III.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PUEPOSES. 141
argued from conditional threatenings — The weakness of that argument — The nature of divine threatenings — What will of God, or what of the will of God, is declared by them — No proportion between eternal purposes and temporal threatenings — The issue of the vindication of our argument from the fore- going exceptions — Mr G. 's endeavour to maintain his exposition of the place under considei-ation — The text perverted — Several evasions of Mr G. from the force of this argument considered — His arguments to prove no certain or infallible connection between calling, justification, and glorification, weighed and answered — His first, from the scope of the chapter and the use of exhor- tations— The question begged — His second, from examples of persons called and not justified — The question argued begged — No proof insisted on but the interposition of his own hypothesis — How we are called irresistibly, and in what sense — Whether bars of wickedness and unbelief may be laid in the way of God's effectual call — Mr G.'s demur to another consideration of the text removed — The argument in hand freed from other objections and con- cluded— Jer. xxxi. 3 explained and improved, for the confirmation of the truth under demonstration — 2 Tim. ii. 19 opened, and the truth from thence confirmed — The foregoing exposition and argument vindicated and confirmed — The same matter at large pursued — John vi. 37-40 explained, and the argument in hand from thence confirmed — Mr G.'s exceptions to our argu- ing from this place removed — The same matter farther pursued — The expo- sition and argument insisted on fully vindicated and established — Matt, xxiv. 24 opened and improved — The sevei'als of that text more particularly handled — Farther observations, for the clearing the mind of the Holy Ghost in this place — The same farther insisted on and vindicated — Mr G.'s excep- tions at large discussed and removed — Eph. i. 3-5, 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14, opened — The close of the second argument, from the immutabiUty of the purposes of God.
Having cleared the trutli in hand, from the immutability of the nature of God, which himself holds out as engaged for us to rest upon, as to the unchangeable continuance of his love unto us, proceed we now to consider the steadfastness and immutability of his pur- 2}0ses, which he frequently asserts as another ground of assurance to the saints of his safeguarding their glory of free acceptation to the end.
I shall not enter upon the consideration of the nature and abso- luteness of the purposes of God as to an express handling of them, but only a little unfold that property and concernment of them whereon the strength of the inference we aim at doth in the same measure depend. Many needless and curious questions have been, by the serpentine wits of men, moved and agitated concerning them ; wherein, perhaps, our author hath not been outgone by many; as will be judged by those who have weighed his discourses concerning them, with his distinctions of " desires, intentions, purposes, and de- crees," in God. But this is not the business we have in hand; for what concerneth that, that which ensueth may suffice. God himself being an infinite pure act, those acts of his will and wisdom which are eternal and immanent are not distinguished from his nature and being but only in respect of the reference and habitude which they
142 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
Lear unto some things to be produced outwardly from him. The oljjects of them all are such things as might not be. God's purposes are not concerning any thing that is in itself absolutely necessary. He doth not purpose that he will be wise, holy, infinitely good, just: all these things, that are of absolute necessity, come not within the compass of his purposes. Of things that might not be are his de- crees and intentions; they are of all the products of his power, — all that outwardly he hath done, doth, or will do, to eternity. All these things, to the falling of a hair or the withering of a [blade of] grass, hath he determined from of old. Now, this divine fore-appointment of all things the Scripture assigns sometimes to the knowledge and imderstanding, sometimes to the will of God: " Known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18. It is that knowledge which hath an influence into that most infinitely wise disposal of them which is there intimated. And the determi- nation of things to be done is referred to the " counsel" of God Acts iv. 28; which denotes an act of his wisdom and understanding, and yet withal it is the " counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11.^
I know that all things originally owe their futurition to a free act of the will of God; he doth whatever he will and pleaseth. Their relation thereunto translates them out of that state of possibility, and [from] being objects of God's absolute omnipotency and infinite simple intelligence or understanding, whereby he intuitively behold- eth all things that might be produced by the exerting of his infinite almighty power, into a state of futurition, making them objects of God's foreknowledge, or science of vision, as it is called.^ But yet the Scripture expresseth (as before) that act of God whereby he determines the beings, issues, and orders of things, [so as] to manifest the con- currence of his infinite wisdom and understanding in all his purposes. Farther; as to the way of expressing these things to our manner of apprehension, there are held out intentions and piuposes of God dis- tinctly suited to all beings, operations, and events; yet in God him- self they are not multiplied. As all things are present to him in one most simple and single act of his understanding, so with one in- dividual act of his will he determines concerning all. But yet, in reference to the things that are disposed of, we may call them the pui^poscs of God. And these are the eternal springs of God's actual providence; which being (" ratio ordinis ad finem") the disposing of all things to their ends in an appointed manner and order, in exact coiTespondcnce unto them, these purposes themselves must be the infinitely wise, eternal, immanent acts of his will, appointing and de- termining all things, beings, and operations, kinds of beings, manners