Nextly, sect. 26, Mr Goodwin entereth upon his defensative to the charge against his doctrine whose foundation is laid in the unworthi- ness of its authors in this nation, before it fell upon his hand. These he confessoth to be the worst of our late bishops, with such as Roman- ized and tyrannized among them, with their clergy creatures and favourites, persons many of them of superstition, looseness, and much profaneness. Of the apology shaped for the clearing of the doctrine he maintaineth from a participation with them in their unworthi- ness, there are three parts ; in the first whereof he denieth that " this doctrine did any way induce them to the looseness that was
XIII.] ASSERTOES AND ADVEESAillES COMPARED. 493
found upon them," in the other two he giveth as many reasons of their receiving of it and cleaving to it.
As for the first part, I shall willingly assent to him that the holi- ness or unholiness of professors is not to be charged on the religion they profess (I mean appearing holiness, in the profession of it), unless there be an evidence of a connection betwixt their principles and practices; which in this case, to us and our apprehension of them who charge this doctrine with the miscarriages of those men, there is; at least, we may insist on this, that there is a suitableness in the whole system of the doctrine, whereof the apostasy of the saints is an eminent parcel, to that frame of spirit which is in men of loose and superstitious ways, enemies of the grace of God and power of godliness. Neither can there any other reason be tolerably assigned or alleged for the embracement of that doctrine by those persons formerly mentioned, but only their ignorance of and enmity to the great mysteries of the gospel, the covenant of grace, with union, communion, and close walking with God. A design was upon them, written with the beams of the sun, to cry up a barren, outside, light, and loose profession, with a vain, superstitious, self- invented worship of God, instead of the power of a gospel conversa- tion and ordinances of Christ according to his appointment. Seek- ing after a " righteousness, as it were, by the works of the law," and being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, they found the whole doctrine whose defence Mr Goodwin hath lately undertaken suited to their principles and aims; and therefore with greediness drank it down like watei", until they were swelled with the dropsy of pride and self-conceit beyond what they could bear. Whatever be now pretended, it was little disputed then, and in those days which Mr Goodwin pointeth unto, but that looseness of life, inclination to Popery, and enmity to the power of godliness, were at the bottom of the entertainment of the Arminian principles by that generation of men.
But Mr Goodwin proceedeth to alleviate this charge, and informs us thus: "That if the soundness and rottenness of opinions should be esteemed by the goodness or badness of the lives of any parcel or number of persons professing the same, as well the opinion of atheism, which denieth the being of any god, as the opinion of polytheism, which affirmeth the plurality of gods, must be esteemed better and more sound than that which maintaineth the beinsf of one God, and of one only; for certain it is that there have been many heathens professors, some of the one and some of the other of these opinions, who have quitted themselves upon fairer terms of honour and approbation in their lives than many Christians profess- ing the last opinion have done."
I am not willing to wring this nose too far, lest blood should
494 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CH.VP,
follow. The lives of many atheists and pagans are preferred before the lives of many professing Christianity. By " professors of Chris- tianity" Mr Goodwin intendeth those who are so indeed, and seasoned ■with the power of the principles of that religion, or such only as, making an outward profession of it, are indeed acted with principles quite of another nature, which, notwithstanding all their profession, rendereth them, in the truth of the thing itself, " enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame," PhiL iii. 18, 19. If the former be intended, as the assertion is most false, the gospel only effectually " teaching men to deny all ungodliness, and to live soberly, righte- ously, and godly in this present world," so it tendeth directly to the highest derogation from the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his glorious gospel. He that would be thoroughly acquainted with the notorious untruth of this insinuation, let him a little consult Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Austin, and others, handling the lives and conversations of the best of the polytheists and heathens before and in their days; if he be not contented to take a shorter course, and rest in the authority of the apostle, or rather of the Holy Ghost, describing them and their conversation to the life, as they lay under the just hardening judgments of God, Rom. i. 18, to the end. If the latter sort of men, called Christians, be intended, the comparison instituted between them and atheists is to no pur- pose, they themselves being disclaimed and disowned by Christ and his gospel, and reckoned among them with whom they are com- pared : so that, upon the matter, this is but the comparing one sort of atheists with another, and giving in a judgment, that of all, those are worst whose practices are so, and who yet pacify their own con- sciences and deceive the world with a pretence and flourish of a glorious profession.