20. That place cleared a 4th Objection Answered this Promise alwaies fulfilled the Spirituall part of it accomplished during the Captivity Gods intention not frustrated How farre the civill prosperity of the Jewes was concerned in this Promise Promises of Spirituall and Temporall things compared The Covenant of Grace how farre conditionall 13 14. M. G's sence of this place expressed borrowed from Faustus Socinus the inconsistency of it with the mind of the Holy Ghost demonstrated also with what himselfe hath elsewhere delivered no way suited to the Answer of our Argument from the place 15. The same Interpretation farther disproved an immediate divine efficacy held our in the words Conversion and pardon of sinnes promised differenced from the Grace Promises of the Old Covenant Contribution of meanes put by M. G. in the place of effectuall operation of the thing it selfe farther disproved 16. How when and to whom this promise was fulfilled farther declared An Objection arising upon that consideration answered 17. Conjectures ascribed to God by Mr G. The foundation reall of all Divine Prediction the Promise utterly enervated and rendred of none effect by Mr G. Exposition its consistency with the Prophesies of the Rejection of the Jewes 18. The close of the Argument from the Covenant of God HAving shewn the Vnchangeable Stability of the Love and Favour of God towards his Saints §. 1. from the Immutability of his own Nature and Purposes manifested by an Induction of sundry paricular Instances from eminent places of Scripture wherein both the one and the other are held out as the foundation of what we affirme I proceed to further cleare demonstrate the same important Truth from the first way of Declaration whereby God hath assured them that it shall be to them according to the Tenor of the Purposes insisted on and that is his Covenant of Grace The Principium essendi of this Truth if I may so say is in the Decrees and Purposes of God the Principium Cognoscendi in his Covenant Promise and Oath which also adde much to the reall Stability of it the Truth and Faithfullnesse of God in them being thereby peculiarly engaged therein It is not in my Purpose to handle the Nature of the Covenant of Grace §. 2. but only breifely to looke into it so farre as it hath Influence into the Truth in hand The Covenant of Grace then as it enwraps the Unchangeable Love and Favour of God towards those who are taken into the bond thereof is that which lyeth under our present Consideration The other great branch of it upon the account of the same Faithfullnesse of God communicating permanency of Perseverance in it selfe unto the Saints securing their Continuance with God shall the Lord assisting more peculiarly be explained when we arrive to the head of our Discourse unlesse enough to that purpose may fall in occasionally in the progresse of this businesse For our present purpose §. 3. the producing and vindicating of one or two Texts of Scripture being unavoidably expressive towards the end aimed at shall suffice The first of those is Gen. 17. 7. I will establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an Everlasting Covenant to be a God unto thee and thy seed after thee This is that which God engageth himselfe unto in this Covenant of Grace that he will for everlasting be a God to him and his Faithfull Seed Though the externall Administration of the Covenant was given to Abraham and his Carnall Seed yet the effectuall dispensation of the Grace of the Covenant is peculiar to them only who are the Children of the Promise the Remnant of Abraham according to Election with all that in all Nations were to be Blessed in him and in his Seed Christ Jesus Gal. 4. 22 23 30. Ishmael though Circumcised was to be put out and not to be here with Isaak nor to abide in the House for ever as the Sonne of the Promise was Now the Apostle tells you looke what Blessings Faithfull Abraham received by vertue of this Promise the same doe all Believers receive Gal. 3. 9. We which are of the Faith are Blessed with Faithfull Abraham which he prooves in the words foregoing from Gen. 12. 3. because all Nations were to be Blessed in him What Blessing then was it that was here made over to Abraham All the Blessings that from God are conveighed in by his Seed Jesus Christ in whom both he and we are Blessed are enwrapped therein What they are the Apostle tells you Ephes. 1. 3. They are all Spirituall Blessings If Perseverance if the Continuance of the Love and Favour of God towards us be a Spirituall Blessing both Abraham and all his Seed all Faithfull ones throughout the world are Blessed with it in Jesus Christ and if Gods continuing to be a God to them for ever will inforce this Blessing being but the same thing in another expression it is here likewise asserted It is importunately excepted § 4. that though God undertake to be our God in an Everlasting Covenant and upon that account to Blesse us with the whole Blessing that is convayed by the Promised Seed yet if we abide not with him if we forsake him he will also cease to be our God and cease to Blesse us with the Blessing which on others in Jesus Christ he will bestow Ans. If there be a necessity to smite this Evasion so often as we shall meet with it it must be cut into an hundred pieces For the present I shall only observe two evills it is attended withall First it takes no notice that God who hath undertaken to be a God unto us hath with the like Truth Power and Faithfulnesse undertaken that we shall abide to be his People So is his Love in his Covenant expressed by its Efficacy to this end and Purpose Deut. 50. 6. And the Lord thy God will also Circumcise thy Heart and the Heart of thy Seed to Love the Lord thy God with all thine Heart and with all thy Soule that thou maist live Secondly it denyes the continuance of the Love of God to us to the End to be any part of the Blessings wherewith we are blessed in Jesus Christ For if it be it could no more be suspended on any Condition in us then the Glorification of Believers that abide so to the end This then is enwrapped in this Promise of the Covenant unto the Elect with whom it is Established God will be a God to them for ever and that to Blesse them with all the Blessings which he communicates in and by the Lord Jesus Christ the promised seed The contiuuance of his Favour to the End is to us unquestionably a Spirituall Blessing if any one be otherwise minded I shall not presse to share with him in his Apprehension And if so it is in Christ and shall certainely be enjoyed by them to whom God is a God in Covenant He that can
the whole nature of the New-Covenant easily disproved by innumerable instances Fourthly §. 13. That Believers are to be wrought upon to obedience alwaies whatever the frame of their spirits be by the same waies and meanes Thence 't is that promises promises of highest and greatest assurance are in this discourse coupled with cautions of the deepest charge as though they must at the same time operate the same way to Believers or else the Holy-Ghost be liable to be traduced as inconsistent with himselfe When the great variety that is in their spirituall frame and temper the manifold Temptations wherewith they are assaulted the Light and Darke places they walke through c. give occasion sufficient to the exercising towards them all the piping and mourning that is provided for them Fiftly §. 14. That all Believers are assured of their Perseverance that to such a degree as not to feare any Apostasy or to care what becomes of them that is assured to presumption not Believing therefore are those Cautions and Admonitions of the Holy Ghost on that Account tending to stirre up in them any Godly care or feare rendred frustrate when M. Goodwin himselfe thinks that very few of them doe upon any good and abiding foundation know themselves to be Believers And we never once supposed that all of them have Assurance of their Perseverance nor any of them upon the termes here proposed all the strength of what is here insinuated lyes in this that God gives Assurance to men of the stedfastnesse and constancy of his Love under supposall of their falling into all manner of abominable sinnes Which supposall alone renders an inconsistency between the sence of the Promises we embrace and that of the Admonitions that are given to the Saints charging them to walke heedfully and to watch diligently against the attempts and assaults of Sathan Now this supposall is in it selfe false and ridiculous Neither ever did the Lord nor do we ever say he did tender men Assurance of his Love on such termes Neither is it possible for any one for ever to have a true perswasion of his owne Perseverance under such notions Sixtly § 15. That there is an inconsistency betwixt Faithfull Promises of attaining an end by the use of meanes and Exhortation with Admonitions to make use of those meanes so that if it be supposed that God promiseth that Sathan shall not in the issue prevaile over us prescribing to us the meanes whereby we shall be preserved from his prevalency 't is in vaine to deale with us for the application of our selves unto the use of those meanes Seaventhly §. 16. 'T is also supposed that an Assurance of the Love of God and the continuance of it to the Saints unto the end so that they shall be never utterly rejected by him is an effectuall way meanes to induce them to carnall loose walking and a negligence in those things which are a provocation to the eyes of his Glory and therefore if he Promise Faithfully never to leave us nor forsake us it is an inducement for us to conclude let the Divell now take his swing do with us what he pleaseth To exhort us to take care for the avoidance of his subtiltyes and opposition is a thing altogether ridiculous The vanity of this supposall hath been sufficiently before discovered and it selfe disproved Upon such Hypotheses as these I say upon such painted posts §. 17. is the whole pageant erected which we are here ingaged withall and these being easily cast down the whole rushes to the ground in the roome whereof according to our principles this following Discourse may be supplyed You that are true Believers §. 18. called Justifyed Sanctifyed by the Spirit and Bloud of Christ adopted into my family ingrafted in united unto the Son of my Love I know your weakenesse insufficiency disability darkenesse how that without my Sonne and continuall supply of his Spirit you can do nothing the power of your Indwelling sinne is not hid from me how with violence it leads you captive to the Law thereof and though ye do believe yet I know you have yet also some unheal'd unbeliefe and on that account are often overwhelmed with Feares Sorrowes Disconsolations and Troubles and are ready often to thinke that your way is passed over form me and your Judgment hidden from your God And in this Condition I know the Assaults Temptations and Oppositions of Sathan that you are exposed to how he goes up and downe like a roaring Lion seeking to destroy you his wayes Methods wiles and baits that he layes for you and whereby he seekes to destroy you are many he acts against you as a Serpent subtilly and wisely as a Lyon dreadfully and fearefully and with snares not of you by your selves to be resisted you have Principallityes and Powers to wrestle withall and the darts of the wicked one to defend your selves against Wherefore beware of him be not ignorant of his devices stand fast in the Faith take to you the whole armour of God resist him overcome him cast him out by prayer and the bloud of the Lambe watch night and day that you be not surprised nor seduced as Eve was by him that he turne you not out of the way into pathes leading to destruction and thrust you headlong into such sinnes as will be a dishonour to me a griefe to my Spirit a scaudall to the Church and bitternesse to your owne soules And as for me who know your disability of your selves to do any of these things and so to hold to the end because it pleased me to love you set my heart upon you having chosen you before the Foundation of the world that you should be holy and unblameable before me in Love having given my only Sonne unto you who is your peace through whom you have received the Attonement with whom I will not deny you or withhold from you any thing that may safeguard your abiding with me unto Salvation I will through the riches of my Grace worke all your workes for you fulfilling in you all the good pleasure of my Goodnesse the worke of Faith with power I will tread down Sathan this cruell proud Malicious bloudy enemy of your Soules under your feet and though at any time he soile you yet ye shall not be cast down for I will take you up and will certainly preserve you by my power to the end of your hope the Salvation of your soules whatever betide you or befall you I will never leave you nor forsake you the mountaines may depart and the hills be removed but my kindnesse shall never be removed from you comfort ye be of good courage and runne with joy the race that is set before you This I say is the language which according to the tenour of the Doctrine whose maintenance we are ingaged in God speakes to his Saints and Believers and if there be folly and
it and to preserve it from being destroyed But may it not at one time or other be surprized into desolation No saith he I will keep it night and day but what if this vineyard prove barren what will he then doe Nay but he will so deale with it that it shall never be so barren as to cause him to cast it up He is not with it for nought his presence is attended with Grace and Kindnesse I water it saith he and that not now and then but every moment He powres out fresh supplies of his Spirit upon it to make it fruitfull Thence it becomes a vineyard of red wine v. 2. the best wine the most delicious the most pretious to cheare the heart of God himselfe as Zep 3. 17. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty he will Save thee he will rejoyce over thee with joy he will rest in his Love he will joy over thee with singing He causes them thereby that come of Iacob to take root he makes Israel blossome and bud to fill the face of the World with fruit This is that which God promiseth his people he will not forsake them he will alwaies give them his presence in the kindnesse and supplies of a God in Covenant to protect them from others to make them fruitfull to himselfe This is his not forsaking them He will preserve them from others who shall take them out of his hand he will make them fruitfull to himselfe he will worke and who shall let him 2. The Reason why the Lord will not forsake his People why he will continue doing them good is expressed in these words for his owne name sake and in this Assertion two things are considerable 1. A tacite exclusion of any thing in themselves for which or upon Consideration whereof God will constantly abide with them It is not for their sakes for any thing in them or what they have done may or can do it is not upon the account of any Condition or qualification whatever that may or may not be found on them but meerely for his name sake which in the like case he expresseth fully Ezek. 36. 32. Not for your sakes doe I this saith the Lord be it knowne unto you be ashamed and confounded for your owne wayes oh House of Israel The truth is they may prove such as on all accounts whatever shall deserve to be rejected that nothing in appearance or in their owne sence as well as others though the root of the matter be in them may be found upon them when God takes delight in them Like those you have described at large Isai. 43. 22 23 24 25. But thou hast not called upon me Oh Jacob but thou hast been weary of me Oh Israel thou hast not brought me the small Cattell of thy burnt offerings neither hast thou honoured me with thy Sacrifices I have not caused thee to serve with an Offering nor wearied thee with Incense thou hast brought me no sweet cane with money neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy Sacrifices but thou hast made me to serve with thy sinnes thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine owne sake and will not remember thy sinnes any more Weary of God they are neglecting his worship making his Patience and Forbearance to serve with their iniquities It seemes to be impossible almost for any Creature to apprehend that God will not give them up to everlasting confusion Yea perhaps they may be forward in their follies and contend with God when he goes to heale them Isai. 57. 17. For the iniquity of his covetousnesse was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart Iniquity is upon them a vile iniquity the iniquity of Covetousnesse God is wroth with them and smites and hides him and they goe on frowardly and yet for all this he forsakes not for ever he abides to be their God and that because his so doing is not bottomed on any consideration of what they are have been or will be but he doth it for his Names sake and with regard unto that which thereupon he will doe for them And upon this account this Promise of Gods abiding and continuing with his let Grace be never so weake corruption never so strong temptations never so violent may be pleaded and the Lord rejoyces to be put in remembrance of it by the weakest frailest sinfullest Saint or Believer in the World 2. The Cause or reason is positively expressed § 6. why God will not forsake them it is for his Great Name sake His Great name is all that he consults withall about his continuance with his people this he calls himselfe Isa. 43. 25. I blot out thy sinnes for my own sake that is for no other cause in world that may by found in thee or upon thee The Name of God is all that whereby to us he is knowne all his Attributes his whole will all his Glory When God is said to doe any thing for his name it is either the Cause and End of what he doth or the Principle from whence with the motive wherefore he doth it that is by him intended In the first sence to doe a thing for his Name sake is to doe it for the manifestation of his Glory that he may be known to be a God in the Excellency of those Perfections whereby he reveals himselfe to his with most frequently a speciall regard to his Faithfulnesse and Grace it is in those properties to make himselfe knowne and to be exalted in the hearts of his So all his dispensations in Jesus Christ are for the praise of his glorious Grace Eph. 1. 6. That he may be exalted lifted up made knowne believed and received as a God pardoning iniquity in the Sonne of his Love And in this sence may the Lord be said to abide with his people for his Name sake for the exalting of his Glory that he may be known to be a God faithfull in Covenant and unchangeable in his Love who will not cast off for ever those whom he hath once received into favour It will not enter into the hearts of Believers sometimes why the Lord should so deale with them as he doth and not cast them off their soules may goe to rest as to this thing he himselfe is glorious herein he is exalted and doth it on that account 2 ly If by his name you understand the principle from whence he worketh and his motive thereunto as it comprehends the whole long-suffering gratious tender unchangeable nature of God according as he hath revealed himselfe in Iesus Christ in whom his name is Ex. 23. 21. and which he hath committed to him to be manifested Ioh 17. 6. so evidently two things in God are engaged when he promiseth to work for his Names sake or according to his great Name 1. His Power or sufficiency
which in and by themselves to a believing soule they cast upon it Now least any should think that there is the least tendency in such Promises as these as held out to Believers to turne them aside from close walking with God before I enter upon the consideration of any other this seeming of all others most exposed to Exceptions of that nature I shall give some few Observations that may a little direct Believers to whom I write and for whose sake this taske is undertaken into the right improvement of them The genuine influence which this §. 20. and the like Promises have upon the soules of the Saints is mightily to stirre them up unto and to assist them in answering what lieth in them that inexpressible Love and Kindnesse which their God and Father in Jesus Christ holdeth out unto their hearts in them This the Apostle inferreth from them 2 Cor 7. 1. Having these Promises that is those especially mentioned in the words preceding the conclusion and the inference the Apostle here maketh Ch. 6. v. 16 18. I will dwell in them and will be a Father unto them and they shall be my children therefore saith he let us cleanse our selves from all pollution of slesh and spirit perfecting holinesse in the feare of the Lord. Universall purity holinesse and close walking with God is that which these Promises doe presse unto and naturally promote in the hearts of Believers and in 2 Pet. 4. 5 6. that Apostle pursueth the same at large God hath called us to Glory and Vertue hath given us exceeding great and pretious Promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the World through lust Besides this giving all diligence c The exceeding great and pretious Promises which are given unto us in our calling are bestowed for this end that by them we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature they have no tendency to communicate to us the Nature of the Divell and to stirre us up to Rebellion Vncleannesse and hatred of the God of all that Love that is in them But lye indeed at the bottome the Root and foundation of the practice and exercise of all those Graces which he enumerates and from the receiving of those Promises exhorts us to in the following verse Some 〈◊〉 â—â—â—fesse doe or may turne the Grace of God into lasciviousnesse that is 〈◊〉 â—â—trine of grace and of pardon of sinne in the bloud of Jesus Christ and so the mercy mentioned in such Promises as these meerely as in them it is mentioned Grace and Mercy communicated cannot be turned into Wantonnesse but what are they that doe so Vngodly men men of old ordained to condemnation Jude 4. Paul rejecteth any such thoughts from the hearts of Believers Rom. 6. 1. Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid Nay suppose that that naturall corruption that flesh and bloud that is in Believers be apt to make such a conclusion as this Because God will certainly abide with us for ever therefore let us walke carelesly and doe him all the despight we can these Promises being not made for the use and exalting of the flesh but being given to be mixed with Faith which is carefully to watch against all abusing or corrupting of that Love and Mercy which is held out unto it flesh and bloud can have no advantage given unto it thereby as shall afterward be more fully and clearly demonstrated The Question is then what conclusion Faith doth will and ought to make of these Promises of God and not what abuse the flesh will make of them Let then the meanest and weakest Faith in all the World that is true and saving speake for it selfe whether there be any thing in the nature of it that is apt to make such conclusions as these My God and Father in Jesus Christ hath graciously promised in his infinite Love and Goodnesse to mee through him in whom he is well pleased that he will be my God and guide for ever that he will never forsake mee nor take his Kindnesse from mee to eternity And he hath done this although that he saw and knew that I would deale foolishly and treacherously that I would stand in need of all his Goodnesse Patience and Mercy to spare mee and heale mee promising also to keep me from such a wicked departure from him as should for ever alienate my soule from him therefore come on let mee continue in sinne let me doc him all the dishonour and despight that I can this is all the sence that I have of his infinite Love this is all the impression that it leaveth upon mee that I need not love him againe but study to be as vile and as abominable in his sight as can possibly be imagined certainly there is not any smoaking flax or any oruised reed there is not a soule in the World whom God in Christ hath once shined upon or dropped the least dramme of Grace into his heart but will look on such a conclusion as this as a blast of the bottomlesse pit a detestable dart of Satan which it is as proper for Faith to quench as any other Abomination whatever Let then Faith in reference unto these Promises have its perfect worke not abiding in a naked contemplation of them but mixing them with its selfe and there will be undoubtedly found the improvement before mentioned for the carrying on of Godlinesse and Gospell obedience in the hearts of Believers But this I shall have occasion to speake to more afterward Hosea 2. 19 20. §. 20. is pertinent also to the same purpose I will betroth thee unto mee for ever I will betroth thee unto mee in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto mee in faithfulnesse and thou shalt know the Lord. The words themselves as they lye in the Text doe directly confirme our Assertion The Relation whereunto God here expresseth that he will and doth take his People is one of the most neer and eminent which he affordeth to them a conjugall Relation he is and will be their Husband which is as high an expression of the Covenant betwixt God and his Saints as any is or can be used Of all Covenants that are between sundry persons that which is between Man and Wife is the strongest and most inviolable So is this Covenant expressed Isai 54. 5. Thy maker is thine Husband the Lord of Hosts is his Name and this Relation he affirmeth shall continue for ever upon the Account of those Properties of his which are engaged in this his Gracious undertaking to take them to himselfe therein He doth it in Righteousnesse and in Judgement in Loving-kindnesse and in Mercies and in Faithfulnesse so that if there be not something in the Context or words adjoyning that shall with an high hand turne us aside from the first immediate open and full sence of these
Rom. 5. 1. and Justified by Faith to have Peace with him which as to his present condition the Adversaries of the Doctrine of Perseverance acknowledge that he may attaine though how upon their principles I understand not consider a little how he can safegard his Peace for a moment and deliver himselfe from perplexing thoughts and feares renouncing any interest in the ingagement of the Love and Faithfulnesse of God for his preservation He may say within himselfe I am for the present in some good state and condition but were not the Angels so that are now Devills in Hell were not they in a farre better and more excellent state then I am and yet they are now shut up under chaines of everlasting darknesse to the judgment of the great day Adam in Paradise had no lust within him to tempt and seduce him no World under the curse to intangle and provoke him and yet being in that honour he had no understanding he abode not but became like the beast that perisheth was it not in their power to persevere in that condition if they would Did they want any meanes that were usefull thereunto And what hope is there left to me Rom. 7. in whom there dwelleth no good thing who am sold under the power of sinne and encompassed with a world of temptations that I shall endure unto the end I see thousands before mine eyes partakers of the same heavenly calling with my selfe of the same Grace in Jesus Christ every day falling into irrecoverable perdition There is not any Purpose of God that I should be preserved nor Promise that I shall never depart from him no prayer of Christ that my Faith may not faile but I am rolled upon mine own hand and what will be the end of this whole undertaking of mine in the wayes of God I know not Let I say a man be exercised with such thoughts as these and then try if any thing under heaven can bring his soule to any possible composure untill it be cast into the mould of that Doctrine which hath been delivered But of this more directly afterwards when we come to treat of the Consolation which from the breast of it doth flow 2. §. 11. It is exceedingly suited to the deliverance of the Soules of the Saints from all such hard thoughts of God as are apt to impaire and weaken their Love towards him and delight in him so setting the two principles of all their Obedience Faith and Love at liberty and free from their intanglements to act in the duties they are called unto He that had hard thoughts of his absent Lord as an austere man though he was not excused in his disobedience by it yet he was evidently discouraged as to his Obedience When men shall be taught that God takes no more care of his Children in his family but that the Divell may enter in among them and and take them away making them Children of Hell when he might with the greatest Advantage of Glory and Honour to himselfe imaginable prevent it That the Lord Jesus Christ the great Shepheard of the Sheep takes no more care of his flock and fold but that the Lion Beares and Wolves may enter in and make havocke and spoile at their pleasure May they not think that God is little concerned in the Salvation of his and that all that which is so Gloriously expressed of his peculiar and speciall Love carries nothing but an empty noise the burthen of their preservation being thrown soly upon their owne shoulders And are not such thoughts fitte only to cast water upon their flames of Love to God and insensibly to weaken that delight which they ought alwayes to take in the riches of his Grace and Love Is there any thing possible more indearing to the heart of a Creature then to heare such a testimony as that Zeph. 3. 17. concerning the stability of the Love of God and its excellency The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty he will save he will rejoyce over thee with joy he will rest in his Love he will joy over thee with singing Gods resting in his Love towards his Saints fixes their soules in their Love to him 3. §. 12. It puts high and unspeakable Obligations on the Saints to live to God and to perfect Holinesse in the feare of the Lord Saints we suppose to have their Birth from above to be begotten of the Will of God through the immort all seed of the Word and to be quickened with a Noble Child-like Ingenuity befitting the family of God Neither is any thing more injurious to the worke of God's Grace then to suppose that those whom God calls Children Friends Heirs of Heaven and Glory his Crowne his Diadem Brethren of his only Sonne are to be dealt withall or that God deales with them as if they were wholly acted by a servile slavish Principle and were wholly under the power of such an unworthy disposition There are two things usually spoken to the prejudice and disadvantage of § 13. the Truth we have under Consideration much insisted on by Mr Goodwin Cap 9. As 1. That a perswision of the certaine continuance of the Love of God to any one is a ready way to make them carelesse negligent and to give up themselves to all manner of abominations But what Vipers Snakes and Adders do such men suppose the Saints of God to be that their new nature their Heavenly Principles for what the flesh in them is prone unto we now consider not should conclude that it is good to sinne that Grace may abound that because God Loves them with an Everlasting Love therefore they will hate him with a perpetuall hatred that because he will assuredly give them Grace to serve him with reverence Goâ—ly fear therefore they will despise him and trample on all his Goodnesse because he will never forsake them that they will no more abide with him What is in the inner man what is in the new Creature what is in the nature of any Grace wherewith they are indowed that is apt or inclinable to make such hellish Conclusions If we heare of any such thing among the Sonnes of men if we see a Child or a servant resolving to be profligate wicked stubborne prodigall because his Father or Master is kind loving and will not disinherit him or put him away we looke upon him as a monster in nature and think that it would be good service to the interest of mankind to take him off from the face of earth And yet such monsters are all the Saints of God supposed to be who if their Father once give them the least Assurance of the Continuance of his Love they presently resolve to doe him all the dishonour despite and mischeife they can I appeale to all the experience of all the Saints in the world whethâ—â— if any such thought at any time arise in them that they may continue in sinne because Grace
