Chapter III: The immutability of the purposes of God proposed for a second
The immutability of the purposes of God proposed for a second demonstration of the truth in hand -- Somewhat of the nature and properties of the purposes of God: the object of them -- Purposes, how acts of God's understanding and will -- The only foundation of the futurition of all things -- The purposes of God absolute -- Continuance of divine love towards believers purposed -- Purposes of God farther considered and their nature explained -- Their independence and absoluteness evinced -- Proved from Isa. xlvi. 9-11; Ps. xxxiii. 9-11; Heb. vi. 17, 18, etc. -- These places explained -- The same truth by sundry reasons and arguments farther confirmed -- Purpose in God of the continuance of his love and favour to believers manifested by an induction of instances out of Scripture; the first from Rom. viii. 28 proposed, and farther cleared and improved -- Mr G.'s dealing with our argument from hence and our exposition of this place considered -- His exposition of that place proposed and discussed -- The design of the apostle commented on -- The fountain of the accomplishment of the good things mentioned omitted by Mr G. -- In what sense God intends to make all things work together for good to them that love him -- Of God's foreknowledge -- Of the sense and use of the word proginosko, also of scisco, and ginosko, in classical authors -- Prognosis, in Scripture everywhere taken for foreknowledge or predetermination, nowhere for pre-approbation -- Of pre-approving or pre-approbation here insisted on by Mr G. -- Its inconsistency with the sense of the apostle's discourse manifested -- The progress of Mr G.'s exposition of this place considered -- Whether men love God antecedently to his predestination and their effectual calling -- To pre-ordain and pre-ordinate different -- No assurance granted of the consolation professed to be intended -- The great uncertainty of the dependence of the acts of God's grace mentioned on one another -- The efficacy of every one of them resolved finally into the wills of men -- Whether calling according to God's purpose supposeth a saving answer given to that call -- The affirmative proved, and exceptions given thereto removed -- What obstructions persons called may lay in their own way to justification -- The iniquity of imposing conditions and supposals on the purposes of God not in the least intimated by himself -- The whole acknowledged design of the apostle everted by the interposition of cases and conditions by Mr G. -- Mr G.'s first attempt to prove the decrees of God to be conditional considered -- 1 Sam. ii. 30 to that end produced -- 1 Sam. ii. 30 farther considered, and its unsuitableness to illustrate Rom. viii. 28-31 proved -- Interpretation of Scripture by comparing of places agreeing neither in design, word, nor matter, rejected -- The places insisted on proved not to be parallel by sundry particular instances -- Some observations from the words rejected -- What act of God intended in these words to Eli, "I said indeed" -- No purpose or decree of God in them declared -- Any such purpose as to the house of Eli by sundry arguments disproved -- No purpose of God in the words insisted on farther manifested -- They are expressive of the promise or law concerning the priesthood, Numb. xxv. 11-13, more especially relating unto Exod. xxviii. 43, xxix. 9 -- The import of that promise, law, or statute, cleared -- The example of Jonah's preaching, and God's commands to Abraham and Pharaoh -- The universal disproportion between the texts compared by Mr G., both as to matter and expression, farther manifested -- Instances or cases of Saul and Paul to prove conditional purposes in God considered -- Conditional purposes argued from conditional threatenings -- The weakness of that argument -- The nature of divine threatenings -- What will of God, or what of the will of God, is declared by them -- No proportion between eternal purposes and temporal threatenings -- The issue of the vindication of our argument from the foregoing exceptions -- Mr G.'s endeavour to maintain his exposition of the place under consideration -- The text perverted -- Several evasions of Mr G. from the force of this argument considered -- His arguments to prove no certain or infallible connection between calling, justification, and glorification, weighed and answered -- His first, from the scope of the chapter and the use of exhortations -- The question begged -- His second, from examples of persons called and not justified -- The question argued begged -- No proof insisted on but the interposition of his own hypothesis -- How we are called irresistibly, and in what sense -- Whether bars of wickedness and unbelief may be laid in the way of God's effectual call -- Mr G.'s demur to another consideration of the text removed -- The argument in hand freed from other objections and concluded -- Jer. xxxi. 3 explained and improved, for the confirmation of the truth under demonstration -- 2 Tim. ii. 19 opened, and the truth from thence confirmed -- The foregoing exposition and argument vindicated and confirmed -- The same matter at large pursued -- John vi. 37-40 explained, and the argument in hand from thence confirmed -- Mr G.'s exceptions to our arguing from this place removed -- The same matter farther pursued -- The exposition and argument insisted on fully vindicated and established -- Matt. xxiv. 24 opened and improved -- The severals of that text more particularly handled -- Farther observations, for the clearing the mind of the Holy Ghost in this place -- The same farther insisted on and vindicated Mr G.'s exceptions at large discussed and removed -- Eph. i. 3-5, 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14, opened -- The close of the second argument, from the immutability of the purposes of God.
Having cleared the truth in hand, from the immutability of the nature of God, which himself holds out as engaged for us to rest upon, as to the unchangeable continuance of his love unto us, proceed we now to consider the steadfastness and immutability of his purposes, which he frequently asserts as another ground of assurance to the saints of his safeguarding their glory of free acceptation to the end.
I shall not enter upon the consideration of the nature and absoluteness of the purposes of God as to an express handling of them, but only a little unfold that property and concernment of them whereon the strength of the inference we aim at doth in the same measure depend. Many needless and curious questions have been, by the serpentine wits of men, moved and agitated concerning them; wherein, perhaps, our author hath not been outgone by many; as will be judged by those who have weighed his discourses concerning them, with his distinctions of "desires, intentions, purposes, and decrees," in God. But this is not the business we have in hand; for what concerneth that, that which ensueth may suffice. God himself being an infinite pure act, those acts of his will and wisdom which are eternal and immanent are not distinguished from his nature and being but only in respect of the reference and habitude which they bear unto some things to be produced outwardly from him. The objects of them all are such things as might not be. God's purposes are not concerning any thing that is in itself absolutely necessary. He doth not purpose that he will be wise, holy, infinitely good, just: all these things, that are of absolute necessity, come not within the compass of his purposes. Of things that might not be are his decrees and intentions; they are of all the products of his power, -- all that outwardly he hath done, doth, or will do, to eternity. All these things, to the falling of a hair or the withering of a [blade of] grass, hath he determined from of old. Now, this divine fore-appointment of all things the Scripture assigns sometimes to the knowledge and understanding, sometimes to the will of God: "Known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18. It is that knowledge which hath an influence into that most infinitely wise disposal of them which is there intimated. And the determination of things to be done is referred to the "counsel" of God Acts. iv. 28; which denotes an act of his wisdom and understanding, and yet withal it is the "counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11. [87]
I know that all things originally owe their futurition to a free act of the will of God; he doth whatever he will and pleaseth. Their relation thereunto translates them out of that state of possibility, and [from] being objects of God's absolute omnipotency and infinite simple intelligence or understanding, whereby he intuitively beholdeth all things that might be produced by the exerting of his infinite almighty power, into a state of futurition, making them objects of God's foreknowledge, or science of vision, as it is called. [88] But yet the Scripture expresseth (as before) that act of God whereby he determines the beings, issues, and orders of things, [so as] to manifest the concurrence of his infinite wisdom and understanding in all his purposes. Farther; as to the way of expressing these things to our manner of apprehension, there are held out intentions and purposes of God distinctly suited to all beings, operations, and events; yet in God himself they are not multiplied. As all things are present to him in one most simple and single act of his understanding, so with one individual act of his will he determines concerning all. But yet, in reference to the things that are disposed of, we may call them the purposes of God. And these are the eternal springs of God's actual providence; which being ("ratio ordinis ad finem") the disposing of all things to their ends in an appointed manner and order, in exact correspondence unto them, these purposes themselves must be the infinitely wise, eternal, immanent acts of his will, appointing and determining all things, beings, and operations, kinds of beings, manners of operation, free, necessary, contingent, as to their existence and event, into an immediate tendency unto the exaltation of his glow; or, as the apostle calls them, the "counsel of his own will," according whereunto he effectually worketh all things, Eph. i. 11.
Our consideration of these purposes of God being only in reference to the business which we have in hand, I shall do these two things:-- First, Manifest that they are all of them absolute and immutable; wherein I shall be brief, not going out to the compass of the controversy thereabout, as I intimated before; my intendment lies another way. Secondly, Show that God hath purposed the continuance of his love to his saints, to bring them infallibly to himself, and that this purpose of God, in particular, is unchangeable; which is the second part of the foundation of our abiding with God in the grace of acceptation.
