His sections 8 and 9 contain an endeavour for the taking off an instance usually given of pressing to the use of means, when the end is infallibly promised to be accomplished and brought about in and by the use of those means; and this is in the passage of Paul, Acts xxvii. 21-86, whereof something formerly hath been spoken. Paul receives a promise from God, that none of the lives of the persons with him in the ship should perish. This he declares to his company; and how deeply he was concerned in the accomplishment of the promise, and his prediction thereupon, upon the account of the undertaking wherein, against almost all the world, he was then engaged, and the cause for which he was committed to their com- pany and custody, was formerly declared. Notwithstanding this, he afterward exhorts them, and directs to the use of all means ima- ginable that were suitable for the fulfilling of the promise he had, and the prediction he had made. Evident it is, then, that there is no inconsistency, nor any thing unbecoming any perfection in God, in that compliance of promises and exhortations which we insist upon, he having directed Paul to walk in that very way and path. God, we say, in the covenant of grace hath promised that his saints shall never leave him nor forsake him, and that he will abide in un- changeable constancy to be their God, — that he will preserve them and keep them in his hand unto the kingdom of his Son in glory, saving his redeemed ones with an everlasting salvation, to the accom- plishment of the end promised ; which he will, upon the account of his truth and faithfulness, bring about by means suitable unto and instituted by him for that end. In the compassing and effecting of this great work, God dealeth with men under a twofold considera- tion:—
1 As rational creatures. So he discovers to them the end pro-
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niised, with its excellency, loveliness, and satisfaction, thereby stirring up in them desires after it, as that eminent and proportioned good Avhich they, in the utmost issue of their thoughts and desires, aim at. Farther; on the forementioned account, that they are rational crea- tures, endued with a rational appetite or will for the choosing of that which is good, and with an understanding to judge of it, and of the means for the attainment of the end, God reveals to them the means conducing to the end, proposing them to them, to be chosen, and em- braced, and closed withal, for the compassing of the end proposed. And that yet they may be dealt withal agreeably to their nature and those principles in them which they are created withal, and that God might have glory by their acting suitably to such a nature and such principles, he exhorts and provokes them to choose those ways and means which he hath so allotted (as before mentioned) for the end aimed at; and that they should be thus dealt withal, their very na- tural condition, of being free, intellectual agents, doth require.
2. As sinners, or agents disenabled in themselves for the work prescribed to them and required of them for the attaining of the end they aim at, — namely, in spiritual things; and on that account he puts forth towards them and in them the efficacy of his power for the immediate and special working of those things in them and by them which, as rational creatures bound unto an orderly obedi- ence, they are pressed and exhorted unto.
To manifest the inconsistency of such a procedure, and the unan- swerableness of it to the infinite wisdom of God (though the Scrip- tures expressly deliver it in innumerable places, as hath been shown), is that which by Mr Goodwin is in this discourse attempted. His particular endeavour in the place under consideration is, to manifest that when God promiseth to bring about and effect any thing in- fallibly, by the use of means, it is in vain altogether that any ex- hortation should be urged on them who are to use the means so appointed for the accomplishment of it. And to the instance above mentioned concerning Paul he replies, chap. xiii. sect. 8 : —
" First, it is the generally received opinion of divines, that pro- mises of temporal good things are still conditional, and not absolute; which opinion they maintain upon grounds not easily shaken. Now^ evident it is that the promise under question was a promise of this nature and kind, relating only to the preservation of the temporal lives of men."
Ans. That all promises of temporal things, without exception, are conditional, — that is, so as to be suspended on any conditions not promised to be wrought with equal assurance to that which depends on them, — is not the judgment of any divine I know, unless it be of Mr Goodwin, and those of the same persuasion with him in the matter of our present controversy. Who ever but they will say (if
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they ynW) that the promise of bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt was conditional? Let them that do say so assign the condi- tion on which the accomplishment of that promise was suspended. The promise made to the parents of Samson of his birth and mighty actions, what condition was it suspended on? and yet was it a pro- raise of a temporal thing. Though this may be accounted a general rule, because for the most part it is so, yet may not God make a particular exception thereunto ? Did he not so in the case of Hezekiah, as to his living fifteen years, as also in those cases before mentioned? It is true, all such promises have appointed means for their accom- plishment, but not as conditions whereon their fulfilling is absolutely suspended.