Thus then we clearely see that the former of the two Consequents mentioned cannot stand God doth not by his Spirit irresistibly draw or move the wills of the S t s to do things which are necessary for the procuring their Perseverance immediately or withont the instrumentall interposure of the said Exhortations Ans. First §. 21. the intendment of this as also of some following Sections is to prove and manifest that the use of Exhortations cannot consist with the efficacy of Internall Grace and the worke of the Spirit in producing and effecting those Graces in us which in those Exhortations we are provoked and stirred up unto A very sad undertaking truely to my apprehension for w eh the Church of God will scarce ever returne thankes to them that shall ingage in it He was of an other minde who cryed Da Domine qvod jubes jube quod vis yea the Holy Ghost hath in innumerable places of Scripture exprest himselfe of another mind promising to worke effectually in us what he requires earnestly of us by the one manifesting the efficacy of his Grace by the other the exigeney of the Duty which is incumbent upon us Nay never any Saint of God once pray'd in his life seeking any thing at the hand of God but was of another mind if he understood his owne supplications To what is here urged against this Catholicke Faith of Believers I say That Exhortations are the meanes of Perseverance in as much as by them in their place and kinde and with them the Spirit of God effectually workes this Peseverance or the matter of it in the Saints Those cloudy expressions of irresistibly and unfrustrably we owne no farther then as they denote the certainty of the event and not the manner of the Spirits operation which also they do very unhandsomely We leave out then in the proposall of our Judgement about the use of Exhortations which Mr Goodwin opposeth those tearmes and adde in their Roome by and by with those Exhortations which he omitts He saith then This cannot be proved because the Saints live and dye often times in opposition and disobedience unto these Exhortations But Obedience is twofold First as to the generall frame of the heart Obedience in the habit and so 't is false that the Saints live at any time in an ordinary course much lesse dye in opposition to those Exhortations the Law of God being written in their hearts and they delighting in it in their inward man they abide therein the fruit of Obedience for the most part being brought forth by them And this sufficeth as to their Perseverance Secondly It regardeth particular acts of Obedience and in respect of them we all say that yet they all sinne Optimus ille est qui minimis urgetur but this prejndiceth not their Perseverance nor the generall end of the Exhortations afforded them for that purpose But he adds Secondly If God by his Spirit irresistibly drawes his Saints to persevere ut supra But this is sorry Sophistry which may be felt as they say through a paire of mittins For First who saies that God workes by force immediately upon the wills of men Or who makes force and power to be tearmes equivalent Or that God cannot put forth the exceeding greatnesse of his power in them that believe but he must force or compell their wills or that he can not work in us to will and to do of his owne goodpleasure immediately working in and with our wills but he must so force them Secondly whence ariseth the disjunctive force of this Argument Either by immedate actings upon their wills or he makes use of those Exhortations As though the one way were exclusive of the other and that the Scripture did not abundantly and plentifully ascribe both these unto God both that he exhorts us to know him love him believe in him and gives us an understanding and an heart so to do working Faith and Love in us by the exceeding efficacy of his power and Spirit I say then that God workes immediately by his Spirit in and on the wills of his Saints that is he puts forth a reall Physicall power that is not contained in those exhortations though he doth it by and in and with them The impotency that is in us to do good is not amisse termed Ethico-physica both Naturall and Morall and the Applications of God to the soule in their doing good are both Really and Physically efficient and Morall also the one consisting in the efficacy of his Spirit the other lying in the exhortations of the Word yet so as that the efficacy of the Spirit is exerted by and with the Morall efficacy of the Word his workes being but Grace or the Law in the heart the Word being the Law written so that all the ensuing Reasonings are bottomed upon things Male divisa that stand in a sweet harmony and compliance with each other But Mr Goodwin tells you That if God worke by his Spirit his Grace immediately on the wills of men to cause them to persevere then are Exhortations no meanes of their Perseverance Why so I pray It seemes we must have no internall effectuall Grace from God or no outward Exhortations of the Word But he tells you it must be so because If the will be Physically and Irresistibly acted and drawne by God to do such and such things it needeth no adition of Morall meanes such are Exhortations thereunto That is if the will be effectually inclined to the wayes of God by his Grace there is then no need of the Exhortations of the Word But yet First the Spirit of God though he have an immediate efficacy of his owne by with those Exhortations yet by those Exhortations he also inclines the will as he workes on the will as Corrupt impotent by his Grace so he workes on the will as the will or as such a faculty is apt to be wrought upon by a mediation of the understanding by Exhortations Secondly to say Obedience would have been produced and wrought had there been no Exhortations is not required of us what efficacy soever we ascribe to Grace unlesse we also deny Exhortations to be appointed of God and to be used by the Spirit of God for the producing of that Obedience Neither Thirdly doth God worke upon the will as a distinct faculty alone of it selfe without suiting his operations to the other faculties of the soule Nor is Grace to be wrought or carryed on in us meerely as we have Wills but as we have Understandings also whereby the Exhortations he is pleased to use may be conveyed to the will and affect it in their kind in a word this is but repeating what was said before If there be any effectuall Grace there is no use of Exhortations If exhortations be the meanes of continuing or increaseing Grace what need the efficacy of Grace or immediate actings of the Spirit working in us to will and to do of Gods
THE DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS PERSEVERANCE Explained and Confirmed OR The certain Permanency of their 1. Acceptation with GOD 2. Sanctification from GOD. MANIFESTED PROVED FROM The 1. ETERNALL PRINCIPLES 2. EFFECTUALL CAUSES 3. EXTERNALL MEANES Thereof IN 1. The IMMUTABILITY of the 1. Nature 2. Decrees 3. Covenant and 4. Promises Of GOD. 2. The OBLATION and INTERCESSION Of JESUS CHRIST 3. The 1. Promises 2. Exhortations 3. Threats Of the GOSPELL Improved in its Genuine Tendency to Obedience and Consolation AND VINDICATED In a Full Answer to the Discourse of M r JOHN GOODWIN against it in his Book Entituled Redemption Redeemed With some DIGRESSIONS Concerning 1. The Immediate effects of the Death of Christ. 2. Personall Indwelling of the Spirit 3. Union with Christ. 4. Nature of Gospell promises c. ALSO A PREFACE Manifesting the Judgement of the Antients concerning the Truth contended for with a Discourse touching the Epistles of IGNATIUS The EPISCOPACY in them Asserted and some Animadversions on D r H H his Dissertations on that Subject By JOHN OWEN Servant of Jesus Christ in the Worke of the Gospell OXFORD Printed by LEON LICHFIELD Printer to the University for Tho. 〈◊〉 ANNO DOM 1654. TO HIS HIGHNESSE OLIVER LORD PROTECTOR OF THE COMMON-WEALTH OF England Scotland and Ireland with the Dominions thereof SIR THE Wise man tells us that no man knoweth Love or hatred by all that is before him The great variety wherein God dispenseth outward things in the World with the many changes and alterations which according to the counsell of his will he continually workes in the dispensations of them will not allow them nakedly in themselves to be evidences of the fountaine from whence they flow Seeing also that the want or abundance of them may equally by the Goodnesse and Wisdome of Cod be ordered and cast into an usefull subserviency to a Good infinitely transcending what is or may be contained in them there is no necessity that in the distribution of them God should walke according to any constant uniforme Law of procedure all the various alterations about them answering one eternall purpose for a determinate end Of Spirituall good things there is another Reason and Condition for as they are in themselves Fruits Evidences and Pledges of an Eternall unchangeable love so the want of them in their whole kind being not capable of a tendency to a greater Good than they are the Dispensation of them doth so farre answer the eternall spring and Fountaine from whence it floweth as in respect of its substance and being not to be obnoxious to any alteration This is that which in the ensuing Treatise is contended for In the middest of all the changes and mutations which the infinitely wise providence of God doth daily effect in the greater and lesser things of this World as to the communication of his love in Jesus Christ and the mercifull gratious distributions of the unsearcheable Riches of his Grace and the hid Treasures thereof purchased by his bloud he knows no repentance Of both these you have had full experience And though your concernement in the former hath been as eminent as that of any person whatever in these latter Ages of the World yet your Interest in and acquaintance with the latter is as of incomparable more importance in it selfe so answerably of more value and esteem unto you A sence of the excellency and sweetnesse of unchangeable love emplying it selfe in the Golden oyle of distinguishing spirituall Mercies is one letter of that new name which none can read but he that hath it The Series and Chaine of eminent providences whereby you have been carried on and protected in all the hazardous worke of your Generation which your God hath called you unto is evident to all Of your preservation by the power of God through Faith in a course of Gospell Obedience upon the account of the immutability of the Love and Infallibility of the Promises of God which are yea and Amen in Jesus Christ your own soule is only possessed with the experience Therein is that abiding joy that secret refreshment which the world cannot give That you and all the Saints of God may yet enjoy that Peace Consolation which is in believing that the eternall Love of God is immutable that he is faithfull in his Promises that his Covenant ratified in the death of his Sonne is unchangeable that the fruits of the purchase of Christ shall be certainly bestowed on all them for whom he died and that every one who is really interested in these things shall be kept unto salvation is the ayme of my present plea and Contest That I have taken upon me to present my weake endeavours in this cause of God to your Highnesse is so farre forth from my perswasion of your Interest in the Truth contended for and then which you have none so excellent or worthy that without it no other considerations whatever either of that Dignity and Power whereunto of God you are called nor of your peculiar regard to that Society of men whereof I am an unworthy Member nor any other personall Respects whatever could have prevailed with or emboldened me thereunto Sancta sanctis The things I treat of are such as sometimes none of the Princes of this World knew and as yet few of them are acquainted with Blessed are they who have their portion in them When the urgency of your High and important Affaires wherein so many Nations are concerned will lend you so much leasure as to take a view of what is here tendred the knowledge which you have of mee will deliver you from a Temptation of charging any weaknesse you may meet withall upon the Doctrine which I assert and maintaine And so that may ruune and be glorified whatever become of the nothing that I have done in the defence thereof I shall be abundantly satisfied That is the Sheild which being safe I can with contentment see these papers dye Unto your Highnesse I have not any thing more to adde nor for you greater thing to pray than that you may be established in the Assurance and sence of that unchangeable Love and free acceptance in Christ which I contend for and that therein you may be preserved to the Glory of God the Advancement of the Gospell and the Reall Advantage of these Nations Your Highnesse Most Humble And most Faithfull Servant IOHN OWEN THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY To the Right worshipful His Reverend learned and worthy freinds and Brethren the Heads and Governours of the Colledges and Halls in the University of OXFORD SIRS THe dedication of Bookes to the names of men worthy and of esteem in their generation takes sanctuary in so Catholick and Antient prescription that to use any defensative about my walking in the same path cannot but forfeit the loss of somewhat more then the paines that would be spent therein Now although in addresses of this kind men usually prevaile themselves of the occasion to deliver
destruction that the Elect shall not be seduced Let the attempts of Seducers be what they will and their Advantages never so many or their successes never so great they shall be preserved the House upon the Rocke shall not be cast downe Against the Church built on Christ the Gates of Hell shall not prevaile And Paul mentioning the Apostacy of Hymenaeus and Philetus who seeme to have beene teachers of some eminency and Starrs of some considerable magnitude in the Firmament of the Church with the eversion of the Faith of some who attended unto their abominations 2 Tim. 2 17 18. Least any disconsolation should surprize believers in reference to their owne condition as though that should be lubricous uncertaine and such as might end in destruction and their Faith in an overthrow he immediately adds that effectuall cordiall for the reviving supportment of their confidence and comfort v. 19. Neverthelesse notwithstanding all this Apostasy of eminent professors yet The foundation of God standeth sure the Lord knoweth who are his Those who are built upon the foundation of his unchangeable purpose and love shall not be prevailed against John likewise doth the same for having told his little Children that there were many Antichrists abroad in the world and they for the most part Apostates he adds in the first Epist second Chap verse the 19. They went out from us because they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us He lets thē know that by their being Apostates they had prooved themselves to have beene but Hypocrits and therefore believers dwelling in safety was no way prejudiced by their backsliding The like occasion now calls for the like Application the same disease for the same prevention or remedy That no sound persons may be shaken because unhealthy ones are shattered that those may not tremble who are built on the Rock because those are cast downe who are built on the sand is one part of my ayme and intendment in handling this doctrine And therefore I shall as little dabble in the waters of strife or insist upon it in way of controversy as the importunity of the adversary that truth which we are obliged to contend for will permit One Scripture in its own plainesse simplicity will be of more use for the end I aime at then twenty Scholasticall Arguments pressed with never somuch accuratenesse and subtility A Temptation then this is §. 6. and hath been of old to the Saints disposed of by the manifold wisdome of God Rom. 11. 20. to stir them up to take heed least they fall 1 Cor. 10. 12. to put them upon trying and examining 1 Cor. 11. 19. whether Christ be in them or no 2 Cor. 13. 5. and also to make out to those Fountains of establishment in his eternall Purpose and Gratious Promises Revel 2. 24 25. wherein their refreshments and reserves under such temptations do lye Isa. 45. 22. And yet though our doctrine inforces us to conclude Mal. 3. 6. all such never to be sound believers in that peculiar notion and sence of that expression which shall instantly be declared 2 Pet. 3. 17. who totally and finally apostatize and fall off from the wayes of God Heb. 3. 12. yet is it excedingly remote from being any true ground of shaking the Faith of those Hab. 3. 17. 18. who truly believe any farther then shaking is usefull for the right and thorough performance of that great Gospell duty of tryall and selfe examination Mr Goodwin indeed contends § 7. Chapter 9. Sect. 8 9 10 11. Pag. 108 109 110 that if we judge all such as fall away to perdition never to have been true Believers that is with such a Faith as bespeakes them to enjoy union with Christ and acceptance with God it will administer a thousand Fears and Jealousies concerning the soundnesse of a mans owne Faith whether that be sound or no and so it will be indifferent as to consolation whether true believers may fall away or no seeing it is altogether uncertaine whether a man hath any of that true Faith which cannot perish But First Ans. 1. God who hath promised to make all things worke together for good to them that love him Rom. 8. 28. in his infinite Love and Wisdome is pleased to exercise them with great variety Psal. 30. 6 7. both within and without in reference to themselves and others Isa. 8. 17. for the accomplishing towards them all the ch 54. 7. 8 9. good pleasure of his goodnesse carrying them on in that holy humble depending 1 Pet. 3. 7. frame 1 Cor. 3. 13. which is needfull for the receiving from him those gratious supplyes 1 Pet. 4. 12. 2 Cor. 7. 5. without which it is impossible they should be preserved 2 Thes. 1. 11. To this end are they often exposed to winnowings of feirce winds and shakings by more dreadfull blasts Heb. 12. 25 28 29. then any breathes in this consideration of the Apostatizing of professours though of Eminency Isa. 57. 15. 66. 2. Not that God is delighted with their fears jelousies Jam. 4. 6. which yet he knows under such dispensations they must conflict with all 1 Pet. 5. 5. but with the tryall and exercise of their Graces whereunto he calls them that 's his Glory Mat. 7. 24 25. where in his soule is delighted It is no singular thing for the Saints of God to bee exercised with a thousand fears jealousies and through them to grow to great establishment Amos. 9. 9. If indeed they were such as were unconquerable Luk. 22. 31. such as did not worke together for their good Ephe. 6. 11 12 13. such as must needs be endlesse Ephe. 4. 14. all meanes of satisfaction and establishment beeing rescinded by the causes of them Isa. 49. 14 15 16. 63. 9. then were there weight in this exception but neither the Scriptures Acts 9. 5. not the experience of the Saints of God do give the least hint to such an assertion Psal. 103. 13. Secondly 1 Pet. 1. 7. It is denied that the fall of the most glorious Hypocrites is indeed an efficacious engine in the hands of the adversary Rom 8. 38. to ingenerate any other feares and Jealousies or to expose them to any other shakings 1 Cor. 10. 13. then what are common to them in other temptations of daily incursion which God doth constantly make way for them to escape It is true indeed that if true believers had no other foundation of their perswasion that they are so but what occurres visibly to the observation of men in the outward conversation of thē that yet afterward fall totally away the Apostasie of such notwithstanding the generall
indeed we own and for the discovery of that which is brought forth to contest for Acceptance with it upon the score of Truth and usefullnesse First then §. 30. for the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance how it stands stated in Mr Goodwins thoughts and what he would have other men apprehend thereof may from sundry places in his Booke especially Cap. 9. be collected and thus summarily presented It is saith he Cap. 9. Sect. 3. a promising unto men and that with height of assurance under what loosnesse or vile practises so ever exemption and freedome from punishment so Sect. 4. It is in vaine to perswade or presse men unto the use of such meanes in any kinde which are in themselves displeasing to them seeing they are ascertained and secured before hand that they shal not fail of the end however whether they use such means or no a lushous Fulsome conceit Sect. 5. intoxicating the flesh with a perswasion that it hath Goods layed up for the daies of Eternity A notion comfortable and betideing peace to the flesh Sect. 15. in administring unto it certaine hope that it shall however escape the wrath and vengeance which is to come yea though it disporteth it selfe in all manner of loosnesse and licentiousnesse in the meane time A presumption it is that men Sect. 18. may or shall injoy the love of God and Salvation it selfe under practises of all manner of sinne and wickednesse Representing God Sect. 20. as a God in whose sight he is Good that doth evill promising his love favour and acceptance as well unto doggs returning to their vomit or to swine wallowing after their washing in the mire that is to Apostates which that believers shall not be is indeed the Doctrine he opposeth as unto Lambs aud sheepe A Doctrine whereby ' t is possible for me certainly to know that how loosly how profanely how debauchedly soever I should behave my selfe yet God will love me as he doth the holdest and most righteous man under Heaven With these and the like Expressions doth Mr Goodwin adorne and Gilde over that Doctrine which he hath chosen to oppose with these Garlands flowers doth he surround the Head of the Sacrifice which he intends instantly to slay that so it may fall an undeplored Victim if not seasonably rescued from the hands of this sacred Officer Neither through his whole Treatise do I find it delivered in any other sence or held out under any other notion to his Reader The Course here he hath taken in this case and the paths he walkes in towards his Adversaries seeme to be no other then that which was traced out by the Bishops at Constance when they caused Divells to be painted upon the Cap they put on the Head of Huss before they cast him into the fire I do somthing doubt though I am not altogether Ignorant how abominably the Tenents and Opinions of those who first opposed the Papacy are represented and given over to posterity by them whose interest it was to have them thought such as they gave them out to be whether ever any man that undertooke to publish his Conceptions to the world about any opinion or parcell of Truth debated amongst Professors of the Gospell of Christ did ever so dismember disfigure defile wrest and pervert that which he opposed as Mr Goodwin hath done the Doctrine of Perseverance which he hath undertaken to destroy Me thinks a man should not be much delighted in casting filth and dung upon his Adversary before he begin to graple with him In one word this being the account he gives us of it if he be able to name one Author ancient or moderne any one sober person of old or of late that ever spent a pen full of Inke or once opened his mouth in the defence of that Perseverance of Saints or rather profane walking of dogs and swine which he hath stated not in the words and termes but so much as to the matter or purpose here intimated by him and it shall be accepted as a just defensative against the Crime which we are inforced to charge in this particular and which otherwise will not easily be warded If this be the Doctrine which with so great an indeavour and a Contribution of so much Paines and Rhetorique he seeks to oppose I know not any that will thinke it worth while to interpose in this fierce contest between him and his man of straw Neither can it with the least colour of Truth be pretended that these are Consequences which he urgeth the Doctrine he opposeth withall and not his Apprehensions of the Doctrine it selfe For neither doth he in any place in his whole Treatise hold it out in any other shape but is uniforme and constant to himselfe in expreffing his notion of it nor doth he indeed almost use any Argument against it but those that suppose this to be the true state of the Cōtroversy which he hath proposed But whether this indeed be the Doctrine of the Perseverance of Saints which Mr Goodwin so importunately cryes out against upon a briefe consideration of some of the particulars mentioned will quickly appeare First then §. 34. doth this Doctrine promise with height of Assurance that under what loosnesse or vile practices soever men doe live they shall have Exemption from punishment wherein I pray in that it promiseth the Saints of God that through his Grace they shall be preserved from such loosenesse and evill practises as would expose them to Eternall punishment Psal. 23. 6. Doth it teach men that it is vain to use the meanes of mortification because Jerem. 31. 33. 1 Cor. 10. 13. they shall certainly attaine the end whether they use the meanes or no Or may you not as well say that the Doctrine you oppose is that all men shall be saved whether they believe or no with those other comfortable and chearing associate doctrines you mention Or is this a Regular Emergency of that Doctrine which teaches 1 Pet. 1. 5. that there is no attaining the End but by the meanes between which there is such a Concatenation by Divine appointment that they shall not be separated Doth it speake peace to the flesh in Assurance of Blessed Immortality though it disport it selfe in all folly in the meane time Doe the Teachers of it expresse any such thing Doth any such Abomination issue from their Arguings in the defence thereof Or doth the Doctrine which teaches Believers Saints who have tasted of the love and pardoning mercy of God and are taught to valew it infinitly above all the world that such is the Love and goodwill of God towards them in the Covenant of mercy in the blood of Christ that having appointed Good works for them to walke in Ephes. 2. 10. 2 Cor. 3. 5. for which of themselves they are insufficient he will graciously continue to them such supplyes of his Spirit and Grace as that they shall never depart from following
for the preservation of this excellency and glory of his People This Sunne though it may be for a while eclipsed yet shall never set nor give place to an evening that shall make long the shade thereof whom God once freely accepts in Christ he will never turne away his Love from them nor cast them Vtterly out of his Favour The other is within us and that is our Sanctification our Portion from God by the Spirit of Holinesse and the fruits thereof in our Faith Love and Obedience unto him And on this part of our Glory there is this Defence that this Spirit shall never Vtterly be dislodged from that Soule wherein he makes his residence nor resigne his habitation to the Spirit of the World that his fruit shall never so decay as that the Fruits of Sodome and the Grapes of Gomorra should grow in their roome nor they wherein they are Everlastingly Utterly and wickedly grow barren in departing from the Living God these two make up that Perseverance whereof we speake Whom God accepts in Christ he will continue to doe so for ever whom he quickens to walke with him they shall doe it to the end And these three things Acceptance with God Holinesse from God and a Defence upon them both unto the end all Free and in Christ are that threefold cord of the Covenant of Grace which cannot be broken In the handling then of the Doctrine proposed unto consideration § 50. I shall the Lord assisting shew First that the Love and Favour of God as to the free Acceptation of Believers with him in Christ is constant abiding and shall never be turned away handling at largethe Principles both of its being and manifestation Secondly that the Spirit and grace of Sanctification which they freely receive from him shall never utterly be extinguished in them but so remaine as that they shall abide with him for ever the Sophisticall separation of which two parts of our Doctrine is the greatest advantage our Adversaries have against the whole And demonstrate Thirdly the Reall and Causall influences which this Truth hath into the Obedience and Consolation of the Saints considered both absolutely and compared with the Doctrine which is set up in competition with it In the pursuit of which particulars I shall indeavour to Inforce and presse those places of Scripture wherein they are abundantly delivered and vindicate them from all the Exceptions put in to our inferences from them by M. Goodwin in his Redemption Redeemed as also Answer all the Arguments which he hath with much labour and industry collected and improved in opposition to the Truth in hand Take then only these few Previous observations and I shall insist fully upon the proofe and Demonstration of the first Position concerning the Vnchangeablenesse of the Love of God towards his to whom he gives Iesus Christ for Beauty and Glory and freely accepts them in him First §. 51. as to their Inherent Holinesse the Question is not concerning Acts either as to their vigour Revel 2. 5. 3. 2. which may be abated or as to their frequency which may be interrupted Isa. 57. 17. but only as to the Spirit Habit of it which shall never depart Hos. 14. 4. We doe not say they cannot sinne fall into many sinnes great sinnes which the Scripture plainely affirmes of all the Saints Isa. 59. 21. that went before and who of them living doth not this day labour under the Truth of it Ioh. 14. 16. But through the Presence of God with them 1 Ioh. 3. 9. upon such Grounds and Principles as shall afterwards be insisted on 1 Ioh. 1. 8. they cannot shall not sinne away the Spirit and Habit of Grace Iam. 3. 2. which without a miracle cannot be done away by any one Act 1 King 8. 38. and God will not worke Miracles for the destruction of his Children so as to fall into that state Isa. 64. 5 6. wherein they were before they were Regenerate and of the Children of God become Children of the Devill tasting of the second Death Rev. 20. 6. after they have been made Partakers of the first Resurrection Secondly the Question is not about the decay of any Grace but the losse of all not about sicknesse and weakenesses but about death it selfe which alone we say they shall be preserved from Neither doe we say that Believers are endowed with any such rich and plentifull Stock of Grace Psal. 23. 6. as that they may spend upon it without new supplyes all their dayes Isa. 35. 1 2. c. but grant that they stand in continuall need of the renued communication of that Grace Ioh. 15. 3 4 5 6. 7. which hath its abode and residence in their Soules Rom. 11. 18. and of that actuall Assistance whereby any thing that is truly and Spiritually good Ioh. 1. 16. is wrought in them Thirdly whereas there is a twofold Impossibility Col. 2. 19. First that which is absolutely and simply so in its own nature Luk. 17. 5. And Secondly that which is so only upon some suposition Phil. 2. 13. we say the totall falling away of the Saints is imppossible only in this latter sence The unchangeable Decree and Purpose of God his faithfull Promises and Oathes the Mediation of the Lord Jesus being in the Assertion supposed And Fourthly whereas we affirme they shall assuredly continue unto the end the Certainty and Assurance intimated is not mentis but entis Isa. 49. 14 15 16. not subjective but objective not alwayes in the person persevering but alwayes relating to the thing it selfe Isa. 5. 17. Fiftly that the three things formerly mentioned Cantt 5. 2 6. Acceptance with God Psal. 73. 26. Holinesse from God and the Defence upon them both unto the end are that threefold corde of the Covenant which cannot be broken This will appeare by compareing those two eminent places together which afterwards must more fully be insisted on Jerem. 31. 34 35. Cap. 32. 38 39 40. In generall God undertakes to be their God and that they shall be his People Cap. 31. 31. Cap. 32. 38. And this he manifests in three things First that he will Accept them freely give them to finde great Favour before him in the forgivenesse of their sinnes for which alone he hath any quarrell with them I will saith he forgive their iniquities and remember their sinnes no more cap 31. 34. As 't is againe repeated Heb. 8. 12. Secondly that they shall have sanctification and Holinesse from him I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their Hearts cap. 31. 33. I will put my feare in their Hearts v 40. with Ezek. 66. 67. calls the putting his Spirit in them who is the Author of that Grace and Holinesse which he doth bestow Thirdly that in both these there shall be a continuance for ever cap 32. 40. I will not turne away from
