4. The persons to whom this promise is made are called " thee" and " thy seed," — that is, all those and only those with whom God is a God in covenant. God here minds them of the first makiugf of this covenant with Abraham and his seed, Gen. xvii. 7. Now, who are this seed of Abraham ? Not all his carnal posterity, not the whole nation of the Jews; which is the last subterfuge invented by our author to evade the force of our argument from this place. Our Saviour not only denies, but also proves by many arguments, that the Pharisees and their followers, who doubtless were of the nation of the Jews and tJie carnal seed of Ahrahavi, were not the children of Abraham in this sense, nor his seed, but rather the devil's, John viii. 39-44. And the apostle disputes and argues the same case, Rom. iv. 9-12, and proves undeniably that it is believers onh', whether circumcised or uncircumcised, whether Jews or Gentiles, that are this seed of Abraham and heirs of the promise. So, plainly, Gal. iii. 7, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham ;" and then he concludes again, as the issue of his debate, verse 9, " So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." And this is the sum of what Mr Goodwin objects unto this testimony, in our case, to the perpetual abiding of the Spirit ^vith the saints.
The force, then, of this promise, and the influence it hath into the establishment of the truth we have in hand, will not be evaded and turned aside by aflrrming " that it is made to the whole people of Israel:" for besides that the Spirit of the Lord could not be said to be in the ungodly, rejected part of them, nor his word in their mouth, there is not the l^^ast, in text or context, to intimate such an extent of this promise as* to the object of it: and it is very weakly attempted to be proveil fiiom Paul's accommodation and interpreta- tion of the verse foregoing,\ " And the Redeemer shall come to Zion,"
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etc., in Rom. xi. 20; for it is most evident and indisputable, to any one who shall but once cast an eye upon that place, that the apostle accommodates and applies these words to none but only those who shall be saved, being turned away from ungodliness to Christ; which are only the seed before described. And those he calls " All Israel," either in the spiritual sense of the word, as taken for the chosen Israel of God, or else indefinitely for that nation, upon the account of those plentiful fruits which the gospel shall find amongst them, when they shall " fear the LoRD and his goodness in the latter days," Hos. iii. 5.
5. This, then, is a promise equally made unto all believers: it is to all that are in covenant; neither is there any thing that is of peculiar importance to any sort of believers, of any time, or age, or dispensation, therein comprised. It equally respecteth all to whom the Lord extends his covenant of grace. Certainly the giving of the Spirit of grace is not in wrapped in any promise that may be " of pri- vate interpretation," the concernment of all the saints of God lying therein. It cannot but be judged a needless labour to give parti- cular instances in a thing so generally known in the word. Though the expressions differ, the matter of this promise is the same with that given to Abraham, Gen. xvii. 7, the Holy Spirit being the great blessing of the covenant, and bestowed on all and every one, and only on them, whom God hath graciously taken into covenant from the foundation of the world.
Mr Goodwin then labours in the fire in what he farther objects, sect. 6, " That this promise exhibiteth and holds forth some new grace or favour, which God hath not vouchsafed formerly either unto the persons to whom the said promise is now made, or to any others ; but for the grace or favour of final perseverance, it is nothing (at least in the opinion of our adversaries) but what is common to all true believers, and what God hath conferred upon one and other of this generation from the beginning of the world."
Ans. The emphasis here put upon it doth not denote it to be a new promise, but a great one ; not that it was never given before, but that it is now solemnly renewed, for the consolation and establish- ment of the church. If wherever we find a solemn promise made, and confirmed, and ratified, to the church, we must thence conclude that no saints were before made partakers of the mercy of that pro- mise, we must also, in particular, cbnclude that no one ever had his sins pardoned before the giving of that solemn promise, Jer. xxxi. 34.
6. We say that the grace of perseverance is such as believers may expect, not upon the account of any thing in themselves, nor of the dignity of the state whereunto by grace they are exalted, but merely on this bottom and foundation, that it is freely promised of God, who hath also discovered that rise and fountain of his gracious