John Owen · 56 of 73

Chapter XV. Argument against the doctrime from the sins of believers. · Part 1

Chapter XV. Argument against the doctrine from the sins of believers.

Mr Goodwin’s fifth argument for the saints’ apostasy is taken from the consideration of the sins which they have fallen into, or possibly may so do, and it is thus proposed: sect. 20, —

“They who are in a capacity or possibility of perpetrating the works of the flesh are in a possibility of perishing, and consequently in a possibility of falling away, and that finally, from the grace and favour of God, in case they be in an estate of his grace and favour at the present; but the saints, or true believers, are in a possibility of perpetrating the works of the flesh: and therefore also they are in a possibility of perishing, and so of falling away from the grace and favour of God, wherein at present they stand. The major proposition of this argument, — to wit, They who are in a possibility of perpetrating or customarily acting the works of the flesh, are in a possibility of perishing, — is clearly proved from all such scriptures which exclude all workers of iniquity and fulfillers of the lusts of the flesh from the kingdom of God, of which sort are many: ‘Of the which,’ saith the apostle, speaking of the lusts of the flesh, adultery, fornication, etc., ‘I tell you, as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ So again, ‘For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.’ ‘Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.’ Yet again, ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?’ ‘Be not deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ From such passages as these, which are very frequent in the Scriptures, it is as clear as the light of the sun at noon-day, that they who may possibly commit such sins as those specified, adultery, fornication, idolatry, may as possibly perish and be for ever excluded the kingdom of God.”

Ans. Because, of all arguments whatever used against the truth we assert, this seems to me to wear the best colours on its back, and to have its face best painted, namely, with that plea of the “inconsistency of sin with the favour and acceptation of God,” seeming to have a tendency to caution believers in their ways and walkings to be more careful in watching against temptations, I shall more largely insist on what the Lord hath been pleased to reveal concerning the sins and failings of such as he is yet pleased to accept in a covenant of mercy; whom though he chastens and sorely rebukes, yet he gives not their souls over unto death, nor takes his loving-kindness from them for ever. Now, because the inside and strength of this objection consists in a comparison instituted between the sins of believers and the sins of unregenerate persons, which being laid in the balance are found of equal burdensomeness unto God, and therefore are in expectance of a like reward from him, I shall in the first place, before I come in particular to answer the argument proposed, manifest the difference that is between regenerate persons and unregenerate in their sinning, and consequently also between their sins; wherein such principles shall be laid down and proved as may with an easy application remove all that is added in the farther carrying on and endeavoured vindication of the argument in hand.

A foundation of this discourse we have laid in James i. 14, 15, “But every man is tempted,” saith the Holy Ghost, “when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” The Holy Ghost discovers the fountain of all sin, and pursues it in the streams of it into the dead sea, whereinto it falls. All sin whatever is from temptation, and that which tempts to all sin is the cause of all sin. This fountain of sin is here discovered, the principal, proper, criminal cause of sin, in the beginning of verse 14. The adversative “but” is exclusive of any other faulty cause of sin that should principally fall under our consideration, especially of God, of whom mention was made immediately before. Now, this is affirmed to be every man’s “lust.” The general way and means that this original of all sin useth for the production of it is also discovered, and that is “temptation.” Every man’s own lust tempts him. The progress also it makes in carrying on of sin whereunto it tempts is farther described in the several parts and degrees of it:— 1. It draws away and entices, and the persons towards whom it exerts this efficacy are “drawn away and enticed;” 2. It conceives, “Lust conceives.” The subject being prepared, answering its drawing away and enticing, without more ado it conceives sin; and then it brings forth into action, — that is, either into open perpetration or deliberate determination of its accomplishment; and then it “finisheth sin,” or comes up to the whole work that sin tends to; whereunto is subjoined the dismal end and issue of this progress of sin, which is “death.” Eternal death is in the womb of finished sin, and will be brought forth by it.

This being the progress of sin from the first rise, which is “lust,” to the last end, which is “death,” the way and path that the best and most refined unregenerate men in the world do never thoroughly forsake, though they may sometimes step out of it or be stopped in it, a way wherein whoever walks to the end may be sure to find the end, I shall consider the several particulars laid down, and show in them all, at least in the most material, the difference that is between believers and unbelievers whilst they do walk, or may walk, in this path, and then manifest where and when all saints break out of it for ever, so that they come not to the close thereof; and therein I shall give a full answer unto the whole strength and design of the argument in hand, which consisteth, as was said, in a comparison instituted between the sins and demerits of believers and unbelievers.