manifest First all the strength §. 15. that Mr Goodwin will allow to this Argument ariseth from a naked consideration of the Immutability of God as 't is an essentiall Property of his nature when our Arguing is from his ingagement to us by and on the account of that Property that God will doe such and such a thing because he is Omnipotent though he shall not at all manifest any purpose of his will to lay forth his Omnipotency for the accomplishment of it is an inference all whose strength is vaine presumption But when God hath ingaged himselfe for the Performance of any thing thence to conclude to the certaine accomplishment of it from his power whereby he is able to doe it is a deduction that Faith will readily close withall So the Apostle assures us of the reimplanting of the Jewes upon this account God saith he is able to plant them in againe having promised so to doe Rom. 11. 23. There are two considerations upon which the Vnchangeablenesse of God hath a more effectuall influence into the continuance of his Love to his Saints then the meere objected thought of it will lead us to an acquaintance withall 1. God Proposeth his Immutability to the Faith of the Saints §. 16. for their establishment consolation in this very case of the stability of his Love unto them we dare not draw conclusions in reference to our selves from any Property of God but only upon the account of the Revelation which he hath made thereof unto us for that end and purpose But this being done we have a sure anchor firme and stedfast to fix us against all blasts of Temptation or opposition whatsoever When God proposes his Immutability or Unchangeablenesse to assure us of the continuance of his Love unto us if we might truly aprehend yea ought so to doe that his Unchangeablenesse may be preserved and himselfe vindicated from the least shadow of Turning though he should change his Mind Thoughts Love Purposes concerning us every day what conclusion for consolation could possibly arise from such Proposalls of Gods Immutability unto us Yea would it not rather appeare to be a way suited to the delusion of poore Soules that when they shall think they have a solid Pillar no lesse then an Essentiall Property of the nature of God to rest upon they shall finde themselves leaning on a Cloud or Shadow or on a broken Reed that will runne into their hands insteed of yeilding them the least supportment God deales not thus with his Saints His discoveries of himselfe in Christ for the Establishment of the Hearts of his are not such Flints as from whence the most skilfull and exercised Faith cannot expect one drop of Consolation Whatsoever of his Name he holds out to the Sonnes of men it will be a strong Tower and place of Refuge and safety to them that flye unto it Secondly the Consideration of that Love in its continuance wherein the Lord settles and puts out of doubt the Soules of his by the ingagement of his Vnchangeablenesse or the calling of them to the Consideration of that Property in him from whom that Love doth flow adds strength also to the way of arguing we insist upon Were the Love of God to his nothing but the declaration of his Approbation of such and such things annext to the Law and Rule of Obedience it might stand firme like a Pillar in a River though the water be not thereby caused to stand still one moment but only touch it and so passe on there were some colour of Exception to be layd against it And this is indeed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Mr Goodwin in this whole Controversy that he acknowledgeth no other Love of God to Believers but what lyes in the outward Approbation of what is good and mens doing it upon which account there is no more Love in God to one then another to the choicest Saint then to the most profligate Villain in the world nay it is not any Love at all properly so called being no internall vitall Act of Gods will the seat of his Love but an externall Declaration of the issue of our Obedience The declaration of Gods Will that he approoves Faith and Obedience is no more Love to Peter then it is to Judas But let now the Love of God to Believers be considered as it is in it selfe as a vitall Act of his will willing if I may so speake good things to them as the Immanent purpose of his Will also joyned with an Acceptation of them in the Effects of his Grace Favour and Love in Jesus Christ and it will be quickly evidenced how an Alteration therein will entrench upon the Immutability of God both as to his Essence and Attributes and Decrees Having thus reinforced our Argument from this place of Scripture §. 17. by restoring unto it those considerations which being its maine strength it was maymed and deprived of by Mr Goodwin in his proposall thereof I shall briefly consider the Answers that by him are suggested thereunto Thus then he proceedeth By the Tenour of this Arguing it will as well follow that in case God should at any time withdraw his Love and his Favour from a Nation or body of a People which he sometimes Favoured or Loved he should be changed But that no such change of dispensation as this towards one or the same People or Nation argueth any change at all in God at least any such change which he disclaimeth as incompetent to him is evident from those instances without number recorded in Scripture of such different dispensations of his towards sundry Nations and more especially towards the Iewes to whom somtimes he gives Peace somtimes consumes them with Warrs sometimes he makes them the Head and sometimes again the Tayle of the Nations round about them The Love and favour of God to a Nation or People Ans. here brought into the lists of Comparison with the peculiar Love of God to his Saints which he Secures them of upon the account of his Immutability is either the outward Dispensation of Good things to them called his Love because it expresseth and holds out a fountaine of Goodnesse from whence it flowes or it is an Eternall act of Gods will towards them of the same nature with the Love to his owne formerly described If it be taken in the first sence as apparantly it is intended and so made out from the instance of Gods dealing with the Iewes in outward Blessings and Punishments Mr Goodwin doth playnely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall into a thing quite of another nature insteed of that which was first proposed Amphora cùm caepit Institui cur urceus exit There is a wide difference betweene outward Providentiall Dispensations and Eternall Purposes and acts of Grace and Good will To deale in the instance insisted on by Mr Goodwin there being frequent mention in the Scripture as afterwards shall be fully declared of a difference
distinction in and of that People Rom. 9. 4 5. for they are not all Israel that are of Israel the whole lump body of them being the People of God in respect of separation from the rest of the world dedication to his Worship externall profession yet a Remnant only a hidden Remnant being his People upon the account of Eternall designation and actuall Acceptation into Love and Favour in Jesus Christ there must needs be also a twofold Dispensation of God and his will in reference to that People The First Common Generall towards the whole body of them in outward Ordinances and Providentiall Exercises of Goodnesse or Justice In this there was Great variety as to the Latter part comprehending only externall Effects or products of the Power of God in which regard he can pull downe what he hath set up and set up what he hath pulled downe without the least shadow of turning These various Dispensations working Uniformely towards the accomplishment of his Unchangeable Purpose And this is all that Mr Goodwins Exceptions reach too Even a change in the outward dispensation of Providence which none ever denied being that which may nay is done for the bringing about and accomplishment in a way sutable to the advancement of his Glory of his unchangeable Purpose What proportion there is to be argued from betweene the generall effects of various Dispensations and that peculiar Love and Grace of the Covenant thereof wherein God assures his Saints of their Stability upon the account of his own Unchangeablenes I know not Because he may remove his Candlestick from a fruitlesse Faithlesse People and give them up to desolation may he therfore take his holy Spirit from them that Believe For whilst that continues the root of the matter is in them So that Secondly there is a peculiar Dispensation of Grace exerted towards those peculiar ones whom he owneth and receiveth as above mentioned wherein there are such ingagements of the Purpose Decrees and Will of God as that the streame of them cannot be forced back without as Great an Alteration change in God as the thoughts of the heart of the meanest worme in the world are lyable unto And on this the Lord asserts the stedfastnesse of his Love to them in the midst of the changes of outward Dispensations towards the body of that People wherein also their Externall concernments were wrapt up 1 Sam. 12. 22. But this will afterwards be more fully cleared The Substance of this Exception amounts only to thus much there are changes wrought in the workes which outwardly are of God as to generall and common administrations therefore also are his Eternall purposes of Spirituall Grace lyable to the like Alterations Whereas Mr Godwin sayes that this will not import any alteration in God at least any such alteration as is incompetent to him I know not of any shadow of alteration that may be ascribed to him without the greatest and most substantiall derogation from his Glory that you can ingage into And this farther clears §. 18. what is farther excepted to the end of the Sect. 40. in these words Therefore neither the Vnchangeablenesse nor Changeablenesse of God are to be estimated or measured either by any variety or uniformity of dispensation towards one and the same Object and consequently for him to express himselfe as this day towards a Person Man or Woman as if he intended to save them or that he really intended to save them and should on the morrow as the alteration in the interim may be or how ever may be supposed in these Persons expresse himselfe to the contrary as that he verily intends to destroy them would not argue or imply the least Alteration in him It is true Ans. such Dispensations of God as are morally declarative of what God approves of what he rejects not ingagements of any particular intēdment designe or purpose of his Will or such as are meerely outward Acts of his Power may in great variety be subservient to the accomplishment of his Purpose may undergoe the first in respect of the Object the latter of the Works themselves many alterations without prejudice to the Immutability of God The first in themselves are everlastingly unchangeable God alwaies approves the Obedience of his Creatures according to that Light and knowledge which he is pleased to communicate unto them and alway condemnes disallowes their Rebellions yet the same Persons may doe sometimes what he approves and sometimes what he condemnes without the least shadow of change in God Whilest they thus change his Purposes concerning them and what he will doe to them and for them are unchangeable as is his Law concerning Good and Evill For the latter take an instance in the case of Pharaoh God purposeth the destruction of Pharaoh and suites his Dispensations in great variety and with many changes for the bringing about and accomplishing of that his unchangeable Purpose he Plagues him and Frees him he Frees him and Plagues him againe all these things doe not in the least proove any alteration in God being all various effects of his Power suited to the accomplishment of an unchangeable Purpose So in respect of Persons whom he intends to bring through Christ infallibly to himselfe how various are his Dispensations both Temporall and Spirituall He Afflicts them and Relieves them sends them Light and Darkenesse Strength and Weakenesse Forsakes and Appears to them againe without the least alteration in his thoughts and purposes towards them all these things by his infinite Wisdome working together for their good But now if by Dispensation you understand and comprehend also the thoughts and Purposes of God towards any for the bringing of them to such and such an end if these be altered and the Lord doth change them continually I know no reason why a poore Worme of the Earth may not lay an equall claime absit Blasphemia to Immutability and Unchangeablenesse with him who Asserts it as his Essentiall Property and Prerogative whereby he distinguisheth himselfe from all Creatures whatsoever There is also an Ambiguity in that expression §. 19. that God expresseth himselfe this day towards a Man or Woman that he really intends to save them and on the morrow expresseth himselfe to the contrary If our Author intends only Gods Morall approbation of Duties and Performances as was said before with the Conditionall approbation of Persons with respect to them there being therein no Declaration of any Intention or Purpose of God properly so called the instance is not in the least looking toward the businesse we have in hand But if withall he intend the Purposes and Intentions of the will of God as those termes really intend and verily intend doe import I know not what to call or account Alteration and Change if this be not surely if a man like our selves doe really intend one thing one day and verily intend the cleane contrary the next day we may make
say hath Everlastingly Purposed to give and doth actually give his Holy Spirit to Believers to put forth such an exceeding greatnesse of Power as whereby in the use of meanes they shall certainely be preserved to Salvation This God can doe saies our Author This Concession being made by the Remonstrants in their Synodalia Mr Goodwin I presume thought it but duty to be as free as his Predecessors and therefore consented unto it also although it be an axe laid at the root of almost all the Arguments he sets up against the Truth as shall hereafter be farther manifested I draw now to a close of those places §. 55. which among many other omitted tender themselves unto the proofe of the stable unchangeable Purpose of God concerning the safe-garding and preservation of Believers in his Love and unto Salvation I shall mention one or two more and close this second Scripturall Demonstration of the Truth in hand The first is that eminent place of Ephes. 1. 3 4 5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the World that we should be holy and without blame before him in Love having Predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himselfe according to the good pleasure of his will verse 3. the Apostle summarily blesseth God for all the spirituall mercies which in Jesus Christ he blesseth his Saints withall of all which v. 4. he discovereth the fountaine and spring which is his free choosing of them before the foundation of the World That an Eternall Act of the Will of God is hereby designed is beyond dispute and it is that foundation of God on which the whole of the building mentioned and pourtraid in the following verse is laid All the Grace and Favour of God towards his Saints in their Justification Adoption and Glory all the fruits of the Spirit which they enjoy in Faith and Sanctification flow from this one fountaine and these the Apostle describes at large in the verses following The ayme of God in this eternall and unchangeable Act of his Will he tells us is that we should be unblameable before him in Love Certainly cursed Apostats backsliders in Heart in whom his soule takes no pleasure are very farre from being unblameable before God in Love Those that are within the compasse of this Purpose of God must be preserved unto that State and Condition which God aimes to bring them unto by all the fruit and issues of that Purpose of his which was pointed at before A Scripture of the like importance unto that before named is 2 Thess. 2. 13 14. God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and beliefe of the Truth whereunto he calls you by our Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of the Lord Jesus The same fountaine of all spirituall and eternall mercy with that mentioned in the other place is here also expressed and that is Gods choosing of us by an everlasting Act or Designing us to the end intended by a Free Eternall Unchangeable Purpose of his Will Secondly The end aimed at by the Lord in that Purpose is here more clearely set downe in a twofold Expression 1. Of Salvation v 13. He hath chosen us to Salvation that 's the thing which he aimed to accomplish for them and the End he intended to bring them to in his choosing of them and 2 ly v 14. The Glory of the Lord Jesus or the obtaining a portion in that Glory which Christ purchased and procured for them with their being with him to behold his Glory And 3 ly You have the meanes whereby God will certainly bring about and accomplish this his designe and Purpose whereof there are three most eminent Acts expressed 1. Vocation or their calling by the Gospel v 14. 2. Sanctification v 13. through the Sanctification of the Spirit And 3. Justification which they receive by beliefe of the Truth Thus much then is wrapt up in this Text God having in his Unchangeable Purpose fore-appointed his to Salvation and Glory certainly to be obtained through the effectuall working of the Spirit free justification in the Blood of Christ it cannot be but that they shall be preserved unto the enjoyment of what they are so designed unto To summe up what hath been spoken from these Purposes of God § 56. to the Establishment of the Truth we have in hand Those whom God hath purposed by effectuall meanes to preserve to the enjoyment of Eternall Life and Glory in his Favour and Acceptation can never so fall from his Love or be so cast out of his Grace as to come short of the end designed or ever be totally rejected of God The Truth of this proposition depends upon what hath been said and may farther be insisted on concerning the unchangeablenesse and Absolutenesse of the Eternall Purposes of God the Glory whereof men shall never be able Sacrilegiously to robbe him of Thence the Assumption is concerning all true Believers and truly sanctified persons are these Purposes of God that they shall be so preserved to such ends c. as hath been abundantly proved by an induction of particular instances and therefore it is impossible they should ever be so cast out of the Favour of God as not to be infallibly preserved to the End Which is our Second Demonstration of the Truth in hand CAP. IV. 1. An entrance into the Consideration of the Covenant of Grace and our Argument from thence for the Unchangeablenesse of the Love of God unto Believers 2. The intendment of the ensuing discourse 3. Gen. 17. 3. opened and explained with the confirmation of the Argument in hand from thence 4. That Argument vindicated and cleared of Objections 5. Confirmed by some observations 6. Ierem. 32. v. 38 39 40. compared with Cap. 31. v. 32 33. The Truth under consideration from thence clearely confirmed 7. The certainty immutability and infallible accomplishment of all the Promises of the New Covenant demonstrated 1. From the removall of all causes of Alteration 2. From the Mediator and his undertaking therein 3. From the Faithfulnesse of God 8. One instance from the former considerations 9. The indeavour of M. G. to Answer our Argument from this place 10. His observation on from the Text considered 1. This promise not made to the Jewes only 2. Nor to all the Nation of the Jewes proved from Rom. 11 3. not intending principally their deliverance from Babylon 11. His inferences from his former observations weighed 1. The Promise made to the body of the People of the Jewes Typically only 2. An Exposition borrowed of Socinus Rejected 3. The Promise not appropriated to the time of the Captivity and the disadvantage ensuing to M. G. cause upon such an Exposition 12. The place insisted on compared with Ezek. 11. 17 18 19
forgive their Iniquities and remember their sinnes no more Cap. 31. 34. The guilt of sinne shall be done away in Christ and that on termes of the greatest Honor and Glory to the Justice of God that can be apprehended God hath set forth Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousnesse for the Remission of sinnes that are past Rom. 3. 25. And for the latter that that may be throughly prevented saith God the care shall ly on me I will put my Law in their Hearts write it in their inward parts Cap. 31. 33. I will put my feare in their inward parts that they shall not depart from me Cap. 32. 40. So that the Continuance of his Love is secured against all possible interveniences whatever by an assured prevention of all such that have an inconsistency therewithall The Apostle Paul setting out the Covenant § 7. which God ratifieth in the Blood of Christ which shall never be broken takes the description of it from this place of the Prophet Heb. 8. 9 10 11 12. therein fixeth particularly on the Vnchangeablenesse of it in opposition to the Covenant which went before which was lyable to mutation when if these differed only in the Approbation of severall Qualifications they come to the same end For if this Covenant depends on Conditions by our selves in our owne strength with the advantage of its proposall to us attended with exhortations therefore by us to be fulfilled how was it distinguished from that made with the People when they came out of Egypt But in this very thing the difference of it lyeth as the Apostle asserts v. 6 7 8. The Immutability of this Covenant and the certaine product of all the Mercy promised in it might were that our present taske be easily demonstrated as First 1. From the Removal of all causes of Alteration When two enter into Covenant and Agreement no one can undertake that that Covenant shall be firme and stable if it equally depends upon both yea both it may be are changeable and so actually changed before the accomplishing of the thing engaged about therein However though the one should be faithfull yet the other may faile and so the Covenant be broken Thus was it with God and Adam it could not be undertaken that that Covenant should be kept inviolable because though God continues faithfull yet Adam might prove as indeed he did faithlesse and so the Covenant was disanulled as to any power of knitting together God and Man The Covenant betweene Husband and Wife the one party cannot undertake that the whole Covenant shall be observed because the other may prove treacherous In this Covenant the case is otherwise God himselfe hath undertaken the whole both for his continuing with us and our continuing with him Now he is one God is one and there is not another that they should faile disanull this agreement Though there be sundry persons in covenant yet there is but one undertaker on all hands and that is God himselfe It doth not depend upon the will of another but of him only who is faithfull who cannot lye who cannot deceive who will make all his engagements good to the utmost He is an Allsufficient one he will worke and who shall let him The Lord of Hosts hath purposed and who shall disanull it Yea he is an unchangeable one what he undertakes shall come to passe Blessed be his name that he hath not laid the foundation of a Covenant in the Bloud of his deare Sonne layd out the riches of his Wisedome Grace and power about it and then left it to us and our fraile will to carry it on that it should be in our power to make void the great work of his mercy Whence then I say should any change be the whole depending on one and he immutable 2. Seeing that God and man having been at so great a distance as they were by sinne must needs meet in some Mediatour some middle person in whom and by whose bloud as covenants usually were confirmed by bloud this Covenant must be ratified consider who this is and what he hath done for the establishing of it There is one God and one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. 2.5 He is the surety of this Testament Heb. 7. 22. The Mediator of this better Covenant established upon better Promises Heb 8. 6. neither is this surety or Mediator subject to change He is the same yesterday to day and for ever Heb. 13. 8. But though he be so in himselfe yet is the work so that is committed to him saith the Apostle all the Promises of God are yea and amen in Jesus Christ to the glory of God by us 2 Cor 1. 20. God hath in him and by him ascertained all the Promises of the Covenant that not one of them should be broken disanulled frustrate or come short of an Accomplishment God hath so confirmed them in him that he hath at his death made a Legacy of them and bequeathed them in a Testamentary dispensation to the Covenanters Heb 9. 15 16 17. and what he hath farther done for the Assuring of his Saints abiding with God shall afterward be declared 3. Thirdly the Faithfulnesse of God is oftentimes peculiarly mentioned in reference to this very thing the God that keepeth Covenant is his Name That which he hath to keepe is all that in Covenant he undertaketh now in this Covenant he undertaketh First That he will never forsake us Secondly That we shall never forsake him his Faithfulnesse is engaged to both these and if either part should faile what would the Lord doe to his great name The God that keepeth Covenant Notwithstanding the undertaking of God on both sides in this Covenant §. 8. notwithstanding his Faithfulnesse in the performance of what he undertaketh notwithstanding the Ratification of it in the bloud of Jesus and all that he hath done for the confirmation of it notwithstanding its differing from the Covenant that was disanulled on this Account that that was broken which this shall never be that being broken not as to the truth of the Proposition wherein it is contained Doe this Live but as to the succes of it in bringing any to God notwithstanding the Seale of the Oath that God set unto it they I say who notwithstanding all these things will hang the unchangeablenesse of this Covenant of God upon the slipperinesse and uncertainty and lubricity of the Will of Man let them walke in the light of the sparkes which themselves have kindled we walke in the light of the Lord our God When first I perused Mr Goodwin's Exceptions to this Testimony Cap. 10. Sect. 52 53 54 55 56. Pag. 219 220 221 222 223 224. finding them opposed not so much §. 9. nor so directly to our inference from this place as to the designe intendment and arguing of the Apostle Rom. 9 10 11th chapters and the
Efficiency That the taking away of a heart of Stone the giving of a new heart and Spirit the writing of the Law in their hearts and which is all one the quickning of the Dead the opening of blind eyes the begetting of us a new as they relate unto God doe signifie no more but his administration of meanes whereby men may be wrought upon and perswaded to bring their hearts and spirits into such a condition as is described in those expressions to quicken themselves to open their blind eyes c. Mr Goodwin shall scarce be able to evince 2. Conversion and Pardon of Sinne being both in this promise of the Covenant I take in also that place of the same importance cap. 31. and relating alike to the Grace of God if Conversion or the giving of a new heart be done only by administring outward meanes and perswasions unto men to make the new heatrs the forgivenesse of Sins must also be supposed to be tendred unto them upon the condition that their sinnes be forgiven as Conversion is on condition they be converted or doe convert themselves 3. This Promise being by the Prophet and Apostle insisted on as containing the Grace whereby eminently and peculiarly the New Covenant is distinguished from that which was abolished If the Grace mentioned therein be only the laying a powerfull and strong obligation on men to duty and obedience upon the account of the gracious and bountifull dealing of God with them both as to their Temporall and Spirituall condition I desire to know wherein the difference of it from the old Covenant as to the collation of Grace doth consist And whether ever God made a Covenant with man wherein he did not put sufficient obligations of this kind upon him unto obedience And if so what are the better promises of the New Covenant And what eminent and singular things as to the bestowing of Grace are in it Which things here are emphatically expressed to the uttermost 4. The scope of this Exposition which lookes but to one part of the Promise about bestowing of Grace overlooking the maine End and intendment of it as hath been shewed being to darken the words of the Holy Ghost so farre as to make them represent a contribution of means instead of an effectuall working the end and the event on which the means supplied have an influence of perswasion to prevaile with men to doe the things they are afforded them for I desire to know First What new thing is here promised to them which exceeded that mentioned ch 25. v 4 5. Wherein the Lord testifies that he had granted them formerly a large supply of outward means and especially of the word for the end here spoken of Secondly To what end and on what account is this administration of means for a work expressed by termes of a reall efficiency in reference to the work it selfe which proceeding from the intendment of God for the event aimed at must needs produce it And Thirdly Why these words should not be of the same importance with the associate expression which of necessity must be interpreted of an actuall and absolute efficiency v. 41 42. And Fourthly Whether the Administration of outward sufficient means for the producing of an Event can be a ground of an infallible prediction of that Event As God here absolutely saith they shall all know him from the Greatest to the least Ch 31. 34. which how it is brought about the Holy Ghost acquaints us Is. 4. 13. They shall be all taught of the Lord and Ioh 6. 44 45 46. It is written of the Prophets And they shall be all taught of God Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto mee But Mr Goodwin hath sundry Reasons to confirme his Glosse which must also be considered and he saith 1. That it is the familiar Dialect of Scripture to ascribe the doing of things or effects themselves to him that ministers occasions or proper and likely meanes for the doing of them so God is said to give them one heart and one way to put his feare into their hearts when he administers motives means occasions and opportunities to them which are proper to work them to such a frame and disposition of heart out of which men are wont to love and obey him whether they be ever actually brought thereunto or no and this Promise was fulfilled to the People after their returne out of Captivity in the mercies they enjoyed and the Preaching of the Prophets Ans. 1. We are not now to be informed that this is Mr Goodwin's Doctrine concerning conversion that God doth only administer meanes motives and oportunities for it but that man thereupon converts himselfe And 2 ly That when God hath done all he will or can that the Event may not follow nor the work be wrought But 3 ly That this sence by any meanes or opportunities can be fastned on the Promise under consideration we are not as yet so well instructed When God once intendeth an End and expresseth himselfe so to doe promising to work really and efficiently for the accomplishing of it yea that he will actually doe it by that efficiency preventing all interpositions whatever that may tend to frustrate his designe that that End of his shall not be accomplished or that that working of his is only an Administration of meanes whereby men may doe the things intended if they will or may doe otherwise he affirming that he will doe them himselfe is a Doctrine beyond my reach and capacity 4 ly His saying that in this sence the Promise was fulfilled to the People after the Captivity is a saying against his own light He hath told us not long since that it could not be a Promise of those things which were enjoyed before it was ever given as in our sence they did the Grace of Perseverance c Surely the means he mentioneth untill at least the coming of Christ in the Flesh were advanced to a farre higher pitch and eminency on all hands before the Captivity then after and at the coming of Christ it was eminently fulfilled in our acceptation of it unto all to whom it was made But he adds 2. That if it be not so to be understood §. 16. and so said to be fulfilled as above it is impossible for any one to assigne how and when this Promise was fulfilled For first it was made to the whole People and the fulfilling of it to a few will not confirm the Truth of it Secondly The Elect had no need of it knowing themselves to be so that they should never fall away so that this is but to make voyd the glorious Promise of God And thirdly to say that it was made to the Elect is but to begge the thing in question Ans. 1. As farre as the Body of the People was concerned in it it was and shall be in the latter daies absolutely accomplished towards them It was is shall be fulfilled
