John Owen · 57 of 73

Chapter XV. Argument against the doctrime from the sins of believers. · Part 2

But saith he, “If the Spirit doth not cease lusting before the flesh bring forth the act of sin, then is the Spirit conquered by the flesh, contrary to that of the apostle, 1 John iv. 4, ‘Stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world.’ ” But, —

1. If from hence the flesh must be thought and conceived to be stronger than the Spirit, because it prevails in any act unto sin, notwithstanding the contending of the Spirit, how much more must it be judged to prevail over it and to conquer it if it cause it utterly to cease, and not to strive at all! He that restrains another that he shall not oppose him at all hath a greater power than he who conquers him in his resistance. But why doth Mr Goodwin fear lest the flesh should be asserted to be stronger in us than the Spirit? Is not his whole design to prove that it is, or may be, so much stronger and more prevalent than it, that whereas it is confessed on all hands that the Spirit doth never wholly conquer the flesh, so that it shall not remain in the saints in this life, yet that the flesh doth wholly prevail over the Spirit and conquer it, to an utter expulsion of it out of the hearts of them in whom it is?

2. In the prevalency of the flesh, it is not the Spirit himself that is conquered, but only some motions and actings of him in the heart. Now, though some particular actings and motions of his may not come out eventually unto success, yet if he generally bear rule in the heart, he is not to be said, even as in us and acting in us, not to be stronger than the flesh. He is, as in us, on this account said to be “stronger than he that is in the world,” because, notwithstanding all the opposition that is against us, he preserveth us in our state and condition of acceptation with God, and walking with him with an upright heart, in good works and duties for the most part, though sometimes the flesh prevails unto sin, from which yet he recovers us by repentance.

3. To speak a little to Mr Goodwin’s sense. By the Spirit’s insufficiency, it is manifest, from the text urged, and from what follows in the same place, that he intends not a spiritual vital principle in the will, having its residence there, with its contrary principle, the flesh (perhaps he will grant no such thing), but the Spirit of God himself. How, now, doth this Spirit lust? Not formally, doubtless, but by causing us so to do. And how doth it do that, in Mr Goodwin’s judgment? Merely by persuading of us so to do. So that to have the flesh prevail against the Spirit is nothing, in his sense, but to have sin prevail and the motives of the flesh above the motives used by the Spirit; which may be done, and yet the Spirit continue unquestionably stronger than the flesh.

4. The sum is, If the Spirit and the flesh, lust and grace, may be looked on as habitual qualities and principles in the wills of the same persons, so that though a man hath but one will, yet, by reason of these contrary qualities, he is to be esteemed as having two diverse principles of operation, it is evident that, having contrary inclinations continually, the will hath in its actings a relation to both these principles, so that no sin is committed by such an one with his whole will and full consent. That contrary qualities in a remiss degree may be in the same subject is known “lippis et tonsoribus.” These adverse principles, the flesh and Spirit, are as those contrary qualities of the same subject; and the inclinations, yea, and the elicit acts of the will, are of the same nature with them: so that in the same act they may both be working, though not with equal efficacy. Notwithstanding any thing, then, said to the contrary, it appears that in the sins which the saints fall into, they do not sin with their whole wills and full consent; which of itself is a sufficient answer to the foregoing argument.

Sect. 25 contains a discourse too long to be imposed upon the reader by a transcription. There are three parts of it: the first rendering a reason whence it is, that, “if the Spirit be stronger than the flesh, yet the flesh doth often prevail in its lusting.” The second, “The way of the Spirit’s return, to act in us after its motions have been rejected.” The third endeavours a proof of the proposition denied, “That the saints sin with their full and whole consent,” by the example of David.

For the first, he tells you, “That the Spirit acts not to the just efficacy of its vigour and strength, but only when his preventing motions are entertained and seconded with a suitable concurrence in the hearts and wills of men; through a deficiency and neglect whereof he is said to be ‘grieved’ and: ‘quenched,’ — that is, to cease from other actings or movings in men. This truth is the ground of such and such sayings in the epistles of Paul: ‘For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’ ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,’ ” etc.

