Mr G.’s third argument proposed and considered — The drama borrowed by Mr G. to make good this argument — The frame of speech ascribed to God by the Remonstrants, according to our doctrine, weighed and considered — The dealing of God with man, and the importance of his exhortations, according to the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance, manifested — In what sense and to what end exhortations and threatenings are made to believers — The fallacious ground of this argument of Mr G. — Mr G.’s fourth argument proposed to consideration, considered — Eternal life, how and in what sense a reward of perseverance — The enforcement of the major proposition considered — The proposition new moulded, to make it of concernment to our doctrine, and denied, from the example of the obedience of Jesus Christ — Efficacy of grace not inconsistent with reward — The argument enforced with a new consideration-That consideration examined and removed — Farther of the consistency of effectual grace and gospel exhortations.
A third argument is proposed, sect. 18, chap. xiii., in these words: “That doctrine which representeth God as weak, incongruous, and incoherent with himself, in his applications unto men, is not from God, and consequently that which contradicteth it must needs be the truth; but the doctrine of perseverance, opposed by us, putteth this great dishonour upon God, representeth him weak, incongruous, etc.: ergo.” For the proof of the minor proposition, to make good the charge in it exhibited against the doctrine of perseverance, there is a dramatical scheme induced (to whose framing and application Mr Goodwin contributed no more but the pains of a translator, taking it from the Anti-synod., pp. 276, 277), in these words: “ ‘You that truly believe in my Son, and have been once made partakers of my Holy Spirit, and therefore are fully persuaded and assured, from my will and command given unto you in that behalf, yea, according to the infallible word of truth which you have from me, that you cannot possibly, no, not by all the most horrid sins and abominable practices that you shall or can commit, fall away either totally or finally from your faith, — for in the midst of your foulest actions and courses there remains a seed in you which is sufficient to make you true believers, and to preserve you from falling away finally, so that it is impossible you should die in your sins; you that know and are assured that I will, by an irresistible hand, work perseverance in you, and consequently that you are out of all danger of condemnation, and that heaven and salvation belong unto you, and are as good as yours already, so that nothing but giving of thanks appertains to you, which also you know that I will, do what you will in the meantime, necessitate you unto; — you, I say, that are fully and thoroughly persuaded and possessed with the truth of all these things, I earnestly charge, admonish, exhort, and beseech, that you take heed to yourselves that ye continue in the faith, that there be not at any time an evil heart of unbelief in any to depart from the living God, that you fall not from your own steadfastness. Yea, I declare and profess unto you, that if you shall draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in you; that if you shall deny me, I will deny you; that if you be again overcome of the lusts of the world, and be entangled therewith, your latter end shall be worse than your beginning; that if you shall turn away, all your former righteousness shall not be remembered, but you shall die in your sins, and suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. On the other hand, if you shall continue to the end, my promise is that you shall be saved. Therefore, strive to enter in at the strait gate, quit yourselves like men, labour for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life, and be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.’ He that shall duly weigh and consider what a senseless and indeed ridiculous incongruity there is between these exhortations, adjurations, threatenings, and latter promises, and those declarations, applications, and former promises, doubtless will confess that either the one or the other of them are not from God or according to the mind of God.”
Ans. The incongruity of this fiction with the doctrine it is framed against is so easily manifested, that it will not much concern us to consider the incongruity that the several parts of it have one with another; for, —
First, The whole foundation of this fanatic fabric is ridiculous in itself, and ridiculously imposed on the doctrine of perseverance: for whereas it says not that all saints have any comfortable assurance of their perseverance, and so may, by all gospel ways whatever, by promises and threatenings, be stirred up to the use of those means whereby perseverance is wrought and assurance obtained; so it says that no one saint in the world ever had, can have, or was taught to expect his perseverance, or the least sense or assurance of it, under such an uncouth supposition as falling into and continuing in sins and abominations. The promises they have to assure them of their inseparable abode with God to the end are, “that he will write his law in their hearts, and put his fear in their inward parts, that they shall never depart from him;” and that they shall be kept up thereto by the use of means suitable, as appointed of God for the attaining of the end proposed, being” kept by the power of God,” but “through faith, unto salvation.” God doth not call (nor cloth the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or of the stability and unchangeableness of his promises in Christ to believers, assert it) any to believe that they shall never fall away from him, what sins and rebellions soever they fall into; neither hath he promised any such thing unto them, but only that he will, through his grace, preserve them in the use of means from such rebellions as are inconsistent with his love and free acceptation through Christ, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace. So that instead of the first part of this fiction, whose inconsistency with the latter is after argued, let this, according to the analogy of our doctrine, be substituted:—