-- CHAPTER VI: The grace of election illustrated in one particular, the most eminent demonstration o
of teeth. Shall hell be affected at this difference put, and that in respect unto such relations as have been mentioned, and at the day of judgment shall the stories thereof affect angels and men, when
Christ comes to be glorified in his saints, and shall not these things have due place in our hearts, according to the merit of them in the things themselves, and intention of God in his love therein? I conclude, referring you for more such particular conjugates or yokings together, unto what Christ hath so seriously declared: Mat.
24:40, 41, 'Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.' And in Luke, hath enlarged it, chap.
17:33–35, 'Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life, shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.' And certainly, among many other blessed aims Christ had in these speeches (as that he will take some few instances, and other the like) he certainly had also this in his eye, that through this comparative difference men might learn to bless and adore God.
CHAPTER VI
The grace of election illustrated in one particular, the most eminent demonstration of it, viz. discriminating grace, as by God's design it appears in God's dispensations towards, and the difference put between, temporaries highly enlightened by the gospel, and his elect whom he invincibly saves.
There appear in the execution and event many contrivements to have been in the heart of God, whereby he designed to illustrate and magnify his grace of election towards us the saved of the Lord. Some of which I have particularly spoken of in the chapter before, wherein
I discoursed of the grace of election comparatively with others, and their several conditions, whom God passed by, and whereby he sets out his grace the more to his.
But above all such extrinsecal contrivances and disposements, there is this one, which the Scriptures do single out and insist upon, and that is God's dispensations towards temporaries, and children of the outward kingdom, who are the corrivals, if any rejected may be styled to have been such, and pretenders with the elect for grace and mercy, which doth above all serve to glorify this electing grace.
For my text, I take our Saviour's words, so oft inculcated.
'Many are called, but few are chosen,' Mat. 20:16.
For the exposition of this text, it is not as if the elect and non-elect were both called with the same work of calling, and that some of them called with the same true calling, being non-elected, do fall away in time. But the Scripture doth distinguish (happily) of a twofold calling, one proper only to the elect; and the other more common, in several degrees of it, to non-elect; thus, Rom. 8, the elect are differenced in their very calling at first from the rest that profess to have been truly called, but were not; by this, the 'called according to purpose,' that is, by election, which original difference works differing calling from others. And in that test the difference is expressed, 'those that love God,' as the proper principle wrought in them at their callings, which is not wrought in any temporary. It is found also distinguished by the proper effect of holiness wrought in their calling: 2 Tim. 1:9, 'Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace, &c., in Christ
Jesus afore the world began.' Holiness is the peculiar effect of election. Also faith distinguished by its original, 'the faith of God's elect,' proper to them, though the doctrine of faith is thereby also meant, both the object and the act of faith.
That God, to set out his grace towards his savingly called ones the more, hath in his just and all-wise disposing providence set up together by them, and with them, examples of men called with an imperfect work, whom he leaving in the end to the conduct of their own wills, do fall away, whilst he invincibly carries those others on to establishment and perfection.
Oh quantum turbarum peperit liberum arbitrium in ecclesia: ejus arrogantia, exaltatio ejusdem, vires ad salutem obtinendam, in quo conatu, frustratur! What a stir and ado hath the pride and presumptuousness of the liberty and changes of man's free will in itself bred, in seeking to attain salvation of its own ability; and how many ways, and by several degrees, hath God tried it, by assisting it with helps and aids of several supernatural elevations, more and less, to let men see that vain opinion of man of himself, by all those helps, to attain to glory without regenerating grace. Falling short after all
God's strivings with them, they are in the end left unto their lusts and hardness of heart.
The point thus drawn out, there are two or three things I am to perform in the prosecution of it.
1. To give you advertisements concerning what is the proper dint of my scope in this point.
2. Some explanations of the assertion.
3. Some proofs, both (1) from instances, and (2) from the tenor of the Scripture.
1. Concerning my drift, (1.) It is not to repeat unto you that there are two sorts of professors, sound and unsound.
(2.) My drift is not in this discourse to shew you that God magnifies this his grace to us-ward, as with difference, in that vast
extensiveness that is between us and all the rest he passeth by of the whole world, but from that special narrower difference he puts between those others whom he calls, as well as us, out of the world, who are arrived very far in religion, whom yet he suffers to fall short of the glory of God.
