VI.] PARTICULAR PROMISES ILLUSTRATED. 251
faithful in it though we never enjoy the mercy intended by it ;" I say), in the next words he leads believers by the hand to make the same conclusion with boldness and confidence, from this and the like pro- mises, as David did of old, upon the many gracious assurances that he had received of the presence of God with him : Heb.xiii. 6, " So that," saith he (upon the account of that promise), " we may say boldly" (without staggering at it by unbelief), "The Lord is my helper." This is a conclusion of faith : " Because God said to Joshua, a believer, ' I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee' (though upon a particular occasion, and in reference to a particular employment), every be- liever may say with boldness, ' He is my helper.'"
It is true, the a2:)plication of the promises here looks immediately unto temporals, but yet, being drawn out from the testimony of the continuance of the presence of God with his saints, doth much more powerfully conclude to spirituals; yea, the promise itself is oi spiri- tual favour, and what concerns temporals is only from thence ex- tracted. Let us, then, weigh a little the importance of this promise, which the apostle hath rescued from suffering under any private in- terpretation, and set at liberty to the use of all believers. To every one of them, then, God saith, directly and plainly, that he will "never leave them nor forsake them." If there should any ques- tion arise whether he should be taken at his word or no, it must be the devil that must be entertained as an advocate against him.^ Unbelief, indeed, hath many pleas, and will have, in the breasts of saints, against closing with the faithfulness of God in this promise, and the issue of confidence in him which from a due closing with it would certainly flow. But shall our unbelief make the truth of God of none effect? He hath told us that " he will never leave us, nor forsake us." The old serpent, and some arguing from him herein, are ready to say, "Yea, 'hath God indeed said so?' The truth of it shall not indeed be surely so. It may be otherwise ; for God doth know that many cases may fall out, that you may be utterly rejected by him, and cast out of his presence. You may have such opposi- tions rise against you in your walking with him as shall certainly overcome you and set you at enmity with him, or you may fully de- part from him." And many such like pleadings will Satan furnish the unbelief of believers withal. If they are not sufficiently taught by experience what it is to give credit to Satan endeavouring to im- pair and call in question, upon any pretence whatever, the faithful- ness of God and his truth, when will they learn it? Surely they have little need to join with their adversaries for the weakenino- of their supportments or the impairing of their consolations. Whereas there is an endeavour to make men believe that the denying any absolutely unchangeable promise of God unto believers makes much
' Gen. iii. 1.
252 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
for their comfort and refreshment, it shall afterward be considered in common, in reference also to those other demonstrations of the saints' perseverance that shall, God willing, be produced.
It will be excepted, that " God will not forsake them Avhilst they are believers; but if tliey forsake him and fall from him, he is at liberty to renounce them also." But that God's not-forsaking of any is no more but a mere non-rejection of them shall afterward be dis- proved. Whom he doth not forsake as a God in covenant, to tlicm doth he continue his presence, and towards them he exerciseth his power and all-sufhciency for their good. And if he can [not] by his Spirit and the power of his grace keep them whom he doth not for- sake in a state and condition of not-forsakhig him, he doth forsake them before they forsake him, yea, before he is said to forsake them. God's not-forsaking believers is effectually preventive of that state and condition in them on the account whereof it is asserted that he may forsake them.
1 Sam. xii. 22, the truth we have under consideration is con- firmed by the prophet in the name and authority of God himself; and the words wherein it is done have the force of a promise, being declarative of the good-will of God unto his people in Christ: "For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake; be- cause it hath i^leased the Lord to make you his people."
The expression is the same with that which the Lord gives his people of his good-will in the covenant of grace ; of which I have spoken before.^ Many may be their calamities and afflictions, many their trials and temptations, many their desertions and darknesses, but God will not forsake them ; he will not utterly cast them off for ever. That his people are his people in covenant, his secret ones, his spiritual church, the " remnant according to the election of grace," hath been before declared, in the handling of like places of Scrip- ture. It is to vindicate this and the like promises from all surmises of failing and coming short of accomplishment that the apostle saith, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew," Rom. xi. 2 ; that is, he hath made good his promise to them, even to them among the Jews whom hedid soforeknow as also to "predestinate them to be conformed to the imago of his Son," chap. viii. 29: so out of all Israel saving " all Israel," even the whole Israel of God. That a dis- criminating purpose of God is intended in that expression hath been already declared, and shall, the Lord assisting, be farther manifested.