"Fourthly," saith he, " It is supposed that this clause, 'They would no doubt have continued with us,' signifies They would have continued in the same faith wherein we persevere and continue. Nor is there," saith he, " any competent reason to enforce this sense of those words, because neither doth the grammatical tenor of them require it, and much less the scope of the passage."
-4ns. The fellowship John invited believers unto, and to con- tinue in (as hath often been observed), with him and the saints, was that which they held with the Father and the Son. To con- tinue with them therein, in the literal, grammatical sense of the words, is to continue in the faith, it being faith whereby they have that fellowship or communion. This also is evident from the scope of the whole passage, and is here only impotently denied. But, saith he, —
" Fifthly, The said inference supposeth that John certainly knew, that all those who for the present remained in his communion were true believers; for if they were not true believers, they that were
XVI.] NO CONSOLATION IN THE OPPOSITE DOCTRINE. 597
gone out from them, in tbe sense contended for, might be said to be ' of them,' that is, persons of the same condition with them. But how improbable this is, I mean that John should infallibly know that all those who as yet continued with them Avere true believers, I refer to consideration."
Ans. Had Mr Goodwin a little poised this passage before he took it up, perhaps he would have cast it away as a useless trifle; but, his masters having insisted on it, perhaps he thought it not meet to question their judgments in the least, for fear of being at liberty to deal so with them in matters of greater importance. I say, then, that there is not the least colour for any such supposal from the in- ference we make from the text, nor is there any thing of that nature intimated or suggested in the words, or argument from them. The body of them whom the apostates forsook were true believers, and their abiding in the fellowship of the saints was a manifestation of it, sufficient for them to be owned as such, which the others mani- fested themselves never to have been, by their apostasy. But, saith he, —
" Sixthly, The inference under contest yet farther supposeth that John certainly knew that they who w^ere now gone out from them neither were now, nor ever were before, true believers; yea, and that he certainly knew this by their departure or going out from them."
Ans. This is the very thing that the apostle affirms, that he cer- tainly knew those apostates never to have been true believers, and that by their apostasy or falling totally from the gospel, becoming se- ducers and opposers of Christ. Let him argue it out with the Holy Ghost if he can, whose plain and clear expression this is, and that con- firmed by the ensuing argument of the perseverance of them who were true believers, and whose fellowship is with the saints, in their com- munion with the Father and the Son. Wherefore, saith he, —
" Lastly, It presumeth yet farther, that all true believers do always abide in the external communion of the church; and that when men do not so abide, they plainly declare herein that they never were true believers; which is not only a manifest untruth, but ex- pressly contrary to the doctrine itself of those men who assert the inference; for they teach (as we heard before) that a true believer may fall so foully and so far, that the church, according to the com- mand of Christ, may be constrained to testify that she cannot tolerate them in her external communion, nor that ever they shall have any part or portion in the kingdom of Christ, unless they repent. Doubt- less, to be cast out of the church, according to the institution and command of Christ (who commands no such thing but upon very heinous and high unchristian misdemeanours), is of every whit as sad importance as a voluntary desertion of the church's communion can be for a season."
598 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCK [CHAP.
Ans. It supposeth that no true believers fall so off from the church as to become antichrists, opposers of Christ and the church, so as to deny that Christ is come in the flesh ; which was the great business of the antichrists in those days. It is true, and granted by us, that a true believer may forsake the outward communion of some par- ticular church for a season ; yea, and that upon his irregular walking, and not according to the rule of Christ, he may, by the authority of such a church, be rejected from its communion, for his amendment and recovery into the right way (of which before) : but that a true believer can voluntarily desert the communion of the saints, and be- come an antichrist, that this text denies, and we from it, and the many other witnesses of the same truth that have been produced.
Notwithstanding, then, all Mr Goodwin's exceptions, there is no- thing presumed in the inference we make from these words, but what is either expressly contained or evidently included in them.