but in the name and Authority of God gives actually in the places under consideration Promises of the certain and infallible preservation of Believers to the end asserting the immutability of Gods engagement in them from his Faithfulnesse In briefe not to darken counsell and understanding with a multitude of words by the Promises of God we intend in a peculiar manner those exprest in the Texts under consideration viz. That God will establish Believers to the end keep them from evill and all Temptations that would overthrow them and by the Faithfulnesse of God from whence Believers have their Assurance of the accomplishment of these promises that which the Scripture holds out and all the World of Believers have hither to taken to be the Faithfulnesse of God as was before described But it seemes the word is here used otherwise For saith he It is such a kind of Faithfulnesse or disposition in him as that meant by Peter when he stileth him a faithfull Creator Now God is and may properly be termed a faithfull Creator because he constantly perâ—ormes unto his Creature whatsoever the Relation of a Creator promiseth in an equitable and rationall way unto it which is a great care and tendernesse for the preservation and well-being of it in like manner he may yea it is most likely that he is called faithfull in his calling of men as he is a spirituall Father or Creator a giver of a new being unto men because he never faileth to performe unto those new creatures of his whatsoever such a being as this regularly interpreted promiseth unto him who receiveth it from him who is the donor of it that is convement and sufficient meanes for the preservation and well-being of it So that the Faithfulnesse of God in the Scriptures in hand supposes no such Promise made by God as our opposers imagine viz. Whereby he should in termes or words stand engaged to establish confirme or keep Believers from evill his new creatures his regenerated ones after any such a manner but that they if they be carelesse or negligent for themselves may be shaken and decline and commit evill notwithstanding Ans. That by Gods Faithfulnesse mentioned in that place of Peter such a disposition as you afterwards describe is intended you had better say then undertake to prove It is evident the scope of the Apostle is to exhort the Saints of God in all their trialls and afflictions to commit themselves and their waies with patience quietnesse unto God upon the account of his power to preserve them as he is the Creator of all and his constancy in receiving of them being present with them abiding with them as he is Faithfull in his word and Promises Yea and the interpretation our Author would have fixed on the expression here used is not only remote from the intendment of the place turning that into a generall good disposition towards all his creatures which is intimated for the peculiar support of Believers and that in their distresse but also is in it selfe a false fond and loose Assertion There is no Law nor Relation of Creation that laies hold on God so farre as to oblige him to the Communication of one droppe of his Goodnesse to any of the creatures beyond what is given them by their Creation or to continue that unto them for one moment All the dispensation of himselfe unto his creatures flowing from his soveraigne good pleasure doing what he will with his owne 2. He doth very faintly when he hath made the farthest steppe in confident asserting that he dares venture upon it may be and it is most likely suppose that the Faithfulnesse of God in these places under consideration may be taken in such a sence as that before described But 1. This is no sence at all of the Faithfulnesse of God neither is the word ever used in Scripture to signify any such thing in God or man nor can with any tollerable sence be applied to any such thing neither would there be any Analogy between that which in God we call Faithfulnesse and that vertue in man which is so termed nor is the Faithfulnesse of God here mentioned upon any such account as will endure this description being insisted on only to assure the Saints of the stedfastnesse and unalterablenesse of God in the performance of his Promises made to them neither is the obligation of God to continue his Love and Favour with Grace and meanes of it to Believers founded upon such a disposition as is imagined but in the free purpose of his will which he purposed in Jesus Christ before the world was so that there is not the least appearance of truth or soundnesse of Reason or any thing that is desireable in this attempt to corrupt the Word of God 2. Then the Faithfulnesse of God in the Scriptures in hand bespeakes his truth and stability in the performance of his Promises made of establishing Believers to the end keeping them from evill not suffering any temptation to befall them but making withall a way to escape in all which God assures them he will prevent all such carelesnesse and negligence in them as is inconsistent with their Establishment which he will certainly accomplish And thus is our Major Proposition with its supplies of light and strength freed from such exceptions as M. Goodwin supposes it liable unto For the Assumption §. 15. I shall not much trouble my selfe with that ridiculous sence called a sober and Orthodox explication which Mr Goodwin is pleased to put upon it to allow it to passe currant In this sence saith he it is most true that God hath promised that all Believers shall Persevere i.e. that all true Believers formally considered i.e. as such and abiding such shall persevere viz. in his Grace and Favour But this he presumes is not our sence Ch 11. Sect 2. pag. 226. And well he may presume it for what ever his greatest skill may inable him unto we can make no sence of it but this God hath promised Believers shall Persevere in case they Persevere which is to us upon the matter no sence at all To Persevere in Gods Grace and Favour is to continue in Faith and Obedience which if men doe God hath solemnely promised and sworne that they shall so doe Certainly there is an Orthodox sence in Gods Promises that is not non-sence Be it granted then that this is not our sence not so much because not ours as because not sence what is our meaning in this Proposition It is saith Mr Goodwin that God will so preserve Believers that none of them shall make shipwrack of their Faith upon what quick-sands of lust and sensuality soever they shall strike against what rock of obduration and impenitency soever they dash But I beseech you who told you that this was our sence of this Propositionâ— being indeed no more sence then that which you give in for your owne By striking on the quick-sands of Lust and dashing upon Rocks
Upon the engagement of the Name of God on his peoples behalfe Moses carefully pleads this latter or part thereof Num 14. 17 18 19. God hath given his Name unto his people and this is wrapt up in that mercy that he will lay out his Power to pardon heale and doe them good in his preserving of them and abiding with them Let thy Power be great according as thou hast spoken the Lord is long suffering and as when he workes for his name the way whereby he will doe it is according to the greatnesse of his Power so the fountaine and rise from whence he will doe it is 2. His Goodnesse Ioh. 17. 3 26 Kindnesse Love Patience Mercy Grace Faithfulnesse in Jesus Christ. Psal. 22. 22. And thus under the title of his Name doth he call poore afflicted Psal. 63. 4. darke hopelesse helpelesse Creatures upon any other account in the World persons ready to be swallowed up in disconsolation and sorrow Psal. 69. 30. to rest upon him Isa 50. 10. Who is among you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voyce of his Servant that walketh in darknesse and hath no light let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God When all other holds are gon when flesh failes and heart failes then doth God call poore soules to rest upon this Name of his So the Psalmist Psal 73. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth all strength naturall and spirituall faileth and is gone but God is the strength of my heart saith he and my portion for ever Now this is the sole motive also of Gods continuance with his He will doe it because he himselfe is good gracious mercifull loving tender and he will lay out these Properties to the utmost in their behalfe that it may be well with them lifting up exalting and making himselfe Gracious in so doing This the Lord emphatically expresseth five times in one verse Isa. 46. 4. â—ven to your old age I am he even to hoary haires will I carry you I have made and I will beare I will carry and will deliver you this then I say is the reason and only ground This the principall aime and End upon the account whereof the Lord will not forsake his People 3. The Rise of all this Goodnesse §. 7. Kindnesse Faithfulnesse of God to his People as to the exercise of it is also expressed and that is his own good pleasure because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his People This is the spring and fountaine of all the goodnesse mentioned God is essentially in himselfe of a good gracious and loving nature but he acts all these properties as to works that outwardly are of him according to the Counsell of his Will Eph 1. 11. according to the Purpose which he purposeth in himselfe and his Purposes all of them have no other rise or cause but his own good pleasure Why did the Lord make us his People towards whom he might act according to the Gracious Properties of his nature yea and lay them forth and exercise them to the utmost on our behalfe Was it because we were better then others did his Will walked with him Did he declare we should be his People upon condition we did so and so Not on any of these or the like grounds of proceeding doth he doe this but meerely because it pleaseth him to make us his People Mat 11. 26. and shall we think that he who took us to be his People notwithstanding our universall alienation from him on the account of his own good pleasure which caused him to make us his People that is obedient believing separated from the World will upon any account being himselfe Unchangeable not perserve us in but reject us from that Condition Thus is God's Mercy in not forsaking his People resolved into its originall principle viz. his owne good-pleasure in choosing of them carried on by the Goodnesse Unchangeablenesse of his own Nature to the appointed Issue This then is the summe of this Argument What worke or Designe the Lord entereth upon meerly from his own good pleasure or solely in answer to the Purpose which he purposeth in himselfe and engageth to continue in Mercy for his Name sake thereby taking upon him to remove or prevent what ever might hinder the accomplishment of that Purpose Work or Designe of his that he will abide in unchangeable to the end But this is the state of the Lords undertaking to abide with his People as hath been manifested at large Let us adde in the next place that of the Psalmist §. 8. Ps. 23. 4 6. Though I walke through the vally of the shaddow of death I will feare none evill for thou art with me thy rod thy staffe doth comfort me Surely Goodnesse mercy shall follow me all the dayes of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever The Psalmist expresseth an exceeding confidence in the middest of most inexpressible troubles and pressures He supposes himselfe walking through the vally of the shadow of death as death is the worst of evills and comprehensive of them all so the shaddow of death is the most dismall and darke Representation of those evills to the Soule and the vally of that shaddow the most dreadful bottome and depth of that Representation This then the Prophet supposed that he may be brought into a condition wherein he may be overwhelmed with sad apprehensions of the comeing of a confluence of all manner of evills upon him and that not for a short season but he may be necessitated to walke in them which denotes a state of some continuance a conflicting with most dismall evills and in their owne nature tending to death is in the supposall What then would he do if he should be brought into this estate Saith he even in that condition in such distresse wherein I am to my owne and the eyes of others hopelesse helpelesse gone and lost I will feare none evill A noble resolution if there be a sufficient bottome foundation for it that it may not be accounted rashnesse groundlesse confidence but true Spirituall courage and holy Resolution Saith he it is because the Lord is with me But alas what if the Lord should now forsake thee in this Condition and give thee up to the power of thine enemies and suffer thee by the strength of thy Temptations wherewith thou art beset to fall utterly from him Surely then thou wouldest be swallowed up for ever the waters would go over thy Soule and thou must for ever lye downe in the shades of death Yea but saith he I have an assurance of the contrary Goodnesse and Mercy shall follow me all the dayes of my life But this is say some a very desperate perswasion If thou art sure that Goodnes Mercy shall follow thee all the dayes of thy life then live as thou pleasest as loosly as flesh can desire as wickedly as Sathan
of the floud I have sworne saith he that is I have entred into a covenant to that end which was wont to be confirmed with an Oath and God being absolutely faithfull in his covenant is said to sweare thereunto though there be no expresse mention of any such oath that the World should no more be so drowned as then it was now saith God see my Faithfulnesse herein it hath never been drowned since nor ever shall be with equall Faithfulnesse have I engaged even in Covenant that that kindnesse which I mentioned to thee shall alwaies be continued so that I will not be wroth to rebuke thee that is so as utterly to cast thee off as the World was when it was drowned But some may say before the floud the Earth was filled with violence and sinne and should it be so againe would it not bring another floud upon it Hath he said he will not drowne it notwithstanding any interposall of sinne wickednesse or rebellion whatever Yea saith he such is my Covenant I took notice in my first engagement therein that the Imagination of mans heart would be evill from his youth Gen 8. 21. and yet I entred into that solemne Covenant so that this exemption of the World from an universall deluge is not an Appendix to the obedience of the World which hath been upon some accounts more wicked since then before as in the crucifying of Christ the Lord of Glory and in rejecting of him being preached unto them but it solely leaneth upon my Faithfulnesse in keeping Covenant and my Truth in the accomplishment of the Oath that I have solemnely entred into So is my kindnesse to you I have made expresse provision for your sinnes and failings therein such I will preserve you from as are inconsistent with my kindnesse to you and such will I pardon as you are overtaken withall When you see an universall deluge covering the face of the Earth that is God unfaithfull to his Oath and Covenant then and not till then suppose that his kindnesse can be turned from Believers Something is excepted against this Testimony §. 19. Ch 11. Sect 4 Pag 227. but of so little importance that it is scarce worth while to turne aside to the consideration of it The summe is that this place speaketh only of Gods Faithfulnesse in his Covenant but that this should be the Tenor of the Covenant that they who once truly believed should by God infallibly and by a strong hand against all interposalls of sinne wickednesse or rebellion be preserved in such a Faith is not by any word syllable or Iota intimated Ans. This is that which is repeated usque ad nauseam and were it not for variety of expressions wherewith some men doe abound to adorne it it would appeare extreame beggerly and over-worne but a sorry shift as they say is better then none or doubtlesse in this place it had not been made use of For 1. This Testimony is not called forth to speake immediately to the continuance of Believers in their Faith but to the continuance and unchangeablenesse of the Love of God to them and consequentially only to their preservation in Faith upon that account 2. It is not only assumed at a cheap and very low rate or price but clearly gratis supposed that Believers may make such interposalls of Sinne Wickednesse and Rebellion in their walking with God as should be inconsistent with the continuance of his Favour and Kindnesse to them according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace His Kindnesse and Favour being to us things extrinsecall our sinnes are not opposed unto them really and directly as though they might effectually infringe an Act of the Will of God but only meritoriously now when God saith that he will continue his kindnesse to us for ever notwithstanding the demerit of Sinne as is plainly intimated in that Allusion to the Waters of Noah for any one to say that they may fall into such Sinnes and Rebellions as that He cannot but turne his Kindnesse from them is a bold attempt for the violation of his Goodnesse and Faithfulnesse and a plaine begging of the thing in Question Certainly it is not a pious labour to thrust with violence such supposalls into the Promises of God as will stoppe those breasts from giving out any consolation when no place or roome for them doth at all appeare there being not one word syllable Iota or tittle of any such supposalls in them 3. The Exposition and Glosse that is given of these words namely that upon conditon of their Faithfulnesse and Obedience which notwithstanding any thing in this or any other Promise they may turne away from he will engage himselfe to be a God to them is such as no Saint of God without the helpe of Satan and his owne unbeliefe could affixe to the place neither will that at all assist which 4. Is affirmed namely that in all Covenants and his Promise holdeth out a Covenant there must be a condition on both sides For we willingly grant that in this Covenant of Grace God doth promise something to us and requireth something of us and that these two have mutuall dependance one upon another But we also affirme that in the very Covenant it selfe God hath graciously promised to worke effectually in us those things which he requireth of us and that therein it mainly differeth from the Covenant of Works which he hath abolished But such a Covenant as wherein God should Promise to be a God unto us upon a condition by us and in our own strength to be fulfilled and on the same account continued in unto the end we acknowledge not nor can whilest our hearts have any sence of the Love of the Father the Bloud of the Sonne of the Grace of the Holy Spirit the fountaines thereof Notwithstanding then any thing that hath been drawn forth in opposition to it Faith may triumph from the Love of God in Christ held out in this Promise to the full assurance of an everlasting Acceptance with him for God also willing yet more abundantly to give in consolation in this place to the heirs of the Promis assureth the stability of his Love and kindnesse to them by another allusion v. 10. The Mountaines saith he shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindnesse shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my Peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee He biddeth them consider the mountaines and hilles and suppose that they may be removed and depart suppose that the most unlikely things in the World shall come to passe whose accomplishment none can judge possible while the World endureth yet my kindnesse to thee is such as shall not fall within those supposalls which concerne things of such an impossibility I am exceeding conscious that all Paraphrasing or Exposition of the words that may be used for their Accommodation to the Truth we plead for doth but darken and Eclipse the Light and Glory
Judgement Loving-kindnesse and Mercies and Faithfulnesse whose efficacy also in reference unto their abiding with him whom he doth betroth to himselfe he mentioneth in the close of v 20. thou saith he shalt know the Lord. I shall not insist on the particular importance of the severall Expressions whereby the Lord hath set forth himselfe and his goodnesse here unto us It is plaine that they are all mentioned to the same end and purpose namely to give Assurance unto us of the Unchangeablenesse of this worke of his Grace and to prevent the objections which the fears of our unbelieving hearts from the consideration of our weaknesse wayes and walkings temptations trialls and troubles would raise upon it The Lord when he betroths us to himselfe sees and knows what we are what we will be and how we will provoke the eyes of his Glory He sees that if we should be left unto our selves we would utterly cast off all knowledge of him and obedience unto him Wherefore saith he I will betroth thee unto me in Righteousnesse and Judgment allowing full measure for all thy weaknesses that they shall not dissolve that union I intend As if a Prince should goe to take to him in Marriage a poore deformed Beggar who being amazed with his kindnesse and fearing much least he should be mistaken and account her otherwise then indeed shee is which when it is discovered will be her ruine she plainly telleth him she is poore deformed and hath nothing in the World that may answer his expectation and therefore she cannot but feare that when he knoweth her throughly indeed he will utterly cast her off But he thereupon replieth Feare no such thing what I doe I doe in Righteousnesse and Judgement knowingly of thee and thy Condition and so as that I will abide by it Perhaps as some think by this betrothing us in Righteousnesse the Lord may intimate his bestowing upon us Righteousnesse yea his becoming in Jesus Christ our Righteousnesse to supply that utter want Isa. 45. 24. which is in us of that which is acceptable unto him Now because we are not only unmeet to be at first accepted into any such termes of alliance with the Lord but also shall certainly in the carrying of it on behave our selves foolishly and frowardly unanswerable to his loving-kindnesse so that he may justly cast us off for ever he telleth us farther that he betroths us to himselfe in Loving-kindnesse and Mercies knowing that in entring into this alliance with us he maketh worke for his tenderest bowels of Compassion his pitty and pardoning mercy In his continuance in this Relation whatever his Kindnesse Patience and Pardoning mercy can be extended unto that he will accomplish and bring about But will not the Lord when he pardons once and againe at length be waried by our innumerable provocations so as to cast us off for ever No saith he this will I doe in Faithfulnesse He doubleth the expression of his Grace and addeth a Property of his nature that will carry him out to abide by his first Love to the utmost I will saith he even betroth thee unto my selfe in Faithfulnesse His firmenesse constancie and truth in all his waies and promises will he use in this work of his Grace Deut 32. 4. But perhaps notwithstanding all this the heart is not yet quiet yet it feareth it selfe and its own treachery least it should utterly fall off from this gracious Husband wherefore in the close of all God undertaketh for them also that no scruple may remaine why our soules should not be satisfied with the sincere milke that floweth from this breast of Consolation Thou shalt saith he know the Lord This indeed is required that under the Accomplishment of this gracious Promise you know the Lord that is believe and trust and obey the Lord and saith he thou shalt doe it I will by my Grace keep alive in thy heart as a fruit of that Love wherewith I have betrothed thee to my selfe that Knowledge Faith and Obedience which I require of thee This then is some part of that which in this Promise the Lord holdeth out unto us and assureth us of notwithstanding his Rejection of the carnall Jewes yet for his elect both the Jewes and Gentiles he will so take them into a Marriage Covenant with himselfe that he will continue for ever a Husband unto them undertaking also that they shall continue in Faith and Obedience knowing him all their dayes and of all this he effectually assureth them upon the account of his Righteousnesse Judgement Loving-kindnesse Mercy and Faithfulnesse I cannot but adde that if there were no other place of Scripture in the whole Book of God to confirme the Truth we have in hand but only this I should not doubt the Lord assisting to close with it upon the signall Testimony given unto it thereby notwithstanding all the specious Oppositions that are made thereunto For the Close §. 32. I shall a little consider that leane and hungry Exposition of these words which is given in the place before metioned Ch. 11. Sect 8. pag. 229. I will betroth them unto me in Righteousnesse and in Judgement and in Loving-kindnesse and Mercy so the words are expressed in a different Character as the very words of the Promise in the Text. 1. Thee that is the Church is changed into Them that is the Jewes and their Children or carnall seed as a little before was expressed and then that emphaticall expression for ever is quite thrust out of the Text as a stubborne word not to be dealt withall upon any faire termes Let us see then how that which remaineth is treated and turned off I will betroth thee that is I will engage and attempt to insure both them and their affections to mee by all variety of waies and meanes that are proper and likely to bring such a thing to passe But who knoweth not that this is wooing and not betrothing we need not goe farre to find out men learned in the Law to informe us that to try and attempt to get and assure the affections of any one is not a Betrothment This then is the first part of this Exposition I will betroth that is I will wooe and essay attempt and endeavour to get their affections which besides the forementioned absurdity is attended with another sore oversight to wit that God promiseth to doe this very thing in the last words of v. 20. which is affirmed that he doth but attempt to doe To proceed he saith I will doe this 1. By shewing my selfe Just and Righteous unto them in keeping my Promise concerning their deliverance out of captivity at the end of 70 years So then in this new Paraphrase I will Betroth thee that is the Election of Jewes and Gentiles to my selfe for ever in Righteousnesse is I will essay to get their affections by shewing my selfe Righteous in the Promise of bringing the Jewes out of captivity That this Promise is not made
that Believers receive the spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father which being a worke within them cannot be wrought and effected by Adoption it selfe which is an extrinsicall Relation Neither can Adoption and the Spirit of Adoption be conceived to be the same He also farther affirmes it 1 Cor 2. 12. we have received the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given us of God We have so received him as that he abides with us to teach us to acquaint our hearts with Gods dealing with us bearing witnesse with our spirits to the condition wherein we are in reference to our Favour from God and Acceptation with him and the same he most distinctly asserts Gal. 4. 6. God hath sent forth the spirit of his Sonne into our hearts crying Abba Father The distinct Oeconomy of the Father Sonne and Spirit in the work of Adoption is clearly discovered He is sent sent of God that is the Father That name is Personally to be appropriated when it is distinguished as here from Sonne and Spirit That is the Fathers work that work of his Love he sends him He hath sent him as the spirit of his Sonne procured by him for us promised by him to us proceeding from him as to his personall subsistence and sent by him as to his office of Adoption and Consolation Then whether the Father hath sent the spirit of his Sonne where he is to abide and make his residence is expressed it is into our Hearts saith the Apostle there he dwells and abides And lastly what there he doth is also manifested he setts them on worke in whom he is gives them priviledges for it Ability to it Incouragement in it causing them to cry Abba Father Once and againe to Timothy doth the same Apostle assert the same truth 1 Epist. 3. 14. the good thing committed unto thee keep by the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us The Lord knowing how much of our Life and Consolation depends on this Truth redoubles his Testimony of it that wee might receive it even wee who are dull and slow of heart to believe the things that are written 3. Whereas some may say §. 3. it cannot be denyed but that the Spirit dwels in Believers but yet this is not personally but only by his Grace though I might reply that this indeed and upon the matter is not to distinguish but to deny what is positively affirmed To say the Spirit dwells in us but not the Person of the Spirit is not to distinguish de modo but to deny the thing it selfe To say the Graces indeed of the Spirit are in us not dwell in us for an Accident is not properly said to dwell in its subject but the Spirit it selfe doth not dwell in us is expressly to cast downe what the word sets up If such distinctions ought to be of force to evade so many positive and plaine Texts of Scripture as have been produced it may well be questioned whether any Truth be capable of proofe from Scripture or no. Yet I say farther to obviate such Objections and to prevent all quarrellings for the future the Scripture it selfe as to this businesse of the Spirits indwelling plainely distinguisheth between the Spirit it selfe and his Graces He is I say distinguished from them and that in respect to his indwelling Rom. 5. 5. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us The Holy Ghost is given to us to dwell in us as hath been abundantly declared and shall yet farther be demonstrated Here He is mentioned together with the Love of God and his shedding thereof abroad in our Hearts that is with his Graces is as clearely distinguished and differenced from them as Cause and effect Take the Love of God in either sence that is controverted about this place for our Love to God or a sence of his Love to us and it is an eminent Grace of the Holy Spirit If then by the Holy Ghost given unto us yee understand only the Grace of the Holy Ghost He being said to be given because that is given then this must be the sence of the place The Grace of the Holy Ghost is shed abroad in our Hearts by the Grace of the Holy Ghost that is given to us Farther if by the Holy Ghost be meant only his Grace I require what Grace it is hereby the expression intended Is it the same with that expressed the Love of God This were to confound the efficient cause with its effect Is it any other Grace that doth produce the great worke mentioned Let us know what that Grace is that hath this power energie in its hand of shedding abroad the Love of God in our Hearts So Rom. 8. 11. He shall quicken your mortall bodyes by the Spirit that dwelleth in you This quickning of our mortall bodies is generally confessed to be and the scope of the place inforceth that sence our Spirituall quickning in our mortall bodyes mention being made of our bodyes in Analogie to the body of Christ by his death we have life and quickning Donbtlesse then it is a Grace of the Spirit that is intended Yea the habitual principle of all Graces And this is wrought in us by the Spirit that dwelleth in us There is not any Grace of the Spirit whereby he may dwell in men antecedent to his Quickning of them Spirituall Graces have not their residence in dead soules So that this must be the Spirit himselfe dwelling in us that is here intended and that personally or the sence of the words must be The Grace of quickning our mortall bodyes is wrought in us by the Grace of Quickning our mortall bodyes that dwels in us which is plainely to confound the Cause and Effect Besides it is the same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead that is intended which doubtlesse was not any inherent Grace but the Spirit of God himselfe working by the exceding greatnesse of his Power Thus much is hence cleared Antecedent in order of nature to our Quickning there is a Spirit given to us to dwell in us Every efficient Cause hath at least the precedency of its effect No Grace of the Spirit is bestowed on us before our Quickning which is the preparation and fitting of the subject for the receiving of them the planting of the Roote that containes them vertually and brings them forth actually in their order Gal. 5. 22. All Graces whatsoever come under the name of the fruit of the Spirit that is which the Spirit in us brings forth as the Roote doth the fruit which in its sodoing is distinct therefrom Many oher instances might be given but these may suffice 4. There is a Personallity ascribed to the Holy Ghost in his dwelling in us and that in such a way §. 4. as cannot be ascribed to any Created Grace which is but a Quality in a subject and this the Scripture doth three wayes 1. In
