I shall not now enter upon any long inquiry what influence the ungodly and profane lives of any ought to have upon the judgment of men in discovering and discerning of the doctrines that they bring, especially if such as consent in any doctrine do also concur in a dis- soluteness of conversation. That it will be of no small consideration, the experience of all ages hath evinced. The Athenians refused a virtuous law, because the person was vicious who proposed it; and it is generally esteemed that there is a correspondency betwixt the prin- ciples and practices of those men who earnestly profess the promotion of those principles, so that they are mutual producers and advantagei"s one of another. This is all at present that was aimed at in the charge upon Mr Goodwin's doctrine, which he undertakes to waive : It was generally embraced, at its first broaching in our world, only by men of a loose and scandalous conversation, superstitious in their ways of worship, and enemies of the power of godliness; which being
XIII.] ASSEETORS AND ADVEESAEIES COMPARED. 495
confessed, for the argument from thence, " valeat quantum valere potest."
But Mr Goodwin giveth us two reasons why this doctrine of his was so gladly received and zealously asserted by that generation of men. The first, which, he telleth you, is plain and easy to be given in, is this : " Being professed enemies to the most religious and zeal- ous preachers and ministers of the land, with their adherents, whom they termed ' Puritans,' whom they both hated and feared, as a gene- ration of men by whom, rather than any other, they apprehended themselves in danger of being dethroned, ' Nee eos fefellit opinio.' Upon this ground they judged it a very material point of their in- terest to oppose and keep under this ' faction,' as they termed them. In order thereunto, they studied and cast about how to weaken their interest and repute with the generality of the people, or at least with all those that were intelligent, and in that respect considerable ; to this end wisely considering that nothing was like to prejudice them more in their esteem with most men than to detect them of error and unsoundness in their doctrine; and perceiving withal (as with half an eye they might, being so fully disengaged as they were from all high thoughts of those that held them) that they were not in any doctrine besides, which they were generally known to hold and teach, more obnoxious to such a detection than in those which they held and taught in opposition to the Remonstrants, hereupon they politically fell to profess and teach Remonstrantism, that so they might have the more frequent occasion and opportunity to lay open the puritan doctrine before the people, and to show the inconsistency of it with the Scriptures, as also with many of the most manifest principles as well of reason as religion besides."
Ans. That this is a most vain and groundless conjecture, I presume any one that will but cast back his thoughts upon the posture of affairs during the reign of that generation of men, and a little con- sider the ways and means whereby they were, through the righteous hand of God, reduced to that condition and state wherein they now are, will quickly determine. The truth is, they were so far from ad- vantaging themselves against their adversaries, and prevailing upon them, in the esteem of the most rational and knowing men in the nation, by their entertaining the Arminian doctrine, that utterly, on the other side, they dishonoured their cause of ceremonies, discipline, and conformity, which with success they had so long carried on with the generality of the nation, and exposed themselves to the power of the people of the land in parliament, from whence, as to all other differences, they were sheltered by an appearance of legal constitu- tions; so that, after some forward person of that faction (the most contemptible, indeed, as to any real worth, one or two individuals only excepted, of the whole tribe) had, upon the grounds forementioned,
496 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
taken up and made profession of the opinions and doctrine we are speaking of, they fell daily before their adversaries as to the esteem of all, or at least the greatest part, of those who cordially and tho- roughly adhered to them as to the discipline and worship then estab- lished. Certainly the prelatical party themselves will not say they prevailed on that hand, as to any ends and purposes for the estab- lishment of their interest, or making good their ground against their opposers. Nay, the most sober and learned of that sort of men do to this day ascribe, in no small measure, the downfall of the whole fabric whereof they were parts and members to the precipitating rashness and folly of some few in advancing and pressing the Armi- nian errors that they themselves were given up unto. As for the zealous and godly ministers of the nation, usually termed " Puritans" (who are here acknowledged by Mr Goodwin to have all generally opposed the doctrine he striveth to build up), though they had in many parliaments, wherein the most intelligent and rational men of the nation are usually convened, made by their friends sundry at- tempts for their rehef against the persecutions of the others, — as is evidenced by their petitions and addresses still on record, — yet they were never able to obtain the least redress of their grievances, nor to get one step of ground against their adversaries, until the advantage of their Arminianism was administered unto them ; on which, by seve- ral degi'ees, they prevailed themselves in the issue to the utter break- ing of the yoke of their taskmasters. It is true. He who " taketh the crafty in their own imaginations, and mixeth the counsel of the wise with madness and folly, causing them to err in their ways as a drunken man in his vomit," doth oftentimes turn the devices of men upon their own heads, and make those things subservient to their ruin which they fixed upon as the most expedient mediums for their establishment and continuance, — such perhaps was the case with them in their canonical oath, attempted to be imposed in one of their last convocations, — but that the taking up and asserting of the Arminian doctrine was a design of that party of men to get upon the judgments and affections of the people, and to expose the puri- tanical preachers to their contempt and reproach, is an imagination that cannot lightly fall upon any one who had his eyes open in the days wherein those things w^ere publicly acted on the stage of this nation. For that insinuation in the close of Mr Goodwin's discourse, concerning the advantages given that sort of men by the inconsist- ency of the doctrine of the Puritans, which they opposed, with the principles of religion and reason, I shall only say, that it being once more, through the providence of God, called forth to a public debate, it neither standeth nor falleth to the judgment of any single man, much less of one who is professedly engaged in an opposition there- unto.