III.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 1 59
actual love towards them, "when the whole of their usefulness to the end proposed is resolved ultimately into themselves and their endea- vours, and not into any purpose or act of God? Such as is the foun- dation, such is the strength of the whole building. Inferences can have no more strength than the principle from whence tliey are de- duced. If a man should tell another that if he will go a journey of a hundred miles, at each twenty miles' end he shall meet with such and such refreshments, all the consolation he can receive upon the account of refreshments provided for him is proportioned only to the thoughts he hath of his ovm strength for the performance of that journey.
Farther ; if in such expressions of the purposed works of God, we may put cases and trust in what supposals we think good, where there is not the least jot, tittle, or syllable of them in the text, nor any room for them, without destroying not only the design and meaning of the place, but the very sense of it, why may not we do so in other undertakings of God, the certainty of whose event de- pends upon his purpose and promise only? For instance, the resur- rection of the dead : may we not say, God will raise up the dead in Christ, in case there he any necessity that their bodies should he glo- rified? What is it, also, that remains of praise to the glorious grace of God? This is all he effects by it: In case men obstruct him not in his way, it doth good. God calls men to faith and obedience; in case they obstruct not his way, it shall do them good. But how do they obstruct his way? By unbelief and disobedience: take them away, and God's calling shall be effectual to them. That is, in case they believe and obey, God's calling shall be effectual to cause them to believe and obey!
The cases then foisted into the apostle's discourse, in the close of this interpretation of the place (if I may so call it), — namely, that God will justify the called in case they obstruct not his way, and will glorify them whom he hath justified in case they continue and abide in the state of justification, — are, first, thrust in without ground, warrant, or colour of advantage, or occasion given by any thing in the text or context; — and, secondly, are destiTictive to the whole design of the Holy Ghost in the place whereinto they are intruded; injurious to the truth of the assertion intended to be made good, that " all things shall work together for good," proposed upon the account of the unchangeable purpose of God, and infallible con- nection of the acts of his love and grace in the pursuit thereof; and resolve the promised work and designed event wholly into the uncer- tain, lubricous wills of men, making the assurance given not only to be liable to just exceptions, but evidently to fail and be falsified in respect of thousands; — and, thirdly, render the whole dispensation of the grace of God to lackey after the wills of men, and wholly to
160 DOCTRINE OF THE saints' PERSEVERANX'E. [CHAP.
depend upon them, giving in thereby, as was said, innumerable pre- sumptions that the word, for whose confirmation all these acts of God's grace are mentioned and insisted on, shall never be made good or established.
Take, then, in a few words, the sense and scope of this place, as it is held out in the exposition given of it by Mr Goodwin, and we will then proceed to consider his confirmations of the said exposition: " O ye that love God, many afflictions, temptations, and oppositions, ye shall meet withal ; but be of good comfort, all shall work together for your good, for God hath appointed you to be like his Son, and ye may triumph in every condition on this account. For if ye, be- fore any act of his special grace towards you, love him, he approves you, and then he predestinates you" (what that is I know not). " Then it is in your power to continue to love him, or to do other- wise. If ye abide not, then ye perish : if ye abide, he will call you. And when he doth so, either ye may obey him or ye may not. If ye do not, all things shall work together for your hurt, and ye will be like the devil; — if ye do, then he will justify you; and then, if ye abide with him, as perhaps ye may, perhaps ye may not, he will finally justify you, and then all shall be well." This being the sub- stance of the interpretation of this place here given, let us now con- sider how it is confirmed.
That which, in his own terms, he undei'taketh to " demonstrate," and to " vindicate from all objections," in his ensuing discourse, he thus expresseth, page 209, sect. 43 : " These decrees, or purposed acts of God, here specified, are to be understood in their successive de- pendencies, with such a condition or proviso resiDcctively as those mentioned, and not absolutely, peremptorily, or without condition."