A LETTER CONCERNING FALLING AWAY FROM GRACE. MY GOOD MR. B. You send me flowers from your garden, and look for some in return out of mine. I do not more willingly send you these, than I do thankfully receive the other. I could not keep my hand from the paper, upon the receipt of your letters; though now in the midst of my attendance. As my desire of your satisfaction calls me to write something, so my other employments force me to brevity; in a question, wherein it were easy to be endless. I am sorry, that any of our new Excutifidians should pester your Suffolk; although glad in this, that they could not light upon a soil more fruitful of able oppugners. It is a wonder to me, to think that men should labour to be witty, to rob themselves of comfort. Good Sir, let me know these new disciples of Leyden, that I may note them with that black coal, they are worthy of: troublers of a better peace, than that of the Church; the peace of the Christian soul. They pretend Antiquity. What heresy doth not so? What marvel is it, if they would wrest Fathers to them, while they use Scripture itself so violently? For that their first instance of Hymeneus and Alexander, how vain it is, like themselves! Nothing can be more plain, than that those men were gross hypocrites: who doubts, therefore, but they might fall from all that good, they pretended to have? what is this, to prove that a true child of God may do so?" But," say they, "these men had faith and a good conscience:"-True: such a faith and goodness of conscience, as may be incident into a worldly counterfeit. "Yea, but," they reply, "a true justifying faith :"-I think such a one as their own: rather, I may say these men deserve not the praise of Hymeneus's faith; which is nothing, in this place, but orthodox doctrine. How oft doth St. Paul use the word so, to Timothy! Tim. iv. 1. In the latter times, some shall depart fra the faith; interpreted in the next words, and shall give heed to rits of error, and doctrines of devils: and, 2 Tim. iii. 8., he descrie his false teachers by this title, reprobate concerning the faith; whe I think no man will expound of the grace, but the doctrine. “Ye say they, "there is no necessity binds us to that sense here:"-b the scope of this place, compared with others, may evince it. The which follows, plainly points us to this meaning: that they miz: learn not to blaspheme. Their sin was, therefore, an apostacy fr the doctrine of the Gospel, and casting foul aspersions that profession; so that an opposition to wholesome doctrine was their shipwreck. They except, yet: "A good consciene is added to this faith: therefore, it must needs be meant of justifying faith:"-Do but turn your eyes to 1 Tim. iii. 9. where. as in a commentary upon this place, you shall find faith and good conscience so conjoined, that yet the doctrine, not the virtue of faith is signified. St. Paul describes his Deacon there, by his spiritual wealth: Having the mystery of faith in pure conscience. N man can be so gross, to take the mystery of faith for the grace of faith; or for any other, than the same author, in the same chapter, calls the mystery of godliness. It is, indeed, fit that a good co science should be the coffer, where truth of Christian doctrine is the treasure: therefore, both are justly commanded together; and, likely, each accompanies other in their loss: and that of Irenæus is found true of all heretics; sententiam impiam, vitam luxuriosam, Sc. "Yea, but Hymeneus and Alexander had both these then, and lost both:"-They had both in outward profession, not in inward sincerity. That rule is certain and eternal, If they had been of us, they had continued with us. Nothing is more ordinary with the Spirit of God, than to suppose us such as we pretend; that he might give us an example of charity in the censure of each other: of which kind is that noted place, Heb. x. 29. And counteth the blood of the testament, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing; and those usual eulogies, which are given to the Churches, to whom the Apostolical Letters were directed. This place, therefore, intends no other, but that Hymeneus and Alexander, which were once professors of the Christian doctrine, and such as lived orderly in an unblameable and outwardly holy fashion to the world, had now turned their copy; cast off the profession, which they made; and were fallen, both to looseness of manners, and calumniation of the truth they had abandoned. For that other Scripture, Rom. viii. 12, 13. no place can be more effectual to cut the throat of this uncomfortable heresy. St. Paul writes to a mixed company: it were strange, if all the Romans should have been truly sanctified: those, which