John Owen · 60 of 73

Chapter XV. Argument against the doctrime from the sins of believers. · Part 5

Ans. 1. For the sense of that place of the apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 15, as far as it relates to the merit of the cause in hand, I shall have occasion to speak unto it at large hereafter, and so shall not anticipate myself or the reader. For the present, I deny that there is the least mention made of any interchange of members between Christ and the devil, much less of any such thing as “frequent and ordinary.” It is true, the apostle says that he that is “joined to an harlot” makes his members the “members of an harlot,” and on that consideration and conclusion, with part of the dignity of believers, whose persons are all the members of Christ, persuades them from the sin of fornication; that they may so much as fall into that sin he doth not here intimate. That men, not only in respect of themselves, and their principles of sin, and proneness unto it within, with the prevalency of temptations, but also eventually, notwithstanding any regard or respect to other external prohibiting causes, may fall into all the sins from which they are dehorted, Mr Goodwin hath not proved as yet, nor shall I live to see him do it.

2. For a man to make himself the “member of an harlot” is no more but to commit fornication; which whether it be Mr Goodwin’s judgment or no, that none can fall into or be surprised with but he is ipso facto cut off from the body of Christ thereby, I know not. Taking in the consideration of what was spoken before concerning the manner of persons’ sinning, with what shall be farther argued, I must profess I dare not say so. In the meantime, it is punctually denied that believers can fall into or live in a course of whoredom and adultery; and without such a course they cease not, according to Mr Goodwin’s sense of these words, to be members of Christ, nor do they otherwise become members of the devil. There is nothing here, then, that intimates such an interchange in the least.

3. For Mr Goodwin’s criticism upon the word ἄρας, it is hardly worth taking notice of; for, —

(1.) If by “taking” there be meant “taking away,” the sense must be, that they are first taken away from being “members of Christ” (the word expressing a time past in that tendency), and then made “members of an harlot;” — which, first, is not suited to the mind of Mr Goodwin, who endeavours to prove their ceasing to be members of Christ by becoming members of an harlot, the efficient cause of their ceasing to be joined to Christ consisting in their being joined with an harlot; and, secondly, destroys the whole of the apostle’s reasoning in the place, from the great unworthiness of such a way or practice as making the members of Christ to be the members of an harlot, because none should so be made but those who had first ceased to be members of Christ. And so his assertion, instead of an effectual persuasive, should upon the matter be entangled in a contradiction to itself. And, —

(2.) As there is nothing in the place to enforce that sense upon the word, so there is nothing in the word to impose that sense upon the place. When our Saviour speaks to his disciples, Luke ix. 3, Μηδὲν αἴρετε εἰς τὴν ὁδόν, he doth not bid them take nothing away for their journey, but “take nothing with them;” and so Mark vi. 8, where his command is that μηδὲν αἴρωσιν εἰς ὁδόν. And in that of Matt. iv. 6, when the devil urged to our Saviour, ἐπὶ χειρῶν ἀροῦσί σε, he did not intimate that the angels should take him away in their hands, but support him from hurt. When Jesus ᾖρε τοὺς ὁφθαλμοὺς ἄνω, he did not take away his eyes out of his head and cast them upward, John xi. 41; no more than the angel did his hand when ᾖρε τὴν χεῖρα εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, Rev. x. 5; or the apostles their voice when ᾖραν φωνὴν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, Acts iv. 25. Nor doth Christ command us to take away his yoke in that heavenly word of his, Ἄρατε τὸν ζυμόν μου ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς, Matt. xi. 29. So that there is little help left to this sense imposed on the place under consideration from the importance of the word; and so, consequently, not the least countenance given to that horrible interchange of members between Christ and the devil, which is asserted as a usual and frequent thing.

What he addeth in the close of the section is no less considerable than the beginning of it; for saith he, “If it be no dishonour to Christ to take in such as have been members of the devil, why should it be any disparagement to him to reject such who, by their wicked and abominable ways, render themselves unworthy of such a relation?”