height under their pressures that we have great cause of rejoycing in them all Yea but whence is this Do these Graces readily come forth and exert themselves with an efficacy suitable to this triumphing frame The ground spring of all is discovered v. 5. it is because the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us From this fountaine do all these fresh streames flow the Spirit that is given us that sheds abroad the Love of God in our Hearts and thereby sets all our Graces on worke He oyles the wheeles of the soules obedience when we neither know what to do nor how to performe what we know 5. This indwelling Spirit § 27. gives Restraint Restraining Grace doth mainly consist in morall perswasions from the Causes Circumstances and Ends of things When a man is disswaded from sinne upon Considerations taken from any such head or place as is apt to prevaile with him that perswasion so applyed and intended of God for that end is unto him restraining Grace By this meanes doth the Lord keepe within bounds the most of the Sonnes of men notwithstanding all their violent and impetuous lusts Hell shame bitternessee disappointment on the one hand Credit Repute quietnes of Conscience the like on the other binde thē to their good Behaviour God through these things drops an awe upon their Spirits binding them up from running out unto that compasse of excesse and ryot in sinning which otherwise their lusts would carry them out unto This is not his way of dealing with the Saints Jer. 31. 34. he writes his Law in their hearts and puts his feare in their inward parts that they may not depart from him making them a willing people through his owne Power Psal. 110. 3. By his effectually remaining Grace he carryes them out kindly chearefully willingly to do his whole will working in them to will and to do of his owne good pleasure yet notwithstanding all this often times through the strength of Temptation the subtilty of Sathan and his readinesse to improve all Advantages to the utmost the treachery and deceitfulnesse of indwelling sinne and corruption they are carryed beyond the bounds and lines of that principle or Law of Life and Love whereby they are lead What now doth the Lord do They are ready to runne quite out of the pasture of Christ doth he let them goe and give them up to themselves Nay but he sets an hedge about them that they shall not find their way He leades them as the wild Asse in her month that they may be found he puts a Restraint upon their Spirits by setting home some sad considerations of the evil of their hearts and wayes whether they are going what they are doing and what shall be Issue of their walking so loosly Even in this life what shame what scandall what dishonour to themselves their profession the Gospell their Brethren it would prove and so hampers them quiets their Spirits and gently brings them againe under obedience unto that principle of Love that is in them and the Spirit of Grace whose yoake they were casting off whereby they are lead Many times then even the Saints of God are kept from sinnes especially outward actuall sinnes upon such outward motives reasonings and considerations as other men are Peter was broken loose and running downe hill apace denying and forswearing his Master Christ puts a restraint upon his Spirit by a looke toward him this mindes him of his folly unkindnesse his former rash confidence and ingagement to dye with his Master and sets him on such Considerations as stirred up the principle of Grace in him to take its place and rule againe and in obedience thereunto he not only desists from any farther denyall but Faith Repentance Love all exerting themselves he goes out and wept bitterly It is so frequently with the Saints of God though in lesser evills by neglect and omission of duty or inclination to evill and closing with temptations they breake out of the pure and perfect Rule and Guidance of the Spirit whereby they ought to be lead instantly some Considerations or other are pressed on upon their Spirits taken perhaps from outward things which recovers them to that obedientiall frame from whence through violence of Corruption and Temptation they had broken Like an Hawke sitting on a mans hand eating her meat in quietnesse is suddenly by the originall wildnesse of her nature carryed out to an attempt of flying away with speed but is checkt by the string at her heeles upon which shee returnes to her meat againe We have an innate wildnesse in us provoking and stirring us up to runne from God Were we not recovered by some clog fastned on us for our Restraint we should often runne into the most desperate paths And this Restraint I say is from the indwelling Spirit He stirrs up one thing or other to smite the Hearts Conscience when it is under the Power of any Temptation to sinne and folly So it was with David in the Attempt he made upon Saul when he cut of the lappe of his Garment Temptation opportunity had almost turned him loose frō under the power of Faith waiting and dependance on God wherein lay the generall frame of his Spirit he is recovered to it by a blow upon the heart from some dismall Consideration of the Issue and scandall of that which he was about 6. We have hereby also the Renewall §. 28. daily Renewall of sanctifying Grace Inherent Grace is a thing in its owne nature apt to decay and dye it is compared to things ready to dye Rev. 3. 2. strengthen the things that remaine saith Christ to the Church of Sardis that are ready to dye It is a thing that may wither and decline from its vigor and the soule may thereby be betrayed into manifold weaknesses and backslidings It is not meerely from the nature of the Trees in the Garden of God that their fruit failes not nor their leaves wither Psal. 1. 4. but from their Planting by the Rivers of water Hence are the sicknesses weaknesses and decayes of the Spirit mentioned in the Scripture Should he who had the richest stock of any living be left to spend of it without new supplies he would quickly be a Bankrupt This also is prevented by the Indwelling Spirit He is the fatnesse of the Olive that is communicated to the branches continually to keep them fruitfull and flourishing He is that golden Oyle which passes through the Branches and empties it selfe in the fruitfulnesse of the Church He continually fills our Lamps with new Oyle and puts new vigor into our spirits Psal. 92. 10. thou liftest up my horne as the horne of an Vnicorne I am anoynted with fresh oyle or renewed supplies of the Spirit And this Psal. 103. 5. is called a renewing of Youth like the Eagles a Recovery of former strength and vigor new power and ability for new duties and
performances And how comes that about saith the Psalmist it is by Gods satisfying my mouth with good things he satisfyed his mouth with good things or answered his prayers What these good things are which the Saints pray for and wherewith their mouthes are satisfied our Saviour tells us your Father saith he knoweth how to give good things to them that aske them of him which expressing in another place he saith your Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that aske him of him He is given us and he renewes our strength as the Eagles making our soules which were ready to languish prompt ready cheerefull strong in the wayes of God To this purpose is that Prayer of the Spouse Cant. 4. 6. Awake O North wind and come thou South and blow upon my Garden that the savour of my spices may flow out let my beloved come into his Garden that he may eate of the fruit of his precious things Shee is sensible of the withering of her Spices the decayes of her Graces and her disability thereupon to give any suitable entertainment unto Jesus Christ Hence is her earnestnesse for new breathings and operations of the Spirit of Grace to renew and revive and set on worke againe her Graces in her which without it could not be done All Graces are the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. 25 26. The fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Kindnesse Goodnesse Faith Gentlenesse Temperance if the Root doe not communicate fresh juyce and sappe continually the fruit will quickly wither were there not a continuall communication of new life and freshnesse unto our Graces from the Indwelling Spirit we should soone be poore withered Branches this our Saviour tells us Ioh. 15. 4 5. abide in mee and I in you as the branches cannot bring forth fruit of themselves unlesse they remaine in the Vine no more can yee unlesse ye abide in mee I am the Vine yee are the Branches he who abideth in mee and I in him he bringeth forth much fruit for separate from mee ye can doe nothing Our Abiding in Christ and his in us is as was declared by the Indwelling of the same Spirit in him and us Hence saith Christ have you all your fruit-bearing vertue and unlesse that be continued to us we shall wither and consume to nothing David in his spiritually declined condition intangled under the power and guilt of sinne cries out for the continuance of the Spirit and the restoring him as to those ends and purpose◠in reference whereunto he was departed from him Ps 51. 21 22. This the Apostle praies earnestly that the Ephesians may receive Ch. 3. 16 17. I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that he will give unto you according to the riches of his Glory that ye may be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inward man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that yee being rooted and grounded in Love c. The inward Man is the same with the new Creature the new principle of Grace in the Heart This is apt to be sick to faint and decay the Apostle prayes that it might be strengthened how is this to be done how is it to be renewed increased enlivened It is saith he by the mighty power of the Spirit and then gives you particular instances in the Graces which flourish and spring up effectually upon that strengthening they receive by the might and power of the Spirit as of Faith Love Knowledge and Assurance the increasing and establishing of all which is ascribed there unto him He who bestowes these Graces on us and workes them in us doth also carry them on unto perfection Were it not for our inflowings from that spring our Cisternes would quickly be dry therefore our Saviour tells us that he the Spirit is unto Believers as Rivers of living water flowing out of their bowels Ioh 7. 38 39. A never failing fountaine that continually puts forth living waters of Grace in us This may a little farther be considered and insisted on being directly to our main purpose in hand It is true indeed it doth more properly belong unto that which I have assigned for the Second Part of this Treatise concerning the Ground or Principle of the Saints abiding with God for ever but falling in conveniently in this order I shall farther presse it from Ioh. 4. 14. whosoever saith our Saviour shall drink of the water which I shall give unto him shall not thirst for ever but the water which I shall give unto him shall be in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternall life The occasion of these words is known §. 29. they are part of our Saviours Colloquie with the poore Samaritan Harlot having told her that he could give her another manner of water and infinitely better then that which she drew out of Jacobs well for which the poore Creature did almost contemne him and askt him whence he had that water whereof he spake how he came by it or what he made of himselfe Did he think himselfe a better man then Iacob who dranke of that well which shee was drawing water out of to convince her of the Truth and reality of his Promise he compares the water that he would and could give with that which she drew out of the Well especially as to one eminent effect wherein the water of his Promise did infinitely surmount that which she so magnifyed for v. 13. he tells her for that water in the well though it allayed thirst for a season yet within a little while she would thirst againe and must come thither to draw but saith he whosoever drinketh of the Water I shall give him thirsts no more and this he proveth from the Condition of the Water he giveth it is a well of Water not a drought not a Pitcherfull as that thou carryest away but it is a Fountaine a Well yea perhaps in it selfe it is so a Fountaine or Well but he that drinkes of it he hath but one draught of that water Nay saith Christ it shall become a Well in him not a Well whereunto he may goe but a Well that he shall carry about in him He that hath a continuall spring of living water in him shall doubtlesse have no occasion of fainting for thirst any more This our Saviour amplifies and clears up unto her from the nature and energy of this Well of water it springeth up unto everlasting life in these last words instructing the poore sinfull Creature in the use of the Parable that he had used with her Having taken an occasion to speake to her of heavenly things from the nature of the employment that she was engaged in at present Two or three things may be observed from the words to give Light unto their tendency to the Confirmation of the Truth we have under consideration First §. 30. the Water here Promised by our Saviour is the Holy and Blessed Spirit this
with a farther opening of his mind as to what he had last spoken of The world the world being vile wretched deceitfull and set upon Opposition against them a man would have thought that the Lord Jesus should have desired that his Saints might be taken out from the midst of this world and set in a quiet place by themselves where they might no more be troubled with the baits and oppositions of it But this is not that which he requests he hath another worke for them to do in the world they are to beare witnesse to him and his Truth by their Faith and Obedience to convince the wicked unbelieving world They are to Glorifie his name by doing and suffering for him so that this is no part of his request I pray not saith he that thou shouldest take them out of the world but that they may not be prevailed on nor conquered by the evill that is in the world That they may be kept and preserved from the power of evill which would separate them from me and my Love This he presseth for and this he is heard in and that not only for his Apostles and present followers but as he tells you v. 20. for all that should believe on him to the end of the world The things prayed for the Reason of his Intercession the opposition against the accomplishment of the things interceded for the distinction put between them for whom he Intercedes and the perishing world all delivered in plaine and expresse termes evidently evince the intendment of Christ in his Intercession evidently to regard the safeguarding of Believers in the Love and Favour of God by their continuance in Believing and preservation from the Power of temptations and oppositions arising against their Perseverance in communion with God The result of what hath been spoken §. 5. as to its influence into the confirmation of the Truth under Demonstration amounts unto thus much That which the Lord Jesus Christ as Mediator requesteth and prayeth for continually of the Father according to his mind in order to the Accomplishment of the Promises made to him and Covenant with him all his desires being bottomed upon his exact perfect performance of the whole will of God both in doing and suffering that shall certainly be accomplisht and brought to passe But thus in this manner upon these accounts doth the Lord Jesus intercede for the Perseverance of Believers and their Preservation in the Love of the Father unto the end therefore they shall undoubtedly be so preserved It is confessed that the Persons Interceded for are Believers all Believers that then were or should be to the end of the World the efficacy of this Intercession having commenced from the foundations thereof the thing prayed for is their Preservation in the state of Union with Christ and one another the motives used for the obtaining this request in their behalfe are taken from the work they have to doe and the opposition they were to meet withall and all the Saints being thus put into the hand of God who shall take them from thence On what account is it that they shall not be preserved To say they shall be thus preserved in case themselves depart not wilfully from God is to say they shall be preserved in case they preserve themselves as will afterwards be farther manifested This Argument is proposed by the Apostle §. 6. in the most triumphant assurance of the Truth and Certainty of the inference contained in it that he any where useth in any case whatsoever Rom 8. 33 34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen againe who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh Intercession for us he laies the immunity of the Elect justified Persons from just crimination or Condemnation on the foundation of the Oblation and Intercession of Christ The first part of this Argument from the Oblation of Christ who shall condemne It is Christ that died asserting the immunity of Believers from Condemnation upon the account of the punishing of all their sinnes in Christ and the perfect satisfaction made by his death for them whence the justice of God in the issue will not have any thing to lay to their charge we have formerly insisted on The other which the Apostle induces emphatically and comparatively though not in respect of procurement and purchase made yet of assurance to be given with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of his Oblation is that now before us To make the Assurance of Believers plentifull that they may know both the Truth of his first generall Assertion that all things shall work together for good to them and this particular conclusion now laid downe by way of interrogation rejecting all evill opposed to their former enjoyments who shall lay any thing to their charge who shall condemne He gives them a threefold consideration of the state and actings of the Lord Christ after the Expiation of their sinnes by this bloud in reference to them 1. He is Risen 2. He is at the Right hand of God 3. Makeeth Intercession for them the First denoting his Acquitment and theirs in him for he died in their stead from all the sinnes that were charged on him For he was declared to be the Sonne of God accepted with him and justified from all that debt which he undertook in his Resurrection and if he be risen who shall lay any thing to the charge of them whom he died for and for all whose sinnes in their stead he was acquitted The Second is his Exaltation and Power for having purged our sinnes he is sate downe at the right hand of the Majesty on High Heb. 1. 3. receiving thereby a most plenary demonstration of his Fathers good will to him and his in respect of the work that he had undertaken and gone through for them For if he had not made an end of sinne when he was obedient unto death the death of the Crosse he could not expect that God should give him a name above every name with fulnesse of power to give Eternall Life to all that the Father gave him This to assure us that he will doe having power in his own hand the Apostle addes who also Intercedes for us hereby thirdly testifying abundantly his good will and care for our Salvation Upon these considerations the Apostle leads the Faith of the Saints of God to make a conclusion which is to be believed as a Divine Truth that tenders to us the Doctrine we have under Demonstration triumphant against all Objections and oppositions that can be made against it And hence we thus argue Those against whom no Charge can be laid who cannot by any means be separated from the love of God in Christ cannot totally and finally fall away from Faith and fall out of Gods Favour but that this is the condition of all true
250. unto this Argument §. 12. is either a meere repetition of what was spoken before or a pressing of Consequences upon such supposalls as he is pleased to make concerning the Doctrine that he doth oppose As we cannot hinder any man from making what supposals they please and suiting inferences to them manifesting their skill in casting downe what themselves set up so we are not in the least concerned in such Theatricall contests What it is §. 13. that we teach of the Intercession of Christ for Believers hath been sufficiently explayned The end and aime of it is that they may be kept that they may not be lost that the evill one may not touch them that they may be Saved to the utmost and kept by the Power of God unto Salvation All that the Lord Jesus hath for his Church either by bis Oblation or his Intercession procured or doth procure being made out unto them by the Holy and Blessed Spirit which he sent them from his Father as the first fruits of his undertaking for them by and in the use of such meanes and wayes as he hath appointed for them to walke in in reference to the end proposed He Intercedes that through supplyes of that Spirit their Faith faile not that no temptation prevaile against them that they may have suitable helpes in time of need and so be preserved according to the tenor of that Sanctification which he is pleased to give them in this life which is imperfect not from all sinnes for it is the will of God to keepe them and walke with them in a Covenant of pardoning Mercy not absolutely from this or that great sinne as is evident in the case of David and Peter whereof under such sinnes the one lost not the Spirit nor the other his Faith but from such sinnes or such a course or way in and under sinne as would disappoint him and make his desires frustrate as to the end first proposed of bringing them to Glory so that as the intendment of his Oblation is meritoriously and by way of procurement to take away all our sinnes whatsoever and yet in the application of it unto us as to the taking of them away by purifying us to be an Holy People unto himselfe it is not perfected and compleated at once nor the worke thereof consummated but by degrees so in his Intercession which respecteth the same persons and things with his Oblation he puts in for our deliverance from all sinnes the power of them but so and in a such manner as the nature of our present condition whilst we are in viâ and the condition of the Covenant whereunto God hath graciously taken us doth require Through the Goodnesse of God §. 13. we have now brought this first Part to an end They who are in any measure acquainted in what straights under what pressing imployments and urgent Avocations and in what space of time this Offering was provided for the Sanctuary of God will accept it in him whose it is and from whom it was received CAP. X. 1. The Improvement of the Doctrine of Perseverance in reference to the Obedience and Consolation of the Saints why its tendency to the promoting of their Obedience is first handled before their Consolation 2. Five previous Observations concerning Gospell Truths in generall 1. That all are to be received with equall reverence 2. That the end of them all is to worke the soule into a conformity to God prov'd by severall Scriptures 2 Tim. 3. 16. Tit. 1. 1. c. 3. Some Truths have a more immediate tendency hereunto them others have 2 Cor. 5. 14. 4. Most weight is to be laid by Believers upon such 5. Men are not themselves to determine what Truths have most in them of this Tendency c. 3. Gospell Obedience what it is and why so called 5. It s nature 1 In the matter of it which is All and Only the will of God 5. 2 In the Forme of it which is considered 1. In the Principle setting it on worke Faith 2. In the manner of doing it eying both Precepts and Promises 3. The end aimed at in it the Glory of God as a Rewarder Heb. 11. 6. Rom. 4. 4. 6. The Principle in us whence it proceeds which is the New man the Spirit proved Eph. 3. 16 17. c. 7. What kind of Motives conduce most to the carrying on of this Obedience namely such as most cherish this New man which they doe most that discover most of the Love of God and his good will in Christ such as these are alone usefull to Mortification and the subduing of the contrary Principle of Flesh which hinders our Obedience proved Titus 2. 12. Rom. 6. 8. What Persons the improvement of this Doctrine concernes only true Believers who won't abuse it 9. How this Doctrine of Perseverance conduces so eminently to the carrying on of Gospell Obedience in the hearts of these true Believers 1. By removing discouragements 10 1. Perplexing Fears which impaire their Faith 11. 2. Hard thoughts of God which weaken their Love without which two Faith and Love no Gospell Obedience performed 12. Unspeakable obligations to live to God hence put upon the Soules of the Saints 13. Objection concerning the Abuse of this Truth to presumption and carelessnesse discussed examined at large and removed 14. The mortification of the Flesh wherein it consists how it is performed The influence of the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance thereinto Dread and terror of Hell not the meanes of mortification at large proved by shewing quite another meanes of mortifying the Flesh viz The spirit of Christ Rom. 8. 13. applying the Crosse and Death of Christ. Rom. 6. 5 6. 15. 3. This Doctrine is usefull to promote Gospell Obedience in that it tends directly to increase and strengthen Faith and Love both towards God and towards our Lord Jesus Christ. 16. How it strengthens their Love to God viz. By discovering his Love to them in three eminent properties of it Freedome Constancy Fruitfulnesse 17. How it strengthens their Love to Jesus Christ viz. By discovering his Love to them in two eminent Acts of it his Oblation and his Intercession 18. 4. This Doctrine conduces c. by giving Gospell Obedience its proper place and due order 19. 5. By closing in with the ends of Gospell Ordinances particularly the Ministry one eminent end whereof is to perfect the Saints Eph. 4. 12 13. Which is done by discovering to them the whole will of God both Precepts on the one hand and Promises Exhortations Threatnings on the other 20. That of the Promises more particularly and more largely insisted on THat which remaines to compleat our intendment §. 1. as to that Part of the worke which now drawes towards a close is the importment of that Doctrine so long insisted on having in some measure vindicated and cleared up the Truth of it as to the effectuall influence it hath into the Obedience and Consolation of
Word of Truth whereby it is revealed 4. That there is by all that walke with God great weight to be laid on those Doctrines of Truth which directly and effectually tend to the promotion of Faith Love Feare Reverâ—nce of God with universall holinesse in their hearts and waies this being that whereunto they are called and whereby God is glorified Jesus Christ and the Gospell exalted wherein his Kingdome in them consists on which their owne peace in their owne bosomes their usefulnesse unto others in this World their being made meet for the Inheritance of the Saints of Light doth much depend If these things be of weight or moment unto them as surely they are all that is so to Believers then doubtlesse great valuation and deare esteeme will be entertained of those helps and Assistances wich they have leading and carrying them on thereunto 5. That a Judgement of what Truths and Doctrines are peculiarly conducing unto the promotion of Piety and Godlinesse is not to be made upon the Apprehensions and reasonings of men wrested with a thousand Corruptions and prejudices full of darknesse and vanity but according to what the Scripture it selfe holds forth and the nature of the things themselves that is the Evidence and Consequence that is between the Truth revealed and Obedience doth require If the Testimonies of the Sonnes of men must be admitted in this case to determine what Doctrine is according to Godlinesse the cry and noyse of them will be found so various discrepant confused and directly contradictory to it selfe that none will ever thereby be lead to establishment Then Papists will cry out for their Merits Penance Vowes Purgatory the Socinians Familists Formalists all contend upon the foundation of their own perswasions as to their tendency to Godlinesse of their Abominations That Doctrine which hath no other proofe of its Truth and worth but that men some men professe it tends to Godlinesse and Holinesse of conversation I dare say is a lye and vanity and did never promote any thing but vaine legall superstitious counterfeit Holinesse Indeed upon a supposition of its truth it is of concernement for the Advancement of any Doctrine in the esteeme and opinion of the Saints to manifest that it leads to Godlinesse but to prove it to be true because men who perhaps never knew any thing beyond Formall Legall Pharisaicall Holinesse all their daies say it tends to the promotion of Holinesse is but to obtrude our Conceptions upon others that are no way moulded into the frame of them That the imbracement of such a Truth will further us in our Obedience and walking with God therefore value and prize it is good arguing but that such a Doctrine will further us in a way of Godlinesse therefore 't is a Truth when we may be mistaken both in Godlinesse it selfe and in the motives to it and furtherances of it is but a Presumption To commend then the Truth which we have at large otherwise confirmed to the Hearts and Consciences of the Saints of God and to lay a foundation for the full removall of those vaine and weake exceptions which on this account are laid against it I shall manifest what influences it hath into their Obedience and with what eminent efficacy it prevailes upon their Soules to perfect Holinesse in the feare of God For the more cleare Declaration whereof I shall give the Reader the summe of it under the ensuing Considerations concerning Gospell Obedience and the moâ—ves that are proper thereunto 1. That which I call Gospell Obedience §. 3. wherein the Saints of God are furthered by the beliefe of the Truth we have in hand is variously expressed in the Scripture It may in Generall be described to be a voluntary orderly subjection to the whole will of God I call it Obedience in reference unto the will of God which is the Rule and Patterne of it and whereunto it is a regular subjection The Psalmist expresses it to the full both as to the Root and fruit Ps. 40. 8. I delight to doe thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my Heart the Law in the Heart gives us to doe and to delight in doing the Will of God Peter calls it being holy in all manner of conversation 1 Pet. 1. 14 15. Paul a Cleansing of our selves from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit in the feare of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. or as it is more eminently described Rom. 12. 1 2. in that Patheticall exhortation of the Apostle thereunto I beseech you Brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service And be not conformed unto this world but be yee transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God as he had formerly at large described it in the sixth Chapter of that Epistle throughout And I call it Gospell Obedience not that it differs in substance as to the matter of it from that required by the Law which injoynes us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts but that it moves upon principles and is carried on unto ends revealed only in the Gospell In reference to our designe there are these four things considerable in it First the Nature of it Secondly the Principle in us from whence it proceeds Thirdly the Motives that are proper to the carrying it on the cherishing and increasing of it in them in whom it is Fourthly the Persons who are to be moved and provoked to a progresse therein By a briefe consideration of these things we shall make way for what we have undertaken namely to manifest the efficacy of the Doctrine we have insisted on for the promotion of this Gospell Obedience being accused and charged with the cleare contrary tendency whereof God assisting we shall free and discharge it in the progresse of this Discouse 1. § 4. First in the Nature of it I shall consider only these two things 1. The Matter or Substance of it what it is as it were composed of and wherein it doth consist 2. The Forme or Manner of its performance whence it receives its distinct being as such 1. The Matter or Substance of it containes those things or duties to God wherein it doth consist Now it consisting as I said before in Conformity Submission to the Will that is the Commanding revealed Will of God the matter of it must lye in the performance of all these things only those things which God requireth of Believers in walking before him I say all those things that God commandeth with an equall respect to all his Precepts The Authority of God the Commander and Law Giver is the same in every command And therefore was the Curse denounced unto every one that continued not in all things written in the Law to do them and the Apostle tels us that in the transgression of any one precept there is