(3.) That this point is a new additional unto the glorifying grace of God, the 'God of all grace,' towards us, besides all that I have or shall insist on, it is a new exemplification of his grace beyond all other; it is a discovery of a new mine of free grace exalting itself towards us by a comparison of his different dealings with us and others; not the vast and wide world only, but a comparison more contracted to a far less number, even with those whom he calls only, and who profess this name; which ought therefore anew to affect your hearts, and cause you to break forth into a new acclamation and fresh adoration of God and his grace towards you, and to cry, and cry aloud, Blessed be the God of grace, yea, of all grace, shewn all sorts of ways towards us; and that hath not so dealt with others, who yet have had the knowledge of his ways, and those under gospel light, in so high a measure; which is a strain far beyond the Ela,* which the psalmist's note of praise rose up unto, whilst he magnified his grace towards his people in comparison with the heathens, whilst he says, Ps. 147:19,
20, 'He shewed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.'
2. For the explanation of the thing itself, the first is, how God's grace to us may be said to have any influence upon what God doth to others whom he passeth by.
That grace hath an influence hereunto for the illustration of itself, will easily be yielded when we shall consider that the God of grace, in his ordering all things to make salvation sure to his elect and called ones, did put all his other purposes and counsels into grace's hands, to dispose of so as to infinite manifold wisdom might best serve to magnify his grace;* this was his top and eminent design, the glory of
his grace. Grace had the dominion, the throne, given it; the dispositive power (which the throne always carries with it) of all, both without God, that is, of all creatures, &c., and of all within God, that is, of attributes and persons in the Godhead, to conspire unto his glory. And let it not be looked at as so strange a thing, though it be not simply or directly the first mover of God's other decrees and purposes, yet so far it rules as to cause them all to serve and be subordinate unto this one supreme counsel of all other of his will, as those of justice and wrath, &c., that yet grace should overlook, supervise them all, and order and dispose of them all, and the execution of them to persons under sin, as they might turn unto grace its praise and glory; and so obliquely, collaterally, and at the rebound, they all serve to illustrate and advance this of grace, which is the top and first design and delight of God's heart, even the 'praise of the glory of his grace,' as Eph. 1:6; and therefore in verse 11 of that chapter, it is expressly said, that we are 'predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will,' which words, if we take in with other scriptures, as 2 Cor.
5:18, Heb. 2, are there added to shew that his counsel ordered all things to subserve to that his grand purpose of predestination, which is all one and to serve his purposes of grace to us; so that whilst God for other ends, of glorifying his justice, &c., was purposing such and such persons called, to be left in the end to the counsel of their own wills and ways, for the immediate and direct glory of other his attributes; yet free grace stepped in, and took the advantage to mould and order the ranging of such persons as in providence might comparatively serve to set forth the glory of itself, that as 'the wrath of man shall praise thee,' says the psalmist to God, so even the wrath of God shall praise thee, O thou the delight and darling of God's heart, free grace.
(1.) I do not say that this is his primary end of such his dealings with such. No; but the primary end therein is to shew his own sovereignty, and glory of his justice, and to confute and confound the utter disability of the creature, which will be a-setting up its own free will and ability, with an opinion of attaining salvation, if it be but in any
degree elevated and assisted by God. These are his primary, direct ends, yet so as in the manage and carriage of it, and his providence, ordering, and disposement thereof, there is a remote end thereof (as some of our divines have said) that puts a great and a glorious reflection and lustre upon his grace towards his elect thereby, and was intended by God it should be so. You may observe that the first declaration of the election of grace runs in these terms, 'The elder shall serve the younger,' as if the elder had been made for the younger, which yet is obliquely and collaterally done, though directly only for God himself, Prov. 16:4.
(2.) If you ask how this serves to illustrate grace to us-ward, the answer is obvious, as contraries serve to illustrate one another, that as dark shadows set forth pictures unto a greater life, and glory, and beauty, so is it here. You have the like, though upon another occasion: Rom. 11:22, 'Behold the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness,' &c.
The like parallel comparative course to illustrate this grace, he ordinarily takes and gives demonstration of in the elect themselves, whereof many of you have experience in yourselves; all being fallen, free grace took advantage of improving itself by the fall even of the elect in Adam.
