John Owen · 65 of 73

Chapter XVI. The bearing of the doctrine of the saints’ apostasy on their consolation. · Part 2

For the close of this discourse of our author, charging this course of procedure with folly, — namely, to give admonition to the use of means, when the end is certainly determined to issue upon the use of those means, — he must first evince it, as to the application of it to the business in hand, before I can close with him in the managing thereof. For the present, I rather think the folly of this charge, as far as it looks towards the doctrine under consideration, to arise from other things: as, —

First, An impertinent comparison instituted between God and man in their admonitions and dealings with men, as though nothing might beseem him, in spiritual things of eternal concernment, but what is squared to the rules of our proceedings one towards another in things natural or civil. And, —

Secondly, A false supposal that the end is promised and assured to any without or beside the use of means, or walking according to the rules, precepts, and instructions, given for that purpose, or for attainment of the end so promised. Now, what folly there is to charge men to use means for the attaining of an end, when they are, although exhorted, also assured that in their so doing they shall attain the end aimed at, is yet under contest, and may pass for the present with those other “ridiculous supposals” formerly mentioned.

But Mr Goodwin proceeds farther in the vindication of this argument, sect. 38:—

“And whereas,” saith he, “they still plead, or pretend rather, that such admonitions as those lately specified may well stand with an unconditional promise of perseverance, we have formerly showed that they are not able to make good this plea, nor to give any reasonable account of it. Whereas they add, that their sense and opinion is not that it is a thing absolutely or every way impossible for true believers to fall away totally or finally from their faith, but that they willingly grant that true believers, what through their own weakness, and what through the subtle baits and temptations of Satan, may so fall away; I answer, But this is but a fig-leaf sought out to cover the nakedness of their opinion, which hath no strength at all nor weight in it; for what though it were in a thousand other respects never so possible for true believers to perish, yet if it be altogether impossible in such a respect which overrules all those others, and which will, and of necessity must, hinder the coming of it to pass, all those others notwithstanding, it is to be judged simply and absolutely impossible, and all those respects whereby it is pretended possible are not to be brought into account in such a case.”

Ans. 1. Whether we are able to make good our plea concerning the consistency of admonitions with the promises of perseverance, Mr Goodwin is not the sole judge, neither do either we or our plea stand or fall at his arbitrament. What hath been lately spoken for the re-enforcement of that plea against his exceptions, he may, if he please, take time to consider.

2. For what is now added in this place as a part of that plea of ours, as it is here proposed, we own not. We do not grant that true believers may fall away, on any account whatever, totally and finally, if the expression, “May fall away,” relate to the issue and event. We say, indeed, that by the temptations of Satan believers may be prevailed against to the committing of many sins, the root whereof is in themselves, whilst the lust remains in them which tempteth and ensnareth them, whereby God may be dishonoured and their own consciences wounded, — which is a sufficient ground and bottom for all the admonitions that are given them, to beware of his deceits, to strengthen themselves against his assaults, to be built upon, — though, through the grace and faithfulness of God and his good-will, manifested and secured unto them in his covenant and promises, he can never totally prevail against them.

We say, moreover, that it is not from believers themselves, nor any thing in them, nor from any faith that they have received, that they cannot so fall finally away, there being in them a proneness to sin, and the seed of all sin still remaining, yea, a root of bitterness ready to spring up and trouble them; but from those outward principles of the will, purposes, covenant, and promises of God, which we have formerly insisted on: farther, that there is no need of granting any such possibility, taking that term as relating to the issue and event, and not the internal principle of operation in men, to manifest the harmony that is between the admonitions under consideration and the promises we have insisted on, it being sufficiently evinced on other considerations: so that Mr Goodwin’s ensuing discourse concerning “absolute impossibility” is not at all related to any thing that we have asserted.