Ans. The Spirit here intended by Mr Goodwin is the holy and blessed Spirit of grace. What his actings to the just efficacy of his vigour and strength are, Mr Goodwin doth not explain; nor, indeed, notwithstanding the seeming significancy of that expression, is he able. It must be to act either as much as he can or as much as he will. That the Holy Spirit, in opposing sin, acts to the utmost extent of his omnipotency in any, I suppose will not be affirmed. If it be as much as he will, then the sense is, he will not in such cases act as much as he will. What that signifies we want some other expressive phrase to declare. To let this pass, let us see, in the next place, what his acting to this just efficacy are suspended upon; it is, then, in case “his first preventing motions be received and seconded.” But then, secondly, what are these “first preventing motions” of the Spirit? and what is it to entertain them with a suitable concurrence of the will? For the first, Mr Goodwin tells us in this section they are “motions of a cool and soft inspiration.” Such cloudy expressions, in a thing of this moment, are we forced to embrace! “Preventing motions of the Spirit” are either internal physical acts, in, with, and upon the wills of men, working in them to will and to do (called “preventing” from the actings of the wills themselves), or they are moral insinuations and persuasions to good, according to the analogy of the doctrine Mr Goodwin hath espoused. It is the latter only that are here intended. The “preventing motions of the Spirit” are his moral persuasions of the will to the good proposed to its consideration.

See, then, in the next place, what it is to “second and entertain these motions with a suitable concurrence in the heart and will.” Now, this must be either to yield obedience to these motions, and do the good persuaded unto, or something else. If any thing else, we desire to know of Mr Goodwin what it is, and wherein it consists. If it be to do the good persuaded to, then what becomes, I pray you, of those “subsequent helps” which are suspended upon this obedience, when the thing itself is already performed which their help and assistance is required unto? They may well be called “subsequent motions” which are never used nor applied but when the things whereunto they move and provoke are beforehand accomplished and performed; yea, they are suspended on that condition.

Farther; wherein do these “subsequent helps,” as it is expressed, which move at a more high and glorious rate, consist? We have had it sufficiently argued already, to a thorough conviction of what is Mr Goodwin’s judgment in this matter, namely, that he acknowledgeth no operations in or upon the wills of men but what are moral, by the way of persuasion, contending, to the utmost efficacy of his vigour and strength in disputing, that there is an inconsistency between physical, internal operations in or upon the will of men, and moral exhortations or persuasions, as to the production of the same effect. This, then, is the frame of this fine discourse: “If, upon the Spirit’s first persuasion to good, men yield obedience and do it accordingly, the Spirit will then with more power and vigour move them when they have done it, and persuade them to do it.” That this discourse of his doth readily administer occasion and advantage to retort upon him his third argument, formerly considered, of imposing incoherent and inconsistent reasonings and actings upon God in his dealings with men, the intelligent reader will quickly find out; — and it were an easy thing to erect a theatre, and, upon Mr Goodwin’s principles, to personate the Almighty with an incongruous and incoherent discourse; but we fear God.

Thirdly, That the Spirit is grieved with the sins of believers, and their walking unworthily of, or not answerably to, the grace they have received, is clear, Eph. iv. 30: the apostle admonisheth believers to abstain from the sins he there enumerates, and consequently [from] others of the like import, [and] having put on and learned Christ unto sanctification, that they do not grieve the Spirit, from whom they have received that great mercy and privilege of being “sealed to the day of redemption.” But that therefore the subsequent and more effectual motions of the Spirit are not free as the first, but suspended on our performance of that which he first moves unto, and so, consequently, that there is neither first nor second motion of the Spirit but may be rendered useless and fruitless, or be for ever perverted, is an argument not unlike that of the Papists, “Peter, feed my sheep; therefore the pope is head of the church.”

The ensuing discourse also is not to be passed without a little animadversion. Thus, then, he proceeds: “Believers,” saith he, “do then mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit, when they join their wills unto his in his preventing motions of grace, and so draw and obtain farther strength and assistance from him in order to the great and difficult work of mortification; in respect of which concurrence also with the Spirit, in his first and more gentle applications of himself to them, they are said to be ‘led by the Spirit,’ as in their comportment with him, in his higher and farther applications, they become filled with the Spirit, according to the expression of the apostle, ‘Be ye filled with the Spirit;’ that is, ‘Follow the Spirit close in his present motions and suggestions within you, and you shall be filled with him;’ that is, ‘Ye shall find him moving and assisting you upon all occasions at a higher and more glorious rate.’ ”

