Is the case any other as to justification? Doth not God justify the ungodly? Rom. iv. 5. Are we not in filthy robes when he comes to clothe us with robes of righteousness? Zech. iii. 3. Are we not re- conciled to God when aheuated by wicked works? Col. i. 21.
' Isa Ixv. 1; Rom. ix. 25; llos. ii. 23; 1 Pet. ii. 10; Eph. ii. 12. » Matt,
viii. 22 ; Rom. vi. 13 ; Col. ii. 13. 3 Ezck. xyi. 6 ; Isa. iv. 4 ; Job xiv. 4 ; John iii. 6.
* John i. 5; Eph. v. 8; Col. i. 13; Luke iv. 18. » Rom. viii. G-8, v. 10; Col. i. 21 ; Gal. iii. 13 ; John iii. 35.
II.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE, 125
These are the qualifications on which, it seems, God grafts his gifts and graces, and whose abode in the persons in whom they are is the condition whereon the irrevocableness of those gifts and graces does depend. Who would have thought they had been of such reck- oning and esteem with the Lord! And this, considering what is learnedly discoursed elsewhere, may suffice.
As to the other assertion, that God gives his gifts and graces to qualifications, not to persons: Those qualifications are either gifts of God or not. If not, who made those men in whom they are differ from others? 1 Cor. iv. 7. If they are, on what qualifications were those qualifications bestowed ? That God freely bestows on persons, of his own good pleasure, not grafting on qualifications, his gifts and graces, we have testimonies abundantly sufficient to outbalance Mr Good- win's assertion : Rom. ix. ] 8, " He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy." He bestows his mercy and the fruits of it, not on this or that qualification, but on whom or what persons he will; and "to them it is given,'' saith our Saviour, "to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others it is not given." I see no stock that his gift is grafted on but only the persons of God's good-will, whom he graciously designs to a participation of it.
Truth is, I know not any thing more directly contradictory to the whole discovery of the work of God's grace in the gospel than that which is couched in these assertions of Mr Goodwin ; neither is it any thing less or more than that which of old was phrased, "The giv- ■ ing of grace according to merit," ascribing the primitive discrimi- nating of persons as to spiritual grace unto self-endeavours, casting to the ground the free, distinguishing good pleasure of God, and that graciousness of every gift of his (I speak as to the first issue of his love, in quickening, renewing, pardoning grace) which eminently con- sists in this, that he is found of them that seek him not, and hath mercy on whom he will, because so it seemeth good to him.
Not to digress farther, in the discovery of the unsatisfactoriness of this pretence, from the pursuit of the argument in hand : Because God's gifts are not repented of, therefore do men continue, not in the condition wherein they find them, but wherein they place them ; and all qualifi- cations in men whatever that are in the least acceptable to God are so far from being stocks whereon God grafts his gifts and graces, that they are plants themselves which he plants in whomsoever he pleaseth. Yea, the tree is made good before it bear any good fruit, and the branch is implanted into the true olive before it receive the sap or juice of any one good qualification. The sum of Mr Goodwin's answer amounts to this: Let men be steadfast in a good condition, and God's gifts shall steadfastly abide with them ; if they change, they also shall be revoked; — which is directly opposite to the plain intendment of the place, namely, that the steadfastness of men
!2G DOCTRINE OF THE saints' PEUSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
depends upon the irrevocableness of God's grace, and not e contra. There is not, in his sense, the least intimation in these words of the permanency of any gift or grace of God with any one on Avhom it is bestowed, for a day, an hour, or a moment ; but, notwithstanding this testimony of the Holy Ghost, they may be given one hour, and taken away the next, — they may flourish in a man in the morning, and in the evening be cut down, dried up, and withered. This is not to answer the arguings of men, but positively to deny what God affirms. To conclude: God gives not his gifts to men (I mean those men- tioned) because they please him, but because it pleaseth him so to do, Jer. xxxi. 31, 82; he does not take them away because they dis- please him, but gives them so to abide with them that they shall never displease him to the height of such a provocation; neither are the gifts of God otherwise to be repented of than by taking them from the persons on whom they are bestowed. But this heap being removed, we may proceed.
Furthermore, then, in sundry places doth the Lord propose this for the consolation of his, and to assure them that there shall never be an everlasting separation between him and them ; w^hich shall be farther cleared by particular instances. Things or truths proposed for consolation are, of all others, most clearly exalted above exception; without which they were no way suitable (considering the prompt- ness of our unbelieving hearts to rise up against the work of God's grace and mercy) to compass the end for which they are proposed.