3. That it is not the nature and tenor of the covenant of grace, and God's dealing with his chosen secret ones, his saints, true be- lievers, as to their eternal condition, which in these words is intended, but the manifestation of the righteousness of God in dealing with that people of the Jews, in a peculiar disiDensation of his providence towards the l)ody of the people and the nation in general, appears farther from the occasion of the words and the provocation given the Lord to make use of those expressions unto them. The proverb that God cuts out of their lips and mouths by the sword of his righte- ousness in those words was "concerning the land of Israel;" used per- haps mostly by them in captivity. But it was concerning the land of Israel, not concerning the eternal state and condition of the saints of God, but concerning the land of Israel, verse 2. God had of old given that land to that people by promise, and continued them in it
XVII.] CERTAIN PASSAGES IN SCRIPTURE CONSIDERED, 615
for many generations, until at length, for their wickedness, idolatry, abomination, and obstinacy in their evil ways, he caused them to be carried captive unto Babylon. In that captivity the Lord revenged upon them not only the sins of the present generation, but, as he told them, also those of their forefathers; especially the abomination, cruelty, idolatry, exercised in the days of Manasseh, taking this sea- son for his work of vengeance on the generations following, who also so far walked in the steps of their forefathers as to justify all God's proceedings against them. Being wasted and removed from their own land by the righteous judgment of God, they considered the land of Israel, that was promised to them (though upon their good be- haviour therein), and how, instead of a plentiful enjoyment of all things in peace and quietness therein, there were now a small rem- nant in captivity, the rest, the far greatest part, being destroyed by the sword and famine in that land. In this state and condition, being, as all others of their frame and principle, prone to justify them- selves, they had hatched a proverb among themselves concerning the land of Israel promised to them, exceedingly opprobrious and re- proachful to the justice of God in his dealings with them. The sum of the intendment of this saying that was grown rife amongst them was, that for the sins of their forefathers, many, yea, the greatest part of them, were slain in the land of Israel, and the rest carried from it into bondage and captivity. To vindicate the righteousness and equity of his ways, the impartiality of his judgments, the Lord re- counts to them by his prophet many of their sins, whereof themselves with their fathers were guilty, in the land of their nativity, and for which he had brought all that calamity and desolation upon them whereof they did complain ; affirming, under many supposals of rising and falling, that principle of rising and falling, that principle he laid down in the entrance of his dealings with them, — that every one of them suffered for his own iniquity, whatever they suffered, whether death or other punishment, and not for the sins of their forefathers, whatever influence they might have upon the procuring of the gene- ral vengeance that overtook the whole nation in the midst of their iniquity. This being the aim, scope, and tendency of the place, the import of the words and tenor of God's intendment in them, I can- not but wonder how any man of understanding and conscience can once imagine that God hath given any testimony to the possibility of falling out of covenant with him of those whom he hath taken nigh to himself through the blood of his Son in the everlasting bond thereof; as though it were any thing of his dealing v/ith the saints in reference to their spii'itual and eternal condition that the Lord here reveals his will about, being only the tenor of his deal- ings with the house of Israel in reference to the land of Canaan. 4. This is farther manifest in that principle and rule of God's pro-
616 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
ceedings in the matter, laid down verse 4; which is not only alien from, but also directly opposite unto, that which is the principle in the covenant of grace, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die," — that soul and person, and not another, — when in that covenant of grace he " setteth forth his Son to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, giving him up to death for all, causing the just to die for the un- just," the soul that never sinned for the souls that had sinned, that they might go free. And I would fain know on what solid grounds an answer may be given to the Socinians' triumphing in the 4th verse against the satisfaction of Christ, no less than Mr Goodwin in the 24th and 25th, against the perseverance of the saints, if you do not manifest the whole tendency of this place to be accommodated to God's providential dispensation of temporal judgments and mercies in respect of that people and the covenant whereby they held the land of Canaan, and not at all to respect the general dispensation of his righteousness and grace in the blood of Christ. So that, —