First, The fountain, principle, and cause, of all sin whatever, in all persons whatever, is “lust.” Every one’s own lust is the cause of his own sin. This is the mother, womb, and fomes of sin, which Paul says he had not been acquainted withal but by the law: Rom. vii. 7, “Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” That which in the entrance he calls “sin” indefinitely, in the close he particularly terms “lust,” as being the hidden, secret cause of all sin, and which, once discovered, swallows up the thoughts of all other sins, it being altogether in vain to deal with them, or to set a man’s self in opposition to them, whilst this sinful womb of them is alive and prevalent. This is that which we call original sin, as to that part of it which consists in the universal alienation of our hearts from God, and unconquerable, habitual, natural inclination of them to every thing that is evil; for this sin works in us “all manner of concupiscence,” Rom. vii. 8. This, I say, is the womb, cause, and principle of sin, both in believers and unbelievers, the root on which the bitter fruit of it doth grow, wherever it is. No man ever sins but it is from his own lust. And in this there is an agreement between the sins of believers and others, they are all from the same fountain; yet not such an agreement but that there is a difference herein also. For the clearing whereof observe, —

1. That by nature this lust, which is the principle of sin, is seated in all the faculties of the soul, receiving divers appellations according to the variety of the subjects wherein it is, and is sometimes expressed in terms of privation, want, and deficiency, sometimes by positive inclination to evil. In the understanding, it is blindness, darkness, giddiness, folly, madness; in the will, obstinacy and rebellion; in the heart and affections, pride, stubbornness, hardness, sensuality; in all, negatively and privatively, death; positively, lust, corruption, flesh, concupiscence, sin, the old man, and the like. There is nothing in the soul of a man that hath the least influence into any action as moral but is wholly possessed with this depraved, vicious habit, and exerts itself always and only in a suitableness thereunto.

2. That this lust hath so taken possession of men by nature, that, in reference to any spiritual act or duty, they are nothing else but lust and flesh: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” John iii. 6. It is all so, it is all spiritual flesh; that is, it is wholly and habitually corrupt, as to the doing any thing that is good. If any thing in a man might seem to be exempted, it should be his mind, the seat of all those things which are commonly called the “relics of the image of God;” but that also is flesh, as the apostle at large asserts it, Rom. viii., and “enmity against God.” Neither is it of any weight which is objected, “That there is in unregenerate men the knowledge of the truth, which they retain in unrighteousness, Rom. i. 18; conscience accusing and excusing, chap. ii. 15; the knowledge of sin which is by the law, with sundry other endowments; which,” they say, “doubtless are not flesh.” I answer, They are all flesh, in the sense that the Scripture useth that word. The Holy Ghost speaks of nothing in man, in reference unto any duty of obedience unto God, but it is either flesh or Spirit. These two comprehend every man in the world: Every man is either in the flesh or in the Spirit, Rom. viii. The utmost improvement of all natural faculties whatever, the most complete subjection whereunto they are brought by convictions, yet leaves the same impotency in them to spiritual good as they were born withal, the same habitual inclination to sin, however entangled and hampered from going out to the actual perpetrating of it; neither are they themselves any thing the better, nor hath God any thing of that glory by them which ariseth from the willing obedience of his creatures.

3. It being the state of every man’s proper lust which is the fountain of all sin, two things will follow:—

(1.) That in whomsoever it is, in its compass and power, as above described, as it is in every unregenerate man, however convinced of sin, he sins with his full and whole consent. All that is within him consents to every sin he commits. Unregenerate men sin with their whole hearts and souls. In every act their carnal minds are not, will not be, subject to the law of God. Their wills and all their affections delight in sin; and this because there is no principle in them that should make any opposition to sin, — I mean such a spiritual opposition as would really take off from their full consent. It is true, conscience repines, witnesses against sin, reproves, rebukes, excuses or accuses: but conscience is no real principle of operation, but either a judge of what is done or to be done, or a moral inducer to doing or not doing; and whatever conscience doth, however it tumultuate, rebuke, chide, persuade, trouble, cry, and the like, whatever conviction of the guilt of sin may show into the judgment, yet sin hath the consent of the whole soul. Every thing that hath a real influence into operation consents thereto, originally and radically, however any principle may be dared by conscience. To take off any thing from full consent, there must be something of a spiritual repugnancy in the mind and will, which when lust is thus enthroned there is not.

