But he adds, " Those words of Paul to the centurion and soldiers lately mentioned (' Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be safe') undeniably prove the said promise to have been not absolute, but conditional ; for in case God should have promised absolutely and without all exception that they should have been safe, Paul had plainly contradicted the truth of it by affirming, not that they should not, but that they could not be safe, otherwise than upon the condi- tion of the mariners abiding in the ship."
Ans. This is boldly ventured. God promiseth that the end shall be accomplished ; Paul exhorteth to the use of the means for the attainment of that end, and in that contradicts the truth of God's promise, if it be not conditional. And why so? Who ever said that God promised that they should be safe and preserved in the neglect of means? They were men, and not stones, that God promised so to safeguard ; and it was by his blessing upon means that he intended to preserve them: tlierefore he that stirred them up to the use of means contradicted the promise, unless it were conditional ! Paul says, indeed, they could not be safe unless the mariners abode in the ship ; not suspending the certainty of God's promise upon their con- tinuance in the ship, but manifesting the means whereby God would bring about their safety.
That which ensues in the two following exceptions (as Paul's per- suading them to take meat, which conduced to their safety, and their casting the wheat into the sea for the same end) amounts no higher than the affirmations already considered, asserting that an in- fallible promise of an end to be attained by means, and an exhorta- tion to the use of means, with the actual use of them on the account of their necessity as means, are inconsistent ; which is plainly, with- out the least show of proof or truth, to beg the thing in question.
Neither is his case in hand at all promoted by comparing this par- ticular promise, given at such a time and season, with those general promises of earthly blessings made to the obedience of the Jews in the land of Canaan, mentioned Deut. xxviii, 1-1 4,
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 459
As for that wliich, sixthly, follows in the 9th section, being a mar- vellous pretty discourse about the promise here made, as though it should be only this, that though the sliip were lost and miscarried, yet none of them in it should perish thereb}^, — merely upon the ac- count of the ship's miscarrying, though on some other account they might be drowned at the same time, — which, upon narrow scanning, he hath at last found out to be the sense of the place, [it] may well deserve the consideration of them who have nothing else to do; for my part, I have other employment.
That which we affirm concerning the words of God by his angel to Paul is, that they were such a promise as could not but infallibly be accomplished, according to the tenor of what is in those words expressed ; nor, in respect of the faithfulness of God, could it other- wise be but that it must so fall out and come to pass as was ap- pointed, although the accomplishment of it was to be brought about by the eminent blessing of God upon the means that were to be used by them to whom and concerning whom it was given.
1. For first, the promise was not only concerning the mariners and the rest in the ship, for the preservation of whom the means formerly mentioned were used, but of Paul's appearance before Caesar, — a great and eminent work whereunto he was designed, Acts ix. 15 : "Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar," chap, xxvii. 24. Look, then, what infallibility in respect of the event there was as to Paul's appearance before Cassar, the same there was in the preservation of the lives of the rest with him. Now, although the staying of the mariners from going out of the ship was a means that Paul was kept alive to be brought before Caesar, yet can any one be so forsaken of common sense as to say that it was the condition of the purpose of God con- cerning the fulfilling of that testimony which, according to his ap- pointment, Paul was to make at Rome with all the mighty and successful travail for the propagation of the gospel which he after this was engaged in? was it all now cast upon the fall of an uncer- tain condition, not at all determined of God as to its accomplish- ment? Doth the infinitely wise God delight to put the purposes of his heart, and those of so great concernment to the kingdom of his Son and his own glory, in the everlasting welfare of innumerable souls, to such uncertain hazards, which, by various ways obvious and naked before his eyes, he could have prevented?
2. It is part of the prediction of Paul, from the promise he had received (and therewith a revelation thereof), that they shoidd be " cast upon a certain island," God having some work for him there to do. Now, was this part of the promise conditional, or no ? If it be said that it was, let the condition on which it depended be as- signed. Nothing can be imagined, unless it be that the wind sat in such or such a quarter. It is, then, supposed that God promised