I. By the purposes of God I mean, as I said before, the eternal acts of his will concerning all things that outwardly are of him; which are the rules, if I may so speak, of all his following operations, -- all external, temporary products of his power universally answering those internal acts of his will. The judgment of those who make these decrees or purposes of God (for I shall constantly use these words promiscuously, as being purely of the same import, as relating unto God) to be in themselves essential to him and his very nature, or understanding and will, may be safely closed withal. They are in God, as was said, but one; there is not a real multiplication of any thing but subsistence in the Deity. To us these lie under a double consideration:-- First, Simply as they are in God; and so it is impossible they should be differenced from his infinite wisdom and will, whereby he determineth of any thing. Secondly, In respect of the habitude and relation which they bear to the things determined, which the wisdom and will of God might not have had. In the first sense, as was said, they can be nothing but the very nature of God, the to velle of God, his internal willing of any thing that is either created or uncreated; for these terms distribute the whole nature of being. Created they are not, for they are eternal (that no new immanent act can possibly be ascribed to God hath full well of late been demonstrated). Farther; if they are created, then God willed that they should be created, for he created only what he willed. If so, was he willing they should be created, or no? If he were, then a progress will be given infinitely, for the question will arise up to eternity. If uncreated, then doubtless they are God himself, for he only is so; it is impossible that a creature should be uncreated. Again; God's very willing of things is the cause of all things, and therefore must needs be omnipotent and God himself. That "voluntas Dei" is "causa rerum" is taken for granted, and may be proved from Ps. cxv. 3, which the apostle ascribes omnipotency unto, Rom. ix. 19, "Who hath resisted his will?" Doubtless it is the property of God alone to be the cause of all things, and to be almighty in his so being. But hereof at present no more. On this supposal, the immutability of the decrees of God would plainly be coincident with the immutability of his nature, before handled.
It is, then, of the decrees and purposes of God, with respect to the matters about which they are, whereof I speak: in which regard, also, they are absolute and immutable; -- not that they work any essential change in the things themselves concerning which they are, making that to be immutable from thence which in its own nature is mutable; but only that themselves, as acts of the infinite wisdom and will of God, are not liable to nor suspended on any condition whatever foreign to themselves, nor subject to change or alteration (whence floweth an infallible certainty of actual accomplishment in reference to the things decreed or purposed, be their own nature what it will, or their next causes in themselves never so undetermined to their production), whereof I treat. That the determining purposes or decrees of God's will concerning any thing or things by him to be done or effected do not depend, as to their accomplishment, on any conditions that may be supposed in or about the things themselves whereof they are, and therefore are unchangeable, and shall certainly be brought forth unto the appointed issue, is that which we are to prove Knowing for whose sakes [89] and for what end this labour was undertaken, I shall choose to lay the whole proof of this assertion upon plain texts of Scripture, rather than mix my discourse with any such philosophical reasonings as are of little use to the most of them whose benefit is hereby intended.
Isa. xlvi. 9-11, The Holy Ghost speaks expressly to our purpose: "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." Verse 9, the Lord asserts his own deity and eternal being, in opposition to all false gods and idols, whom he threatens to destroy, verse 1. Of this he gives them a threefold demonstration:--
First, From his prescience or foreknowledge: "There is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done;" -- "In this am I infinitely discriminated from all the pretended deities of the nations. All things from the beginning to the end are naked before me, and I have declared them by my prophets, even things that are future and contingent in themselves. So are the things that I now speak of. The destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians is a thing to be carried on through innumerable contingencies; and yet as I have seen it so have I told it, and my counsel concerning it shall certainly be executed."
Secondly, By his power, in using what instruments he pleaseth for the executing of his purposes and bringing about his own designs: "Calling a ravenous bird from the east;" -- one that at first, when he went against Babylon, thought of nothing less than executing the counsel of God, but was wholly bent upon satisfying his own rapine and ambition, not knowing then in the least by whom he was anointed and sanctified for the accomplishment of his will. All the thoughts of his heart, all his consultations and actions, all his progresses and diversions, his success in his great and dreadful undertaking, to break in pieces that "hammer of the whole earth," with all the free deliberations and contingencies wherewith his long war was attended, which were as many, strong, and various, as the nature of things is capable to receive, were not only in every individual act, with its minutest circumstances, by him foreseen, and much also foretold, but also managed in the hand of his power in a regular subservience to that call which he so gave that "ravenous bird" for the accomplishment of his purpose and pleasure. [90]
Thirdly, By the immutability of his purposes, which can never be frustrated nor altered: "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure; -- I have purposed it, and I will also do it." The standing, or fixedness and unchangeableness, of his counsel, he manifests by the accomplishment of the things which therein he had determined; neither is there any salve for his immutability in his counsel, should it otherwise fall out. And if we may take his own testimony of himself, what he purposeth, that he doth; and in the actual fulfilling and the bringing about of things themselves purposed, and as purposed, without any possibility of diversion from the real end intended, is their stability and unchangeableness in them manifested. An imaginary immutability in God's purposes, which may consist and be preserved under their utter frustration as to the fulfilling of the things themselves under which they are, the Scripture knows not, neither can reason conceive. Now, this unchangeableness of his purposes the Lord brings as one demonstration of his deity; and those who make them liable to alteration, upon any account or supposition whatsoever, do depress him, what in them lies, into the number of such dung-hill gods as he threatens to famish and destroy.
Ps. xxxiii. 9-11, "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations." The production and establishment of all things in that order wherein they are, are by the psalmist ascribed to the will and power of God. By his word and command they not only are, but stand fast; being fixed in that order by him appointed. Both the making, fixing, and sustaining of all things, is by "the word of his power." As the first relates to their being, which they have from creation, so the other to the order in subsistence and operation, which relates to his actual providence. Herein they stand fast. Themselves, with their several and respective relations, dependencies, influences, circumstances, suited to that nature and being which was bestowed on them by his word in their creation, are settled in an exact correspondency to his purposes (of which afterward), not to be shaken or removed. Heb. i. 3; Rev. iv. 11; Acts xvii. 28, ii. 23, iv. 28; Gen. l. 20; Eccles. iii. 11. Men have their devices and counsels also, they are free agents, and work by counsel and advice; and therefore God hath not set all things so fast as to overturn and overbear them in their imaginations and undertakings. Saith the psalmist, "They imagine and devise indeed, but their counsel is of nought, and their devices are of none effect; but the counsel of the Lord," etc. The counsel and purposes of the Lord are set in opposition to the counsel and purposes of men, as to alteration, change, and frustration, in respect of the actual accomplishment of the things about which they are. "Their counsels are so and so; but the counsel of the Lord shall stand." He that shall cast verse 11 into verse 10, and say, "The counsel of the Lord, that comes to nought, and the thoughts of his heart are of none effect," let him make what pretences he will or flourishes that he can, or display what supposals and conditions he pleaseth, he will scarcely be able to keep the field against him who will contend with him about His prerogative and glory. And this antithesis between the counsels of men and the purposes of God upon the account of unchangeableness is again confirmed, Prov. xix. 21, "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Herein is the difference between the devices of men and the counsel of God: Men have many devices to try what they can do. If one way take not, they will attempt another ("hac non successit, alia aggrediemur via"), and are always disappointed, but only in that wherein they fall in with the will of God. The shallowness of their understanding, the shortness of their foresight, the weakness of their power, the changeableness of their minds, the uncertainty of all the means they use, puts them upon many devices, and often to no purpose. [91] But for Him who is infinite in wisdom and power, to whom all things are present, and to whom nothing can fall out unexpected, yea, what he hath not himself determined, unto whom all emergencies are but the issue of his own good pleasure, who proportions out what efficacy he pleaseth unto the means he useth, -- his counsels, his purposes, his decrees shall stand, being, as Job [92] tells us, "as mountains of brass." By this he differenceth himself from all others, idols and men; as also by his certain foreknowledge of what shall come to pass and be accomplished upon those purposes of his. [93] Hence the apostle, Heb. vi. 17, 18, acquaints us that his promise and his oath, those "two immutable things," do but declare ametatheton tes boules, "the unchangeableness of his counsel;" which God is abundantly willing to manifest, though men are abundantly unwilling to receive it. Job determines this business in Job xxiii. 13, 14, "He is of one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me." Desires are the least and faintest kind of purposes, in Mr Goodwin's distinctions; yet the certain accomplishment of them, as they are ascribed unto God, is here asserted by the Holy Ghost.
Were the confirmation of the matter of our present discourse my only design in hand, I could farther confirm it by enlarging these ensuing reasons:--
First, From the immutability of God, the least questioning whereof falls foul on all the perfections of the divine nature, which require a correspondent affection of all the internal and eternal acts of his mind and will.
Secondly, From his sovereignty, in making and executing all his purposes, which will not admit of any such mixture of consults or co-operations of others as should render his thoughts liable to alteration, Rom. xi. 33-36. The Lord in his purposes is considered as the great former of all things, who, having his clay in the hand of his almighty power, ordains every parcel to what kind of vessel and to what use he pleaseth. Hence the apostle concludes the consideration of them, and the distinguishing grace flowing from them, with that admiration, O Bathos! -- "O the depth!" etc.
