John Owen · 70 of 73

Chapter XVII. A review of passages in scripture adduced to prove the apostasy of saints. · Part 4

Mr Goodwin’s ensuing discourse is concerning the judgment of expositors upon the place, particularly naming Chrysostom, Calvin, Musculus, Diodati, the English annotators; of whom, notwithstanding, not any one doth appear for him, so unhappy is he in his quotations, though sundry of good note (and amongst them Piscator himself) do interpret the word in the sense by him contended for, knowing full well that it may be allowed in its utmost significancy without the least prejudice to the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance, as hath been manifested. Of those mentioned by Mr Goodwin, there is not any one, from first to last, but restrained the word to the reproachableness or irreproachableness of the apostle in the discharge of the work of the ministry; the sense of it which we also insist upon. To spend time and labour in searching the expressions of particular men, weighing and considering the coherences, design, and circumstances of their writings, is beside my intention. The judgment of what hath been affirmed is left to the intelligent reader who supposeth it of his concernment to inquire particularly into it.

What is added of the scope of the place, sect. 15, p. 280, alone requires any farther consideration. This, then, he thus proposeth:—

“5. The scope of the place, from verse 23, evinceth the legitimacy of such a sense in both above all contradiction; for the apostle, having asserted this for the reason, motive, and end, why he had made himself a servant to all men, in bearing with all men’s humours and weaknesses in the course of his ministry, namely, that he might be partaker of the gospel (that is, of the saving benefit or blessing of the gospel) with them, verse 23, and again, that what he did he did to obtain an incorruptible crown, verse 25, plainly showeth that that which he sought to prevent, by running and fighting at such a high rate as he did, was not the blame and disparagement of some such misbehaviour, under which, notwithstanding, he might retain the saving love of God, but the loss of his part and portion in the gospel, and of that incorruptible crown which he sought, by that severe hand which he still held over himself, to obtain.”

Ans. The scope of the place was before manifested, in answer to its dependence on the whole discourse foregoing, from verse 15, where the apostle enters upon the relation of his deportment in the work and service of the gospel, with a particular eye to his carriage therein as to his use or forbearance of the allowance of temporal things from them to whom he preached; which was due to him by all the right whereby any claim in any kind whatever may be pursued, together with the express institution of the Lord Jesus Christ, by him before laid down. In this course he behaved himself with wisdom, zeal, and diligence, having many glorious aims in his eye, as also being full of a sense of the duty incumbent on him, verse 16; to whose performance he was constrained by the law of Jesus Christ, as he also here expresses. Among other things that provoked him to and supported him in his hard labour and travail, was the love he bare to the gospel, and that he might have fellowship with others in the propagation and declaration of the glorious message thereof. This is his intendment, verse 23, τοῦτο δέ, etc. For the gospel’s sake, or the love he bare to it, he desired with others to be partaker of it; — that is, of the excellent work of preaching of it; for of the benefit of the gospel he might have been partaker with other believers, though he had never been set apart to its promulgation. In his whole discourse he still speaks accommodately to his business in hand, for the describing of his work of apostleship in preaching the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ; and as to the end of this work, he acquaints us that there was proposed before him the incorruptible crown of his Master’s approbation (upon his lawful running and striving in the way of the ministry whereto he was called), — the peculiar glory of them whom he is pleased to employ in his service. And though the cause of his fighting at that rate as he did was not wholly the fear of non-approbation in that work, a necessity of duty being incumbent on him which he was to discharge, yet he that knows how to value the crown of approbation from Christ, the holy angels, and the church, of having faithfully discharged the office of a steward in dispensing the things of God, will think it sufficiently effectual to stir up any one to the utmost expense of love, pains, and diligence, that he may not come short of it. And of Mr Goodwin’s proof this is the issue.