That whereas when fallen he might yet have sanctified them all in the womb (as he doth multitudes of infants that die), no, but he rather doth very generally leave them that live to years of discretion, and to remain and live in an unregenerate condition, to be as ignorant, profane, &c., as any other: Eph. 2:1–3, 'And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath,' and adds this in the close of all, 'even as
others.' And why? But as it follows, ver. 5, 6, to make grace the more glorious, 'Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus.' When dead in sins, by grace ye are saved; this contrivement, which cost Christ's soul the more for them, was free grace's. So that you see he gives an exemplar of such a comparative illustration of grace in the very persons of the elect themselves he saves, that so, by a comparative view of themselves in a twofold estate, their estate of sin and their estate of grace, after which former estate of sin and wrath afore, they might be provoked to glorify his grace the more.
Well, now, bring this to the present point in hand; in like manner free grace, the great disposer, takes advantage of what God's purposes are to others (observe the difference; in the foregoing instance it was a comparing of two differing states in the same persons; here, of two differing works of calling, in the persons of elect ones and others), I say free grace, that superviseth all God's decrees, takes the advantage and guides providence in the execution of them, to cast and dispose it so as that such and such of them that should be so and so far wrought on, who yet fall away, that some of them should live in such an age, at the same time, &c., wherein some of his elect and called ones live also, who should also profess in so and so high a manner, and that ὄντως, really, as Peter's word is, as from a real work wrought on them. And its design herein is to shew, that by a mere pure grace his truly called ones are saved, which is clearly seen by this comparative, which is herein contrary to that former instanced in, that was, that the elect were in the same state even as others; but this even not as to others you lived withal, who were wrought upon so far, and yet their state was never altered from that of nature to grace. I shall conclude by saying of free grace, that great sovereign, and its disposements, and the varieties of them, to set forth itself, what Job says of the great God himself, Job 5:9, it forecasts and contrives works of this kind 'without number, and many such things are with it.'
3. For the proof and demonstration of the great point, I shall (1) shew how the doctrinal scope and tenor of the scriptures that treat of election, &c., to be for this great truth, as thus it stands stated.
(2.) Give you pregnant instances, throughout the Old and New Testament, confirming it.
(1.) For the first, to shew you that it is the scope of those scriptures that treat of election to be for this truth, as thus I have stated it.
[1.] It is the very set scope of the apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. 9 and 10. It is well known that in those chapters it is his general scope to set out the doctrine of election and reprobation; but that which falls under my cognizance is, that he sets the one, that is, God's purposes of mercy and grace, and those other, his purposes of justice and wrath, he sets them, as Solomon says in another case, the 'one over against the other,' or in comparison together, on purpose that the examples there alleged, and the doctrine of preterition there insisted on, might the more illustrate and set forth those other dispensations of electing grace. Thus, ver. 21–23, 'Hath not the potter power over the clay,' &c. Here the making of one a vessel of dishonour, reflects not only the more honour on those that were vessels of honour, but above all, upon that mercy and grace that made them such; and did put the difference, as it appears there is put, which is of mercy indeed, as there, ver. 18, 'Therefore he hath mercy,' &c., that here also he should so shew mercy on whom he will, whilst he yet leaves others to the hardness of their hearts, this tends to magnify the mercy to others the more;* for, as chap. 11:22, 'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou shalt be cut off'.
And though he speaks of the whole mass of mankind, who are passed by, in ver. 20, 21, &c.; and therefore allegeth instances of heathens as
well as of the Jews, viz., of Pharaoh and his Egyptians, raised up by God on purpose to shew his power upon man, apposite parallel with Moses and his Israelites, to manifest his mercy upon them, in giving nations for them, as Isaiah, in chap. 11 ver. 2, and the Psalmist celebrates it; and these set up in one and the same age, in one another's sight and view, that the difference might be the more conspicuous; though I say, the apostle extends his discourse to this universal of mankind, yet as if such instances were too wide, and served not enough to magnify this discriminating grace, he gives another sort, contracted into a narrower compass of parallel together, and tells us there was an Israel in Israel itself, ver. 6; he says not an Israelite of election, in the word, but in and amongst the Israelites themselves. And in ver. 27, 'Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.'
