John Owen · 26 of 73

Chapter III. The immutability of the purposes of God. · Part 6

Secondly, He denies the major proposition, and saith, “That those who are kept and preserved by Christ may possibly miscarry.” Boldly ventured! What want is there, then, or defect in the Keeper of Israel, that his flock should so miscarry under his hand? Is it of faithfulness? The Scripture tells us he is “a faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,” Heb. ii. 17; “faithful to him that appointed him,” chap. iii. 2; and that he did the whole will of God. Is it of tenderness, to take care of his poor wandering ones? He is otherwise represented unto us: Heb. ii. 18, “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted;” and chap. iv. 15, “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Isa. xl. 11, it is said of him, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” And he quarrels with those shepherds who manifest not a care and tenderness like his towards his flock: Ezek. xxxiv. 4, “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost;” all which he takes upon himself to perform, verses 15, 16. Or is it want of power? “All power is given unto him in heaven and in earth,” Matt. xxviii. 18. “All things are delivered unto him of his Father,” Matt. xi. 27. “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him,” Heb. vii. 25. If he want neither care nor tenderness, wisdom nor watchfulness, love nor ability, will nor faithfulness, how comes it to pass that they miscarry and fall away into ruin whom he hath undertaken to keep? David durst fight with a lion and a bear in the defence of his lambs, and Jacob endured heat and cold upon the account of faithfulness; and shall we think that the Shepherd of Israel, from whose being so the psalmist concludes he shall want nothing, Ps. xxiii. 1, who did not only fight for his flock, but laid down his life for them, will be less careful of his Father’s sheep, his own sheep, which are required also at his hand, for his Father knows them and calls them all by name?

“Yea, but,” says Mr Goodwin, “it may be thus, in case themselves shall not comport with Christ in his act of preserving them, with their care and diligence in preserving themselves;” that is, Christ will surely keep them in case they keep themselves. Alas! poor sheep of God! If this were the case of the flocks of the sons of men, how quickly would they be utterly destroyed! Doth the veriest hireling in the world deal thus with his sheep, — keep them in case they keep themselves? Nay, to what end is his keeping if they keep themselves? Christ compares himself to be the good shepherd which seeketh out and fetcheth a wandering sheep from the wilderness, laying it on his shoulders, and bringing it home to his fold. How did that poor sheep keep itself, when it ran among the ravenous wolves in the wilderness? Yet by the good shepherd it was preserved. This is the spirit and comforting genius of this doctrine: “Christ keeps us provided we keep ourselves!” “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel;” that he gave us his Holy Spirit to abide with us for ever, to seal us to the day of redemption; that knowing himself, and telling us, that without him we can do nothing, he would not suspend his doing upon our doing so great a thing as preserving ourselves. For let us see now what it is that is required in us if we shall be preserved by Christ: it is to comport with him in his act of preserving us, and to be diligent to keep ourselves.

What is this “comporting with him in his act of preserving us?” Our comporting with Christ in any thing is by our believing in him and on him; that is our radical comportment, whence all other closings of heart in obedience do flow. So, then, Christ will preserve us in believing, provided we continue to believe. But what need of his help to do so, if antecedently thereunto so we do? Is not this not only ἄγραφον but also ἄλογον, not only unscriptural, but also unreasonable, yea, absurd and ludicrous? This is the flinty fountain of all that abundance of consolation which Mr Goodwin’s doctrine doth afford. Doubtless, they must be wise and learned men (like himself) who can extract any such thing therefrom. Let him go with it to a poor, weak, tempted, fainting believer, and try what a comforter he will be thought, a physician of what value he will be esteemed. Let him tell him, “Thou art indeed weak in faith, ready to decay and perish, which thou mayst do every day, there being neither purpose nor promise of God to the contrary; great oppositions and great temptations hast thou to wrestle withal. But yet Christ is loving, tender, faithful, and in case thou continuest believing, he will take care thou shalt believe. That Christ will increase thy faith, and keep it alive by continual influences, as from a head into its members, preserving thee not only against outward enemies, but the treacheries, and deceits, and unbelief of thine own heart, of any such thing I can give thee no account.” Such consolation a poor man may have at home at any time.

