by God to persevere finally, so that he leaves unto them no possibility of declining finally, their final perseverance is not, according to any law of God or man, nor, indeed, to any principle of reason or equity, capable of reward, no whit more than actions merely natural are; nay, of the two, there seems to be more reason why acts merely natural (as, for example, eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping) should be rewarded, inasmuch as these flow in a way of necessity, yet from an inward principle and connatural to the agent, than such actions whereunto the agent is constrained, necessitated, and determined, by a principle of power from without, and which is not intrinsical to it."

And this is the strength of the argument, which will quickly appear to be very weakness; for,

First, The efficacy of these expressions, "Whereunto it is necessitated, and from it they cannot possibly decline," as to their influence into this argument, ariseth clearly from their ambiguity. We deny any to be necessitated to persevere, or that our doctrine affirms any such thing; taking that expression to hold out a power upon their wills, in their operations, inconsistent with the utmost liberty whereof in spiritual things (having received a spiritual principle) men are capable. They are not so necessitated to persevere as that all the acts of their obedience, whereby they do persevere, should not be free, but necessary. Indeed they are not at all, nor in any sense, necessitated to persevere. There is no necessity attends their perseverance but only in respect of the event, with reference to the unchangeable purpose and infallible promise of God. The like may be said of that other expression, "Possibility of declining." God leaves in them a possibility of declining as to their way and manner of walking with him, though he leaves not to them a possibility of declining or falling totally from him as to the issue and event of the whole matter; which doth not in the least necessitate them to or in any of their operations.

Secondly, The proposition must be cast into another mould before it will be of any determinate signification in opposition to the doctrine it opposeth, and tuned to another mood before it will give a certain sound to any battle against it; and this is, That no act of the creature, that is wrought in order to the obtaining of any end promised to be certainly attained thereby, is rewardable of God (though for perseverance, it is not any act of the creature, but only a modus of its obedience). And thus it looks towards the concernment of this doctrine. Yet before this proposition pass, to omit sundry other things that would gladly rise to the destruction of it, I desire one query may be assailed, concerning the obedience of Jesus Christ, whether it were not necessary that the end of his obedience should follow? and whether it were not impossible he should decline from

his obedience? and if it were, whether it were impossible that God should give a reward thereunto? But,

Thirdly, The intendment of this proposition, as far as it concerns us (and that, indeed, is with a respect to our doctrine of the efficacy of grace, and not to this of perseverance), is this, "That which is wrought in us by the effectual grace of God is not capable of reward from God;"—a proposition which, though capable of some plea and colour, taking "reward" in a purely legal sense, supposing the persons seeking after it to do it by a service and duties proportioned unto it, yet is so openly and directly contradictory to the tenor and design of God in the covenant of grace by Jesus Christ, with the whole dispensation of the Spirit given to abide with believers, for all the ends and purposes as to their obedience, as that I shall content myself to deny it, expecting Mr Goodwin's proofs of it,-when "rivers run backward, heavy things ascend," etc.

Fourthly, For the flourish added to these assertions, by comparing the acts of the saints' obedience, upon a supposition of the grace of God "working them in them," with their natural actions of "eating, drinking, sleeping," as to their tendency to exalt the glory of God in rewarding, it proceeds either from gross ignorance of the doctrine opposed, or wilful prevaricating from that light of it which he hath. Who ever taught that God's operations in and towards believers, as to their perseverance in faith and obedience, did consist in an outward constraint of an unwilling principle? God gives a principle of obedience to them,—he writes and implants his law in their hearts, and moves them effectually to act suitably to that inward principle they have so received; which, though spiritual and supernatural in respect of its rise and manner of bestowing, yet is connatural to them in respect of its being a principle of operation. We are not, then, in the least beholding to our author for his following concession, "That as a prince may give great things to them that eat, and drink, and breathe, but not as rewards; so God may give eternal life to them that are so necessitated by him to persevere, though not as a reward:" for although we will not contend with God about eternal life, that he [may] give it us under the notion of a reward, and desire to be much affected with the consideration of it as a free gift of grace, an, eminent purchase of the blood of God, and look upon it merely as a reward of bounty, so called as being the end whereunto our obedience is suited, and the rest of our labours; yet we say, in an evangelical sense and acceptation it is properly so proposed to that obedience and perseverance therein which is wrought in us by the efficacy of the grace of God, as it lies in a tendency unto that end, which to be attained by those means he hath infallibly determined. He proceeds, therefore, to enforce his argument with a new consideration:

