Some few exceptions, with a great surplusage of words and phrases, to make them seem other things than what have been formerly in- sisted on again and again, are advanced by Mr Goodwin, to overturn this Zion and to cast down the mountains that are about Jerusalem, chap. xi. sect. 9, pp. 230-232. The sum of our argument from hence, as of the intendment of this place, is this : Those whom the Lord Avill certainly preserve for ever in the state and condition of trusting in him, they shall never be forsaken of him nor separated from him. The latter clause of this proposition is that which we
2G4) DOCTHINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
contend for, the whole of that whose proof is incumbent on us. Of this the former part is a sufficient basis and foundation, being com- prehensive of all that is or can be required to the unquestionable es- tablishment thereof, [which] fromtheletterof the text we assume. But God will certainly preserve for ever all his saints that put their trust in him, in their so doing, that they shall not be altered or cast down from that state and condition. Change but the figurative expressions in the text, and the allusions used for the accommodation of their faith in particular to whom this promise was first given, into other terms of a direct and proper significancy, and the text and the as- sumption of our argument will appear to be the same ; whence the conclusion intended will undeniably follow. Unto this clear deduc- tion of the truth contended for from this place of Scripture, the dis- course ensuing, in the place mentioned, is opposed: —
1. " The promise only assures them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved, but not at all that they that trust in him shall be necessitated to do so still, or that so they shall do. So Paul saith, ' It was in my heart to live and die with the Corinthians;' but doubtless with this proviso, that they always continued such as they then were, or as he apj)rehended them to be, when he so wrote to them."
Ans. I must be forced to smite this evasion once and again before we arrive at the close of this contest, it being so frequently made use of by our adversary, who without it knows himself not able to stand against the evidence of any one promise usually insisted on. This is the substance of all that which, with exceeding delightful variety of expressions, is a hundred times made use of: " The promise is conditional, and made to those that trust in the Lord, and is to be made good only upon the account of their continuing so to do; but that they shall so do, that they shall continue to trust in the Lord, that is wholly left to themselves, and not in the least undertaken in the promise." And this is called a " discharging or dismissing of places of Scripture from the service whereunto, contrary to their proper sense and meaning, they are pressed," a "delivering them from the bearing the cross of this warfare," with such like imperial terms and expressions. To speak in the singleness of our spirit, we cannot see any one of the discharged soldiers returning from the camp, wherein they have long served for the safety and consolation of them that do believe. Particularly, this Scripture detests the gloss with violence imposed on it, and tells you that the end for which the God of truth sent it into this service, wherein it abides, is to assure them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved in that condition to the end; that in the condition of trusting and depending on God, they shall be as Zion, and the favour of God unto them as the immov- able mountains, — he will for ever be with them and about them; and
VI.] PARTICULAR PROMISES ILLUSTRATED. 2G5
tbat all this shall certainly come to pass. Christ [David ?] does not say that they shall be as established mountains if they continue to trust in the Lord, but they shall be so in their trusting, abiding for ever therein, through the safeguarding presence of God. For their being necessitated to continue trusting in the Lord, there is not any thing in [the] text, or in our argument from thence, or in the doc- trine we maintain, that requires or will admit of any such proceeding of God as by that expression is properly signified. Indeed, there is a contradiction in terms, if they are used to the same purpose. To trust in the Lord is the voluntary, free act of the creature. To be necessitated unto this act and in the performance of it, so that it should be done necessarily as to the manner of its doing, is wholly destructive to the nature and being of it. That God can effectually and infallibly as to the event cause his saints to continue trusting in him without the least abridgment of their liberty, yea, that he doth so eminently by heightening and advancing their spiritual liberty, shall be afterward declared. If by "Necessitated to continue trust- ing," not the manner of God's operation with and in them for the com- passing of the end proposed, and the efficacy of his grace, whereby he doth it (commonly decried under these terms), be intended, but only the certainty of the issue, rejecting the impropriety of the ex- pression, the thing itself we affirm to be here promised of God. But it is urged, —