Just as in the apostle's time we heard there were a they of false Christians, that had once been amongst and numbered with us‚ 1
John 2:19. Yea, and the Israel he speaks of were such as were sons of Belial, but that sought after righteousness: Rom. 1:31, had a zeal for God;' chap. 10:2, who yet fell short of true righteousness, as those who had 'willed and ran,' ver. 16; that is, who had made use of legal and natural helps and endeavours to attain unto salvation. And indeed the occasion, or rise he took, of bringing in that discourse of election and preterition, was to give an account how it came to pass that those 'who were Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises,' &c., ver. 4, should so generally miss of salvation, he clearly resolves the account into the difference which election had originally set, and to the condition which preterition had left the other unto. And upon that occasion it is he breaks into the doctrine [about] these two in the following part of his discourse, continued from ver. 6 of that chapter unto the end of the 11th chapter, at least pursues it in all them chapters, as the ultimate conclusion he aimed at, which, by chap. 11 ver. 5 and 7 compared, is evident, ver. 2; that but 'a remnant,' ver. 5, whom he calls 'the election, had obtained it, but the rest were blinded,' ver. 7. And he shews likewise that there was an effectual calling of grace, which was
the fruit of election, which that difference had been manifested thus in, ver. 11, chap. 9, 'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that called.' And ver.
16, 'So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.' And this comparative thus stated is close and home to our point in hand.
[2.] I have observed that in some eminent places of the epistles, where the condition of temporary, or professors abortively called, and their falling away, is spoken of, there the doctrine of election and immutability of God's love is likewise adjoined, as in an opportune season for the mention of the same; and to what end should it be, but because by setting them still together, the glory of discriminating grace doth in that most eminent manner appear thereby, and the fixedness and unchangeableness thereof is magnified by the contrary mutability and failure of the highest workings and gifts vouchsafed the non-elect.
First‚ In that known place, 2 Tim. 2, after and upon occasion of the mention of Hymeneus and Philetus their apostasy, ver. 18, 'Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is passed already; and overthrowing the faith of some,' he presently subjoins, ver. 19, 'Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his,' &c. This passage extends not itself unto the comparative of God's dispensations with the world, or whole mass of reprobation, but contracts itself unto such 'as call upon the name of the Lord.' And that which follows, ver. 20, 'But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour and some to dishonour,' shews the difference to lie there in utensils and vessels used in the same house or family, the church of God, as that instance of Jacob's and Esau's was of those of the same womb, and the foundation of that difference between them to be, that God knew who were his, and so had severed them from those other. And there is this observable in it, that though the apostle useth
the similitude which he had done, Rom. 9 ver. 21, namely, of vessels of honour, and vessels of dishonour,' whilst in those verses there he yet speaks of that election and rejection that divides the whole lump of mankind; yet herein, simply he applies it restrictively unto those vessels of honour and dishonour that are found in the same house, the visible church of God, which have the same outward shape of profession, but differ in the stuff or matter they consist of, and were made use of in the church; whereby his grace in foreknowing his with so vast a difference from the others, is by the nearness of this their relation, and rendered far more conspicuous than in that other of election from out of the whole world at large.
A second scripture is Hebrew 6, in the beginning of which chapter he had delineated the state of temporaries that fell away in the highest of their attainments, ver. 4–6, who were once enlightened: 'For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.' And then, after some encouragements and exhortations given to the true and sincere believers, he brings in the doctrine of immutability of God's counsel, declared and confirmed by God's promise and his oath, in ver. 16–18, 'That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,' &c., which are inserted, as to assure them that God would carry such through, notwithstanding those other fell, so to shew the foundation of that difference to be the eternal counsel of God, uttered in that promise and oath made to Abraham, as likewise to glorify his grace by these comparatives of two such different dispensations.
(2.) In a set of instances.
You shall see how both in the Old and New Testament God's prudence did set up at one and the same time, and in one another's
view, such differing examples; yea, and sometimes when their sins, for the kind and heinousness of the fact, were the same, yet his grace did make a difference.
Concerning which instances I promise this one for all of them, that these things fell not out by chance, and therefore they had, and must have had, that disposement and intendment from God which we are speaking of, viz., of exalting his mercy to the one by his contrary dealings with the other.
First instance; Cain and Abel. These, from the first, were professors of religion, sacrificing both of them unto God, according to his own word, own institution, alike, and together, Gen. 4:3, 4, and you know the different issue of either as unto salvation, and the ground thereof, out of Heb. 11:4, and 1 John 3:12, 13.