"If we speak of rewards promised in order to the moving or inclining of the wills of men towards such or such actions and ways,— of which kind also the rewards mentioned in the Scriptures as yet remaining to be conferred by God upon men are, the case is yet more clear, namely, that they are appropriate unto such actions and ways unto the election and choice whereof men are not necessitated in one kind or other, especially not by any physical or foreign power; for to what purpose should a reward be promised unto me, to persuade or make me willing to engage in such or such a course, or to perform such and such a service, in case I be necessitated to the same engagement or performance otherwise? Or what place is there left for a moral inducement where a physical necessity hath done the execution? Or, if the moral inducement hath done the execution, and sufficiently raised and engaged the will to the action, with what congruity of reason, yea, or common sense, can a physical necessity be superinduced?”

Ans. What there is more in this than what went before, unless sophistry and falsity, I see not; for,-First, Though I conceive that eternal life is proposed in the Scripture as our reward rather upon the account of supporting and cheering our spirits in the deficiencies, temptations, and entanglements attending our obedience, than directly to engage unto obedience (though consequently it doth that also), whereunto we have so many other unconquerable engagements and inducements, yet the consideration thereof in that sense also, as it moves the wills of men to actions suitable to the attainment of it, is very well consistent with the doctrine in hand. That old calumny, a hundred times repeated and insisted on in this contest, of our wills being necessitated and deprived of their choice and election, unless it could be tolerably made good, will be of no use to Mr Goodwin as to his present purpose. The whole strength of this argumentation is built on this supposal, that the effectual grace of God in its working the will and deed in believers, or the Spirit's doing of it by grace, with God's fore-determination of events, doth take away the liberty of the will, inducing into it a necessary manner of operation, -determining it to one antecedently in order of time to its own determination of itself; which is false, and no wise inferred from the doctrine under consideration. Yea, as God's providential concurrence with men and determination of their wills to all their actions as actions is the principle of all their natural liberty, so his gracious concurrence with them, or operation in them, as unto spiritual effects, working in them to will, is the principle of all their true spiritual liberty. When "the Son makes us free, then are we free indeed." The reward, then, is proposed to an understanding enlightened, a will quickened and made free by grace, to stir them up to actions suitable to them who are in expectation of so bountiful a

close of their obedience (which actions are yet wrought in them by the Spirit of God, whose fruits they are); and this to very good purpose, in the hearts of all that know what it is to walk with God, and to serve him in the midst of temptations, unless they are under the power of some such particular error as turns away their eyes from believing the truth.

Secondly, The opposition here pretended between a physical necessitating and a moral inducement for the producing of the same effect, is, in plain terms, intended between the efficacy of God's internal grace and the use of external exhortations and motives. If God give an internal principle, or spiritual habit, fitting for, inclining to, spiritual actions and duties; if he follow the work so begun in us (who yet of ourselves can do nothing, nor are sufficient to think a good thought) with continual supplies of his Spirit and grace, working daily in us, according to the exceeding greatness of his power, the things that are well pleasing in his sight; then, though he work upon us as creatures endued with reason, understandings, wills, and affections, receiving glory from us according to the nature he hath endued us withal, all exhortations and encouragements to obedience required at our hands are vain and foolish. Now, because we think this to be the very wisdom of God, and the opposition made unto it to be a mere invention of Satan to magnify corrupted nature and decry all the efficacy of the grace of the new covenant, we must have something besides and beyond the naked assertion of our author to cause us once to believe it.