Ans. Believers hold not their relation to Christ upon any worthiness that is in themselves for it, but upon the account merely of , according to the tenor of the of mercy. That they may fall into such wicked and abominable ways as shall render them altogether unmeet for that relation, according to the law of it, is that great argument, called petitio principii, which Mr Goodwin hath used in this case a hundred times. But the comparison instituted in the first words is admirable. Confessed it is that it is no dishonour to Jesus Christ, yea, that it is his great honour, seeing “he came to destroy the works of the devil, to bind the strong man, to spoil his goods, to destroy him that had the power of death, to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, to deliver his people from their sins, washing them in his blood, and to make them a peculiar people unto himself, zealous of good works;” — that it is no dishonour, I say, for him to translate them from the power of Satan into his own kingdom, “making them meet for the inheritance of the in light, by them from their vain ,” to do according as he intended, and to take his own, given him of his Father, out of the hands of the tyrant which held them under bondage. “Therefore, having undertaken to keep them and preserve them, having so overcome Satan in them, for them, by them, broken the head of the serpent, it is no dishonour for him to lose ground given for his inheritance, with his subjects, members, brethren, children, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, into the hand of the devil again.” What fort is so strong as to hold out against such a battery: If it be no honour for Christ to bind Satan and to spoil his goods, then it is no dishonour for him to be bound by Satan and to have his goods spoiled!

Another burden upon the shoulders of Mr Goodwin’s doctrine, whereof he labours to deliver it, is the great absurdity of the repetition of regeneration, whereof there is no mention at all in the Scripture, and which yet must be asserted by him, unless he will affirm all that fall away at any time irrecoverably to perish; which howsoever he waives at present, were with much more probability, according to his own principles, to be maintained than what he insisteth on.

“But this repetition of regeneration,” saith he, “is not unworthy of God, and for men a blessed and happy accommodation.” Whether it be “unworthy God” or no, the Scripture and the nature of the thing will declare. The “accommodation” that it seems to afford unto men, being a plain encouragement to sin at the highest rate imaginable, will perhaps not be found so happy and blessed unto them. With great noise and clamour hath a charge been managed against the doctrine of the saints’ , upon the account of its giving supportment to the thoughts of men in and under the ways of sin. Whether truth and have been regarded in that charge hath been considered. Doubtless it were a matter of no difficulty dearly to evince that this doctrine of the “repetition of regeneration” is of the very same tendency and import with that which is falsely and injuriously charged upon that of the perseverance of the saints. The worst that a man thinks he can do by any act of sin is but to sin himself quite out of the favour of God, into a state of death and desert of wrath, lie can no farther injure his soul than to cast it into the condition of men by nature. Tell this man, now, whom you suppose to be under the temptation to sin, at least to have in him that great fool the flesh, which longs for blessed accommodations to itself, whilst it makes provision to fulfil its lusts, that if he should so do, this is an ordinary thing for men to do, and yet to be renewed again and to have a second regeneration, — do you not encourage him to venture boldly to satisfy his sinful desires, having such a relief against the worst that his thoughts and fears can suggest to him?

But whatever it be, in respect of God or men, yet that so it may be Mr Goodwin proves from Heb. vi. 6, where it is said, that “it is impossible to renew” some “to ;” some may be renewed; — and in Jude 12 men are said to be “twice dead;” therefore they may live twice spiritually. The first proof seems somewhat uncouth. The persons spoken of in that place are in Mr G.’s judgment believers. There is no place of Scripture wherein he more triumphs in his endeavoured confirmation of his thesis. The says expressly of them that it is “impossible to renew them;” “therefore,” says Mr G., “it is possible.” What is of emphasis in the argument mentioned ariseth from two things:— 1. That they are true believers; of which afterward. 2. That they fall totally away. This, then, is the importance of Mr G.’s plea from this place, “If true believers fall totally away, it is impossible they should be renewed to repentance; therefore, if true believers fall totally away, it is possible they should be renewed to and by repentance.” That there is a failing away and a renewing again by repentance of the same persons, we grant. That falling away is partial only which is incident unto true believers, who, when God heals their backslidings, are renewed by repentance. To be renewed by repentance is also taken either for the renovation of our natures and our change as unto state and condition, and so it is the same with regeneration, and not to be repeated; or for a recovery by repentance in respect of personal failings, so it is the daily work of our lives. Jude says, some are “twice dead;” that is, utterly so, — an hyperbolical expression, to aggravate their condition. Those to whom the gospel is a “savour of death unto death” may well be said to be “twice dead.” Unto the death that they are involved in and are obnoxious to by nature they add a second death, or rather, seal up their souls under the power and misery of the other, by contempt of the means of life and recovery. Therefore, regeneration may be reiterated, “Quod erat demonstrandum.”