(2.) That sin reigneth in such persons. Many have been the inquiries of learned men about the reigning of sin; as, what sins may be said to reign, and what not? whether sins of ignorance may reign as well as sins against knowledge? what little sins may be said to reign as well as great? whether frequent relapses into any sin prove that sin to be reigning? whether sin may reign in a regenerate person? or whether a saint may fall into reigning sin? whereabout divines of great note and name have differed, all upon a false bottom and supposal. The Scripture gives no ground for any such inquiries, or disputes, or cases of conscience, as some men have raised hereupon; and, indeed, I would this were the only instance of men’s creating cases of conscience and answering them, when indeed and in truth there are no such things; so ensnaring the consciences of men, and entangling more by their cases than they deliver by their resolutions. The truth is, there is no mention of any reigning sin, or the reigning of any sin, in the whole book of God, taking sin for this or that particular sin; but of the reign of this indwelling, original lust, or fountain of all sin, there is frequent mention. Whilst that holds its power and universality in the soul, and is not restrained nor straitened by the indwelling Spirit of grace, with a new vital principle of no less extent and of more power than it, be the actual sins few or more, known or unknown, little or great, all is one. Sin reigns, and such a person is under the power and dominion of sin. So that, in plain terms, to have sin reign is to be unconverted; and to have sin not to reign is to be converted, to have received a new principle of life from above. This is evident from the 5th and 6th chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, the seat of this doctrine of reigning sin. The opposition insisted on by the apostle, is between the reign of sin and grace; and in pursuit thereof he manifests how true believers are translated from the one to the other. To have sin reign, is to be in a state of sin; to have grace reign, is to be in a state of grace. So chap. v. 21, “As sin hath reigned unto death, so grace reigneth through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” The sin he speaks of is that whereof he treats in all that chapter, the sin of nature, the lust whereof we speak. This by nature reigneth unto death; but when grace comes by Jesus Christ, the soul is delivered froth the power thereof. So in the whole 6th chapter it is our change of state and condition that the apostle insists on, in our delivery from the reign of sin; and he tells us this is that that destroys it, our being under grace: Verse 14, “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Plainly, then, there are two lords and rulers; and these are, original or indwelling sin, and grace or the Spirit of it. The first lord the apostle discovers, with his entrance upon his rule and dominion, chap. v., and this all men by nature are under; the second he describes, chap. vi., which sets out the rule and reign of grace in believers by Jesus Christ. And then, thirdly, the place that both these lords have, in this life, in a believer, chap. vii. This, then, is the only reigning sin; and in whomsoever it is in its power and compass, as it is in all unregenerate men, in them, and in them only, doth sin reign, and every sin they commit is with full consent (as was manifested before), in exact willing obedience to the sovereign lord that reigns in them.

4. Observe that the grace, new creature, principle, or spiritual life, that is given to, bestowed on, and wrought in, all and only believers, be it in the lowest and most remiss degree that can be imagined, is yet no less universally spread over the whole soul than the contrary habit and principle of lust and sin whereof we have spoken. In the understanding it is light in the Lord; in the will, life; in the affections, love, delight, etc., those being reconciled who were alienated by wicked works. Wherever there is any thing the least of grace, there something of it is in every thing of the soul that is a capable seat for good or evil habits or dispositions. He that is “in Christ is a new creature,” 2 Cor. v. 17; not renewed in one or other particular, — “he is a new creature.”

5. That wherever true grace is, in what degree soever, there it bears rule, though sin be in the same subject with it. As sin reigns before grace comes, so grace reigns when it doth once come. And the reason is, because sin having the first rule and dominion in the heart, abiding there, there is neither room nor place for grace but what is made by conquest; now, whoever enters into a possession by right of conquest., what resistance soever be made, if he prevail to a conquest, he reigns. In every regenerate man, though grace be never so weak, and corruption never so strong, yet properly the sovereignty belongs to grace. Having entered upon the soul and all the powers of it by conquest, so long as it abides there it doth reign. So that to say a regenerate man may fall into reigning sin, as it is commonly expressed (though, as we have manifested, no sin reigns but the sin of nature, as no good act reigneth but the Spirit and habit of grace), and yet continue regenerate, is all one as to say he may have and not have true grace at the same time.

