XIII.] ASSERTORS AND ADVERSARIES COMPARED. 483
generation for their labour in the Lord, and of name among the saints for their work in the service of the gospel.
For the one half of that small space of time which is passed since the breaking forth of the light of the gospel in this nation, we are disenabled from pursuing the comparison instituted, the one part being not to be considered, or at least not being considerable. The time when first head was made against the truth we profess, and criminations like those managed by Mr Goodwin hatched and con- trived to assault it withal, was when it had been eminently delivered to the saints of this nation, and to all the churches of Christ, by Rey- nolds, Whitaker, Greenham, and others like to them, their fellow- labourers in the Lord's vineyard. The poor weak worms of this present generation who embrace the same doctrine with these men of name, are thought to be free (some of them, at least) from being destroyed by the poisonous and pernicious embracing of it, by their own weakness and disability to discern the natural, genuine conse- quences and tendency in the progress of that which in the root and foundation they embrace. Their ignorance of their own doctrine in its compass and extent is the mother of that devotion which in them is nourished thereby. So our great masters tell us, against whose kingly authority in these things there is no rising up. For the persons formerly named the like relief cannot be supposed. He that shall provide an apology for them, affirming that they under- stood not the state, nature, consequences, and tendencies, of the doc- trine they received, defended, preached, contended for, will scarce be able, by any following defensative, to vindicate his own credit for so doing. In the lives, then, and the ministry of those men, and such as those, if anywhere, are the fruits of this doctrine to be seen. If it corrupted not their lives, nor weakened their ministry; if it turned not them aside from the paths of gospel obedience, nor weak- ened their hands in the dispensation of the word, in the promises, threatenings, and exhortations thereof, to the conversion of souls and building up of those who by their ministry were called, in their most holy faith, — it cannot but be a strong presumption that there is no such venomous, infectious quality in this doctrine as of late some chemical divines pretend themselves to be able to extract out of it. Now, what, I pray, were these men? — what were their lives? what was their ministry? All those who now oppose Mr Good- win's doctrine do it either out of ignorance, or to comply with great- ness and men in authority; thereby to make up themselves in their ambitious and worldly aims, and to prevail themselves upon the opinion of men ; — for what cause else in the world can be imagined why they should so engage? What though they really believe the whole fabric of his doctrine, — wherein he hath departed from the faith he once, as they say, professed, — to be a lie j a lie of dangerous
484 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
and pernicious consequence to the souls of men ; a lie derogatory to the glory of God, the efficacy of grace, the merit of the death of Christ, and the honour of the gospel, and full of disconsolation to poor souls, being in and under temptation? what though they suppose it secretly to undermine the main fundamentals of the covenant of grace, and covertly to substitute another covenant in the room thereof? what though they have observed that the doctrine they have received was embraced, preached, prized, by all those great and blessed souls which, in the last generation, God magnified with the conversion of so many thousands in this nation, given unto their ministry, whilst they spent their days under continual afflictions and persecutions? what though they have the general, known consent of all the reformed churches beyond the seas with them in their zeal for the doctrine under consideration? what though, under these and the like apprehensions, they profess in the presence of God, his holy angels, and men, that the eternal interest of the precious souls of men is more valuable to them ten thousand times than their own lives, and that that is the sole reason of their opposition to Mr Goodwin in his attempts against the doctrine they have so received and embraced? • — yet it is meet for us to judge, and for all by whom evil surmises are not esteemed to be among the works of the flesh, that all their opposition is nothing but a compliance with, and pursuit of, those worldly, low, and wretched aims, that they are filled withal! But as to those persons before mentioned, what shall we say ? Their piety, literature, zeal, diligence, industry, labour, with success in the work of the ministry (and that under manifold discourage- ments), are so renowned in the world, that how or wherewith they shall be shifted off from being considerable in their testimony, I cannot imagine. If ever persons in these latter ages had written upon their breasts, " Holiness to the Lord," — if ever any bare about a conformity to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, — they may put in for an eminent esteem and name among them, and will doubtless be found at last to be of the " thirty," if they attain not to the first rank of the worthies of Christ in these ends of the world. How is it that they were not retarded in the course of their gospel obedience by their entertainment of this wretched doc- trine of the saints' perseverance? But what though they kept them- selves personally from the pollution of it, yet possibly their ministry was defiled and rendered useless by it! And who, I pray, is it that in this generation can so support himself with success in the ministry as to rise up with this accusation against them? Many thousands who were their crown, their glory, and rejoicing in Christ, are fallen asleep; and some continue to this day. Of the reasons given by Mr Goodwin why all the zealous, fruitful preachers of former days em- braced this doctrine, we shall instantly undertake the consideration.