John Owen · 17 of 73

Chapter I. The state of the controversy. · Part 3

And this is a brief delineation of the doctrine which, the Lord assisting, shall be explained, confirmed, and vindicated, in the ensuing discourse; which being first set forth as a mere skeleton, its symmetry and complexion, its beauty and comeliness, its strength and vigour, its excellency and usefulness, will, in the description of the several parts and branches of it, be more fully manifested.

Now, because Mr Goodwin, though he was not pleased to fix any orderly state of the question under debate, — a course he hath also thought good to take in handling those other heads of the doctrine of the gospel wherein he hath chosen to walk (for the main with the Arminians) in paths of difference from the reformed churches, — yet having scattered up and down his treatise what his conceptions are of the doctrine he doth oppose, as also what he asserts in the place and room thereof, and upon what principles, I shall briefly call what he hath so delivered, both on the one hand and on the other, to an account, to make the clearer way for the proof of the truth which 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 usefulness.

First, then, for the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance, how it stands stated in Mr Goodwin’s thoughts, and what he would have other men apprehend thereof, may from sundry places in his book, especially chap. ix., be collected, and thus summarily presented. “It is,” saith he, sect. 3, “a promising unto men, and that with height of assurance, under what looseness or vile practices soever, exemption and freedom from punishment.” So sect. 4, “It is in vain to persuade or press men unto the use of such means in any kind which are in themselves displeasing to them, seeing they are ascertained and secured beforehand that they shall not fail of the end however, whether they use such means or no; — a luscious and fulsome conceit (sect. 5), intoxicating the flesh with a persuasion that it hath goods laid up for the days of eternity; a notion comfortable, and betiding peace to the flesh (sect. 15), in administering unto it certain hope that it shall, however, escape the wrath and vengeance which is to come, yea, though it disporteth itself in all manner of looseness and licentiousness in the meantime. A presumption it is that men (sect. 18) may or shall enjoy the love of God, and salvation itself, under practice of all manner of sin and wickedness; representing God (sect. 20) as a God in whose sight he is good that doth evil; promising his love, favour, and acceptance, as well unto dogs returning to their vomit, or to swine wallowing in the mire after their washing” (that is, to apostates, which that believers shall not be is indeed the doctrine he opposeth), “as unto lambs and sheep. A doctrine this whereby it is possible for me certainly to know, that how loosely, how profanely, how debauchedly soever, I should behave myself, yet God will love me, as he doth the holiest and most righteous man under heaven.”

With these and the like expressions doth Mr Goodwin adorn and gild over that doctrine which he hath chosen to oppose; with these garlands and 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 sense, or held out under any other notion to his reader. The course here he hath taken in this case, and the paths he walks in towards his adversaries, seems to be no other than that which was traced out by the bishops at Constance, when they caused devils to be painted upon the cap they put on the head of Huss before they cast him into the fire. I do something doubt (though I am not altogether ignorant how abominably the tenets 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 undertook to publish his conceptions to the world about any opinion or parcel of truth debated amongst professors of the gospel 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, rethinks a man should not be much delighted in casting filth and dung upon his adversary before he begin to grapple with him. In one word, this being the account he gives us of it, if he be able to name one author, ancient or modern, any one sober person of old or of late, that ever spent a penful of ink, 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 terms, but so much as to the matter or purpose here intimated by him, it shall be accepted as a just defensative against the crime which we are enforced to charge in this particular, and which otherwise will not easily be warded. If this be the doctrine, which, with so great an endeavour, and a contribution of so much pains and rhetoric, he seeks to oppose, I know not any that will think 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 withal, and not his apprehensions of the doctrine itself: for neither doth he in any place in his whole treatise hold it out in any other shape, but is uniform and constant to himself in expressing 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 controversy which he hath proposed. But whether this indeed be the doctrine of the perseverance of saints which Mr Goodwin so importunately cries out against, upon a brief consideration of some of the particulars mentioned, will quickly appear.