Ans. 1. What this “joining of our wills to the will of the Spirit” is was in part manifested before. The “will of the Spirit” is that we be mortified. His motions hereunto are his persuasions that we be so. To join our wills to his, is in our will to answer the will of the Spirit; that is, upon the Spirit’s motions, we mortify ourselves. By this also, he tells us, we draw or obtain farther strength or assistance from the Spirit for that work which we have done already. But how so? Why, he tells you afterward that this is the “law of the Spirit.” It seems, then, that by doing one thing, we obtain or procure the assistance of the Spirit for another, and that by a law. I ask, By what law? by the law of works? By that law the apostle tells you that we do not at all receive the Spirit; therefore, by a parity of reason, we obtain not any farther supplies from him by that law. By the law of faith or grace? That law knows nothing of such terms as that we should by any acting of ours procure the Holy Spirit of God, which he freely bestows according to the main tenor of that law. Farther; how is this second grace obtained, and what is the law of the Spirit therein? Is it obtained ex congruo or ex condigno? Produce the rule of God’s proceeding with his saints, or any of the sons of men, in the matter of any gracious behovement of his, and you will outdo whatever your predecessors, whether Pelagians, Papists, Arminians, or Socinians, could yet attain unto. Our Lord hath told us that “without him we can do nothing; yea, that all our sufficiency is of God, and without him we cannot think a good thought; that he works in us to will and to do, — not only beginning, but perfecting every good work, fulfilling in us all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power;” ascribing the whole of the great work of salvation to himself and his Holy Spirit, working freely and graciously as he wills and pleaseth. Of this order of his dealing with men, that his first or preventing grace should be free, but his subsequent grace procured by us and bestowed on us according to our working and co-operation with his first grace, invented by Pelagius, Julianus, and Celestinus, and here introduced anew by Mr Goodwin, he informs us nothing at all. In brief, this whole discourse is the mere Pelagian figment, wrapped up in general, cloudy expressions, with allusions to some Scripture phrases (which profane as well as erring spirits are prone to) concerning the bestowing of the grace of God according to the differing deportments and deservings of men, differencing themselves from others, and, in comparison of them, holding out what they have not received. But, —

2. “To answer the first and gentle motions of the Spirit is to be led by him, and then we shall be filled with the Spirit.” But how doth Mr Goodwin prove that to be “led by the Spirit” is to “answer his first gentle motions,” and thereby to obtain his farther and more glorious actings and persuasions? Is it safe thus to make bold with the word of God? or is not this to wrest it, as ignorant and unstable men do, unto perdition? Saints being “led by the Spirit of God,” and “walking after the Spirit,” are, in Rom. viii., expressions of that effectual sanctification, exerting itself in their conversation and walking with God, which the Spirit of God worketh in them, and which it is their duty to come up unto, in opposition to “living or walking after the flesh.” If this now be attained, and the saints come up unto it, antecedently to the subsequent grace of the Spirit, what is that subsequent grace which is so gloriously expressed, and wherein doth it consist? Neither doth that expression of “Led by the Spirit” hold out the concurrence or “comportment” of their wills, as it is phrased, with the gentle motion of the Spirit, but the powerful and effectual operation of the Spirit, as to their holiness and walking with God. Πνεύματι Θεοῦ ἄγονται is not, “They comport or concur with the Spirit in his motions;” but, “By the Spirit they are acted and carried out to the things of God.” Neither hath this any relation to or coherence with that of the Eph. v. 18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” Neither is there any such intendment in the expression as is here intimated, of a promise of receiving more of the Spirit, on condition of that compliance, concurrence, and comportance with his motions, as is intimated. That the Spirit is sometimes taken for his graces, sometimes for his gifts habitually, sometimes for his actual operations, is known. The apostle in that place, dissuading the Ephesians from turning aside to such carnal, sinful refreshments as men of the world went out unto, bids them “not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess,” but to be “filled with the Spirit;” to take their refreshment in the joys of the Spirit, “speaking to themselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” verses 18, 19. Could I once imagine that Mr Goodwin had the least thought that indeed there was any thing in the Scripture looking towards his intendment in the producing of it, I should farther manifest the mistake thereof. To play thus with the word of God is a liberty we dare not make use of yet.

3. He concludes, “That the reason why believers are overcome by the lustings of the flesh is, not because the Spirit is not stronger than the flesh, but because men have more will to hearken to the lusts of the flesh than to the Spirit.”

“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum.”

This is the issue of all the former swelling discourse: “Men’s sins are from their own wills, and not because the Spirit is not stronger than the flesh.” And who ever doubted it? The conclusion you were to prove is, “That believers sin with their whole will and full consent of their wills, and that the new principle that is in them doth not cause their wills to decline from acting in sin to the just efficacy of all their strength and vigour.” But of this οὐδὲ γρῦ. For the insinuation in that expression of the “will hearkening to the lusting of the flesh, and not to the lusting of the Spirit,” in a sovereign indifferency to both, and a liberty for the performance of either, in a way exclusive of good or vicious habitual principles of operation in the will itself, I shall not now divert to the consideration of.

