Ans. The imposing of conditions and provisos upon the decrees and purposes of God, of which himself gives not the least intimation, and the suspending them, as to their execution, on those conditions so invented and imposed, at the first view reflects so evidently on the will, wisdom, power, prescience, and unchangeableness of God, who hath said, " his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure," especially when the interruption of them doth frustrate the whole design and aim of God in the mentioning of those decrees and purposes of his, that there will he need of demonstrations writ- ten with the beams of the sun to enforce men tender and regardful of the honour and glory of God to close with any in such an under- taking. Let us, then, consider what is produced to this end, and try if it will hold weight in the balance of the sanctuary. " This," saith he, "appears, —
" First, By the like phrase or manner of expression, frequent in the Scripture elsewhere. I mean, when such purposes or decrees of God, the resi:»ective execution whereof is suspended upon such and
ni.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 161
such conditions, are, notwithstanding, simply and positively, without any mention of condition, expressed and asserted: 'Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, shall walk before me' (meaning in the office and dignity of the priesthood) ' for ever : but now saith the Lord, Be it far from me/ ' I said indeed ;' that is, ' I verily purposed or decreed,' or ' I promised :' it comes much to one. When God made the pro- mise, and so declared his promise accordingly, that Eli and his father's house should walk before him for ever, he expressed no condition as required to the execution or performance of it, yet here it plainly appears that there was a condition understood. In the same kind of dialect Samuel speaks to Saul: ' Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God: for now the Lord had established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever; but now thy kingdom shall not continue.' 'The Lord had established;' that is, he verily purposed or decreed to establish it for ever, — to wit, in case his posterity had walked obediently with him."
Here we have the strength (as will be manifest in the progress of our discourse) of what Mr Goodwin hath to make good his former strange assertion. Whether it will amount to a necessary proof or no may appear upon these ensuing considerations: —
First, The reason intimated being taken neither from the text under debate, nor the context, nor any other place where any con- cernment of the doctrine therein contained is touched or pointed at, there being also no coincidence of phrase or expression in the one place and the other here compared, I cannot but admire by what rules of interpretation Mr Goodwin doth proceed to make one of these places exegetical of the other. Though this way of arguing hath been mainly and almost solely insisted on of late by the Soci- nians, — namely, "Such a word is in another place used to another pur- pose, or in another sense, therefore this cannot be the necessary sense of it in this," — yet it is not only confuted over and over as irrational and unconcluding, but generally exploded as an invention suited only to shake all certainty whatever in matters of faith and revelation. Mr Goodwin in his instance goes not so far (or rather he goes farther, because his instance goes not so far), there being no likeness, much less sameness of expression, in those texts which he produces to weaken the obvious and literally-exposed sense of the other insisted on therewith.
To waive the force of the inference from the words of the Holy Ghost (seeing nothing in the least intimated in the place will give in anj' assistance thereunto), first, this thesis is introduced : " The pur- poses and decrees of God (confessedly engaged in the place in hand) are, as to their respective executions, suspended on conditions in men ;" — an assertion destructive to the power, goodness, grace, righteousness,
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162 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
faithfulness, wisdom, unchangeableness, providence, and sovereignty, of God, as might be demonstrated did it now lie in our way. To prove that this must needs be so, and that that rule must take place in the mention that is made of the purposes and decrees of God, Rom. viii. 28-30, ] Sam. ii. 80 is produced, being a denunciation of God's judgments upon the house of Eli for their unworthy walking in the honour of the priesthood, whereunto they were by him advanced and called, and which they were intrusted withal, expressly upon condition of their obedience.
Let us, then, a little consider the correspondency that is between the places compared for their mutual illustration : —
First, In the one there is express mention of the purpose of God, and that his eternal purpose; in the other, only a promise, expressly conditional in the giving of it, amovmting to no more than a law, without the least intimation of any purpose or decree.