Thomasgoodwinvol

NICHOL S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.

PURITAN PERIOD.

THE

WORKS OF THOMiS GOODWIN, D.D.

VOL. IX.

COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.

W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational

Union, Edinburgh. JAMES BEGG-, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh. THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, Edinburgh.

D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A, Minister of St Thomas s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh. WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church

History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby terian Church, Edinburgh.

JJttor. REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., EDINBURGH.

THE WORKS

THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.

SOMETIME PEESIDENT OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,

LINCOLN COLLEGE; HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER; RECTOR OF ST MARTIN S, BIRMINGHAM.

BY ROBERT HALLEY, D.D.

PRINCIPAL OF THE INDEPENDENT NEW COLLEGE, LONDON.

VOL. IX.

CONTAINING :

A DISCOUESE OF ELECTION, 4c,

A DISCOUESE OF THANKFULNESS.

EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL.

LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN: G. HERBERT.

M.DCCC.LXIV.

EDINBURGH .

PRINTED BT JOHN GREIQ AND

OI.D PHTSrO GARDENS.

CONTENTS.

A DISCOUESE OF ELECTION, 4c,

PAOR BOOK I.

Wherein is proved the necessity of an election grace, if any of the rational creatures be certainly saved : and that God hath made an election of some out of pure grace, proved by the event, out of the stories of all times, throughout the Old and New Testament.

BOOK II.

Of the order of God s decrees about man s election and reproba tion. Of the end to which we are ordained ; a supernatural union with God and communication of himself. The infinity of grace discovered therein.

BOOK III.

The infinity of grace in God s choosing us, proved from the nature of election, both simply considered in itself, and also com pared with that other act of reprobation.

BOOK IV.

The mighty and powerful grace which God dispenses to his elect, in effectually calling them, in preserving them from tempta tions and sin, in strengthening and enabling them to persevere unto the end, and in bringing them at last securely to an eternal glory, by all which, the greatness of election grace is more fully cleared and proved.

CONTENTS.

PAGE BOOK V.

Election, in the ordinary course of it, runs in a line of succession from believing parents to their posterity. The covenant of grace is entailed on the children of believers. God most usually makes such his choice. What judgment we are thereupon to have of them. . . 426

A DISCODESE OF THANKFULNESS. .499

A DISCOURSE OF ELECTION, &c.

VOL. IX.

A DISCOURSE

OF ELECTION,

OF THE

Free and Special GRACE of GOD

Manifested therein ;

THE

Absoluteness and Unchangeableness of his DECREES , and their Infallible Accomplishment.

BY THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.

/, ON DON,

Printed in the Year, MDCLXXXII.

OF ELECTION.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

The necessity of an election, or super -creation grace, if either angels or men (whether fallen or unfalien} be certainly and securely saved.

BY the necessity of an election, I mean not as if God had been necessitated thereunto, for nothing with him is more free ; and that it is termed an election of grace sufficiently testifies it ; but the necessity lay in respect of the eter nal salvation of either angels or men.

Nor, secondly, do I mean, as if it must have been an act of election ; understanding it a calling forth but of some persons only ; for that way of salvation, which is the grace itself, God might have saved all of either sort by, and not have made an election of it, that is, of some, although he was pleased so to do. It is true, indeed, in making an election but of some, tho freeness of God s grace was the more manifested ; that is, in the point of the freedom of it ; and that, de facto, there was such an election but of some, both angels and men, I shall after shew ; but the dint of my present asser tion, whilst yet I term it election of grace (because de facto so it was), lies in this : that, take the substance of that grace itself, which election hath chalked out as the way of salvation thereby, and that is it I now alone affirm to have been necessary ; I add securely, to bring to salvation both angels and men. And my assertion issues in this, that not any one of his creatures were, or had been eternally and effectually saved (that* is, none of his understanding rational creatures), without such a grace as election hath pitched upon ; no, not one of either sort, neither angels nor men, as, de facto, it appeared. God, though he made angels and men in a state of perfect holiness, able

4 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. to stand with the innate pondus, or poise and bias of holiness, joined with that concurrence or assistance of God s that did accompany it; yet that assistance being then suited to the laws and dues of creation merely ; that is, look what preservation in that state a creature could challenge, by the covenant of creation, as a due from God as his creator, so far forth there was an assistance did accompany that holiness ; and therefore was but such an assistance as was proportioned to that present state, whereby the will of the creature had a power to continue, if he would use that assistance, and those creation powers and principles, as he ought, so as it was every way such as the creature could not, but at any time (till the act of falling), say, I find myself able to stand if I will ; but so as the keeping of this holiness with that assistance, was committed to the free-will of man, as likewise of angels, which at the best was a mutable slippery thing, fickle and change able. To make instance in the angels, by and from the example of whom it is that I make forth this necessity of election for the creature to be saved.

* Behold, he puts no trust in his servants, and the angels he

In Job iv. 18, chargeth with folly. We have the like in chap. xv. ver. 15, He putteth no trust in his saints. The angels were perfectly holy, but if he would give them no other assistance but what was their due from creation, there was no trust to be put in them, or their standing. If they were holy to-day, they might sin to-morrow. If God but sent them of an errand down into this world, they might sin before they came up again. The folly there was their mutability; and to be carried on unchangeably to eternity, without the hazard and danger of miscarriage, was beyond the due of creation, which was their first creation covenant they all appeared afore God in ; and there fore immutably to have kept them, had been grace, which must flow from another well-head and original than the pure covenant of works or of crea tion, and that can be no other than grace ; and the indispensable ground why the creature, by the law and covenant of creation, should be thus dealt with as aforesaid, and so be left to a mutability, is, that it is only proper unto

God, and that essentially, not to be subject to change. And it was fit this difference betwixt God s being, and the being of the creature (which it had by creation) should be thus stated by the creation-law as purely it came out of God s hand ; and so as that if God would impart the image of his immu tability of holiness to any, and fix them in it, it might appear to be of grace. This is grace, and grace to the angels themselves. In James i. 13, you have it, that it is God only that is not tempted with evil, nor can be tempted. The creature, "by what from the law of creation they have upon the terms of creatureship, : may be tempted to sin ; and not only so, but fall and be lost, and then never to be able to recover itself again.