First, then, doth this doctrine “promise, with height of assurance, that under what looseness or vile practices soever men do 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 looseness and evil practices as would expose them to eternal punishment? Doth it teach men that it is vain to use the means of mortification, because they shall certainly attain the end whether they use the means 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 cheering associate doctrines you mention? Or is this a regular emergency of that doctrine which teaches that there is no attaining the end but by the means, between which there is such a concatenation by divine appointment that they shall not be separated? Doth it “speak peace to the flesh, in assurance of a blessed immortality, though it disport itself in all folly in the meantime?” Do the teachers of it express 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 value it infinitely above all the world) that such is the love and good-will of God towards them, in the covenant of mercy in the blood of Christ, that having appointed good works for them to walk in, for which of themselves they are insufficient, he will graciously continue to them such supplies of his Spirit and grace as that they shall never depart from following after him in ways of gospel obedience, — doth this, I say, encourage any of them to continue in sin that this grace may abound? Or are any doctrines of the gospel to be measured by the rules and lines of the use or abuse that the flesh is apt to make of them? or rather by their suitableness to the divine nature, whereof the saints are made partakers, and serviceableness to their carrying on to perfection in that attainment? Or is this an argument of validity against an evangelical truth, that the carnal, unbelieving heart is apt to turn it into wantonness? And whether believers walking after the Spirit, — in which frame the truths of God in the gospel are savoury and sweet to them, — do experience such attendancies of the doctrine under consideration as are here intimated, I am persuaded Mr Goodwin will one day find that he hath not a little grieved the Holy Spirit of God by these reproaches cast upon the work of his grace.

Farther; doth this persuasion assure men that “they shall enjoy the love and favour of God under the practices of all manner of sin?” or can this be wrested by any racks or wheels from this assertion, that none indeed enjoy the love and favour of God but only they towards whom it is effectual to turn them from the practices of all manner of sin and wickedness, to translate them from darkness into marvellous light, and from the power of Satan into the kingdom of Jesus Christ; whom the grace that appears unto them teacheth to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; whom that love constrains not to live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them? Doth it “promise the love and favour of God to dogs returning to their vomit, and swine wallowing in the mire,” when the very discriminating difference of it from that doctrine which advanceth itself into competition with it is, that such returning dogs and wallowing swine did indeed, in their best estate and condition, never truly and properly partake of the love and favour of God, but notwithstanding their disgorging and washing of themselves, they were dogs and swine still? But to what end should I longer insist on these things? I am fully persuaded Mr Goodwin himself cannot make room in his understanding to apprehend that this is indeed the true notion of the doctrine which he doth oppose. Something hath been spoken of it already, and more, the Lord assisting, will be discussed in the progress of our discourse, abundantly sufficient to manifest to the consciences of men not possessed with prejudice against the truth that it is quite of another nature and consistency, of another complexion and usefulness, than what is here represented. I cannot but add, that this way of handling controversies in religion, — namely, in proposing consequences and inferences of our own framing (wire-drawn with violence and subtilty from principles far distant from them, disowned, disavowed, and disclaimed by them on whom they are imposed) as the judgment of our adversaries, and loading them with all manner of reproaches, — is such as (being of all men in the world most walked in by the Arminians) I desire not to be competitor with any in, “Haud defensoribus istis,” etc.

Let us now a little, in the next place, consider what Mr Goodwin gives in for that persuasion which, in opposition to the other, before by him displayed, he contendeth with all his strength to advance. I do not doubt but all that are acquainted with his way of expression (“elato cothurno”) will, as they may reasonably, expect to have it brought forth μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας, adorned with all the gallantry and ornaments that words can contribute thereunto; for of them there is with him store to be used on all occasions, Πολὺς νομὸς ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα.

The sum of the doctrine he is so enamoured of he gives us, chap. ix. sect. 21, p. 115. “Longa est fabula, longæ ambages;” this is “Caput rei.” “It is not any danger of falling away in them that are saints and believers, or probability of it, that he maintains, but only possibility of it; such as there is that sober and careful men may voluntarily throw themselves down from the tops of houses or steeples (though, perhaps, they never come there), or run into the fire or water, and be burned or drowned, having the use of their reason and understanding to preserve them from such unusual and dismal accidents:” which seems to be an instance of as remote and infirm a possibility as can likely be imagined. Yea, he tells you farther, sect. 22, “That the saints have as good security of their perseverance as he could have of his life to whom God should grant a lease of it for so long, upon condition that he did not thrust a sword through his bowels, or cast himself headlong down from a tower; so that his doctrine indulgeth to the saints as much assurance as that of perseverance,, but only it grants them not a liberty of sinning:” which, I presume, his own conscience told him that neither the other doth.