Much of the section that remains is taken up in declaring, in many words, without the least attempt of proof, that it is agreeable to the honour of God to renew men totally fallen away; that is, when those who have been by him, washed in the blood of his Son, made partakers of the divine nature, embraced in the arms of his love, shall despise all this, “disfaith themselves,” reject the Lord and his love, trample on the blood of the covenant, kill their souls by depriving them of spiritual life, proclaim to all the world their dislike of him and his covenant of grace. Yet, though He hath not anywhere revealed that he will permit any one so to do, or that he will accept of them again upon their so doing, Mr Goodwin affirming that for him so to do is agreeable to his and righteousness, it is fit that those who conceive themselves bound to believe whatever he says should think so too. For my part, I am at liberty.

I should not farther pursue this discourse, nor insist on this digression, but that Mr Goodwin hath taken advantage by the mention of regeneration to deliver some rare notions of the nature of it, which deserve a little our farther taking notice of; for which end, doubtless, he published them. To make way, then, for his intendment, he informs us, sect. 29, “That ‘regeneration’ itself, according to the grammatical and proper signification of the word, imports a reiteration or repetition of some generation or other. It cannot import a repetition of the natural generation of men (the sense of Nicodemus on this point was orthodox, who judged such a thing impossible); therefore it must import a repetition of a spiritual generation, unless we shall say (which I think is the road opinion) that it signifies only the spiritual generation, with a kind of reflection upon and unto the birth natural.”

Ans. That the grammatical sense of the word imports “a reiteration of some generation or other,” is only said. Ἀνά hath other significations in composition besides the intimating of a reiteration of the same thing, either in species or individually the same again, Παλιγγενεσία would seem rather to enforce such an interpretation than ἀναγέννησις, which yet it doth not. It is spoken of that which hath no birth properly at, all, as Philo, De Mundo, Μὴ μόνον φθορὰν τοῦ κόσμου κατηγορεῖν ἀλλὰ καὶ παλιγγενεσίαν ἀναίρειν. Ἀνά of itself is only “through:” Χῶρον ἀν’ ὑλήεντα, Hom. Ὀδ. ξ, — “Through a woody country.” Ἀνάστασις, “resurrection,” doth not import “again,” after another rising before, but a restoration from a lost state. So is παλιγγενεσία used, Matt. xix. 28. To be regenerate is to have a new and another generation, not any one repeated. In the place of John mentioned by Mr Goodwin, there is mention neither of a repetition of a former generation nor directly of a new one; though it be so, it is not there called so. Our Saviour at first says, Ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, “Unless a man be born from above,” as the word is elsewhere rendered, and properly signifies, as John iii. 31, xix. 11; Mark xv. 38; James iii. 17; and sometimes “of old” or “former days,” as Acts xxvi. 5. Once only it signifies “again,” Gal. iv. 9, but there it joined with πάλιν, which restrains it. And in the exposition afterward of what he intended by that expression, he calls it simply a being “born of water and the Spirit,” verse 5, without the least intimation of the repetition of any birth, but only the asserting of a new spiritual one; called a birth, indeed, with allusion to the birth natural, which is the “road opinion,” well beaten ever since Christ first trod that path. Besides, the very mine thing which is expressed under the name of “regeneration,” being a spiritual birth, which a man had not before, is alto delivered unto us in such words and terms as manifest no reiteration of any state, condition, or thing to be included therein, as to God, a quickening from death, by the Spirit etc.; all which manifest the induction of a new life and form, and not the repetition of another. Hence the ancients called baptism “regeneration,” being the initial of Christianity, and expressive of the new life which in and through Christ we receive; and that from Titus iii. 5. “Regeneration,” then, neither in the import of the word nor in the nature of the thing, doth require a reiteration of any generation, but only the addition of a new one to that which a man hath before, and whereunto this doth allude. The receiving of a new spiritual birth and life is our “regeneration, renovation, resurrection, quickening, implanting into Christ,” and the like; so that the foundation of the ensuing discourse is a mere quagmire, where no firm footing can be obtained.

And of the same nature is that which ensues: “It is,” saith he, “the common sense of divines, that the two generations mentioned, the natural and spiritual, are membra dividentia, and contradistinguished the one unto the other; and so the apostle Peter, too, seems to state and represent them, as also our Saviour himself, John iii. 6. Now, there can hardly any instance be given where the introducing of one contrary fore or quality into the subject is termed a reiteration or repetition of the other. Calefaction, for example, is never termed a repetition of frigefaction, nor calefaction called a reiteration of frigefaction; nor when a regenerate or man dieth his natural death is he said to reiterate or repeat his spiritual death.”

