaches us effectually to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts to live soberly and righteously and Godly in this present world Tit. 2. 12. He that will but with a little heed read Cap. 6. to the Romans will know from whence Mortification flowes which truly by the way makes me admire at the extreame darknesse and blindnesse of some poore men who have of late undertaken to give directions for Devotion and walking with God who indeed sutably to the most of the rest of their discourses all manifesting an Ignorance of the Righteousnesse of God Rom. 10. 4. and a zealous endeavour to establish their owne coming to propose waies and meanes for the mortifying of any sinne or Lust tell you stories of biting the tongue thrusting needles under the nailes with such like Trash as might have befited Popish devotions five hundred years agoe Were not men utterly ignorant what it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 10. and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings Gal. 6. 14. and being made conformable to his death they could never feed on such huskes themselves nor make provision of them for those whose good they pretend to seeke Unto what hath been spoken adde 4. Fourthly §. 8. who are the Persons that are to be provoked to Holinesse and Godlinesse by the Doctrine insisted on Now they are such as doe believe it and are concerned in it We say the Truth under consideration is of an excellent usefulnesse to farther Gospell Obedience in the hearts of Believers and Saints of God who are taught of God not to turne the Doctrine of Grace into wantonnesse What use or abuse rather men of corrupt mindes and carnall principles who stumble at Jesus Christ and abuse the whole Doctrine of the Gospell by their prejudices and presumptions will make of it we know not nor are sollicitous 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. If the Gospell be hid it is hid to them that perish it is sufficient that the food be good and wholsome for them for whom it is provided If some will come and steale it 2 Cor. 2. 16 27. that have no right to it and it prove through their own distempers gravell in their mouthes or poyson in their bowells they must blame themselves and their own wormewood Lusts and not the Doctrine which they doe receive It is provided for them that feare God and love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity not for doggs swine unbelievers we shall not marvaile if they trample on this pearle and rend them that bring it To such as these then I say the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints or the stability or unchangeablenesse of the Love of God unto Believers and of their continuation in Faith and Obedience is full of exceeding effectuall motives and provocations unto Holinesse in all manner of Gospell Obedience and holy conversation exceedingly advantaging the soules of men in a course thereof Now the influence it hath into the Obedience of the Saints floweth from it upon a twofold account 1. By removing all discouragements whatsoever §. 9. that are apt either to turne them aside from their Obedience or to render their Obedience servile slavish or unacceptable to God it setts them through Christ at perfect liberty thereunto 2. By putting unconquerable and indissoluble Obligations upon them to live unto God and the praise of his glorious Grace and evidently drawes them forth unto the Obedience required 1. It removeth and taketh out of the way all discouragements whatsoever all things which are apt to enterpose to the weakning of their Faith in God or their Love to God which as hath been said are at the bottome of all Obedience and Holinesse that is acceptable to God in Christ Now these may all be referred unto two heads 1. Of perplexing anxious fears §. 10. which are apt to impaire and weaken the Faith of the Saints 2. Of hard thoughts of God which assault and shake their Love That slavish perplexing troublesome feares are contrary to the free and ingenuous state of Children whereunto the Saints are admitted and however sometimes yea oftentimes they are at the bottome and the occasion of burthen some servile and superstitious Obedience Impairers of their Faith I suppose I need not labour to prove That kind of Feare whereof we speake of which more afterwards is the greatest Traytor that lurkes in the soule To feare the Lord and his Goodnesse Hos. 3. 5. is the soules Keeper but this servile perplexing feare is the Betrayer of it in all its waies and that which sowres all its duties A thing which the Lord sets himselfe against in rebukes reproofes dehortations as much as any failing and miscarriage in his Saints whatever It is the opposite of Faith hence the fearefull and unbelieving are put together in their exclusion from the new Jerusalem Rev 20. 8. it is that which is direct contrary to that which the Apostle adviseth the Saints unto Heb 10. 19 20 21 22. it is that which mixeth Faith with staggering Rom 4. 20. Prayer with wavering making it ineffectuall Iames 1. 6. 7. Let us now suppose a man to have attained some assurance of the Love of God
them did them no good at all And the reason of this sad successe in the Preaching of the Gospell and Declaration of the Promises he gives you in the same words It is that the word was not mixed with Faith in them that heard it It is the mixing of the Promises with Faith that renders them usefull and profitable Now to what ever Faith is required the more firme strong and stable it is the more effectuall and usefull it is That then which is apt to establish Faith to support and strengthen it to preserve it from staggering Rom. 4. 20. that renders the Promise most usefull and effectuall for the Accomplishment of any worke whereunto it is designed Now Faith in the Promises respects the Accomplishment of the things promised as the Apostle tells us in that commended and never enough imitated Example of the Faith of Abraham Rom 4. 19 20 21. Being not weake in Faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old neither yet the deadnesse of Sarahs wombe he staggered not at the Promise of God through unbeliefe but was strong in Faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able also to performe Laying aside all considerations that might tend to the impairing of his confidence he firmely believed that it should be to him as God had promised That the Doctrine we insisted on is clearly conducing to the establishing of Faith in the Promises cannot tolerably be called into Question Whatsoever is in those Promises whatsoever Considerations or concernements of him whose they are as his Faithfulnesse Unchangeablenesse Omnipotency that are apt to strengthen Faith in them it preserves entire and exalteth It is a wild Assertion which men scarce search their own hearts if indeed men know what belongs to believing in sincerity when they make that the efficacy of the Promises unto our Obedience should arise from hence that the things promised may not be fulfilled and that the weaknesse of Faith as every such supposall doth at least weaken it yea and tends to its subversion should render the Promise usefull which hath no use at all but as it is mixed with Faith For instance those Promises that God will be an All-sufficient God unto us that he will circumcise our Hearts and write his Law in them that we shall feare him is as was manifested before an usefull Meditation for the ingenerating and quickning of Obedience and Holinesse in us That it may be such a meanes it is required that it be mixt with Faith in them that heare it as was declared According as Faith is strong or weake so will its usefulnesse be I aske then whether this be a way proper to set this Promise on worke for the end proposed namely to perswade them that should believe it that all this may be otherwise God may cease to be their God their hearts may not be circumcised nor the Law mentioned written in them Is this the way to strengthen their Faith and to keepe them from staggering Or rather to subvert and cast downe all their confidence to the ground The Doctrine we have under consideration continually sounds in the eares of Believers 1 Cor. 1. 9. that God is faithfull in all his Promises that he can that he will make them good that his own Excellencies his own Perfections require no lesse at his hands And this it doth not on any Grounds that carry any thing with them that may seeme to incline to the least neglect of God or contempt of any Property Excellency or word of his and so be apt to breed presumption and not Faith But on such only as give him the Glory of all that he hath revealed of himselfe unto us and therefore its genuine tendency must be to beget and increase precious saving Faith in the hearts of men which we conceive to lye in a more direct way of efficacy towards Holinesse and Obedience then the ingenerating of servile feares gendering unto bondage can do This then we have obtained first that the Promises peculiarly insisted on are motives to furtherances of Obedience secondly that the way whereby they become so is by being mixed with Faith and the stronger Faith is the more effectuall will the working of those Promises unto Holinesse be thirdly that the Doctrine of the Perserverance of the Saints and stability of God's Love to them giving him the Glory of all his Excellencies which in his Promises are to be considered is suited to the carrying on of Faith in its growth and increase Indeed that which makes our beliefe of the Promises of Faith divine is the rise it hath and the bottome whereinto it is resolved viz. The Excellencies of him who makes the Promises As that he is True Faithfull Alsufficient the Glory of all which is given him in Believing as the Apostle informes us Rom. 4. 20 21. Yea and all this He must be received to be in reference to the accomplishment of his Promises or we Believe them not with divine supernaturall if that terme may be allowed and saving Faith Surely they must needs think us very easie of beliefe and wholly unexperienced of any Communion with God who shall suppose that we will be perswaded that the Doctrine which eminently asserts and ascribes unto God the Glory of all his Attributes which he would have us to eye in his Promises strengthning Faith on that account doth annihilate the Promises in the Word of the Ministry as to their usefulnesse unto our Obedience Let us deale by instance God hath promised to begin and perfect a good worke in us according as this Promise is mixt with Faith so it will be usefull and profitable to us If there be no Faith it will be of no use if little of little if more of more Let a man now be supposed to be wavering about his mixing this Promise with Faith whereupon the issue of its Efficacy and Fruitfulnesse as was said doth depend And let the Doctrine we teach be called in to speake in this Case and let us trye whether what it saies be prejudiciall to establishment of Faith or whether it be not all that lookes towards its Confirmation It saies then unto the soule of a Believer why art thou so cast downe thou poore soule And why are thy thoughts perplexed within thee It is true thou art weake unstable ready to fall away and to perish thy temptations are many great and prevalent and thou hast no strength to stand against the power and multitude of them But looke a little upon him who hath promised that thou shalt never depart from him who hath promised to finish the good worke begun he is Unchangeable in his Purposes Faithfull in his Promises and will put forth the exceeding greatnesse of his power for the Accomplishment of them so that though thou failest he will cause thee to renue thy strength though thou fallest thou shalt not be cast