But is this indeed Mr Goodwin’s doctrine? is this all that he intends his arguments and proofs shall amount unto? “Ad populum phaleras.” Strange, that when there is not so much as a probability or danger of falling away, yet so many and so eminent saints should so fall! How seldom is it that we hear of wise and sober men running into the fire, throwing themselves headlong from towers, thrusting swords through their own bowels! and nothing more frequent than the apostasy of saints, if these things stood upon equal terms of unlikelihood and improbability! The stony field in the parable seems to be every whit as large as the good ground, whose fruit abideth, Matt. xiii. 20, 21, 23. That ground, in Mr Goodwin’s sense, is true believers, so that a moiety at least must be granted to fall away, and never come to perfection. Doubtless this is not easy to be received, that one half of a company of men in succession should constantly, from one generation to another, fall into ruin in such a way as wherein there is no danger of it, or probability that it should so come to pass. Methinks, we should scarce dare to walk the streets, lest at every step we be struck down by sober men voluntarily tumbling themselves from the tops of houses, and hardly keep ourselves from being wounded with the swords wherewith they run themselves through. Was this indeed the case with David, Solomon, Peter, and others, who totally apostatized from the faith? But if it be so, if they are thus secure, whence is it that it doth arise? what are the fountains, springs, and causes of this general security? Is it from the weakness of the opposition, and slightness of all means of diversion, from walking with God to the end, that they meet withal? or is it from the nature of that faith which they have, and grace wherewith they are endued? or is it that God hath graciously undertaken to safeguard them, and to preserve them in their abiding with him, that they shall not fall away? or is it that Christ intercedeth for them that their faith fail not, but be preserved, and their souls with it, by the power of God, unto the end? or from what other principle doth this security of theirs arise? from what fountain do the streams of their consolation flow? where lie the heads of this Nilus?

That it is upon the first account, I suppose cannot enter into the imagination of any person who ever had the least experience of walking with God, or doth so much as assent to the letter of the Scripture. How are our enemies there described, as to their number, nature, power, policy, subtlety, malice, restlessness, and advantages! with what unimaginable and inexpressible variety of means, temptations, baits, allurements, enticements, terrors, threats, do they fight against us! Such and so many are the enemies that oppose the saints of God in their abiding with him, so great and effectual the means and weapons wherewith they fight against them, so unwearied and watchful are they for the improvement of all advantages and opportunities for their ruin, that upon the supposal of the rejection of those principles and those means of their preservation which we shall find Mr Goodwin to attempt, they will be found to be so far from a state of no danger and little probability of falling, or only under a remote possibility of so doing, that it will appear utterly impossible for them to hold out and abide unto the end. Had the choicest saint of God, with all the grace that he hath received, but one of the many enemies, and that the weakest of all them which oppose every saint of God, even the feeblest, to deal withal, separated from the strength of those principles and supportments which Mr Goodwin seeketh to cast down, let him lie under continual exhortations to watchfulness and close walking with God, he may as easily move mountains with his finger or climb to heaven by a ladder as stand before the strength of that one enemy. Adam in paradise had no lust within to entice him, no world under the curse to seduce him, yet at the first assault of Satan, who then had no part in him, he fell quite out of covenant with God, Ps. xxx. 6, 7.

I shall give one instance, in one of the many enemies that fight against the welfare of our souls; and “ex hoc uno” we may guess at the residue of its companions. This is indwelling sin, whose power and policy, strength and prevalency, nearness and treachery, the Scripture exceedingly sets out, and the saints daily feel I shall only point at some particulars:—

First, Concerning its nearness to us, it is indeed in us; and that not as a thing different from us, but it cleaveth to all the faculties of our souls. It is an enemy born with us, bred up with us, carried about in our bosoms, by nature our familiar friend, our guide and counsellor, dear to us as our right eye, useful as our right hand, our wisdom, strength, etc. The apostle, Rom. vii. 17, 20, calleth it the “sin that dwelleth in us.” It hath in us, in the faculties of our souls, its abode and station. It doth not pass by and away, but there it dwells, so as that it never goes from home, is never out of the way when we have any thing to do; whence, verse 21, he calls it the “evil that is present with him.” When we go about any thing that is good, or have opportunity for or temptation unto any thing that is evil, it is never absent, but is ready to pluck us back or to put us on, according as it serves its ends. It is such an inmate that we can never be quit of its company; and so intimate unto us that it puts forth itself in every acting of the mind, will, or any other faculty of the soul. Though men would fain shake it off, yet when they would do good, this evil will be present with them. Then, —