Farther; what is that act of Christ in preserving them that is to be comported withal? wherein doth it consist? Is it not in his daily, continual communication to them of new supplies of that spiritual life whose springs are in him; the making out from his own fullness unto them; his performing the office of a head to its members, and filling those other relations wherein he stands, working in them both to will and to do of his own good pleasure? What is it, then, to comport with this act or these acts of Christ? Can any thing reasonable be invented wherein such comportment may be thought to consist, but either it will be found coincident with that whereof it is a condition, or appear to be such as will crush the whole undertaking of Christ for the preservation of believers into vanity and nothing? Again; hath Christ undertaken to preserve us against all our enemies, or some only? If some only, give us an account both of them that he doth undertake against, that we may know for what to go to him and whereof to complain, and of them that he doth not so undertake to safeguard us against, that we may know wherein to trust to ourselves; and let us see the places of Scripture wherein any enemies are excepted out of this undertaking of Christ for the safety of his. Paul goes far in an enumeration of particulars, Rom. viii. 35–39. If he hath undertaken against them all, then let us know whether it be an enemy that keeps us from this comportment with Christ, or a friend. If it be an enemy (as surely every thing in us that moves us to depart from the living God is), hath Christ undertaken against it, or no? If not, how hath he undertaken against them all? If he hath, how is it that it prevails? “Yea, but he undertakes this in case we comport with him;” that is, he undertakes to overcome such an enemy in case there be no such enemy. In case we be not turned aside from comporting with him, he will destroy that enemy that turns us aside from comporting with him. “Egregiam veró laudem et spolia ampla!” Or, on the other side, if our enemies prevail not against us, he hath faithfully undertaken that they shall not prevail against us.

“Yea, but,” saith Mr Goodwin, “no Scripture proves that those whom Christ preserves must, by any compulsory, necessitating power, use their diligence in preserving themselves.” And who, I pray, ever said they did? Compulsory actings of grace are your own figment; so are all such necessitating acts which proceed any farther than only as to the infallibility of the event aimed at. God doth not compel the wills of men when he works in them to will. Christ doth not compel men to care and diligence when he works in them holy care and diligence. When the disciples said unto the Lord, “Increase our faith,” they did not pray that they might be compelled to believe. God’s working in them that believe according to the exceeding greatness of his power, “strengthening them with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness,” is very far from any compulsion or necessitation inconsistent with the most absolute freedom that a creature is capable of. He that works faith in believers can continue it and increase it in them without compulsion. And this is the sum of Mr Goodwin’s answer to an argument that, notwithstanding all which he hath spoken, hath yet strength enough left to cast his whole building down to the ground. What he farther speaks to the particular place which gave occasion to this discourse may briefly be considered:—

He speaks something to John vi. 37, which I insisted not on. As to the purpose in hand, he tells you that “Christ will in no wise cast out τὸν ἐρχόμενον, ‘him that is coming;’ but yet he that is coming, in his way may turn back and never come fully up to him.”

Ans. But if this be not huckstering of the word of God, I know not what is. The words before in the same verse are, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” Saith Mr Goodwin, “They may come but half way, and so turn back again, not coming fully home to him.” Saith Christ, “They shall come to me.” Saith Mr Goodwin, “They may perhaps come but half way.” “Nunc satis est dixisse, ego mira pœmata pango.” But why so? Why, ἐρχόμενον is “coming,” — a coming, it seems, in fieri, but not in facto esse; that is, it denotes a tract of time whilst the man is travelling his journey, as though believing were a successive motion as to the act of laying hold on Christ. But is he that is on his way, that Christ receiveth, a believer or not? hath he faith or not? If he hath no faith, the faith whereof we speak, how can he be said to be “coming,” seeing the “wrath of God abideth on him?” John iii. 36. If he hath faith, how is it that he is not come to Christ? Hath any one true faith at a distance from him? God gives another testimony, John i. 11, 12. But saith he, “There is nothing in the words that they are under no possibility of falling away who come to Christ.” But, — 1. There is in those that follow, that, as to the event, they are under an impossibility of so doing, in respect of the will and purpose of God (which sufficeth me), as shall be made to appear. 2. That emphatical expression, Οὐ μὴ ἐκβάλω ἔξω, “I will in no wise cast them out,” expresses so much care and tenderness in Christ towards them, that we are very apt to hope and believe that he will not lose them any more, but that he will not only not cast them out, but also, according to his Father’s appointment, that he will keep them, and preserve them in safety, until he bring them to glory; as is fully asserted, John vi. 39, 40, as hath been declared.

Again, Mr Goodwin tells you, “It is not spoken of losing believers by defection of faith, but by death; and to assure believers of this, Christ tells them it is his Father’s will that he should raise them up at the last day. Besides, if any be lost by defection from faith, this cannot be imputed to Christ, who did his Father’s pleasure to the utmost for their preservation, but to themselves.”