ingenerate in them But however thus farre I owne it as to the maine of the Observation in hand that the Doctrine of the Apostacy of Believers is apt and suited to cut the Saints of God and heirs of the Promise short of that strong Consolation which he is so abundantly willing that they should receive and to fill their Soules and perplex their consciences with cares feares and manifold intanglements suited to weaken their Faith and Love and alienate their hearts from that delight in God which they are called and otherwise would be carried forth unto They being all of them in some measure acquainted with the strength subtility and power of indwelling Sinne the advantages of Sathan in his manifold Temptations the eminent successe which they see every day the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places which they wrestle withall to have against them and being herewithall taught that there is neither Purpose nor Promise of God for their Preservation that there is nothing to that purpose in the Covenant of Grace the Consideration of their Condition must of necessity fill them with innumerable perplexities and make them their owne tormentors all their daies thus farre I say I owne the Objection That is not properly courage or confidence but Faith Love and Reverence that are the Principles of our Actions in walking with God hath been declared But what saith Mr Goodwin to the Objection §. 18. as by himselfe laid downe Beside what he relateth of his conquest of it in other places he addeth That the Saints notwithstanding the possibility of their finall falling away have or may have such an Assurance of the perpetuity of their standing in the Grace and Favour of God as may exclude all feare at least that which is of a discouraging or enfeebling nature The Apostle as we have formerly shewed lived at a very excellent rate both of courage and confidence notwithstanding he know that it was possible for him to become a Reprobate The assurance he had that upon a diligent use of those meanes which he know assuredly God would vouchsafe unto him he should prevent his being a Reprobate was a Golden foundation unto him of that confidence and courage wherein he equalized the Holy Angels themselves Ans. 1. The grounds asserted by Mr Goodwin on which Believers may build the Assurance pretended of the perpetuity of their standing in the Grace and Favour of God notwithstanding the possibility of their defection the assertion whereof costs no lesse then the denying of all or any influence from the Purpose Promises Covenant or Oath of God or Mediation of Christ into their preservation I have formerly considered and manifested them to be so exceeding unable to beare any such building of Confidence upon as is pretended that it is almost a Miracle how any thoughts of such a structure on such quicksands could ever finde place in the minde of a man any thing seriously acquainted with the wayes of God The whole of the Saints preservation in the Love and Favour of God as it is also expressed in this Section is resolved into mens selfe-considerations and indeavours Being weary it seemeth of leaning on the Power of God to be kept thereby unto eternall Salvation men begin to trust to themselves and their owne Abilities to be their owne keepers But what will they doe in the end thereof The summe of what Mr Goodwin hath formerly said what he repeateth againe to the end of this Section is Men need not feare their falling away though it is possible seeing they may easily prevent it if they will Expressions sufficiently contemptive of the Grace of God and the Salvation that God assureth us thereby an assertion which those Ancients which Mr Goodwin laboureth to draw into communion with him would have rejected and cast out as Hereticall Mans ability thus to preserve himselfe in the Grace and Favour of God to the end is either from himselfe or from the Grace of God If from himselfe Let us know what that Ability is and wherein it doth consist and how he comes by it Christ telleth us that without him we can do nothing and the Apostle that we are not sufficient of our selves to think a good thought but that all our sufficiency is of God So that this selfe ability for preservation extendeth not to the thinking a good thought indeed is nothing Is it from the Grace of God Then the Assurance of it must be either because God promised absolutely so to worke in him to will and to do of his owne good pleasure as that he should certainely be preserved which you will not say as I suppose or because he will so afford him his Grace as that he may make use of it to the end proposed if he please But now what Assurance hath he that he shall so make use of his Grace as to make it effectuall for the end designed And is this good use of Grace of himselfe or of Grace also If of himselfe it is nothing as was shewed from that of our Saviour John 15. 5. Neither can a man promise himselfe much Assistance from the Ability of doing nothing at all If you shall say it is of Grace the same Question ariseth as formerly manifesting that there is not the least Assurance imaginable of our continuance in the Grace and Favour of God but what ariseth from his Faithfull Promises efficaciously overcoming all interveniences that we shall so do 2. He telleth us §. 19. that Paul lived at an excellent rate of Assurance and yet knew that it was possible for him to be a Reprobate I confesse indeed he lived at an excellent rate of Assurance which he manifesteth himselfe to have received upon such Principles and Foundations as were common to him with all true Believers Rom. 8. 32 33 34 35. That it was possible in respect of the Event that He might have been a Reprobate who was chosen from Eternity is not proved He saith indeed 1 Cor. 9. 27. I keepe my body in subjection least by any meanes I should be found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there any more is intended then not approved or accepted in that service be had in hand Mr Goodwin laboureth not to evince and if that be the sence of the words as the scope of the whole manifesteth it to be then all that Paul there expresseth is that he endeavoured alwayes to approve himselfe and by all meanes an acceptable workeman not to be rejected or disallowed in the labour of Preaching the Gospell which he had undertaken and we acknowledge that this thought and contrivance may well become him who liveth at the greatest rate of Assurance that God affordeth to any here below yea that such thoughts endeavours do naturally genuinely flow from the Assurance of the Love of God we also grant But yet supposing that being a Reprobate by a Metonymie of the effect may here signify to be damned how doth this prove
to the Justification of the Doctrine opposed and vindication of it from the crime wherewith here by him t is charged this he tells you is that the Exhortations Comminations and Promises spoken of are meanes appointed of God for the accomplishing and effecting of the Perseverance of the Saints which he hath made simply and Absolutely necessary by his decree This he saith hath neither any Logicall nor Theologicall virtue in it for the purpose for which t is produced but is a notion irrelative to the businesse the accommodation whereof it pretends Ans. It may be so suffer you to frame the Objection and who will doubt of your Abilityes of giving an Answer But who I pray saies that God by his Decree hath made the Perseverance of the Saints simply and Absolutely necessary that t is certaine in respect of the event from the Decree of God we grant and do we thereby overthrough the meanes whereby t is to be accomplished Yea we establish them We are of the mind that God hath purposed and thereupon Promised the Accomplishment of many things as the selling of Joseph into Egypt the bringing of the Children of Israel from thence and the like which yet were to be carryed on to their Accomplishment and brought about through innumerable contingences by the free rationall deliberative actings of men If by simply and Absolutely necessary you intend that the thing Decreed is to be wrought of men simply and Absolutely necessarily by their operations as to the manner of them we simply and Absolutely deny any such Decree If by those expressions you improperly intend only the certainty of the Event or Accomplishment of the thing decreed with respect to the meanes appointed and fitted thereunto we say this establisheth those meanes neither have they the nature of meanes to an End from any Reason what ever but as so appointed of God thereunto But he proceeds in the proofe of his former Assertion and saies First that the Exhortations whereby the Saints are exhorted to Perseverance §. 17. are no meanes by which the Promises of Perseverance made as our Adversaries suppose to them are Accomplished or effected is thus clearely evinced Whatsoever is a meanes for the bringing of any thing to passe ought not to containe any thing in it Repugnant or Contrary unto that which is intended to be brought to passe by it for meanes ought to be subordinate to their ends not repugnant But the Scripture Exhortations unto perseverance containe that which is repugnant to the Promises of Perseverance if supposed such as our Adversaries suppose them to be therefore they can by no meanes effect those Promises the Minor is evident by the light of this consideration such Exhortations as these to the Saints take heed least at any time there be an evill heart of unbeliefe in you least you be hardened through the deceitfulnesse of sinne least you fall from Grace least you receive the Grace of God in vaine least you fall from your owne stedfastnesse in their natve and proper tendency import a danger and serve to raise a feare in men least the danger imported should come upon them whereas such Promises as these made unto the same persons and that not conditionally as is supposed that there shall never be an heart of unbeliefe in you that they shall never be hardened through the deceitfulnesse of sinne that they shall never fall away from the Grace of God exclude all danger or possiblity of falling away and tend directly to prevent or extinguish all feare in men of any such danger therefore such Exhortations are in their Nature and genuine import contrary to such Promises in theirs and consequently can be no meanes of bringing them to passe Ans. 1. Exhortations are not so properly the meanes whereby the Promises are accomplished §. 