Secondly, Its universality and compass. It is not straitened in a corner of the soul; it is spread over the whole, all the faculties, affections, and passions of it. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; it is all flesh, and nothing but flesh. It is darkness in the understanding, keeping us, at best, that we know but in part, and are still dull and slow of heart to believe. Naturally we are all darkness, nothing but darkness; and though the Lord shine into our mind, to give us in some measure the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, yet we are still very dark, and it is a hard work to bring in a little light upon the soul. Especially this is seen in particular practical things; though in general we have very clear light and eviction, yet when we come to particular acts of obedience, how often doth our light grow dim and fail us, causing us to judge amiss of that which is before us, by the rising of that natural darkness which is in us! It is perverseness, stubbornness, obstinacy in the, will, that carries it with violence to disobedience and sin; it is sensuality upon the affections, bending them to the things of the world, alienating them from God; it is slipperiness in the memory, making us like leaking vessels, so that the things that we hear of the gospel do suddenly slip out, whenas other things abide firm in the cells and chambers thereof; it is senselessness and error in the conscience, staving it off from the performance of that duty which, in the name and authority of God, it is to accomplish: and in all these is daily enticing and seducing the heart to folly, conceiving and bringing forth sin.

Thirdly, Its power. The apostle calls it “a law, a law in his members, a law of sin,” Rom. vii. 21, 23; such a law as fights, makes war, and leads captive, selling us under sin, not suffering us to do the good we would, forcing us to do the evil we would not, drawing us off from that we delight in, bringing us under bondage to that which we abhor. A powerful, unmerciful, cruel tyrant it is. O wretched men that we are! verse 24. There is no saint of God but in the inward man doth hate sin, every sin, more than hell itself, knowing the world of evils that attend the least sin; yet is there not one of them but this powerful tyrant hath compelled and forced to so many as have made them a burden to their own souls.

Fourthly, Its cunning, craft, and policy. It is called in Scripture “the old man;” not from the weakness of its strength, but from the strength of its craft,. “Take heed,” saith the apostle, “lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,” Heb. iii. 13. There is abundance of deceitfulness in it, being ready, fit, and prompt to beguile; lying in wait for advantages, furnished for all opportunities, and ready to close with every temptation: yea, the ways of it are so large and various, its wiles and methods for deceiving so innumerable, its fruitfulness in conceiving and bringing forth of sin so abundant, its advantages and opportunities so many, that it is like “the way of a serpent upon a rock,” — there is no tracing or finding of it out.

A serious consideration of the opposition made unto our perseverance by this one enemy, which hath so much ability, and is so restless in its warfare, never quiet, conquering nor conquered, which can be kept out of none of our counsels, excluded from none of our actings, is abundantly sufficient to evince that it is not want or weakness of enemies which putteth believers out of danger of falling away.

But all this perhaps will be granted. Enemies they have enough, and those much more diligent and powerful every one of them than all we have spoken of that now described amounteth unto; but the means of preservation which God affords the saints is that which puts them almost out of gun-shot, and gives them that golden security mentioned, which cometh not, in administering consolation, one step behind that which ariseth from the doctrine of absolute perseverance. Let, then, this be a little considered, and perhaps it will allay this whole contest. Is it, then, that such is the grace that is bestowed upon them, in respect of the principle whence it is bestowed (the eternal love of God), and the way whereby it is for them procured (the blood-shedding and intercession of Christ), with the nature of it (being the seed of God, which abideth and withereth not), and that such seems to be the nature of infused habits, that they are net removed but by the power and immediate hand of him by whom they are bestowed? Is it from hence that their assurance and security doth arise? “Alas! all this is but a fiction. There is no faith that is the fruit of election; Christ purchased it not for any by his death; infused habits are not; the grace that perisheth and that that abideth are the same. These things are but pretences.” Is it, then, that God hath purposed from eternity to continue constant in his love towards them, never to leave them nor forsake them? “Nay, but of all things imaginable this is the greatest abomination, which if the Scriptures did anywhere affirm, it were sufficient to make a rational, considering man to question their authority.” What then? Hath the Lord promised to give them such continued supplies of his Spirit and grace in Jesus Christ as that they shall be supported against all opposition, and preserved from all or any such sins as will certainly make a separation between God and their souls? “Nay, there is not one such promise in all the book of God; they are conditional;, for the enjoyment of the good things whereof believers stand all their days upon their good behaviour.” Is it, then, that the Lord Jesus, who is always heard of his Father, intercedes for them that their faith fail not, and that they may be preserved by the power of God unto salvation, and that not only upon condition of their believing, but chiefly that they may be kept and preserved in believing? Or is it that their enemies are so conquered for them and on their behalf, in the death and resurrection of Christ, that they shall never have dominion over them, that their security doth arise? Neither the one nor the other, nor any nor all of these, are the grounds and foundations of their establishment., but they are wholly given up to the powerful hand of some considerations, which Mr Goodwin expresseth and setteth out to the life, chap. ix. sect. 32–34, pp. 174, 175.