What else remains in this section either doth not concern the business in hand, as the fine notion of the Spirit’s return to move believers, when his motions have been rejected, with the manner thereof, according to his conception, must be afterward considered apart, — as the fall of David into adultery and murder, if there be need to go forth to the consideration of his examples and instances; and therefore I shall not longer insist upon it. Only, the close of it, consisting of an inference made from some words of Peter Martyr, deserves consideration. “Upon David’s sin,” saith he, “Peter Martyr makes this observation, That the saints themselves, being once fallen into sin, would always remain in the pollution of it, did not God by his mighty word bring them out of it: which saying of Martyr clearly also implies that the saints many times sin with their whole wills and full consents; because, were any part of their wills bent against the committing of the sin at the time when it is committed, they would questionless return to themselves and repent immediately after, the heat and violence of the lust being over, by reason of the satisfaction that hath been given thereunto.”

Ans. The close insinuation in Peter Martyr’s words, of the saints sinning with their whole wills, and the logic of Mr Goodwin’s inference from them, I believe is very much hidden from the reader. To the theology of it, I say that the saints, παρὰ τὸ πλεῖστον, do immediately return to God by repentance, as Peter did, upon their surprisals into sin; nor have they any rest in a condition of the eclipse of the countenance of God from them, as upon sin it is always, more or less. Of David’s particular case mention may afterward be made. But the proof, “that they sin with their whole wills and full consent, because they would continue in sin did not the Lord relieve and deliver them by his word and grace,” is admirable. I would adventure to cast this argument into as many shapes as it is tolerably capable of, had I the least hope to cause it to appear any way argumentative. We deny, then, that believers have any such power habitually residing in them as whereby, without any new supplies of the Spirit or concurrence of actual grace, they can effectually and eventually recover themselves from any sin whatever; which supplies of the Spirit and grace we say, and have proved, are freely promised to them in the covenant of grace. But what will hence follow to the supportment of Mr Goodwin’s hypothesis, “That therefore in all their sins, or any of their sins, they sin with the full and whole consent of their wills,” I suppose he alone knows.

Sect. 26, he endeavours to take off that of the apostle, Rom. vii. 19–22, from appearing against him in this cause of the saints’ sinning with their whole wills and consents, not not-willing the things they do. To this end he tells us, “That when the apostle saith, ‘The evil which I would not, that I do,’ his meaning is, not that he did that which, at the same time that he did it, he was not willing either in whole or in part to do, but that he sometimes did that, upon a surprisal by temptation or through incogitancy, which he was not habitually willing or disposed in the inward man to do; but this no ways implies but that, at the time when he did the evil he speaks of, he did it with the full and entire consent of his will.”

Ans. 1. It is probable the apostle knew his own meaning, and also how to express it, having so good a Teacher to that end and purpose as he had. Now he assures us, in the person of a regenerate man, that as what he would he did not, so what he did he would not, he hated it; and again, he did that which he would not, and therein consented to the law, by his not-willing of that he did, that it was good, verses 15, 16: which, whether it express not a renitency of the will to that which was done in part, and so far as to make the action itself remiss, and not to enwrap the whole consent of the will, he farther declares, verse 17, telling us that there is a perfect, unconsenting “I,” or internal principle, in the very doing of evil: “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

2. The apostle doth not say what he was not habitually willing to, but what he was habitually unwilling to, — that is, what the bent of his will lay habitually against, having actual inclinations and elicit acts always to the contrary, though sometimes overcome. Neither in his discoursing of it cloth he mention at all the surprisal into sin upon incogitancy and inadvertency, but the constant frame and temper of a regenerate man upon the powerful acting and striving of the principle of lust and sin dwelling in him and remaining with him; which, saith the apostle, doth often carry him out to do those things which are contrary to the principle of the inward man, which habitually condemns and actually not-wills, or rather hills, the things that are so done, even in their doing. And this doth manifest sufficiently, that when he did the evil he speaks of, he did it not with the full and entire consent of his will, as men do in whom there is no such principle opposite to sin and sinning as is in him that is regenerate, there being very much taken off by the habitual principle of grace that is in him, and its constant inclination to the contrary.

But he farther argues, “If we shall affirm that the contrary bent or motion of his will at other times is a sufficient proof that when he did the evil we speak of, he did it not with his whole will or fulness of consent, and so make this doing of evil or committing of sin without fullness of consent, in such a sense, a distinguishing character betwixt men regenerate and unregenerate, we shall bring Herod and Pilate, and probably Judas himself, into the list of men regenerate, with a thousand more whom the Scripture knows not under any such name or relation, — namely, all those whose judgments and consciences stand against the evil of the ways and practices wherein they walk.”