18. as the meanes whereby the things mentioned in the Promises are wrought God by and through them stirring up those Graces which he promises to worke continue and to increase in his Saints 2. Exhortations divine must be so apprehended as to be subservient to an End in respect of God fore-knowne and determined ` T is true we Exhort men or may to those things of whose Event we are wholly uncertaine but to God this cannot be ascribed He doth fore-know and hath fore-determined the End and Issue that every one of his Exhortations shall have and therefore such a nature and no other is to bee ascribed to them as is consistent with and subservient to a determined end 3. To the confirmation of his Minor Proposition the Answer is easie from the consideration first of the end of the Exhortations insisted on unto Perseverance And then of the Promises of Perseverance themselves which are no way inconsistent therewith For the first I say those Exhortations take heed least there be in you an evill heart of unbeliefe and the like are not given to ingenerate a feare of falling away which is a thing in it selfe evill and opposite unto that stedfastnesse of Faith and full Assurance which we should presse unto so farre is it from any Act of Faithfull Obedience that God should aime to worke in the hearts of his and apply meanes thereunto but only to beget an holy Care and Diligence in them to whom they are made or given for the using of the meanes appointed of God for the avoiding of the evill threatned to follow upon a neglect of them which directly falls in and sweetly conspires with the End and Vse of the Promises of Perseverance by us urged and insisted upon Nothing is imported by them but only the connexion that is between the things mentioned in them as unbeliefe and rejection from God This God aimes at in those Exhortations in their particular respect unto Believers that by them they may be stirred up to the use of those meanes which he hath appointed for them to be by them preserved in the Grace and Mercy which he hath infallibly promised to continue to them And 4. The end of the Promises of Perseverance on which we have infisted being their mixing with Faith to establish the soules of the Saints in believing the kindnesse and Faithfulnesse of God in his Covenant in Jesus Christ they do not take away nor prevent all danger of perishing and so consequently not that feare in any measure which stirres them up so to the use of meanes that they may not perish but only are effectuall for their deliverance out of those dangers which are apt and able of themselves to destroy them As our Saviour himselfe praies for them John 17. 15. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world where whilst they are they will be sure to meet with dangers and perplexityes enongh but that thou shouldest keepe them from the evill wherewith they must reckon to be exercised There is not then the least contrariety or diverse Aspect between the Assurance of Faith about the end which the Promises tend unto and the
good pleasure what validity there is in these inferences will be easily discerned God worketh Grace in men as men and as men impotent and corrupted by sinne As men he workes upon them by meanes suited to their Rationall being by Precepts and exhortations but as men impotent and corrupt by sinne they stand in need of his effectuall power to worke that in them which he requireth of them Of the termes wherewith his arguing in this case is clowded and darkened enough hath been remarked already His second Argument to this purpose §. 22. viz. That the Inclination of the will to good and to persevere in a Saint must be after his being made a Saint is as weake and no lesse Sophysticall than the former That inclination is radically wrought in every Believer at his Conversion the Spirit being bestowed on him which shall abide with him for ever and the Seed of God laid in his heart that shall remaine and never utterly faile with an habituall inclination to the exercise of all those Graces wherein their persevering doth consist Actually this is wrought in them according to the particular dutyes and actings of Grace that are reqnired of them which they are carryed forth unto by the daily influence of Life Power and Grace which they receive from Christ their head without whom they can do nothing Neither is the third Exception of any more validity being only a Repetition of what was spoken before rendred something more impedite darke and intricate by the termes of Physically Irresistibly and Necessitated which how farre and wherein we doe allow hath been frequently declared The summe of what is spoken amounts to this Gods reall worke in and upon the Soule by his Spirit and Grace is inconsistent with the exhortations to Obedience which we have before disproved and do reject it as an Assertion destructive to all the efficacy of the Grace of God and the whole worke of it upon the Soules of Men. What his Fourth Argument also is but a Repetition of the same things before crudely Asserted in other termes let them apprehend that can If God worke Faith and Love in the hearts of his Saints and support them in them to the end what place is left for Exhortations I say their own proper place the place of meanes of meanes appoynted by God to stirre up his to Perseverance and which himselfe makes by his Spirit and the immediate efficacy thereof effectuall to that end and purpose And I know no use of that Query Are exhortations effectuall to perswade men to Persevere after the end being built only on his false Hypothesis and begging of the thing in Question viz. That if God worke Faith and Love and continuance of them in our hearts effectually by his Grace there is no need no use of exhortations though God so work them by and with those exhortations And this is his first Attempt upon the first member of the Division made by him selfe wherein what successe he hath obtained is left to the judgement of the Reader And but that I shall not having now the part of one that Answers incumbent on mee turne aside unto the proofe of things denied I should easily confirme what hath been given in for the removall of his Objections from the Testimony of God by innumerable places of Scripture He proceeds then Sect. 6. and saies §. 23. Secondly Neither can the latter of the said consequences stand God doth not make use of the said Exhortations to influence or effect the Wills of the Saints upon any such termes as hereby to make them Infallibly Infrustrably Necessitatingly willing to Persevere or to do the things upon which Perseverance dependeth For first If so then one and the same act of the Will should be both Physicall and Morall and so be specifically distinguished in and from it selfe for so farre as t is produced by the irresistible force or power of the Spirit of God it must needs be Physicall the said irresistible working of the Spirit being a Physicall action and so not proper to produce a Moralleffect Againe as farre as the said Exhortations are meanes to produce or raise this Act of the Will or contribute any thing towards it it must needs be morall because Exhortations are Morall causes and so not capable of producing Physicall Naturall or Necessary effects Now then if it be impossible that one and the same Act of the Will should be both Physicall and Morall that is Necessary not Necessary impossible also it is that it should be produced by the irresistible working of God and by exhortations of this joynt efficiency It may be Objected they who hold or grant such an influence or operation of the Spirit of God upon the Will which is frustrable or resistible do or must suppose it to be a Physicall action as well as that which is irresistible If so then the act of the Will so farre as t is raised by the meanes of this action or operation of God must according to the tenor of the former Arguments be Physicall also and so the pretended Impossibility is no more avoided by this opinion then by the other I Answer Though such an operation of God upon the Will as is here mentioned be in respect of God of the manner of its proceeding from him Physicall yet in respect of the Nature and Substance of it t is properly Morall because it impresseth and affecteth the Will upon which t is acted after the manner of Morall causes properly so called that is Perswadingly not Ravishingly or Necessitatingly When a Minister of the Gospell in his preaching presseth or perswadeth men to such such dutyes or actions this act as it proceedeth from him I meane as 't is raised by his naturall abilityes of under standing or speaking is Physicall or Naturall but in respect of the substanceo◠native tendency of it 't is clearely Morall viz. because it tendeth to incline or move the wills of men to such or such Elections without necessitating them thereunto and so comports with those Arguments or Exhortations in their manner of efficiency by which he presseth or moveth them to such things By the way to prevent stumbling and quarrelling it no way followes from the Premises that a Minister in his preaching or perswading unto duty 's should doe as much as God himselfe doth in or towards the perswading of men hereunto it only followes that the Minister doth cooperate with God which the Apostte himselfe affirmes in order to one the same effect i.e. that he operateth in one the same kind of efficiency with God Morally or perswadingly not necessitating for where one necessitates another only perswades they cannot be said to cooperate or worke the one with the other no more than two when the one runnes the other walkes a soft pace can be said to goe or walke together But when two perswade in one and the same action one may perswade more effectually by many
