The argument that it readily furnisheth us withal is of this im- port: "If all they who fall away totally from the fellowship and society of the church and saints of God, whatever their profession
XVI.] NO CONSOLATION IN THE OPPOSITE DOCTRINE. 595
were before that apostasy, were never true believers, and are thereby manifested never to have been so, then those who are true believers cannot fall away; but the first is true, therefore the latter." The words are so disposed as to be cast iota an hypothetical proposition, which virtually includes a double argument, as every discreet axiom doth; — it is not thus, therefore thus. If true believers might so depart and apostatize as those here mentioned, no imquestionable proof could be drawn from such apostasy that men were never true believers; which yet is plainly insisted on in the text.
Mr Goodwin, chap. x. sect. 21-24, pp. 189-192, gathers up sundry exceptions from the Remonstrants, which (as they also did) he op- poseth to this interpretation of the words, and the inferences from them insisted on. I shall briefly consider and remove them in that order as by him they are laid down. He saith, —
First, " This inference presumeth many things, for which neither it nor any of the authors of it will ever be able to give any good se- curity of proof; as, —
" First, That this phrase, ' They were not of us,' imports that they were never true believers. This certainly can never be proved, be- cause there is another sense, and this every whit as proper to the words, and more commodious for the context and scope of the place, which may be given of them, as we shall see anon."
Ans. That there is not any thing presumed for the eduction of the inference proposed but what is either directly expressed or evi- dently included in the words of the text, will appear in the farther consideration of what Mr Goodwin hath to offer to the contrary. That expression, " They were not of us," imports evidently that they were not of them in the fellowship and communion which he was now exhorting believers to continue and abide in. He tells them at the head of this discourse, chap. i. S, that the end of his writing to them was to draw them into, and keep them in, communion with himself and the saints with him ; which communion or " fellowship," he tells them, " they had with the Father and with his Son : " but as for the persons of whom in these words he is speaking to them, de- scribing them by their former and present condition, with the causes of it, he tells them that though they abode with them for a season, yet they Avere never of them as to the communion and fellowship they had with the Father and Son; and so were never true members of the church. The only reason Mr Goodwin gives to invalidate this sense of the words is, that he is able to give another meaning of them, in his own judgment, " more proper to the words and more commodious to the scope of the place;" which whether it have any more efficacy to take off the force and evidence of the interpretation given, lying plain and clear in the first view of the words and con- text, than it hath to evade the eduction of any truth whatever from
596 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
any place of Scripture whatever, seeing some or other suppose them- selves able to give another sense of the words, let the reader judge. But he adds, —
" Secondly, That this expression, ' They were of ns,' signifies that they were true believers, is presumed. Of the uncertainty of this supposition we shall," saith he, " give the like account."
Ans. When we come to take Mr Goodwin's farther account, we shall be able, I make no doubt, to reckon with him, and to discharge his bill. In the meantime, we say, that supposition, " If they had been of us" (whence our inference is made), evidently includes a fellowship and communion with the apostle and true believers in their fellowship with God; which is asserted as a certain foundation of men's abiding in the communion of the saints. But, says he, —
" Thirdly, It is supposed that these words, ' They went out from us,' signify their final defection, or abdication of the apostle's com- munion, or their total and final renunciation of Christ, his church, and gospel. This supposition hath no bottom at all or colour for it."
A 7is. Divide not the words from their coherence and the intend- ment of the place, and the signification denied is too evident and clear for any one, with the least colour of reason, to rise up against it. " They went out," so out from the communion of the church, as to become antichrists, opposers of Christ, and seducers from him; and certainly in so doing did totally desert the communion of the apostle, renounce the Lord Christ as by him preached, and forsake utterly both church and gospel, as to any fellowship with the one or the other. And we know full well what is the bottom of this and the like assertions, " that such and such things have no bottom at all," which never yet failed Mr Goodwin in his need.