4. There is in men a different power as to persuasion, some hav- ing a faculty that way far more eminent and effectual than others, according to their skill and proficiency in oratory and persuasive axts. This only is ascribed to God, that he so excels us as one man excels another; but how that excellency of his is exerted, that is not to be understood. But there is proof tendered you of all this from 1 Cor. iii. 9, where ministers are said to " co-operate with God, which they cannot do unless it be with the same kind of
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 453
efficiency," (well said !) " and that wlien one works necessitatlngly and another by persuasion, they cannot be said to co-operate, no more than one that runs and another that walks can be said to walk to- gether." Certainly our author never dreamed that any man what- ever would put himself to the trouble of examining these dictates, or he would have been more wary of his asserting them, and we had not had so much, not only new and strange divinity, but new and uncouth philosophy, heaped up without any considerable endeavour of proof or confirmation.
(1.) That two agents cannot concur or co-operate to the produc- ing of the same effect but with the same kind of efficiency is a rare notion indeed. Was he never persuaded to do any thing in his life? What thinks he of David and the Ammonites' killing of Uriah? of a judge and an executioner slaying a malefactor? of God and Satan moving David to number the people? of God and Joseph's brethren sending him to Egypt? But what need I mention in- stances? W^ho knows not that this so confounds all causes efficient, and that principal and instrumental, material, final, formal, which in their production of effects have all their distinct efficiency, and yet their co-operation ?
(2.) The proof from the Scripture mentioned extends only to the interesting of ministers in the great honour of co-operating with God in the work of begetting and increasing faith in their own sphere, according to the work to them committed ; but that God and they do work with the same kind of efficiency, it is the main intend- ment of the apostle in the place cited (1 Cor. iii.) to disprove. He tells you, indeed, there is a work of planting and watering committed to the ministers of the gospel ; but the giving of increase (a peculiar working with a distinct kind of efficiency), that is alone to be ascribed to God. It is, I say, his design (who everywhere abundantly in- forms us that " faith is the gift of God, wrought in us by the exceed- ing greatness of his power") to prove in this place that though the dis- pensation of the word of the gospel be committed unto men, yet their whole ministry will be vain and of none effect, unless, by an imme- diate efficacy or working of his Spirit, giving and bestowing faith on his elect, God do give an increase.
(3.) For the term of " necessitating," put upon the real effectual work of God's grace on the wills of men, giving them power and assistance, and working in them to will and to do, as different from that which is purely moral or persuasive only, which communicates no strength or power, I shall need no more but to reject it with the same facility wherewith it is imposed on us. The similitude of one walking and another running, wherewith [he sets forth] the inconsis- tency of a real efficient work of grace with persuasion, so far as that they should be said to co-operate to the producing of the same effect,
454 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PEESEVERANCE. [CHAP.
doth not in the least iHustrate what it is intended to set off; for though one run and another go softly (as suppose one carrying a little loaf, another a great burden of meat, for a supper), and both going to the same place, why may not they be said to co-operate to the providing of the same supper ? Must all agents that co-operate to the produc- ing of the same effect be together in one place? You may as soon bring heaven and hell together as prove it. And why must real efficiency be compared to " running," and persuasion to " soft walk- ing V as though one were supposed to carry on the work faster than the other, when we only say, that in the one there is a distinct power exerted from what is in the other; which that it may be done might be proved by a thousand instances, and illustrated by as many simi- litudes, if any pleasure were taken to abound in causa facilL God and man then co-operate in respect of the tendency of their working unto the event, not in respect of the kinds of their efficiency.
Of the 7th section (whereon we shall not need long to insist), which in the entrance frames an objection and pretends an answer to it, there are three parts. In the first he says that we affirm " That though the will be necessitated by God, yet it is free in its election ; which, how it may be, he understands not." But if this were all the inconvenience, that Mr Goodwin could not understand how to salve the operation of God in man with the libert}'' of his will, seeing as wise men as himself have herein been content to captivate their understandings to the obedience of faitli, it were not much to be stumbled at; but the truth is, the chimera whose nature he pro- fesseth himself unacquainted withal is created in his own imagina- tion, where it is easy for every man to frame such notions as neither himself nor any else can bring to a consistency with reason or truth. Of necessitating the will to election we have had occasion more than once already to treat, and shall not burden the reader with needless repetitions.