This being our creation state, God foresaw that if all of these his creatures were left to the conduct of their wills, assisted but only with these creation helps, that they were in a continual hazard of falling, and that they would all fall at one time or another, one after the other ; he therefore made an election of grace to put all out of hazard in some ; and if you will not see the truth of it through the doctrine, you may view it by experience, for it fell out, as to their fall, both of angels and of men. Jude tells you, there was a first estate in which angels were created, but they fell from it ; and the rest would Jiave done so too, at one time or another, for they were all made of the same metal, if they had been left to the mutability of their wills. It proved true of men. Take Adam and Eve their wills, they were perfectly holy, and yet what became of thoge l two stout wills ? If but one of them indeed had fallen, you would have "thought the other might have been immu table ; but you may see they both fell, and so it was experimented they were

CHAP. I.] OF ELECTION

mutable ; and that all their children they should have put forth were such, and would at one time have fallen as these have done, who were all of man kind that were then in the world. Well, God foresaw all would be a-going ; there is a happy word in the text, Rom. xi. 4, xarsX/vrov, he made a reserve of some before the world was ; he laid his hand upon them ; nay, said he, I will have a remnant ; I will have some. He made a reserve when he fore saw all would, or might in the end, be lost ; and that reserve was made by election. It was election itself; the apostle interprets that word, ver. 5. The great God had reason (shall I say, or rather that his infinite grace joined with wisdom) to have something out of all what he had made (for whom are all things) that should live with him, be happy in him, blessed of him, that might eternally bless him again. And accordingly he kept some of the angels, and caused them to abide with him, and ordained some of men, though when fallen, who should return to him again ; and this was done by election, which is that other well-head of all super-creation, or supernatural grace, opposed to that of creationholiness and assistance.

You read of the angels who stood, 1 Tim. v. 21, that they are called the elect angels. You read elsewhere that they are called the holy angels, for they never sinned ; and they had as great a holiness as any creature could be capable of by creation ; also they excel in strength, and so their holiness was a strong holiness. But was it that which kept them ? No ; you heard God could not trust them in the hands of their own wills ; there fore it was that they were elect angels ; that kept them. In that new superadded title, you read the grace of God expressed as that which kept them in that holiness, and so fixed them.

Now, further, consider that where election is, there is grace ; whether the * the election of grace ; and what creature be fallen or not fallen, it is called soever is above the dues of creation, and the rules thereof, is grace, and as truly such as that which is called mercy, as shewn to a sinner or creature actually fallen, is called grace. Grace and works, we read in the words of Rom. xi. 6, are so opposed, as those which intermingle not. The privileges of grace are eternally separated by an eternal law. If a thing be of grace, it is no more of works ; and if of works, it is no more of grace. It was not, therefore, their creation holiness fixed them, for that was works, both in the principle and in the assistance of it. Indeed, without their holiness they had not stood ; but what was it fixed their holiness but grace ? To ascribe their standing unto their own holiness, is to found a privilege of grace upon works. Grace were no more grace, if that took place. A perfect holiness, and a stronger holiness than man s, was their due by creation ; but to be kept by so strong an assistance as should effectually fix their wills, and for ever after keep them so, this was above the ordinary creation-law, and so above the law of works. Had the evil angels had such a prevalent supercreation assistance, they had not fallen ; and therefore it must be supercreation grace kept those other. And all grace that saves is from election ; and election is the fountain of such a gracious stream, the channel of which should run on to eternity without failure or drying up, as this in them did and doth. Election and grace are never to be served ;* the angels then were saved by it, and not any one angel, but those who were elect, were saved : for all that stood are called elect. And, on the contrary, all of them that were elect were saved, and none miscarried. The election obtained it amongst them ; and you know what became of the rest. Thus you see what made the difference even amongst them also. Oh, let us therefore adore God for his election grace, as without which none of his creatures had * Qu. severed ? ED.

6 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. infallibly been saved. Thus much for a demonstration of this, taken from the angels.

For the case of mankind, now they are fallen, if God had not made an elec tion among them, what would have become of them, if it were so with angels that never sinned ? brethren, how much more with filthy man ! as Job xv.

15, 17, Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water ? and we may argue on this point as he doth there in that other. If not the angels, not one of them, were saved from the ruins of their nature but by election, then surely not man fallen. If election were necessary but for their confirmation in holiness, as our divines say (though I think there is a farther privilege joined with it), then how much more for man, that was irreparably fallen, as by himself, and that needed the whole of salvation for substance, and continuance therein also ! What a blessed provision did God make to make an election ! There is a scripture that hath often affected my heart: Rom. ix. 29, As Esaias said before, saith Paul out of him, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been like unto Sodom and Gomorrha. It is spoken of elec tion, he had discoursed of in that chapter. And what is that seed there ?

It is plainly a reserve, a relic or remnant. And that speech in Rom. xi. 5, of a remnant according to the election of grace, is all one with that seed there ; for many passages in the ninth chapter and in this hold a correspon dence. my brethren, if God had not taken such a remnant, not Israel only, but all mankind, had been like unto Sodom and Gomorrha. Not a man, woman, or child in Sodom or Gomorrha were saved, but whom God took out, Lot and his family. Therefore, say I, bless God for election, we had been undone else to a man. And shall not this affect ? Oh, despise not election ! therein lies all your hope, that there is a remnant shall infallibly be saved.

