XIII.] ASSERTORS AND ADVERSARIES COMPARED. 497
Another reason^ of the same evidence with the former, is tendered in these words: "It is generally known that the cathedral genera- tion of men throughout Christendom were generally great admirers of the old learning (as some call it), I mean the writings and tenets of the fathers, and of Austin more especially, and that they frequently made shield and buckler of their authority to defend themselves against the pens and opinions of later writers, whom their manner was, according to the exigency of their interest (at least as they conceived), to slight and vilify in comparison of the others. Now, the judgment of the fathers more generally, and of Austin more particularly, stood for the possibility of the saints' de- fection, both total and final, wherein it seemeth the greater part of our modern reformed divines have departed from them."
That this pretence is no whit better than that before will be evi- denced by the light of this one consideration, namely, that those among the bishops and their adherents who were indeed most zealous of, and best versed in, the writings of the fathers, were generally of the same judgment about the grace of Christ and the will of man, etc., with the residue of the reformed churches and the puritan preachers of our own nation. They were a company of sciolists in comparison, and men of nothing, who arminianized ; men, as the bishop of Lincoln once told them, whose " learning lay in a few un- learned liturgies." It is true, they had gotten to such a head and to such a height, not long before their fall, that they were ready to accuse and charge their associates as to discipline, worship, and ceremony of Puritanism ; who failed not to retort Arminianism and Popery back again to them. We know who said of the others that they were " tantum non in episcopatu Puritani;" and who returned to him and his associates, " Tantum non uxoratu Pontificii." The truth is, those among them, as there were many among them, both bishops and men (as they speak and think) of inferior orders, wlio were solidly learned, especially in the writings of the ancients (of whom many are yet alive, but some are fallen asleep), were uni- versally, almost to a man, of the same judgment with Calvin in the heads of our religion under consideration. Jewell, Abbot, Morton, Usher, Hall, Davenant, and Prideaux (great names among the world of learned men), with a considerable retinue of men of repute for literature and devotion (with whom on no account whatever the arminianizing party of the prelates and their followers are to be named the same day), have sufficiently testified their thoughts in this matter to all the world. From what ambiguity of expression it is that any sentence is stolen from Austin and others of the ancients, seeming to countenance the doctrine of the saints' apostasy, hath been elsewhere discovered, and may farther be manifested as occa- sion shall be administered. And without pretence to any great skill
VOL. XI. 32
498 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCK [CHAP.
in the old learning, this I dare assert (whereof I have given some ac- count in the preface to the reader), that not one of the ancients, much less Austin, did ever maintain such an apostasy of saints and such a perseverance as that which Mr Goodwin contendeth for.
This being that which Mr Goodwin hath to offer for the clearing of the doctrine he maintaineth from the first two parts of the charge exhibited against it, he applieth himself, in the last place, to contend with a common observation made by Christians weighing and pon- dering the principles and ways of men in the days wherein we live, namely, " The degeneracy of the most of men who at any time embrace it from their former profession, and their turning aside to the paths of looseness and folly;" — an observation which, if time (though Mr Goodwin is pleased to assert that any considering man, like himself, will laugh it to scorn), will not easily be digested in the tlioughts of them that are willing to weigh aright the usual presence of God with his truths, especially at the first embracement and enter- tainment of them. Neither will this observation be diverted from pursuing the doctrine against which it is lifted up, by comjDaring it with that of " the unhappiness of marriages made between cousins- german," there Ijeing nothing in that relation that should be a dis- posing cause to any such issue as is pretended; much less with that farther observation, that some " apostatize from the protestant reli- gion, yea, from Christianity itself;" there being not the least parity, or indeed analogy, in the instances. If it might be affirmed of men, that after their embracing of Christianity or the protestant reli- gion, they generally decline and grow worse, as to their moral con- versation, than they were before, I do not know at present what apology could be readily fixed on that might free the one and the other from grievous scandal. To fall from a profession of any reli- gion, or any head or part of a religion, upon the account of the corruption that is in them that so fall from it, is rather an honour than a reproach to the religion so deserted. But, in and upon the embracement of any religion or doctrine in religion, for men to de- cline from that which is the proper end of all true religion (which is the observation that riseth up against the doctrine Mr Goodwin asserteth, in reference to very many that embrace it), doubtless is not the crown and glory of that which they profess. Neither is this observation built on so slight experience as to be muzzled with pro- verbs of swallows and woodcocks, the streets of our cities and paths of our villages being full of those fowls, or rather foul spirits, that give strength imto it.