included the transgression of the whole Law because the Authority of the Law giver both in the one and the other is despised James 2. 10 11. Whosoever shall keepe the whole Law and yet offend in any one point he is guilty of all For he that said Do not commit Adultery said also Do not kill And 2. I say it is only to the Command for in vaine do men worship him teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men The most stupendious indeavours of men the most laborious drudgery of their soules in Duties not commanded are so far from Obedience that they are as high Rebellions against God as they can possibly ingage themselves into I might farther distinguish the matter or substance of this Obedience into the internall elicite Act of our soules in Faith Love and the like Acts of morall and everlasting Obedience which are naturally necessarily and indispensably required in us upon the account of the first Commandement and the naturall subjection wherein we stand unto God as his Creatures improved and inlarged by the new Obligation put upon us in being his Redeemed ones wherein indeed the maine of our Obedience doth consist And the outward instituted Duties of Religion which God hath appointed for those former Acts of Obedience to be exercised in and exerted by But the former description of it with the Intimation of its universality may suffice 2. §. 5. Secondly the Formality if I may so speake of this Obedience or that which makes the performance of Duties commanded to be Obedience consists in these three things 1. The Principle that begins it and sets it on worke immediately in us and that is Faith without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb 11. 6. Could a man doe all that is commanded yet if he did it not in Faith it would be of no value hence it is called the Obedience of Faith Rom. 1. 5. not for Obedience to the Faith but the Obedience of Faith which Faith bringeth forth Therefore are Believers called Obedient Children 1 Pet. 1. 14. we are said to purifie our soules in Obedience to the Truth v. 22. Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith and without him we can do nothing John 15. 5. All that we do is no better seeing we can no way draw neare unto God with a true heart but in full Assurance of Faith Heb. 10. 22. 2. The Manner of doing it which consists in a due Spirituall regard to the Will of God in those wayes whereby he calls men out to this Obedience namely in his Precepts and Promises There is no Obedience unto God but that which moves according to his direction it must in every motion eye his Command on the one hand and his Promise whether of Assistance for it or Acceptance in it on the other Saith David I have respect unto all thy Commandements Psal. 119. and saith the Apostle having received these Promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse both of flesh Spirit perfecting Holinesse in the feare of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. 3. The principall End of it which is the Glory of God as a Rewarder for he that comes unto God must believe that he is and that he is the Rewarder of them that seeke him Heb 11. 6. The end of Legall Obedience was the Glory of God as a Rewarder according to Merit in strict justice the end of Gospell Obedience is the Glory of God as a Rewarder according to bounty free Grace and mercy under which consideration neither needs the Obedience rewardable to be commensurate to the Reward nor is the Reward procured by that Obedience If it were then it were of workes and not of Grace as the Apostle tells us Rom. 4. 4. So that the end of our Obedience is to exalt God as a Rewarder yet that being as a Rewarder of Grace and bounty the use of our Obedience is not to procure that Reward for that were to worke and to have a reward reckoned to us of Debt and not of Grace but only to make the Lord gracious and to exalt him in our present subjection and in his future guift of Grace in nature of a free bounteous reward This I say is that Gospell Obedience which by the Doctrine insisted on is promoted in the soules of Believers 2. Secondly §. 6. this being so as was said the Gospell Obedience whereof we speake it is evident what Principle it proceedeth from Whereas there are two contrary Principles in every regenerate man as shall more fully afterwards be declared called in the Scripture flesh and Spirit the Old and New man indwelling sinne and Grace which have both of them their Seats and Places in all and the same Faculties of the soule it is most evident that this Obedience flowes solely and meerely from the latter Principle the Spirit new or inner man the new Creature which is wrought in Believers The strengthning and heightning of this Principle the Holy Ghost layes at the bottome of the renewall and increase of Gospell Obedience Eph 3. 16. 17. 18. 19. I pray saith the Apostle that God would grant you according to the Riches of his Glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that yee being rooted grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth length and depth height and to know◠the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnes of God Their strengthning with might by the Spirit in the inner man is the foundation of their acting of and increasing in Faith Love Knowledge and Assurance unto all the fulnesse of God It is the New man which after God is Created in Righteousnesse and Holinesse that carries men out unto all acceptable Obedience as c. 4. 23 24. of the same Epistle Look whatsoever influences the other Principle of the flesh hath into our Obedience so farre it is defiled for that which is from the flesh is flesh Ieh 3. 6. all the fruits of it are abominable Hence are all the pollutions that cleave to our Holy things Yea if at at any time poore and meere selfish considerations do put men upon dutyes of Obedience and abstaining from sinne as feare of vengeance and destruction and the like which is made almost the only motive to Obedience by the Doctrine of Saints Apostasie their Obedience in doing or abstaining is but as their feare of the Lord 2 Kings 17. 34. who were taught it by Lions abominable unto him This then being the nature of Gospell Obedience and this the Principle from whence it flowes it is evident 3. Thirdly what are those motives which are suited to the promotion and carrying of it on in the hearts of Believers and what Doctrines have an eminent and singular tendency thereunto §. 7. is also to be considered now these must all of them be such as
are suited to the cherishing of that Principle of the new or inner man in the heart to the nourishing and strengthning of the new creature such as are apt to ingenerate Faith and Love in the heart unto God such as reveale and discover those things in his nature mind and will as are apt to endeare and draw out the heart to him in Communion discouraging perplexing Doctrines doe but ill manure the soyle from whence the fruits of Obedience are to spring and grow Look then I say whatsoever Gospell Truth is of eminent usefulnesse to warme foment stirre up and quicken the Principle of Grace in the heart to draw out increase and cherish Faith and Love that Doctrine lies in a direct immediate tendency to the promotion of Holinesse Godlinesse and Gospell Obedience Yea and whereas to the carrying on of that course of Obedience it is necessary that the contrary Principle unto it which we mentioned before be daily subdued brought under crucified and mortified there are no Doctrines whatsoever that are of such and so direct and eminent a serviceablenesse to that end and purpose as those which inwrappe such discoveries of God and his good will in Christ as are fitted for the improvement also of the principle of Grace in us Hence the worke of Mortification in the Scripture Rom. 6. 2 3 4 5 6. is every where assigned peculiarly to the Crosse and death of Christ Rom. 8. 13. his Love manifested therein and his Spirit flowing therefrom Rom. 7. 7. The Doctrine of the Law indeed humbles the soule for Christ Gal. 3. 23. but it is the Doctrine of the Gospell that humbles the soule in Christ It is the Grace of God that hath appeared 2 Cor. 5. 15. that teaches us effectually to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts to live soberly and righteously and Godly in this present world Tit. 2. 12. He that will but with a little heed read Cap. 6. to the Romans will know from whence Mortification flowes which truly by the way makes me admire at the extreame darknesse and blindnesse of some poore men who have of late undertaken to give directions for Devotion and walking with God who indeed sutably to the most of the rest of their discourses all manifesting an Ignorance of the Righteousnesse of God Rom. 10. 4. and a zealous endeavour to establish their owne coming to propose waies and meanes for the mortifying of any sinne or Lust tell you stories of biting the tongue thrusting needles under the nailes with such like Trash as might have befited Popish devotions five hundred years agoe Were not men utterly ignorant what it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 10. and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings Gal. 6. 14. and being made conformable to his death they could never feed on such huskes themselves nor make provision of them for those whose good they pretend to seeke Unto what hath been spoken adde 4. Fourthly §. 8. who are the Persons that are to be provoked to Holinesse and Godlinesse by the Doctrine insisted on Now they are such as doe believe it and are concerned in it We say the Truth under consideration is of an excellent usefulnesse to farther Gospell Obedience in the hearts of Believers and Saints of God who are taught of God not to turne the Doctrine of Grace into wantonnesse What use or abuse rather men of corrupt mindes and carnall principles who stumble at Jesus Christ and abuse the whole Doctrine of the Gospell by their prejudices and presumptions will make of it we know not nor are sollicitous 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. If the Gospell be hid it is hid to them that perish it is sufficient that the food be good and wholsome for them for whom it is provided If some will come and steale it 2 Cor. 2. 16 27. that have no right to it and it prove through their own distempers gravell in their mouthes or poyson in their bowells they must blame themselves and their own wormewood Lusts and not the Doctrine which they doe receive It is provided for them that feare God and love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity not for doggs swine unbelievers we shall not marvaile if they trample on this pearle and rend them that bring it To such as these then I say the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints or the stability or unchangeablenesse of the Love of God unto Believers and of their continuation in Faith and Obedience is full of exceeding effectuall motives and provocations unto Holinesse in all manner of Gospell Obedience and holy conversation exceedingly advantaging the soules of men in a course thereof Now the influence it hath into the Obedience of the Saints floweth from it upon a twofold account 1. By removing all discouragements whatsoever §. 9. that are apt either to turne them aside from their Obedience or to render their Obedience servile slavish or unacceptable to God it setts them through Christ at perfect liberty thereunto 2. By putting unconquerable and indissoluble Obligations upon them to live unto God and the praise of his glorious Grace and evidently drawes them forth unto the Obedience required 1. It removeth and taketh out of the way all discouragements whatsoever all things which are apt to enterpose to the weakning of their Faith in God or their Love to God which as hath been said are at the bottome of all Obedience and Holinesse that is acceptable to God in Christ Now these may all be referred unto two heads 1. Of perplexing anxious fears §. 10. which are apt to impaire and weaken the Faith of the Saints 2. Of hard thoughts of God which assault and shake their Love That slavish perplexing troublesome feares are contrary to the free and ingenuous state of Children whereunto the Saints are admitted and however sometimes yea oftentimes they are at the bottome and the occasion of burthen some servile and superstitious Obedience Impairers of their Faith I suppose I need not labour to prove That kind of Feare whereof we speake of which more afterwards is the greatest Traytor that lurkes in the soule To feare the Lord and his Goodnesse Hos. 3. 5. is the soules Keeper but this servile perplexing feare is the Betrayer of it in all its waies and that which sowres all its duties A thing which the Lord sets himselfe against in rebukes reproofes dehortations as much as any failing and miscarriage in his Saints whatever It is the opposite of Faith hence the fearefull and unbelieving are put together in their exclusion from the new Jerusalem Rev 20. 8. it is that which is direct contrary to that which the Apostle adviseth the Saints unto Heb 10. 19 20 21 22. it is that which mixeth Faith with staggering Rom 4. 20. Prayer with wavering making it ineffectuall Iames 1. 6. 7. Let us now suppose a man to have attained some assurance of the Love of God
thing that is free noble ingenuous filiall and of an heavenly descent in the Saints of God thus 1. It strengthens their Faith in God and in Jesus Christ which is the bottome of all acceptable Obedience whatsoever All that which proceedeth from any other Roote being but a product of labouring in the fire which in the end will consume both Root and Branch That which prevailes upon and drawes out the soule to Faith and believing I meane as it is peculiar to the Gospell and Justifying that is as it is in God as a Father and in the Lord Christ as a Mediator is the discovery of the good will of God to the soule in Christ and his designe to advance his Glory thereby I speake not of the formall cause of Faith in generall but the peculiar motive to Faith and Believing in the sence before mentioned So our Saviour giving the command in generall to his Disciples Ioh. 14 1. ye believe in God believe also in mee in the whole ensuing Chapter provokes them to it with gratious discoveries of the good will of God his Fathers and his own good will towards them And indeed propose what other considerations ye will provoke the soule by all the feare and dread of Hell and the most dismall representation of the wrath to come untill it be convinced of this it will never take one steppe towards God in Christ Now our Adversaries themselves being Judges the Doctrine we have had under consideration abounds above all others with the discoveries of the good will and kindnesse of God to poore sinners yea the great crime that is laid to the charge of it is that it extends it too farre it doth not only assert that God freely beginnes the good worke in them but that he will also powerfully perfect it to the day of Jesus Christ It assures the soules of the poore Saints of God that he who lookt upon them in their bloud and said unto them Live when no eye pittied them who quickned them when they were dead in trespasses and in sinnes begetting them of his own will by the word of Truth that they should be a kind of first fruits to himselfe wasting them in the bloud of his Sonne and delivering them from the old Tyrant Satan that he will not now leave them to themselves and to the Counsell of their own hands to stand or fall according as they shall of themselves and by themselves be able to withstand opposition and seduction but that he will keep them in his own hand giving them such constant supplies of his Grace and Spirit as that in the use of meanes they shall waite upon him to the end And that howsoever or whensoever by the power of Temptation and surprisalls of corruptions they are carried aside from him he will heale their back-slidings and receive them freely and though they change every day yet he changeth not and therefore they are not consumed And hereby I say it confirmes and strengthens their Faith in God as a Father in Jesus Christ taking everlasting care of them 2. Of their Love there is the same reason Gods love to us is of his free Grace he loves us because so it seemes good to him Our Love to him is purely ingenerated by his Love to us and carried on and increased by farther Revelations of his desireablenesse and excellency to our soules Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us first There is no Creature in the least guilty of sinne that can put forth any acceptable Act of Love towards God but what is purely drawn out upon the Apprehension of his Love and lovelinesse in his Grace and mercy A man I confesse may love God when he hath no sence of his Love to him in particular but it must all be built upon an apprehension of his Love to sinners though he may come short in the Application it is the terrour of the Lord that causes us to perswade others but it is the Love of Christ that constraineth us to live to him Shee loved much to whom much was forgiven Looke then the more abundant discoveries are made of the lovelinesse and desirablenesse in the riches of his Grace the more effectuall is the sole and only motive we have to love him with that fiâ—iall chast Holy Love that he requires For the Love of God to his Saints our Doctrine of their Perseverance sets it forth with the greatest Advantage for the indearement of their soules to draw out their streames of Love to God especially doth it give it its Glory in three things 1. In its freedome It setts forth the Love of God to his Saints as that which they have no way in the least deserved as hath been manifested from Isa. 48. 8 9 11. chap. 54. 9 10. As he first loved them not because they were better then others being by nature Children of wrath and lying in their Blood when he said to them Live quickning them when they were dead in trespasses and sinnes So he doth not continue his love to them nor purpose so to do because he fore sees that they will so so walke with him in Holinesse uprightnesse for he â—oresees no such thing in them but what he himselfe purposeth effectually to worke upon the account of his loving them but he resolves to do it meerely upon the account of his owne Grace He neither resolves to continue his Love to them on Condition that they be so and so holy at randome and with uncertainty of the Event but freely that they may and shall be so Eph. 1. 4. And this is the Glory of Love the most Orient pearl in the Crowne of it 'T is not mercenary nor selfe-ended nor deserved but as a Spring and fountaine freely vents and powers out it selfe upon its owne account And what ingenuous truly noble Heavenly descended heart can hold out against the power of this Love It is effectually constraining to all manner of sutable returnes let the soule but put it selfe in to the actuall Contemplation of the Love of God as it lyes represented in this property of it every way free undeserved the great Love of God to a poore worme a sinner a nothing and it cannot but be wrought to a serious Admiration of it delight in it and be pained and straitned untill it make some suitable Returnes of Love and Obedience unto God If not it may well doubt it never tasted of that Love or enjoyed any fruits of it 2. It gives the Love of God the Glory of its Constancy and Unchangeablenesse This is another Starre of an eminent Magnitude in the Heaven of Love It is not a fading a wavering an altering thing but abides for ever God rests in his Love Zeph. 3. 17. It is a great thing indeed to apprehend that the great God should fixe his Love upon a poore Creature But adde hereunto that he may love them one day and hate them the next embrace them
one houre and the next cast them into Hell one day rejoycing over them with joy another rejoycing to destroy them as it is dishonorable to God and derogatory to all his Divine Excellencies and Perfections so in particular it clotheth his Love with the most uncomly and undesirable Garment that ever was put upon the Affections of the meanest worme of the earth What can ye say more contemptible of a man more to his dishonour among all wise and knowing men or that shall render his Respects and Affections more undesirable then to say He is free of his Love indeed but he abides not in it What a world of Examples have we of those who have been in his bosome and have againe been cast out Though among men something may be pretended in excuse of this with respect unto their ignorance the shortnesse of their foresight disability to discern between things appearances yet in respect of God before whom all things are open naked in whose eye all incidences Events lye as clearely stated as things that are already passed and gone what can be said of such a vaine supposall for the vindication of his Glory It is said that men change from what they were when God loved them and therefore his love changeth also But who first made them fit to be Beloved Did not the Lord Do they make themselves differ from others On what account did he do it was it not merely on the acount of his owne Grace Can he not as well preserve them in a state of being beloved as put them into it And if he determined that he would not preserve them in that Condition why did he set his Love upon them when himselfe knew that he would not continue it to them was it only to give his Love the dishonour of a Change I say then the Doctrine contended for gives the Love of God the Glory of its Immutability asserts it to be like himselfe Unchangeable that there is not indeed in its selfe the least shaddow of turning it may be eclipsed and obscured as to its beames and influences for a season but changed turned away it cannot be And this consideration of it renders it to the soules of the Saints inestimably precious the very thought of it considering that nothing else could possibly save or preserve them is marrow to their bones and health to their soules and makes them cry out to all that is within them to love the Lord and to live unto him 3. It gives it the Glory of its Fruitfulnesse A barren Love is upon the matter no Love Love that hath no breasts no bowels that pitties not that assists not deserves not that Heavenly name Will ye say shee is a tender loving mother who can looke on a languishing perishing Child yea see a ravenous beast whom yet she could easily drive away take it out of her armes and devoure it before her face and not put forth her strength for its assistance or deliverance Or will ye say shee is a Tygre and a monster in Nature And shall we faigne such a Love in God towards his Children which is such that all the bowells of a tender Parent to an only Child are but as a drop to the Ocean in comparison of it As that he lookes on whilest they languish and perish fall sinke and dye away into everlasting calamity yea that notwithstanding it he will suffer the Roaring Lyon to come and snatch them away out of his Armes and devoure them before his face That he will look upon them sinking into eternall separation from him and such destruction as that it had been infinitely better for them never to have been borne without putting forth his Power and the efficacy of his Grace for their preservation Ah foolish people and unwise shall we thus requite the Lord as to render him so hard a Master so cruell a Father to his tender ones the Lambs of his Sonne washed in his Bloud quickned by his Spirit owned by him smiled on embraced ten thousand times as to suffer them so to be taken out of his hands Is there nothing in his Love to cause his Bowells to move and his repentings to be kindled together towards a poore dying Child that surely departeth not without some sad lookes towards his Father Nemo repentè fit turpissimus Is this the kindnesse which he exalteth above the Love of a Woman to her sucking Child of a Mother to the fruit of her Wombe Oh that men should dare thus foolishly to charge the Almighty to ascribe such a barren fruitlesse Love to him who is Love towards his Children who are as the Apple of his eye his deare and tender ones as would be a perpetuall blot and staine to any earthly Parent to have righteously ascribed to him I say then our Doctrine gives the Love of God the Glory of its fruitfulnesse It asserts it to be such a Fountaine-love as from whence continually streames of Grace kindnesse mercy and Refreshment doe flow because he loves us with everlasting Love therefore he drawes us with Loving-kindnesse Ier. 30. 1 2 from that Love proceeds continuall supplies of the Spirit and Grace by which those of whom it is said they abide are preserved lovely and fit by him to be beloved It tells us that because God loves his people therefore are they in hiâ— hand Deut 33. 3. It declares it to be such a Love as is the Wombe of all mercy whence pardon healing recovery from wounds sicknesses and dying pangs doe continually flow A Love upon the account whereof the Persons loved may make conclusion that they shall lack nothing Psal. 23. 1. A Love whose fruitfulnesse is subservient to its own constancy preserving the Saints such as he may rest in it unchangeably Rom. 8. 29 30. A Love whereby God sings to his vineyard watches over it and waters it every moment Isa. 27. 2 3. And now what flint almost in the Rock of stone would not be softned and dissolved by this Love When we shall think that it is from the Love of God that our wasted portion hath been so often renewed that our dying Graces have been so often quickned our dreadfull back-slidings so often healed our breaches and decayes so often repaired and the pardon of our innumerable transgressions so often sealed unlesse we suck the breasts of Tygers and have nothing in us but the nature of Wolves and uncleane Beasts can we hold out against the sweet gracious powerfull effectuall inâ—luences that it will have upon our soules Thus I say doth the Doctrine which we have in hand set out the Love of God unto us in his eminent endearing properties wherein he being embraced through Christ a Foundation is laid and eminent promotion given unto the Holinesse and Obedience which he requireth of us 2. This Doctrine renders Jesus Christ lovely to our soules to the soules of Believers §. 17. It represents him to them as the Standard bearer to ten thousand as
one altogether lovely As exceeding desireable in the work of his Oblation lovely and amiable in the work of his Intercession as hath been manifested 1. It imports him as one who in his death hath made an end of the Controversy between God and our soules Dan. 9. 39. Becoming our peace Eph. 2. 14. having obtained for us Eternall Redemption That he hath not suffered all that sorrow anguish paine torment dereliction whereunto for our sakes he was given up and willingly exposed himselfe for an uncertaine end not fighting in his death as one beating the ayre nor leaving his worke in the dust to be trampled on or taken up as it seemes good to us in our polluted darke dead estate of nature But hath filled it with such immortall seed that of it selfe by it selfe and its own unconquerable Efficacy it hath sprung up to the bringing forth of that whole fruit intended in it and the accomplishment of all the ends aimed at by it That is that it shall certainely and infallibly bring all those to God for whom he offered by Sanctifying Justifying and preserving them through the Communication of his owne Spirit and Grace to them for that end and purpose All his Promises being yea and Amen in him confirmed by his death 2 Cor. 1. 20. Heb. 10. 12 13 14 15 16. Some of those who indeed abuse the Truth we have insisted on pretend to grant That by his death he made satisfaction for sinne but only on condition that men believe on him and continue so doing That they shall so believe and so continue though he is said to be the Captaine of our Salvation and the Author and finisher of our Faith though it be given unto us for his sake to believe on him and we are blessed with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in him that he takes no care about beyond the generall administration of outward meanes He neither procured any such thing by his Oblation nor doth intercede for it these things are left unto men to be educed drawne forth and exercised by virtue of sundry considerations that they may take upon themselves Never doubtlesse did men take more paines to staine the beauty and comelinesse of our dying Saviour 2. For his Intercession the Doctrine hitherto insisted on renders him therein exceeding lovely and desireable It tells you that he doth pray the Father and thereupon sends us the Comforter the Holy Spirit for all the gratious acts and works ends and purposes before mentioned with innumerable other priviledges that the Saints by him are made partakers of and that to abide with us for ever never to leave us nor forsake us That he continually appears in the presence of God for us interceding that our Faith may not faile pleading for us in and under all our decayes making out to us sutable supplies in all our Distresses Temptations Tryalls Troubles taking care that no Temptation befall us but that a way also of escape be given to us together with it It tells us his Eye even now he is in glory is still upon us seeing our wants taking notice of our weaknesse and providing for us as his only concernment in the World that we be not lost That he hath not left one jot of that kindnesse which he bare to his flock his Lambs his little ones But pursues with all his strength and all the interest he hath in Heaven the worke of their Salvation which he came from his Fathers bosome to enter on and returned to him againe to carry it on unto perfection That as the High Priest of old he beares our names in his breast and on his shoulders continually before his Father So that in all our falls and failings when wee are in our selves helpelesse and hopelesse when there is nothing in us nor about us that can doe us any good or yeeld us any help or Consolation yet on this account we may say the Lord is our Shepheard we shall lack nothing He hath undertaken for us and will beare us in his Armes untill he bring us to the bosome of his Father Now whether such cosiderations as these of the Oblation and Intercession of Christ doe not fill his Love in them with a more constraining efficacy and more draw out the hearts of the Saints unto Faith and Love then any instruction can doe informing men of the uselesnesse of the one or other of these eminent Acts of his Mediation for any of the ends and Purposes mentioned let Believers judge That which men repose upon in their greatest necessities and for the things of the greatest concernement thereof they have the greatest valuation and the thoughts of it are most fixed in their minds What is there of so great concernement in this World unto the Saints as their abiding with God unto the end How many how great urging pressing are the difficulties dangers troubles they meet withall in their so doing What then they have most frequent recourse unto and what they rest most upon under their pressures in the things of that concernement before mentioned that will deserve the name of their Treasure where their hearts will and ought to be Now if this setting aside as things of no Consideration in such a case the Purposes Covenant and Promises of God the Oblation and Intercession of the Lord Christ be mens own rationall Abilities to consider what is for their good and what will be hurtfull and destructive to them what can hinder but that men will yea and that they often should spend the flower and best of their Affections upon and about themselves and their own Wisdome in and for their preservation That doubtlesse will take up their hearts and thoughts so that there will be very little roome left for the entertainement of the Lord Jesus Christ with any regard or respect on this account If that then may passe which was formerly laid downe namely that the Doctrines and things which are Apt and suted to the ingenerating quickning increasing and building up of Faith and Love towards God and our Lord Jesus Christ are the most eminent Gospell motives to spirituall acceptable Obedience as it is an unquestionable Truth and certainty doubtlesse that Doctrine which represents the Father Sonne so rich in mercy so loving lovely to the soule as that doth which we insist upon must needs have a most effectuall influence into that Obedience 4. The Doctrine insisted on §. 18. hath an effectuall influence into the Obedience of the Saints upon the account of giving it its proper place and setting it aright upon its basis carrying it on in due order It neither puts upon it the fetters of the Law nor turnes it loose from the Holy and righteous Rule of it Let men be as industrious as can be imagined in the performance of all commanded duties yet if they doe it on legall motives and for legall ends all their performances are vitiated and all their duties rejected This the Apostle