After this narration of the angels, suppose that the case of us men were res integra, and that we were still in that happy estate God at first created our first parents, and us with him, and were you now all as holy as Adam was I will make that supposition yet the case of us was but the same for changeableness, and would have been the same in the issue with that of the fallen angels, who are besides the weaker creatures of the two, and in that respect more subject to mutability. So as suppose Adam had stood, by the assistance of the power vouchsafed him by the covenant of works, so long till he had put us forth an holy seed, yet we must all have then personally stood upon our own single bottoms, which himself did at first stand (shall I say, or fall ?) upon, and so been in the same continual danger to drop away from God one after another. And as for that if he had stood, that both he and we should have been immutably confirmed in grace, as the good angels, there was no such promise made either to him or us under that his covenant and state by creation ; for if there had, it must have been by election-grace superadded to the covenant of works, which in the case of the angels is said to be; and if so, then promises proper to election must be supposed made to works of creation and the covenant thereof, and so grace be brought into works, founded upon works, which the apostle in Rom. xi. 6 makes incom patible : And if by grace, then it is no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work.

But I will make this further supposition, that if we in that state had heard that there was an election of grace, such as the holy angels stood by, whether would you have stuck and betook yourself unto creation-holiness barely, with

CHAP. I.] OF ELECTION. *7 the mutability of it, or election of grace for the way of your eternal salva tion ? Were I as perfect as Adam, I promise you I would for my part betake myself to that of election, that supercreation privilege, [rather] than adventure my eternal condition in any free-will holiness, were it never so perfect.

Well, but we all with his holiness soon miscarried, we are irrecoverably (as of ourselves) fallen by it; yet there is a fancy that hath possessed the minds of men, and hath run down throughout all ages of the world, nothing can root out or dispossess men of it, neither constant experience, nor the view of the ruins of the generality of mankind that have perished by it, and it is this, that if God doth set up the will and heart of man by furnishing it with new helps and assistances, vamp or recruit this old degenerate frame with fresh and new supplies, that then their wills may make a second hopeful ven ture to obtain, although no such election-grace (as our doctrine sets forth) should be superadded nor strike in, to work the will and deed itself overcomingly on their hearts, or undertake for them invincibly so to work. And the use as to this respect which they make is, that Christ should have been, 1, intended (as a second Adam), for he was to purchase the pardon of sins; 2, to purchase helps for all; 3, and to give grace and assistance so far as they may, if they will use those helps well, with promise that if they do, and by these come to believe and be converted, then, 4, God s electing grace comes upon them, and then it is he chooseth them to eternal life, upon the intuition of this good usage of their wills ; election only follows hereupon, and hath no influence at all afore their wills have cast it thus ; if God would but set up the will and heart of man anew, vamp this old, worn, and degenerate frame, assist it and furnish it with new helps and advantages. And thus men will needs wilfully perish a second time, by venturing to sea again in that rotten leaking old vessel, their own free wills, in which and by which they shipwrecked so miserably once before, when they had wind and tide, and a new vessel, strong, and tight, and well built, with all other advan tages to have preserved her ; but this their will being pilot, so steered as all was cast away, and yet they will adventure to sea again therein. Adam s will had, besides the concurrence of God s assistance (such as was sufficient), an inward principle of habitual and inherent holiness, the image of God as a vital principle of motion within him, whereby not only to be able to act holily, but which also as a weight or pondus did sway and incline his will to act holily, even as sin dwelling in us doth, as a weight hung on, incline us now to evil.

But, alas, there is now that vast difference and disadvantage in our case, beyond, infinitely beyond, what was in his as to these respects; that instead of a perfect holiness possessing and inclining the will and mind, there is no such vital habitual principle in our hearts left ; nay, an utter disability unto what is spiritual, holy, and good ; yea, contrary enmity and opposition there

holiness in truth, as the apostle calls it. Men err, not knowing the power of original sin, nor the depth of corruption that is in their own is unto hearts. The will of man now is the prime and proper seat of sin, and the throne thereof is seated therein. And as no prince s will, in full and actual possession of regal power, can be brought by ordinary or any persuasions to be willing, much less to be indifferent, to be dethroned, so nor may we think that sin in our wills will upon easy terms lay down his crown : The flesh is enmity to God, and is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be, says the apostle. The will and mind, and whole heart of man, must first have that corruption which is in possession dethroned from its dominion, and then the same vital habitual principle of inherent holiness created in it anew :

8 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. heart and a new spirit must be given it, and a heart of stone taken away (whereof with the affections the will is the subject, as the reins are of the other stone in our bodies). The will and affections are the seat of this spiri tual stone, and as incapable to act one holy act as the stone in the kidney is to act an action of life or vital motion. They must be made an heart of flesh that hath a new life, and sense, &c., given it, and thereby that which must be the cause and subject of any one the least such living operation, other wise you may as well gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles, as good fruit of a corrupt tree. Mat. vii. 16, 17, The tree must therefore be made good ere its fruit can be made good, as Christ (the root) hath told us.

