■which the Holy Ghost in this place intendeth, is expressly to make the Holy Ghost a liar, and to contradict hira to his face.
3. What love in us is that that the flesh can or may "entice to folly?" Are the fruits of the Spirit of God, the graces of his own work- ing and creating in us, of such a temper and constitution as that they may be enticed to uncleanness and folly? And is it possible that such a thought should enter into the heart of a man professing the doctrine of the gospel? that ink should stain paper with such filth cast upon the Spirit and grace of God? The fear of hell erewhile was suited to the use of the flesh, but now, it seems, it serves to keep the love of God itself in order, that otherwise would wax wanton, fleshly, and foolish ! Foolish love, that will attempt to cast out this tormenting fear, not being able to preserve itself from folly without its assistance !
Sect. 15 is spent in an answer endeavoured to an objection placed in the beginning of it, in these words: —
" If it be farther demanded, 'But doth it not argue servility in men to be drawn by the iron cord of the fear of hell to do what is their duty to do? or doth any other service or obedience become sons and children but only that which is free and proceedeth from love?'"
Hereunto you have a threefold answer returned : —
First, " That God requires that it should be so;" which is a down- right begging of the question.
Secondly, He puts a difference between the obedience of children to their parents and of the saints unto God, the discourse whereof discovering some mysteries of the new doctrine of grace, much pressed and insisted on, take as follows : — " There is a very different consider- ation of the obedience of children to their natural parents, and of the obedience of the children of God unto their heavenly Father. The obedience of the former is but by the inspiration of nature, and is an act not so much raised by deliberation or flowing from the will, by an interposure of judgment and conscience to produce the elec- tion, as arising from an innate propension in men, accompanying the very constituting principles of their nature and being; whereas the latter, the obedience of the children of God, is taught by precepts, and the principle of it, I mean that rational frame of heart out of which they subject themselves to God, is planted in the souls of men by the engagement of reason, judgment, and conscience, to consider those grounds, arguments, and motives, by which their heavenly Father judgeth it meet to work and fashion them unto such a frame. So that though the obedience of natural children to their natural parents be the more genuine and commendable when it flows freely from the pure instinct of nature, and is not drawn from them by fear of punishment, yet the obedience of the children of God is then most genuine and commendable, and like unto itself, when it is produced
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 477
and raised in the soul by a joint influence and contribution, not of one, or of some, but of all those arguments, reasons, motives, induce- ments whatever, and how many soever they be, by which their hea- venly Father useth to plant and work it in them; for in this case, and in this only, it hath most of God, of the Spirit of God, of the wisdom of God, of the goodness of God. In and upon this account it is likeliest to be most free, uniform, and permanent."
The sum of this answer amounts to these three things: — First, That there is an instinct or inspiration of nature in children to yield obedience to their parents. Secondly, That there is no such spiritual instinct or inclination in the saints to yield obedience to God. Thirdly, That the obedience of the saints ariseth merely and solely from such considerations of the reason of that obedience as they apprehend, in contradiction to any such genuine principles as might incline their hearts thereunto.
1. For the first, that the obedience of children to their parents, though it be a prime dictate of the law of nature wherewith they are endued, proceedeth from a pure instinct, any otherwise than as a principle suiting and inclining them to the acts of that obedience, so as to exclude the promoting and carrying of it on upon the moral consideration of duty, piety, etc., it is in vain for Mr Goodwin to go about to persuade us, unless he could not only corrode the word of God, where it presseth that obedience as a duty, but also charm us into beasts of the field, which are acted by such a brute instinct, not to be improved, stirred up, or drawn forth into exercise by de- liberation or consideration. There is, it is true, in children an im- press of the power of the law of nature, suiting them to obedience (which yet in many hath been quite cast out and obliterated, being none of the constituting principles of their nature, which, whilst they have their being as such, cannot be thrown out of them), and carry- ing them out unto it with delight, ease, and complacency, as habits do to suitable actings; but withal that this principle is not regulated and directed, as our obedience to God, by a rule, and stirred up to exert itself, and [that] they in whom it is [are not] provoked by rational and conscientious considerations to the performance of their duty in that obedience, is so contrary to the experience, I suppose, of all sharers with us in our mortality, that it will hardly be admitted into debate. But, —