Thirdly, From their eternity, which exempts them from all shadow of change, and lifts them up above all those spheres that either from within and in their own nature, or from without by the impression of others, are exposed to turning. That which is eternal is also immutable, Acts xv. 18; 1 Cor. ii. 7-11.
Fourthly, From the absoluteness and independency of his will, whereof they are the acts and emanations, Rom. ix. 15-21. Whatever hath any influence upon that, so as to move it, cause it, change it, must be before it, above it, better than it, as every cause is than its effect as such. This will of his, as was said, is the fountain of all being; to which free and independent act all creatures owe their being and subsistence, their operations and manner thereof, their whole difference from those worlds of beings which his power can produce, but which yet shall lie bound up to eternity in their nothingness and possibility, upon the account of his good pleasure. Into this doth our Saviour resolve the disposal of himself, Matt. xxvi. 42, and of all others, chap. xi. 25, 26. Certainly men in their wrangling disputes and contests about it have scarce seriously considered with whom they have to do. "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?'
Fifthly, From the engagement of his omnipotency for the accomplishment of all his purposes and designs, as is emphatically expressed, Isa. xiv. 24-27, "The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" The Lord doth not only assert the certain accomplishment of all his purposes, but also, to prevent and obviate the unbelief of them who were concerned in their fulfilling, he manifests upon what account it is that they shall certainly be brought to pass; and that is, by the stretching out of his hand, or exalting of his mighty power, for the doing of it; so that if there be a failing therein, it must be through the shortness of that hand of his so stretched out, in that it could not reach the end aimed at. A worm will put forth its strength for the fulfilling of that whereunto it is inclined; and the sons of men will draw out all their power for the compassing of their designs. If there be wisdom in the laying of them, and foresight of emergencies, they alter not, nor turn aside to the right hand or to the left, in the pursuit of them. And shall the infinitely wise, holy, and righteous thoughts and designs of God not have his power engaged for their accomplishment His infinite wisdom and understanding are at the foundation of them; they are the counsels of his will: Rom. xi. 34, "Who hath known his mind" in them? saith the apostle, "or who hath been his counsellor?" Though no creature can see the paths wherein he walks, nor apprehend the reason of the ways he is delighted in, yet this he lets us know, for the satisfying of our hearts and teaching of our inquiries, that his own infinite wisdom is in them all. I cannot but fear that sometimes men have" darkened counsel by words without knowledge," in curious contests about the decrees and purposes of God, as though they were to be measured by our rule and line, and as though "by searching we could find out the Almighty unto perfection." But he is wise in heart; he that contendeth with him, let him instruct him. Add, that this wisdom in his counsel is attended with infallible prescience of all that will fall in by the way, or in the course of the accomplishment of his purposes, and you will quickly see that there can be no possible intervenience, upon the account whereof the Lord should not engage his almighty power for their accomplishment. "He is of one mind, and who can turn him? He will work, and who shall let it?"
Sixthly, By demonstrating the unreasonableness, folly, and impossibility, of suspending the acts and purposes of the will of God upon any actings of the creatures soever; seeing it cannot be done without subjecting eternity to time, the First Cause to the second, the Creator to the creature, the Lord to the servant, disturbing the whole order of beings and operations in the world.
Seventhly, By the removal of all possible or imaginary causes of alteration and change, which will all be resolved into impotency in one kind or other; every alteration being confessedly an imperfection, it cannot follow but from want and weakness. Upon the issue of which discourse, if it might be pursued, these corollaries would ensue:--
First, Conditional promises and threatenings are not declarative of God's purposes concerning persons, but of his moral approbation or rejection of things.
Secondly, There is a wide difference between the change of what is conditionally pronounced as to the things themselves and the change of what is determinately willed, the certainty of whose event is proportioned to the immutable acts of the will of God itself.
Thirdly, That no purpose of God is conditional, though the things themselves, concerning which his purposes are, are oftentimes conditionals one of another.
Fourthly, That conditional purposes concerning perseverance are either impossible, implying contradictions, or ludicrous, even to an unfitness for a stage. But of these and such like, as they occasionally fall in, in the ensuing discourse.
II. This foundation being laid, I come to what was secondly proposed, -- namely, to manifest, by an induction of particular instances, the engagement of these absolute and immutable purposes of God as to the preservation of the saints in his favour to the end; and whatsoever is by Mr Goodwin excepted as to the former doctrine of the decrees and purposes of God, in that part of his treatise which falls under our consideration, shall, in the vindication of the respective places of Scripture to be insisted on, be discussed.
The first particular instance that I shall propose is that eminent place of the apostle, Rom. viii. 28, where you have the truth in hand meted out unto us, full measure, shaken together, and running over. It doth not hang by the side of his discourse, nor is left to be gathered and concluded from other principles and assertions couched therein, but is the main of the apostolical drift and design, it being proposed by him to make good, upon unquestionable grounds, the assurance he gives believers that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose;" the reason whereof he farther adds in the following words: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." What the good aimed at is, for which all things shall work together, and wherein it doth consist, he manifests in the conclusion of the argument produced to prove his first assertion: Verses 35-39, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation," etc. The good of believers:, of them that love God, consists in the enjoyment of Christ and his love. Saith, then, the apostle, "God will so certainly order all things that they shall be preserved in that enjoyment of it whereunto in this life they are already admitted, and borne out through all oppositions to that perfect fruition thereof which they aim at; and this is so unquestionable, that the very things which seem to lie in the way of such an attainment and event shall work together, through the wisdom and love of God, to that end." To make good this consolation, the apostle lays down two grounds or principles from whence the truth of it doth undeniably follow, the one taken from the description of the persons concerning whom he makes it, and the other from the acts of God's grace, and their respective concatenation in reference to those persons.
The persons, he tells you, are those who are "called according to God's purpose." That their calling here mentioned is the effectual call of God, which is answered by faith and obedience, because it consists in the bestowing of them on the persons so called, taking away the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, is not only manifest from that place which afterward [it] receives in the golden chain of divine graces, between predestination and justification, whereby the one hath infallible influences into the other, but also from that previous description which is given of the same persons, namely, that they love God, which certainly is an issue and fruit of effectual calling, as shall afterward be farther argued; for to that issue are things driven in this controversy, that proofs thereof are become needful.
The "purpose" according to which these persons are called is none other than that which the apostle, chap. ix. 11, terms the "purpose of God according to election;" the "election of grace," chap. xi. 5; as also the knowledge and "foundation of God," 2 Tim. ii. 19; as will in the progress of our discourse be made farther appear, although I know not that this is as yet questioned. The immutability of this purpose of God, chap. ix. 11, 12, the apostle demonstrates from its independency on any thing in them or in respect of them concerning whom it is, it being eternal, and expressly safeguarded against apprehensions that might arise of any causal or occasional influence from any thing in them given thereunto, they lying under this condition alone unto God, as persons that had done neither good nor evil. And this, also, the apostle farther pursues from the sovereignty, absoluteness, and unchangeableness of the will of God. But these things are of another consideration.
Now, this unchangeable purpose and election being the fountain from whence the effectual calling of believers doth flow, the preservation of them to the end designed, the glory whereunto they are chosen, by those acts of grace and love whereby they are prepared thereunto, hath coincidence of infallibility as to the end aimed at with the purpose itself, nor is it liable to the least exception but what may be raised from the mutability and changeableness of God in his purposes and decrees. Hence, in the following verse, upon the account of the stability and immutability of this purpose of God, the utmost and most remote end in reference to the good thereby designed unto believers, though having its present subsistence only in that purpose of God and infallible concatenation of means thereunto conducing, is mentioned as a thing actually accomplished, Rom. viii. 30.
Herein, also, lies the apostle's second eviction of consolation formerly laid down, even in the indissoluble concatenation of those acts of grace, love, and favour, whereby the persons of God's purpose, or the "remnant according to the election of grace," shall be infallibly carried on in their present enjoyment and unto the full fruition of the love of Christ. If we may take him upon his word (and he speaks in the name and authority of God), those whom he doth foreknow, or fixes his thoughts peculiarly upon from eternity (for the term these is evidently discriminated, and the act must needs be eternal which in order of nature is previous unto predestination, or the appointment to the end by means designed), those, I say, he doth predestinate and appoint, in the immutable purpose of his will, to be conformed unto the image of his Son, as in afflictions, so in grace and glory.
To fancy a suspension of these acts of grace (some whereof are eternal) upon conditionals, and they not intimated in the least in the text, nor consistent with the nature of the things themselves or the end intended, casting the accomplishment and bringing about of the designs of God, proposed as his for our consolation, upon the certain lubricity of the wills of men, and thereupon to propose an intercision of them as to their concatenation and dependence, that they should not have a certain influence on the one hand descending, nor an unchangeable dependence on the other ascending, may easily be made to appear to be so plain an opposition to the aim and design of the apostle as it is possibly capable of. But because these things are really insisted on by Mr Goodwin, I shall choose rather to remove them, -- as with much rhetoric, and not without some sophistry, they are by him pressed, -- than farther anticipate them, by arguments from the text itself, of their invalidity and nullity.