since discharged from any farther attendance or service in this warfare by Exhortations then are all his Promises of Perseverance in vaine But why so May not God injoyne the use of meanes and promise by them the attainement of the End May he not Promise that to us which he will worke himselfe effectually in us If God effectually worke in us to give us by what meanes so ever a new heart may he not promise to give us a new heart Yea but amongst men this would be incongruous yea ridiculous that a Father should Promise his sonne an inheritance then perswade him to take heed that he may obtaine it But First If this be Incongruous yea ridiculous amongst men in their dealings with one another doth it therefore follow that it must be so as to Gods dealings with men Are his thoughts as our thoughts his wayes as our wayes Is not the wisdome of God foolishnesse with men and theirs much more so with him Are men bound in their dealings with others to consider them not only in their Naturall and Civill relations but as impotent and corrupted men as God in his dealings with them doth Secondly Neither is this course so Ridiculous amongst men as Mr Goodwin imagineth that a Father having promised his sonne an Inheritance and instated it on him or assured it to him should exhort perswade him to be have himselfe worthy of his kindnesse to take heed that he come to the injoyment of the Inheritance which he hath provided for him by the meanes that he hath appointed for the prescription of meanes for the injoyment of the Inheritance must be supposed to go along with the promise assurance is farre from being a course so ridiculous as is pretended Neither Thirdly is this similitude Analogous with that which it is produced to illustrate For 1. A man may know how and when and on what account an Inheritance is setled on him by his Father Of what God promiseth we have Faith only not Knowledge properly so called nor alwaies the Assurance of Faith as to the injoyment of the thing promised but the Adherence of Faith as to the Truth and Faithfulnesse of the Promiser Nor 2. Can a Father worke in his Sonne that Obedience which he requireth of him as He can do who Creates a new heart in us and writes his Law and Feare therein 3. This Absolute ingagement to bestow an Inheritance whether the meanes of obtaining it be used and insisted on or no is a thing most remote from what we ascribe to the Lord in his Promises of Perseverance which are only that Believers shall Persevere by the use of meanes w ch meanes he exhorts them to use yet dealing with them in a Covenant of Grace Mercy entered into upon account of their utter insufficiency in themselves to do the things that are well pleasing to him whereunto they are so exhorted He himselfe effectually and Graciously according to the tenour of that Covenant workes in them what he requires of them bearing them forth in the power of his Grace to the use of the meanes appointed His Sections 8 § 42. 9 containe an endeavour for the taking off an Instance usually given of pressing to the use of meanes where the end is infallibly promised to be accomplished and brought about in and by the use of those meanes And this is in the passage of Paul Acts 27. whereof something formerly hath ben spoken Paul receives a Promise from God That none of the lives of the persons with him in the ship should perish this he declares to his company and how deeply he was concerned in the accomplishment of the Promise and his prediction thereupon upon the account of the undertaking wherein against almost all the World he was then ingaged the cause for which he was committed to their company and custody was formerly declared Notwithstanding this he afterwards exhorts them directs to the use of all meanes imaginable that were suitable for the fulfilling of the Promise he had the Prediction he had made Evident it is then that there is no Inconsistency nor any thing unbecoming any perfection in God in that compliance of Promises Exhortations which we insist upon He having directed Paul to walk in that very way and path God we say in the Covenant of Grace hath promised that his Saints shall never leave him nor forsake him that he will abide in unchangeable constancy to be their God that he will preserve them and keep them in his hand unto the Kingdome of his Sonne in glory saving his Redeemed ones with an everlasting Salvation to the accomplishment of the End Promised which he will upon the account of his Truth and Faithfulnesse bring about by Meanes suitable unto and instituted by him for that end In the compassing and effecting of this great work God dealeth with men under a twofold consideration First As Rationall creatures So he discovers to them the end promised with its Excellency Lovelinesse and Satisfaction thereby stirring up in them desires after it as that eminent proportioned good which they in the utmost issue of their thoughts and desires aime at Farther on the fore mentioned account that they are Rationall Creatures endued with a rationall Appetite or Will for the choosing of that which is good and an Vnderstanding to judge of it of the meanes for the attainment of the end God reveales to them the meanes conducing to the end proposing them to them to be chosen and embraced and closed withall for the compassing of the end proposed And that they may be yet dealt withall agreeably to their Nature and those principles in them which they are created withall that God might have glory by their acting suitably to such a Nature such principles He exhorts and provokes them to choose those waies meanes which he hath so allotted as before mentioned for the end aimed at And that they should be thus dealt withall their very Naturall condition of being free intellectuall Agents doth require Secondly As Sinners or Agents disenabled in themselves for the work prescribed to them and required of them for the attaining of the end they aime at namely in Spirituall things And on that account he puts forth towards them and in them the Efficacy of his Power for the immediate and speciall working of those things in them and by them and which as Rationall Creatures bound unto an orderly obedience they are Pressed and Exhorted unto To manifest the inconsistency of such a procedure and the unanswerablenesse of it to the infinite Wisdome of God though the Scripture expresly deliver it in innumerable places as hath been shewen is that which by Mr Goodwin is in this discourse attempted His particular endeavour in the place under Consideration is to manifest that when God promiseth to bring about effect any thing infallibly by the use of meanes 't is in vaine altogether that any Exhortation should be
bidde to feare him who can cast both body and soule into Hell-fire Now though the Logicke of this Argument doth scarce appeare to me or the strength of the inference from the text there being a great difference between fearing him who can cast both body and soule into Hell-fire and fearing of Hell-fire between fearing God for his Severity and Power in Opposition to the weakenesse and limitednesse of Persecutors even whilst we feare not their feares but sanctify the Lord of hosts in our hearts making him our dread and our feare and such a feare of punishment as is inconsistent with the Promises of God that we shall be preserved in Obedience so be free from it Yet I shall consider the following Discourse that is built thereon Supposing all that Mr Goodwin observes from this Text and that the reason of the feare here injoyned is taken from the power of God to cast into Hell yet the whole of the Argument thence amounts but thus farre because such who are threatned to be persecuted by men who can only kill their bodyes ought rather to feare God who can extend his power of punishing to the destruction of body and soule of those that offend him therefore there is such a feare ingenerated in the Saints by the Threatnings of the Word as is inconsistent with the truth of Gods stedfastnesse in his Covenant with them to keepe them up to Obedience unto the end Sect. §. 59. the 14. he farther pleades from Heb. 11. 7. 2 Kings 22. 19 20. That the eminentest and Holyest men that live may do many things from a principle of feare or of being afraid of the Judgments of God that they should come upon them and upon that account have beene put upon wayes that were acceptable to God Ans. We know that the Feare of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdome and that the Feare of the Lord and his Goodnesse is a great Mercy of the Covenant of Grace This is not the thing here pleaded for it is a thing quite of another nature even that ascribed to the strange nations that were transplanted into Samaria by the King of Syria upon the captivity and removeall of the ten tribes and frightened by Lyons that destroyed some of them who did yet continue to worship their owne Idolls under the dread of God which was upon them which is called the Feare of the Lord. To compleat this feare 't is required that a man have such an Apprehension of the comeing of Hell and Wrath upon him as that he be not relieved against it by any interposall of Promise or ought else from God that he should be preserved in the way and path whereby he shall assuredly finde deliverance from that which he feares How farre this kind of Feare the feare of Hell not as declarative of the terrour of the Lord but as probable to betide and befall the persons so fearing it and that solely considered as an evill to himselfe may be a principle of any act of acceptable Gospell Obedience is not cleared by Mr Goodwin nor easily will be so For 1. That it is not the intendment of any divine Threatnings to beget such a Feare in reference to them that believe hath beene declared 2. It is no fruit or product of the Spirit of Life and Love which as hath beene showne is the principle of all our Obedience and walking with God 3. It holds out a frame of Spirit directly contrary to what we are called ond admitted unto under the Gospell For God hath not given us the Spirit of feare but of â—â—wer of Love and of a sound minde 2. Tim. 1. 7. and Rom. 8. 15. We have not received the Spirit of bondage unto feare but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father The Spirit of this Feare and Dreade and the bondage that attends it is at open variance with the Spirit of Liberty Boldnesse Power Adoption and a sound minde wherewith Belivers are indued And 4. It is that which the Lord Christ intended to remove and take away from his by his death Heb. 2. 