But is this indeed Mr Goodwin's doctrine? is this all that he intends his arguments and proofs shall amount unto? "Ad popu- lum phaleras." Strange, that when there is not so much as a proba- bility or danger of falling away, yet so many and so eminent saints should so fall ! How seldom is it that we hear of wise and sober men running into the fire, throwing themselves headlong from towers, thrusting swords through their own bowels! and nothing more frequent than the apostasy of saints, if these things stood upon equal terms of unlikelihood and improbability ! The stony field in the parable seems to be every whit as large as the good ground, whose fruit abideth. Matt. xiii. 20, 21, 23. That ground, in Mr Goodwin's sense, is
* " Quidam sixnt, qui jam aliqiiamdiu hice veritatis collustrati fuerunt, et in ejus cognitione pietatisque studio tantum profecerunt, ut habitum tandem credendi sanc- teque yivendi comparaverint : hos non tantum ad finem usque vitas persevcrare posse, scd facile posse, ac libenter et cum voluptate pei-severare velle credimus, adeo ut non nisi cum lucta et molestia ac difficultate deficerepossint."' — Act. Synod. Dec. Sent. A. 5, pp. 189, 190.
10 4> DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
true believers, so that a moiety at least must be granted to fall away, and never come to perfection. Doubtless this is not easy to be received, that one half of a company of men in succession should constantly, from one generation to another, fall into ruin in such a way as wherein there is no danger of it, or probability that it should so come to pass, Methinks, we should scarce dare to walk the streets, lest at every step we be struck down by sober men voluntarily tum- bling themselves from the tops of houses, and hardly keep ourselves from being wounded with the swords wherewith they run themselves through. Was this indeed the case with David, Solomon, Peter, and others, who totally apostatized from the faith ? But if it be so, if they are thus secure, whence is it that it doth arise? what are the fountains, springs, and causes of this general security? Is it from the weakness of the opj^osition, and slightuess of all means of diver- sion from walking with God to the end, that they meet withal? or is it from the nature of that faith which they have, and grace where- with they are endued? or is it that God hath graciously under- taken to safeguard them, and to preserve them in their abiding with him, that they shall not fall away ? or is it that Christ intercedeth for them that their faith fail not, but be preserved, and their souls with it, by the power of God, unto the end? or from what other principle doth this security of theirs arise? from what fountain do the streams of their consolation flow? where lie the heads of this Nilus?
That it is upon the fi7^st account, I suppose cannot enter into the imagination of any person who ever had the least experience of walking with God, or doth so much as assent to the letter of the Scripture. How are our enemies there described, as to their num- ber, nature, power, policy, subtlety, malice, restlessness, and advan- tages! with what unimaginable and inexpressible variety of means, temptations, baits, allurements, enticements, terrors, threats, do they fight against us! Such and so many are the enemies that oppose the saints of God in their abiding with him, so great and effectual the means and weapons wherewith they fight against them, so un- wearied and watchful are they for the improvement of all advan- tages and opportunities for their ruin, that upon the supposal of the rejection of those principles and those means of their preservation which we shall find Mr Goodwin to attempt, they will be found to be so far from a state of no danger and little probability of falling, or only under a remote possibility of so doing, that it will appear utterly impossible for them to hold out and abide unto the end. Had the choicest saint of God, with all the grace that he hath re- ceived, but one of the many enemies, and that the weakest of all them which oppose every saint of God, even the feeblest, to deal withal, separated from the strength of those principles and support-
I.] THE ENEMIES OF THE DOCTRINE CONSIDERED. 105
ments which Mr Goodwin seeketh to cast down, let him lie under continual exhortations to watchfulness and close walking with God, he may as easily move mountains with his finger or climb to heaven by a ladder as stand before the strength of that one enemy. Adam in paradise had no lust within to entice him, no world under the curse to seduce him, yet at the first assault of Satan, who then had no part in him, he fell quite out of covenant with God, Ps. xxx. 6, 7.
I shall give one instance, in one of the many enemies that fight against the welfare of our souls; and "ex hoc uno" we may guess at the residue of its companions. This is indwelling sin, whose power and policy, strength and prevalency, nearness and treachery, the Scripture exceedingly sets out, and the saints daily feel. I shall only point at some particulars: —