were yet carnal, be threats with death; If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: those, which are regenerate, contrary to the wicked paradox of those men, he assures of life; If ye mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, ye shall live. How doth he exclude the spirit of bondage to fear, which these good guides would lead in again! How confidently doth e aver the inward testimony of God's Spirit to ours; and ascribes hat voice to it, which bars all doubt and disappointment; and tells us by the powerful assurance of this Abba we are sons, and if sons heirs, coheirs with Christ! Let them now go and say, that God may ~, disinherit his own son, that he may cast off his adopted. "But," say they, "to the same regenerate persons he applies these two clauses; and saith, at once, ye have received the Spirit of adoption, and yet, if ye walk after the flesh ye shall die:-What follows of this commination? any assertion of the possibility of apostacy in the regenerate? Nothing less: these threats are to make us take better hold, and to walk more warily as a father, that hath set his little son on horseback (it is Zanchy's comparison) bids him hold fast, or else he shall fall; though he uphold him the while; that both he may cause him hereby to sit fast, and call the more earnestly for his supportation. But the scope of the place plainly extorts a division of carnal men and regenerate: the threats are propounded to the one; the promises and assurance, to the other; and, therefore, no touch from hence, of our uncertainty in a confessed estate of renovation. For that Matt. xii. 43. the apodosis or inference of the parable might well have stopped the mouths of these cavillers: for you shall find in the end of it, So shall it be with this wicked generation. I suppose no man will be so absurd, as to say these Jews had formerly received true justifying faith: how should they, when they rejected the Messiah? and yet, of them, is this parable spoken, by our Saviour's own explication, Maldonate himself, a learned and spiteful Jesuit, can interpret it no otherwise. Ideo Christus hoc dixit, ut doceret pejores esse Judæos, quàm si nunquam Dei legem et cogni tionem accepissent: and, to this purpose, he cites Hilary, Jerome, Beda: and this sense is so clear, that, unless the seven devils had found harbour in the dry hearts of these men, they could not so grossly pervert it. Quench not the Spirit: 1 Thes. v. 19. will never prove a final or total extinction of saving grace. The Spirit is quenched, when the degrees of it are abated; when the good motions thereof are, by our security, let fall. We grant the Spirit may be quenched in tanto, not in toto: or, if we should so take it as they desire, I remember Austin parallels this place with that other to Timothy, Let no man despise thy youth; not, saith he, that the Spirit can be quenched, or that contempt can be avoided: but that, in the one, we may not endeavour to do that, which may tend towards this wrong to the Spirit; and, in the other, that we should be careful not to do that, which may procure contempt. The place, I remember not directly; but numeros teneo, si non verba tenerem. But, in all likelihood, that place sounds quite another way: as may appear by the connection of it with those two sentences following; as if he should have said, "Discourage not the graces, that you find in any of your teachers: despise not their preaching: try their doctrines." And now what is this, to the falling from grace? Which of us do .n r, nt. oni nodi jicere .idem, tert: 1 Thes. v. 19. will never pre the degrees of it are alated; when the good motions therew esl extinction of saving grace. The Spirit is quenched w which we security, let fill We grant the Spirit may be quenched red or in : if we should so take it as they desire, orld, had Austin parallels this place with that other to Timothy's deputy youth; not, saith he, that the Spirit can 7 mation or that contempt can be avoided: but that, in the one w ender to do that, which may tend towards this place Spit; and, in the other, that we should be careful not which may procure contempt. The place, I remember if all but meros teneo, si non verba tenerem. But, in all were yet a place sounds quite another way: as may appear by shall of it with those two sentences following; as if he ador of "Discourage not the graces, that you find in any despise not their preaching: try their doctrine he falling from g Sentenlâ satis òd ejusses, si in n D. Poliem in Dortua tam mo genda. Nihil prorlo trahi possit atem stabilienensus, nihil ha stum gratiæ diin luminis salviincrementum ; fectò et fingunt osterior; sed, eo ius, Syntagmatis tionem. Decreti, |