The stress of the whole, as far as we are concerned in it, lieth on the minor, which is thus farther attempted to be made good. The minor proposition is demonstrated thus : " The doctrine which ren- dereth the labour and faithfulness of a minister, in pressing such ex- hortations, threatenings, and promises, which tend to the preservation of the saints in faith and holiness to the end, useless, rendereth the ministry of the gospel, as far as it concerneth the encouragement or enabling of the saints to persevere, needless and vain; but guilty of such a tendency as this is the commonly received doctrine of per- severance: ergo."
Ans. This labour might have been saved, and both these syllo- gisms very easily reduced to one; but then another seeming argu- ment, afterward, as we shall find, insisted on, would have been pre- vented. Our trade in such cases as this is by weight, and not by number. The minor, then, is still to be confirmed, which he laboureth thus to do : —
" The common doctrine of perseverance requireth and commandeth all saints or believers to be fully persuaded, and this with the greatest and most indubitable certainty of faith, that there is an absolute and utter impossibility either of a total or a final defection of their faith, — that though they should fall into ten thousand enormous and most
432 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
abominable sins, aad lie wallowing in them, like swine in the mire, yet they should remain all the while in an estate of grace, and that God will, by a strong hand of irresistible grace, break them off from their sins by repentance before they die ; but the doctrine which requireth and commandeth all this, and much more of like import, to be confidently believed by true believers, rendereth the pressing of all exhortations, threateuings, promises upon them, in order to prevail with them, or to make them carefully to persevere, bootless and unnecessary: ergo."
Ans. What weight Mr Goodwin, with all those with whom, as to his undertaking under consideration, he is in fellowship, doth lay upon this argument is known to all. The whole foundation of what is afterward at large insisted on, for the establishment of it, bemg laid upon the proof of the minor proposition fonnerly denied, here laid down, it will easily be granted that it was incumbent on him to make sure work here, and not to leave any thing liable to any just exception. An error or a mistake in the foundation is not easily recoverable. All that is afterward heaped up beareth itself on a supposition of the truth of what is here delivered. If this fail in the least, we may spare our labour as to any farther consideration of what followeth. Now, the main of the proof here insisted on lieth in the declaration of that which he calleth the " common doctrine of perse- verance;" and concerning this he informeth his reader, —
" That it commandeth all saints to be fully persuaded, and that with the greatest and most indubitable certainty of faith, that there is an absolute and utter impossibility either of a total or final defec- tion of their faith."
Ans. What is the intendment of these aggravating expressions of "■ Fully persuaded," " Greatest and most indubitable certainty of faith," I know not. Will it please you if it should require them to be persuaded, but not fully persuaded; to believe it, but with little and dubitable certainty of faith, or uncertainty rather? Full persuasion, greatest certainty, without doubting or staggering, are all of them perfections of faith and of the saints in believing; which without doubt they are, in all that they are to believe, to press after. So that all this is no more but that this doctrine requireth men to believe what it affirmeth God to have promised. It requireth men to mix the promi.ses of God with faith, crimen inauditum. " But though the manner of believing which it requireth be not blaniable, yet the thing which it proposeth to be believed is false." What is that? "That there is an absolute or idler imjiossihility either of a total or final defection of the faith of true believers." Its re(]uiring this to be believed is the bottom and also corner-stone of Mr Goodwin's ensuing argument. If it doth not do this, he hath nothing in this place to say to it. Let him, then, produce any one that hath ever
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 433
wrote in the defence of it, that hath in terms, or by just consequence, delivered any such thing, and, en herham! there shall be an end of this dispute. I presunae Mr Goodwin knoweth what is meant by "an absolute and utter impossibility." An absolute repugnancy unto being, in the nature of the things themselves concerning which any affirmation is, and not any external or foreign consideration, doth en- title any thing to [be called] an absolute and Titter impossibility. Did ever any one affirm that, in the nature of the thing itself, the defection of the saints is absolutely impossible ? Is it not by them that believe the perseverance of the saints constantly affirmed that in themselves they are apt, yea, prone to fall away, and their faith to decay and die? which in itself possibly may be done, though Mr Goodwin can- not tolerably show how. The whole certainty of their continuance in, and of the preservation of, their faith, depends merely on supposi- tion of something that is extrinsical in respect of them and of their state, which, as to their condition, might or might not be. Farther, the perseverance of the saints is by the same persons constantly affirmed to be carried on and to be perfected in and by the use of means. It is their " keeping by the power of God through faith unto salvation." And can, then, an absolute impossibility of their defection be asserted, or only that which is so upon supposition, — namely, of the purpose of God, etc. ? There vras no absolute impossibility that the bones of Christ should be broken, they being in themselves as liable to be broken as his flesh to be pierced ; yet in respect of the event it was impossible they should be so. I cannot well imagine that Mr Good- win is not fully persuaded, with the greatest and most indubitable certainty that a persuasion in things of this kind will admit, that the "common doctrine of perseverance" doth not require saints to be- lieve that there is " an absolute impossibility of their defection," but only that God hath promised to preserve them from that which in themselves and in respect of any thing in them they are obnoxious unto, in and by the use of the means suited and appointed by him to the carrying on of that work and compassing of the end proposed. But yet it pleaseth him here to make show of a contrary apprehen- sion ; and to show his confidence therein he aggravates it with this annexed supposition and case: " It doth so," saith he, " though they should fall into ten thousand enormous and most abominable sins, and lie wallowing in them like swine in the mire, yet that they shall remain all the while in an estate of grace."