Obj. " All the promises are made to qualifications, not to persons."
Ans. Prove that, and, 1. Take the case in hand ; and, 2. Cast down the church to the ground, it having no one promise, on that account, made unto it, as consisting of Abraham's seed.
And so this witness also is freed from all exceptions put in against it, and appears with confidence to give in its testimony to the un- changeableness of God unto believers.
I shall, in the next place, adjoin another portion of Scripture, of the same import with those foregoing, wherein the truth in hand is no less clearly, and somewhat more pathetically and convincingly^ expressed than in that last mentioned. It is Isa. liv. 7-10, "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a mo- ment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me : for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of ray peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." This place I have mentioned before, but only as to one special inference from one passage in the words ; I shall now use the whole for the confirmation of the general truth we plead for. The words are full, plain, suited to the business in hand. No expressions of our finding out can so fully reach the truth we assert, much less so pathetically work upon the affections of believers, or so effectually prevail on their understandings to re- ceive the truth contained in them, as these words of God himself, given us for these ends, are suited to do. Go to men whose minds are in any measure free from prejudice, not forestalled with a con- trary persuasion or furnished with evasions for the defence of their opinions, and ask whether God doth not in these words directly and positively promise to those to whom he speaketh, that lie will always
268 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
continue his kindness to them to the end, and that for the days of eternity his love shall be fixed on them; and I no way doubt but they will readily answer, "It is so indeed; it cannot be denied/' But seeing we have to deal, as with our own unbelieving heai'ts, so with men Avho have turned every stone to prejudge this testimony of God, the words must a little more narrowly be considered, and the mind of the Holy Ghost inquired into.
Verse 7, mention is made of the desertion of the church by the eclipsing of the beams of God's countenance, and the inflicting of some great affliction for a season ; in opposition unto which momen- tary desertion, in that and in the beginning of the 8th verse, he giveth in consolation from the assurance of the great mercies and ever- lasting kindness wherein he abideth to do them good: "With ever- lasting kindness will I have mercy on thee;" — "I will pardon, pity, and heal thee with that mercy which floweth from love, which never had beginning, that never shall have ending, that cannot be cut off, 'everlasting kindness.' Bear with patience your present desertion, your present trials, whatever they are that befall you ; they are but for a season, but 'for a moment,' and these also are consistent with that mercy and kindness which is everlasting and turneth not away." If this mercy and kindness dependeth on any thing in us, and is re- solved lastly thereinto, which may alter and change every moment, — as our walking with God in itself considered, not relating to the un- changeable n ess of his purpose and the efficacy of his promised grace, is apt to do, — what opposition can there be betwixt that desertion wherewith they are exercised and the kindness wherewith they are embraced, as to their continuance? As that is said to be for a little while, for "a moment," so this also may be of no longer abode. It may possibly be as Jonah's gourd, that grew up in the morning, and before night was withered. What, then, shall become of the founda- tion of that consolation wherewith God here refresheth the souls of his people, consisting in the continuance of his kindness in an anti- thesis to the momentariness of their desertion?
Lest that any should call this into question (as our unbelieving hearts are very apt and skilful in putting in pleas against the truth of the promises of God and their accomplishment towards us), verse 9, the Lord farther confirmeth the assurance formerly given, and re- moveth those objections to which, through the sophistry of Satan and the sottishness of our own hearts, it may seem to be liable. " This is," saith he, " as the waters of Noah." God's dealing with them in that mercy which floweth from his everlasting kindness is like his dealing with the world in the matter of the waters of Noah, or the flood wherewith it was drowned and destroyed, when he, with his, were saved in the ark. He calleth upon his children to consider his dealings with the world in respect of the flood : " I have sworn,"