3. Neither yet doth the reason by Mr Goodwin produced in any measure evince what he intends, though we be not concerned therein. He will not easily persuade us that that which is possible in any respect, much less in many, and impossible only in one, is always to be judged “simply and absolutely impossible.” Much less are we concerned in it, who say that simply and absolutely the falling away of believers is possible, namely, as the term “possible” relates to the principle of operation in them; but in some respect only it is impossible, that is, not of itself, but in respect of the external prohibiting cause. It was simply and absolutely possible that the bones of our Saviour should have been broken, in the nature of the thing itself; impossible, in respect of the decree of God. So are a thousand things absolutely possible in their own nature, as to the power of the causes whereby they might be produced, but impossible in respect of some external prohibiting cause; — absolutely possible in respect of their proper cause and principle; impossible in respect of the event, upon the account of some external prohibiting cause, as was showed. So it is in the business in hand. We assert not any possibility in respect of the event, as though in the issue it might so come to pass that believers should fall totally and finally from God, which is the thing we oppose; but grant it in respect of the causes of such apostasy, with reference to the nature of the thing itself, though how the possibility might be reduced into act Mr Goodwin cannot declare. As for the close of this section, concerning the absolute, peremptory, irresistible decree of perseverance, which he ascribes to us as our assertion, when he shall have convinced us of the conditional, non-peremptory, reversible decree of God, which he endeavours to introduce in the place thereof, he may hear more of us; in the meantime, μένομεν ὥσπερ ἐσμέν.

Sect. 39, 40, he seeks to alleviate the instance commonly given of our Saviour Christ, who though assured of the end, and in respect of whom it was utterly impossible that his glorious exaltation should not follow in the issue, he being wholly out of all danger of being detained under the power of death, yet he laboured, and prayed, and fasted, and resisted Satan’s temptations, and watched against him, and dealt with him by weapons taken out of the word of God; and in especial, when the devil urged him with the argument in hand, “that there is no need of means or the using of them, when there is a certainty of the end, and an impossibility that it should otherwise fall out, or the end not be brought about and accomplished,” as he did when he tempted him to cast himself headlong from a pinnacle of the temple, because the angels had charge over him, that not so much as his foot should be hurt against a stone, whatever he did, as Satan intimated, — which is the tenor of the argument wherewith we have to do, — he returns to him the very answer that we insist upon, namely, that though it be the good pleasure of God to bring us to the end we aim at, yet are we not to tempt him by a neglect of the means which he hath appointed. It is true, there are arguments used to us that could have no place with Christ, being taken from the estate and condition of infirmity and weakness through sin wherein we are; which is a ground only of an inference, that if Christ, who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” did yet watch, and pray, and contend against Satan, much more should we do so. But this doth not at all take off from the parity of reason that is in the ease of diligent using of the means for the compassing of the end, that in some respect is under an impossibility of not being accomplished. For the removal of this instance, Mr Goodwin enters into a large discourse of the cause and reason, vesting the Lord Christ with an immutability in good, and how it is not competent to any creature; which that it is, never entered into the thoughts of any to assert that I ever heard of, nor is it of the least importance to the removal of our instance, as to its serviceableness unto the end for which it is produced. He tells us also, “That in ease men be caused necessitatingly and unavoidably to act righteously, it will take away all rewardableness from their actings; and the reason is, because such a necessitating of them makes them merely passive, they having not any internal principle of their own to contract such a necessity;” which discourse is pursued with many other words to the same purpose. And a discourse it is, —

First, Exceeding irrelative to the business in hand. There is not any thing now under consideration that should minister occasion at all to consider the manner of our yielding obedience, and the way of God’s grace in the bringing forth the fruits thereof; but only of the consistency that is between admonitions for the using of the means, when it is supposed impossible that the end prevented by them should ever come to pass, which may or may not be so, whatever be the manner and way of our yielding obedience, upon the exertion of the efficacy of the grace of God. Diversion is one of Mr Goodwin’s ordinary ways of warding those blows which he is not able to bear.

Secondly, False, charging a crime on the doctrine which he doth oppose whereof it is not guilty, neither it nor they that maintain it affirming that there is a necessitation upon the wills of men by the grace of God, such a necessitation as should in the least prejudice their freedom, or cause them to elicit their acts as principles natural and necessary. All the necessity ascribed by them to the efficacy of the operation of the grace of God respects only the event. They say it is necessary that the good be done which God works in us by his grace, when he works it in us; but for the manner of its doing, they say it is wrought suitably to the state and condition of the internal principle whence it is to proceed, and doth so, and of the agents whereby it is wrought, which are free. Neither do they say that good is not wrought by any native and inward principle that is in men, unless they will allow no principle to be native but what is in them by nature; and then, indeed, they say, that though naturally and physically there is, yet morally and spiritually there is not in them any native principle to that which is spiritually good, seeing in that sense “no good thing dwells in men.” But if it may suffice to evince that they work from a native, inward principle, — that their wills, which are their natural faculties, quickened, improved, and heightened, by inward, indwelling habits of grace, properly theirs when bestowed on them, are the principles of all their actings, — then they assert them to work no less from a native, internal principle than Christ himself did. So that notwithstanding this diversion, given in to supply the absence of an answer, the instance, as to that wherein alone the parallel was intended, stands unmoved, and Mr Goodwin’s whole charge of folly and inconsistency on the proceeding of the Holy Ghost falls to the ground; which is the issue of his eighth argument in this case. His last follows.