15. He dyed that he might deliver them who for feare of death were in bondage all their dayes This feare then I say which is neither Promise of the Covenant nor fruit of the Spirit nor product of saving Faith will scarce upon strict inquiry be found to be any great furtherer of the Saints Obedience what use the Lord is pleased to make of this dread and terrour in the hearts of any of his for the hedging up their wayes from folly and staving them off from any Actuall evill when through the strength of Temptation they do begin to cast off the Law of Life and Love whereby they are governed is not in the least prejudiced by any thing asserted in the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance Toward some who though they are perswaded of the Perseverance of the Saints Indefinitely yet have no perswasion or at least no prevailing chearing Assurance that themselves are Saints which Mr Goodwin thinkes to be the condition of far the greatest part of Believers it hath its full power extent its whole efficacy depending on the Apprehensions of the minde wherein it is Towards the residue who upon abiding grounds and sure foundations have obtained a comfortable Spirituall perswasion of their owne Interest in the Promises of God That the consideration of Hell and Judgement as the due debt of sinne and necessary vindication of the Glory of God hath also its Effects and influence as farre as God is pleased to exercise them therewith acquainting them continually with his Terrour and filling them with an abhorrency of those wayes which in and of themselves tend to so dismall an end and issue hath beendeclared Secondly §. 60. the places of Scripture mentioned by Mr Goodwin doubtlesse will not reach his intendmend Of Noah it is said that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being warned of God of that floud that was for to come upon the World of ungodly men and the Salvation of himselfe and his Family by the Arke being filled with the Reverence of God and assured of his owne preservation he industriously sets himselfe about the use of the meanes whereby it was to be accomplished That because a man assured of an end from God himselfe in and by the use of meanes did with a Reverentiall Feare of God not of any evill threatned which he was to be preserved from set himselfe to a conscientious use of meanes whereby the promised end of God's owne institution is to be brought about Therefore the Feare of Hell such a Feare as hath been decribed is one principle of the Obedience of the Saints in their walking with God and such as they ought to cherish as being a meanes appointed of God for that end and purpose is an Argument of no great value here with us Neither surely will the Conclusion intended be more evidently educed from
of the consistency of Effectuall Grace and Gospell Exhortations A Third Argument is proposed Sect. 18. Cap. 13. in these words §. 1. That Doctrine which representeth God as weake Incongruous and In coherent with himselfe in his applications unto men is not from God and consequently that which contradicteth it must needs be the truth but the Doctrine of Perseverance opposed by us putteth this great dishonour upon God representeth him weake Incongruous c. Ergo. For the proofe of the Minor Proposition to make good the charge in it exhibited against the Doctrine of Perseverance there is a Drammaticall scheme induced to whose framing and Application M. Goodwin contributed no more but the paines of a Translator taking it from the Anti-Synod p. 276. 277. in these words You that truly Believe in my Sonne and have beene once made partakers of my Holy Spirit and therefore are fully perswaded assured from my will and command given unto you in that behalfe yea according to the infallible word of Truth which you have from me that you cannot possibly no not by all the most horrid sinns and abominable practices that you shall or can commit fall away either totally or finally from your Faith for in the midst of your foulest actions courses there remaines a seed in you which is sufficient to make you true Believers to preserve you from falling away finally that it is impossible you should dye in your sinnes you that know are assured that I will by an irresistible hand worke Perseverance in you consequently that you are out of all danger of condemnation and that Heaven and Salvation belong unto you and are as good as yours already so that nothing but giving of thankes appertaines to you which also you know that I will do what you will in the meane time necessitate you unto you I say that are fully and throughly perswaded and possessed with the truth of all these things I earnestly charge admonish exhort and beseech that yee take heed to your selves that yee countinue in the Faith that there be not at any time an evill heart of unbeliefe in any to depart from the Living God that you fall not from your owne stedfastnesse yea I declare and professe unto you that if you shall draw back my soule shall have no pleasure in you that if you shall deny me I will deny you that if you be againe overcome of the lusts of the world and be intangled here with that your latter end shall be worse than your beginning that if you shall turne away all your former Righteousnes shall not be remembred but you shall dye in your sinnes and suffer the veugeance of Eternall fire On the other hand if you shall continue to the end my Promise is that you shall be Saved therefore strive to enter in at the straite gate quit your selves like men labour for the meat that indureth unto Everlasting Life and be not sloathfull but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises He that shall duly weigh and consider what a sencelesse and indeed ridiculous incongruity there is between these Exhortations Adjurations Threatnings and latter Promises and those Declarations Applications and former Promises doubtlesse will confesse that either the one or the other of them are not from God or according to the mind of God Ans. §. 2. The incongruity of this fiction with the Doctrine it is framed against is so easily manifested that it will not much concerne us to consider the incongruity that the severall parts of it have one with an other For First the whole Foundation of this fanatick Fabrick is ridiculous in it selfe and ridiculously imposed on the Doctrine of Perseverance For whereas it sayes not that all Saints have any comfortable Assurance of their Perseverance and so may by all Gospell wayes whatever by Promises and Threatnings be stirred up to the use of those meanes whereby Perseverance is wrought and Assurance obtain'd so it saies that no one Saint in the world ever had can have or was taught to expect his Perseverance or the least sence or Assurance of it under such an uncouth supposition as falling into continuing in sins Abominations the Promises they have to assure thē of their inseparable abode with God to the end are that he will write his Law in their hearts put his Feare in their inward parts that they shall never depart from him and they shall be kept up thereto by the use of meanes suitable as appointed of God for the attaining of the end proposed being kept by the power of God but throngh Faith unto Salvation God doth not call nor doth the Doct of Perseverance of the Saints or of the stability and Unchangeablenesse of his Promises in Christ to Believers assert it any to Believe that they shall never fall away from him what sinnes and Rebellions so ever they fall into neither hath he promised any such things unto thē but only that he will through his Grace preserve them in the use of meanes from such Rebellions as are inconsistent with his Love and free acceptation through Christ according to the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace so that instead of the first part of this fiction whose inconsistency with the latter is after Argued let this acording to the Analogy of our Doctrine be instituted You that truly Believe in my Sonne Jesus Christ § 3. and are made partakers of my Holy Spirit who being heirs of the Promises and so have a Right to that abundant Consolation that Joy in believing which I am willing all of you should receive I know your Feares doubts perplexityes and Temptations your failings sinnes and back-slidings and what sad thoughts on the account of the evill of your owne hearts and wayes you are exposed to as that you shall never abide nor be able to continue with me and in my Love to the end let the feeble knees be strengthned and the hands that hang downe be lifted up behold I have ordained goodworkes for you to walke in as the way wherein you are to walke for the attainement of the end of your Faith the Salvation of your soules And to quicken you and stirre you up hereunto I have provided and established Effectuall Ordinances revealed in the Word of my Grace whereunto you are to attend and in the use of them according to my mind to grow up into Holinesse in all manner of holy conversation Watching Fighting Resisting Contending with and against all the Spirituall Enemy's of your soules And as for me this is my Covenant with you that my Spirit which gives Efficacy to all the meanes Ordinances and Advantages of Gospell Obedience which I have afforded unto you by whom I will fulfill in you all the good-pleasure of my Goodnesse and the worke of Faith with Power so making you meet for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light and Preserving you to my Heavenly Kingdome shall never depart