And this he proves at large to the end of the section, in the instance of Herod and Pilate proceeding, against their own judgments and consciences, in the killing of John and of our Saviour.

Ans. 1. We do not only assert a contrary bent and inclination in the wills of believers at other times, but also that, in and under the prevalency of indwelling sin, there is in them an “I” that cloth it not, and a not-willing it, from a principle, though, by reason of the present prevalency of the other, its actings and stirrings are not so sensibly perceived; so that though they prevail not to the total prevention of the will from exerting the act of sin, yet they prevail to the impairing, weakening, and making remiss its consent thereunto.

2. The residue of this paragraph is intolerably sophistical, confounding the renitency of the inward man, the principle of grace that is in the wills of believers, with the convictions of the judgments and consciences of unregenerate persons, and their striving against sin on that account. The judgments and consciences of wicked men tell them what they ought to do and what they ought not to do, without respect to the principle in their wills that is predominant; but the apostle mentions the actings of the will itself from his own regenerate principle. We wholly deny that any unregenerate man hath any vital principle in his will not-consenting to sin, whatever the dictates of his judgment and conscience may be, or how effectual soever to prevail unto an abstinence from sin. To discover the differences that are between the contest that is between the wills in unregenerate men, wholly set upon sin on the one hand, and their judgments and consciences, enlightened to an apprehension and approving of better things on the other, and the contest that is between the flesh and Spirit lusting to contrary things in the same will, as it is in regenerate men, is a common-place that I shall not go forth unto. We grant, then, that in unregenerate men there may be, there is, and was in some degree perhaps in Herod and in Pilate, a conviction of conscience and judgment that the things they do are evil; but we say withal, that all this being foreign to their wills, it hinders not but that they sin with the full, uncontrolled consent of their wills, which are at perfect liberty, or rather in perfect bondage, unto sin. That the “Spirit should lust against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit,” both in the same will (as it appears they do, Gal. v. 19–23, for the fruits that they both bring forth are acts of the will), in any unregenerate man, we deny. And this is that, and not the former, which abates and takes off from the will’s consent to sin.

He concludes the whole: “And to the passage of the apostle, mentioned Rom. vii., I answer farther, that when he saith, ‘The evil which I would not, that do I,’ he doth not speak of what he always and in all cases did, much less of what was possible for him to do, but of what he did ordinarily and frequently, or of what was very incident unto him, through the infirmity of the flesh, namely, through inconsiderateness and anticipation by temptations to do such things which, when he was in a watchful and considerate posture and from under the malignant influence of a temptation, he was altogether averse unto. Now, what a man doth ordinarily is one thing, and what he doth sometimes and in some particular cases, especially what it is possible for him to do, is another. That true believers, whilst such, ordinarily sin not upon worse terms than those mentioned by the apostle concerning his sinning, I easily grant; but it no ways followeth from hence, that therefore they never sin upon other terms, much less that it is impossible that they should sin upon others. And thus we see, all things thoroughly and impartially argued, and debated to and fro, that even true believers themselves, as well as others, may do those works of the flesh which exclude from the kingdom of God, and that in respect thereof they are subject to this exclusion as well as other men.”

1. The sum of this part of the reply is, That what Paul speaks is true of the ordinary course of believers, but not of extraordinary surprisals. This seems, I say, to be the tendency of it, though the direct sense of the whole is not so obvious to me. By that expression, “The evil that I would not, that I do,” you intend either the expression of “he would not,” or “he did.” If the latter, then you say he did not sin ordinarily and frequently, but only upon surprisals; which is freely granted, but it is not at all to your purpose, but rather much against it. If you intend that part of it which holds out his renitency against the evil he did, in the expression of “I would not,” then you say it was not ordinary with the apostle to hill the evil that he did, but in case of surprisal to sin: which I believe is not intended; for is it credible that any one should think that, in the ordinary course of a man’s walking, there should be no opposition made to sin, [the] falling whereinto men are liable [unto], but upon “surprisals and anticipations by temptation,” as it is phrased there should? Igor is it [credible], on the other side, that he intends the thing that he did ordinarily, but [when he] was surprised by temptation then it might be otherwise. But, first, is a saint to be supposed to sin ordinarily, to sin not prevailed on by temptation? Is not all sin from temptation? Do they sin actually, but upon surprisal of temptation? To impose this upon the apostle, that he should say, “Truly, for the most part, or in my ordinary walking, I do not sin, but withal I will it not; but when I am surprised with temptations then it is otherwise with me, there is no renitency in my will to sin,” is doubtless to wrong him. He doth not limit his not-willing of the evil he did to any consideration whatever, but speaks of it generally, as the constant state and condition of things with him.