The last argument which he proposeth, sect. 41, and ends his chapter withal, is faint, and, as the droppings after a shower, will easily be blown over. He thus proposeth it:—

“That doctrine which naturally and directly tendeth to beget and foment jealousies and evil surmises between brethren in Christ, or such as ought cordially to love, reverence, and honour one another, is not confederate with the gospel, nor from God; and consequently that which contradicteth it must needs be a truth; — the common doctrine of unquestionable and unconditional perseverance is a doctrine of this tendency, apt to beget and foment jealousies, suspicions, and evil surmises between brethren, or such as ought to love and respect one the other, as brethren in Christ: ergo.”

Ans. Not to take notice of any thing by-the-by, which sundry expressions, and one inference at the least, in this argument do readily administer occasion unto, I await the proof of the minor, which in the following discourse amounts to this: “That judging all those who fall finally away not to have been true believers, we cannot but have evil surmises of all that stand that they are not true believers, seeing as good as they have fallen away; hence jealousies of their hypocrisy will arise.” And he tells us, for his part he knows no Christian in the world that he hath more reason to judge a true believer than he had to judge some who are turned wretched apostates. To which I say briefly, —

1. I doubt not but Mr Goodwin knows full well that this is not a rule given us to make a judgment of believers by, with whom we walk, and towards whom it is required we bear “love without dissimulations” Rom. xii. 9, — toward such as “show us their faith by their works.” Our rule of walking, from the principle of love and charity, is laid down in 1 Cor. xiii. And if all that any man knows at this day to be professors in this world should turn apostates, save only one, and he had reckoned that one and them that are apostatized, before their apostasy, of the same rank of believers, and had had no evil thoughts of that one above the rest, he was hound, without any evil surmises, “to believe all things, and to hope all things,” and not to let go his sincere love towards that one, embracing of him, delighting in him, holding communion with him to his life’s end, without suspicion of hypocrisy, or other hard thoughts of him, unless he also should degenerate. It is said, John ii. 23, that “many believed on Christ,” because of the profession of faith that they made; and, chap. vi. 34, they pray earnestly to be fed with the bread of life, so that they were accounted among his disciples, verse 60, and yet upon a temptation they left our Saviour, and “walked no more with him,” verse 66. Now, notwithstanding the profession of these men, our Saviour plainly says that they “believed not,” verse 64. They falling thus away who had professed to believe, and were accounted as believers, so called and named among the disciples of Christ, and Christ declaring, on the account of their apostasy, that indeed they did never believe, how was it that the remaining twelve had not hard thoughts and jealousies one of another (especially considering that there was one hypocrite still left among them) whether they had true faith or no, seeing our Saviour had declared that those who so fell off, as those before mentioned, had none? Doubtless they were instructed to walk by a better and a straiter rule than that Mr Goodwin here assigns to believers. Let who will or can fall away, whilst we are taught of God to love one another, and are acted by the principle of love, which “thinketh no evil,” and do contend against evil surmises as the works of the flesh, there is not any thing in the least attending the discovery of one man’s hypocrisy, to work us to a persuasion that another (not in any thing discovered) is so also. That because we see some goodly house fall under storms and temptations to the ground, and so manifest itself to have been built on the sand, therefore we must conclude that those which stand are not built upon the rock, is not suited to any principle or rule that our Master hath given us to walk by, in order to the exercise of that love which he calleth for in us towards one another.

