XIII.] ASSERTORS AND ADVERSARIES COMPARED. 487
space of three hundred years and more, held a possibility of a total and final defection, even in true and sound believers, is so clear from the records yet extant of those times that it cannot be denied."
Ajis. To let pass Mr Goodwin's proverb with its application (it being very facile to return it to its author, there being nothing in the world by him proposed to induce us to such an estimation of his associates in the work of teaching the doctrine of the saints' apos- tasy and their labours therein, or any other undertaking of theirs, as he labours to beget in gilding over their worth and writings, but only his own judgment, and an overweening of their geese for swans), let us see what is offered by him to evince the experience asserted not to be so unquestionable as is pretended. He offers, 1. His own affirmation, " That if an estimate may be made of men's worth and holiness by their writings, those who oppose the doctrine of the saints' perseverance will be found, in the promotion of holiness and practice of it, to outgo their adversaries." " Their writings," he tells us, " breathe forth a spirit of holiness such as he cannot find in the writings of others." But, first, for this you have only Mr Goodwin's naked, single testimony, and that opposed to the common experi- ence of the people of God. What weight this is like to bear with men the event will show. It is a hard thing for 07ie mail, upon his bare word, to undertake to persuade a multitude that what their eyes see and their ears hear is not so. Mr Goodwin had need have Pythagorean disciples for the embracing of these dictates of his. The experience of thousands is placed to confirm the observation in- sisted on. Saith Mr Goodwin, "It is not so; they are, in my judg- ment, all deceived." But, secondly, who are they in whose writings Mr Goodwin hath found such a "spirit of holiness breathing, with au- thority, as is not to be found out nor perceived in the writings of them that assert the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints?" Cal- vin, Zanchius, Beza, etc., and (to confine ourselves to home) Reynolds, Whitaker, Perkins, Greenham, Dodd, Preston, Bolton, Sibbs, Rogers, Culverwell, Cotton, etc., — whose fame upon this very account, of the eminent and effectual breathing of a spirit of holiness in their writings, is gone out into all the nations about us, and their remembrance is blessed at home and abroad, — are some of the men who have, as hath been showed, laboured in watering the vineyard of the Lord with the dew and rain of this doctrine. Who or where are they who have excelled them in this undertaking ? Let the men be named, and the writings produced, that Mr Goodwin may have some joined with him in a search after and judgment of that spirit that breathes so excellently in them, that we be not forced to take his testimony of we know not what nor whom. Those amongst ourselves of chiefest name who have appeared in the cause that Mr Goodwin hath now undertaken are, Tompson, Montague, etc., with an obscure rabble
4S8 DOCTllINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CIIAP.
of that generation. I shall easily allow Mr Goodwin to be a man more sharp-siglited than the most of those with whom he hath to do in this present contest, as also to have his senses more exercised in the writings of those eminent persons last named ; but yet that he is sensible of such a spirit of holiness breathing in their writings (which, for the most part, are stuffed with cruel scoffings at the pro- fessors of it, and horrible contempt of all close walking with God), I cannot easily and readily believe. Should he add to them Armi- nius, with all that followed him in the Low Countries; their most learned Corvinus, drunk and sober; as also such among the Papists and Lutherans as are his companions in this work ; and swell them all with the rhetoric of his commendations until they break, — I dare say he will never be able, before indifferent judges, to make out his assertion of the excellency of their writings for the furtherance of holiness, compared with the labours of those great and holy souls who have, both among ourselves and abroad, laboured in the work I am at present engaged in. The world of men professing the re- formed religion have long since, in their judgments, determined this difference, nor doth it deserve any farther debate.
2. " That those who maintain the perseverance of the saints are sore, indeed, in their exhortations to holiness, but contemptible in their principles, upon which they should build those exhortations," is an insinuation that Mr Goodwin sometimes makes use of, hand- somely to beg the thing in question, when he despairs to carry it by any convincing argument in a fair dispute. That the prin- ciples of this doctrine are eminently serviceable to the furtherance and promotion of holiness hath been formerly evinced beyond all possibility of contradiction from them who in any measure under- stand what true godliness is and wherein it doth consist. Neither ought Mr Goodwin, if he would be esteemed as a man disputing for his persuasion, so often to heg the thing in question, knowing full well that he hath not so deserved of them with whom he hath to do as to obtain any thing of this nature, on those terms, at their hands.