John Owen · 59 of 73

Chapter XV. Argument against the doctrime from the sins of believers. · Part 4

2. If “to do the works of the flesh” imports with you, as indeed in itself it doth, the predominancy and dominion of the flesh in them that do the works thereof, we wholly deny that believers can so do the works of the flesh; as upon other reasons, so partly because they sin out of infirmity, which sufficiently argues that the flesh hath not the dominion in them, for then they should not through infirmity be captivated to it, but should willingly “yield up their members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.”

3. The description you give of a sin of infirmity, from Gal. vi. 1, is that alone which we acknowledge may befall believers, though it hath sometimes befallen them in greater sins. It is evident from hence that a sin becometh a sin of infirmity, not from the nature of it, but from the manner of men’s falling into it. The greatest actual sin may be a sin of infirmity, and the least a sin of presumption. It is possible a believer may be overtaken, or rather surprised, with any sin, so he be overtaken or surprised. A surprisal into sin through the power of temptation, subtlety of Satan, strength of indwelling sin, contrary to the habitual, standing frame of the heart (not always neither through a defect of watchfulness), is all that we grant a believer may be liable to; and so, upon Mr Goodwin’s confession, he sins only out of infirmity, such sins being not exclusive of the love and favour of God. And, therefore, —

4. We say that true believers cannot be said to “walk according to the flesh,” to “do the works of the flesh,” to “do the lusts and desires of the flesh,” which the Holy Ghost so cautions them against; which, as Mr Goodwin observes, are “none of them charged upon true believers, but only upon such persons as are enemies of God and children of wrath.” So that those expressions hold out to believers only what they ought to avoid, in the use of the means which God graciously affords them, and do not discover any thing of the will of God, that he will suffer them, contrary to his many faithful promises, to fall into them. And so the close of this discourse is contrary to the beginning, Mr Goodwin granting that true believers cannot fall into these sins, but only such as are enemies to God; and yet he hath no way to prove that true believers may cease to be so but because they may fall into these sins, which that they may do he here eminently denies. Wherefore he adds:—

“If by ‘sinning out of malice’ they mean sinning with deliberation, with plotting and contriving the methods and means of their sinning, — sinning against judgment, against the dictates of conscience (and what they should mean by sinning out of malice but sinning upon such terms as these I understand not), — certain it is that true believers may so sin out of malice, or at least such as were true believers before such sinning; and this our adversaries themselves confess.”

Ans. All this falls heavy on the shoulders (as it is supposed) of poor David, and yet we think it evident that God “took not his Holy Spirit from him,” but that his covenant continued with him, “ordered in all things and sure,” and that “sin had not dominion over him.” The reasons of this persuasion of ours concerning him shall farther be insisted on when we come to the consideration of his case in particular. In the meantime, I confess the dreadful falls of some of the saints of God are rather to be bewailed than aggravated, and the riches of God’s grace in their recovery rather to be admired than searched into. Yet we say, —

1. That no one believer whatever in the world, upon any temptation whatever, did fall into any sin of malice; that is, accompanied with any hatred of God, or despite of his grace, or whole delight of his will in the sin whereunto he was by temptation for a season captivated. And though they may fall into sin against their judgments and dictates of their consciences, — as every sin whatever that they have, or may have, knowledge of or acquaintance with in their own hearts and ways is, — yet this cloth not make them to sin out of malice; for that would leave no distinction between sins of infirmity, whereinto men are surprised by temptation, and of malice, even sins of infirmity being in general and particular directly contrary to the dictates of their enlightened, sanctified judgments and consciences.