Ans. That in the term “regeneration” two births are implied may be granted; that the same is intimated to be repeated is denied, and not proved at all; and therefore Mr Goodwin says well, that the introducing of a contrary form is not called the reiteration of another. No more is it here. Our new birth is called our “regeneration,” or “new generation,” in allusion to our natural birth, not as a repetition of it. Neither is the allusion in respect of the contrary qualities Wherewith the one and the other are attended, but in respect of the things themselves; in which regard, as they are not the same, so they are not contrary, but diverse. They are both births, — the one natural, the other spiritual. Natural and spiritual, in that sense, are not contrary qualities, but diverse adjuncts. And so are the two births compared, 1 Pet. i. 23, John i. 13; in which last place our regeneration is expressed under the simple term of being “born,” with distinction to the natural birth, and not the least intimation of the iteration of any birth or generation subjoined. So also is it, James i. 18. So that little progress is made by Mr Goodwin towards his intendment, whatever it be. Thus, then, he expresseth it:—

“I rather,” saith he, “conceive that ‘regeneration,’ which the Scripture makes appropriable only unto persons living to years of discretion, who generally in the days of their youth degenerate from the innocency of their childhood and younger years, and corrupt themselves with the principles and ways of the world, relates not to the natural generation as such, I mean as natural, but unto the spiritual estate and condition of men in respect of their natural generation and birth; in and upon which they are, if not simply and absolutely, yet comparatively, innocent, harmless, free from pride and malice, and, in respect of these qualifications, in grace and favour with God, upon the account of the death and sufferings of Christ for them, as we shall afterward prove.”

Here you have the sum of the design and the doctrine of regeneration cleared from all those vain and erroneous opinions wherewith it hath so long been clouded! It is the returning of men unto the good state and condition wherein they were born, after they have degenerated into ways of wickedness. We thought it had been the “quickening of them who are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, their being begotten again by the will of God, the bestowing of a new principle of Spirit and life upon them, a translation from death to life, the opening of blind eyes, making them who were darkness to be light in the Lord.” It seems we have all this while been in the dark, and that regeneration indeed is only a returning to that condition from we thought it had been a delivery. But let us a little see the demonstration of this new notion of regeneration.

1. He saith, “The Scripture makes it appropriable only to them who come to years of discretion.” Sir, your proof; we cannot take your bare word in a thing of this importance. In the place yourself chose to mention as the foundation you laid of the inferences you are now making, our Saviour says it is a being “born of the Spirit;” doth the Scripture make this appropriable only unto men of discretion? Men only of discretion, then, can enter into the kingdom of God; for none not so born of the Spirit shall enter therein, John iii. 5. If none but men of discretion can be born of the Spirit, then infants have no other birth but only that of the flesh, and “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” verse 6, not capable of entering into the kingdom of heaven. Surely you better deserve the title of “Durus pater infantum” than he to whom of old it was given. Perhaps a grosser figment was never framed by a man of discretion.

2. It is true, infants are comparatively innocent in respect of actual , but equally nocent and guilty with sinners of discretion in respect of natural state and condition. They are no less obnoxious to that death from whence our regeneration is a delivery, by the bestowing of a new spiritual life, than a sinner of a hundred years old. A return to this condition, it seems, is a regeneration. “Quantum est in rebus inane!”

3. The qualifications of infants not regenerated are merely negative, and that in respect of the acts of sin, not the habitual seed and root of them, for in them dwells no good. That, in respect of these qualifications of innocency that are in them by nature, antecedent to any regeneration (all which are resolved into a natural impotency of perpetrating sin), they are accepted in grace and favour with God, had been another new notion, had not Pelagius and Socinus before you fallen upon it. “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Heb. xi. 6, and “his wrath on them that believe not,” John iii. 36. That infants have or may have faith, and not be regenerated, will scarcely be granted by them who believe the Spirit of Christ to cause regeneration where he is bestowed, Titus iii. 5, and all faith to be the fruit of that Spirit, Gal. v. 22, 23. Farther; for the qualification of infants by nature, how are they brought clean from that which is unclean? Are they not connived in sin and brought forth in ? or was that David’s hard case alone? If they are born of the flesh, and are flesh, if they are unclean, how come they to be in that estate, upon the account of their qualifications, accepted in the love and favour of Him who is “of purer eyes than to behold iniquity?” If this be the doctrine of regeneration that Mr Goodwin preaches, I desire the Lord to bless them that belong unto him in a deliverance from attending thereunto. Of the effects of the death of Christ in respect of all children I shall not now treat. That they should be saved by Christ, and yet not washed in his blood, not sanctified by his Spirit (which to be is to be regenerate), is another new notion of the new gospel.