Second instance; Esau and Jacob. Concerning whom God in the womb declared his different purpose, afore they had done good or evil, as in Rom. 9 the apostle urgeth. But I shall waive that, and shall farther insist on what, when they came to do either what was good or what was evil, was their condition. Esau had the outward advantage of Jacob in spirituals, having by eldership the birthright, which was a spiritual privilege, and engaged him unto an holy profession of religion above what his brother was, as being thereby designed to be the priest of the family, and performer of the worship thereof, and to have thereby occasion of nearer address and access to God, and God doth promise to draw near to them that draw near to him; but he profanely despised it, and sold it. And upon his father giving the blessing from him also, there came a great fit of the Spirit upon him, stirring self-love in him, which moved him with all earnestness to seek the blessing; and yet God would not, yea, God held his father's heart so fast and fixed to a declaration of God's purposes therein, that he would not repent, though Esau sought it with tears. You have the kind of this proceeding alleged and thus explained in Heb. 12:16,
17, 'Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that
afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.' And yet then again he comes to have the advantage in outward spiritual opportunities of his brother Jacob; for he lived and continued still in his father's family, where God was worshipped, and religion professed, and the ordinances of God were dispensed, whereas Jacob was driven into an heathen family, where outwardly there was only a worshipper of false gods; hereby he was in hazard to be lost as to his profession. And yet though God might have taken the advantage against Jacob for him to have lost his birthright, for his sin committed in seeking to get it for his lie, as well as God had done against Esau for selling it for a mess of pottage, yet God kept and carried Jacob through these and other great trials to the very last of his days, and his blessed end you know.
And all these passages served but to magnify that grace of God as to Jacob; whereof, as the apostle there intimates, Esau did fall short.
It was a short and quick answer God gave by his prophet Malachi, chap. 2 ver. 3, 'Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts.' As if he had said, Did you ask wherein I have loved you, the posterity of Jacob?
Compare but my different dealings with Esau and with Jacob your father, first in their own persons, and ever since between the Edomites your brethren and yourselves; and was not Esau as fair an object, think you, for my love to have been set upon as Jacob, when both were in the womb, as also in those respects fore-mentioned?
And my grace might have been as free to the one as to the other (God on purpose compares those together, to set out his love to Jacob the more); and did you now ask whether I have loved you or no? I trow, saith God, I have hereby shown it to the purpose.
Third instance; in Ephraim and Judah. The like we find between the ten tribes arid the tribe of Judah. Though at the first, and for a long time, both were alike his people, yet at last election began to pass a discrimination, as you have it set forth in Psalm 78, towards the close
of that psalm. Ephraim, or the ten tribes, had at first the advantage of Judah in spirituals; for the ark, the token of God's presence, was committed unto their keeping at Shiloh; the seal of God's worship and ordinances were betrusted to them, and Judah must come up thither, if they would seek the Lord. But Ephraim, for their sinning against that worship, forfeited and lost it, and should therefore have the keeping of it no longer, no, not for ever any more; but Judah had it at Bethlehem, till at last it was fixedly seated in Sion, as the earth is established, in that psalm; and this for no other reason than that he had loved them, and out of love had chosen them: ver. 67–69,
'Moreover, he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim; but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Sion which he loved. And he built his sanctuary like high palaces; like the earth which he had established for ever.' For otherwise Judah was, as well as Ephraim, alike involved in the same guilt of sin which had forfeited it, as ver. 56–60 of that psalm plainly shews: 'Yea, they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies,' &c. He speaks it of the whole in those verses, and yet takes the occasion against Ephraim to remove it for ever. Thus the first are last, and the last first; and those whom God's presence is with for a while, upon some eminent sin God begins to withdraw from them, and by degrees, as he did by that people of the ten tribes, till at last he cast them off from being a people: but dealt not so with Judah, though these made a forfeiture of their temple, and worship, and nation, in the captivity of Babylon, yet God restored all again to a greater glory at last. The ground was that in ver. 68, 'Zion which he loved.'
