all managed within and provoked without to that end and purpose. But how it will thence follow that it is the intendment of God by his threatenings to ingenerate such a fear of bell in them as is inconsistent with an assurance of his faithfulness in his promises not to leave them, but to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom, I profess I know not. The obedience of the saints we look upon to proceed from a principle wrought in them with a higher energy and efficacy than mere desires of God to implant it by arguments and motives; that is, by persuading them to it, without the least real contribution of strength or power, or the ingrafting the word in them, in, with, and by, a new principle of life. And if this be the Phyllis of our author's doctrine, solus habeto. Such a working of obedience we cannot think to have any thing "of God, of the Spirit of God, of the wisdom of God, or the goodness of God," in it; being exceedingly remote from the way and manner of God's working in the saints as held out in the word of truth, and ineffectual to the end proposed in that condition wherein they are. The true use of the threatenings of wrath, in reference to them who by Christ are delivered from it, hath been before manifested and insisted on.

Thirdly, In the last division of this section, he labours to prove that what is done from a principle of fear may be done willingly and cheerfully, as well as that which is done from a principle of love. To which briefly I say,

1. Neither fear nor love, as they are mere natural affections, is any principle of spiritual obedience as such.

2. That we are so far from denying the usefulness of the fear of the Lord to the obedience of the saints, that the continuance thereof in them to the end is the great promise, for the certain accomplishment whereof we do contend.

3. That fear of hell in believers, as a part of the wrath of God from which they are delivered by Christ, being opposed to all their graces of faith, love, hope, etc., is no principle of obedience in them, whatever influence it may have on them as to restraint when managed by the hand of God's grace.

4. That yet believers can never be delivered from it but by faith in the blood of Christ, attended with sincere and upright walking with God; which when they fail of, though that fear, supposed to be predominant in the soul, be inconsistent with any comfortable, cheering assurance of the favour of God, yet it is not with the certain continuance to them of the thing itself, upon the account of the promises of God.

Sect. 16. contains a large discourse, in answer to the apostle affirming that "fear hath torment;" which is denied by our author, upon sundry considerations. The fear he intends is a fear of hell and "wrath to come." This he supposeth to be of such predomi

nancy in the soul as to be a principle of obedience unto God. That this can be without torment, disquiet, bondage, and vexation, he will not easily evince to the consciences of them who have at any time been exercised under such a frame. What fear is consistent with hope; what incursions upon the souls of the saints are made by dread and bondage; the fears of hell, and the use of such fears; how some are, though true believers, scarcely delivered from such fears all their days, I have formerly declared. And that may suffice as to all our concernment in this discourse.

In the 17th section somewhat is attempted as to promises, answerable to what hath been done concerning exhortations and threatenings. The words used to this end are many; the sum is, "That the use of promises in stirring men up to obedience is solely in the proposal of a good thing or good things to them to whom the promises are made, which they may attain or come short of. Now, if men are assured, as this doctrine supposeth they may be, that they shall attain the end whether they use the means or no, how can they possibly be incited by the promises to the use of the means proposed for the enjoyment of the end promised?" That this is the substance of his discourse I presume himself will confess; and it being the winding up of a tedious argument, I shall briefly manifest its uselessness and lay it aside. I say, then,

1. What is the true use of the promises of God, and what influence they have into the obedience and holiness of the saints, hath been formerly declared; neither is any thing there asserted of their genuine and natural tendency to the ends expressed enervated in the least by any thing here insisted on or intimated by Mr Goodwin: so that without more trouble I might refer the reader thither to evince the falseness of Mr Goodwin's assertions concerning the uselessness of the promises unto perseverance, upon a supposition that there are promises of perseverance.

2. Though we affirm that all true saints shall persevere, yet we do not say that all that are so do know themselves to be so, and towards them, at least, the promises may have their efficacy in that way which Mr Goodwin hath by his authority confined them to work in.

3. We say that our Saviour was fully persuaded that in the issue of his undertakings and sufferings he should be "glorified with his Father," according to his promise; and yet, upon the account of that glory, which he was so assured of, being set before him, he addressed himself to the sharpest and most difficult passage to it that ever any one entered on. He" endured the cross, despising the shame," for the glory's sake whereof he had assurance, Heb. xii. 2. And why may not this be the state of them to whom, in his so doing, he was a captain of salvation? Why may not the glory and reward set before them, though enjoyed in a full assurance of faith, in the excel

lency of it, when possessed, as promised, stir them up to the means leading thereunto?

4. The truth is, the more we are assured with the assurance of faith (not of presumption) that we shall certainly obtain and enjoy the end whereunto the means we use do lead (as is the assurance that ariseth from the promises of God), the more eminently are we pressed in a gospel way, if we walk in the spirit of the gospel, to give up ourselves to obedience to that God and Father who hath appointed so precious and lovely means as are the paths of grace for the obtaining of so glorious an end as that whereunto we are appointed.