His next is from Heb. vi. 4–8, with x. 26–29, which he brings in attended with the ensuing discourse, sect. 18:—

“The next passage we shall insist upon to evince the possibility of a final defection in the saints openeth itself in these words: ‘For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.’ Answerable hereunto is another in the same epistle: ‘For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?’ Evident it is that in these two passages the Hoy Ghost, after a serious manner, and with a very pathetic and moving strain of speech and discourse (scarce the like to be found in all the Scriptures), admonisheth those who are at present true believers to take heed of relapsing into the ways of their former ignorance and impiety. This caveat or admonition he presseth by an argument of this import, that in case they shall thus relapse, there will be very little or no hope at all of their recovery, or return to the estate of faith and grace wherein now they stand. Before the faces of such sayings and passages as these, rightly understood and duly considered, there is no standing for that doctrine which denies a possibility either of a total or of a final defection of the saints. But this light also is darkened in the heavens by the interposition of the veils of these two exceptions:— 1. That the apostle in the said passages affirms nothing positively concerning the falling away of those he speaks of, but only conditionally and upon supposition. 2. That he doth not speak of true and sound believers, but of hypocrites, and such who had faith only in show, not in substance. The former of these exceptions hath been already non-suited, and that by some of the ablest patrons themselves of the cause of perseverance; where we were taught from a pen of that learning, that ‘such conditional sayings upon which admonitions, promises, or threatenings are built, do at least suppose something in possibility, however, by virtue of their tenor and form, they suppose nothing in being.’ But, —

“As to the places in hand, there is not any hypothetical sign or conditional particle to be found in either of them as they come from the Holy Ghost and are carried in the original. Those two ‘ifs’ appearing in the English translation, the one in the former place, the other in the latter, show, it may be, the translators’ inclination to the cause, but not their faithfulness in their engagement, — an infirmity whereunto they were very subject, as we shall have occasion to take notice of the second time ere long, in another instance of the like partiality. But the tenor of both the passages in hand is so ordered by the apostle, that he plainly declares how great and fearful the danger is or will be when believers do or shall fall away, not if or in case they shall fall away.”

Ans. Of the two answers which, as himself signifieth, are usually given to the objections from these places of Scripture, that Mr Goodwin doth not fairly acquit his hands of either will quickly appear:—

1. To the first, that the form of speech used by the apostle in both places is conditional, whence there is no argument to the event without begging the thing in question, or supposal that the condition in all respects may be fulfilled, where it requires only, to the constitution of it as a condition in the place of arguing wherein it is used, that it may be possible in some only, — he opposeth, “That some of them who have wrote for the ‘doctrine of the saints’ perseverance’ have disclaimed the use of it, as to its application to the place in Ezekiel formerly considered.” But yet, leaving them to the liberty of their judgment who are so minded, that the reason given by them, and here again repeated by Mr Goodwin, doth not in the least enforce any to let go this answer to the objection proposed that shall be pleased to insist upon it, hath been manifested.

To this Mr Goodwin farther adds that weighty observation, that the word “if” is not in the original; and thence takes occasion to fall foul upon the translators as having corrupted the passages, out of favour to the doctrine contended for. I wish they had never worse mistaken, nor showed more partiality in any other place. For, first, will Mr Goodwin say that a proposition cannot be hypothetical, nor an expression conditional, unless the word “if” be expressed? Were it worth the labour, instances might abundantly be given him in that language whereof we speak to the contrary. He that shall say to him as he is journeying, “Going the right hand way, you will meet with thieves,” may be doubtless said to speak conditionally, no less than he that should expressly tell him, “If you go the way on the right hand, you shall meet with thieves.” Secondly, what clear sense and significancy can be given the words without the supplement of the conditional conjunction, or some other term equipollent thereunto, Mr Goodwin hath not declared. “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened,” etc., “and they falling away,” as the words (“verbum de verbo”) lie in the text, is scarce in English a congruous or significant expression; yea, καὶ παραπεσόντας, in the syntax and coherence wherein it lies, is most properly and directly rendered, “If they fall away,” as is also the force of the expression, chap. x. 26. Yea, thirdly, the corruption of the translation mentioned by Mr Goodwin doth not in the least relieve him as to the delivery of the words from a sense hypothetical. “When they fall away” (though his “when” be no more in the text than the translators’ “if”), doth either include a supposition that they shall and must fall away certainly, and so requires the event of the thing whereof it is spoken, or it is expressive only of the condition whereon the event is suspended. If it be taken in the first sense, all believers must fall away; if in the latter, none may, notwithstanding any thing in this text (so learnedly restored to its true significancy), the words only pointing at the connection that is between apostasy and punishment. Notwithstanding, then, any thing here offered to the contrary, those who affirm that nothing can certainly be concluded from these places for the apostasy of any, be they who they will that are intended in them, because they are conditional assertions, manifesting only the connection between the sin and punishment expressed, need not be ashamed of nor recoil from their affirmation in the least.