Fourth instance; in David, and Saul, and Solomon. And this instance follows next in that psalm, and endeth it: ver. 70, 'He chose also
David his servant,' &c. You know I have, in the preceding part of this discourse, alleged David as the great pattern of grace, in ordering all things about him for his salvation, and shadowed forth in his dealings with him about his kingdom; yet behold, God thought not enough to shew mercy simply and absolutely to David's own person, but set up Saul together with him, yea, indeed afore him, as a foil of a
contrary dispensation, to illustrate his grace towards David. As for Saul, you know what once Samuel said to him, as from God: 1 Sam.
10:6, 7, 'And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shall be turned into another man,' &c.
Yet in a short time God soon takes the advantage of a sin of his, upon which to declare his rejection of him from the kingdom. And ever after that, upon every occasion, he withdrew from him more and more, till at last he answered him neither by Urim nor by Thummim‚ nor any other way, but gave him up to inquire of a witch, a practice the most contrary to his most avowed principle; for of all other wickednesses, he had been zealous against that. David committed as great a sin, yea, greater by far than that first of Saul's sins was for which God rejected him.
Then Solomon his son, who had the covenant of grace entailed upon him together with David, and he committed greater sins for kind than that of Saul's was or David's either. Saul's first fatal sin was but worshipping the true God a few hours afore Samuel came; and he was in great distress, which moved him so to anticipate it, and he had that awe of God in it, that he would not go to battle without having sacrificed first; whereas Solomon's sin was the permitting the worship of false gods, of devils, yea, and building temples for them on the hill opposite to mount Sion, where the temple stood; concerning whom the prophet thus speaks, 1 Kings 11:33, 'Because they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.' This charge, you see, lies upon many more than Solomon, but yet in the last words thereof there is a sting that turns all that guilt upon Solomon, in those words, 'as did
David his father.' The indictment lies against him, as he that caused Israel to sin; aggravated by this also, that he had the example of so good and holy a father as David. Notwithstanding all which, God yet professeth he would not take the kingdom away in his days, but that he should be a prince entirely over the whole all the days of his life,
as in the following verse, 34; and after his death he left to his posterity that part which God had chosen out of all the tribes, ver. 32, as also in ver. 36: 'And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to put my name there.'
Again, what was another of Saul's great sins, but persecuting of David, whom God had declared and anointed king in his stead by the prophet? Solomon did the very same, in the like case of Jeroboam his being anointed, 1 Kings 11:40; yet lo, what says God in 2 Sam. 7:13–
15? 'But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.' God was not contented to express his grace simply, as in and to their own persons discovered, but would needs add, 'as I took it from Saul, whom I put away afore thee;' that is, in thine own view, afore thine own face. So then, God in this his dealing with Saul (besides what was of justice in it towards his person) had this great aim in it, to cast a lustre on David's mercies; and this instance makes good the words I put the doctrine into.
Thus much for the Old Testament instances. I come to those of the New, which are more direct and punctual to God's discrimination as to the point of salvation. Some of those of the Old are such wherein this election and rejection were seen, in respect of outward privileges; for outside of them, and yet such as shadowed out withal the eternal rejection of the persons themselves fore-mentioned, from salvation, as well as in respect to those temporary things.
1. You have an instance in Peter and Judas.
These are the first and leading ones auto all the other that followed, and were accordingly the most eminent and conspicuous. The great
God, the more to shew and magnify (even to an infinity of grace) himself as a God of all grace to Peter, did in his providence order a contrary occurrence to fall out unto Judas, whom he had set up an apostle, like as Peter himself was. God thought it not enough to
manifest his grace towards Peter, singly considered in such an issue of deliverance out of and preserving him therein, but was farther pleased to set it off in the highest, in a comparative way with Judas.
It cannot but be highly remarkable unto this purpose, that God so ordered it that one and the like temptation for kind against their master Christ (though not in degree of sinning), the one of renouncing and forswearing him, the other of betraying him; and both within the compass of a few hours, the same night. They both lay as malefactors, bound in chains of guilt, afore God; and God foreseeing Peter's forswearing him with a curse, 'I know not the man,' he might have said, as at latter day he will to Judas, 'Depart from me, them cursed, I never knew thee, thou worker of iniquity;' and so, in like manner, I swear concerning thee, that thou shalt never enter into my rest. And he might have taken Judas, and shewn the same grace to him in Peter's stead; and yet admire! for see the difference he puts; he sends Peter out a-weeping bitterly with godly sorrow, and repentance never to be repented of, and restored him to grace and apostleship again; but sends Judas forth to hang himself, though repenting also, yet out of horror and despair. And all this was transacted in twelve or fourteen hours' space.