Mat. xii. 33, Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, ancf his . fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. And what are all those helps they talk of, either that TO yvuarbv rov ioD, that light of God from the works of creation which God gave to heathens of himself, Rom. i. ; or the light of conscience, of the law, Rom. ii. ; and a natural devotion suited to it in the will and affection, whereby men have a reverence and addiction to a Deity, accompanied with impressions of moral honesty (which we call virtue) ; and let these be impregnated with the light of the law and gospel, delivered with all the signs with which God once did enforce the law, and Christ the gospel, yet the corrupt will will inwardly and habitually be a corrupt will still. And though all these helps, with the assistance from God they speak of, may stir and affect it, yet they will never be able to write the holy and spiritual law in the heart in new and living characters, and dispositions conformable and suitable unto the inward holiness of it, unless God put forth an omnipotent power and efficacy to change it. All the helps they speak of, they are all short and deficient; helpers of no value, as in Job xxx. 18. A refiner or chemist may as soon, by his common earthly fire, with the mixtures and arts he useth, sublimate a clod of earth or a globe of brass into a star, such as are in heaven, as these helps, and the use of them all, can take away the innate corruption of the will, and make it spiritual, or endow it with a spiritual life ; for nothing works above the sphere of its activity. Those helps, elevated with the afore said light of the law and gospel, and enforced with outward signs and wonders to the utmost, and accompanied with a striving power of the Holy Ghost, may wonderfully stir, and affect, and demulce this will of man ; but if God do not over and above endow it with a new principle of inherent holiness and workmanship created to good work, it will be still utterly unable to bring forth one act that is pleasing to the holy God.

This truth was experimented both under the law and gospel. The Jews at Sinai had God s voice uttering the law to them. You have the manner of it both in Exodus, and in brief recapitulated by Moses : Deut. v. 22-28, These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice ; and added no more : and he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me. And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness (for the mountain did burn with fire), that ye came near unto me, even all the heads of the tribes, and elders ; and ye said, Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory, and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire : we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now therefore why should we die ? for this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived ? Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God

shall say; and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it, and do it. And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me ; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. And yet all this did not change the will, nor give the generality of that people an heart spiritually to obey; for in the next words, ver. 29, God himself doth thereupon make

Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever ! And again, at last, Deut. xxix. 2-4, this remark upon it, * And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land ; the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles. Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. Not their wills only remained as they were, but they had not understandings enlightened with spiritual light, spiritually to discern and perceive the holiness in truth that was therein.

The case and condition of the whole world I gave instance in afore. They had all those helps, with the advantages of time and improvement of them, living so many years. They had also the Spirit of God striving with them, Gen. vi. 3, and the righteousness of the gospel preached with power, from the assistance and concurrence of the divinity of Christ, appearing in it with power; of whom yet Peter, by the Holy Ghost, declares, 1 Peter iii. 8, Christ, says he, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit (namely, of his Godhead); ver. 19, By which also (that Spirit, namely) he went and preached to the spirits in prison (that is, that are now in hell), which sometimes in the days of Noah were disobedient unto that Noah s preaching the gospel to them, with which Christ s Spirit had gone forth arid preached in and by Noah to them. And yet, with all these helps of free-will grace (as we may call it), they remained flesh, or unregenerate and ungodly, as Moses in Gen. vi. and the same Peter tells us; yea, an whole world of ungodly ones, 2 Peter ii. 5, and but one Noah with his family were saved. And how came that to pass, but as God says of him, Noah hath found grace in my sight; answerable unto By grace you are saved, as the apostle to the elect Ephesians, chap. i. 4, 5 compared with chap. ii. 4, 5, whilst the world round about them continued dead in tres passes and in sins (with all their helps, that could not quicken them), Eph. ii. 1-4. I might go over the instances in Christ s and the apostles times, wherein you would see the same issue; but let these suffice.

Only because some may perhaps inquire, that if the wills and affections of these Jews were really affected and stirred, then they had the power to will and to turn ; and wherein were these helps defective then, and not sufficient ?

The answer is, that they still wanted a power spiritually to will and dis cern, as hath been said. Their wills remained still in their native corrup tion, and had not new inherent habitual power infused into them, without which they could not will any one act truly good. This habitual change of heart is that new heart which God complained was wanting, even whilst, and in the midst of their being so affected. The will of man is, as was said, the proper seat of sin ; and the strength of that sin, that is therein seated, is the predominancy of self-love ; and that self-love remaining in its pre dominancy, is that which the Scriptures do term flesh, as well as any other

10 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. lust. And this self in the will remaining still in its predominancy, as it doth until a new principle of holiness towards God chiefly be infused, may be affected with many things, both in law and gospel. And from out of that principle so affected and stirred, man s will may use those helps and assist ances, and act accordingly ; and so the issue falls as it did afore ; that the heart and will remaining a thorn as afore, and not turned into a fig-tree, you cannot gather figs on it. There is a work, and it is the highest work, of the word and gospel, that is short of saving ; it is a work accompanying the word and Spirit, which greatly affects the heart, so as to suffer persecution, and yet is short of a saving work, or of the heart its being made the l good ground, and an honest heart. It is the * thorny ground, as Christ in the parable hath told us, that though the word took root in it, yet it changed not the thorns, but was the thorny ground still ; and so the heart remaining inwardly such, is therefore in all it brings forth, plainly said to be unfruitful : Mark iv. 19, And the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful ; yea, ver. 7, to yield no fruit. Why ? For all actings of the heart, though about things spiritual, that are only for a man s self, are said to be no fruit to God : Hosea x. 1, Israel is an empty vine, that bringeth forth fruit to itself; which whilst it doth only for and to itself, self-love then is said to continue in its predominancy. And it is said, that regeneration is not of the will of the flesh, John i. 13, that is, of the will still remaining flesh, which yet it is, though a man be never so much affected with what the word delivers, if his will and affection be moved chiefly or only by what affects self-love, without having an higher principle ingenerated or begotten in it by election-grace. And therefore no wonder if the apostle says, It is not of him that runs, or him that wills ; for men s wills may be greatly moved and incited unto a running, which is the swiftest motion, and yet be deficient of regeneration. So that to conclude ; One of the foundation causes of this error, doating on this free-will grace, is, that whilst they imagine such helps and assistances as they define may give a ro posse, a power to turn, &c., leaving it to the will to cast the act, they withal do suppose the will to remain a principle in itself, as it were inclinable in itself unto spiritual good, and able to move to good, if its shackles were once off, and that the knowledge of God and the gospel doth but once visit it, and come in, and that the Spirit presents the motives thereof to it, in a way of persuasion, &c. Oh, but I demand who or what shall create a new principle of holiness, a new spirit in the will, and take the heart of stone out of it ? Until which be done, the will is the most averse principle, and fullest of enmity, both to God and his law, in the spiritualness and true holiness of them, and cannot rise or act (though never so much otherwise affected) beyond the sphere of its own inward activity, as no creature else we see can do ; as a stone will not ascend upward, but whilst it is moved by force, and some outward hand that throws it out, for it hath not a natural principle thereto, as fire hath. But this is not all that goes unto calling, to give a new spirit of habitual holiness, and then assist it in acting, but so far as Adam s holiness was assisted by the law of creation ; and that it is the most which the highest of free-willers do desire of God, to be out of his grace assisted withal. Nor are these all that the omnipotent power of God is laid forth upon in our calling, and afterwards in keeping us ; but there is an exceeding greatness of power concurs to every act or work that is good and holy all along, even the same that wrought in Christ his * And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the rising from the dead, according to that Eph. i. 19, 20,

