3. To open the third thing proposed, I shall show, — (1.) That all this variety is according to God's determinate purpose, and answer- eth thereunto ; (2.) The particular purposes from whence this variety proceedeth.
(1.) Eph. i. 11, " He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will." As a man may be said to erect a fabric^ according to the counsel of his will, when he frameth it before in his mind, and maketh all things in event answer his preconceived platform, — all things (especially ra irdvra, all those things of which the apostle there treateth, gospel things) have their futurition and manner of being from his eternal piu-pose:* — whence also is the idea in the mmd of God of all things, with their circumstances,^ that shall be ; that is, the first mover, continuing itself immovable, giving to every thing a regular motion, according to the impression which from that it doth receive : " For known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18.
If any attendants of actions might free and exempt them from the regular dependence we insist upon, they must be either contingency or sin ; but yet for both these we have, besides general rules, clear, particular * instances. What seems more contingent and casual than the unadvised slaying of a man with the fall of the head of an axe from the helve, as a man was cutting wood by the way side ? Deut. xix. 5; yet God assumes this as his own work, Exod. xxi. 13. The same may be said of free agents and their actions. And for the other, see Acts iv. 27, 28, — in the cracifying of the Son of God's love, — all things came to pass according as his counsel had before deter- mined that it should be done. Now, how in the one of these liberty
' Piscat. in loc.
Xlavra. il Xiyo) to. olix, s^f' rif/.lt, ra yap if' r,fi7v. ov Trig ^pevoiu;, aXXa toZ rifiir'tpou aurl-
%oviriou. — Daniascen. Satis iiiipie.
^ Matt. X. 29; Job xiv. 5; Prov. xvi. 33, xxi. 1, 30, xix. 21. " Nihil fit nisi omni- potens fieri velit, vel ipse faciendo, vel sinendo ut fiat." — Aug.
* Gen. iv. 5-7; 1 Kings xxii. 19-21j 2 Kings v. 18, 19; Ps. Ixxvi. 10; Eccles. vii. 26; Isa. vi. 9-11, &e.
14 A VISION OF
is not abridged, the nature of things not changed in the other, sin is not countenanced,^ belongs not to this discourse. " The counsel of the Lord," then, " standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart unto all generations," Ps. xxxiii. 11. "His counsel standeth, and he will do all his pleasure," Isa xlvi. 10. For he is the Lord, and he changeth not, Mai. iii. 6. With him is neither variableness nor shadow of turning, James i. 1 7. All things that are, come to pass in that un- changeable method in which he hath laid them down from all eternity.
(2.) Let us look peculiarly upon the purposes according to which the dispensations of the gospel, both in sending and withholding it, do proceed.
[L] For the not sending of the means of grace unto any people, whereby they hear not the joyful sound of the gospel, but have in all ages followed dumb idols, as many do unto this day.
In this chapter of which we treat, the gospel is forbidden to be preached in Asia and Bithynia; — which restraint, the Lord by his providence as yet continues to many parts of the world. Now, the purpose from whence this proceedeth, and whereby it is regulated, you have, Rom. ix 22, " What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" compared with Matt. xi. 25, 26, " Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight;" and with Acts xiv. 16, — he "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways."^ Now, God's not sending the truth, hath the same design and aim with his send- ing the efficacy of error; viz., "that they all may be damned" who have it not; "thei'e being no other name under heaven, whereby they may be saved," but only tliat which is not revealed unto them ; — God, in the meantime, being no more the cause ' of their sins, for which they incur damnation, than the sun is the cause of cold and darkness, which follow the absence thereof: or he is the cause of a man's imprispnment for debt, who Avill not pay his debt for him, though he be no way obliged so to do. So, then, the not sending of the gospel to any peoj^le, is an act regulated by that eternal jnupose of God whereby he detenniueth to advance the glory of his justice, by permitting some men to sin, to continue in their sin, and for sin
' " Dews non operatur in nialis, quod ei displicet ; sed operaturper cos quod ei placet, recipientur vero non pro eo, quod Dtnis bene usus est ipsoruni opeiibus nialis, sed pro eo, quod ipsi male abusi sunt Dei opeiibus bonis." — Fulgent, ad Monini.