I cannot see, then, to what end and purpose the whole ensuing discourse, from the beginning of this argument to the end of the 21st section, is. It is acknowledged that all those places do concern believers, the intendment of the Holy Ghost in them being to discover to them the nature of the sins specified, and the end of the committing of them in the way intended, and that God purposes to proceed according to the importance of what is threatened to those sins so committed with all that do them; that so they may walk watchfully and carefully, avoiding not only those things themselves, but all the ways and means leading to them (though if any one of them sin any of those sins without the deadly attendants of them mentioned in Scripture, they have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous). But that from thence it may be inferred that believers may, and some do sin, and that God intends, as it is expressed, to destroy them if they so do, when he hath promised they shall never do so, is a very weak and ridiculous argumentation. They are a medium of acquainting them with the desert of sin, the terror of the law to them that are under it, and the riches of grace in their deliverance.
It is true, " unbelievers are," as you say, " in our judgment" (and I wonder Avhat yours is in the case), " in a state of exclusion from the kingdom of God, whether they perpetrate the works of the flesh mentioned or no." Unbelief is, in our judgment, sufiicient of itself to exclude any one from the kingdom of God. But yet withal, in our judgment (and we desire to know yours), it is impossible that unbelievers (we mean those who are adults) should not perpetrate the same evils mentioned, or others of the same import, " all the thoughts and imaginations of their hearts being evil, and that con- tinually," and thereupon be farther exposed to the wrath of God, which is revealed against all that do evil. If, therefore, the dis- covery of a man's desperate condition, that he may be stirred up to labour and strive for a deliverance from it, doth concern him, then these and the like passages do properly and primarily concern un- believers, whose state, with the issue of it, is particularly described therein. And to say, as our author doth, " that it is a vain thing for the Spirit of God to threaten wrath to men upon the committing of sin, if by unbelief they are exposed antecedently to that wrath,"
532 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
is to question the wisdom of Him with whom (whatever become of us poor worms) we cannot contend. He hath told us that all men by nature are children of wrath and unclean, so far as not to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven unless they be washed and born again ; and yet (we hope without the least deficiency in wisdom), hath farther revealed his wrath from heaven against the ensuing ungodliness that is committed by these children of wrath, to be exe- cuted in tribulation and anguish against every soul that so doth evil. Not to detain the reader; what hath been said and shall far- ther be argued concerning the difference that is between believers and unbelievers in their sinning, with that also which hath been spoken of the concernment of believers in these and the like pas- sages of Scripture, sufficiently argues that no such inference as is made for the confirmation of the assumption of the argument under consideration, according to Mr Goodwin's thoughts and a2:)prehen- sions of it, can possibly be drawn out from them.
Sect. 22 is a pretty pageant, and by the reader's favour I shall show it him once more : " If it be objected, ' That true believers have a promise from God that they shall never lose their faith,' I answer, — First, That this hath oft been said, but never so much as once proved Secondly, Upon examination of those scriptures wherein such pro- mises of God are pretended to reside or to be found, we find no such thing in them. We find, indeed, many promises of their perse- verance, but all of them conditional, and such whose performance, in respect of actual and complete perseverance, is suspended upon the diligent and careful use of means by men to persevere. And, lastly, to affirm that true believers can by no commission of sin or sina whatsoever, how frequently soever reiterated, how long continued in soever, ever make shipwreck of their faith, or fall away from the grace and favour of God so as to perish, what is it but to provoke the flesh to an outrageousness in sinning, and to encourage that which remains of the old man in them to bestir itself in all waj^s of un- righteousness? And, doubtless, the teaching of that doctrine hath been the casting of a snare upon the world, and hath caused many whose feet God had guided into ways of peace to adventui-e so far into desperateness of sinning, that, through the just judgment of God, their hearts never served them to return."
Ans. 1. The foundation of this whole discourse is a supposal of promises of preserving believers in their faith, upon the ridiculous supposition after mentioned, to be asserted by the doctrine of the saints' perseverance and the defenders of it; which Mr Goodwin knows full well to be far otherwise.