oppose or a wilfull perverting of it contrary to his owne science conscience Is that the Doctrine you oppose Is it so proposed by those who through Grace have laboured to explaine vindicate it Doth not the maine weight of the doctrine turne on this hinge that God hath promised to his Saints true Believers such supplies of the Spirit and Grace as that they shall never degenerate unto such loose and profane courses as are destructive to Godlinesse Doubtlesse that Doctrine is of a most spotlesse untainted innocency which its Adversaries dare not venture to strangle before they have violently treacherously defloured it And thus Mr Goodwin leaveth his Arguments in the dust like the Estriches egges under the feet of men to be trampled on with ease The residue of this Discourse onwards to the next Argument §. 7. beingspent in the answering of pretended Objections put in against himselfe in the behalfe of the Doctrine of Perseverance not at all called out by the import of his present Arguments Discourses I might passe them over but in as much as that which is spoken thereunto tendeth to the further clearing of what formerly hath been evidenced concerning the suitablenesse of the Doctrine contended for unto the promotion of Holinesse I shall farther consider what he draweth forth on this occasion Sect. 33. he giveth us an Objection and a foure fold answer theruuto pag. 333 334 335. That which he calleth an Objection he laieth downe in these words If it be objected and said yea but Assurance of the Unchangeablenesse of God's Love towards him that is Godly is both a more effectuall perswading motive unto Godlinesse and more encouraging to a persevering in Godlinesse then a doubtfulnesse or uncertainty whether God will be constant in his Affection to such a man or no Certainty of reward is more encouraging unto action then uncertainty Ans. If any one hath been so weake §. 8. as to make use of this plea in behalfe of that Doctrine it seemeth to defend which I scarcely believe it will I doubt not be an easie taske to undertake that he shall be no more admitted or entertained as an Advocate in this cause The assurance of the Unchangeablenes of Gods Love to them that are Godly is but one part of the Doctrine in hand that such as may perhaps be cōmon to it with that W ch is brought into competition W th it It is the Assurance of the Unchangeablenes of Gods Love to a man to keepe him up to Godlines to preserve him in that state Condition of Holines to the end of the certainty of the continuance of the Love of God unto him on that account in that way that is that great Gospell motive to Obedience wherein as its peculiar our Doctrine glorieth as hath formerly been manifested Perhaps Mr Goodwin doth not think that any man is bound to lay more blocks in his owne way then he judgeth himselfe well able to remove and therefore he framed that Objection so that he might be sure to returne at least a specious answer thereunto and this he attempteth accordingly and telleth us in his first Paragraph three things 1. That the Doctrine teaching the Saints defection §. 9. doth also maintaine the Vnchangeablenesse of the Love of God to them that are Godly Ans. But what Love I pray you is that which when it might prevent it will yet suffer those Godly ones to become such ungodly Villaines and wretches as that it shall be utterly impossible for the Lord to continue his Love to them Is the Love you mention indeed a Love to their Persons or only an Approbation of their Duties and Qualifications If the First whence is it that God ceaseth at any time to love them Doth he change and alter his Love like the Sonnes of Men Why they change therefore he changeth also That God changeth not and therefore we who are subject to change are yet preserved from being consumed we have heard But that upon the change that is in men God also should change we are yet to be instructed and the Immutability of God hath taken greater hold upon our understandings and in our hearts then that we should easily receive any thing so diametrically opposite thereunto If the Love mentioned be only an Approbation of the Qualifications that are in them and of the Duties that they doe performe then is it no more a Love to them or to their persons then it is to the persons of the most profligate wretches that live The object is Duty solely where ever it may be found and not any person at all for it is an Act of Gods approving not purposing or determining Will. This is not our sence of the continuance of the Love of God to them that are Godly so that there is no comparison betwixt the Doctrines under contest as to the Asserting of the Love of God to Believers or to them that are Godly Wherefore he saith 2. That the Doctrine he opposeth §. 10. Promiseth Gods Love and the unchangeable continuance of it unto men though they change to Prophanenesse Though this is said over and over an hundred times yet I cannot believe it because the Doctrine openly affirmeth the continuance of the Love of God to them that are Godly to be effectually and eventually preventive of any such prophanenesse as is inconsistent therewithall and therefore much more vaine is that which he affirmeth in the third place 3. Namely that the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints doth not so much absolutely promise the Love of God to them that are Godly as it promiseth it conditionally to them that are prophane in case they have been Godly that is it teacheth that God promiseth the certain continuance of his Love to him that is Godly on condition he cease to be so and turne prophane Claudite jam rivos pueri we have enough of this already 2 ly He addeth yet §. 11. Neither is certainty of reward in every sence or kind more encouraging unto Action then uncertainely in some kind to promise with all possible Assurance the same reward or prize to him that shall not runne in the race which is promised to him that shall runne is not more encouraging unto men thus to runne then to promise it conditionally upon their running which is a promising of it with uncertainty in this respect because it is uncertaine whether men will runne in the said race or no and consequently whether they shall receive the said prize or no upon such a promise Vncertainty of reward is then and in such cases more encouraging unto action then certainly When the certainty of obtaining or receiving it is suspended upon the Act not when it is assured unto men whether they Act or no. Ans. 1. Perswade your servants your labourers if you can of that great encouragement that lyes in the the uncertainty of a reward above that which may be had from an Assurance
bidde to feare him who can cast both body and soule into Hell-fire Now though the Logicke of this Argument doth scarce appeare to me or the strength of the inference from the text there being a great difference between fearing him who can cast both body and soule into Hell-fire and fearing of Hell-fire between fearing God for his Severity and Power in Opposition to the weakenesse and limitednesse of Persecutors even whilst we feare not their feares but sanctify the Lord of hosts in our hearts making him our dread and our feare and such a feare of punishment as is inconsistent with the Promises of God that we shall be preserved in Obedience so be free from it Yet I shall consider the following Discourse that is built thereon Supposing all that Mr Goodwin observes from this Text and that the reason of the feare here injoyned is taken from the power of God to cast into Hell yet the whole of the Argument thence amounts but thus farre because such who are threatned to be persecuted by men who can only kill their bodyes ought rather to feare God who can extend his power of punishing to the destruction of body and soule of those that offend him therefore there is such a feare ingenerated in the Saints by the Threatnings of the Word as is inconsistent with the truth of Gods stedfastnesse in his Covenant with them to keepe them up to Obedience unto the end Sect. §. 59. the 14. he farther pleades from Heb. 11. 7. 2 Kings 22. 19 20. That the eminentest and Holyest men that live may do many things from a principle of feare or of being afraid of the Judgments of God that they should come upon them and upon that account have beene put upon wayes that were acceptable to God Ans. We know that the Feare of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdome and that the Feare of the Lord and his Goodnesse is a great Mercy of the Covenant of Grace This is not the thing here pleaded for it is a thing quite of another nature even that ascribed to the strange nations that were transplanted into Samaria by the King of Syria upon the captivity and removeall of the ten tribes and frightened by Lyons that destroyed some of them who did yet continue to worship their owne Idolls under the dread of God which was upon them which is called the Feare of the Lord. To compleat this feare 't is required that a man have such an Apprehension of the comeing of Hell and Wrath upon him as that he be not relieved against it by any interposall of Promise or ought else from God that he should be preserved in the way and path whereby he shall assuredly finde deliverance from that which he feares How farre this kind of Feare the feare of Hell not as declarative of the terrour of the Lord but as probable to betide and befall the persons so fearing it and that solely considered as an evill to himselfe may be a principle of any act of acceptable Gospell Obedience is not cleared by Mr Goodwin nor easily will be so For 1. That it is not the intendment of any divine Threatnings to beget such a Feare in reference to them that believe hath beene declared 2. It is no fruit or product of the Spirit of Life and Love which as hath beene showne is the principle of all our Obedience and walking with God 3. It holds out a frame of Spirit directly contrary to what we are called ond admitted unto under the Gospell For God hath not given us the Spirit of feare but of â—â—wer of Love and of a sound minde 2. Tim. 1. 7. and Rom. 8. 15. We have not received the Spirit of bondage unto feare but the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father The Spirit of this Feare and Dreade and the bondage that attends it is at open variance with the Spirit of Liberty Boldnesse Power Adoption and a sound minde wherewith Belivers are indued And 4. It is that which the Lord Christ intended to remove and take away from his by his death Heb. 2. 15. He dyed that he might deliver them who for feare of death were in bondage all their dayes This feare then I say which is neither Promise of the Covenant nor fruit of the Spirit nor product of saving Faith will scarce upon strict inquiry be found to be any great furtherer of the Saints Obedience what use the Lord is pleased to make of this dread and terrour in the hearts of any of his for the hedging up their wayes from folly and staving them off from any Actuall evill when through the strength of Temptation they do begin to cast off the Law of Life and Love whereby they are governed is not in the least prejudiced by any thing asserted in the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance Toward some who though they are perswaded of the Perseverance of the Saints Indefinitely yet have no perswasion or at least no prevailing chearing Assurance that themselves are Saints which Mr Goodwin thinkes to be the condition of far the greatest part of Believers it hath its full power extent its whole efficacy depending on the Apprehensions of the minde wherein it is Towards the residue who upon abiding grounds and sure foundations have obtained a comfortable Spirituall perswasion of their owne Interest in the Promises of God That the consideration of Hell and Judgement as the due debt of sinne and necessary vindication of the Glory of God hath also its Effects and influence as farre as God is pleased to exercise them therewith acquainting them continually with his Terrour and filling them with an abhorrency of those wayes which in and of themselves tend to so dismall an end and issue hath beendeclared Secondly §. 60. the places of Scripture mentioned by Mr Goodwin doubtlesse will not reach his intendmend Of Noah it is said that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Being warned of God of that floud that was for to come upon the World of ungodly men and the Salvation of himselfe and his Family by the Arke being filled with the Reverence of God and assured of his owne preservation he industriously sets himselfe about the use of the meanes whereby it was to be accomplished That because a man assured of an end from God himselfe in and by the use of meanes did with a Reverentiall Feare of God not of any evill threatned which he was to be preserved from set himselfe to a conscientious use of meanes whereby the promised end of God's owne institution is to be brought about Therefore the Feare of Hell such a Feare as hath been decribed is one principle of the Obedience of the Saints in their walking with God and such as they ought to cherish as being a meanes appointed of God for that end and purpose is an Argument of no great value here with us Neither surely will the Conclusion intended be more evidently educed from
the tendernesse of the heart of Josiah under the preaching of the Law mentioned in the second place and therefore I shall not need to call it into Examination But it is added farther Sect. 14. p. 314. The present state and frame of the hearts and soules of the Saints duly considered § 61. which are made up as well of flesh and corruption as of Spirit and Grace the former having need of bridles for restraint as well as the latter of spurres for quickning evident it is that Arguments or motives drawne from feare of punishment are as necessary and proper for them in respect of the one as incitements from Love in respect of the other A whip for the Horse saies Solomon a bridle for the Asse and a rod for the Fooles backe The flesh even in the wisest of men is a foole and would be unruly without a rod ever and a non shaken over it nor should God have made such gracious bountifull and effectuall provision for the Perseverance of the Saints as now he hath done had he not ingaged as well the passion of Feare within them as of Love to be their guardian keeper 'T is true perfect love casteth out Feare but who amongst the Saints themselves can say either that his heart is cleane or his Love perfect Perfect Love casteth out flesh as well as Feare yea true Love untill flesh be cast out preserveth feare for its Assistant and fellow helper the flesh would soone make Love a wanton and intice her unto folly did not feare dissolve the inchantment and protect her Chastity Of this last Division of the 34. Section there are two parts The first Confirmative of what was spoken before concerning the usefullnesse of the Feare of Hell punishment for the furthering of the Saints Obedience The other Responsatory to what is urged to the contrary from 1 John 4. 18. Perfect Love casteth out Feare For the first it is granted that there are those two contrary principles of Flesh and Spirit Corruption and Grace in the hearts of all even even the best and most eminent Saints whilst they continue here below But that these two should be principles acting themselves in their Obedience the one moved incited and stirred up by Love the other from the Feare whereof we are speaking is a Fleshly Darke Anti-evangelicall conceit That the principle in Believers which the Scripture calls Flesh Corruption needs incitement to Obedience or is to be incited there unto as is affirmed is no lesse corrupt than what was before mentioned Looke whatsoever Influence Flesh or Corruption hath into any of our Obedience so far that Obedience is vitiated corrupted rendered uncleane and unacceptable before God The Flesh is to be crucified slaine destroyed not stirred up and provoked to Obedience being indeed Disobedience in the Abstract enmity to God You may as well perswade darkenesse to shine as the Flesh to Obâ—y It is not a foole as that Allusion bespeakes it from Prov. 26. 3. that would ever and anon be unruly were not a rod shaken over him but it is folly it selfe that is not to be cur'd but kill'd not stirred up but mortifyed How that is to be done hath been formerly at large declared It is by the Spirits bringing the Crosse and power of the death of Christ into the heart of the sinner and not by any consideration of Hell and punishment that we can take upon our selves which never did nor never will fortify any sinne to the end of the world that this worke is to be wrought Secondly that which is added of God's bountifull provision for the Perseverance of the Saints by ingaging the passion of Feare as well as Love is of no better a frame or Constitution than that which went before That our gratious Father hath made fuller larger and more certaine provision for our Perseverance than any can be afforded by the ingaging of our passions by consideration of punishment or reward I hope hath been sufficiently demonstrated And if Mr Goodwin intend no more by his Love and Feare of God than the ingaging of those naturall passions in us by the consâ—derations intimated I shall not be Rivall with him in his Perswasion The Love we intend is a Fruit of the Spirit of God in us and the Feare contended about of the Spirit of Bondage which though it be not pressed on us as our duty yet we hope that bountifull provision is made for our Perseverance as shall effectually support and preserve us to the end Blessed be his name his Saints have many better Guardians and keepers then a bondage frame of Spirit upon the account of the wrath to come from whence they are delivered by Christ They are in his own hand and in the hand of his Sonne and are kept through Faith by his power to Salvation If this be the end of Mr Goodwin's Preaching the threatnings of God at any time viz. that the naturall passion of Feare being stirred up with the apprehensions of Hell the Flesh that is in Man may be incited to obedience I hope he hath not many consenting with him in the same intendment Thirdly To an Objection framed from 1 Ioh 4. 18. That perfect Love casts out feare §. 62. First That it may be so but whose Love is perfect Secondly That Love cherisheth Feare untill the Flesh be quite cast out Thirdly That the Flesh would make Love wanton and intice it to folly did not Feare dissolve the inchantment But First Though Love be not perfect to all degrees of Perfection here yet it may have yea it hath in the Saints the perfection of Uprightnesse and Sincerity which is all that is here intended and all that is required to it for the casting out of that Tormenting Feare of which the Apostle speaks Feare saith he hath torment And if our Love cannot amount to that perfection as to cast it out it being only to be cast out thereby it is impossible we should ever be freed from Torment all our daies or be fill'd with joy Consolation in believing which would frustrate the glorious designe of God which he hath sworne himselfe willing to pursue Heb 6. 13. and the great End of the death of Christ which he hath perfectly accomplished Heb 2. 15. Secondly It is true there is a Feare that Love cherisheth the Feare that God hath promised in the Covenant of Grace to preserve in our hearts all our daies But to say it cherisheth the Feare we speake of and which the Holy Ghost in this place intendeth is expressely to make the Holy Ghost a lyar and 〈◊〉 contradict him to his face Thirdly What Love in us is that that the Flesh can or may intice to follyâ— Are the fruits of the Spirit of God Graces of his own working and creating in us of such a Temper and Constitution as that they may be inticed to uncleannesse and folly And is it possible that such a thought should enter into the heart of
a man professing the Doctrine of the Gospell that inke should staine paper with such filth cast upon the Spirit and Grace of God The Feare of Hell ere-while was suited to the use of the Flesh but now it seems it serves to keep the Love of God it selfe in order that otherwise would wax wanton fleshly and foolish Foolish Love that will attempt to cast out this tormenting Feare not being able to preserve it selfe from folly without its assistance Sect 15. is spent in an Answer endeavoured to an Objection placed in the beginning of it in these words If it be farther demanded But doth it not argue servility in men to be drawn by the Iron cord of the Feare of Hell to doe what is their duty to doe Or doth any other Service or Obedience become Sonnes and Children but only that which is free and proceedeth from Love Hereunto you have a threefold Answer returned First That God requires that it should be so which is a downeright begging of the Question Secondly He puts a difference between the Obedience of Children to their Parents and of the Saints unto God The discourse whereof discovering some mysteries of the new Doctrine of Grace much pressed and insisted on take as followes There is a very different consideration of the Obedience of Children to their Naturall Parents of the obedience of the Children of God unto their Heavenly Father The Obedience of the former is but by the Inspiration of Nature and is an act not so much raised by Deliberation or flowing from the will by an interposure of judgment and conscience to produce the Election as arising from an innate propension in men accompanying the very constituting principles of their Nature and being Whereas the latter the Obedience of the Children of God is taught by Precepts and the Principle of it I mean that Rationall frame of Heart out of which they subject themselves to God is planted in the soules of men by the ingagement of Reason Judgement and Conscience to consider those grounds arguments and motives by which their Heavenly Father judgeth it meet to work and fashion them unto such a frame So that though the obedience of Naturall Children to their Naturall Parents be the more genuine and commendable when it flowes freely from the pure instinct of Nature and is not drawn from them by feare of punishment yet the Obedience of the Children of God is then most genuine and commendable and like unto it selfe when it is produced and raised in the soule by a joynt influence and contribution not of one or of some but of all those Arguments Reasons Motives Inducements whatsoever and how many soever they be by which their Heavenly Father useth to plant and work it in them for in this case and in this only it hath most of God of the Spirit of God of the Wisdome of God of the Goodnesse of God in and upon this account it is likeliest to be most free uniforme and permanent The summe of this Answer amounts to these three things First that there is an Instinct or inspiration of Nature in Children to yeild Obediedce to their Parents Secondly that there is no such Spirituall Instinct or inclination in the Saints to yeild Obedience to God Thirdly that the Obedience of the Saints ariseth meerely and solley from such Considerations of the Reason of that Obedience which they apprehend in contradiction to any such genuine principles as might incline their hearts thereunto For the first That the obedience of Children to their Parents though it be a prime dictate of the Law of Nature wherewith they are indued proceedeth from a pure Instinct any otherwise than as a principle suiting inclining them to the Acts of that Obedience so as to exclude the promoting and carrying of it on upon the Morall condsideration of Duty Piety c. it is in vaine for Mr Goodwin to goabout to perswade us unlesse he could not only corrode the Word of God where it presseth that Obedience as a Duty but also charme us into beasts of the feild which are acted by such a bruit instinct not to be improved stirred up or drawne forth into exercise by Deliberation or Consideration There is it is true in Children an impresse of the power of the Law of nature suiting them to Obedience which yet in many hath been quite cast out and obliterated being not of the constituting principles of their Nature which whilst they haue their being as such cannot be throwne out of them and carrying them out unto it with Delight Ease and Complacency as habits do to suitable actings but withall that this principle is not regulated and directed as our Obedience to God by a Rule and stirred up to exert it selfe and they in whom it is provoked by Rationall and Conscientious considerations to the performance of their duty in that Obedience is so contrary to the experience I suppose of all sharers with us in our Mortality that it will hardly be admitted into debate But Secondly the worst part of this Story lyes in the middle of it in the exclusion of any such Spirituall principle in Believers as should carry them out unto Obedience at least to any such as is not begotten in their minds by Rationall considerations What ever may be granted of acquired habites of Grace which that the first should be that a Spirituall habit should be acquired by naturall actings is a most ridiculous fiction all infused Habits of Grace that should imprint upon the soule a new naturall inclination to Obedience that should fashion and frame the hearts of men into a state and Condition suited for and carry them out unto Spirituall Obedience are here decryed All it seemes that the Scripture hath told us of our utter Insufficiency Deadnesse Disability indisposednesse to any thing that is good without a new Life and principle all that we have apprehended and Believed concerning the new Heart and Spirit given us the new Nature new Creature divine Nature inward man Grace in the Heart making the Roote good that the Fruit may be so All that the Saints have expressed concerning their Delight in God Love to God upon the account of his writing his Laws in their hearts and Spirits is a meere delusion There is no principle of any Heavenly Spirituall Life no new Nature with its bent and instinct lying towards God and Obedience to him wrought in the Saints or bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit of Grace If this be so we may even fairely shut our Bibles and go learne this new Gospell of such as are able to instruct us therein Wherefore I say Thirdly that as in Children there is an instinct an inclination of nature to induce them and carry them out to Obedience to their naturall Parents which yet is directed regulated provoked and stirred up and they thereby to that Obedince by Motives and Considerations suited to worke upon their Minds and Consciences to prevailewith them thereunto so also
of the consistency of Effectuall Grace and Gospell Exhortations A Third Argument is proposed Sect. 18. Cap. 13. in these words §. 1. That Doctrine which representeth God as weake Incongruous and In coherent with himselfe in his applications unto men is not from God and consequently that which contradicteth it must needs be the truth but the Doctrine of Perseverance opposed by us putteth this great dishonour upon God representeth him weake Incongruous c. Ergo. For the proofe of the Minor Proposition to make good the charge in it exhibited against the Doctrine of Perseverance there is a Drammaticall scheme induced to whose framing and Application M. Goodwin contributed no more but the paines of a Translator taking it from the Anti-Synod p. 276. 277. in these words You that truly Believe in my Sonne and have beene once made partakers of my Holy Spirit and therefore are fully perswaded assured from my will and command given unto you in that behalfe yea according to the infallible word of Truth which you have from me that you cannot possibly no not by all the most horrid sinns and abominable practices that you shall or can commit fall away either totally or finally from your Faith for in the midst of your foulest actions courses there remaines a seed in you which is sufficient to make you true Believers to preserve you from falling away finally that it is impossible you should dye in your sinnes you that know are assured that I will by an irresistible hand worke Perseverance in you consequently that you are out of all danger of condemnation and that Heaven and Salvation belong unto you and are as good as yours already so that nothing but giving of thankes appertaines to you which also you know that I will do what you will in the meane time necessitate you unto you I say that are fully and throughly perswaded and possessed with the truth of all these things I earnestly charge admonish exhort and beseech that yee take heed to your selves that yee countinue in the Faith that there be not at any time an evill heart of unbeliefe in any to depart from the Living God that you fall not from your owne stedfastnesse yea I declare and professe unto you that if you shall draw back my soule shall have no pleasure in you that if you shall deny me I will deny you that if you be againe overcome of the lusts of the world and be intangled here with that your latter end shall be worse than your beginning that if you shall turne away all your former Righteousnes shall not be remembred but you shall dye in your sinnes and suffer the veugeance of Eternall fire On the other hand if you shall continue to the end my Promise is that you shall be Saved therefore strive to enter in at the straite gate quit your selves like men labour for the meat that indureth unto Everlasting Life and be not sloathfull but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises He that shall duly weigh and consider what a sencelesse and indeed ridiculous incongruity there is between these Exhortations Adjurations Threatnings and latter Promises and those Declarations Applications and former Promises doubtlesse will confesse that either the one or the other of them are not from God or according to the mind of God Ans. §. 2. The incongruity of this fiction with the Doctrine it is framed against is so easily manifested that it will not much concerne us to consider the incongruity that the severall parts of it have one with an other For First the whole Foundation of this fanatick Fabrick is ridiculous in it selfe and ridiculously imposed on the Doctrine of Perseverance For whereas it sayes not that all Saints have any comfortable Assurance of their Perseverance and so may by all Gospell wayes whatever by Promises and Threatnings be stirred up to the use of those meanes whereby Perseverance is wrought and Assurance obtain'd so it saies that no one Saint in the world ever had can have or was taught to expect his Perseverance or the least sence or Assurance of it under such an uncouth supposition as falling into continuing in sins Abominations the Promises they have to assure thē of their inseparable abode with God to the end are that he will write his Law in their hearts put his Feare in their inward parts that they shall never depart from him and they shall be kept up thereto by the use of meanes suitable as appointed of God for the attaining of the end proposed being kept by the power of God but throngh Faith unto Salvation God doth not call nor doth the Doct of Perseverance of the Saints or of the stability and Unchangeablenesse of his Promises in Christ to Believers assert it any to Believe that they shall never fall away from him what sinnes and Rebellions so ever they fall into neither hath he promised any such things unto thē but only that he will through his Grace preserve them in the use of meanes from such Rebellions as are inconsistent with his Love and free acceptation through Christ according to the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace so that instead of the first part of this fiction whose inconsistency with the latter is after Argued let this acording to the Analogy of our Doctrine be instituted You that truly Believe in my Sonne Jesus Christ § 3. and are made partakers of my Holy Spirit who being heirs of the Promises and so have a Right to that abundant Consolation that Joy in believing which I am willing all of you should receive I know your Feares doubts perplexityes and Temptations your failings sinnes and back-slidings and what sad thoughts on the account of the evill of your owne hearts and wayes you are exposed to as that you shall never abide nor be able to continue with me and in my Love to the end let the feeble knees be strengthned and the hands that hang downe be lifted up behold I have ordained goodworkes for you to walke in as the way wherein you are to walke for the attainement of the end of your Faith the Salvation of your soules And to quicken you and stirre you up hereunto I have provided and established Effectuall Ordinances revealed in the Word of my Grace whereunto you are to attend and in the use of them according to my mind to grow up into Holinesse in all manner of holy conversation Watching Fighting Resisting Contending with and against all the Spirituall Enemy's of your soules And as for me this is my Covenant with you that my Spirit which gives Efficacy to all the meanes Ordinances and Advantages of Gospell Obedience which I have afforded unto you by whom I will fulfill in you all the good-pleasure of my Goodnesse and the worke of Faith with Power so making you meet for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light and Preserving you to my Heavenly Kingdome shall never depart
