2. The church of Christ, in rejecting of one from its society, accord- ing to the appointment of Jesus Christ, is so far from being obliged to judge any one /or ever excluded from the kingdom of God, that they do so reject a man that he may never be excluded from that kingdom. It is true, he may be ecclesiastically and declaratively excluded from the visible kingdom of God, and his right and title to the outward administration of the good things thereof ; but that such an one is, and must be thought to be, properly and really ex- cluded from his interest in the love of God and grace of the cove-
5 12 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
nant (being still, by the appointment of God and command of Christ, left under the power of an ordinance annexed by him to the admi- nistration of that covenant), it doth not follow.
3. The non-restoration of pei'sons cast out of communion by the church to their place in the kingdom of God, but upon repentance, holds proportion with what was spoken before upon exclusion. The repentance intended is such as is necessary for the satisfaction of the church, as to its expressness and being known. Yet we grant withal that all sins whatever without repentance, in that kind and degree that is appointed and accepted of God, are exclusive of the king- dom of God ; and we do much wonder that Mr Goodwin to the text, Rom. viii. 1, should add, " Whether they repent or not," which is not only beyond the sense of what went before, but directly contrary to that which follows after, " Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Not to repent of sin is doubtless to " walk after the flesh." No one of them who are freed from condemnation in Christ doth good, and sinneth not. The words, we confess, are not the con- dition, in the intention of God, on which their non-condemnation is suspended; but yet they are a description infallible of them who through grace are made partakers of it. We say, then, that believers may so fall as that being [they may be ?] on that account rejected from the communion of the church, so as not to be restored but upon the evidence of their repentance (and we say that repentance is required for all sins, or men cannot be saved, wondering what Mr Goodwin, according to his principles, intends by the addition to the text of Rom. viii. 1, unless it be that no man stands in need of repentance unless he have cast off all faith and interest in God, — ^a most anti -evangelical assertion), and yet not commit such sins as whereby their faith must needs be wholly lost.
4. There is a twofold right and title to the kingdom of God; a right and title, by the 'profession of a true faith, to the external kingdom of God, in regard of its outward administration; and a right and title to the eternal kingdom of God, by the possession of a true faith in Christ. The former, as it is taken for jus in re, believers may lose for a season, though they may not in respect of a remote, original, fuudainental root, which abides; the latter they never lose nor forfeit. We say, also, that repentance for sin being a thing pro- mised of God for those that come to him in Christ, upon the account of the engagement of his grace for the perseverance of believers, all such fallers into sin shall certainly return to the Lord by repentance, who heals their backslidings; which Mr Goodwin hath not been able to disprove, of wliose arguments, and his endeavours to vindicate them from exceptions, this is the chief
But yet there being two or three things that Mr Goodwin is pleased to add to what went before, as objections against his doc-
XV.] THE SINS OF BELIEVERS CONSIDERED. 543
trine in general, — though not of this last argument's concernment any more than of any others he makes use of, — because there are in them considerations of good advantage to the truth in hand, I shall a little insist upon them before I proceed with my intended discourse.
The first is, " That the doctrine of the saints' apostasy maimeth or dismembereth the body of Christ, and brings in an uncouth and un- seemly interchange of members between Christ and the devil;" which, howsoever slighted by Mr Goodwin, is a plea not of the least import- ance in the case in hand. The "body of Christ" intended is that which is mystical and spiritual, not that which is political and visible; his body in respect of the real union of every member of it unto him as the head, described by the apostle in its relation unto him, Eph. iv. 15, 16, " It groweth up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and com- pacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." So also Col. ii. 19. The body we intend is that whereof Christ is the head, not only in a political sense, as the supreme governor of it, but in a spiritual, according to the an- alogy of a head natural, from whence life and all influences of it unto the members do flow. Of this body, some are, in their spirits, already consummated and made perfect in heaven ; some are as yet pursuing their warfare in all parts of the world, pressing forward to the mark of the high calling set before them. Now, that any member of his body, " bone of the bone, flesh of the flesh of Christ," given him to make up his fulness and mystical perfection, jointed unto him, washed in his blood, and loved by him according to the love and care of a head to its members, should be plucked off to be cast into the fire, and, after it hath so closely and vitally been admitted into the par- ticipation of his fulness and increase, being united to him, become a child of the devil, an enemy to him, and sometimes to his fellow- members, so as to hate his head and to be hated of his head (when yet " no man ever yet hated his own flesh"), — this we suppose no way to answer that inexpressibly intense love which the Lord Jesus bears towards his members, and to be exceedingly derogatory to his honour and glory in reference to his dealing with Satan, the great enemy of his kingdom. But to this Mr Goodwin answers: —