The discussion of our argument from this place of Scripture he enters upon, chap. x. sect. 42, p. 207, and pursues it, being much entangled with what himself is pleased to draw forth as the strength of it, unto sect. 52, p. 219.
Now, though Mr Goodwin hath not at all mentioned any analysis of the place insisted on, for the making out of the truth we believe, to be intended in it, nor ever once showed his reader the face of our argument from hence, but only drawn something of it forth in such divided parcels as he apprehended himself able to blur and obscure, yet to make it evident that he hath not prevailed to foil that part of the strength of truth (his adversary) which he voluntarily chose to grapple withal, I shall consider that whole discourse, and manifest the nullity of his exceptions unto this testimony given in by the apostle to the truth we have in hand.
To obtain his end, Mr Goodwin undertaketh these two things:-- first, To give in an exposition of the place of Scripture insisted on, "whence no such conclusion as that which he opposeth," saith he, "can be drawn;" secondly, To give in exceptions to our interpretation of it, and the inferences thereupon by us deduced. The first [is] in these, words:--
"For the scope of the apostle, in the sequel of this passage, is clearly this, as the particle for' in the beginning of verse 29 plainly showeth, to prove and make good that assertion of his, verse 28, that all things work together for good to those that love God.' To prove this he showeth by what method and degrees of dispensations God will bring it to pass. Whom he foreknows,' saith he, that is, pre-approves (the word knowledge' frequently in Scripture importing approbation), as he must needs do those that love him, these he predestinates to be conformed to the image of his Son;' and therefore as all things, even his deepest sufferings, wrought together for good unto him, so must they needs do unto those who are predestinated or pre-ordinated by God to a conformity with him. To give you yet,' saith our apostle, a farther and more particular account how God, in the secret of his counsels, hath laid things in order to the bringing of them unto an actual conformity with the image of his Son, to wit, in glory, whom he predestinated thereunto (who are such as love him, and thereupon are approved by him), you are to understand that whom he hath so predestinated he hath also called, -- that is, hath purposed or decreed to call to the knowledge of his Son or of his gospel, -- that is, to afford a more plain and effectual discovery of him unto them than unto others whom he hath not so predestinated.' By the way, this call doth not necessarily suppose a saving answer given unto it by the called, no whit more than the calling mentioned, Matt. xx. 16, xxii. 14. It only supposeth a real purpose on God's part to make it very sufficient to procure such an answer to it from those that are called. The apostle advanceth towards his proposed end, and addeth, Those whom he called, them he also justified;' that is, according to our last exposition of the word called,' he hath purposed or decreed to justify, -- to wit, in case the called obstruct him not in his way, or by their unbelief render not themselves incapable of justification. The clause following is likewise to be understood with the like proviso as this: Whom he hath justified, them he also glorified;' that is, hath purposed or decreed to save, in case they retain the grace of justification, confirmed upon them to the end."
Ans. First, let it be granted that the design of the apostle is to make good that assertion, "All things work together for good to them that love God," and the consolation for believers which thence he holds forth unto them; yet he doth not only show by what method, degrees, or steps, God will bring it to pass, but also, as the fountain of all that ensues, lays down the unalterable purpose of God concerning that end, which is intended in and accomplished by all those steps or degrees of his effectual grace after mentioned. This Mr Goodwin passeth over, as not to be wrested into any tolerable conformity with that sense (if there be any sense in the whole of what he insists upon for the sense of this place) which he intends to rack and press the words unto. To save stumbling at the threshold (which is malum omen), he leaps at once over the consideration of this purpose and design of God, as aiming at a certain end, without the least touch upon it. Farther, that God will bring it to pass that all things shall work together for good to them that love him, is not intended by Mr Goodwin as though it should infallibly be so indeed, but only that God will so way-lay them with some advantages that it may be so, as well as otherwise. What consolation believers may receive from this whole discourse of the apostle, intended properly to administer it unto them, as it lies under the gloss ensuing, shall be discovered in our following consideration of it. Thus, then, he makes it out:--
"Whom he foreknows, that is, pre-approves (the word knowledge' in Scripture frequently importing approbation), as he must needs do those that love him, them he predestinates."
Ans. First, That to "know" is sometimes taken in Scripture for to approve may be granted; but that the word here used must therefore signify to pre-approve is an assertion which I dare not pretend to so much foreknowledge as to think that any one besides himself will approve. Mr Goodwin, I doubt not, knows full well that prepositions in Greek composition do often restrain simple verbs, formerly at liberty for other uses, to one precise signification. The word proginosko, in its constant sense in other authors, is "præscio" or "prædecerno;" ginosko itself, "to determine or decree;" so is "scisco" among the Latins, the ancient word "to know." So he in Plautus: "Rogitationes plurimas propter vos populus scivit, quas vos rogates rumpitis." [94] And nothing more frequent in Cicero. "Quæ scisceret plebs, aut quæ populus juberet," etc.; and again, "Quod multa perniciose, multa pestifere sciscuntur in populus;" and, "Plancus primus legem scivit de publicanis." [95] In like manner is ginosko frequently used: Egnosan touto me poiein? -- "They determined not to do that thing." [96] Adika egnoke peri emou ho Zeus, says he in Lucian; -- "He hath determined unrighteous things against me." [97] Hence, gnome is often taken for a decree, or an established purpose, as Budæus manifesteth out of Plutarch. In Scripture the word is sundry times used, and still in the sense before mentioned; sometimes for a simple foreknowledge. So Paul uses it of the Jews who knew him before his conversion: Acts xxvi. 5, Proginoskontes. It relates not to what they foreknew, but what they knew before, or in former days. And as the simple verb, as was showed, is often taken for "decerno, statuo," "to decree, order, or determine," so with this composition it seems most to be restrained to that sense. 1 Pet. i. 20, it is said of Christ that he was proegnosmenos pro kataboles kosmou, -- he was "foreknown," or "fore-ordained, before the foundation of the world;' which is opposed to that which follows, phanerotheis de ep' eschaton ton chronon di' humas, -- "manifested in the last times for you," -- and relates to the decree or fore-purpose of God concerning the giving of his Son. Hence prognosis is joined with horismene boule, God's "determinate counsel," as a word of the same importance: Acts ii. 23, Touton de horismene boule kai prognosei, etc.: if there be any difference, the first designing the wisdom, the latter the will, of God in this business. In Rom. xi. 2 it hath again the same signification: "God hath not cast off ton laon hautou hon proegno," or the remnant which among the obstinate and unbelieving Jews were under his everlasting purpose of grace; in which place, causelessly and without any attempt of proof, the Remonstrants wrest the word to signify pre-approbation, Dec. Sent., art. 1, the whole context and design of the apostle, the terms "remnant" and "election," whereby the same thing is afterward expressed, undeniably forcing the proper acceptation of the word. Not only the original sense and composition of the word, but also the constant use of it in the Scripture, leads us away from the interpretation here pinned upon it.
Farther; what is the meaning of pre-approving? God's approving of any person as to their persons is his free and gracious acceptation of them in Christ. His pre-approving of them in answer hereunto must be his eternal gracious acceptation of them in Christ. But is this Mr Goodwin's intendment? Doth God accept any in Christ antecedently to their predestination, calling, and justification (for they are all consequential to this act of pre-approbation)? This, then, is that which is affirmed: God approves and accepts of men in Christ; thereupon he predestinates, calls, and justifies them. But what need [for] all these if they be antecedently accepted? I should have expected that this foreknowledge should have been resolved rather into a middle or conditionate prescience than into this pre-approbation, but that our great masters were pleased (in the place newly cited), though without any attempt of proof, to carry it another way. That God should approve of, love, accept persons, antecedently to their predestination, vocation, and justification, is, doubtless, not suitable to Mr Goodwin's principles; but that they should love God also before they fall under these acts of his grace is not only openly contradictions to the truth, but also to itself. The phrase here of "loving God" is confessedly a description of believers; now, to suppose men believers, that is, to answer the call of God, antecedently to his call, will scarce be salved from a flat contradiction with any reserved considerations that may be invented.
