_Answ._ That the church of the Jews apostatized, and were cut off for their unbelief, is sufficiently evident: but we must distinguish between the apostacy of a professing people, such as the church of the Jews were, who first rejected God, and then were cast off by him, and the apostacy of those who were truly religious among them; the apostle himself gives us ground for this distinction, when he says, _they are not all Israel which are of Israel; neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children_, chap. ix. 6, 7. And elsewhere he distinguishes between one who is _a Jew_, as being partaker of the external privileges of the covenant, which that church was under, and a person’s being _a Jew_, as partaking of the saving blessings thereof; as he says, _He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God_, Rom. ii. 28, 29. A church may lose its external privileges, and cease to have the honourable character given it; the greatest part of them may be blinded, when, at the same time _the election_, that is, all among them who were chosen to eternal life, _obtained it_, as the apostle observes, chap. xi. 7. and thereby intimates, that some who were members of that church were faithful; those were preserved from the common apostacy, being converted to the Christian faith. Their privileges, as members of a church, were lost, but they still retained their spiritual and inseparable union with Christ, which they had as believers, and not as the result of their being the natural seed of Abraham, they were made partakers of the blessings that accompany salvation; and therefore were not separated from the love of God in Christ, whilst formal professors and hypocrites, who were Abraham’s natural seed, but not his spiritual, were cast off by Christ. _Obj._ 3. It is farther objected, that there are some who have the character of righteous persons, concerning whom it is supposed, that they may fall away or perish; particularly those mentioned in Ezek. xviii. 24. _When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned, in the trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die_: And in Heb. x. 38. it is said, _The just shall live by faith; but if any man_, or, as the word should be rendered, if _he draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him_. Therefore, since the righteous man may turn from his righteousness, and draw back to perdition, the doctrine of the saints’ perseverance cannot be defended.