Ans. For the perverting of verse 37, the beginning of it was left out; and for the accomplishing of the like design upon verse 39 (which farther clears the mind and intendment of Christ in the words), verse 40 is omitted, lie tells you that it is the wilt of the Father that every one that comes to him, that is, that believes on him, have everlasting life. What is everlasting life in the gospel is well known from John xvii. 3. And unto this bestowing on them everlasting life, his raising of them at the last day, as was mentioned, is a necessary consequent, — namely, that they may be brought to the full and complete fruition of that life which here in some measure they are made partakers of. Even in the words of verse 39, that passage, “I should lose nothing,” extends itself to the whole compass of our Saviour’s duty in reference to his Father’s will for the safeguarding of believers. And is it only death, and the state of dissolution of body and soul, that it is the will of God that he should deliver them from, and the power of that, that it should not have dominion over them in the morning? The apostle tells us that he came to do the will of God, whereby we are sanctified, Heb. x. 9, 10. It was the will of God that he should sanctify us; and he tells his Father that he had kept all his own in the world, John xvii. 12; which, doubtless, was not his raising them from the dead. If he be the Mediator of the covenant of grace, if the promises of God be yea and amen in him, if he be our Head, Husband, and elder Brother, our Advocate and Intercessor, our Shepherd and Saviour, his keeping us from being lost extends itself no less effectually to our preservation from utter ruin in this life than to our raising at the last day; yea, and that exceptive particle ἀλλά includes this preservation, as well as leads us to the addition of the other favour and privilege of being raised to glory at the last day. In a word, this whole discourse is added to make good that gracious promise of our Saviour, John vi. 35, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst;” which how it can be done by a naked engagement for the resurrection of them that come to him and abide with him, if many do, and most of all them that come to him may, depart from him and fall into everlasting ruin, needs Mr Goodwin’s farther labour and pains to unfold. What is lastly added concerning Christ’s doing the utmost of his Father’s pleasure for their custody, but the fault is their own who fall away, is the same inconsistent, ridiculous assertion with that erewhile considered; with this addition, that whereas it is his Father’s pleasure that they be saved, Christ doth his pleasure to the utmost, and yet saved they are not. And so much (if not too much) for the vindication of this testimony witnessing to the truth that we have in hand.

Matt. xxiv. 24 comes in the next place to be considered (an unquestionable evidence to the truth), and that voluntarily, of its own accord, speaking so plain to the matter in hand, that it were a sin against clear light to refuse to attend unto it; so far is it from being “compelled to bear the cross of this service,” as Mr Goodwin phrases the matter, chap. x. sect 9, pp. 181–183. “ ‘They shall seduce, if it were possible, the very elect.’ Hence,” saith he, “it is inferred that the deceiving or seducing of them that believe is a thing impossible; which is the drawing of darkness out of light.” Strange! to me it seems so far from a forced inference, or a strained drawing of a conclusion, that it is but the conversion of the terms of the same identical supposition. He that says they shall deceive the very elect, if it were possible, so mighty shall be their prevalency in seducing, seems to me (and would, I doubt not, do so to others, did not their prejudices and engagements force them to stop their ears and shut their eyes) to say that it is impossible the elect should be seduced.

But let the place, as it deserves, be more distinctly considered; it is among them which I refer to the head of the purposes of God, and a purpose of God there is (though not expressed, yet) included in the words. The impossibility of the seduction of some persons from the faith is here asserted. Whence doth this impossibility arise? Not from any thing in themselves, — not from their own careful consideration of all the concernments of their condition; the only preservative in such a season, if some, who pretend themselves skilful and experienced, yea almost the only physicians of souls, may be believed. They can never stand upon such sands against that opposition they shall be sure to meet withal. Our Saviour therefore intimates whence the impossibility expressed doth flow, in a description of the persons of whom it is affirmed, in reference to the purpose of God concerning them. They are the “elect,” those whom God hath “chosen before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame before him in love.” His “purpose according to election” must stand firm, and therefore “the election” itself shall obtain. This, then, is that which is here affirmed: God having chosen some, or elected them to life, according to the “purpose which he purposed in himself,” and faith being bestowed on them, they believing on the account of their being “ordained to eternal life,” it is impossible they should be seduced so as to be thrown down from that state and condition of acceptance with God (for the substance of it) wherein they stand.

