316 DOCTRINE OF THE saints' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
this witness, the Amen, the great and faithful Witness in heaven. He tells us that he will send the Spirit, to abide with us for ever; and therein speaks to the whole of the case in hand and question under debate. All we say is, that the Spirit of God shall abide with believers for ever. Christ says so too; and in the issue, whatever becomes of us, he will appear to be one against whom there is no rising up.
Against this testimony it is objected by Mr Goodwin, chap. xi. sect. 14, p. 234: "This promise," saith he, " concerning the abiding of this other Comforter for ever must be conceived to be made either to the apostles personally considered, or else to the whole body of the church, of which they were principal members. If the first of these be admitted, then it will not follow that because the apostles had the perpetual residence of the Spirit with them and in them, therefore every particular believer hath the like; no more than it will follow that because the apostles were infallible in their judg- ments, through the teachings of the Spirit in them, therefore every believer is infallible upon the same account also. If the latter be admitted, neither will it follow that every believer, or every member of the church, must needs have the residence of the Spirit with them for ever. There are principal privileges appropriated to corporations, which every particular member of them cannot claim. The church may have the residence of the Spirit of God with her for ever, and yet every present member thereof lose his interest and part in him; yea, the abiding of the Spirit in the apostles themselves was not ab- solutely promised, John xv. 10."
A7)s. 1. The design of this discourse is to prove that this promise is not made to believers in general, or those who through the word are brought to believe in Christ in all generations to the end of the world, and consequently that they have no promise of the Spirit's abiding with them ; for that is the thing opposed. And this is part of the doctrine that tends to their consolation and improvement in holi- ness ! What thanks they will give to the authors of such an eminent discovery, when it shall be determined that they have deserved well of them and the truth of God, I know not; especially when it shall be considered that not only this, but all other promises uttered by Christ to his apostles, — as we had thought, not for their own behoof alone, but also for the use of the church in all ages, — are tied up in their tendency and use to the men of that generation, and to the employment to which they to whom he spoke were designed. But let us see whether these things are so or no. I say, —
2. There is not any necessary cause of that disjunctive proposi- tion,— The promise of the perpetual residence of the Spirit is made " either to the apostles personally, or to the whole body of the church." By the rule formerly given for the interpretation of these
VII.] THE MEDIATION OF CHRIST. 317
promises of Christ, it appears that what in this kind was made to the one was also given to the other; and how Mr Goodwin will enforce any necessary conclusion from this distinction, framed by himself for his own purpose, I know not. The promise was made both to these and those, the apostles and all other believers, because to the apostles as believers.
3. The making of the promise to the apostles 'personally doth not argue that it was made to them as apostles, but only that it was made to their persons or to them, though under another qualifica- tion, namely, of believing. It is given to them personally as be- lievers, and so to all believers whatever. This also sets at liberty and plainly cashiers the comparison instituted between the apostles' infallibility as apostles and their sanctifying grace as believers, by the Spirit of grace given for that end. The apostles' infallibility, we con- fess, was from the Spirit ; for they, as other holy men of old, wrote as they were moved by the Spirit of God, 2 Pet. i. 21 : but that this was a distinct gift bestowed on them as apostles, and not the teach- ing of the Spirit of grace, which is given to all believers, 1 John ii. 27, we need not contend to prove.
Besides, to what end doth he contend that it was made to the apostles in the sense urged and by us insisted on, seeing he denies it in the close of this section, and chooseth rather to venture upon an opposition unto that commonly received persuasion that the apos- tles of Christ (the son of perdition only excepted) had an absolute promise of perseverance, than to acknowledge that which would prove so prejudicial and ruinous to his cause, as he knows the con- fession of such a promise made to them would inevitably be? He contends not, I say, about the sense of the promise, but would fain divert it from other believers (at the entrance of the section) by limiting it to the apostles; but considering afterward better of the matter, and remembering that the concession of an absolute promise of perseverance to any one saint whatever would evidently root up and cast to the ground the goodliest engine that he hath set up against the truth he opposeth, he suits it (in the close of the section) to an evasion holding better correspondency with its associates in this undertaking.