III.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. J 77
phrase, " Never come to be called," used by him who maintains all to be called ; but this is but a demurrer. The answer follows.
For the great regard I bear unto the author's abilities, I shall nob say that his ensuing discourse doth not deserve to be transcribed and punctually insisted on; but this I may say, I hope, without offence, that it is so long and tedious, so remote from what it pre- tends unto, to wit, an answer to the foremen tioned argument, that I dare not venture upon the patience of any reader so far as to enter into a particular consideration of it
The sum of it is, "That there is no unlikelihood in this, that though one part of the chain of divine graces before mentioned cannot be dissolved or broken, yet another may (notwithstanding that a dis- solution of any one of them renders the design of God in them all wholly frusti'ate and fruitless)." This he proves by proposing a new series of divine acts in actual dependence one upon another, some whereof may be uninterruptible, but the others not so. He that shall but slightly view the concatenation of divine acts here proposed by Mr Goodwin for the illustration of that dependence of them and their efficacy which we insist upon, will quickly find it liable to some such small exceptions as render it altogether useless as to the end proposed; as, —
First, That the case here proposed, and pretended to be parallel to that under our consideration, is a fictitious thing, a feigned con- catenation of feigned decrees of God, being neither in any one place delivered in the Scripture, nor to be collected from any or all the texts in the Bible; which course of proceeding, if it may be argu- mentative in sacred truth, it will be an easy and facile task to over- throw the most eminent and clearly- delivered heads of doctrine in the whole book of God.
Secondly, That it is a case surmised by him, suitable to his own hypotheses, neither true in itself nor any way analogous to that wherewith it is yoked, being indeed a new way and tone of begging the thing in question. For instance, it supposeth, without the least attempt of proof, 1. Conditional decrees, or a disjunctive intend- ment of events in God, — it shaU. come to pass, or otherwise; 2. A rtiiddle science conditional, as the foundation of those disjunctive de- crees; with, 3. Afuturition of things, antecedent to any determining act of the will of God ; and, 4. A possibility of frustrating, as to event, the designs and purposes of God; and, 5. That all mediums of the accomplishment of any thing are conditions of God's inten- tions as to the end he aims at; and, 6. That God appoints a series of mediums for the compassing of an end, and designs them there- unto, without any determinate resolution to bring about that end; and, 7. That the acts of God's grace in their concatenation, mentioned in this place of Rom. viii., are severally conditional, because he hath
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178 DOCTRINE OF THE saints' PERSEVERANCE. [CIIAP.
invented or feigned some decrees of God wlucli he says are so ; — all which, with the inferences from them, Mr Goodwin knows will not advance his reasonings at all as to our understanding, we being fully persuaded that they are all abominations, of no less base alloy than the error itself in whose defence and patronage they are produced.
To our argument, then, before mentioned, proving an equal indis- solvableness in all the links of the chain of divine graces, drawn forth and insisted on from the equal dependence of the design and pur- pose of God on the mutual dependence of each of them on the other, for the fulfilling of that purpose of his, and obtaining the end which he professes himself to intend, this is the sum of Mr Goodwin's answer: " If I can invent a series of decrees and a concatenation of divine acts, though indeed there be no such thing, neither can I give any colour to it without laying down and taking for granted many false and absurd supposals ; and though it be not of the same nature with that here proposed by the apostle, nor anywhere held out in the Scripture for any such end and purpose as this is; neither can I assign any absolute determinate end in this series of mine, whose accomplishment God engages himself to bring about (as the case stands in the place of Scripture under consideration), — then it is meet and equitable that, laying aside all enforcements from the text, con- text, nature of God, the thing treated on, all compelling us to close with another sense and interpretation, Ave regulate the mind of the Holy Ghost herein to tlie rule, proportion, and analogy, of the case as formerly proposed." This being the sum of that which Mr Goodwin calls his answer, made naked, I presume, to its shame, " valeat quantum valere potest."
I shall only add that, — 1. When Mr Goodwin shall make good that order and series of decrees here by him mentioned from the Sci'ip- ture, or with solid reason from the nature of the things themselves, suitably to the properties of Him whose they are ; — and, 2. Prove that any eternal decree of God, either as to its 2)7'imitive enacting or temporal execution, is suspended on any thing not only really contingent in itself and its own nature, in respect of the immediate fountain from whence it flows and nature of its immediate cause, but also as to its event, in respect of any act of the will of God, that it may otherwise be, and so the accomplishment of that decree left thereupon uncertain, and God himself dubiously conjecturing at the event (for instance, whether Christ should die or no, or any one be saved by him) ; — and, 3. Clearly evince this notion of the decrees and purposes of God, that he intends to create man, and then to give him such advantages, which if he will it shall be so with him, if otherwise it shall be so; to send Christ if men do so, or not to send him if they do otherwise; and so of the residue of the decrees mentioned by him ; — and, 4. That all events of things wiiatsoever,