v.] THE PROMISES OF GOD. 225
For what tie lastly affirms, " That if this be a promise of absolute perseverance, it is inconsistent with all the prophecies of the rejec- tion of the Jews, which are accordingly fulfilled," I must refer him to St Paul, who hath long ago undertaken to answer this objection ; from whom if he receive not satisfaction, what am I that I should hope to afford the least unto him?
And these are the reasonings upon the account whereof Mr Good- win dischargeth this text of Scripture, by virtue of his autocratorical power in deciding controversies of this nature, from bearing testi- mony in this cause any more. Whether he will be attended unto herein time will show. Many attempts to the same purpose have formerly been made, and yet it endureth the trial.
I have thus turned aside to the consideration of the exceptions given in to the ordinary interpretation of this place, lest any should think that they were waived upon the account of their strength and efficacy to overthrow it. The argument I intended from the words, for the stability of God's love and favour to believers upon the ac- count of his covenant engagement, is not once touched in any of them. These words, then, yield a third demonstration of the stead- fastness and unchangeableness of acceptation of believers in Christ, upon the account of the absolute stability of that covenant of grace whereof God's engagement to be their God and never to forsake them is an eminent portion.
CHAPTER y.
ARGUMENT FROM THE PROMISES OF GOD.
Entrance into the argument from the promises of God, with their stability and his faitlifulness in them — -The usual exceptions to this argument — A general de- scription of gospel promises — Why and on what account called gospel pro- mises— The description given general, not suited to any single promise — They are free, and that they are so proved, all flowing from the first great promise of giving a Redeemer — How they are discoveries of God's good-will: how made to sinners — Consequential promises made also to believers — Given in and through Christ in a covenant of grace — Their certainty upon the account of the engagement of the truth and faithfulness of God in them — Of the main matter of these promises, Christ and the Spirit — Of particular promises, all flowing from the same love and grace — Observations on the promises of God, subservient to the end intended — 1. They are all true and faithful; the ground of the assertion — 2. Their accomplishment always certain, not always evident — 3. All conditional promises made good, and how — 4. The promises of perseverance of two sorts — 5. All promises of our abiding with God in faith and obedience absolute — The vanity of imposing conditions on them discovered — 6. Promises of God's abiding with us not to be separated from promises of our abiding with him — 7. That they do not properly depend on any condition in believers demonstrated— Instances of this assertion given — 8. Making them conditional renders them void as to the ends for which they are givtn — Given to persons, not to qualifications — The argument from the VOL. XL 15
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226 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
promises of God stated — Mr G.'s exceptions against the first proposition cleared, and his objections answered — The promises of God always fulfilled — Of the promise made to Paul, Acts xxvii. 21, etc. — Good men make good their promises to the utmost of their abilities — The promise made to Paul absolute and of infallible accomplishment — Of the promise of our Saviour to his disciples, Matt. xix. 28 — AVho intended in that promise; not Judas — The accomplishment of the promise — The testimony of Peter Martyr considered
The conclusion of the forementioned objection — The engagement of the
faithfulness of God for the accomplishment of his promise, 1 Cor. i. 9; 1 Thess. V. 23, 24; 2 Thess. iii. 3— The nature of the faithfulness of God, expressed in the foregoing places, inquired into — Perverted by Mr G. — His notion of the faithfulness of God weighed and rejected — What intended in the Scripture by the fVuthfulness of God — The close of the confirmation of the proposition or the argument proposed from the promises of God — The as- sumption thereof vindicated — The sense put upon it by Mr G. — The question beffged.
'^Bo^
The consideration of the promises of God, which are all branches of the forementioned root, all streaming from the fountain of the covenant of grace, is, according to the method proposed, in the next place incumbent on us. The argument for the truth under contest which from hence is afforded and used is by Mr Goodwin termed '' The first-born of our strength," chap. xi. sect. 1, p. 225 ; and indeed we are content that it may be so accounted, desiring nothing more ancient, nothing more strong, effectual, and powerful, to stay our souls upon, than the promises of that God who cannot lie.^ I shall, for the present, insist only on those which peculiarly assert, and in the name and authority of God confirm, that part of the truth we are peculiarly in demonstration of, — namely, the imchangeable stability of the love and favour of God to believers, in regard whereof he turneth not from them nor forsaketh them upon the account of any such interveniences whatever as he will suffer to be interposed in their communion with him ; leaving those wherein he gives assurance upon assurance that he will give out unto them such continual sup- plies of his Spirit and grace that they shall never depart from him to their due and proper place.