Some few observations will farther clear the mind of the Holy Ghost, and obviate the exceptions that are put in against our receiving the words in their plain, proper, obvious signification. Observe, then, —

1. Upon the intimation of the great power and prevalency of seducers, our Saviour adds this, as a matter of great consolation to true and sound believers, that notwithstanding all this, all their attempts, however advantaged by force or subtlety, yet they shall be preserved. This the whole context enforceth us to receive, and our adversaries to confess that at least a great difficulty of their seduction is intimated. And it arises with no less evidence that this difficulty is distinguishing in respect of the persons exposed to seduction;— that some are elect, who should be seduced if it were possible; others not, that may and shall be prevailed against.

2. The bottom of the consolation, in the freedom of the persons here spoken of from falling under the prevailing power of seducers, consists in this, that they are the elect of God, such as on a personal consideration are chosen of God from all eternity, to be kept and preserved by his power to salvation, notwithstanding any interveniencies or oppositions which he will suffer to lie in their way. “But,” saith Mr Goodwin, “these men, at least before their calling, are as liable to be deceived or seduced as other men. This is their own confession; and Paul says that they were sometimes deceived, Titus iii. 3.”

Ans. An exception, doubtless, unworthy him that makes it; who, had he not resolved to say all that ever had been said by any to the business in hand, would scarcely, I presume, have made use thereof. The, seduction of persons is not opposed to their election, but to their believing. Mention is made of their election, to distinguish them from those other professors which should be seduced, and to discover the foundation of their stability under their trials; but it is of them as believers (in which consideration the attempts of seducers are advanced against them) that he speaks. It is not the seducing of the elect as elect, but of believers who are elect, and because they are elected, that is denied.

3. That it is a seduction unto a total and final departure from Christ and Faith in him whose impossibility in respect of the election is here asserted. “But,” saith Mr Goodwin, chap. x. sect. 10, p. 181, “this is to presume, not to argue or believe; for there is not the least ground in the word whereon to build such an interpretation.” But the truth is, without any presumption or much labour for proof, the falsity of this exception will quickly appear to any one that shall but view the context. It is evidently such a seduction as they are exposed unto and fall under who endure not unto the end, that they may be saved, Matt. xxiv. 13; and they who are excepted upon the account mentioned are opposed to them who, being seduced, and their love being made cold, and their iniquities abounding, perish everlastingly, verses 11, 12.

4. It is, then, a denial of their being cast out by the power of seducers from their state and condition of believing and acceptation with God wherein they stand, that our Saviour here asserts, and gives out to their consolation, — they shall not be seduced, that is, drawn off from that state wherein they are to a state of unregeneracy, infidelity, and enmity to God so that, as Mr Goodwin observes in the next place, we deny them, from hence, not only to be subject to a final but also to a total seduction.

5. We grant that notwithstanding the security given, which respects the state and condition of the persons spoken of, yet they may be, and often are, seduced and drawn aside into ways that are not right, into errors and false doctrines, through the “cunning sleight of men who lie in wait to deceive,” but never into such (as to any abode in them) which are inconsistent with the union with their Head and his life in them.

The errors and ways whereinto they are, or may be, seduced are either such as, though dangerous, yea, in their consequences pernicious, yet have not such an aspect upon the faith of believers as to deny a possibility of union and holding the Head upon other accounts. I doubt not but that men for a season may not know, may disbelieve and deny, some fundamental articles of Christian religion, and yet not be absolutely concluded not to hold the Head by any sinew or ligament, to have no influence of life by any other means. Was it not so with the apostles when they questioned the resurrection of Christ, and with the Corinthians who denied the resurrection of the saints? — an abode, I confess, in either of which errors would, when the consequences of them are manifested, prove pernicious to the souls of men; but that they have in themselves such an absolute repugnancy unto and inconsistency with the life of Christ, however considered, as that their entertainment for a season should be immediately exclusive thereof, I suppose Mr Goodwin himself will not say. In this sense, then, we grant that true, saving, justifying faith may consist with the denial of some fundamental articles of Christian religion for a season; but that any true believer can persist in such a heresy we deny, he having the promise of the Spirit to lead him into all necessary truth.