For mine own part, I confess I do not in any measure think it needful to insist upon the conditionals of these assertions of the Holy Ghost, as to the removal of any or all the oppositions that from them, of old or of late, have been raised and framed against the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance, there being in neither of the texts insisted on either name or thing inquired after, nor any one of all the severals inquired into, and constantly in the Scriptures used, in the description of the saints and believers of whom we speak. This I shall briefly in the first place demonstrate, and then proceed with the consideration of what is offered by Mr Goodwin in opposition thereunto. Some few observations will lead us through the first part of this work designed. I say then, —

1. There is an inferior, common work of the Holy Ghost, in the dispensation of the word, upon many to whom it is preached, causing in them a great alteration and change as to light, knowledge, abilities, gifts, affections, life, and conversation, when the persons so wrought upon are not quickened, regenerate, nor made new creatures, nor united to Jesus Christ. I suppose there will not be need for me to insist on the proof of this proposition, the truth of it being notoriously known and confessed, as I suppose, amongst all that profess the name of Christ.

2. That in persons thus wrought upon, there is, or may be, such an assent, upon light and conviction, to the truths proposed and preached to them as is true in its kind, not counterfeit, giving and affording them in whom it is wrought profession of the faith, and that sometimes with constancy to the death, or the giving of their bodies to be burned, with persuasions (whence they are called “believers”) of a future enjoyment of a glorious and blessed condition, and filling them with ravished affections and rejoicings in hope, which they profess suitable to the expectation they have of such a state and condition. This also might be easily evinced by innumerable instances and examples from the Scripture, if need required.

3. That the persons in and upon whom this work is wrought cannot be said to be hypocrites in the most proper sense of that word, — that is, such as counterfeit and pretend themselves to be that which they know they are not, — nor to have faith only in show and not in substance, as though they made a show and pretence only of an assent to the things they professed; their high gifts, knowledge, faith, change of affections and conversation, being in their own kind true (as the faith of devils is): and yet, notwithstanding all this, they are in bondage, and at best seek for a righteousness as it were by the works of the law, and in the issue Christ proves to them of none effect.

4. That among these persons many are oftentimes endued with excellent gifts, lovely parts, qualifications, and abilities, rendering them exceedingly useful, acceptable, and serviceable to the church of God, becoming vessels in his house to hold and convey to others the precious liquor of the gospel, though their nature in themselves be not changed, they remaining wood and stone still.

5. That much of the work wrought in and upon this sort of persons by the Spirit and word lies, in its own nature, in a direct tendency to their relinquishment of their sins and self-righteousness, and to a closing with God in Christ, having a mighty prevalency upon them to cause them to amend their ways, and to labour after life and salvation; from which to apostatize and fall off, upon the account of the tendency mentioned of these beginnings, is dangerous, and for the most part pernicious.

6. That persons under convictions and works of the Spirit formerly mentioned, partakers of the gifts, light, and knowledge spoken of, with those other endowments attending them, are capacitated for the sin against the Holy Ghost, or the unpardonable apostasy from God.

These things being commonly known, and, as far as I know, universally granted, I affirm that the persons mentioned and intended in these places are such as have been now described, and not the believers or saints, concerning whom alone our contest is.

Mr Goodwin replies, sect. 19, p. 283:—

“To the latter exception, which pretends to find only hypocrites, and not true believers, staged in both passages, we likewise answer, that it glosseth no whit better than the former, if not much worse, considering that the persons presented in the said passages are described by such characters and signal excellencies which the Scriptures are wont to appropriate unto saints and true believers, and that when they intend to show them in the best and greatest of their glory. What we say herein will, I suppose, be made above all gainsaying by instancing particulars.”

Ans. That this is most remote from truth, and that there is not here any one discriminating character of true believers, so far are the expressions from setting them out in any signal eminency, will appear from these ensuing considerations:—

1. There is no mention of faith or believing, either in express terms or in terms of an equivalent significancy, in either of the places mentioned; therefore true believers are not the persons intended to be described in these places. Did the Holy Ghost intend to describe believers, it is very strange that he should not call them so, nor make mention of any one of those principles in them from whence and whereby they are such. Wherefore, I say, —

2. There is not any thing ascribed here to the persons spoken of which belongs peculiarly to true believers, as such, or that constitutes them to be such, and which yet are things plainly and positively asserted and described in innumerable other places of Scripture. That the persons described are “called according to the purpose of God, quickened, born again or regenerated, justified, united to Christ, sanctified by the Spirit, adopted, made sons of God,” and the like, which are the usual expressions of believers, pointing out their discriminating form as such, is not in the least intimated in the text, context, or any concernment of it. That they are elected of God, redeemed of Christ, sanctified by the Spirit, that they are made holy, is not at all affirmed.

