426 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CUAP.
suasions to be irresistible — The dealings of God and men ill compared — Paul's exhortation to the use of means, when the end was certain, Acts xxvii. 21-36, considered — God deals with men as men, exhorting them ; and as corrupted men, assisting them — Of promises of temporal things, whether all conditional — What condition in the promise made to Paul, Acts xxvii. 24 — Farther of that promise ; its infallibility and means of accomplishment — The same considera- tions farther prosecuted — Of promises of perseverance and exhortations to perform in conjunction — ]\Ir G.'s opposition hereunto — Promises and ex- hortations in conjunction — 1 Cor. x. 12, 13 discussed — An absolute promise of perseverance therein evinced — Phil. ii. 12, 13, to the same purpose, con- sidered— Mr G.'s interpretation of that place proposed, removed — Heb. vi. 4-6, 9, to the same purpose insisted on — Of the consistency of threatenings with the promises of perseverance — Mr G.'s opposition hereunto considered and removed — What promises of perseverance are asserted; how absolute and infrustrable — Fear of hell and punishment twofold — The fear intended to be ingenerated by threatenings not inconsistent with the assurance given by promises — Five considerations about the use of threatenings — The first, etc. — Hypocrites, how threatened for apostasy — Of the end and aim of God in threatenings — Of the proper end and efficacy of threatenings with reference unto true believers — Fear of hell and punishment, how for a principle of obe- dience in the saints — Of Noah's fear, Heb. xi. 7 — Mr G.'s farther arguings for the efficacy of the fear of hell unto obedience in the saints proposed, con- sidered, removed — 1 John iv. 1 8 considered — Of the obedience of saints to their heavenly Father, compared to the obedience of children to their natural parents — Mr G.'s monstrous conception about this thing — How fear and love are principles of obedience, and in what sense — That which is done from fear not done willingly nor cheerfully — How fear, and what fear, hath tor- ment— Of the nature and use of promises — Close of the answer to this argu- ment.
It will be needless to use many words unto the discourse of the first section, seeing it will not in the least prejudice our cause in hand to leave Mr Goodwin in full possession of all the glory of the rhetoric thereof; for although I cannot close with him in the expo- sition given of that expression, 1 Tim. vi. 16, "God inhabiteth light inaccessible," something, in my weak apprehension, much more glo- rious and divine being comprised therein than what it is here turned aside unto (neither am I in the least convinced, of the truth rt^g a-TodCsic^g of the former discourse, in the close of the whole, asserting a deliverance to be obtained from our thoughts of the doctrine of the defection of the saints, which he intimateth to be [evangelical], that it is anti-evangelical, tormenting, and bringing souls under bondage, by a narrow and unprejudicate search into it, finding my- self every day more and more confirmed in thoughts of that kind concerning it by my engagement into such an inquiry, which hath been observed in this present discourse as far as my weakness Avill permit), yet it being not in the least argumentative, but, for the whole frame and intendment of it, commune exordium, and that which any man of any opinion in the world might make use of, I shall not insist upon it
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 427
His second section containeth his first argument, drawn forth in the defence of his doctrine of the " possibility" (as he calleth it, but indeed what it is we have heard) " of the defection of behevers." Of this I presume he intended no more use but (as a forlorn) to begin a light skirmish with his adversaries, ordering it to retreat to his main body advancing after, or desperately casting it away, to abate the edge of his combatants' weapons, it is so weak and feeble; and therefore I shall be very brief in the consideration of it. Thus, then, he proposeth it: —
" That doctrine which rendereth God free from the unrighteous- ness which the Scripture calleth the respecting of persons of men, is a doctrine of perfect consistence with the Scripture and the truth ; the doctrine which teacheth the possibility of the saints' declining, and this unto death, is a doctrine of this import : ergo."
Ans. The first proposition must be supposed universal, or else the whole will quickly be manifested to be unconclusive. If it be only indefinite, and so equivalent, as it lieth, to a particular, the con- clusion is from all particulars, and of no force, as Mr Goodwin well knoweth. Take it universally, and I say it is evidently false, and might easily be disproved by innumerable instances. Not that any error or falsehood can indeed give God the glory of any one of his attributes, but that they may be fitted and suited for such a service, were not their throats cut and their mouths stopped by the lies that are in them; which Mr Goodwin's doctrine is no less liable to than any other, and not at all exempted from that condition by its seeming subserviency unto God's aprosopolepsia. Doth not the doctrine of justification by works, even in the most rigid sense of it, according to the tenor of the old covenant, absolutely render God free from the unrighteousness of accepting of persons? and yet, for all that, it hath not one jot the more of truth in it, nor is it the less anti-evangelical. This foundation, then, being removed, whatever is built upon it mole ruit sua. Neither is it in any measure restored or laid anew by the reason of it given by Mr Goodwin, namely, " That the Scripture affirmeth in sundry places that God is no accepter of persons;" for he that shall hence conclude that whatever doctrine affirmeth, directly or by consequence, that God is no accepter of persons, whatever other abomination it is evidently teeming withal, is yet ti-ue and according to the mind of God, shall have leave, notwithstanding the antiquated statute of our university against it, to go and read logic at Stamford. On this account do but prove that a doctrine be not guilty of any one crime, and you may conclude that it is guilty of none. For instance, that doctrine which impeacheth not the om- nipresence of the Deity is true and according to the Scripture, for the Scripture aboundeth with clear testimonies of the presence of God in all places ; now the doctrine of the ubiquity of the human