Thirdly, The great execution that is made by moral inducement solely, without any internally efficacious grace, in the way of gospel obedience, is often supposed, but not once attempted to be put upon the proof or demonstration. It shall, then, suffice to deny that any persuasions, outward motives, or inducements whatever, are able of themselves to raise, engage, and carry out, the will unto action, so that any good, spiritual action should be brought forth on that account, without the effectual influence and physical operation of internal grace; and Mr Goodwin is left to prove it, together with such other assertions derogatory to the free grace of God, dogmatically imposed upon his reader in this chapter, whereof some have been already remarked, and others may in due time. The residue of this section (the 19th), spent to prove that eternal life is given as a reward to perseverance,-having already manifested the full consistency of the proposition, in a gospel acceptation of the word "reward," with whatever we teach of the perseverance of the saints,— I suppose myself unconcerned in; and therefore, passing by the triumphant conclusion of this argument, asserting an absolute power in men to exhibit or decline from obedience, I shall go on to that which, in my apprehension, is of more importance, and will give

occasion to a discourse, I hope, not unuseful or unprofitable to the reader. I shall therefore assign it a peculiar place and chapter to itself.

CHAPTER XV.

ARGUMENT AGAINST THE DOCTRINE FROM THE SINS OF BELIEVERS.

Mr G.'s fifth argument for the apostasy of true believers-The weight of this argument taken from the sins of believers-The difference between the sins of believers and unregenerate persons proposed to consideration, James i. 14, 15 -The rise and progress of lust and sin-The fountain of all sin in all persons is lust, Rom. vii. 7—Observations clearing the difference between regenerate and unregenerate persons in their sinning, as to the common fountain of all sin -The first-The second, of the universality of lust in the soul by nature— The third, in two inferences: the first, unregenerate men sin with their whole consent; the second inference, concerning the reign of sin and reigning sin— The fourth, concerning the universal possession of the soul by renewing grace -The fifth, that true grace bears rule wherever it be-Inferences from the former considerations-The first, that in every regenerate person there are diverse principles of all moral operations-Rom. vii. 19-22, opened—The second, that sin cannot reign in a regenerate person-The third, that regenerate persons sin not with their whole consent-Answer to the argument at the entrance proposed-Believers never sin with their whole consent and wills— Mr G.'s attempt to remove the answer-His exceptions considered and removed -Plurality of wills in the same person, in the Scripture sense-Of the opposition between flesh and Spirit-That no regenerate person sins with his full consent proved-Of the Spirit and his lustings in us-The actings of the Spirit in us free, not suspended on any conditions in us-' -The same farther manifested-Mr G.'s discourse of the first and second motions of the Spirit considered-The same considerations farther carried on-Peter Martyr's testimony considered-Rom. vii. 19-22, considered-Difference between the opposition made to sin in persons regenerate and that in persons unregenerate farther argued Of the sense of Rom. vii., and in what sense believers do the works of the flesh-The close of these considerations-The answer to the argument at the entrance of the chapter opened-The argument new formed-The major proposition limited and granted, and the minor denied— The proof of the major considered-Gal. v. 21; Eph. v. 5, 6; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10 -Believers how concerned in comminations-Threatenings proper to unbelievers for their sins-Farther objections proposed and removed-Of the progress of lust in tempting to sin-The effect of lust in temptations-Difference between regenerate and unregenerate persons as to the tempting of lust: 1. In respect of universality; 2. Of power-Objections answered-Whether believers sin only out of infirmity-Whether believers may sin out of malice and with deliberation—Of the state of believers who upon their sin may be excommunicated-Whether the body of Christ may be dismembered-What body of Christ it is that is intended-Mr G.'s thoughts to this purpose examined-Mr G.'s discourse of the way whereby Christ keeps or may keep his members examined-Members of Christ cannot become members of Satan1 Cor. vi. 15 considered-Of the sense and use of the word fes-Christ takes his members out of the power of Satan, gives up none to him-Repetition of regeneration asserted by the doctrine of apostasy-The repetition disproved