2. For “sinning with deliberation, plotting and contriving the methods and means of sinning” (the proof whereof, that so they may do, will lie, as was before observed, on the instance of David), I say, it being the will of God, for ends and purposes known only to his infinite wisdom, to give us, as to his fall, his dark side and his sin to the full, with the temptation wherewith he was at first surprised, and afterward violently hurried into, upon carnal reasonings and considerations of the state whereinto he had cast himself, having lost his old Friend and Counsellor, as to any shines of his countenance for a season, not acquainting us at all with the frame, and working, and striving of his spirit in and under that fall, I shall not dare to draw his case into a rule. That what he then did a believer now may do, judging of his frame in doing of it only by what is expressed; that believers may have morosam cogitationem, or deliberation upon some sins whereunto they are tempted, upon the strength of indwelling sin, which may possibly so overcome and prevail against the workings of grace for a season as to set the flesh at liberty to make contrivances to fulfil the lusts thereof, — I say, many have granted, and I shall not (for the sake of poor returning souls, whose backslidings God hath promised to heal) deny. But yet, I say, all their actings in this kind are but like the desperate actings of a man in a fever, who may have some kind of contrivance with himself to do mischief (as I have known some myself), and aim at opportunities for the accomplishment of it. All the faculties of their souls being discomposed, and rendered unserviceable to them through their distemper, through the violence of temptation and the tumultuating of lusts, the whole new man may be for a season so shattered, and his parts laid out of the way as to such a due answering one to another that the whole may be serviceable to the work of faith (as a disordered army, wherein is all its fundamental strength, as well as when it is rallied in battalia, is altogether unserviceable until it be reduced to order), that sin may take the opportunity to fill their corrupt heart (as far as it is corrupt) with its pleasure and desirableness, and so to set the thoughts of it on work to contrive means for its accomplishment. Now as, through the goodness of their Father, and supplies of grace, which, through the covenant thereof, they do receive, this distemper seizeth believers but rarely and extraordinarily, so it doth no way prove them to sin with malice, or without hatred of and opposition (secret opposition, which may be as secret as some inclinations to sin are, — not known to ourselves) to the things they do in and under that condition.

That which follows in this section being suited to the apprehension of some particular men, though of great name and esteem, according to their worth and desert in the church of God, as Ursin, Paræus, and the rest, about reigning sin, wherein, as I have declared, my thoughts fall not in with them, I shall not need to insist any longer upon it. Paræus, after all his aggravations of the sins of believers, yet adds that they sin not (nor did David) ex contemptu Dei, but through a pre-occupation or surprisal of sin; which I believe to be the persuasion of far the greatest number of saints in the world, whatever Mr Goodwin is pleased to think or say to the contrary. Nor is their apprehension weakened by Nathan’s charging upon David his “despising of the commandment of the Lord” in doing evil, which, as it is virtually done in every sin, and in great sins in an eminent manner, so that it did amount indeed not only to a consequential, but a formal voluntary contempt of God, Mr Goodwin shall never prove. A father often and severely chargeth upon his son a despising of his command, when he hath been carried out to transgress it, when yet he knows his son honoureth and reverenceth him in his heart, and is exceedingly remote from any resolved contempt of him.

The close of all is a concession of the contra-Remonstrants at the Hague conference, “That believers might fall into such sins as that the church, according to the commandment of Christ, must pronounce that they shall no longer abide in her communion, and that they shall have no part in the kingdom of Christ;” which being made an argument for the apostasy of the saints, I shall consider how it is here improved by Mr Goodwin.

“Certainly,” saith he, “their sense was, that true believers may sin above the rate of those who sin out of infirmity, inasmuch as there is no commandment of Christ that any church of his should eject such persons out of their communion who sin out of infirmity only. So that, by the confession of our adversaries themselves, even true believers may perpetrate such sins which are of a deeper demerit than to be numbered amongst sins of infirmity; yea, such sins for which the church of Christ, according to the commandment of Christ, stands bound to judge them for ever excluded from the kingdom of God, without repentance. From whence it undeniably follows that they may commit such sins whereby their faith in Christ will be totally lost, because there is no condemnation unto those that are by faith in Jesus Christ, whether they repent or not: and therefore they that stand in need of repentance to give them a right and title to the kingdom of God are no sons of God by faith; for were they sons, they would be heirs also, and consequently have right and title to the inheritance. So that to pretend that howsoever the saints may fall into great and grievous sins, yet they shall certainly be renewed again by repentance before they die, though this be an assertion without any bottom on reason or truth, yet doth it no ways oppose, but suppose rather, a possibility of the total defection of faith in true believers.”

Ans. 1. That “true believers may sin above the rate of sins of infirmity,” because they may so sin as that, according to the appointment of Jesus Christ, they may be cast out of a particular church, is not attempted to be proved. Doth Mr Goodwin think none may be excommunicated but such as have sinned themselves out of the state of grace? That a man may, through infirmity, fall into some such sin as for it to be amoved from a church society (that amotion being an ordinance of Christ for his recovery from that sin), I know not that it can be reasonably questioned. So that our confession, that true believers may so sin as to be righteously cast out of the external, visible society of a particular church, doth no way enforce us to acknowledge that they may sin above the rate of them who are overtaken with or surprised in sin upon the account of their weakness or infirmity.