having proceeded thus with M. Goodwin that a foundation may be the better laid for the removall of what he farther adds proceed to consider the progresse of sinne and to remarke from thence the difference that is betweene Regenerate and Vnregenerate men in their sinning The second thing proposed in the Apostles discourse of the Rise and progresse of sinne is the generall way that Lust proceedeth in for the bringing of it forth and that is Temptation every one is tempted of his own Lust This is the generall way that Lust proceeds in for the production of actuall sinne It tempts and he in whom it is is tempted There is a Temptation unto sin only and a Temptation unto sin by sin The first is no sinne in him that is so tempted our Saviour was so tempted he was tempted of the Divell Math. 4. 1. % He was in all points tempted like as we are without sin That his temptations were unto sin is apparent from the story of them but the Prince of this world coming had nothing in him John 14. 30. Found nothing in him to Answer and close with his Temptations and therefore though he was tempted yet was he without sin Now though this sort of temptations from Sathan are not Originally our sinnes but his yet there being tinder in our soules that kindles more or lesse in and upon every injection of his fiery darts there being something in us to meet many if not all of his Temptations they prove in some measure in the issue to be ours Indeed Sathan sometimes ventures upon us in things wherein he hath doubtlesse small hope of any concurrence and so seemes rather to aime at our disquiet than our sinnes as in those whom he perplexes with hard and blasphemous thoughts of God a thing so contradictory to the very principles not of Grace only but of that whereby we are men that it is utterly impossible there should be any assent of the soule thereunto to think of God as God is to think of him every thing that is Good Pure Great Excellent incomprehensible in all perfection Now at the same time to have any Apprehensions of a direct contradictory importance the mind of man is not capable Were it not for the unbeliefe causelesse feares and discontentments that in many do insue upon Temptations of this nature which are consequents and not effects of it Sathan might keepe this dart in his owne forge for any mischeife he is like to doe with it The Apostle speakes here of Temptations by sinne as well as unto sinne and these are mens sinnes as well as their Temptations they are Temptations as tending to farther evill they are sinnes as being irregular and devious from the rule Now this tempting of Lust compriseth two things First §. 33. The generall active inclination of the Heart unto sinne though not fixed as unto any particular act or way of sinne the motus primò primi of this you have that Testimony of God concerning man in the state of nature Gen. 6. 5. % Every figment of the thought of his heart is only evill every day the figment or imagination of the thoughts is the very roote of them their generall moulding or active preparing of the mind for the exerting of them so 1 Chrou 28. 9. % God understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts The figment of them The next disposition of the soule unto them and 2 Cron. 29. 19. Keepe this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of their hearts or keep their hearts in a continuall framing posture and condition of such good thoughts This I say is she first way of Lusts Temptation it makes a mint of the heart to frame readily all manner of evill desires and thoughts that they may as our Saviour speakes proceed out of the heart Mat. 15. 19. Their actuall fixing on any object is their proceeding antecedent whereunto they are framed and formed in the heart Lust actually disposeth inclines bends the heart to things suitable to it selfe or the corrupt habituall principle which hath its residence in us Secondly The actuall tumultuating of Lust and working with all its power and policy in stirring up provoking to and drawing out thoughts and contrivances of sin with delight and complacency in inconeiveable variety the severall degrees of its progresse herein being afterwards described In the first of these there is no small difference between Regenerate Vnregenerate persons §. 34. and that in these two things First In its universality In Unregenerate men every figment of their heart is only evill and that every day there is an universality of actings exprest positively exclusively to any actings of another kind every figment of their heart is only evill and of time every day whatever good they seeme to do or do whatever dutyes they performe that in them all which is the proper figment of their heart is only evill On this account take any duty they do any worke they performe and weigh it in the ballance and t' will be found in respect of principles and circumstances or aimes to be wholly evill That indeed there is nothing in it that is acceptable to God their hearts are casting minting and coyning sinne all the day long With Believers 't is not so there is also a good treasure in their hearts from whence they bring out good things there is a good Root in them that beares good fruit though they are or may be overtaken with many sins yea with great sins yet lust doth not tempt thē as it doth unregenerate men with a perpetuall continuall active inclination unto evill even some way or other in all the good they do The Spirit is in them will and doth in what state so ever they are dispose their hearts to Faith Love Meekenesse and actuates those Graces at least in the elicite acts of the will for a good tree will bring forth good fruit never any Believer is or was so deserted of God or did so forsake God as that every figment of his heart should be evill only and that continually That no one act of sinne can possibly expell his habit of Grace hath been formerly shewed neither is he ever cast into such a condition but from the good principle that is in him There is a panting after God longing for his Salvation with more or lesse efficacy the sparke is warme and glowing though under ashes Secondly In respect of power Lust tempts in unregenerate men out an absolute uncontrouleable dominion and that with a morally irresistible efficacy All its dominion as hath been shewed and very much of its strength is lost in Believers this is the intendment of the Apostles discourse Rom. 6. concerning the crucifying of sinne by the death of Christ. The power strength vigour and efficacy of it is so far abated weakned mortified that it cannot so effectually impell unto sin as it doth when 't is in perfect life and strength But you 'l say then
sinne of infirmity and the least a sinne of Presumption It is possible a Believer may be overtaken or rather surprised with any sinne so he be overtaken or surprised A surprisall into sinne through the power of Temptation subtilty of Sathan strength of indewlling sinne contrary to the habituall standing frame of the heart not alwayes neither through a defect of watchfullnesse is all that we grant a Believer may be lyable to and fo upon Mr Goodwins confession he sins only out of infirmity such sins being not exclusive of the Love and Favour of God And therefore Fourthly we say that true Believers cannot be said to walke according to the flesh to do the workes of the flesh to do the Lusts and desires of the flesh which the Holy Ghost so cautions them against which as Mr Goodwin observes are none of them charged upon true Believers but only such persons as are enemyes of God and Children of wrath so that those expressions hold out to Believers only what they ought to avoid in the use of the meanes which God graciously affords them and do not discover any thing of the will of God that he will suffer them contrary to his many Faithfull Promises to fall into them And so the close of this Discourse is contrary to the beginning M. Goodwin granting that true Believers cannot fall into these sinnes but only such as are enemies to God and yet he hath no way to prove that true Believers may cease to be so but because they may fall into these sinnes which that they may do he here eminently denyes Wherefore he adds If by sinning out of malice they meane sinning with deliberation with plotting §. 37. and contriving the methods and meanes of their sinning sinning against Judgement against the dictates of conscience and what they should meane by sining out of malice but sinning upon such tearmes as these I understand not certaine it is that true Believers may so sinne out of malice or at least such as were true Believers before such sining and this our Adversaries them selves confesse Ans. All this falles heavy on the shoulders as it is supposed of poore David and yet we think it evident that God tooke not his holy Spirit from him but that his Covenant continued with him ordered in all things and sure and that sinne had not dominion over him The reasons of this perswasion of ours concerning him shall farther be insisted on when we come to the consideration of his case in particular in the meane time I confesse the dreadfnll falls of some of the Saints of God are rather to be bewailed than aggravated and the riches of Gods Grace in their recovery to be admired than searcht into yet we say First That no one Believer whatever in the world upon any temptation whatever did fall into any sinne of malice that is accompayned with any hatred of God or despite of his Grace or whole delight of his will in the sin whereunto he was by temptation for a season captivated though they may fall into sin against their judgements dictates of their consciences as every sin whatever that they have or may possibly have knowledge of or acquaintance with in their owne hearts and wayes is Yet this doth not make them to sinne out of malice for that would leave no distinction between sinnes of infirmity whereinto men are surprised by Temptation and of Malice Even sinnes of infirmity being in generall and particular directly contrary to the dictates of their inlightned sanctifyed judgements consciences Secondly for sinning with deliberation plotting and contriving the methods and meanes of sinning the proofe whereof that so they may do will ly as was before obseved on the instance of David I say it being the will of God for ends and purposes knowne to his infinite Wisdome to give us as to his fall his darke side and his sinne to the full with the Temptations wherewith he was at first surprised and afterward violently hurryed upon carnall reasonings and considerations of the state whereinto he had cast himselfe having lost his old friend and counsellour as to any shines of his countenance for a season not acquainting us at all with the frame and working and striving of his Spirit in and under that fall I shall not dare to draw his case into a Rule that what he then did a Believer now may do judgeing of his frame in doing of it only by what is exprest That Believers may have morosam cogitationem or deliberation upon some sinnes whereunto they are tempted upon the strength of indwelling sinne which may possibly so over come and prevaile against the workings of Grace for a season as to set the flesh at liberty to make contrivances to fulfill the lusts thereof I say many have granted and I shall not for the sake of poore returning soules whose backslidings God hath promised to heale deny but yet I say all their actings in this kinde are but like the desperate actings of a man in a feaver who may have some kind of contrivance with himselfe to do mischiefe as I have known some my selfe and aime at opportunityes for the accomplishment of it all the facultyes of their foules being discomposed and rendered unserviceable to them through their distemper Through the violence of temptation the tumultuating of lusts the whole new man may be for a season so shattered his parts laid out of the way as to such a due Answering to another that the whole may be serviceable to the worke of Faith as a disordered army wherein is all its fundamentall strength as well as when it is rallied in battalia is altogether unserviceable 'till it be reduced to order that sinne taking the opportunity to fill their corrupt part as farre as it is corrupt with its pleasure and desireablenesse and so to set the thoughts of it on worke to continue meanes for its accomplishment Now as through the goodnesse of their Father and supplyes of Grace which through the Covenant thereof they do receive this distemper seiseth not Believers but rarely extraordinarily so it doth no way prove them to sinne with malice or without hatred of and opposition secret opposition which may be as secret as some inclinations to sinne are not known to our selves to the things they do in and under that condition That which followes in this Section being suited to the apprehension of some particular men though of great name and esteeme according to their worth and desert in the Church of God as Vrsin Paraeus and the rest about reigning sinne wherein as I have declared my thoughts fall not in with them I shall not need to insist any longer upon it Paraeus after all his aggravations of the sinnes of Believers yet adds that they sinne not nor did David ex contemptu Dei but through a preoccupation or surprisall of sinne which I believe to be the perswasion of far the greatest number of Saints in the world
whereof he labours to deliver it is the great Absurdity of the Repetition of Regeneration whereof there is no mention at all in the Scripture and which yet must be Asserted by him unlesse he will affirme all that fall away at any time irrecoverably to perish which howsoever he waves at present were with much more probability according to his owne principles to be maintained than what he insisteth on But this repetition of Regeneration saith he is not unworthy God and for men a blessed and happy accommodation whether it be unworthy God or no the Scripture and the nature of the thing will declare The Accomodation that it seemes to afford unto men being a plaine incouragement to sinne at the highest rate imaginable will perhaps not be found so Happy and Blessed unto them With great noise and clamour hath a charge been managed against the Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance upon the account of its giving supportment to the thoughts of men in and under the wayes of sinne whether Truth and Righteousnesse have been regarded in that charge hath been considered Doubtlesse it were a matter of no difficulty clearely to evince that this Doctrine of the Repetition of Regeneration is of the very same tendency and import which is falsly and injuriously charged upon that of the Perseverance of the Saints The worst that a man thinks he can do by any act of sin is but to sin himselfe quite out of the favour of God into a state of death and desert of wrath He can no farther injure his soule than to cast it into the condition of men by nature Tell this man now whom you suppose to be under the temptation to sinne at least that he hath in him that great foole the flesh which longs for Blessed Accommodations to its selfe whilest it makes provision to fulfill its lusts that if he should so do this is an ordinary thing for men to do and yet to be renewed againe and to have a Second Regeneration do you not incourage him to venture boldly to satisfy his sinfull desires having such a reliefe against the worst that his thoughts and feares can suggest to him But whatever it be in respect of God or men yet that so it may be Mr Goodwin proves from Heb. 6. 6. Where 't is said that 't is impossible to renew some to repentance wherefore some may be renewed and in Jude 12. Men are said to be twice dead therefore they may live twice Spiritually The first proofe seemes somewhat uncouth The persons spoken of in that place are in M. G. judgement Believers there is no place of Scripture wherein he more tryumphs in his endeavoured confirmation of his Thesis The Holy Ghost says expresly of thē that 't is impossible to renew thē therefore says M.G. 't is possible what is of emphasis in the Argument mentioned ariseth frō two things 1. That they are true Believers of which afterwards 2. That they fall totally away This then is the importance of M. Goodwins plea from this place If true believers fall totally away it is impossible they should be renewed to Repentance therefore if true Believers fall totally away it is possible they should be renewed to and by Repentance that there is a falling away and a renewing againe by Repentance of the same persons we grant That falling away is partiall only which is incident unto true Believers who when God heales their backslidings are renewed by Repentance To be renewed also by Repentance is taken either for the renovation of our Natures and our change as unto state and condition and so it is the same with Regeneration and not to be repeated or for a Recovery by Repentance in respect of personall failings so it is the daily worke of our lives Jude saies some are twice dead that is utterly so an hyperbolicall expression to aggravate their condition Those to whom the Gospell is a favour of Death unto Death may well be said to be twice dead unto the Death that they are involved in and are obnoxious to by nature they adde a second death or rather seale up their soules under the power and misery of the other by contempt of the means of Life and recovery therefore Regeneration may be reiterated Quod erat Demonstrandum Much of the Section that remains is taken up in declaring in many words without the least attempt of proofe that 't is agreeable to the honour of God to renew men totally fallen away that is when those who have been quickned by him washt in the bloud of his Sonne made partakers of the Divine nature imbrac'd in the armes of his Love shall despise all this dis-faith themselves reject the Lord and his Love trample on the bloud of the Convenant kill their soules by depriving them of spirituall life proclaime to all the world their dislike of him and his Covenant of Grace yet though he hath not any where revealed that he will permit any one so to doe or that he will accept of them againe upon their so doing yet M. Goodwin affirming that for him so to doe is agreeable to his Holinesse and Righteousnesse 't is fit that those who conceive themselves bound to believe what ever he saies should think so too for my part I am at liberty I should not farther pursue this discourse nor insist on this digression but that M. Goodwin hath taken advantage by the mention of Regeneration to deliver some rare notions of the nature of it which deserve a little our farther taking notice of for which end doubtlesse he published them To make way then for his intendment he informes us Sect 29. That Regeneration it selfe according to the Grammaticall and proper signification of the word imports a reiteration or repetition of some generation or other it cannot import a Repetition of the naturall all Generation of men the sence of Nicodemus in this poynt was Orthodox who judged such a thing impossible therefore it must import a repetition of a spirituall generation unlesse we shall say which I think is the road opinion that it signifies only the spirituall generation with a kind of reflection upon and unto the birth Naturall Ans. First That the Grammaticall sence of the word imports a Reiteration of some generation is only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath other signification in composition besides the intimating of a reiteration of the same thing either in specie or individually the same againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would seeme rather to inforce such an Interpretation than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet it doth not It is spoken of that which hath no birth properly at all as Philo de Mundo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it selfe is only through 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through a wooddy Countrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Resurrection doth not import againe after another rising before but a restauration from a lost state so is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used Math 19. 28. to
use of Admonitions and Exhortations to them in that condition hath been already declared for the present I shall only adde That let their finall Apostasy in respect of the Event be never so impossible yet in the state and condition wherein they are and from the things which they are exercised about with the Principles on which they proceed and the wayes whereby they are led on considerations enough may be raised to set forth those Exhortations Admonitions and Encouragements appointed by the Holy Ghost to be used and insisted on in the Administration of the Word in the Beauty and splendor of infinite Wisdome Love and Kindnesse The glory of God being so eminently concerned as it is in the Obedience and fruitfulnesse of the Saints the honour of the Lord Jesus in this World with the advancement and propagation of the Gospell in like manner relating there unto Their own peace lying so much as it doth upon their close walking with God the spirit being so grieved by their falling into sinne as he is God so dishonoured and themselves exposed to such fearfull desertions darknesse trouble sorrow and disquietments as they are upon their being overcome by the temptations of Satan and prevailed upon to turne aside into waies and sinnes short of totall Apostasy and it being the purpose of the Lord to lead them on in obedience in wayes suitable to that nature he created them withall and that New nature wherewith he hath endued them both apt to be wrought upon by Motives Exhortations and Perswasions without any such supposall as that of finall Apostasy There is a sufficient bottome and foundation of exalting the motives and admonitions insisted on to the possession of that Glory of Wisdome and Goodnesse which is their due But M. Goodwin having borrowed another Pageant from the Remonstrants had a great mind to shew it to the World in its English dresse and therefore introduces the Holy Ghost thus speaking in the Admonitions above pointed at Suppose we then the Holy-Ghost should speake thus unto the Saints §. 8. Oh yee that truly Believe who by vertue of the promises of that God that cannot lye are fully perswaded and possest that ye shall be kept by God by his irresistible Grace in true Faith untill Death so that though Satan should set all his witts on worke and by all his stratagems snares and cunning devices seek to destroy you yea though he should entice you away from God by the allurements of the World and entangle you with them againe yea and should cause you to runne and rush headlong against the Light of your own Consciences into all manner of horrid sinnes yet shall all his attempts and assaults upon you in every kind be in vain you shall be in never the more danger or possibility of perishing Vnto you I say attend and consider how sore and dangerous a contest you are like to be ingaged in for you are to wrestle not against Flesh and Bloud but against Principalities and Powers the governors of this World and spirituall wickednesses against that old Serpent the Divell the great red Dragon who was a murtherer from the beginning and who still goes about like a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devoure Who will set himselfe with all his might to thrust you headlong into all manner of sinnes and so to separate 'tweene you and your God for ever And truly I am afraid least as the Serpent by his subtilty deceived Eve so your minds should be corrupted from the Simplicity which is in Jesus Christ least the tempter should any way tempt you and my labour about you be in vaine Therefore Watch Pray Resist him stedfast in the Faith Take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to resist in an evill day and having done all things stand fast Stand having your loines girt with the girdle of truth and the brestplate of Righteousnesse upon you Would such an Oration or speech as this be any way worthy the Infinite wisedome of the Holy Ghost Or is it not the part of a very weake and simple person to admonish a man and that in a most serious and solemne manner of a danger threatning him or hanging over his head and withall to instruct him with great variety of direction and caution how to escape this danger when as both himselfe knows and the person admonished knowes likewise that it is a thing altogether impossible that ever the danger should befall him or the evill against which he is so solemnely cautioned come upon him Therefore those who make the Holy Ghost to have part and fellowship in such weaknesse as this are most insufferably injurious unto him Ans. To support the Stage for to act this part of the pageant in hand upon §. 9. there are many supposalls fixed by our Author that are to beare up the weight of the whole which upon tryall will appeare to arrant false pretences painted anticks that have not the least strength or efficacy for the end and purpose whereunto they are applied First §. 10. 'T is supposed that the end of all these admonitions is meerely and solely to prevent the Saints from finall Apostasy and that they are to beware of the wiles and assaults of Satan only least he prevaile over them to cause them to depart utterly from God That this is supposed in this discourse is evident because upon the granting of a promise that they shall not be so prevailed against they are judged all uselesse and ridiculous Now who knows not but that Satan may winnow and in some measure prevaile against the Saints to the Dishonour of God the Reproach of the Gospell Grieving of the Spirit and Scandall of the Church although they fall not totally and finally from God And that many of those Admonitions tend to the preservation of Believers from such falls and failings is more evident than to need any Demonstration by consideration of the particular instances Secondly §. 11. It supposeth as is exprest that Believers may fall into all manner of horrid sinnes and Abominations which is the thing in Question and by us punctually denied What ever their surprizalls may be yet there are sinnes which they cannot fall into and the great abomination of every sinne that 't is committed with the whole heart and with full consent they are not at all exposed or liable unto as hath been proved Thirdly § 12. That there is an inconsistency between Promises and Precepts in reference to the same Object that God should promise to worke any thing effectually in us and yet require it of us is thought ridiculous and on this account the great folly here imputed to the discourse framed for the Holy Ghost is proposed to consist in this that God should exhort us to watch against the assaults of the Divell and yet promise that by his Grace he will effectually work in us for us the very same thing A supposall destructive to
with whom we walke and towards whom it is required we beare Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 18. towards such as shew us their Faith by their workes Our rule of walking from the principle of Love and Charity is layd downe in 1 Cor. 13. And if all that any man knowes at this day professours in this world should turne Apostates save only one and he had reckoned that one and them that are Apostatized before their Apostasy of the same ranke of Believers and had no evill thoughts of that one above the rest he was bound without any evill surmises to believe all things and to hope all things and not to let goe his sincere Love towards that one imbracing of him delighting in him holding cōmunion with him to his lives end without suspicion of Hypocrisy or other hard thoughts of him unles he also should degenerate 'T is said Joh. 2. 23. That many believed on Christ because of the profession of Faith that they made Ioh. 6. 34. They pray earnestly to be fed with the bread of Life So that they were accounted among his Disciples v. 60. yet upon a temptation they left our Saviour walked no more with him v. 66. Now notwithstanding the profession of these men our Saviour plainely sayes that they believed not v. 64. They falling thus away who had professed to believe and were accounted as Believers so called and named among the Disciples of Christ and Christ declaring on the account of their Apostacy that indeed they did never believe how was it that the remaining Twelve had not hard thoughts and jealousyes one of another especially considering that there was one Hypocrite still left among them whether they had true Faith or no◠seeing our Saviour had declared that those who so fell off as those before mentioned had none Doubtlesse they were instructed to walke by a better and streighter Rule than that Mr Goodwin here assignes to Believers Let him who will or can fall away whilst we are taught of God to love one another and are acted by the principle of Love which thinkes no evill and do contend against evill surmizes as the workes of the flesh There is not any thing in the least attending the discovery of one mans Hypocrisy to worke us to a perswasion that another not in any thing discovered is so also that because we see some goodly house fall under stormes and temptations to the ground and so manifest it selfe to have been built on the sand that therefore we must conclude that those which stand are not built upon the Rocke is not suited to any principle or Rule that our Master hath given us to walke by in order to the exercise of that Love which he calleth for in us towards one another Secondly §. 25. I say this way of proceeding in our thoughts and judgements doth the Holy Ghost lead us to 1 Iohn 2. 19. The Apostle giving an account of some who had formerly walked with him in the profession of the Faith and of the fellowship which they had with the Father and Sonne fell away from Christ into an opposition against him so farre as to deserve the title of Antichrists having not only forsaken the Gospell but making it also their businesse to oppose it and to seduce others from the simplicity of the same These he informes the scattered Believers of the Jewes were Apostates having formerly walked with them but deserted their fellowship and thereby manifested themselves never to have been true Believers nor ever indeed to have had fellowship with the Father and the Sonne no more than they of whom our Saviour spake in the place before mentioned And yet doubtlesse the Apostle may not be supposed to lay a foundation for jealousyes evill suspicions and surmises among Believers though he plainely and evidently affirme that those who fall away were never true Believers and that if they had been so they would have continued in their Faith and fellowship with the people of God They went ous from us saith he but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us A passage by the way clearely confirming the maine of the Doctrine we have hitherto insisted on §. 26. And therefore I shall turne aside before I come to the close of this Chapter having this occasion administred to vindicate it from the exceptions Mr Goodwin gives in against the Testimony it beares in this case The Argument that it readily furnisheth us withall is of this import § 27. If all they who fall away totally from the fellowship and society of the Church and Saints of God what ever their profession 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 into an Hypotheticall Proposition which virtually includes a doubleArgument as every discrete Axiome doth 't is not thus therefore thus If true Believers might so depart and Apostatise as those here mentioned no unquestionable proofe could be drawne from such Apostacy that men were never true Believers which yet is plainely insisted on in the Text. M. Goodwin Cap. §. 28. 10. Sect. 21 22 23 24. Pag. 189 190 191 192. gathers up sundry Exceptions from the Remonstrants which as they also did he opposeth to this Interpretation of the words and the Inferences from them insisted on I shall briefely consider and remove them in that order as by him they are laid downe He saith First This Inference presumeth many things for which neither it nor any the Authors of it will ever be able to give any good security of proofe As First That this phrase they were not of us imports that they were never true Believers this certainly can never be proved because there is another sence 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. §. 29. That there is not any thing presumed for the eduction of the Inference proposed but what is either directly exprest or evidently included in the words of the Text will appeare in the farther consideration of what M. 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 Cap. 1. 3. that the end of his writing to them was to draw them into and keep them in communion with himselfe and the Saints with him which Communion or Fellowship he tells them they had with the Father and the Sonne But as for the Persons of whom