working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, &c. It is not such an assistance only as Adam had, but as Christ had in rising from the dead. A principle of holiness, though it be a disposition and inclination to holiness, may and doth lie dead, and besides, is clogged and hindered in its motion with a weight of sin that is contrary to it in us (read Rom. vii. 23, 24) ; if electing grace strikes not in with an omnipotent sweetness (as Austin s word is), or an invincible secret power (for by that place now quoted, the saints are not always sensible of the greatness of it) that draws this will and its principle of holiness into act. And upon the Spirit s drawing forth, and carrying on, the actings of holiness in us, it is that Austin, and Jansenius out of him, do set the crown, as that which is the complete eminency of efficacious grace ; for since the fall, all other helps are short of causing us to act, though holiness be dwelling in us without effecting power. The promise therefore is not only to give a new heart, as in Ezek. xxxvi. 26, A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh ; but it further follows, ver. 27, And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them ; that is, I will work in you the act itself also, even the will and the deed.

Now the giving of this new heart, &c., in which doth consist the mark of the true inward power, is the proper fruit of election-grace, and of that alone, with difference from what this free-will grace, as it is stated by these men, doth suppose necessary ; and the covenant of grace (which is the transcript of election-decrees indefinitely expressed) runs in those terms, a new heart will I give you, and a new spirit, &c., Ezek. xxxvi. 26. And thereupon also it is that election-grace doth always infallibly and invincibly, at one time or another, work this by effectual calling in those it hath predestinated, as many Scriptures shew ; as Rom. viii. 28, 80, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 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. And in Rom. ix., in the case of Jacob, he speaks thus, That the purpose of God according to the election might stand, not of works (wrought by free will), but of him that calleth. Which shews that God, having from everlasting first elected, doth manifest the firmness of that his purpose to save by effectual calling, as he did in Jacob, by virtue of election. The same you have also confirmed towards the con clusion of his discourse about election, in the same chapter. Having just afore said, ver. 23, That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory ; he imme

Even us whom he hath diately subjoins, as adequate thereto, ver. 24, called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As if he had said, even us whom he hath thus ordained by electing mercy, to make known the riches of his glory upon, are those that are called, and likewise those that * the election hath shall be. So as let no man think that when we say, obtained it, that we should mean, that the elect by election only, without an effectual work of calling, doth obtain. No ; none that are grown up to years of knowledge but God calleth if he hath elected them ; and by calling, endows them with a new heart, and a new spirit (as hath been spoken).

Also, understand between, that when the apostle speaks of election grace, Rom. xi. 6, we confine it not to those purposes of grace in God s mind from everlasting, but take in that operative grace in calling, as comprehended

12 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. under it, the whole grace in calling us in that election grace in the text ; for election set it a-work, and did design it. And the same election grace is that which runs along, and is immediately at the head of calling, &c., it is the same grace. The one is the grace of purposing, as it is abstractly con sidered in the decree and intention ; the other in calling is the grace of execution. My conclusion from all this therefore is, that we, the fallen sons of men, would see and be convinced of the necessity of this election grace, so far beyond what the draught of their free-will grace sets forth, as which if God had not peremptorily resolved in his purposes to put forth to work in us, to save those of mankind whom he chose ; or if less than this, not any of mankind had obtained ; but now the election, through the operation of this grace, hath and doth obtain salvation to a man. And do you in reason consider, that there being but those two ways to obtain salvation by, ever started or pretended unto by the sons of men ; and all being reducible to one of these two, as in the fore-cited text, Rom. xi. 6, you see works (the head and principle of which is man s will, acting in and by itself) and election grace, divide them into these two, and do but set them in opposition one to the other, as the Scriptures likewise throughout ; both which the apostle hath summed up in that short sentence, It is not of him that runs, nor of him that wills, but of God who sheweth mercy ; namely, the true and right act of willing and running by an election grace (and election grace is his argument there in hand), round about, and afore, and after. For otherwise, without running and willing no man is saved : as in Philip, iii. 12, 18, Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. Our salvation is wrought out by God s giving the will and the deed. If, then, the first hath failed them that have betaken themselves unto it, and never no man was yet saved by it (as hath been already declared), nor could be for the reasons aforesaid, and that the Scriptures still cry, and peremptorily, Not by works, and then posi tively and conclusively, by being called with an holy calling, according to his purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world begun, then let us not only be convinced, but further adore and bless God for this election grace, without which also Christ had died in vain, and not saved a man, and been in heaven alone, to lament that he had come short in this work, by having omitted to put in one clause into his covenant in dying, viz., that besides his purchase of helps, whereby men might be saved if they would, he had not further purchased an invincible overcoming of their wills for whom he died, but had left to the will of man itself, to use or not to use those according to the pleasure of their wills, and had not meritoriously also procured of God efficaciously to work the will and the deed, according tohis good pleasure. And so Christ should be left to satisfy himself with this relief, that he had done his part, but the obstructions lay in man s will, that would not put forth the act of willing, though he had given them suf ficiency of helps to do it. Yea, God himself must have suspended, and have forborne his dearest delight and highest first blessing, as Eph. i. 4, 5, viz., the exercise of his electing grace, according to the good pleasure of his will towards any, until man s will had first used those helps well, and put itself forth into willing out of its liberty to ast, or not to act ; and so all electing grace might have been for ever frustrated. All which necessarily follows, that it might thus have been, upon the doctrine of free-will grace, if the way thereof had been God s way for salvation ; and if that God should