2. The church of Christ, in rejecting of one from its society, according to the appointment of Jesus Christ, is so far from being obliged to judge any one for ever excluded from the kingdom of God, that they do so reject a man that he may never be excluded from that kingdom. It is true, he may be ecclesiastically and declaratively excluded from the visible kingdom of God, and his right and title to the outward administration of the good things thereof; but that such an one is, and must be thought to be, properly and really excluded from his interest in the love of God and grace of the covenant (being still, by the appointment of God and command of Christ, left under the power of an ordinance annexed by him to the administration of that covenant), it doth not follow.

3. The non-restoration of persons cast out of communion by the church to their place in the kingdom of God, but upon repentance, holds proportion with what was spoken before upon exclusion. The repentance intended is such as is necessary for the satisfaction of the church, as to its expressness and being known. Yet we grant withal that all sins whatever without repentance, in that kind and degree that is appointed and accepted of God, are exclusive of the kingdom of God; and we do much wonder that Mr Goodwin to the text, Rom. viii. 1, should add, “Whether they repent or not,” which is not only beyond the sense of what went before, but directly contrary to that which follows after, “Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Not to repent of sin is doubtless to “walk after the flesh.” No one of them who are freed from condemnation in Christ doth good, and sinneth not. The words, we confess, are not the condition, in the intention of God, on which their non-condemnation is suspended; but yet they are a description infallible of them who through grace are made partakers of it. We say, then, that believers may so fall as that being [they may be?] on that account rejected from the communion of the church, so as not to be restored but upon the evidence of their repentance (and we say that repentance is required for all sins, or men cannot be saved, wondering what Mr Goodwin, according to his principles, intends by the addition to the text of Rom. viii. 1, unless it be that no man stands in need of repentance unless he have cast off all faith and interest in God, — a most anti-evangelical assertion), and yet not commit such sins as whereby their faith must needs be wholly lost.

4. There is a twofold right and title to the kingdom of God; a right and title, by the profession of a true faith, to the external kingdom of God, in regard of its outward administration; and a right and title to the eternal kingdom of God, by the possession of a true faith in Christ. The former, as it is taken for jus in re, believers may lose for a season, though they may not in respect of a remote, original, fundamental root, which abides; the latter they never lose nor forfeit. We say, also, that repentance for sin being a thing promised of God for those that come to him in Christ, upon the account of the engagement of his grace for the perseverance of believers, all such fallers into sin shall certainly return to the Lord by repentance, who heals their backslidings; which Mr Goodwin hath not been able to disprove, of whose arguments, and his endeavours to vindicate them from exceptions, this is the chief.

But yet there being two or three things that Mr Goodwin is pleased to add to what went before, as objections against his doctrine in general, — though not of this last argument’s concernment any more than of any others he makes use of, — because there are in them considerations of good advantage to the truth in hand, I shall a little insist upon them before I proceed with my intended discourse.

The first is, “That the doctrine of the saints’ apostasy maimeth or dismembereth the body of Christ, and brings in an uncouth and unseemly interchange of members between Christ and the devil;” which, howsoever slighted by Mr Goodwin, is a plea not of the least importance in the ease in hand. The “body of Christ” intended is that which is mystical and spiritual, not that which is political and visible; his body in respect of the real union of every member of it unto him as the head, described by the apostle in its relation unto him, Eph. iv. 15, 16, “It groweth up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” So also Col. ii. 19. The body we intend is that whereof Christ is the head, not only in a political sense, as the supreme governor of it, but in a spiritual, according to the analogy of a head natural, from whence life and all influences of it unto the members do flow. Of this body, some are, in their spirits, already consummated and made perfect in heaven; some are as yet pursuing their warfare in all parts of the world, pressing forward to the mark of the high calling set before them. Now, that any member of his body, “bone of the bone, flesh of the flesh of Christ,” given him to make up his fullness and mystical perfection, jointed unto him, washed in his blood, and loved by him according to the love and care of a head to its members, should be plucked off to be east into the fire, and, after it hath so closely and vitally been admitted into the participation of his fullness and increase, being united to him, become a child of the devil, an enemy to him, and sometimes to his fellow-members, so as to hate his head and to be hated of his head (when yet “no man ever yet hated his own flesh”), — this we suppose no way to answer that inexpressibly intense love which the Lord Jesus bears towards his members, and to be exceedingly derogatory to his honour and glory in reference to his dealing with Satan, the great enemy of his kingdom. But to this Mr Goodwin answers:—

