Ans. 1. Doctor Prideaux's choosing not to lay the weight of this answer to the argument of the Arminians from this place on the hypothetical manner of the expression used therein, is called a " de- filing the sanctuary by the guardians of the cause whose protection it undertakes."
• " Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis ; doctas posuisse figuras Laudatur?" Pers., Sat. i. 85-87.
What are my thoughts of it I need not express, being unconcerned in the business, as knowing it not at all needful to be insisted on for the purpose for which it is produced, the text looking not at all to- wards the doctrines imder consideration; yet I must needs say, I am not satisfied with the doctor's attempt for the removal of it, nor with what is farther added by the Remonstrants in the place which we are sent unto by Mr Goodwin's marginal directions. Though it should be granted that such conditional expressions do suppose, or may (for that they always do is not affirmed, and in some cases it is evident they do not), that there is something in posse, as the doctor speaks, whereunto they do relate, yet they do not infer that the pos- sibility may by no means be hindered from ever being reduced into act. We grant a possibility of desertion in believers, in respect of their own principles of operation, — which is ground sufficient for to
XVII.] CERTAIN PASSAGES IN SCRIPTURE CONSIDERED. 619
give occasion to such hypothetical expressions as contain eommina- tions and threatenings in them, — but yet, notwithstanding that possibihty on that account supposed, [on the point whether] the bringing forth of that possibihty into an actual accomplishment may not be effectually prevented by the Spirit and grace of God, the doctor says nothing. This, I say, is ground sufficient for such hypothetical comminations, that in respect of them to whom they are made, it is possible to incur the thing threatened by the means therein mentioned, which yet upon other accounts is not possible; that God who says, " If the righteous man turn from his righteous- ness, he shall die," and says so on purpose to preserve righteous men from so doing, knowing full well that the thing, in respect of them- selves of whom and to whom he speaks, is sufficiently possible to give a clear foundation to that expression. So that if Mr Goodwin hath not something of his own to add, he will find little relief from the conceptions of that learned doctor; wherein yet I should not have translated some phrases and expressions, as Mr Goodwin hath made bold to do.
He adds, therefore, p. 276, "To say that God putteth a case in such solemnity and emphaticalness of words and phrase as are re- markable all along in the carriage of the place in hand, of which there is no possibility that it should ever happen or be exemplified in reality of event, and this in vindication of himself and the equity of his dealings and proceedings Avith men, is to bring a scandal and reproach of weakness upon that infinite wisdom of his which magni- fies itself in all his works; which also is so much the more unworthy and unpardonable when there is a sense commodious, every way worthy as well the infinite wisdom as the goodness of God, perti- nent and proper to the occasion he hath in hand, which otters itself plainly and clearly." So far he.
And this is all, it seems, which Mr Goodwin hath to add. And, indeed, this all is nothing at all, but only the repetition of what was urged before by the doctor, in more swelling and less significant terms. What possibility there is in the thing hath been before manifested. That this possibility should necessarily be exemplified in reality of event, to give significancy to this expression, I suppose is not Mr Goodwin's own intendment. True believers, according to the doctrine he asserts (as he pretends), are only in such a remote possibility of apostasy as that it can scarce be called danger. Now, doubtless, it is possible that such a remote possibility may never be reduced into act. But now if Mr Goodwin will not be contented with such a possibility as may, but also will have that [which] must be exemplified in reality of event, he has advanced from a 'pos- sibility in all to a necessity in some to apostatize.
2. Had Mr Goodwin a little more attended to what here drops
620 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
from him, — namely, " That the words are used for the vindication of the justice of the proceedings of God," namely, in the particular case formerly opened and cleared, — perhaps he would himself have judged the edge of this weapon to be so far blunted as to render it wholly useless to him in the combat wherein he is engaged. I hope, at least, that by the light of this spark he may apprehend the emphati- calness of all the expressions used in this place to be pointed towards the particular case under consideration, and not in the least to be expressive of the possibility he contends for. God knows what be- seems his own infinite wisdom, and hath given us rules to judge thereof, as far as we are called thereto, in. his word ; and from thence, whether Mr Goodwin will pardon us -or no in our so doing, we doubt not to evince that it exceedingly becomes the infinitely wise God em- phatically to express that connection that is between one thing and another (sin and punishment, believing and salvation), by his ap- pointment, though some never believe unto salvation, nor som.e sin to the actual inflicting of punishment on them. And as for Mr Goodwin's "commodious sense" of this place, we see not any advan- tage in it for any but those who are engaged into an opposition to the covenant of the grace of God and his faithfulness therein. So that once more, upon the whole matter, this text is discharged from farther attendance in the trial of the truth in hand.