638 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE, [CHAP.
non-approbation in that work, a necessity of duty being incumbent on him which he was to discharge, yet he that knows how to value the crown of ap])rubation from Christ, the holy angels, and the church, of having faithfully discharged the office of a steward in dispensing the things of God, will think it sufficiently effectual to stir up any one to the utmost expense of love, pains, and diligence, that he may not come short of it. And of Mr Goodwin's proof this is the issue.
His next is from Heb. vi. 4-8, with x. 26-29, which he brings in attended with the ensuing discourse, sect. 18: —
" The next passage we shall insist upon to evince the possibility of a final defection in the saints openeth itself in these words: ' For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and tlie powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God : but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." Answerable hereunto is another in the same epistle : ' For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?' Evident it is that in these two passages the Holy Ghost, after a serious manner, and with a very pathetic and moving strain of speech and discourse (scarce the like to be found in all the Scriptures), admonisheth those who are at present true believers to take heed of relapsing into the ways of their former ignorance and impiety. This caveat or admonition he presseth by an argument of this import, that in case they shall thus relapse, there will be very little or no hope at all of their recovery, or return to the estate of faith and grace Avherein now they stand. Before the faces of such sayings and passages as these, rightly un- derstood and duly considered, there is no standing for that doctrine which denies a possibility either of a total or of a final defection of the saints. But this light also is darkened in the heavens by the in- terposition of the veils of these two exceptions: — 1. That the apostle in the said passages affirms nothing positively concerning the falling away of those he speaks of, but only conditionally and upon suppo-
XVII.] CERTAIN PASSAGES IN SCRIPTURE CONSIDERED. 639
sition. 2. That he doth not speak of true and sound believers, but of hypocrites, and such who had faith only in show, not in substance. The former of these exceptions hath been already non-suited, and that by some of the ablest patrons themselves of the cause of perse- verance; where we were taught from a pen of that learning, that 'such conditional sayings upon which admonitions, promises, or threat- enings are built, do at least suppose something in possibility, how- ever, by virtue of their tenor and form, they suppose nothing in being.' But, —
" As to the places in hand, there is not any hypothetical sign or conditional particle to be found in either of them as they come from the Holy Ghost and are carried in the original. Those two 'ifs' ap- pearing in the English translation, the one in the former place, the other in the latter, show, it may be, the translators' inclination to the cause, but not their faithfulness in their engagement, — an infir- mity whereunto they were very subject, as we shall have occasion to take notice of the second time ere long, in another instance of the like partiality. But the tenor of both the passages in hand is so ordered by the apostle, that he plainly declares how great and fear- ful the danger is or will be when believers do or shall fall away, not if or in case they shall fall away."
Ans. Of the two answers which, as himself signifieth, are usually given to the objections from these places of Scripture, that Mr Good- win doth not fairly acquit his hands of either will quickly appear: —
1. To the first, that the form of speech used by the apostle in both places is conditional, whence there is no argument to the event without begging the thing m question, or supposal that the condi- tion in all respects may be fulfilled, where it requires only, to the constitution of it as a condition in the place of arguing wherein it is used, that it may be possible in some only, — he opposeth, " That some of them who have wrote for the 'doctrine of the saints' perseverance' have disclaimed the use of it, as to its application to the place in Ezekiel formerly considered." But yet, leaving them to the liberty of their judgment who are so minded, that the reason given by them, and here again repeated by Mr Goodwin, doth not in the least enforce any to let go this answer to the objection proposed that shall be pleased to insist upon it, hath been manifested.