We farther read that the self-same Peter, having been perfectly pardoned, healed, restored, strengthened, and recovered that very night of his fall, within a very few days after the Spirit of God singled him out of all the company of disciples to preach Judas his fatal funeral sermon. God would have him, of all other men, to tell and relate that tragical story of Judas his apostasy and undoing; and the same Spirit immediately inspired him with sight into a prophecy, that had foretold this of Judas, which otherwise he would never have applied to him; of which I may say, that Peter took it for his test; read the whole: Acts 1:15–20, 'And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty). Men and brethren, the Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part
of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue,
Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood. For it is written in the book of the Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein; and, His bishoprick let another take:' Oh, with what a bleeding, melted, broken, and yet with a rejoicing heart, and adoring of the grace of God towards himself, and blessing him for it, must we needs suppose that penitent Peter (when now filled with the Holy
Ghost) did utter these passages, 'He was numbered amongst us;' Oh, that I, who deserved to have been hanged on the same tree together with him, and then to have hung in hell next to him, should still be here among you the holy apostles, the called ones of God, and still be numbered among the us‚ among you, who are the choicest of his saints, even his apostles. Oh, I was in danger for ever to have been excluded, as we have but now seen Judas was.
2. There are instances out of the epistles.
That age that followed, which first were termed Christian, afforded plenty of such parallel examples of apostatizing professors and persevering saints, growing up together in one another's view, such as the apostles in their epistles abundantly did shew. Paul, from his experience and observation, sets both together in Heb. 6, from ver.
4th to ver. the 11th, as in one scheme, as also scattered in divers other passages of that epistle, especially chap. 10, ver. 22–27, and from ver. 32 to the end, the connection whereof, in ver. 39, is this summary: 'But we are not of them who draw hack unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul;' also in his epistles to Timothy, especially the latter, he sets Phygellus and Hermogenes over against Onesiphorus, 2 Tim. 1:15–18; Hymenous and Philetus over against those whom he had known to be his, chap. 2:17–21. In chap. 3 he adds the same almost throughout; then in chap. the 4th he sets the names of Demas, who had 'forsaken him, and loved this world', ver. 10, once his fellow-labourer, with Marcus, Lucas,
Philemon, together with the very same persons, whom he here, in Timothy, again mentions, as continuing and persevering, ver. 11; likewise Alexander the coppersmith, of whose zeal and sufferings for Paul you read, Acts 19:33, but now turned apostate; as in ver. 14 of the same 4th to Timothy; as also in 2 Tim. 2:18–21, as hath been shewn. James his whole epistle is but a continued character and discovery of unsound professors; and of the true intermingled set.
John doth the like in his first epistle, chap. 2:16; and up and down in the rest of the epistle, from first to last. Peter the like, in his second epistle, chap. 2 throughout, graphically describes both professors now fallen; and another company of faithful ones living with those, and within one another's knowledge, to whom (the faithful ones) he inscribes in that epistle, under the title of those that 'had received like precious faith with us,' the apostles themselves, chap. 1:1, whose pure minds he stirs up to look for and hasten to the kingdom of Christ, chap. 3:2, and so on.
But instead of all other, I choose out the epistle of Jude, and in the next paragraph shall, to this purpose, more insist on it, in which the Holy Ghost represents, as in a glass, the differing face and condition professors in the last scene of the primitive times, and holds up to our view the 'preserved in Christ,' ver. 1; and bears the title of the whole epistle oppositely to those multitudes that had withered and fallen away. His decipher of them takes up the greater part of that epistle, but of this in the next paragraph; so as upon the matter, though I will not say that in all and every epistle this argument should be insisted on, yet I may justly say, that of all the apostles that wrote, they have in their epistles, one or another, touched upon, yea, enlarged this very subject; and the records thereof are for an admonition unto all succeeding ages, especially unto us, 'upon whom the ends of the world are come,' as that which ordinarily should fall out, especially in such ages and places wherein the gospel should break forth with a brighter light and warmer beams. Paul prophesies of this like different event of Christianity in the profession of it, 2
Tim. 3:1–14, 'This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come,' &c.; and exemplifies the character of such by the like sort or