a new life and principle, all that we have apprehended and believed concerning the 'new heart and Spirit given us, the new nature, new creature, divine nature, inward man, grace in the heart, making the root good that the fruit may be so ;' all that the saints have expressed concerning their delight in God, love to God upon the account of his writing his laws in their hearts and spirits, is a mere delusion. There is no principle of any heavenly, spiritual life, no new nature with its bent and instinct lying towards God and obedience to him, wrought in the saints, or bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit of grace. If this be so we may even fairly shut our Bibles, and go learn this new gospel of such as are able to instruct us therein: wherefore I say,

Thirdly, That as in children there is an instinct, an inclination of nature, to induce them and carry them out to obedience to their natural parents, which yet is directed, regulated, provoked, and stirred up, and they thereby, to that obedience, by motives and considerations suited to work upon their minds and consciences, to prevail with them thereunto; so also in believers, the children of God who are 'begotten of the will of God,' of the 'word of truth,' and born again, not of the will of the flesh but of the will of God,' there is a new spiritual principle, a constituting principle of their spiritual lives wrought and implanted in them by the Spirit of God; a principle of faith, love, enabling them for, suiting them unto, and inciting them to, that obedience which is acceptable and well-pleasing to their Father which is in heaven; in which obedience, as they are regulated by the word, so they are stirred up unto it by all those motives, which the Lord in his infinite wisdom hath fitted to prevail on persons endued with such a principle from himself, as they are. It is not incumbent on me to enter upon the proof and demonstration of a title to a truth, which the saints of God have held so long in unquestionable possession, nothing at all being brought to invalidate it, but only a bare insinuation that it is not so. Then,

Fourthly, I deny not but that the saints of God are stirred up to obedience, by all the considerations and inducements which God lays before them and proposeth to them, for that end and purpose; and as he hath spread a principle of obedience over their whole souls, all their fa

culties and affections, so he hath provided in his word, motives and inducements to the obedience he requires, which are suited unto, and fit to work upon, all that is within them (as the prophet speaks), to live to him; their love, fear, hope, desires, are 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 hell 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.

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,

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

Secondly, 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.

Thirdly, 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 grace of faith, love, hope, &c. 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.

Fourthly, 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.

Section the sixteenth 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 predominancy 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 fear 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 seventeenth 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 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 usefulness, and lay it aside. I say then,

First, 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.

Secondly, 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.

Thirdly, 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, despised the shame, for the glory's sake,' whereof he had assurance; Heb. xii. 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 excellency of it, when possessed, as promised, stir them up to the means leading thereunto.

Fourthly, 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 ap

pointed 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.

CHAP. XIII.

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 nation. The chief assertors of this 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 judgments. The first reformers constant to themselves in their doctrine of the saints' perseverance. Of the influence of Mr. Perkins's judgment on the propagation of the doctrine of the saints' perseverance. Who the persons were on whom his judgment is supposed to have such an influence. The consent of foreign churches making void this surmise. What influence the doctrine of the saints' perseverance had into the holiness of its professors. Of the unworthiness of the persons who in this nation have asserted the doctrine of apostacy: 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 arminianised, the first. Considered and disproved. His discord, &c. General apostacy of men entertaining the Arminian tenets. The close.

As to the matter in hand, about the usefulness of the doctrine of 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 the dispensation of the word committed unto them, who have risen up in opposition