Ill] THE IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 179
spiritual and temporal, have a conditional futurition^ antecedent to any act of the will of God : when, I say, he shall have proved these, and some things like to these, we shall farther consider what is offered by him, yea, we will confess that " hostis habet muros," etc.
Of the many other testimonies to the purpose in hand, bearing witness to the same truth, some few may yet be singled out, and, in the next place, that of Jer. xxxi. 3 presents itself unto trial and ex- amination : " Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love : there- fore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." It is the whole elect church of the seed of Jacob of whom he speaks, the foundation of whose blessedness is laid in the eternal love of God. Who the persons are thus beloved, and of whom we are to interpret these expressions of God's good- will, the apostle manifests, Rom. xi. 7, as shall afterward be more fully discoursed and cleared. He tells you it is the "election" whom God intends; of whom he says that they obtained the right- eousness that is by faith, according to the purport of God's good-will towards them, though the rest were hardened, God (who adds daily to his church such as shall be saved. Acts ii. 47) drawing them thereunto upon the account of their being so elected. He calls them also the " remnant according to the election of grace," and the " people which God foreknew," verses 1, 2, i5, or from eternity designed to the par- ticipation of the grace there spoken of, as the use of the word hath been evinced to be. These are the "thee" here designed, the portion of Israel after the flesh which the Lord, in his free grace, hath eter- nally appointed to be his peculiar inheritance ; which in their several generations he draws to himself with loving-kindness. And this ever- lasting love is not only the fountain whence actual loving-kindness, in di'awing to God, or bestowing faith, doth flow (as they believe who are ordained to eternal life, Acts xiii. 48), but also the sole cause and reason upon the account whereof, in contradistinction to the consi- deration of any thing in themselves, God will exercise loving-kind- ness towards them for ever. That which is everlasting or eternal is also unchangeable ; God's everlasting love is no more liable to muta- bility than himself, and it is an always equal ground and motive for kindness. On what account should God alter in his actual kind- ness or favour towards any, if that on the account whereof he exer- cises it will not admit of the least alteration? He that shall give a condition on which this everlasting love of God should be suspended, and according to the influence whereof upon it it should go forth in kindness or be interrupted, may be allowed to boast of his discovery.
That of the apostle, 2 Tim. ii. 19, is important to the business in hand, "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his." Some persons of emi- nency and note in the church, yea, stars, it seems, of a considerable magnitude in the visible firmament thereof, having fallen away from
ISO DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' TERSEVERANCE. [CIIAP.
the truth and faith of the gospel, and drawn many after them into ways of destruction, a great offence and scandal among believers thereon (as in such cases it will fall out) ensued ; and withal a temp- tation of a not-to-be-despised prevalency and sad consequence (which we formerly granted to attend such eminent apostasy) seems to have laid hold on many weak saints. They feared lest they also might be overthrown, and, after all their labouring and suffering in the work of faith and patience of the saints, come short of "the mark of the high calling" set before them. Considering their own weakness and instability, with that powerful opposition whereunto, in those days especially, they were exposed, upon the contempla- tion of such apostasies or defections, they were opportune and ob- noxious sufficiently to this temptation. Yea, their thoughts ujDon the case under consideration misjht lead them to fear a more gene- ral defection ; for seeing it is thus with some, why may not this be the condition of all believers? and so the whole church may cease and come to nothing, notwithstanding all the promises of building it on a rock, and of the presence of Christ with it to the end of the world; nay, may not his whole kingdom on earth on this account possibly fall to utter ruin, and himself be left a head without mem- bers, a king without subjects? This, by Mr Goodwin's own confes- sion, is the objection which the apostle answereth, and removes in and by the words under consideration: Chap. xiv. pp. 859, 360, "See- ing these fall away, are not we likewise in danger of falling away, and so of losing all that we have done and suffered in our Christian profession? To this objection or scruple the apostle answereth in the words in hand." So he. Thus far, then, are we agreed. About the sense of the words themselves, and their accommodation to the re- moval of the objection or scruple mentioned, is our difference. I know not how Mr Goodwin comes to call it " an objection or scruple" (which is the expression of thoughts or words arising against that which is, in the truth of it), seeing it is their very state and condition indeed, and that which they fear is that which they are really ex- posed unto, and which they ought to believe that they are exposed to. In his apprehension, they who make the objection, or whose scruple it was, Avere in his judgment as liable unto, and in the same danger of falling away, or greater (their temptation being increased and heightened by the apostasy of others) than they that fell the day and hour before; neither could that falling away of any be said to raise a scruple in them that they might do so too, if this were one part of their creed, that all and every man in the world might so do. The answer given by the apostle is no doubt suited to the objec- tion, and fitted to the removal of the scruple mentioned ; which was alone to be accomplished by an effectual removing away the solicit- ous fears and cares about the preservation of them in whose behalf