Now, because the Remonstrants have always told us that God hath provided sufficiently for the perseverance of the saints, if they be not supinely wanting to themselves in the use of them, but have not hitherto, either jointly or severally, that I know of, taken the pains to discover in particular wherein that sufficiency of provision for their safety doth consist, or what the means are that God affords them to this end and purpose, Mr Goodwin, who is a learned master of all their counsels, having exactly and fully laid them forth as a solid foundation of his assertion concerning only a remote possibility of the saints’ total defection, let it not seem tedious or impertinent if I transcribe, for the clearer debate of it before the reader, that whole discourse of his, and consider it in order as it lies.

“If,” saith he, “it be demanded what are the means which God hath given so abundantly to the saints, to make themselves so free, so strong in inclinations to avoid things so apparently destructive to the spiritual peace and salvation of their souls, as naturally men are to forbear all such occasions which are apparently destructive to their natural lives, so that they need not to be any whit more afraid of losing their souls through their own actings than men are, or need to be, of destroying their natural lives upon the same terms? I answer, —

“First, He hath given them eyes wherewith, and light whereby, clearly and evidently to see and know that it is not more rational or man-like for men to refrain all such acts which they know they cannot perform but to the present and unavoidable destruction of their natural lives, than it is to forbear all sinful acts whatsoever, and especially such which are apparently destructive to their souls.

“Secondly, God hath not only given them the eyes and the light we speak of, wherewith and whereby clearly to see and understand the things manifested, but hath farther endued them with a faculty of consideration, wherewith to reflect upon, and review, and ponder, so oft as they please, what they see, understand, and know in this kind. Now, whatsoever a man is capable, first, of seeing and knowing, secondly, of pondering and considering, he is capable of raising or working an inclination in himself towards it, answerable in strength, vigour, and power, to any degree of goodness or desirableness which he is able to apprehend therein; for what is an inclination towards any thing but a propension and laying out of the heart and soul towards it? So that if there be worth and goodness sufficient in any object whatsoever to bear it; and, secondly, if a man be in a capacity of discovering and apprehending this good clearly; and, thirdly, be in a like capacity of considering this vision, — certainly he is in a capacity and at liberty to work himself to what strength or degree of desire and inclination towards it he pleaseth. Now, it is certain to every man that there is more good in abstaining from things either eminently dangerous or apparently destructive to his soul, than in forbearing things apparently destructive to his natural being. Secondly, As evident it is that every man is more capable of attaining or coming to the certain knowledge and clear apprehending of this excess of good to him in the former good than in the latter. Thirdly, Neither is it a thing less evident than either of the former, that every man is as capable of ruminating or re-apprehending the said excess of good as much and as oft as he pleaseth, as he is simply of apprehending it at all. Which supposed as undeniably true, it follows with a high hand, and above all contradiction, that the saints may (and have means and opportunities fair and full for that purpose) plant inclinations or dispositions in themselves to refrain all manner of sins apparently dangerous and destructive to the safety of their souls, fuller of energy, vigour, life, strength, power, than the natural inclination in them which teacheth them to refrain all occasions which they know must needs be accompanied with the destruction of their natural beings. Therefore, if they be more, or so much, afraid of destroying their lives voluntarily and knowingly (as by casting themselves into the fire or the water, or the like) than they are of falling away through sin, the fault or reason thereof is not at all in the doctrine, which affirms or informs them that there is a possibility that they fall away, but in themselves and their own voluntary negligence. They have means and opportunities (as we have proved) in abundance to render themselves every whit as secure, yea, and more secure, touching the latter, as they are or reasonably can be concerning the former.”