Ans. AVhether it be no punishment for them who have been in so good a way, a way of such tendency unto salvation and such use- fulness to the gospel, as those persons are supposed to be in, not to be renewed again to that state and condition, but to be shut up un- recoverably under the power of darkness and unbelief unto eternal wrath, when before they were in a fair way for life and salvation, others will judge besides Mr Goodwin. Neither is there an affirma- tion of their falling away from their hypocrisy, and being renewed again thereunto, in any thing we assert in the exposition of this place, but their falling away from gifts and common graces, with the im- possibility, of what kind soever it be, of being renewed to an enjoy- ment of them any more. His fourth and last attempt follows.
" Fourthly, and lastly, It stands off forty foot at least from all pro- bability, that the apostle, writing only unto those whom he judged true and sound believers (as appears from several places in the ejjistle, as chap. iii. 14, vi. 9, etc.), should, in the most serious, emphatical, and weighty passages hereof, admonish them of such evils or dangers which only concerned other men, and whereunto themselves were not at all obnoxious ; yea, and whereunto if they had been obnoxious, all the cautions, admonitions, warnings, threatenings in the world, would not (according to their principles with whom we have now to do) have relieved or delivered them. To say that such admonitions are a means to preserve those from apostasy who are by other means (as suppose the absolute decree of God, or the interposal of his irre- sistible power for their perseverance, or the like) in no possibility of apostatizing, is to say that washing is a means to make snow white, or the rearing up of a pillar in the air a means to keep the heavens from falling. But more of this in the chapter following."
Ans. What exact measure soever Mr Goodwin seemeth to have taken of the distance of our assertion from " all probabihty" (which he hath accurately performed, if we may take his word), yet, upon due
646 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
consideration, it evidently appears that he is not able to disprove it from coming close up to the absolute truth of the meaning and scope of the Holy Ghost in the places under consideration : for, besides what hath been already argued and proved, it is evident, —
1. That the apostle wrote promiscuously to all that profess the name of Christ and his gospel ; of whom he tells you, chap. iii. 14 (one of the places we are directed to by Mr Goodwin), that those only are made " partakers of Christ who hold the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end ;" [as] for the rest, notwithstanding all their glorious profession, gifts, and attainments, yet they are not truly made partakers of Christ- (whereby he cuts the throat of Mr Goodwin's whole cause) ; and chap. vi. 9, that there were amongst them [those] who had attained "things accompanying salvation," and "better things" than any of those had done, who, notwithstanding their profession, yet held it not fast without wavering, but every day fell away: so that though he judged no particulars before their apos- tasy, yet he partly intimates that all professors were not true be- lievers ; and therefore does teach them all to make sure work in closing with Christ, lest they turn apostates, and perish in so doing.
2. That conditional comminations and threatenings, discovering the connection that is between the antecedent and consequent that is in the proposition of them, are and may be of use to the saints of God, preserved from the end threatened and the cause deserving it, upon the accounts, reasons, and causes, that have been plentifully in- sisted on, hath more than once been declared, and the objections to the contrary (the same with those here insisted on) answered and re- moved. This being all that Mr Goodwin hath to offer by the way of reason to exclude the persons formerly described to be the only con- cernment of the places of Scripture insisted on, there remains nothing but only the consideration of the severals of the passages debated ; wherein, by the light that hath already broken forth from the cir- cumstances, aims, ends, and connection of the places, we may so far receive direction as not to be at all stumbled in our progress.
With the consideration of the several expressions in the passages under debate Mr Goodwin proceedeth, sect. 19, and first insisteth on that of chap. vi. 4, where it is said that they were aVag (puTiadevng, "once enlightened;" whence he thus argues: —
" Behevers are said to be ' enlightened,' and to be ' children of light,' and to be ' light in the Lord,' 2 Cor. iv. 6; Heb. x. 82; Luke xvi. 8 ; Eph. v. 8 : therefore they who here are said to be ' enlightened' were true believers."
Ans. 1. I shall not insist upon the various interpretations of this place, and readings of the word (puTisdlvng, very many, and that not improbably, affirming that their participation of the ordinance of baptism is here only intended by it; for which exposition much might