There are such ways and things as in their own nature have an inconsistency with the life of Christ, as the abnegation of Christ himself. But this also we affirm to be twofold, or to receive a two- fold consideration:' — 1. It may be resolved, upon consideration, with the deliberate consent of the whole soul; which we utterly deny that believers can or shall be left unto for a moment, or that ever any true believer was so. 2. Such as may be squeezed out of the mouths of men by the surprisal of some great, dreadful, and horrible temptation, without any habitual or cordial assent to any such abo- mination, or disaffection to Christ, or resolute rebellion against him. Thus Peter fell into the abnegation of Christ, whose faith yet under it did not perish, if our Saviour was heard in his prayer for him, having an eye to that very temptation of his wherein he was to be tried, and his fall under it. In the first sense are those words of our Saviour, Matt. x. 33, to be understood, and not in the latter. Christ was so far from denying Peter before his Father under his abnega- tion of him, that he never manifested more care and tenderness to- wards any believer than towards him in that condition. And this wholly removes Mr Goodwin's 1 0th section out of our way, without troubling of ourselves to hold up that distinction of a final denial of Christ, and that not final, seeing in all probability he set it up him- self that he might have the honour to cast it down.
What follows in Mr Goodwin from the beginning of sect. 11, chap. X., to the end of sect. 1 7, is little more than a translation of the
200 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
Kemonstrants' sophistry in vexing this text in their Synodaha; which he knows full well where to find discussed and removed. For the sake of our English readers, I shall not avoid the consideration of it I aflSrm, then, that the phrase s! dvmrov here denotes the impossibility of the event denied, the manner of speech, circum- stances of the place, with the aim of our Saviour in speaking, exact- ing this sense of the words. The words are, "ncre TAai/^ca;, sJ duvarhv, xai To'js sTcXsxTovg. It is the constant import of the word cuV« to de- sign the event of the thing which, by what attends it, is asserted or denied (so Gal. iL 13; Matt. viiL 28, xv. 31; 1 Thess. i. 8), neither is it ever used for ha. In the place by some instanced for it, Rom. vii. 6, it points clearly at the event. "Ivo6 is sometimes put for it, but not on the contrary. And the words el duvarov, though not so used always (although sometimes they are, as Gal. iv. 15), do signify at least a moral impossibility, when they refer to the endeavours of men ; but relating to the prediction of an event by God himself, they are equivalent to an absolute negation of it. That of Acts xx. 16 is urged to the contrary. Paul hoped si duvuTov, to be at Jerusalem at Pentecost. " 'If it be possible' here cannot imply an impossibility as to the event," says Mr Goodwin. But are these places parallel? Are all places where the same phrase is used always to be expounded in the same sense? The terms here, " If it be possible," respect not the futurition of the thing, but the uncertainty to Paul of its pos- sibility or impossibility; the uncertainty, I say, of Paul in his con- jecture whether he should get to Jerusalem by such a time or no, of which he was ignorant. Did our Saviour here conjecture about a thing whereof he was ignorant whether it would come to pass or no? We say not, then, that in this place, where it hwardv is expressive of the uncertainty of him that attempts any thing of its event, that it affirms an impossibility of it, and so to insinuate that Paul made all haste to do that which he knew was impossible for him to do; but that the words are used in these two places in distinct senses, according to the enclosure that is made of them by others. " But," saith Mr Goodwin, " to say that Paul might be ignorant whether his being at Jerusalem by Pentecost might be possible or no, and that he only resolved to make trial of the truth herein to the utmost, is to asperse this great apostle with a ridiculous imputation of igno- rance." And why so, I pray you? It is true he Avas a great apostle indeed; but it was no part of his apostolical fumishment to know in what space of time he might make a sea-voyage. Had Mr Good- win ever been at sea, he Avould not have thought it ridiculous igno- rance for a man to be uncertain in what space of time he might sail from Miletus to Ptolemais. Paul had a short time to finish this voyage in. He was at Philippi at the days of unleavened bread, and afterward, verse 6; thence he was five days sailing to Troas,
III.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 201
verse 6 ; and there he abode seven days more. It may well be sup- posed that it cost him not less than seven days more to come to Miletus, verses 13-15. How long he tarried there is uncertain. Evi- dent, however, it is, that there w^as a very small space of time left to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost. Paul was one that had met not only with calms and contrary winds, but shipwreck also, 2 Cor. xi. 25 ; so that he might well doubt whether it were possible for him to make his voyage in that space of time he had designed to do it in, and this surely without the least disparagement to his apostolical knowledge and wisdom. In brief, when this phrase relgj:es to the cares and desires of men, and unto any thing of their ignorance of the issue, it may design the uncertainty of the event, as in this place and that of Rom. xii. 18; but when it points at the event itself, it peremptorily designs its accomplishment or not, according to the tendency of the expression, which affirms or denies. Notwithstand- ing, then, all evasions, the simple, direct, and proper sense of our Saviour's words, — who is setting forth and aggravating the pre valency of seducers in evil times, by him then foretold, — is, that it shall be such and so great as that, if it were not impossible upon the account of their election, they should prevail against the very elect them- selves. But, —