2. That the sentence of the law is the same towards all, curs- ing every one that continueth not in all things written in the book thereof to do them, Deut. xxvii. 26.
8. That in and under the gospel, wherein a remedy is provided in reference to the rigour and severity of both the former apprehensions, yet the Judge of all dealeth with all men equally, according to the tenor of it, " He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Men in the same condition shall have the same recompense of reward. But you will say, " Do not the same sins put men into the same condition, and deserve the same punish- ment in one as in another?"
Ans. 1. They do deserve the same punishment. God is equally provoked ; and had not Christ answered for the sins of believers, they
430 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS* PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
could not, they should not, have escaped the wrath due to them. 2. That the same sins do not argue men always, under the gospel, to be in the same condition, as shall be afterward fully manifested ; for, First, they do not find them in the same state. Some are in a state of death and sin, others of life and grace, being translated from the one to the other, having a title to the promise of mercy in Christ. Secondly, and chiefly, as there is a twofold justification, of the person and of the fact, and the one may be without the other, so there is a twofold condemnation, of disapprobation of the fact and of the person. As to the particular disapprobation of God in respect of any sinful act, it is the same in reference unto all persons, believers and unbe- lievers. As to their persons, there are in the gospel other ingredients to the judgment of them beside particular facts or acts, in answer to the law or the rule of righteousness, — namely, faith and repent- ance,— which alter the case of the person, even before the judgment- seat of God. To suppose the saints to fall into the same sins with other men in the same manner, and to continue in them without faith and repentance, is to beg the thing in question. Suppose them to have (what we affirm God hath promised) those conditions of evangelical mercy, and Mr Goodwin himself will grant it no accept- ance of persons to deal otherwise with them than with others who have committed like sins with them in whom those conditions are not wrought or found ; that is, " He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." This is all we say in this thing. But of the difference between believers and unbelievers in their sinning we shall speak afterward at large, to the full removal of this and another objection. For the present this shall suffice: Though believers fall, or may fall, into the same sins with other men, yet they fall not into them in the same manner with them, and they have a relief provided to prevent the deadly malignity of sin, which those who believe not have no interest in nor rioht unto.
Mr Goodwin's second argument is that which, of all others in this case, he seemeth to lay most weight upon, and winch he i:)ursueth at large in seventeen pages and as many sections, treating in it con- cerning the ministry of the gospel, and the usefulness of the exhor- tations, threatenings, and promises thereof. For an entrance into the consideration of it, I must needs say, " Non venit ex pharetris ista sagitta tuis." For besides that Mr Goodwin hath taken very little pains in the improvement of it (considering how it was pro- vided to his hand by the Remonstrants at the Synod of Dort, and that Avhich he hath done farther consisting in a mere useless and needless stuffing of it with sundry notions taken out of their first argument and fifth, " De modo conversionis," of the manner of the Spirit's operation in and upon the soul in its first conversion to God), it was the old song of the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians in their deal-
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 431
ing with Austin, Fulgentius, Hilarius, Prosper, and by tliem at large confuted ; renewed by Castalio and Erasmus against Luther, after it had been sifted and rejected by the more learned schoolmen in former ages. Whatever it be, and however it is now come to hand, being taught to speak our language, and that in the best fashion, the con- sideration of it must not be declined. And thus it is proposed : —
" If the common doctrine of perseverance rendereth the ministry of the gospel, so far as it concerneth the perseverance of the saints, vain, impertinent, and void, then is it not a doctrine of God, but of men, and consequently that which opposeth it is truth ; but certain it is that the said doctrine is of this unchristian tendency and import: ergo." The first part of the consequent of the major is granted. The work of the ministry being for the " perfecting of the saints, and the edification of the body of Christ," Eph. iv. ]2, 13, that which frustrateth the end where unto of Christ himself it is designed can be no truth of his. Of the farther inference, that the doctrine which opposeth it, or is set up in opposition to it, is the truth, more will be spoken afterward. For the present, I cannot but insist upon the former observation, that, notwithstanding Mr Goodwin's pretence of proving and arguing for the doctrine he maintains, yet upon the matter he hath not any thing to say in the carrying on of that de- sign, but instantly falls to his old work of raising objections, — in their very setting up prepared to be cast down, for the most part, — which with all his might he labours to remove.