This solid foundation being laid, he proceeds: "Those who thus love him, and he approves of them, he predestinates to be conformed to the image of his Son." It is true, the apostle speaks of them and to them that "love God," but doth not, in the least, suppose them as such to be the objects of the acts of his sovereign grace after mentioned. If God call none but those that love him antecedently to his call, that grace of his must eternally rest in his own bosom, without the least exercise of it towards any of the sons of men. It is those persons, indeed, who, in the process of the work of God's grace towards them, are brought to love him, that are thus predestinated and called; but they are so dealt withal, not upon the account or consideration of their love of God (which is not only in order consequential to some of them, but the proper effect and product of them), but upon the account of the unchangeable purpose of God appointing them to salvation; -- which I doubt not but Mr Goodwin studiously and purposely omitted to insist upon, knowing its absolute inconsistency with the conclusion (and yet not able to waive it, had it been once brought under consideration) which from the words he aimeth to extract. As, then, to make men's loving of God to be antecedent to the grace of vocation is an express contradiction in itself; so to make it, or the consideration of it, to be previous unto predestination is an insinuation of a gross Pelagian figment, giving rise and spring to God's eternal predestination, not in his own sovereign will, but the self-differencing wills of men. "Latet anguis" also in the adding "grass" of that exegetical term "pre-ordinated," -- predestinated, that is, pre-ordinated. Though the word, being considered in the language whereof it is, seems not to give occasion to any suspicion, yet the change of it from pre-ordained into pre-ordinated is not to be supposed to be for nothing in him who is expert at these weapons To ordain is either "ordinare ut aliquid fiat," or "ordinem in factis statuere," or, according to some, "subjectum disponere ad finem." To pre-ordain is of necessity precisely tied up to the first sense; -- to pre-ordinate, I fear, in Mr Goodwin's sense, is but to predispose men by some good inclinations in themselves, and men pre-ordinated are but men so predisposed; which is the usual gloss that men of this persuasion put upon Acts xiii. 48.
Thus far, then, we have carried on the sense affixed to these words, if it may so be called, which is evidently contradictious in itself, and in no one particular suited to the mind of the Holy Ghost.
He proceeds: "?To give you yet,' saith our apostle, a farther and more particular account how God, in the secret of his counsel, hath belaid things in order,'?" etc.
This expression, "God hath belaid things in order to the salvation of them that love him," is the whole of the assurance here given by the apostle to the assertion formerly laid down for the consolation of believers; and this, according to the analogy and proportion of our author's faith, amounts only thus far: "You that love God, if you continue so to do, you will fall under his predestination; and if you abide under that, he will call you, so as that you may farther obey him, or you may not. If you do obey him, and believe upon his call (having loved him before), he will justify you; not with that justification which is final, of which you may come short, but with initial justification; which if you continue in and walk up unto, solvite curas when you are dead in your graves." This is called God's belaying of things in his secret counsel; whereby the total accomplishment of the first engagement is cut off from the root of God's purposes, and from the branches of his effectual grace in the pursuit thereof, and grafted upon the wild olive of the will of man, that never did, nor ever will, bear any wholesome fruit of itself to eternity. What is afterward added of the qualification of those whom God predestinates, being an intrusion of another false hypothesis, for the confirmation of an assertion of the same alloy, is not of my present consideration. But he adds, "Ye are to understand that whom he hath predestinated he hath also called, hath purposed or decreed to call, to the knowledge of his Son, or his gospel," as before, etc.
Ans. How he hath predestinated them is not expressed, but being so predestinated, God purposes to call them; -- that is, them and only them; for it is a uniform proceeding of God towards all whom he attempts to bring to himself which is here described. That is, when men love him and are approved of him, and are thereupon pre-ordinated to conformity with Christ, then he decrees to call them, or, as the calling here mentioned is described (that ye may not mistake, as though any internal effectual work of grace were hereby intended, but only an outward moral persuasion, by a revelation of the object they should embrace), "he gives a more plain and effectual discovery of Christ to them than to any others." Doubtless it is evident to every one that (besides the great confusion whereinto the proceedings of God in bringing sinners to himself, or belaying their coming with some kind entertainments, are cast) the whole work of salvation is resolved into the wills of men; and instead of an effectual, operative, unchangeable purpose of God, nothing is left on his part but a moral approbation of what is well done, and a proposing of other desirable things unto men upon the account of former worthy carriage. And this is no small part of the intendment of our author in this undertaking.
That God decrees to call them, and only them, who love him, and upon that account are approved of him, when all faith and love are the fruits of that calling of his, is such a figment as I shall not need to cast away words in the confutation of it. [98]
Yet, lest any should have too high thoughts of this grace of vocation, he tells them by the way "that it doth not necessarily suppose a saving answer given to it by the called, no whit more than the calling mentioned, Matt. xx. 16, xxii. 14."
First, By Mr Goodwin's confession there is as yet no great advance made towards the proof of the assertion laid down in the entrance, and for the confirmation whereof this series and concatenation of divine graces is insisted on. Though men love God, are predestinated and accepted, yet when it comes to calling they may stop there and perish everlastingly; for "many are called, but few chosen." They are indeed belaid by a calling, but they may miss the place of its residence, or refuse to accept of its entertainment, and pass on to ruin. But, --
Secondly, They are so called as upon the account thereof to be justified; for "whom he calls, them he also justifies." "Yea, in case they obey." But this is the interpretation of the new apostle, not the old; neither hath the text any such supposition, nor will the context bear it, nor can the design of the apostle consist with it, nor any more consolation be squeezed from this place upon the account of it than of milk from a flint in the rock of stone. Neither, --
Thirdly, Doth the calling here mentioned hold any analogy with that of the many that are called but not chosen, pointed at in the second place instanced in, being indeed the effectual calling of the few who are chosen: for as our Saviour, in those places of Matthew, mentioned two sorts of persons, some that have a general call, but are not chosen, and others that, being chosen, are therefore distinguished from the former as to their vocation; so Paul here tells you that the calling he insists on is the peculiar call of God "according to his purpose" (the same purpose intimated by our Saviour); which, being suited of God to the carrying on and accomplishing of that purpose of his, must be effectual, unless he through mutability and impotency come short of accomplishing the design of his will and wisdom.
Neither is this salved by what follows, "that it is the intention of God to make this call sufficient for the end purposed;" yea, this part of the wallet is most filled with folly and falsehood: for as general purposes of giving means for an end, with an intention to bring that end about, that may or may not attain it, are most remote from God, and, being supposed, are destructive to all his holy and blessed attributes and perfections, as hath been shown; so the thing itself, of sufficient grace of vocation, which is not effectual, is a gross figment, not, whilst this world continues, by Mr Goodwin to be made good, the most of his arguments being importunate suggestions of his own hypothesis and conceptions. But he goes on, --
"The apostle advanceth towards his proposed end, and adds, Those whom he called, them he also justified,' or decreed to justify, in case the called obstruct him not in his way, or by their unbelief render not themselves incapable of justification."
Ans. That exception, "In case they obstruct him not," is a clue to lead us into all the corners of this labyrinth, and a key to the whole design in hand. Such a supposal it is as not only enervates the whole discourse of the apostle and frustrates his design, but also opens a door for the questioning of the accomplishment of any purpose or promise of God whatever, and, in one word, rejects the whole efficacy of the grace of the gospel, as a thing of naught. What strength is there in the discourse and arguing of the apostle, from the purpose and ensuing series of God's grace, to prove that "all things shall work together for good to them that love God," if the whole issue and event of things mentioned to that end depend not on the efficacy or effectual influences of those acts of God, one upon another, and all upon the end, they being all and every one of them, jointly and severally, suspended upon the wills of the persons themselves concerning whom they are (which yet here is concealed, and [not] intimated in the least)? How doth it prove at all that they shall never be separated from the love of Christ, that they shall be made conformable to him in glory, notwithstanding all opposition, upon the account of the dispensation of God's eternal and actual love towards them, when the whole of their usefulness to the end proposed is resolved ultimately into themselves and their endeavours, and not into any purpose or set of God? Such as is the foundation, such is the strength of the whole building. Inferences can have no more strength than the principle from whence they are deduced. If a man should tell another that if he will go a journey of a hundred miles, at each twenty miles' end he shall meet with such and such refreshments, all the consolation he can receive upon the account of refreshments provided for him is proportioned only to the thoughts he hath of his own strength for the performance of that journey.
Farther; if in such expressions of the purposed works of God, we may put cases and trust in what supposals we think good, where there is not the least jot, tittle, or syllable of them in the text, nor any room for them, without destroying not only the design and meaning of the place, but the very sense of it, why may not we do so in other undertakings of God, the certainty of whose event depends upon his purpose and promise only? For instance, the resurrection of the dead: may we not say, God will raise up the dead in Christ, in case there be any necessity that their bodies should be glorified? What is it, also, that remains of praise to the glorious grace of God? This is all he effects by it: In case men obstruct him not in his way, it doth good. God calls men to faith and obedience; in case they obstruct not his way, it shall do them good. But how do they obstruct his way? By unbelief and disobedience: take them away, and God's calling shall be effectual to them. That is, in case they believe and obey, God's calling shall be effectual to cause them to believe and obey!