these Expressions whereunto it is necessitated and from which they cannot possibly decline as to their influence into this Argument ariseth clearely from their Ambiguity we deny any to be necessitated to Persevere or that our Doctrine affirmes any such thing taking that expression to hold out a power upon their wills in their operations inconsistent with the utmost liberty whereof in Spirituall things having received a Spirituall principle men are capable They are not so necessitated to Persevere as that all the Acts of their Obedience whereby they do Persevere should not be free but necessary indeed they are not at all nor in any sence necessitated to persevere There is no Necessity attends their Perseverance but only in respect of the event with reference to the Vnchangeable purpose and infallible Promise of God the like may be said of that other expression possibility of declining God leaves in them a possibility of declining as to their way and manner of walking with him though he leaves not to them a possibility of declining or falling totally from him as to the issue and event of the whole matter which doth not in the least necessitate them to or in any of their operations Secondly §. 8. the proposition must be cast into an other mould before it will be of any determinate signification in opposition to the Doct it opposeth tuned to an other mood before it will give a certaine sound to any battell against it this is that no Act of the Creature that is wrought in order to the obtaining of any end promised to be certainely attained thereby is rewardable of God though for Perseverance it is not any act of the Creature but only a modus of its Obedience and thus it lookes towards the concernement of this Doctrine yet before this proposition passe to omit sundry other things that would gladly rise to the destruction of it I desire one query may be assailed concerning the Obedience of Jesus Christ Whether it were not necessary that the end of his Obedience should follow and Whether it were not impossible he should decline from his Obedience And if it were whether it were impossible that God should give a Reward thereunto But thirdly §. 9. the intendment of this Proposition as farre as it concernes us and that indeed is with a respect to our Doctrine of the Efficacy of Grace and not this of Perseverance is this That which is wrought in us by the Effectuall Grace of God is not capable of Reward from God A Proposition which though capable of some plea and colour taking Reward in a pure Legall sence supposing the Persons seeking after it to do it by a service and dutyes proportioned unto it yet is so openly and directly contradictory to the tenour designe of God in the Covenant of Grace by Jesus Christ with the whole dispensation of the Spirit given to abide with Believers for all the ends and purposes as to their Obedience as I shall content my selfe to deny it expecting M. Goodwin's proofes of it When rivers runne backward heavy things ascend c. Fourthly for the flourish added to these Assertions by comparing the acts of the Saints Obedience upon a supposition of the Grace of God working them in them with their Naturall actions of eating drinking sleeping as to their tendency to exalt the Glory of God in rewarding it proceedes either from grosse ignorance of the Doctrine opposed or willfull prevaricating from that Light of it which he hath who ever taught that God's operations in and towards Believers as to their Perseverance in Faith and Obedience did consist in an outward constraint of an unwilling principle God gives a principle of Obedience to them he writes and implants his Law in their hearts and moves them effectually to act suitably to that inward principle they have so received which though Spirituall Supernaturall in respect of its rise manner of bestowing yet is connaturall to theÌ„ in respect of its being a Principle of Operation we are not then in the least beholding to our Author for his following concession That as a Prince may give great things to them that eat and drinke and breath but not as rewards so God may give Eternall Life to them that are so necessitated by him to Persevere though not as a reward For although we will not contend with God about Eternall Life that he give it us under the notion of a Reward and desire to be much affected with the Consideration of it as a free guift of Grace an eminent purchase of the Bloud of God and looke upon it meerely as a Reward of bounty so called as being the end whereunto our Obedience is suited and the rest of our Labours yet we say in an Evangelicall sence and acceptation it is properly so proposed to that Obedience and Perseverance therein which is wrought in us by the efficacy of the Grace of God as it lyes in a tendency unto that end which to be attained by those meanes he hath infallibly determined He proceeds therefore to inforce his Argument with a new Consideration §. 10. If we speake of Rewards Promised in order to the mooving or inclining of the wills of men towards such or such actions and wayes of which kind also the Rewards mentioned in the Scriptures as yet remaining to be conferred by God upon men are the case is yet more cleare viz. That they are appropriate unto such actions aud wayes unto the Election and choice whereof men are not necessitated in one kinde or other especially â—ot by any Physicall or forreigne power For to what purpose should a Reward be Promised unto me to Perswade or make me willing to ingage in such or such a course or to performe such such a service in case I be nessitated to the same ingagement or performance otherwayes Or what place is there left for a Morall inducement where a Physicall necessity hath done the executionâ— or if the Morall inducement hath done the execution sufficiently raised ingaged the will to the action with what congruity of Reason yea or common sence can a Physicall necessity be superinduced Ans. What there is more in this than what went before unlesse Sophystry and Falsity I see not For first though I conceive that Eternall Life is proposed in the Scripture as our Reward rather upon the account of supporting chearing our Spirits in the deficiency's Temptations and intanglements attending our Obedience than directly to ingage into Obedience though consequently it doth that also whereunto we have so many other unconquerable ingagements and inducements yet the consideration there of in that sence also as it moves the wills of men to Actions suitable to the attainement of it is very well consistent with the Doctrine in hand That old Calumny an hundred times repeated and insisted on in this contest of our wills being necessitated and deprived of their choise and Election unlesse it could be tolerably
mix the promises of it with Faith or of the powers of the world to come as to receive them in power in their hearts by believing so that farther contest about these words seemes to be altogether needlesse How farre men may proceed in the wayes of God §. 36. what progresse they may make in amendment of life what gifts and common graces they may receive what light and knowledge they may be indued withall what kind of Faith Joy Repentance Sorrow Delight Love they may have in and about spirituall things what desire of mercy and heaven what usefull gifts for the Churches edification they may receive how farre they may perswade their own soules and upon what grounds that their condition Godward is good and saving and beget an opinion in others that they are true Believers and yet come short of union with Christ building their houses on the sand c. is the daily taske of the Preachers of the Gospell to manisest in their pressing that exhortation of the Apostle unto their hearers to examine and try themselves in the middest of their profession whether Christ be in them of a truth or no. I shall not now enter upon that labour the Reader knowes where to find enough in the writings of holy and learned men of this Nation to evince that men may arrive at the utmost height of what is in this place of the Apostle by the Holy Ghost ascribed to the persons of whom he speakes and yet come short of the state of true Believers M.G. indeed tells us Sect. 27. The Premises relating to the two passages yet under debate considered §. 37. I am so farre from questioning whether the Apostle speakes of true and sound Believers in them that I verily judge that he purposely sought out severall of the most emphaticall and signall characters of Believers yea such which are hardly or rather not at all to be found in the ordinary sort of true Believers but only in those that are most eminent amongst them that so he and such who though sound yet were weake in the Faith might fall away and perish but that even such also who were lifted up nearer unto Heaven than their fellowes might through carelesnesse and carnallsecurity dash themselves in pieces against the same stone make shipwracke of their soules as well as they Ans. The House built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher have more faire perapets and battlements windowes and ornaments than that which is built upon the Rock yet all guifts and priviledges equall not one Grace in respect of light knowledge guifts and many manifestations of the Spirit such who never come up to that Faith which gives reall union and communion with Jesus Christ may farre outgoe those that do 2. That there is any thing mentioned or any characters given of Believers much lesse such as are singular and not common to all M. G hath not in any measure been able to evince There is not the meanest Believer in the world but he is a Child of God heir of the Promises brother of the LordChrist hath union with him hath his living in him is Quickned Justifyed Sanctifyed hath Christ made to him Wisedome c. hath his Righteousnesse in God and his Life hid in him in Christ is passed from death to Life brings forth fruit and is deare to God as the apple of his eye accepted with him approved of him as his temple wherein he delighteth to dwell That any thing in this place mentioned and insisted on any characters we have given of the persons whom we have considered doe excell or equall or denote any thing in the same kind with these and the like excellencyes of the meanest Believers will never be proved if we may judge of future successes from the issue of all former attempts for that end and purpose And this is the issue of Mr Goodwin's third Testimony produced to confirme the Doctrine of the Saints Apostacy but hypothetically and under such a forme of expression as may not be argued from nor of Saints and true Believers at all His 4. followeth His fourth Testimony he produceth §. 38. and indeavours to mannage for the Advantage of his cause Sect. 31. in these words The next Scripture Testimony we shall produce briefely urge in the cause now under maintainance is in the same Epistle with the former and speaketh these words Now the Just shall live by Faith But if any man draw back my soule shall have no pleasure in him Our English translators out of good will doubtlesse to a bad cause have almost defaced this Testimony by substituting any man for the just man for whereas they translate but if any man draw back the Originall readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. if or but if he i.e. the just man who should live by his Faith viz. if he continues in it shall draw back Beza himselfe likewise before thē had stayned the honour of his faithfulnesse with the same blot in his Translation But the mind of the Holy Ghost in the words is plaine and without Parable viz. that if the just man who lives i. e. who at present enjoyes the favour of God and thereby is supported in all his tryalls and should live allwayes by his Faith if he continues in it as Pareus well glosseth shall draw back or shall be withdrawn viz. through feare or sloth as the word properly signifyeth See Acts 20. 27. from his believing my soule shall have no pleasure in him i.e. according to the import of the Hebraisme my soule shall hate or abhorre him to death as it is also expounded in the words immediately following But we are not of those who draw back to perdition but c. From hence then evident it is that such a man who is a just or Righteous man and under promise of living for ever by his Faith and therefore also a true and sound Believer may draw back or be withdrawne to the contracting of the hatred of God and to destruction in the end The forlornehope of evading because the sentence is Hypotheticall or conditionall not positive hath been routed over and over yea and is abandoned by some of the great Masters themselves of that cause unto the defence whereof it pretendeth And however in this place it would be most preposterous For if it should be supposed that the just man who is in a way under a Promise of living by his Faith were in no danger or possibility of drawing backe and that to the losse of the favour of God and ruine of his soule God must be conceived to speake here at no better rate of wisdome or understanding than thus The Just shall live by his Faith but if he shall do that which is simply and utterly impossible for him to do my soule shall have no pleasure in him What savour of wisdome yea or of commonsence is there in admonishing or cautioning men against such evills which there