First, “For dismembering the body of Christ, is it not the law of Christ himself, in every particular church or body of his, that as any of their members putrefy and discover themselves to be rotten and corrupt, they should be cut off by the spiritual sword of excommunication? and doth not such a dismembering as this rather tend to the honouring and adorning the body of Christ than any ways to maim or deform it? And for such a dismembering of the body of Christ which the doctrine in hand supposeth to be causable by the members themselves, by the voluntary disfaithing of themselves through sin and wickedness, neither is the permission of this, upon such terms as it is permitted, either unworthy Christ or inconvenient to the body itself.” Reply, —

1. That there is no argument will tolerably arise from what is practicable and comely in a visible ecclesiastical body of Christ to the mystical spiritual body, — that is, from a particular visible to the catholic church of Christ. As to the matter in hand, this is evident by the light of this single consideration, that in such an ecclesiastical body of Christ there are always, or may be, — and Christ himself, in the rules and laws that he hath given for the government thereof, did suppose that there always would be, — good and bad, true saints and empty professors; whereas in the body whereof we treat there is no soul actually instated but who is actually united to the Head by the inhabitation of the same Spirit. There never was, nor shall be to eternity, any dead member of that body. They are all “living stones,” built upon Him who is the “foundation.” Now, surely this is an inference attended with darkness to be felt: “Because it may be comely, for those to whom the administration of ordinances in the visible church of Christ is committed, to cut off a dead member from the membership which he holds by his confession of the faith, when he discovers himself not to answer the confession he hath made in his walking and conversation; therefore Christ himself doth cut off, or one way or other lose, any living members of his body mystical, and actually by faith instated in the unity of his body with him.” And if it shall be objected “That even living members, and such as are truly so, may yet, for and at a season, be cut off from a visible particular body of Christ,” I answer, — (1.) It is true they may be so in respect of their ordinary present right to the enjoyment of ordinances, not in respect of their remote fundamental right; that still abides. (2.) They are so, or may be so, for their amendment, not for their destruction; that separation for a season being an expression of as much love and tenderness to them in Christ as his joining of them to the body was from whence they are so separated. And, (3.) This makes not at all to the impairing of the true completeness of the mystical body of Christ and the perfection of its parts; for as in particular visible bodies of Christ there may be, and are, dead members which have no place in the body, but are as excrescences in the vine, and yet the body is not rendered monstrous by them, so a true member may be removed and the body not be maimed in the least; the member, though perhaps [removed] from any such visible body for a season, and yet [being of] the true spiritual [body, though] sick and pining, continuing a member thereof still. Now, there is nothing of all this that will in any measure agree to the plucking off a member from the mystical body of Christ, whereof alone we speak. If any should be so separated, it must not only be to [the loss of] his present actual enjoyment of union, but to the loss of his Spirit also, and with him of all right and title, plea or claim whatever, to any interest therein. Neither is it possible that it should be a means for the correction and amendment of such an one, it lying in a direct tendency to inevitable destruction; separation from all interest in Christ can look no other way. So that still the uncouthness of such a procedure abideth.

2. The reason that is added, to put some colour and gloss upon this assertion, namely, “That such persons as are affirmed to be so separated from the body of Christ do voluntarily disfaith themselves,” as it is called, is not to the purpose in hand; for, —

(1.) The question is about the thing itself, whereunto this answer de modo is not satisfactory. It is urged by the argument that it cannot be allowed any way; the answer is, “It is done this way!”

(2.) Were Mr Goodwin desired to explain unto us the manner how believers voluntarily do or may disfaith themselves, I suppose he would meet with no small difficulties in the undertaking. However, this sounds handsomely.

(3.) That they should so disfaith themselves, through sin and wickedness, without being overcome by the temptations of Satan and the power of the enemies with whom they have to do and wrestle, doubtless will not be affirmed, whilst they continue in their right wits; and if they lose them, it will be difficult to manifest bow they can voluntarily disfaith themselves. The state wherein they are described to be by Mr Goodwin, and the considerations which for their preservation he allows them, should not, methinks, suffer him to suppose that of their own accord, without provocations or temptations, they will wilfully ruin their own souls. Now, that believers should, by the power of any temptation or opposition whatever, or what affliction soever, arising against them, be prevailed upon to the loss of their faith, and so to their dismembering from Christ, is that which is objected as an unseemly, uncouth thing; which in this answer Mr Goodwin earnestly begs may not be so esteemed, and more he adds not, as yet.