The cases then foisted into the apostle's discourse, in the close of this interpretation of the place (if I may so call it), -- namely, that God will justify the called in case they obstruct not his way, and will glorify them whom he hath justified in ease they continue and abide in the state of justification, -- are, first, thrust in without ground, warrant, or colour of advantage, or occasion given by any thing in the text or context; -- and, secondly, are destructive to the whole design of the Holy Ghost in the place whereinto they are intruded; injurious to the truth of the assertion intended to be made good, that "all things shall work together for good," proposed upon the account of the unchangeable purpose of God, and infallible connection of the acts of his love and grace in the pursuit thereof; and resolve the promised work and designed event wholly into the uncertain, lubricous wills of men, making the assurance given not only to be liable to just exceptions, but evidently to fail and be falsified in respect of thousands; -- and, thirdly, render the whole dispensation of the grace of God to lackey after the wills of men, and wholly to depend upon them, giving in thereby, as was said, innumerable presumptions that the word, for whose confirmation all these acts of God's grace are mentioned and insisted on, shall never be made good or established.
Take, then, in a few words, the sense and scope of this place, as it is held out in the exposition given of it by Mr Goodwin, and we will then proceed to consider his confirmations of the said exposition: "O ye that love God, many afflictions, temptations, and oppositions, ye shall meet withal; but be of good comfort, all shall work together for your good, for God hath appointed you to be like his Son, and ye may triumph in every condition on this account. For if ye, before any act of his special grace towards you, love him, he approves you, and then he predestinates you" (what that is I know not). "Then it is in your power to continue to love him, or to do otherwise. If ye abide not, then ye perish: if ye abide, he will call you. And when he doth so, either ye may obey him or ye may not, If ye do not, all things shall work together for your hurt, and ye will be like the devil; -- if ye do, then he will justify you; and then, if ye abide with him, as perhaps ye may, perhaps ye may not, he will finally justify you, and then all shall be well." This being the substance of the interpretation of this place here given, let us now consider how it is confirmed.
That which, in his own terms, he undertaketh to "demonstrate," and to "vindicate from all objections," in his ensuing discourse, he thus expresseth, page 209, sect. 43: "These decrees, or purposed acts of God, here specified, are to be understood in their successive dependencies, with such a condition or proviso respectively as those mentioned, and not absolutely, peremptorily, or without condition."
Ans. The imposing of conditions and provisos upon the decrees and purposes of God, of which himself gives not the least intimation, and the suspending them, as to their execution, on those conditions so invented and imposed, at the first view reflects so evidently on the will, wisdom, power, prescience, and unchangeableness of God, who hath said, "his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure," especially when the interruption of them doth frustrate the whole design and aim of God in the mentioning of those decrees and purposes of his, that there will be need of demonstrations written with the beams of the sun to enforce men tender and regardful of the honour and glory of God to close with any in such an undertaking. Let us, then, consider what is produced to this end, and try if it will hold weight in the balance of the sanctuary. "This," saith he, "appears, --
"First, By the like phrase or manner of expression, frequent in the Scripture elsewhere. I mean, when such purposes or decrees of God, the respective execution whereof is suspended upon such and such conditions, are, notwithstanding, simply and positively, without any mention of condition, expressed and asserted: Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that try house, and the house of thy father, shall walk before me' (meaning in the office and dignity of the priesthood) for ever: but now saith the Lord, Be it far from me.' I said indeed;' that is, I verily purposed or decreed,' or I promised:' it comes much to one. When God made the promise, and so declared his promise accordingly, that Eli and his father's house should walk before him for ever, he expressed no condition as required to the execution or performance of it, yet here it plainly appears that there was a condition understood. In the same kind of dialect Samuel speaks to Saul: Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God: for now the Lord had established try kingdom upon Israel for ever; but now try kingdom shall not continue.' The Lord had established;' that is, he verily purposed or decreed to establish it for ever, -- to wit, in case his posterity had walked obediently with him."
Here we have the strength (as will be manifest in the progress of our discourse) of what Mr Goodwin hath to make good his former strange assertion. Whether it will amount to a necessary proof or no may appear upon these ensuing considerations:--
First, The reason intimated being taken neither from the text under debate, nor the context, nor any other place where any concernment of the doctrine therein contained is touched or pointed at, there being also no coincidence of phrase or expression in the one place and the other here compared, I cannot but admire by what rules of interpretation Mr Goodwin doth proceed to make one of these places exegetical of the other. Though this way of arguing hath been mainly and almost solely insisted on of late by the Socinians, -- namely, "Such a word is in another place used to another purpose, or in another sense, therefore this cannot be the necessary sense of it in this," -- yet it is not only confuted over and over as irrational and unconcluding, but generally exploded as an invention suited only to shake all certainty whatever in matters of faith and revelation. Mr Goodwin in his instance goes not so far (or rather he goes farther, because his instance goes not so far), there being no likeness, much less sameness of expression, in those texts which he produces to weaken the obvious and literally-exposed sense of the other insisted on therewith.
To waive the force of the inference from the words of the Holy Ghost (seeing nothing in the least intimated in the place will give in any assistance thereunto), first, this thesis is introduced: "The purposes and decrees of God (confessedly engaged in the place in hand) are, as to their respective executions, suspended on conditions in men;" -- an assertion destructive to the power, goodness, grace, righteousness, faithfulness, wisdom, unchangeableness, providence, and sovereignty, of God, as might be demonstrated did it now lie in our way. To prove that this must needs be so, and that that rule must take place in the mention that is made of the purposes and decrees of God, Rom. viii. 28-30, 1 Sam. ii. 30 is produced, being a denunciation of God's judgments upon the house of Eli for their unworthy walking in the honour of the priesthood, whereunto they were by him advanced and called, and which they were intrusted withal, expressly upon condition of their obedience.
Let us, then, a little consider the correspondency that is between the places compared for their mutual illustration:--
First, In the one there is express mention of the purpose of God, and that his eternal purpose; in the other, only a promise, expressly conditional in the giving of it, amounting to no more than a law, without the least intimation of any purpose or decree.
Secondly, The one encompasseth the whole design of the grace of the gospel; the other mentions not any special grace at all.
Thirdly, The one is wholly expressive of the acts of God, and his design therein; the other declarative of the duty of man, with the issue, thereupon depending.
This, then, is the strength of this argument: "God, approving the obedience of a man, tells him that upon the continuance of that obedience in him and his, he will continue them an office in his service (a temporal mercy, which might be enjoyed without the least saving grace); and which upon his disobedience he threateneth to take from him (both promise and threatening being declarative of his approbation of obedience, and his annexing the priesthood thereunto in that family): therefore God, intending the consolation of elect believers, affirms that all things shall work together for their good, upon this account, that he hath eternally purposed to preserve them in his love, and to bring them to himself by such effectual acts of his grace as whose immutable dependence one upon the other, and all upon his own purpose, cannot be interrupted, and therefore such as shall infallibly produce and work in them all the obedience which for the end proposed he requires; -- his purpose, I say, thus mentioned, must be of the same import with the declaration of his will in the other place spoken of." If such a confounding of the decrees and denunciations, absolute purposes and conditional promises, spiritual things with temporal, and the general administration of the covenant of grace in Christ with special providential dispensations, may be allowed, there is no man needs to despair of proving any thing he hath a mind to assert.
Secondly, There are two things that Mr Goodwin insists upon, to make good his arguing from this place:-- First, That these words, "I said indeed," hold out the real purpose and decree of God. Secondly, That in the promise mentioned there was no condition expressed or required to the execution or performance of it.
By the first he intends that God did really purpose and decree from eternity that Eli and his house should hold the priesthood for ever; by the second, that no condition was expressed, either in terms, or necessarily implied in the thing itself, which is of the same import.
If neither of these, now, should prove true, what little advance Mr Goodwin hath made for the weakening of the plain intendment of the words in the place under consideration, or for the confirmation of his own gloss and interposed conditionals, either by this or the following instances, that are of the same kind, will plainly appear. Now, that these words, "I said indeed," are not declarative of an eternal decree and purpose of God concerning the futurition and event of what is asserted to be the object of that decree, the continuance of the priesthood in the house of Eli, may be evidenced, as from the general nature of the things themselves, so from the particular explanation of the act of God whereunto this expression, "I said indeed," doth relate.
First, From the general nature of the thing itself this may be manifested. To what hath been formerly spoken I shall add only some few considerations, being not willing to insist long on that which is but collateral to my present design.
First, then, When God decreed and purposed this (if so be he purposed it, as it is said he did), he either foresaw what would be the issue of it, or he did not. If he did not, where is his infinite wisdom and understanding? -- if we may not be allowed to say his foreknowledge. How are "all his works known to him from the beginning of the world?"
