• Matt. vi. 28-30 ; Luko xii. 6, 7 ; Jolm iv. 4-8.
' Isa. xiv. 24, xix. 12, xxiii. 9; Jcr. li. 29; Rom. viii. 28, ix. 11, 10; Vs. cxxxix. 11, 12; Isa. xl. 28; llcb. iv. 13.
III.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 1 43
of operation, free, necessary, contingent, as to their existence and event, into an immediate tendency unto tlie exaltation of his glory ; or, as the apostle calls them, the " counsel of his own will," according whereunto he effectually worketh all things, Eph. i. 11.
Our consideration of these purposes of God being only in reference to the business which we have in hand, I shall do these two things: — First, Manifest that they are all of them absolute and immutable ; wherein I shall be brief, not going out to the compass of the contro- versy thereabout, as I intimated before; my intendment lies another way. Secondly, Show that God hath purposed the continuance of his love to his saints, to bring them infallibly to himself, and that this purpose of God, in particular, is unchangeable ; which is the second part of the foundation of our abiding with God in the grace of ac- ceptation.
I. By the purposes of God I mean, as I said before, the eternal acts of his will concerning all things that outwardly are of him ; which are the rules, if I may so speak, of all his following operations, — all external, temporary products of his power univei'sally answering those internal acts of his will. The judgment of those who make these decrees or purposes of God (for I shall constantly use these words promiscuously, as being purely of the same import, as relating unto God) to be in themselves essential to him and his very nature, or understanding and will, may be safely closed withal. They are in God, as was said, but one ; there is not a real multiplication of any thing but subsistence in the Deity. To us these lie under a double consideration : — First, Simply as they are in God ; and so it is im- possible they should be differenced from his infinite wisdom and will, whereby he determineth of any thing. Secondly, In respect of the habitude and relation which they bear to the things determined, which the wisdom and will of God might not have had. In the first sense, as was said, they can be nothing but the very nature of God, the TO velle of God, his internal willing of any thing that is either created or uncreated ; for these terms distribute the whole nature of beings. Created they are not, for they are eternal (that no new im- manent act can possibly be ascribed to God hath full well of late been demonstrated). Farther ; if they are created, then God willed that they should be created, for he created only what he willed. If so, was he willing they should be created, or no? If he were, then a progress will be given infinitely, for the question will arise up to eternity. If uncreated, then doubtless they are God himself, for he only is so; it is impossible that a creature should be uncreated. Again ; God's very willing of things is the cause of all things, and therefore must needs be omnipotent and God himself That " vo- luntas Dei" is " causa rerum" is taken for granted, and may be proved from Ps. cxv. 3, which the apostle ascribes omnipotency unto,
1-14 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CIIAP.
Rom. ix. 19, "Who hath resisted his will?" Doubtless it is the pro- perty of God alone to be the cause of all thiugs, and to be almighty in his so being. But hereof at present no more. On this supposal, the immutability of the decrees of God would plainly be coincident with the immutability of his nature, before handled.
It is, then, of the decrees and purposes of God, with respect to the matters about which tliey are, whereof I speak: in which regard, also, they are absolute and immutable ; — not that they work any essential change in the things themselves concerning which they are, making that to be immutable from thence which in its own nature is mutable; but only that themselves, as acts of the infinite wisdom and will of God, are not liable to nor suspended on any condition whatever foreign to themselves, nor subject to change or alteration (whence floweth an infallible certainty of actual accomplishment in reference to the things decreed or purposed, be their own nature what it will, or their next causes in themselves never so undetermined to their production), whereof I treat. That the determining purposes or de- crees of God's will concerning any thing or things by him to be done or effected do not depend, as to their accomplishment, on any conditions that may be supposed in or about the things themselves whereof they are, and therefore are unchangeable, and shall certainly be brought forth unto the aj^pointed issue, is that which we are to prove. Knowing for whose sakes^ and for what end this labour was undertaken, I shall choose to lay the whole proof of this asser- tion upon plain texts of Scripture, rather than mix my discourse with any such philosophical reasonings as are of little use to the most of them whose benefit is hereby intended.