Now, from these considerations some farther inferences may be made:— (1.) That in every regenerate person there are, in a spiritual sense, two principles of all his actings, — two wills. There is the will of the flesh, and there is the will of the Spirit. A regenerate man is spiritually and in Scripture expression two men, — a “new man” and an “old,” an “inward man” and a “body of death,” — and hath two wills, having two natures, not as natural faculties, but as moral principles of operation; and this keeps all his actions, as moral, from being perfect, absolute, or complete in any kind. He doth good with his whole heart upon the account of sincerity, but he doth not good with his whole heart upon the account of perfection; and when he doth evil, there is still a non-submitting, an unconsenting principle. This the apostle complains of and declares, Rom. vii. 19–22, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”

There is an “I” and an “I” at opposition, a willing and not willing, a doing and not doing, a delighting and not delighting, all in the same person. So that there is this difference at the entrance between what sin soever of regenerate persons and others: Though the principle of sinning be the same, for the kind and nature of it, in them and others, — all sin, every man’s sins, be who he will, believer or unbeliever, being tempted by his own lust, — yet that lust possesseth the whole soul, and takes in the virtual consent of the whole man, notwithstanding the control and checks of conscience and the light of the judgment, in him that is unregenerate; but in every regenerate person there is an unconsenting principle, which is as truly the man himself, that doth not concur in sin, that doth expressly dissent from it, as the other is from whence it flows.

(2.) That sin neither can, doth, nor ever shall, reign in regenerate persons. The reason of this I acquainted you with before; and the apostle thinks this a sufficient proof of this assertion, “Because they are under grace,” Rom. vi. 14. Whilst the principle of grace abides in them, which reigns wherever it be, or the free acceptance of God in the gospel is towards them, it is impossible, upon the account of any actual sin whatever whereinto they may fall, that sin should reign in them. Nothing gives sin a reign and dominion but a total defect of all true grace whatever, not only as to the exerting itself, but as to any habitual relics of it. It may be overwhelmed sometimes with temptations and corruptions, but it is grace still, as the least spark of fire is fire, though it should be covered with never so great a heap of ashes; and it reigns then.

(3.) That regenerate persons sin not with their whole and full consent. Consent may be taken two ways:— First, Morally, for the approbation of the thing done. So the apostle says, that in the inward man he did “consent to the law that it was good,” Rom. vii. 16; that is, he did approve it as such, like it, delight in it as good: and thus a regenerate man never consents to sin, no, nor unregenerate persons neither, unless they are such as, “being past feeling, are given up to work lasciviousness with greediness.” A regenerate person is so far from thus consenting to sin, that before it, in it, after it, he utterly condemns, disallows, hates it, as in himself and by himself committed. Secondly, Consent may be taken in a physical sense, for the concurrence of the commanding and acting principles of the soul unto its operations. And in this sense an unregenerate man sins with his full consent and his whole will. A regenerate man doth not, cannot do so: for though there is not in that consent to sin which his will, inclined by the remaining disposition of sin in it, doth give, an actual sensible reaction of the other principle, yet there is an express not-consenting; and by the power that it hath in the soul (for habits have power in and over the subjects wherein they are), it preserves it from being wholly engaged into sin. And this is the great intendment of the apostle, Rom. vii. 19–22.

From what hath been spoken will easily appear what answer may be given to the former argument, to wit, that notwithstanding any sins that either the Scripture or the experience of men doth evince that the saints may fall into, yet that they never sin or perpetrate sin with their full and whole consent, whereby they should be looked upon in and under their sins in the same state and condition with unregenerate persons, in whom sin reigneth, committing the same sin. And how insufficient any thing produced by Mr Goodwin in defence of the argument laid down at the entrance of this chapter, is to remove the answer given unto it from believers not sinning with their whole consent, may easily be demonstrated. This he thus proposeth:—