2. I say this way of proceeding in our thoughts and judgments doth the Holy Ghost lead us to, 1 John ii. 19. The apostle giving an account of some who had formerly walked with him in the profession of the faith, and of the fellowship which they had with the Father and the Son, and fell away from Christ into an opposition against him, so far as to deserve the title of Antichrists, having not only forsaken the gospel, but making it also their business to oppose it, and to seduce others from the simplicity of the same; — these, he informs the scattered believers of the Jews, were apostates, having formerly walked with them, but [who had] deserted their fellowship, and thereby manifested themselves never to have been true believers, nor ever, indeed, to have had fellowship with the Father and the Son, no more than they of whom our Saviour spake in the place before mentioned; and yet, doubtless, the apostle may not be supposed to lay a foundation for jealousies, evil suspicions, and surmises among believers, though he plainly and evidently affirms that those who fall away were never true believers, and that if they had been so, they would have continued in their faith and fellowship with the people of God. “They went out from us,” saith he, “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” A passage, by the way, clearly confirming the main of the doctrine we have hitherto insisted on; and therefore I shall turn aside, before I come to the close of this chapter, having this occasion administered, to vindicate it from the exceptions Mr Goodwin gives in against the testimony it bears in this case.

The argument that it readily furnisheth us withal is of this import: “If all they who fall away totally from the fellowship and society of the church and saints of God, whatever their profession were before that apostasy, were never true believers, and are thereby manifested never to have been so, then those who are true believers cannot fail away; but the first is true, therefore the latter.” The words are so disposed as to be cast into an hypothetical proposition, which virtually includes a double argument, as every discreet axiom doth; — it is not thus, therefore thus. If true believers might so depart and apostatize as those here mentioned, no unquestionable proof could be drawn from such apostasy that men were never true believers; which yet is plainly insisted on in the text.

Mr Goodwin, chap. x. sect. 21–24, pp. 189–192, gathers up sundry exceptions from the Remonstrants, which (as they also did) he opposeth to this interpretation of the words, and the inferences from them insisted on. I shall briefly consider and remove them in that order as by him they are laid down. He saith, —

First, “This inference presumeth many things, for which neither it nor any of the authors of it will ever be able to give any good security of proof; as, —

“First, That this phrase, ‘They were not of us,’ imports that they were never true believers. This certainly can never be proved, because there is another sense, and this every whit as proper to the words, and more commodious for the context and scope of the place, which may be given of them, as we shall see anon.”

Ans. That there is not any thing presumed for the eduction of the inference proposed but what is either directly expressed or evidently included in the words of the text, will appear in the farther consideration of what Mr Goodwin hath to offer to the contrary. That expression, “They were not of us,” imports evidently that they were not of them in the fellowship and communion which he was now exhorting believers to continue and abide in. He tells them at the head of this discourse, chap. i. 3, that the end of his writing to them was to draw them into, and keep them in, communion with himself and the saints with him; which communion or “fellowship,” be tells them, “they had with the Father and with his Son:” but as for the persons of whom in these words he is speaking to them, describing them by their former and present condition, with the causes of it, he tells them that though they abode with them for a season, yet they were never of them as to the communion and fellowship they had with the Father and Son; and so were never true members of the church. The only reason Mr Goodwin gives to invalidate this sense of the words is, that he is able to give another meaning of them, in his own judgment, “more proper to the words and more commodious to the scope of the place;” which whether it have any more efficacy to take off the force and evidence of the interpretation given, lying plain and clear in the first view of the words and context, than it hath to evade the eduction of any truth whatever from any place of Scripture whatever, seeing some or other suppose themselves able to give another sense of the words, let the reader judge. But he adds, —

“Secondly, That this expression, ‘They were of us,’ signifies that they were true believers, is presumed. Of the uncertainty of this supposition we shall,” saith he, “give the like account.”

Ans. When we come to take Mr Goodwin’s farther account, we shall be able, I make no doubt, to reckon with him, and to discharge his bill. In the meantime, we say, that supposition, “If they had been of us” (whence our inference is made), evidently includes a fellowship and communion with the apostle and true believers in their fellowship with God; which is asserted as a certain foundation of men’s abiding in the communion of the saints. But, says he, —

“Thirdly, It is supposed that these words, ‘They went out from us,’ signify their final defection, or abdication of the apostle’s communion, or their total and final renunciation of Christ, his church, and gospel. This supposition hath no bottom at all or colour for it.”

Ans. Divide not the words from their coherence and the intendment of the place, and the signification denied is too evident and clear for any one, with the least colour of reason, to rise up against it. “They went out,” so out from the communion of the church, as to become antichrists, opposers of Christ, and seducers from him; and certainly in so doing did totally desert the communion of the apostle, renounce the Lord Christ as by him preached, and forsake utterly both church and gospel, as to any fellowship with the one or the other. And we know full well what is the bottom of this and the like assertions, “that such and such things have no bottom at all,” which never yet failed Mr Goodwin in his need.