There are such ways and things as in their own nature have an inconsistency with the life of Christ, as the abnegation of Christ himself. But this also we affirm to be twofold, or to receive a twofold consideration:— 1. It may be resolved, upon consideration, with the deliberate consent of the whole soul; which we utterly deny that believers can or shall be left unto for a moment, or that ever any true believer was so. 2. Such as may be squeezed out of the mouths of men by the surprisal of some great, dreadful, and horrible temptation, without any habitual or cordial assent to any such abomination, or disaffection to Christ, or resolute rebellion against him. Thus Peter fell into the abnegation of Christ, whose faith yet under it did not perish, if our Saviour was heard in his prayer for him, having an eye to that very temptation of his wherein he was to be tried, and his fall under it. In the first sense are those words of our Saviour, Matt. x. 33, to be understood, and not in the latter. Christ was so far from denying Peter before his Father under his abnegation of him, that he never manifested more care and tenderness towards any believer than towards him in that condition. And this wholly removes Mr Goodwin’s 10th section out of our way, without troubling of ourselves to hold up that distinction of a final denial of Christ, and that not final, seeing in all probability he set it up himself that he might have the honour to cast it down.

What follows in Mr Goodwin from the beginning of sect. 11, chap. x., to the end of sect. 17, is little more than a translation of the Remonstrants’ sophistry in vexing this text in their Synodalia; which he knows full well where to find discussed and removed. For the sake of our English readers, I shall not avoid the consideration of it. I affirm, then, that the phrase εἰ δυνατόν here denotes the impossibility of the event denied, the manner of speech, circumstances of the place, with the aim of our Saviour in speaking, exacting this sense of the words. The words are, Ὥστε πλανῆσαι, εἰ δυνατὸν, καὶ τοὺς ἐκλεκτούς. It is the constant import of the word ὥστε to design the event of the thing which, by what attends it, is asserted or denied (so Gal. ii. 13; Matt. viii. 28, xv. 31; 1 Thess. i. 8), neither is it ever used for ἵνα. In the place by some instanced for it, Rom. vii. 6, it points clearly at the event. Ἵνα is sometimes put for it, but not on the contrary. And the words εἰ δυνταόν, though not so used always (although sometimes they are, as Gal. iv. 15), do signify at least a moral impossibility, when they refer to the endeavours of men; but relating to the prediction of an event by God himself, they are equivalent to an absolute negation of it. That of Acts xx. 16 is urged to the contrary. Paul hoped εἰ δυνατόν, to be at Jerusalem at Pentecost. “ ‘If it be possible’ here cannot imply an impossibility as to the event,” says Mr Goodwin. But are these places parallel? Are, all places where the same phrase is used always to be expounded in the same sense? The terms here, “If it be possible,” respect not the futurition of the thing, but the uncertainty to Paul of its possibility or impossibility; the uncertainty, I say, of Paul in his conjecture whether he should get to Jerusalem by such a time or no, of which he was ignorant. Did our Saviour here conjecture about a thing whereof he was ignorant whether it would come to pass or no? We say not, then, that in this place, where εἰ δυνατόν is expressive of the uncertainty of him that attempts any thing of its event, that it affirms an impossibility of it, and so to insinuate that Paul made all haste to do that which he knew was impossible for him to do; but that the words are used in these two places in distinct senses, according to the enclosure that is made of them by others. “But,” saith Mr Goodwin, “to say that Paul might be ignorant whether his being at Jerusalem by Pentecost might be possible or no, and that he only resolved to make trial of the truth herein to the utmost, is to asperse this great apostle with a ridiculous imputation of ignorance.” And why so, I pray you? It is true he was a great apostle indeed; but it was no part of his apostolical furnishment to know in what space of time he might make a sea-voyage. Had Mr Goodwin ever been at sea, he would not have thought it ridiculous ignorance for a man to be uncertain in what space of time he might sail from Miletus to Ptolemais. Paul had a short time to finish this voyage in. He was at Philippi at the days of unleavened bread, and afterward, verse 6; thence he was five days sailing to Troas, verse 6; and there he abode seven days more. It may well be supposed that it cost him not less than seven days more to come to Miletus, verses 13–15. How long he tarried there is uncertain. Evident, however, it is, that there was a very small space of time left to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost. Paul was one that had met not only with calms and contrary winds, but shipwreck also, 2 Cor. xi. 25; so that he might well doubt whether it were possible for him to make his voyage in that space of time he had designed to do it in, and this surely without the least disparagement to his apostolical knowledge and wisdom. In brief, when this phrase relates to the cares and desires of men, and unto any thing of their ignorance of the issue, it may design the uncertainty of the event, as in this place and that of Rom. xii. 18; but when it points at the event itself, it peremptorily designs its accomplishment or not, according to the tendency of the expression, which affirms or denies. Notwithstanding, then, all evasions, the simple, direct, and proper sense of our Saviour’s words, — who is setting forth and aggravating the prevalency of seducers in evil times, by him then foretold, — is, that it shall be such and so great as that, if it were not impossible upon the account of their election, they should prevail against the very elect themselves. But, —