“Some, to maintain this position, that all the sins of true believers are sins of infirmity, lay hold on this shield: ‘Such men,’ they say, ‘never sin with their whole wills, or with full consent; therefore they never sin but through infirmity.’ That they never sin with full consent they conceive they prove sufficiently from that of the apostle, ‘For the good that I would I do not: but the evil that I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.’ I answer, first, That the saints cannot sin but with their whole wills or full consents is undeniably proved by this consideration, — namely, because otherwise there should be not only a plurality or diversity, but also a contrariety of wills in the same person at one and the same instant of time, namely, when the supposed act of evil is produced. Now, it is an impossibility of the first evidence that there should be a plurality of acts, and these contrary one to the other, in the same subject or agent at one or the same instant of time. It is true, between the first movings of the flesh in a man towards the committing of the sin and the completing of the sin by an actual and external patration of it, there may be successively in him not only a plurality but even a contrariety of volitions or motions of the will, according to what the Scripture speaketh concerning the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; but when the flesh, having prevailed in the combat, bringeth forth her desire into act, the Spirit ceaseth from his act of lusting: otherwise it would follow that the flesh is greater and stronger in her lusting than the Spirit of God is in his, and that when the flesh lusteth after the perpetration of such or such a sin, the Spirit as to the hindering of it lusteth but in vain; which is contrary to that of the apostle, ‘Greater is he that is in you’ (speaking, as it is clear, of the Spirit of God unto true believers) ‘than he that is in the world,’ meaning Satan and all his auxiliaries, — sin, flesh, corruption.”

Ans. What we intend by the saints not sinning with their whole wills hath been declared. That there is not a consistency in the explanation we have given Mr Goodwin asserts, because it would infer “a plurality, yea a contrariety of wills in the same person at the same time.” That there is a plurality, yea a contrariety of wills, in the Scripture sense of the expression of the will of a man, was before from the Scripture declared; not a plurality of wills in a physical sense, as the will is a natural faculty of the soul, but in a moral and analogical sense, as it is taken for a habit or principle of good or evil. The will is a natural faculty. One nature hath one will. In every regenerate man there are two natures, the new or divine, and the old or corrupted. In the same sense, there are in him two wills, as was declared. But saith he, “It is an impossibility of the first evidence, that there should be a plurality of acts in the same subject at the same time, and these contrary one to another.” But, —

1. If you intend acts in a moral consideration, unless you add, “About the same object,” which you do not, this assertion is so far from any evidence of truth, that it is ridiculously false. May not the same person love God and hate the devil at the same time? But, —

2. How pass you so suddenly from a plurality of wills to a plurality of acts? By the will we intend (in the sense wherein we speak of it) a habit, not any act, — that is, the will as habitually invested with a new principle, and not as actually willing from thence and by virtue thereof. Arminius, from whom our author borrows this discourse, fell not into this sophistry; he tells you, “There cannot be contrary wills or volitions about the same act.” But is it with Mr Goodwin or Arminius an impossibility that there should be a mixed action, partly voluntary and partly involuntary? Actions whose principles are from without, by persuasion, may be; so a man’s throwing his goods into the sea to save his own life. Now, the principles whereof we speak, flesh and grace, are internal and contrary; and shall not the actions that proceed from a faculty wherein such contrary principles have their residence he partly voluntary, partly involuntary?

But he tells you, “That though there might be lusting of the Spirit against the flesh before the act of sin, yet when it comes to the acting of it then it ceaseth; and so the act is wrought with the whole will.”

1. Though this were so, yet this doth not prove but that the action is mixed, and not absolutely and wholly voluntary. Mixed actions are so esteemed from the antecedent deliberation and dissent, though the will be at length prevailed upon thereunto; and I have showed before that in the very action there is a virtual dissent, because of the opposite principle that is in the will. But, —

2. How doth it appear that the Spirit doth not “lust against the flesh” (though not to a prevalency) even in the exertion of the acts of sin? In every good act that a man doth, because evil is present with him, though the prevalency be on the part of the Spirit and the principle of grace, yet the flesh also with its lustings doth always in part corrupt it; thence are all the spots, stains, and imperfections of the holy things and duties of the saints. And if the flesh in its lusting will immix itself with our good actions to their defilement and impairing, why may not the Spirit in the ill [actions] not only immix itself and its lustings therewith, but bear off from the full influence of the will into them which otherwise it would have?