CHAP. L] OF ELECTION

have kept to the laws thereof, which men have set for the salvation of them selves and others. But, oh ! blessed and thrice blessed be he, the God of all grace, who foreseeing all this, peremptorily struck in with an election grace, whereby to be sure he would save some, whom he had afore by elec tion given to Christ, who a few hours afore his death professeth to die for all that God gave him, John xvii.

Use. Now, then, we may enter a just complaint against the world, that although election grace is thus necessary unto salvation, yet all the thanks God hath from the unthankful sons of men, ignorant of their own interest, and the ways of God, is, for him to be quarrelled at for this his election, in that he took not all, as well as some (for in so much as they quarrel with those that hold it, they quarrel with God himself therein, even as Christ

In that ye did it to those, ye did it unto me ) ; that whereas God before the fall was free of any obligations unto the creature, but those by the laws of creation, which he exactly performed, and yet notwithstanding man fell ; and whereas by the fall he was absolutely quit and discharged of said, all obligations to men, by the forfeitures of the dues and assistances by all the laws of God due to them ; yea, and on the contrary, was by his justice provoked to damn them, that it had been infinite grace to save, though but one man ; yet these would impose upon him a necessity to give forth a com mon grace, and that he should purpose upon free-will terms to save all, or else with them, it is not grace to mankind, nor worth the name of it ; so zealous are they in pretence for their own nature. Whereas, on the con trary, according to their draught of what is their common grace, when all is summed up, and it comes unto the event, it would not save a man ; corrup tion in man is so strong, and their assisting grace which they propose is so weak. I do not say that those that hold that way of free-will grace, none of them are saved ; but this I say, if God should deal with them but only according to their own model and draught, to the measure and proportion of that grace and the works of it, which they do judge sufficient, that work would not save a man of them, if God should not out of grace work beyond the extent of their opinions. It is as if the angels should have said, out of zeal to their common natures, that because God has let go so many of us, that is our nature, to fall, whom he did not choose, but suffered to perish eternally, that therefore we will not accept that grace of election by which we stand, and which was offered us at first for confirmation of us.

But this is not all, viz., this unthankfulness, but there is an higher encroachment made upon God in their denying him this way of salvation by election, and an entrenchment made upon his freedom ; I do not now say, upon his sovereignty. They will not allow him the ordinary privilege of choice, to and for himself, of whom he will. They would restrain him in what is ordinarily the privilege of kings, yea, of all men. They allow to every man to choose their wives, because they choose for themselves ; to choose their friends, because it is for themselves. The Persians allowed it as a due and just maxim, What shall be done to the man whom the king will honour ? They allow to kings to have their friends and bosom favourites, as Solomon had Zabud, 1 Kings iv. 5, that is called the king s friend ; yet they quarrel with God if he chooses Abraham to be his friend, unless it be with a respective decree, that he foresees he will be so through the creature s free will. They quarrel with him that he chooses the seed of Abraham his friend, as Isaiah xli. 8, But thou Israel art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend, as rather than others; where as it is in his freedom to choose the person, so it is in his power to make that person his friend, and work him so to be.

14 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

Yea, and in this they quarrel with him that he should hestow what ig properly his own, which to give and communicate as a man pleases is an allowed principle by all the sons of men. Now there is nothing so much his own as election grace ; yea, and is purely his own, without any pretence of a dueness upon creation, or any the like condition from the creatures, for it is the bestowing himself. It is to admit them to see his face immediately, which election grace ends in, and creation grace reached not unto. Now the promise made to Adam it is* to carry the will of a creature on invin cibly to love himself, who hath an overcoming sweetness and goodness in himself, when he shall but manifest it to the creature, invincibly to persuade it omnipotent* suavitate, as Austin s word is. The super-creation grace is most properly his own riches, and called

the riches of his grace. To give holiness to Adam was a creation due ; but to give grace and glory, which election doth, this was a super-creation grace to Adam as it was to the angels. Our Saviour Christ enforceth that maxim that is so common amongst men: Mat. xxv. 15, Shall not a man do what he* will with his own? Now this grace was so his own as no creature could lay claim to it. As in the city freedoms one-third of a man s estate his wife may claim ; another third his children, but they have reserved a liberty that one-third part is so their own as to bestow it where they please, and in this case yourselves would think much to be deprived of this privilege, or that laws must be set you how you must bestow that third part you call appropriately your own. Now, is not God s grace God s own ? Why is it called free ? As the * limited the holy One of Israel, so these would do the gracious One of Israel.

