236 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CIIAP.
much : If they abide with God (for if they perform their duty, and do not suffer themselves to be seduced, nor wilUngly depart from God, they abide with him), God hath promised that they shall abide with him, — upon condition they abide with him, he hath promised they shall? " Egregiam vero laudem !" Can any thing more ridiculous be invented ? If men abide with God, what need they any promise that they shall so do? The whole virtue of the promise depends on that condition, and that condition containeth all that is promised. Nei- ther is it possible that any thing can be invented to be supplied as the condition or conditions of these promises, but it will quickly ap- pear, upon consideration, that however it may be differently phrased, yet indeed it is coincident with the matter of the promise itself. That condition or those conditions must consist in some act, acts, way, or course of acceptable obedience in them to whom the pro- mises are made. This the nature of the thing itself requireth. Now, every such act, way, or course, is the matter of the promise, even uni- versal obedience. Now, if one man should promise another that he should, at such a time and place, be supplied with a hundred pounds to pay his debts, on condition that he came and brought the money himself, ought he to be esteemed to have a mind to relieve the poor man, or to mock him? To affirm that when God promiseth to write his law in our hearts, to put his fear in our inward parts, to create in us a new heart, to circumcise our hearts that we may fear him always, to give us his Spirit to abide with us for ever, to preserve us by his power, so that we shall never leave him nor forsake him, shall live to him, and sin shall not have dominion over us, etc., he doth it upon condition that we write his law in our hearts, circumcise them, continue to fear him, abide with him, not forsake him, etc., is to make him to mock and deride at their misery whose relief he so seriously pretendeth. Whatever promises, then, of this kind (pro- mises of working obedience in us, for our abiding with him) shall be produced, they will be found to be absolute and independent on any condition whatever, and their truth no ways to be maintained but in and by their accomplishment.
(2.) For those of the first sort, which I shall now handle, farther to clear the foundation of their ensuing application, I shall propose only some few things unto consideration ; as, —
[1.] That they are not to be taken or looked upon, as to their use for argument in the present controversy, scpai'ated and divided from those other promises formerly insisted on, wliich as.sure believers that they shall always abide with God as to their obedience. All hope that any have to prevail against them is by dividing of them. It is a very vain supposal and foundation of sand which our adversaries build their inferences upon, which they make against the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, — namely, the impossibility that God
v.] THE PROMISES OF GOD. 237
should continue his love and favour to tliem whilst they wallow in all manner of abominations and desperate rebellions against him ; a hypothesis crudely imposed on our doctrine, and repeated over and over as a matter of the greatest detestation and abomination that can fall within the thoughts of men. And such supposals and con- clusions are made thereupon as border, at least, upon the cursed coast of blasphemy. But cui fini, I pray, to what end, is all this noise? as though any had ever asserted that God promised to continue his love and gracious acceptation always to his saints, ahd yet took no care nor had promised that they should be continued saints, but w^ould suffer them to turn very devils. It is as easy for men to con- fute hypotheses created in their own imaginations as to cast down men of straw of their own framing and setting up. We say, indeed, that God hath faithfull}^ promised that he will never leave nor for- sake believers; but withal that he hath no less faithfully engaged himself that they shall never wickedly depart from him, but that they shall continue saints and believers. Yea (if I may so say), pro- mising always to accept them freely, it is incumbent on his holy Majesty, upon the account of his truth, faithfulness, and righteous- ness, to preserve them such as, without the least dishonour to his grace and holiness, yea, to the greatest advantage of his glory, he may always accept them, delight in them, and rejoice over them; and so he tells us he doth, Jer. xxxi. 3, " Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." He draws us with kindness to follow him, obey him, live unto him, abide with him, because he loves us with an everlasting love.
[2.] That these promises of God do not properly, and as to their original rise, depend on any conditions in believers, or by them to be fulfilled, but are the fountains and springs of all conditions what- ever that are required to be in them or expected from them, though the srace and obedience of believers are often mentioned in them as the means whereby they are carried on, according to the appoint- ment of God, unto the enjoyment of what is promised or continued in it. This one consideration, that there is in very many of these promises an express non obstante, or a notwithstanding the want of any such condition as might seem to be at the bottom and to be the occasion of any such promise or engagement of the grace of God, is sufficient to give light and evidence to this assertion. If the Lord saith expressly that he will do so with men, though it be not so with them, his doing of that thing cannot depend on any such thing in them, as he saith notwithstanding the want of it he will do it. Take one instance: Isa. hv. 8-10, " In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LoiiD thy Redeemer. For this is as the