3. The persons intended are, chap. vi., verses 7, 8, compared to the ground upon which the rain falls, and [which yet] beareth “thorns and briers.” True believers, whilst they are so, are not such as do bring forth nothing but “thorns and briers,” faith itself being an “herb meet for Him by whom they are dressed.”

4. “Things that accompany salvation” are “better things” than any [which] in the persons mentioned were to be found. This the apostle asserts, verse 9, “We are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation.” Now, neither of these, neither “better things,” nor “things that accompany salvation,” were upon them whose apostasy the apostle supposeth. The exceptive particle at the entrance, with the apologetical design of the whole verse, ascribes such things to the saints, to whom the apostle speaks, as they were not partakers of concerning whom he had immediately before discoursed. The “faith of God’s elect,” whereby we are justified, is doubtless of the “things that accompany salvation.”

5. The persons intended by the apostle were such as “had need to be taught again the first principles of the oracles of God,” chap. v. 12; that were “unskilful in the word of righteousness,” verse 13; that had not their “senses exercised to discern both good and evil,” verse 14; and are plainly distinguished from them to whom the promise made to Abraham doth properly belong, chap. vi. 9–14, etc.

6. True believers are opposed, in the discourse of the apostle, chap. vi., unto these persons lying under a possibility of apostasy, so far as they are cast under it, by the conditional discourse of it, upon sundry accounts: as, of their “work and labour of love” showed to the name of God, verse 10; of their preservation, from the righteousness or faithfulness of God in his promises, verse 10; of the immutability of the counsel of God, and his oath for the preservation of them, verses 13, 17, 18; of their sure and steadfast anchor of hope, verse 19, etc. Upon all which considerations, it is abundantly evident that they are not believers, the children of God, justified, sanctified, adopted, saints, of whom the apostle treats in the passages insisted on.

Sect. 28, Mr Goodwin urges sundry reasons to prove that “they are not hypocrites or outside professors only, but true believers, that are described.” If by “hypocrites and outside professors” he intends those who are grossly so, pretending to be what they are not, and what they know themselves not to be, we contend not about it. If in these expressions he compriseth also those whom we characterized in the entrance of this discourse, who unto their profession of the faith have also added those gifts and endowments, with the like, which we mentioned, but who, notwithstanding all their advancement in light, conviction, joy, usefulness, [and] conversation, do yet come short of union with Christ, I shall join issue with him in the consideration of his reasons offered to be “pregnant of proof” for the confirmation of his assertion. He tells you, sect. 28, p. 288:—

“First, There is no clause, phrase, or word, in either of the places, any ways characteristical or descriptive of hypocrisy or hypocrites. There, are none of those colours to be seen which are wont to be used in drawing or limning the portraitures or shapes of those beasts, as distinguished from creatures of a better kind. All the lineaments of the persons presented in these tables, before the mention of their falling away, become the best and fairest faces of the saints (as hath been proved), and are not to be found in any other. Yea, the greatest and most intelligent believer under heaven hath no reason but to desire part and fellowship with the ‘hypocrites’ here described, in all those characters and properties which are attributed unto them before their falling away or sinning wilfully.”

Ans. 1. The design of the apostle is not to discover or give any characters of hypocrites, to manifest them to be such, but to declare the excellencies that are or may be found in them, from the enjoyment of all which they may decline, and sin against the mercy and grace of them, to the aggravation of their condemnation; neither had any lines used to particularize those “beasts” in their shape, wherein they differ from believers, been at all useful to the apostle’s purpose, his aim being only to draw those wherein they are like them and conformable to them. Neither, —

2. Is it questioned whether those things here mentioned may be found in true believers, and become them very well, rendering their faces beautiful; but whether there be not something else than what is here mentioned, that should give them being as such, and life, without which these things are little better than painting. Nor, —