Believers Againe if true Believers shall live and continue to the saving of their soules in opposition to them that fall away to perdition then they shall certainly persevere in their Faith for these two are but one the same but that true Believers shall live believe to the saving of their soules in opposition to them that draw back or subduct themselves to perdition is the assertion of the Holy Ghost Ergo I presume by this time Mr Goodwin is plainly convinced that indeed he had as good yea and much better for the Advantage of his cause in hand have let his witnesse have abode in quietnesse and not entreated him so severely to denounce judgment against that Doctrine which he seekes by him to confirme Sect. 32. §. 41. the parable of the stony ground Mat. 13. 20 21. comes next to consideration the words chosen to be insisted on are in the verses mentioned but he that received the seed into stony places is he that heareth the Word anon with joy receiveth it yet hath be not root in himselfe but dureth for a while c. That by the stony ground is meant true Believers is that which Mr Goodwin undertakes to prove but how in his whole Discourse I professe I perceive not I must take leave to professe that I cannot finde any thing looking like a prâ—â—fe or Argument to evince it from the beginning to the end of this Discourse though something be offered to take off the arguments that are used to prove it to be otherwise doth Mr Goodwin think that men will easily Believe that Faith which hath neither root fruit nor continuance to be true and saving Faith doubtlesse they might have very low apprehensions of saving faith union with Christ justification sanctification adoption c. wherewith it is attended who can once entertaine any such imagination that which is tendered to induce us to such a perswasion may briefly be considered Saith he Sect. 32. §. 42. Now those signified by the stony ground he expressely calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. Persons who continue for a time or a season i.e. as Luke explaineth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who believe for a season so that those who only for a time believe and afterward make defection from Christ and from the Gospell are neverthelesse numbred and ranked by him amongst Believers The words in Luke are very particular They on the Rock are they which when they heare receive the word with joy and those have no root which for a while Believe and in time of temptation fall away From whence it appeares that the hearers here described are not compared to the Rock or stony ground for the hardnesse of their hearts for as much as they are said to receive the word with joy which argues an ingenuity and teachablenesse of spirit in them and is elsewhere viz. Acts 2. 41. taken knowledge of by the Holy Ghost as an Index or signe of a true Believer but for such a Property Disposition or Temper as this viz. not to give or afford the word so received a radication in their hearts and soules so intimous serious and solid which should be sufficient to maintaine their beliefe of it and good affections to it against all such occurrences in the World which may oppose or attempt either the one or the other Ans. 1. The first Reason intimated is that they are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a terme given them plainly to distinguish them from true Believers men that make a profession for a season expressly opposed to them who receive the word in good and honest hearts if the word had denoted any excellency any thing that was good in them then there had been some pretence to have insisted on it to prove them true Believers But to demonstrate the truth of their Faith from their Hypocrisy and their excellencies from that which expressely denotes their unworthinesse is a strange way of arguing They are persons saith our Saviour that make profession for a little while and then decay not like them who receive the Word in good and honest soules therefore saith M.G. they are true believers but 2. In Luke they are said to Believe for a season Mr Goodwin is not now to learne how often in the Scripture they are said to believe who only professe the Faith of the Gospell though the root of the matter be not in them that of John 2. 23 24 25. may suffice for undenyable instance or John 6. 64. may farther expound it their believing for a season is but the lifelesse worthlesse fruitlesse profession for a season as their destruction from the good ground doth manifest But 3. They are said to receive the word with joy which argues ingenuity and tractablenesse of spirit in them No more than in Herod who heard the Word gladly or in the Jewes when the preaching of Ezechiel was pleasant or desirable to them or those described Isai. 58. 2. % who sought God dayly and delighted to know his wayes in the middest of the abominable practices From the similitude it selfe He yet farther attempts this uncouth Assertion But as the blade which springs from one and the same kind of seed as suppose from Wheat or any other graine though sown in different yea or contrary soyles is yet of the same species or kind the nature of the soyle not changing the specified nature of the seed that is sowne in it and God giving to every seed it s owne body of what temper so ever the ground is where it is sown in like manner that Faith which springs from the same seed of the Gospell must needs be of one and the same nature and kind though this seed be sowne in the hearts of never so differing a constitution and frame the temper of the heart be it what it will be not being able specifically to alter either the Gospell or the naturall fruit issuing from it And as a blade or eare of Wheate though it be blasted before the Harvest is not hereby proved not to have been a true blade or eare of wheate before it was blasted in like manner the withering or decay of any mans faith by what meanes or occasion soever before his death doth not prove it to have been a false counterfeit or Hypocriticall Faith or a Faith of any other kind than that which is true reall and permanent unto the end Ans. 1. It hath been formerly observed that sâ—militudes are not argumentative beyond the extent of that particular wherein their nature as such doth consist The intendment of Christ in this Parable is to manifest that many heare the word in vaine and bring forth no fruit of it at all of these one sort is compared to stony ground that brings forth a blade but no fruit no fruit is no spirit though there be a blade or no blade the difference between the ones receiving of seed and the others manifested by our Saviour in this Parable is
fighting against their soules their continuance in Believing the falling from whence is indeed all the danger they are exposed to for whilst they continue so doing all other things are lighter then vanity that Christ takes no care about though he pray that God would sanctify them and keepe them but they must shift for themselves as well as they can he will not doth not Intercede for them that from these they may be preserved Doubtlesse he that shall think to be maintained long at any high rate of Consolation and laves in no other nor no better provision to live on then this mentioned will quickly be reduced to a dry morsell But yet some Reasons of the foregoing interpretation of this place of the Apostle Rom. 8 § 9. are offered unto us This to be the tenour and effect of Christ's Intercession for his Saints saith he is evident from the first of the three passages cited And for that demand who shall separate us from the love of Christ It is not meant from the Love wherewith we love Christ but from the Love wherewith Christ loveth us as we are Saints and abide in his love and keepe his commands neither is it so to be conceived as if sinne wickednesse loosenesse profanenesse could not unsaint men and hereby separate them from them from that love wherewith Christ sometimes loved them for that Iniquity will separate between men and their God is evident from Isa. 59. 