[99] How doth he "declare the end from the beginning, and the things that are yet to come?" distinguishing himself from all false gods on this account, If he did foresee the event, that it would not be so, why did he decree and purpose it should be so? Doth this become the infinite wisdom of God, to purpose and decree from all eternity that that shall come to pass which he knows will never come to pass? Can any such resolution fall upon the sons of men, to whom God is pleased to continue the use of that little spark of reason wherewith they are endued? If you say, "God purposed it should continue in case their disobedience hindered it not," I ask again, Did God foresee the disobedience that would so hinder it, or did he not? If he did not, the same difficulties will arise which formerly I mentioned. If he did, then God decreed and purposed that the priesthood should continue in the house of Eli, if they kept themselves from that disobedience which he saw and knew full well they would run into! Cui fini?
Secondly, If God did thus purpose and decree, he was able to bring it about, and accomplish his design by ways agreeable to his goodness, wisdom, and righteousness, or he was not. If he was not, where is his omnipotency, who is not able to fulfil his righteous designs and purposes in ways corresponding to that state of agents and things which he hath allotted them? How can it be said of him, "He will work, and none shall let him?" That God engageth his power for the accomplishment of his purposes was showed before. If he were able to accomplish it, why did he not do it, but suffer himself to he frustrated of his end? Is it suitable to the sovereign will and wisdom of God eternally to purpose and decree that which, by means agreeable to his holiness and goodness, he is able to bring to pass, and yet not to do it, but to fail and come short of his holy and gracious intendment?
Thirdly, The obedience of the house of Eli, on which the accomplishment of the pretended decree is suspended, was such as either they were able of themselves to perform, or they were not. To say they were, is to exclude the necessary assistance of the grace of God, which Mr Goodwin hath not in terms declared himself to do, nor are we as yet arrived at that height, though a considerable progress hath been made. If they were not able to do it without the assistance of the Spirit and concurrence of the grace of God, did the Lord purpose to give them that assistance, working in them both to will and to do of his own good pleasure, or did he not? If he did so purpose, why did he not do it? If he did not purpose to do it, to what end did he decree that that should come to pass which he knew could not come to pass without his doing that which he was resolved newer to do? It is all one as if a man knew that another were shut up in a prison, from whence it was impossible that any body but himself should deliver him, and should resolve and purpose to give the poor prisoner a hundred pounds, so that he would come out of prison to him, and resolve withal never to bring him out.
Fourthly, God from eternity foresaw that the priesthood should not be continued to the house of Eli; therefore he did not from eternity purpose and decree that it should. To know that a thing shall not be, and to determine that it shall be, is a schesis rather beseeming a half frantic creature than the infinitely wise Creator. Again; upon what account did God foresee that it should not be so? Can the futurition of contingent events be resolved in the issue into any thing but God's sovereign determination? God, therefore, did not determine and purpose that it should be so, because he determined and purposed that it should not be so. Whatsoever he doth in time, that he purposed to do from eternity. Now, in time he removed the priesthood from the house of Eli; therefore he eternally purposed and determined so to do: which surely leaves no place for a contrary purpose and decree (not so much as conditional) that it should so continue for ever. The truth is, the mystery of this abomination lies in those things which lie not in my way now to handle. A disjunctive decree, a middle science, creature-dependency, are father, mother, and nurse, of the assertion we oppose, whose monstrous deformity and desperate rebellion against the properties of God I may, the Lord assisting, hereafter more fully demonstrate.
But you will say, "Doth not the Lord plainly hold out a purpose and decree in these words, I said indeed?' Did he say it? Will you assign hypocrisy to him, and doubling with the sons of men?"
I say, then, secondly, that the expression here used holds out no intention or purpose of God as to the futurition and event of the thing itself, that the priesthood should continue in the house of Eli, but only his purpose and intention that obedience and the priesthood should go together. There is a connection of things, not an intendment or purpose of events, in the words intimated. The latter cannot be ascribed to God without the charge of as formal mutability as the poorest creature is liable to. Mr Goodwin, indeed, tells you, sect. 43, p. 209, "That the purpose of God itself, considered as an act or conception of the mind of God, dependeth not on any condition whatever; and all God's purposes and decrees, without exception, are in such respect absolute and independent." How weak and unable this is to free the Lord from a charge of changeableness upon his supposal needs little pains to demonstrate. The conceptions of the minds of the sons of men, and their purposes as such, are as absolutely free and unconditional as the nature of a creature will admit; only the execution of our purposes and resolves is suspended upon the intervention of other things, which render them all conditional. And this, it seems, is the state with God himself, although in the Scripture he most frequently distinguisheth himself from the sons of men on this account, that they purpose at the greatest rate of uncertainty imaginable, as to the accomplishment of their thoughts, and therefore are frequently disappointed, but his purposes and his counsels stand for ever: so Ps. xxxiii. 10, 11. The expression then here, "I said," relates plainly to the investiture of Aaron and his seed in the priesthood. There was a twofold engagement made to the house of Aaron about that office, -- one in general to him and his sons, the other in particular to Phinehas and his posterity. The latter to Phinehas is far more expressive and significant than the other. You have it Numb. xxv. 11-13, "Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel." Here is a promise indeed, and no condition in terms expressed; -- but yet being made and granted upon the condition of obedience, which is clearly expressed once and again, that the continuance of it was also suspended on that condition, as to the glory and beauty of that office, the thing principally intended, cannot be doubted; yea, it is sufficiently pressed in the occasion of the promise and fountain thereof. But this was not that promise wherein Eli's was particularly concerned. Indeed, his posterity was rejected in order to the accomplishment of this promise, the seed of Phinehas returning to their dignity, from whence they fell by the interposition of the house of Ithamar.
That which this expression here peculiarly relates unto is the declaration of the mind of God concerning the priesthood of Aaron and his posterity, which you have Exod. xxviii. 43, xxix. 9, where the confirming them in their office is called "a perpetual statute," or "a law for ever." The signification of the term "for ever," the Hebrew especially, relating to legal institution, is known. Their "eternity" is long since expired. That, then, which God here emphatically expresses as an act of grace and favour to the house of Aaron, which Eli and his had an interest in, was that statute or law of the priesthood, and his purpose and intention (not concerning the event of things, not that it should continue in any one branch of that family, but) of connecting it with their obedience and faithfulness in that office. It is very frequent with God to express his approbation of our duty under terms holding out the event that would be the issue of the duty, though it never come to pass; and his approbation or rejection of the sons of men under terms that hold out the end of their disobedience, though it be prevented or removed. In this latter case he commands Jonah to cry, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown;" not that he purposed the destruction of Nineveh at that time, but only effectually to hold out the end their sin, that it might be a means to turn them from it, and to prevent that end, which it would otherwise procure. His purpose was to prevent, at least prorogue, the ruin of Nineveh; and therefore [he] made use of threatening them with ruin, that they might not be ruined. To say that God purposed not the execution of his purpose but in such and such cases, is a plain contradiction. The purpose is of execution, and to say he purposed not the execution of his purpose, is to say plainly he purposed and purposed not, or he purposed not what he purposed. The examples of Pharaoh and Abraham, in the precepts given to them, are proofs of the former. But I must not insist upon particulars.
This, then, is all that here is intended: God making a law, a statute, about the continuance of the priesthood in the family of Aaron, affirms that then he said "his house should walk before him for ever;" that is, with approbation and acceptation, for as to the right of the priesthood, that still continued in the house of Aaron, whilst it continued, notwithstanding the ejection of Eli and his. Now, whether there were any conditions in the promise made, which is Mr Goodwin's second improvement of this instance, may appear from the consideration of what hath been spoken concerning it. It is called "a law and statute," "the act." On that account, whatever it were that God here points unto is but a moral legislative act, and not a physical determining act of the will of God, and, being a law of privilege in its own nature, it involves a condition; which the acts of God's will, vital and eternal, wherewith this law is compared, do openly disavow.
Let us now see the parallel between the two places insisted on for the explanation of the former of them; which, as it will appear by the sequel, is the only buckler wherewith Mr Goodwin defends his hypothesis from the irresistible force of the argument wherewith he hath to do:-- First, The one speaks of things spiritual, the other of things temporal; secondly, The one of what God will do, and the other of what he approves to be done, being done; thirdly, The one holds out God's decree and purpose concerning events, the other his law and statute concerning duties; fourthly, The one not capable of interposing conditionals without perverting the whole design of God revealed in that place, the other directly including conditions; fifthly, The one speaking of things themselves, the other only of the manner of a thing; sixthly, In the one God holds out what he will do for the good of his, upon the account of the efficacy of his grace; in the other, what men are to do if they will be approved of him. And how one of these places can be imagined to be suited for the illustration and interpretation of the other, which agree neither in name nor thing, word nor deed, purpose nor design, must be left to the judgment of those who desire to ponder these things, and to weigh them in the balance of the sanctuary.