Israelite

Well, but the iniquity of these stay not here. For the sake of whom is it that they do this ? It were well if out of such a commiseration to the nature of mankind in general, as Paul professes he had for his own flesh, that he was in continual sorrow of heart for them; it were well, I say, if out of such a commiseration they did the like. And yet Paul whollv submits it to God s will. But it is to set up against God s free-will grace (which is the fountain of this election) that other fluid, fickle, yea, and corrupt principle in the heart of man, and that is the freedom of man s will, and that as now fallen ; and to preserve the liberty thereof (forsooth), and that that may be no way entrenched upon, they would deprive God of the liberty of his will, and the dominion thereof, and also of a power invincible to work upon man s will infallibly ; as if that God had made a creature which he could not rule ; whereby they put God into Darius his straits, that he should all the days of a man s life strive with a man to save him, yet so as man s will may cast it otherways, and he cannot help it, but must submit to man ; and they frame such a model and way to salvation as shall be proportioned to that freedom of man s will, and unto such a kind of freedom of a man s will that he may do or not do, when God hath done all. And that this is the opinion they have set up against election, and the ground of the quarrel, all ages testify.

Qu. reached not unto, nor the promise made to Adam ; it is ? ED.

CHAP. II.] OF ELECTION

CHAPTER II.

That there is "an ejection of grace, with a non-election or passing by others. That difference to be out of the pure grace and good pleasure of God. Which purpose of election is the cause of their effectual calling and salvation.

I say then, Hath God cast away his people ? God forbid. For 1 also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thy altars ; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him ? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work. What then ?

Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for ; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. ROM. XI. 1-7.

It was a great exercise to Paul s spirit, as appears by chapter ix., in the beginning, and unto the carnal Jew a stumble, a shrewd objection against Christianity itself, that after the Messiah, our Christ, was come in the flesh, and was ascended to heaven, and his gospel had had its course among that nation, both by Christ s own ministry amongst them, and of his apostles after him, that there should be so few of that nation that believed on him ; yea, that the generality of that nation were cast off by God upon their hav ing rejected him for their Messiah, when as yet there had been made all along the Old Testament such large and abundant promises to that nation, of whom Christ was to come, which might have been expected should have been fulfilled unto them upon his coming amongst them in the flesh. The consideration of which might and did lie in the way, as a great stumblingblock unto his former doctrine of salvation by faith on Christ. This you have insinuated from the coherence of the fourth and fifth verses of chapter ix. : In that they were Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, arid the pro mises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever, as the Christians professed their Christ to be. And that yet these Israelites should so few of them be professors of him, was a strong presumption that therefore it was not he that was the true Messiah. And this objection is again revived in the first verse of this second chapter: Hath God cast away his people ? (meaning the Jews.) Now unto this he there gives two answers. His first answer. That God had not * cast away his people whom he fore knew, or whom he aimed at in his promises of the covenant of grace, the word of promise. The carnal Jew understood by God s people the whole, or at least the generality of their nation, unto whom yet, but as in a type, those forecited privileges and promises were made ; and under that respect it was they made up the church of the Old Testament. He therefore care fully puts in, you see, by way of distinction, He hath not cast away his people whom he foreknew ; as if he had said they were his people in outward profession, and endowment of outward privileges, but those really and indeed his people, whom he hath chosen to salvation, and they [who] were so foreknown

16 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. by him only are his, as he emphatically indigitates, and he hath cast off not one of them. All and every one of them he intended and had in his eye when he made those promises of the covenant of grace, those he hath not, nor ever will cast off. And as for the rest, they were his people but by outward profession, rather typically such, as in a shadow of the other hidden ones amongst them, for whose sake it was those promises and privileges were continued to the community of that nation ; these only are said to be the children of the promise and the children of God, and none other : Rom. ix. 6, 7, Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel : neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children : but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And what he understands by children of promise, he exemplifies by Isaac, whom he proves to have been a child of promise in respect of the election of his person without foreseen conditions in him, and by virtue of which elec tion, had been called. This he doth, ver. 9, 11, as I shall shew when I come to speak unto his instance in the following story of election, which manifestly dissolves the strength of their objection that they were all

Israelites, and that to them the adoption pertained, in ver. 4, 5. For that to have been but in respect of outward profession, title, and external calling, and also because they were types and shadows of the true seed to come, this distinction of typical Israelites, and Israelites indeed, and in truth, plainly appears to be in his intent to avouch, in that he flatly denies that all of Israel were Israel ; that is, as Christ says of Nathanael, an Israelite indeed. He denies also that they were children of God, ver. 7, or rightly the children of Abraham according to God s intent in his promise to the seed, although according to the flesh they were, as you find it express in ver. 7, and * that to them belonged the adoption, or title although of them he had said, of children.

His second answer. Observe that word, ver. 5 of chap, xi., For the pre sent time ; it is that there are so few, but in ver. 25, 26, He would not have them ignorant of this mystery, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.

Now that which I intend in the words is, that he clearly resolves the utmost account of that paucity or fewness of them, who at that present were * His people whom he foreknew, and then again, those who at that present time, he says, were then saved, he calls in ver. 5, saved, into election, &c. Thus in those words, ver. 2, * a remnant, and a remnant according to the election of grace ; and in ver. 7, What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for ; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

I shall therefore further, to lay a foundation for this my subject, open these two verses, 2d and 5th. Wherein, First, That by his people whom he foreknew, ver. 2, is meant his elect out of grace.