And thus I doubt not but that it is manifest, by these considerations of Mr Goodwin's objections to the contrary, that the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, as by us taught and delivered, doth not only fall in a sweet compliance with all the means of grace, especially those appointed by God to establish the saints in faith and obedience,—that is, to work perseverance in them,—but also to be eminently useful to give life, vigour, power, and efficacy, in a peculiar gospel manner, to all exhortations, threatenings, and promises, appointed and applied by God to that end and purpose.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ASSERTORS AND ADVERSARIES OF THE DOCTRINE COMPARED. The maintainers and propagators of the several doctrines under contest taken into consideration-The necessity of so doing from Mr G. undertaking to make the comparison-This inquiry confined to those of our own nationThe chief assertors of the doctrine of the saints' perseverance in this nation since it received any opposition; what was their ministry, and what their lives-Mr G.'s plea in this case-The first objection against his doctrine by him proposed, second and third-His answers to these objections considered, removed His own word and testimony offered against the experience of thousands-The persons pointed to by him and commended, considered— The principles of those persons he opposeth vindicated-Of the doctrine of the primitive Christians as to this head of religion-Grounds of mistake in reference to their judgment-The first reformers constant to themselves in their doctrine of the saints' perseverance-Of the influence of Mr Perkins' judgment on the propagation of the doctrine of the saints' perseverance— Who the persons were on whom his judgment is supposed to have had such an influence-The consent of foreign churches making void this surmise-What influence the doctrine of the saints' perseverance has into the holiness of its professors-Of the unworthiness of the persons who in this nation have asserted the doctrine of apostasy-The suitableness of this doctrine to their practices Mr G.'s attempt to take off this charge-How far men's doctrines may be judged by their lives-Mr G.'s reasons why Episcopalists arminianized the first, considered and disproved-His discord, etc.-General apostasy of men entertaining the Arminian tenets-The close.

As to the matter in hand, about the usefulness of the doctrine of

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the perseverance of the saints in and unto the ministry of the gospel, and the obstruction pretended to be laid unto it thereby, it may be somewhat conducing and of concernment to consider who the persons are and were, and what hath been and is the presence of God with them, in their ministry, who have been assertors and zealous maintainers of this doctrine; and withal who they were, and what they have been in their ministry, and in the dispensation of the word committed unto them, who have risen up in opposition thereunto. How, also, these different parties have approved their profession to the world, and acquitted themselves in their generation in their walking with God, may be worth our consideration. Doubtless, if the doctrine whose declaration and defence we have thus far engaged in be of such a pernicious tendency as is pretended, so destructive to gospel obedience, and so evidently rendering that great ordinance of the ministry useless, it may be traced to its product of these effects, in some measure, in the lives, conversations, and ministry, of those who have most zealously espoused it, most earnestly contended for it, and been most given up to the form and mould thereof. It were a thing every way miraculous, if any root should for the most part bring forth fruit disagreeing to the nature of it.

A task this is, I confess, which, were we not necessitated unto, I could easily dispense with myself from engaging in; but Mr Goodwin having voluntarily entered the list as to this particular, and instituted a comparison between the abettors of the several doctrines under contest, chap. ix. of his book (a matter we should not have expected from any other man), it could not but be thought a gross neglect of duty, and high ingratitude towards those great and blessed souls who in former and latter days, with indefatigable pains and eminent success, watered the vineyard of the Lord with the dew of this doctrine, to decline the consideration of the comparison made and dressed up to our hand. Now, because it is a peculiar task allotted to us, to manifest the embracement of this truth by those who in the primitive church were of greatest note and eminency, for piety, judgment, and skill in dividing the word aright; with the professed opposition made unto it by such as those with whom they lived, and succeeding ages, have branded for men unsound in the faith, and leaving the good old paths wherein the saints of old found peace to their souls; as also to manifest the receiving and propagation of it by all (not any one of name excepted) those great and famous persons whom the Lord was pleased to employ in the reformation of his church, walking in this, as in sundry other particulars, closer up to the truth of the gospel than some of their brethren, that at the same time fell off from that church which was long before fallen off from the truth;-I shall, in my present inquiry, confine myself to those of our own nation who have been of renown in their

generation for their labour in the Lord, and of name among the saints for their work in the service of the gospel.

For the one half of that small space of time which is passed since the breaking forth of the light of the gospel in this nation, we are disenabled from pursuing the comparison instituted, the one part being not to be considered, or at least not being considerable. The time when first head was made against the truth we profess, and criminations like those managed by Mr Goodwin hatched and contrived to assault it withal, was when it had been eminently delivered to the saints of this nation, and to all the churches of Christ, by Reynolds, Whitaker, Greenham, and others like to them, their fellowlabourers in the Lord's vineyard. The poor weak worms of this present generation who embrace the same doctrine with these men of name, are thought to be free (some of them, at least) from being destroyed by the poisonous and pernicious embracing of it, by their own weakness and disability to discern the natural, genuine consequences and tendency in the progress of that which in the root and foundation they embrace. Their ignorance of their own doctrine in its compass and extent is the mother of that devotion which in them is nourished thereby. So our great masters tell us, against whose kingly authority in these things there is no rising up. For the persons formerly named the like relief cannot be supposed. He that shall provide an apology for them, affirming that they understood not the state, nature, consequences, and tendencies, of the doctrine they received, defended, preached, contended for, will scarce be able, by any following defensative, to vindicate his own credit for so doing. In the lives, then, and the ministry of those men, and such as those, if anywhere, are the fruits of this doctrine to be seen. If it corrupted not their lives, nor weakened their ministry; if it turned not them aside from the paths of gospel obedience, nor weakened their hands in the dispensation of the word, in the promises, threatenings, and exhortations thereof, to the conversion of souls and building up of those who by their ministry were called, in their most holy faith,—it cannot but be a strong presumption that there is no such venomous, infectious quality in this doctrine as of late some chemical divines pretend themselves to be able to extract out of it. Now, what, I pray, were these men?-what were their lives? what was their ministry? All those who now oppose Mr Goodwin's doctrine do it either out of ignorance, or to comply with greatness and men in authority; thereby to make up themselves in their ambitious and worldly aims, and to prevail themselves upon the opinion of men;-for what cause else in the world can be imagined why they should so engage? What though they really believe the whole fabric of his doctrine,-wherein he hath departed from the faith he once, as they say, professed,—to be a lie; a lie of dangerous