3. Is it at all to the purpose that believers may desire a participation in those characters with the persons described; but whether they who hare no other characters or marks upon them of true believers than what are here mentioned must necessarily be so accounted, or will of God be so accepted. Many a believer may desire the gifts of those hypocrites, who have not one dram of the grace wherewith he is quickened. So that this first reason, as pregnant as it seems of proof, is only indeed swelled and puffed up with wind and vanity. He adds, —

“Secondly, True believers are in an estate of honour, and are lifted up on high towards the heavens; in which respect they have from whence to fall: but hypocrites are as near hell already as lightly they can be, till they be actually fallen into it; from whence, then, are they capable of falling? Men of estates may fail and break, but beggars are in no such danger. If hypocrites fall away, it must be from their hypocrisy; but this is rather a rising than a fall. A beggar cannot be said to break, but only when he gets an estate. When he doth this, the beggar is broke.”

Ans. All that here is added arises merely from the ambiguity of the word “hypocrites” The persons that fall are on all hands supposed to have and enjoy all that is made mention of in the texts insisted on; so that they have so much to fall from as that thereupon Mr Goodwin thinks them true believers. They have all the heights to tumble from which we before mentioned, and very many others that it is no easy task to declare. They fall from the excellencies they have, and not from the hypocrisy with which they are vitiated, — from the profession of the faith, with honesty of conversation, etc., not from the want of root or being built on the rock. So that this pretended “pregnant reason” is as barren as the former to the proving of the assertion laid down to be proved by it. He adds, —

“Thirdly, It is no punishment at all to hypocrites to be under no possibility of being ‘renewed again by repentance:’ nay, in case they should ‘fall away,’ it would be a benefit and blessing unto them to be under an impossibility of being ‘renewed again;’ for if this were their case, it would be impossible for them to be ever hypocrites again, and doubtless it is no great judgment upon any man to be incapable of such a preferment.”

Ans. Whether it be no punishment for them who have been in so good a way, a way of such tendency unto salvation and such usefulness to the gospel, as those persons are supposed to be in, not to be renewed again to that state and condition, but to be shut up unrecoverably under the power of darkness and unbelief unto eternal wrath, when before they were in a fair way for life and salvation, others will judge besides Mr Goodwin. Neither is there an affirmation of their falling away from their hypocrisy, and being renewed again thereunto, in any thing we assert in the exposition of this place, but their falling away from gifts and common graces, with the impossibility, of what kind soever it be, of being renewed to an enjoyment of them any more. His fourth and last attempt follows.

“Fourthly, and lastly, It stands off forty foot at least from all probability, that the apostle, writing only unto those whom he judged true and sound believers (as appears from several places in the epistle, as chap. iii. 14, vi. 9, etc.), should, in the most serious, emphatical, and weighty passages hereof, admonish them of such evils or dangers which only concerned other men, and whereunto themselves were not at all obnoxious; yea, and whereunto if they had been obnoxious, all the cautions, admonitions, warnings, threatenings in the world, would not (according to their principles with whom we have now to do) have relieved or delivered them. To say that such admonitions are a means to preserve those from apostasy who are by other means (as suppose the absolute decree of God, or the interposal of his irresistible power for their perseverance, or the like) in no possibility of apostatizing, is to say that washing is a means to make snow white, or the rearing up of a pillar in the air a means to keep the heavens from falling. But more of this in the chapter following.”

Ans. What exact measure soever Mr Goodwin seemeth to have taken of the distance of our assertion from “all probability” (which he hath accurately performed, if we may take his word), yet, upon due consideration, it evidently appears that he is not able to disprove it from coming close up to the absolute truth of the meaning and scope of the Holy Ghost in the places under consideration: for, besides what hath been already argued and proved, it is evident, —

1. That the apostle wrote promiscuously to all that profess the name of Christ and his gospel; of whom he tells you, chap. iii. 14 (one of the places we are directed to by Mr Goodwin), that those only are made “partakers of Christ who hold the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end;” [as] for the rest, notwithstanding all their glorious profession, gifts, and attainments, yet they are not truly made partakers of Christ (whereby he cuts the throat of Mr Goodwin’s whole cause); and chap. vi. 9, that there were amongst them [those] who had attained “things accompanying salvation,” and “better things” than any of those had done, who, notwithstanding their profession, yet held it not fast without wavering, but every day fell away: so that though he judged no particulars before their apostasy, yet he partly intimates that all professors were not true believers; and therefore does teach them all to make sure work in closing with Christ, lest they turn apostates, and perish in so doing.