1. If you intend acts in a moral consideration, unless you add, " About the same object," which you do not, this assertion is so far from any evidence of truth, that it is ridiculously false. May not the same person love God and hate the devil at the same time? But, —
2. How pass you so suddenly from a plurality of wills to a plu- rality of acts? By the will we intend (in the sense wherein we speak of it) a habit, not any act, — that is, the will as habitually invested with a new principle, and not as actually willing from thence and
618 . DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
by virtue thereof. Arminius, from ^vhom our author boiTows this discourse, fell not iuto this sophistry ; he tells you, " There cannot be contrary wills or volitions about the same act." But is it with Mr Goodwin or Arminius an impossibility that there should be a mixed action, partly voluntary and partly involuntary? Actions whose prin- ciples are from without, by persuasion, may be ; so a man's throwing his goods into the sea to save his own life. Now, the principles whercr of we speak, flesh and grace, are internal and contrary; and shall not the actions that proceed from a faculty wherein such contrary prin- ciples have their residence be partly voluntary, partly involuntary? But he tells you, "That though there might be lusting of the Spirit against the flesh before the act of sin, yet when it comes to the acting of it then it ceaseth; and so the act is wrought with the whole will."
1. Though this were so, yet this doth not prove but that the action is mixed, and not absolutely and wholly voluntary. Mixed actions are so esteemed from the antecedent deliberation and dissent, though the will be at length prevailed upon thereunto ; and I have showed before that in the very action there is a virtual dissent, be- cause of the opposite principle that is in the will. But, —
2. How doth it appear that the Spirit doth not " lust against the flesh" (though not to a prevalency) even in the exertion of the acts of sin? In every good act that a man doth, because evil is present with him, though the prevalency be on the part of the Spirit and the principle of grace, yet the flesh also with its hist- iugs doth always in part corrupt it; thence are all the spots, stains, and imperfections of the holy things and duties of the saints. And if the flesh in its lusting will immix itself with our good actions to their defilement and impairing, why may not the Spirit in the ill [actions] not only immix itself and its lustings therewith, but bear off from the full influence of the will into them which otherwise it would have ?
But saith he, " If the Spirit doth not cease lusting before the flesh bring forth the act of sin, then is the Spirit conquered by the flesh, contrary to that of the apostle, 1 John iv. 4, ' Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world.'" But, —
1. If from hence the flesh must be thought and conceived to be stronger than the Spirit, because it prevails in any act unto sin, notwithstanding the contending of the Spirit, how much more must it be judged to prevail over it and to conquer it if it cause it utterly to cease, and not to strive at all! He that restrains another that he shall not oppose him at all hath a greater power than he who conquers him in his resistance. But why doth Mr Goodwin fear lest the flesh should be asserted to be stronger in us than the Spirit? Is not his whole design to prove that it is, or may be, so much stronger and more prevalent than it, that whereas it is confessed on
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all hands that the Spirit doth never wholly conquer the flesh, so that it shall not remain in the saints in this life, yet that the flesh doth wholly prevail over the Spirit and conquer it, to an utter expulsion of it out of the hearts of them in whom it is ?
2. In the prevalency of the flesh, it is not the Spirit himself that is conquered, but only some T/iotions and actings of him in the heart. Now, though some particular actings and motions of his may not come out eventually unto success, yet if he generally bear rule in the heart, he is not to be said, even as in us and acting in us, not to he stronger than the flesh. He is, as in us, on this ac- count said to be " stronger than he that is in the world," because, notwithstanding all the opposition that is against us, he preserveth us in our state and condition of acceptation with God, and walking with him with an upright heart, in good works and duties for the most part, though sometimes the flesh prevails unto sin, from which yet he recovers us by repentance.
3. To speak a little to Mr Goodwin's sense. By the Spirit's insufficiency, it is manifest, from the text vu'ged, and from what follows in the same place, that he intends not a spiritual vital prin- ciple in the will, having its residence there, with its contrary prin- ciple, the flesh (perhaps he will grant no such thing), but the Spirit of God himself. How, now, doth this Spirit lust? Not formally, doubtless, but by causing us so to do. And how doth it do that, in Mr Goodwin's judgment? Merely by persuading of us so to do. So that to have the flesh prevail against the Spirit is nothing, in his sense, but to have sin prevail and the motives of the flesh above the motives used by the Spirit; which may be done, and yet the Spirit continue unquestionably stronger than the flesh.