2. But the cleare meaning is that nothing no Creature whatsoever person or thing can make Christ an enemy to those who shall in Faith and Love cleave fast unto him Ans. 1. All this respecteth only one expression in this one place of Scripture and ariseth not with the least power against our Argument taken from many places in Conjunction explicatory one of an other It runns also upon the same mistake with the former taking the exaltation of Believers upon the Intercession of Christ in their behalfe which holds out the Issue of it to be expressive of the matter of his Intercession being only a demonstration of the event of of it But grant this to be the tenor and effect of Christs Intercession that Believers may not be separated from his Love is he heard therein or is he not Whatsoever be the issue of the question our procedure will be facile But it is said that it is not the Love wherewith we love Christ but that wherewith he loveth us that we shall not be separated from take this also for granted that it is that that only will this advantage your Cause If we be never separated from that Love that Christ bears us is it possible we should wholly be separated from that Love that we beare him Wherein consists our separation from that Love that Christ bears us How is it caused or may it be procured Is it not by the losse of our Faith and Love to him Or at least is it not an inseparable consequence thereof Or can it possibly come to passe any otherwise then on that account If then he Intercedes that we may not be separated from that Love he bears us and that Love inferrs the continuance of ours doth he not withall Intercede that we may never loose that Love wherewith we love him by which we continue in his Love If the old shift be not at hand for a reliefe this young part of the Answer will instantly suffer losse It is added therefore he loveth us as we are Saints and abide in his Love that is for so we must understand it whilst we are so for that he beares any effectuall Love to us to keepe us up to Saintship that is denyed 't is true Christ loveth us as Saints and as abiding in his Commandements but it is also his Love to keepe us and he intercedeth that we may abide in that Condition wherein alone it is possible for us so to do Neither is the Question whether sinne loosenesse profanenesse do not separate between God and men more or lesse but whether Believers shall not be preserved from such loosenesse profanenesse as would make a totall separation between God and them and if God intercedes as is added in the close that nothing may make him an enemy to us certainely he must Intercede that no sinne may do it For indeed sinne is something in this businesse and this must be as to the keeping us from it I suppose no man thinks any thing in all this Discourse of Mr Goodwin's to looke like the least attempt of proofe that Christ doth not Intercede for the Perseverance of Saints Neither hath he confidence enough positively to deny it therefore spends his whole Discourse hereabout in evasions and diversions Let it be directly denyed that Christ doth not intend that the Faith of Believers may not faile that his Saints may be preserved and Saved and we know what we have to apply our selves unto And if the contrary cannot be proved the Saints know what they have to trust unto that they may no longer leane on that which will yeild them no supportment If this will not be let it on the other hand be granted that he doth so intercede for de unoquoque affirmare aut negare verum est As to this then he proceeds Secondly Were it granted that part of Christs Intercession for his Saints is that their Faith may never faile yet the intent thereof would not necessarily nor indeed with any competent probability §. 10 be this that no sinne nor wickednesse whatsoever that shall or can be perpetrated by them might cause them to make shipwracke of their Faith but rather that God would graciously vouchsafe such meanes and such a presence of his Spirit unto them as whereby they may be richly inabled to keepe themselves in Faith Good conscience to the end Ans. Whether prejudiced men will grant it or no it is clearly proved if the words of Christ themselves may be taken for proofe that he Intercedes for his Saints that their Faith may not faile and that notwithstanding the interposition of any such sinnes as they can or may suppositis supponendis amongst which is his Intercession fall into So he tells Peter upon the prediction of his dreadfull fall that neverthelesse he had prayed for him that his Faith should not faile That they may fall into such sinnes and continue in such as are inconsistent with their Acceptation with God according to the termes and tenor of the new Covenant is that which we have been disproving all this while and which our Author ought not as he doth in all his Reasonings to suppose In the not failing or dying of their Faith in their preservation therein is included their deliverance from the perpetration of the sinnes intimated or at least from such a manner of committing any sinne as should utterly separate them from God It is the continuance of a living Faith that Christ prayes for and where that is there will be workes of
from you so that you also having my Law written in your hearts shall never utterly and wickedly depart from me And for such sinnes and follies as you shall be overtaken withall I will graciously heale your backslidings and receive you freely This is the Language of the Doctrine we maintaine which is not we full well know obnoxious to any Exceptions or Consequences what ever but such as bold and prejudiced men for the countenance of their vaine conceits and opinions will venture at any time to impose and fasten on the most pretious Truths of the Gospell That God should say to Believers as is imposed on him fall into what sinnes they will or abominations they can yet he will have them believe that by an irresistible hand he will necessitate them to Persevere that is in and under their Apostacy which is evidently implyed in their falling into sinnes and abominations in the manner insisted on is a ridiculous fiction to the imagination whereof the least colour is not supplied by the Doctrine intended to be â—raduced thereby Secondly §. 4. for the ensuing Exhortations Promises and Threatnings as farre as they are really Evangelicall whose use and tendency is argued to be inconsistent with the Doctrine before proposed I have formerly manifested What is their proper use and efficacy in respect of Believers and their consistency with the truth we maintaine apprehended as it is indeed and not visarded with ugly and dreadfull appearances will I presume scarcely be called in question by any who having received a Kingdome that cannot he shaken doe know what it is to serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly feare It is true they are made unto and have their use in reference unto them that Believe and shall Persevere therein but they are not given unto them as men assured of their Perseverance but as men called to the use of meanes for the establishing of their soules in the wayes of obedience They are not in the method of the Gospell irrationally happed on such intimations of unchangeable Love or proposed under such wild Conditionalls and Suppositions as here by our Author but annexed to the Appointment of those wayes of Grace and Peace which God calls his Saints unto being suited to worke upon the new nature wherewith they are indued as spreading it selfe over all the facultyes of their Rationall Soules wherein are Principles fit to be excited to Operation by Exhortations and Promises Thirdly §. 5. all that is indeed Argumentative in this Discourse is built on this Foundation that a Spirituall Assurance of attaining the end by the use of meanes is discouraging and disswasive to the use of those meanes A Proposition so uncouth in it selfe so contradictory to the experience of all the Saints of God so derogatory to the Glory and Honour of Jesus Christ himselfe who in all his Obedience had doubtles an Assurance of the end of it all as any thing that can well fall into the imaginations of the Hearts of men Might not the Devill have thus replyed upon our Saviour when he tempted him to turne Stones into Bread cast himselfe from a pinacle of the Temple received Answer that man lives not by Bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God but alas thou Jesus the Sonne of the Living God that art perswaded thou art so and that God will preserve thee whether thou usest any meanes or no that thou shalt never be starved for want of Bread nor hurt thy selfe by any fall whatever thou clost the Angells having charge that no evill shall come nigh thee nor thy foot be hurt against a stone thou maist now cast thy selfe headlong from the Temple to manifest thy Assurance of the Love and Faithfullnesse of God with his Promises to thee If our Saviour thought it sufficient to stop the mouth of the Devill to manifest from Scripture that notwithstanding the Assurance from God that any one hath of the end yet he is to use the meanes tending thereunto a neglect whereof is a sinfull tempting of God we shall not need to goe farther for an Answer to the same kind of Objections in the mouth of any Adversary whatever His 19 th Section containeth his fourth Argument §. 6. in these words If there be no possibility of the Saints falling away finally then is their Persevering uncapable of reward from God But their finall Perseverance is not uncapable of reward from God Ergo The minor Proposition I presume containes nothing but what is the sence of those who deny the conclusion or how ever it containes nothing but what is the expresse sence of the Lord Christ where he saith that he that endureth to the end the same shall be saved Therefore I suppose we shall bee excused from farther proofe of this without any prejudice to the cause in hand Ans. I grant Eternall Life may be called the Reward of Perseverance in the sence that the Scripture useth that word applyed to the matter in hand It is afterward neither procured by properly and Morally as the deserving cause nor proportioned unto the obedience of them by whom it is attained a Reward it is that withall is the free gift of God and an Inheritance purchased by Jesus Christ a Reward of Bounty and not of Iustice in respect of them upon whom it is bestowed but only of faithfulnesse in reference to the promise of it A Reward by being a gratious incouragement as the end of our obedience not as the procurement or desert of it so we grant it a Reward of Perseverance though those words of our Saviour he that endureth to the end the same shall be saved expressed a consequence of things only and not a connexion of causality of the one upon the other of the foundation of this discourse concerning a possibility of declining immediate consideration shall be had He proceeds then The consequence of the Major Proposition §. 7. stands firme upon this foundation No act of the Creature whereunto it is necessitated or which it cannot possibly decline or but doe is by any Law of God or rule of Iustice rewardable therefore if the Saints be necessitated by God to Persevere finally so that he leaves unto them no possibility of declining finally their finall Perseverance is not according to any Law of God or man nor indeed to any principles of Reason or Equity capable of reward no whit more than actions meerely naturall are Nay of the two there seems be more reason why acts meerely naturall as for example Eating Drinking Breathing Sleeping should be rewarded in as much as these flow in a way of necessity yet from an inward principle and connaturall to the Agent than such actions whereunto the agent is constrain'd necessitated determined by a principle of power from without and which is not intrinsecall to it And this is the strength of the Argument which will quickly appeare to be very weakenesse For First the efficacy of