The design and aim of our establishment by the Spirit is, he tells us, that we be not shaken or moved from the faith of Christ ; [he] so establisheth us that he sufters us not to depart and fall away from the faith. And that the argument which he insists on, — from what we have presently received to an assurance of abode in our condition, to the enjoyment of the full inheritance, — is not contemptible in the cause in hand, is farther manifested in the treatise itself.
And these instances may suffice for the first period of time mentioned, before the i-ising of the Pelagian heresy; of which, and those others of the same kind that might be produced, though they may not seem so full and expressive to the point under consideration as those which follow after, yet concerning those authors and their testimonies these two things may be asserted: —
] . That thuugh some expressions may be gathered, from some of the writers within the space of time mentioned, that seem to allow a possibility of defection and apostasy in believers, — occasioned, all of them, by the gene- ral use of that word, and the taking in the several accounts whereon men,
00 A PREFACE TO THE READER.
both in the gospel and in common use, are so called, — yet there is no one of them that ever ascribed tlie perseverance of them who actually and eventually persevere to such grounds and priiici])les as j\Ir Goodwin doth, and which the reader shall find at large by hira insisted on in the ensuing treatise. The truth is, liis maintaining of the saints' perseverance is as bad, if not worse, than his maintaining their apostasy.
2. That I scarce know any head in religion concerning which the mind of the ancients, who wrote before it received any opposition, may be made out more clearly than we have done in this, by the instances produced and insisted on.
The Pelagian heresy began about the year 417. The first opposers thereof are reckoned up by Prosper, cap. ii. De Ingrat. The bishop of Eome, the Palestine synod in the case of Pelagius, Jerome, Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, the synod of Ephesus, [of] Sicily, and two in Afric, he mentions in order, concluding them with the second African, gathered to that end and purpose: —
" Anne alium in finem posset procedere sanctum Concilium, cui dux Aurelius ingeniumque Augustinus erat ? quern Chrit^ti gratia cornu Uberiore rigans, nostro lumen dedit £evo, Accensum vero de lumine, nam cibus illi Et vita et requies Deus est; omiiisque voluptas Unus amor Cliristi est; unus Christi est lionor illi: Et dum nulla sibi quserit bona, fit Deus illi Omnia, et in sancto regnat sapientia templo."
And because I shall not burden the reader, being now entered upon the place and time wherein very many witnesses call aloud to be heard about the difference in hand, of the first opposers of the Pelagian heresy, I shall insist only on him who is indeed " instar omnium," and hath ever been so accounted in the controversies about the grace of God: and I shall the rather lay this weight on him, because it is evident that he spake the sense of the wliole church in those days wherein he lived. This is AusTi.v, of whom saith the same Prosper: " Noverint illi non solum Romanam eccle- siam Africanamque, sed per omnes mundi partes universes promissionis filios, cum doctrina hujus viri, sicut in tota fide, ita in gratioe confessione congruere," Epist. ad Ilusti.
And when his writings began to be carped at by the semi-Pelagians of Prance, Ca;lestine, bishop of Rome, in his Epist. ad Gallos, gives him this testimony : " Augustinum, sancta; recordationis virum pio vita sua et nioribus, in nostra communione semper habuinuis, noc uriquam hunc sinis- traj suspicionis rumor saltem aspersit, quem tanta3 sciential olim fuisse me- minimus, ut inter magistros optimos etiam a meis prreJecossoribus habere- tur." His writings also were made use of not only by Prosper, Hilary, and Fulgcntius, but generally by all that engaged against the Pelagians. "Zosimus," saith Prosper, ad Collat. cap. xli., "cum esset doctissimus, ad- versus libros tamen Pelagianorum beati Augustini responsa poscebat." And Leo, Epist. ad Concil. Ai-ausic, transcribes out of liim verbatim the things that he would have confirmed and established. And in his own days, not- withstanding the dilleronces between them, the aged and learned Jerome tells him, Epist. xciv., " JVIihi decretum est te amare, te suspiccre, colere, mirari, tuaque dicta, quasi mea, defendere." Hence was that outcry in the Palestine synod ui)on the slighting of his authority by Pelagius: "Dixit Pelagius, Qiiis est mihi Augustinus? Acclamabant onnies blasphe- mantem in episcopum, ex cnjus ore Dominus universa; Africie unitatis in- diilserit sanitatem, non solum a conventu illo, sed ab omni ecclesia pellen-
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dum," Oros. Apologet. pp. G21, 622. So also Gelas. Biblioth. Pat. Tom, 4, Colum. 553, p. 589.
Fulgentius also, with them assembled with him at Byzacene, when they were banished Afi ic by Thrasimundus, in that synodical epistle, gives them this counsel : " Pra3 omnibus studium gerite libros S. Augustini quos ad Prosperum et Hilarium scripsit, memoratis fratribus legendos ingerere," Epist. Synod. Byzac. Much more might be added to manifest the judg- ment of Austin to have been the catholic judgment of the church in those days ; so that in his single testimony as groat a number are included as in the testimony of any one man in the world whatever.