The following discourse, wherein he pursues the business in hand, is so pretty as that I cannot but once more present it to the reader. Saith he: “As in a politic or civil corporation, it is better that the governors should permit the members respectively to go or be at liberty, that so they may follow their business and occupations in the world upon the better terms, though by occasion of this liberty they may behave themselves in sundry kinds very unworthily, than it would be to keep them close prisoners, though hereby the said inconveniences might certainly be prevented. In like manner, it is much better for the body of Christ, and for the respective members of it, that he should leave them at liberty to obey and serve God, and follow the important affairs of their souls freely and without any physical necessitation, though some do turn this liberty into wantonness, and so into destruction, than it would be to deprive them of this liberty, and to cause and constrain them to any course whatsoever out of necessity, though it is true the committing of much sin and iniquity would be prevented hereby in many. The dismembering of the body of Christ’s apostles by the apostasy of Judas was no disparagement either to Christ himself or it.”

Ans. The sum of the whole discourse is, That the Lord Jesus Christ hath no way to keep and secure his members to himself, that none of them perish, but by taking away their liberty; which rather than do, it is more to his honour to let them abuse it to their everlasting destruction. And to this end sundry fine supposals are scattered through the whole discourse; as, — 1. That the liberty of believers is a liberty to sin, which they may abuse to their own destruction. The apostle is of another mind, Rom. vi. 17–19, “God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness,” etc. 2. That there is no real efficacy of grace, that will certainly fulfil in believers the good pleasure of God’s goodness, and bring forth the fruits of an abiding holiness, but what must needs deprive them in whom it is of their liberty. And suitably hereunto, 3. That God having, through Christ, made his saints spiritually free from sin unto righteousness, so that, with the utmost liberty that they are capable of as creatures, they shall surely do good, cannot by his Spirit continue them in that condition infallibly without the destruction of their liberty. 4. That the spiritual operation of God in and with the wills of men induceth a necessitation as to their manner of operation, so that they must act on that account as necessary and not as free agents; with such other the like supposals, which are so many gross figments, whereof Mr Goodwin shall be able to prove no one to eternity. For the removal, then, of all the fine words here tendered out of our way, it may suffice to tell their author that He who is made redemption to his saints, — that sets them free from their bondage to sin by his Spirit, which is always accompanied with liberty; and makes them willing, ready, and free to righteousness and holiness in the day of his power towards them; whose effectual grace enlargeth and improves all their faculties in their operations, with the choicest attendancies as to the manner of their working, — can and doth, by, in, and with the perfect exercise of their liberty, keep them to himself in their union and communion with him for ever; that this pretended liberty unto sin is a bondage from which Christ frees his saints; neither is any thing that can be imagined more derogatory to the glory of his grace than to affirm that he cannot keep those committed to him infallibly to the end, without depriving them of the liberty which they have alone through him. Of physical necessitation enough hath been spoken before. Judas was never a member of the body of Christ, or of Christ, in the acceptation whereof we speak. By the “body of the apostles” is intended only their number, of which Judas (though he was never of that body whereof they were members) was one.

Farther; the wickedness of this apprehension, that Christ should lose any of those who are true and living members of his mystical body, is aggravated upon the account of that state and condition whereinto he parts with them, they being thereby made members of Satan and his kingdom, God and the devil so interchanging children, to the great dishonour and reproach of his name. To this Mr Goodwin replies in the 28th section:—

“For the interchange of members between Christ and Satan, the Scripture presenteth it as a thing possible, yea, as frequent and ordinary. ‘Know ye not,’ saith the apostle, ‘that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot?’ In the original it is, Ἄρας οὖν τὰ μέλη τοῦ Χριστοῦ ποιήσω, etc; that is, ‘Taking away the members of Christ, shall I make them,’ etc.; meaning that true believers, who only are the members of Christ, disrelate themselves to him, cease to be members of his body, whilst they live in a course of whoredom and adultery, and make themselves members of another far different relation, namely, of those harlots with whom they sinfully converse, and consequently, by such a mediation, of the devil.”