The countenance which Mr Goodwin would beg to his doctrine from that of our Saviour to his disciples, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” reproving their ambition and thoughts, from which they were to be weaned, that they might be fit for that gospel state and employment whereunto he called them, and wherein they were to serve him, does no more advantage him nor the cause he hath undertaken than that other caution of our Saviour to the same persons, to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” would do him that should undertake to prove that Christians ought to become pigeons or snakes.

Thus much, then, we have learned of the mind of Mr Goodwin by his digression:— 1. That no children are regenerate; 2. That they are all accepted with God, through Christ, upon the account of the good qualifications that are in them; 3. That regeneration is a man’s returning to the state wherein he was born. And having taken out this lesson, which we shall never learn by heart whilst we live, we may now proceed.

I shall only add to the main of the business in hand, that so long as a man is a child of God, he cannot, he need not to repeat his regeneration. But that one who hath been the child of God should cease to be the child of God is somewhat strange. How can that be done amongst men, that he should cease to be such a man’s son who was his son? Those things that stand in relation upon any thing that is past, and therefore irrevocable, cannot have their beings continued and their relation dissolved. It is impossible but that cause and effect must be related one to another. Such is the relation between father and son; the foundation of it is an act past and irrevocable, and therefore the relation itself is indissoluble. Is it not so with God and his children? When they once stand in that relation, it cannot be dissolved. But of these things hitherto.

To proceed with that place of Scripture which I laid as the foundation of this discourse: The general way of lust’s dealing with the soul in the brining forth of sin, whereof there are two acts, expressed James i. 14, the one of drawing away, the other enticing, is to be insisted on. Upon the first, the person tempted is ἐξελκόμενος, “drawn off,” or “drawn away;” and upon the second, he is δελεαζόμενος, “enticed,” or “entangled.”

The first stirring of sin is to draw away the soul from what it ought to be fixed upon, by its rising up irregularly to some delightful object. For a man to be “drawn away” by his lust, is to have his lust drawn out to some object suited to it, wherein it delighteth. Now, this drawing away denoteth two things:—

1. The turning of the soul from the actual rectitude of its frame towards God. Though the soul cannot always be in actual exercise of grace towards God, yet it ought always to be in an immediate readiness to any spiritual duty, upon the account whereof, when occasion is administered, it doth as naturally go forth to God as a vessel full of water floweth forth when vent is given unto it. Hence we are commanded “always to pray.” Our Saviour giveth a parable to instruct his disciples that they ought to pray πάντοτε, Luke xviii. 1; and we are commanded to pray ἀδιαλείπτως, “without ceasing” or “intermission,” 1 Thess. v. 17; which the same apostle in another place calleth praying ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, “in every place,” namely, as occasion is administered. It is not the perpetual exercise of this duty (as the Jews, some of them, have ridiculously interpreted the first psalm, of “reading the law day and night”), which would shut out and cut off all other duties, not only of men’s callings and employments as to this life, but all other duties of the ways and worship of God whatever; but it is only the readiness and promptitude of the heart in its constant frame to that necessary duty, that is required. Now, he who is ἐξελκόμενος by lust is drawn off from this frame; that is, he is interrupted in it by his lust diverting unto some sinful object. And as to this particular, there is a great difference betwixt the sinning of believers, and those who arise not beyond that height which the power of beareth them oftentimes up unto; for the main of a true believer’s watching, in his whole life, and in the course of his walking with God, is directed against this off-drawing from that habitual frame of his heart by lust and sin. His great business is, as the apostle telleth us, to “take the whole armour of God to him,” that sin, if it be possible, may make no approach to his soul, Eph. vi. 13. It is to keep up his spirits to a “hate of every evil way, and to delight in God continually.” And because they cannot attain in this life unto perfection, they cry out of the power of sin leading them captive to the law thereof. They would have their wills dead to sin, wholly dead, and have trouble that they are not so as to the general frame of their spirits, how oft soever they be drawn off. For other persons, they have truly no such frame at all, whatever they may be cut into the likeness of by the sharpness of scriptural convictions that come upon them; and therefore they watch not as to the keeping of it. The deeper you dive into them, the more near you come to their hearts, the worse they are; their very inward part is wickedness. I speak now of the ordinary frame of the one and other.

This drawing off by sin in believers is by the power of sin, in opposition to their will. Their wills lie against it to the utmost; they “would not,” as was showed, be so drawn off. But as for the others, as hath been shown, however their minds may be enlightened, and their consciences awakened, and their affections corrected and restrained, their wills are wholly dead in sin.