_Object._ 1. It is objected, that there are several persons mentioned in scripture, who appear to have been true believers, and yet apostatized, some totally, as David and Peter; others not only totally, but finally, in which number Solomon is included; and others are described as apostates, such as Hymeneus and Alexander, who are said _concerning faith, to have made shipwreck_, and therefore it is supposed that they had the grace of faith; and Judas is also, by them, reckoned to have been a true believer, whom all allow afterwards to have proved an apostate. _Answ._ 1. As to the case of David and Peter, it is true, their fall was very notorious, and the former seems to have continued some months in a state of impenitency; and when they fell, there appeared no marks of grace in either of them. Peter’s sin, indeed, was committed through surprize and fear; but yet it had such aggravating circumstances attending it, that if others, whose character is less established than his was, had committed the same sin, we should be ready to conclude, that they were in a state of unregeneracy; and David’s sin was committed with that deliberation, and was so complicated a crime, that if any believer ever lost the principle of grace, we should have been inclined to suppose this to have been his case. Nevertheless, that which gives us ground to conclude that this principle was not wholly extinguished, either in Peter or him, at the same time that they fell; and therefore, that they were not total apostates, is what we before observed, that the principle of grace may be altogether unactive, and yet abide in the soul, agreeably to the sense we gave of that scripture, _his seed abideth in him_; and if what has been already said concerning the possibility of the principle of grace remaining, though it makes no resistance against the contrary habits of sin, be of any force,[92] then these and other instances of the like nature, on which one branch of the objection is founded, will not be sufficient to prove the possibility of the total apostacy of any true believer.