The other instances, in the case of Saul and Paul, being more heterogeneous to the business in hand than that of Eli, which went before, require not any particular help for the removal of them out of the way. Though they are dead as to the end for which they are produced, I presume no true Israelite in the pursuit of that Sheba in the church, the apostasy of saints, will be retarded in his way by their being cast before him. In brief, neither the connection of obedience and suitable rewards, as in the case of Saul, nor the necessity of means subservient to the accomplishment of purposes (themselves also falling under that purpose of Him who intends the end and the fulfilling of it), as in the case of Paul, is of the least force to persuade us that the eternal, immanent acts of God's will, which he pursues by the effectual, irresistible acts of his grace, so as to compass the end which he hath from everlasting determinately resolved to bring about, are suspended upon imaginary conditions, created in the brains of men, and, notwithstanding their evident inconsistency with the scope of the Scripture and design of God therein, intruded into such texts of Scripture as on all hands (which will be evident in the sequel of this discourse) are fortified against them.
Besides, in the case of Paul, though the infallibility of the prediction did not in the least prejudice the liberty of the agents who were to be employed for its accomplishment, but left room for the exhortation of Paul and the endeavours of the soldiers, yet it cuts off all possibility of a contrary event, and all supposal of a distinctive purpose in God, upon the account whereof he cannot predict the issue or event of any thing whatsoever. But of this more largely afterward.
But this is farther argued by Mr Goodwin, from the purposes of God in his threatenings, in these words: "Most frequently the purpose and decree of God concerning the punishment of wicked and ungodly men is expressed by the Holy Ghost absolutely and certainly, without the least mention of any condition, or relaxation, or reversion; yet., from other passages of Scripture, it is fully evident that this decree of his is conditional in such a sense which imports a non-execution of the punishment therein declared upon the repentance of the persons against whom the decree is. In like manner, though the purpose and decree of God for the justification of those who are called (and so for the glorifying of those that shall be justified) be, in the scripture in hand, delivered in an absolute and unconditional form of words, yet it is no way necessary to suppose (the most familiar, frequent, and accustomed expressions in Scripture in such cases, exempting us from any such necessity) that therefore these decrees must needs bring forth against all possible interveninces whatever: so that, for example, he that is called by the word and Spirit must needs be justified, whether he truly believe or no; and he that is justified must needs be glorified, whether he persevere or no."
Ans. First, That the threatenings of God are moral acts, not declarative, as to particular persons, of God's eternal purposes, but subservient to other ends, together with the law itself, whereof they are a portion (as the avoiding of that for which men are threatened), is known. They are appendices of the law, and in their relation thereunto declare the connection that is between sin and punishment, such sins and such punishments.
Secondly, That the eternal purposes of God concerning the works of his grace are to be measured by the rule and analogy of his temporal threatenings, is an assertion striking at the very root of the covenant of grace, and efficacy of the mediation of the Lord Jesus, yea, at the very being of divine perfections of the nature of God himself. This there is, indeed, in all threatenings, declared of the absolute purpose and unchangeable decree of God, that all impenitent sinners shall be punished according to what in his wisdom and righteousness he hath apportioned out unto such deservings, and threateneth accordingly. In this regard there is no condition that doth or can, in the least, import a non-execution of the punishment decreed, neither do any of the texts cited in the margin of our author prove any such thing. They all, indeed, positively affirm [that] faithless, impenitent unbelievers shall be destroyed; which no supposal whatsoever that takes not away the subject of the question, and so alters the whole thing in debate, can in the least infringe. Such assertions, I say, are parts of the law of God revealing his will in general to punish impenitent unbelievers; concerning which his purpose is absolute, unalterable, and steadfast.
The conclusion, then, which Mr Goodwin makes is apparently racked from the words by stretching them upon the unproportioned bed of other phrases and expressions, wholly heterogeneous to the design in this place intended. Added here are supposed conditions in general, not once explained, to keep them from being exposed to that shame that is due unto them when their intrusion, without all order or warrant from heaven, shall be manifested, only wrapped up in the clouds of possible interveniences; when the acts of God's grace, whereby his purposes and decrees are accomplished, do consist in the effectual removal of the interveniences pretended, that so the end aimed at in the unchangeable counsel of God may, suitably to the determination of his sovereign, omnipotent, infinite, wise will, be accomplished. Neither doth it in the least appear that any such calling by the word and Spirit as may leave the persons so called in their unbelief, -- they being so called in the pursuit of this purpose of God to give them faith and make them conformable to Christ, -- may be allowed place or room in the haven of this text. The like may be said of justification wherein men do not persevere. Yea, these two supposals are not only an open begging of the thing in contest, but a fiat defying of the apostle as to the validity of his demonstration, that "all things work together," etc.
Notwithstanding, then, any thing that hath been objected to the contrary, the foundation of God mentioned in this place of Scripture stands firm, and his eternal purpose of safeguarding the saints in the love of Christ, until he bring them to the enjoyment of himself in glory, stands, clear from the least shadow of change or suspension upon any certain conditionals, which are confidently, but not so much as speciously, obtruded upon it.
The next thing undertaken by Mr Goodwin is, to vindicate the forementioned glosses from such oppositions as arise against them from the context and words themselves, with the design of the Holy Ghost therein. These things doth he find his exposition obnoxious unto, -- the exposition which he pretends to give no strength unto but what is foreign, on all considerations whatsoever of words and things, to the place itself. This, it seems, is to "prophesy according to the analogy of faith," Rom. xii. 6.
First, then, sect. 44, to the objection, that those who are called are also justified, and shall be glorified, according to the tenor of the series of the acts of the grace of God here laid down, he answereth "That where either the one or the other of these assertions be so no, it must be judged of by other scriptures. Certain it is, by what hath been argued concerning the frequent usage of the Scripture point of expression, that it cannot be concluded or determined the scripture in hand." The sum of this answer amounts to thus much: "Although the sense opposed be clear in the letter and expression of this place of Scripture, in the grammatical sense and use of the words; though it flows from the whole context, and answers alone the design and scope of the place, which gives not the least countenance to the interposing of any such conditionals as are framed to force it to speak contrary to what, gumne te kephale, it holds forth; -- yet the mind of God in the words is not from these things to be concluded on; but other significations and senses, not of any word here used, not from the laying down of the same doctrine in other places, with the analogy of the faith thereof, not from the proposing of any design suitable to this here expressed, but places of Scripture agreeing with this neither in name nor thing, expression nor design, word nor matter, must be found out in the sense and meaning of this place, and from them concluded, and our interpretation of this place accordingly regulated." "Nobis non licet," etc. Neither hath Mr Goodwin produced any place of Scripture, nor can he, parallel to this, so much as in expression, though treating of any other subject or matter, that will endure to have any such sense tied to it as that which he violently imposeth on this place of the apostle. And if the sense and mind of God in this place may not safely be received and closed withal from the proper and ordinary signification of the words (which is always attended unto without the least dispute, unless the subject-matter of any place, with the context, enforces to the sense less usual and natural), with the clear design and scope of the context in all the parts of it, universally correspondent unto itself, I know not how, or when, or by what rules, we may have the least certainty that we have attained the knowledge of the mind of God in any one place of Scripture whatever.
What he next objects to himself, namely, "That though there be no condition expressed in the instances by him produced, yet there are in parallel places, by which they are to be expounded" (but such conditions as these are not expressed in any place that answers to that, which we have in hand), it being by himself, as I conceive, invented to turn us aside from the consideration of the irresistible efficacy of the argument from this place (which use he makes of it in his first answer given to it), I own not; and that because I am fully assured, that in any promise whatsoever that is indeed conditional, there is no need to inquire out other scriptures of the like import to evince it so to be, -- all and every one of them that are such, either in express terms, or in the matter whereof they are, or in the legal manner wherein they are given and enacted, do plainly and undeniably hold out the conditions inquired after. His threefold answer to this objection needs not to detain us. Passing on, I hope, to what is more material and weighty, he tells us, first, sect. 44, that if this be so, "then it must be tried out by other scriptures, and not by this;" which evasion I can allow our author to insist on, as tending to shift his hands of this place, which, I am persuaded, in the consideration of it grew heavy on them. But I cannot allow it to be a plea in this contest, as not owning the objection which it pretends to answer. The two following answers being not an actual doing of any thing, but only fair and large promises of what Mr Goodwin will do about answering other scriptures, and evincing the conditionals intimated from such others as he shall produce (some, doubtless, will think these promises no payment, especially such as having weighed money formerly tendered for real payment have found it too light), I shall let them lie in expectation of their accomplishment. "Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis," etc.
In the meantime, till answers come to hand, Mr Goodwin proffers to prove by two arguments (one clear answer had been more fair), that these acts of God, calling, justification, and so the rest, have no such connection between them, but that the one of them may be taken and be put in execution, and yet not the other, in respect of the same persons.
His first reason is this: "If the apostle should frame this series or chain of divine acts with an intent to show or teach the uninterruptibleness of it, in what case or cases soever, he should fight against his general and main scope or design in that part of the