“Fourthly,” saith he, “It is supposed that this clause, ‘They would no doubt have continued with us,’ signifies They would have continued in the same faith wherein we persevere and continue. Nor is there,” saith he, “any competent reason to enforce this sense of those words, because neither doth the grammatical tenor of them require it, and much less the scope of the passage.”

Ans. The fellowship John invited believers unto, and to continue in (as hath often been observed), with him and the saints, was that which they held with the Father and the Son. To continue with them therein, in the literal, grammatical sense of the words, is to continue in the faith, it being faith whereby they have that fellowship or communion. This also is evident from the scope of the whole passage, and is here only impotently denied. But, saith he, —

“Fifthly, The said inference supposeth that John certainly knew that all those who for the present remained in his communion were true believers; for if they were not true believers, they that were gone out from them, in the sense contended for, might be said to be ‘of them,’ that is, persons of the same condition with them. But how improbable this is, I mean that John should infallibly know that all those who as yet continued with them were true believers, I refer to consideration.”

Ans. Had Mr Goodwin a little poised this passage before he took it up, perhaps he would have cast it away as a useless trifle; but, his masters having insisted on it, perhaps he thought it not meet to question their judgments in the least, for fear of being at liberty to deal so with them in matters of greater importance. I say, then, that there is not the least colour for any such supposal from the inference we make from the text, nor is there any thing of that nature intimated or suggested in the words, or argument from them. The body of them whom the apostates forsook were true believers, and their abiding in the fellowship of the saints was a manifestation of it, sufficient for them to be owned as such, which the others manifested themselves never to have been, by their apostasy. But, saith he, —

“Sixthly, The inference under contest yet farther supposeth that John certainly knew that they who were now gone out from them neither were now, nor ever were before, true believers; yea, and that he certainly knew this by their departure or going out from them.”

Ans. This is the very thing that the apostle affirms, that he certainly knew those apostates never to have been true believers, and that by their apostasy or falling totally from the gospel, becoming seducers and opposers of Christ. Let him argue it out with the Holy Ghost if he can, whose plain and clear expression this is, and that confirmed by the ensuing argument of the perseverance of them who were true believers, and whose fellowship is with the saints, in their communion with the Father and the Son. Wherefore, saith he, —

“Lastly, It presumeth yet farther, that all true believers do always abide in the external communion of the church; and that when men do not so abide, they plainly declare herein that they never were true believers; which is not only a manifest untruth, but expressly contrary to the doctrine itself of those men who assert the inference; for they teach (as we heard before) that a true believer may fall so foully and so far, that the church, according to the command of Christ, may be constrained to testify that she cannot tolerate them in her external communion, nor that ever they shall have any part or portion in the kingdom of Christ, unless they repent. Doubtless, to be cast out of the church, according to the institution and command of Christ (who commands no such thing but upon very heinous and high unchristian misdemeanours), is of every whit as sad importance as a voluntary desertion of the church’s communion can be for a season.”

Ans. It supposeth that no true believers fall so off from the church as to become antichrists, opposers of Christ and the church, so as to deny that Christ is come in the flesh; which was the great business of the antichrists in those days. It is true, and granted by us, that a true believer may forsake the outward communion of some particular church for a season; yea, and that upon his irregular walking, and not according to the rule of Christ, he may, by the authority of such a church, be rejected from its communion, for his amendment and recovery into the right way (of which before): but that a true believer can voluntarily desert the communion of the saints, and become an antichrist, that this text denies, and we from it, and the many other witnesses of the same truth that have been produced.

Notwithstanding, then, all Mr Goodwin’s exceptions, there is nothing presumed in the inference we make from these words, but what is either expressly contained or evidently included in them.

But Mr Goodwin will not thus give over. He prefers his exceptions to this testimony in another whole section; which, because the demonstration of the truth in hand from this place, though here handled by-the-by, is of great importance, and such as by its single strength is sufficient utterly to cast to the ground the figment set up in opposition to it, I shall present entirely to the reader, that our author may be heard out, and nothing omitted that he pleads for the waiving of the force of the argument in hand in that whole section. Thus, then, he proceeds:—