His people; and made his by election. God casting his eye upon them, said within himself of them, Those are mine; as John xvii. 6, Thine are mine, and thou gavest them me. The elect, afore ever they are converted, are styled by God his people: Acts xviii. 10, I have much people in this city. And Christ saith, Sheep I have not of this fold (Gentiles), them I must bring. They were sheep afore they were brought in, and they were so determinately, fixedly, and resolutely God s sheep, foreknown by him to be such, as that Christ himself (to whom God hath committed the salvation of them) saith, I must bring them in, as upon God s peremptory command

to have them saved. And therefore election, or foreknowledge of them, is as the cause joined with their being his: 2 Tim. ii. 19, The Lord knows who are his.

Secondly, This their election, that makes them his, and is here signified by foreknowledge whom he foreknew is a word appropriated to the elect and their election by God ; and election is ascribed unto it, as in Rom. viii. 29, Whom he did .foreknow, he also did predestinate; and 1 Peter i. 1, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father; that is, out of that special foreknowledge which God took of those whom he chose ; even such a foreknowledge as is common to no other creatures or persons, although known unto God are all his works from the beginning. And as several interpreters have observed on the same word, Rom. viii. 29, he saith not ot/- veotfdei, whom he knew, as but with a bare, simple act of knowledge, for so he doth all things; but ovg xoosyvu, whom he acknowledged, approved of with a knowledge of liking and love. And so he notes,

1. A singular love joined with the foresight of them, or God s casting a loving eye with affection upon them. Words of knowledge import affection ; conjugal communion which is .transacted between man and wife, and riseth from the entirest love, is styled knowledge of each other; as, on the contrary, 1 1 know you not, and I never knew you, doth in Christ s speech express an utter rejection and privation of affection to them.

2. There is wgi (or before) added to this knowledge ; by comparing other scriptures to which, imports that this his love was before the foundation of the world, and so from everlasting. And so that particle is explained in the same chapter of Peter, ver. 20, when Christ s election is spoken of, whose election is the pattern of ours : Who verily was foreordained afore the foundation of the world; and Christ himself, John xvii. 25, Thou lovedst me afore the foundation of the world.

3. It was not such a foreknowledge as that whom he foresaw would believe, and be holy, that them, as such foreseen, he chose and loved ; that were un worthy of God, qui scientiam non acclpit a rebus, and had been an uncertain foundation for God to build upon, who builds not upon sand, the mutable will of the creature; but the foundation of God is said to be sure, by this, that he knows who are his; qui, not qua, that is, the individual persons, who they are ; not who, that is, so or so qualified. And in Rom. viii. 29 it is not said he predestinated those whom he foreknew that would be conform able to the image of his Son. No ; but, on the contrary, that those whom he foreknew, and so loved, he predestinated to be conformable unto the image of Christ his Son. Yea, and in this place, Rom. xi. 6, he expressly puts it wholly upon grace, and utterly excludes works foreseen, as the motive unto God : And if by grace, then it is no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work.

And thus the sense or meaning of this foreknowledge riseth up to this, that those particular persons, whom out of pure grace and love, without any con sideration of works of any kind that were to be in them, he casting his love freely upon them, did, from everlasting, and out of that love, choose to be his, and they are alone his people. And so for substance and in effect, both these words in verse 2, whom he foreknew, and those that after follow, a remnant according to election of grace, prove both to be one and the same. The doctrine I draw the words summarily forth into is, That there is an election of some, with a non-election, or passing by, of others ; which election is out of the pure grace of God, and is the cause of their effectual calling and salvation.

VOL. IX. B

18 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

There is another general doctrine to follow from out of the interpretation of the fourth and fifth verses, viz., That those two companies, or forces of men, the election, and the rest, or non-elected, have been extant in all ages of the world, and have divided mankind past, and will be found in the world, to the end thereof, for time to come.

The former of these two is indeed the ultimate subject in my aim, which that latter serves to confirm ; but the second shall be the doctrine which I shall more largely insist upon, and that but so far as it is a medium of proof to evidence the first, that there is an election, &c. ; and my handling of that (the first) shall be only so far out of an interpretation of the first, second, and third verses, which, when performed, I shall leave the further evidence thereof unto the instances and story of the second doctrine ; for which also

I shall find a good specimen and ground in the text itself, in verse 4, when they come to be opened.

As for the first doctrine proposed, and the interpretation of verses 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, &c., I shall go over the words thereof by parts, as they are placed in that doctrine.

1. That there is an election. That is in the letter of the text, wherein the elect are called the election ; and election imports a calling, or singling some from others; as 2 Thes. ii. 13, on g/Xgro, exemit, seleyit, he exempted, excepted some; or, as it is here in verse 4, reserved to himself. If some were not passed by, there were not an election. On the opposite side, the other are called the rest, ver. 7; that is, non-elected. And to say the rest, is the mildest and softest word that could be given of it, and importeth merely a non-election, as it stands in this distinction here from the election, which is its opposite. Again, 2. Of the one he says God did foreknow them, his people which he fore

The Lord knows who are his; he speaks it of election. But there is another knew, and by his foreknowing took them to be his: 2 Tina, ii. 19, part of that distinction (for such those words in verse 2 are), there is a rest, whom he never knew. Although he foreknew them as he foreknows all things, yet without a love or owning of them; thus Christ, Mat. vii. 23, I never knew you ; there is the badge of the rest, that he says he never knew them. That never reacheth up as high as eternity, and that from thence even unto that hour he never knew them. And as he never did know them, so he never will to eternity. You see here are two companies, the elect, and the rest; one foreknown, and the other never known.

3. There are different issues and events befall these two ; proceeding, the one from God s foreknowing the one, and the other, that God never knew them. The first doth infallibly obtain: The election have obtained it. Obtained what ? and how ? Effectual calling first, and salvation at last thereby. What, then, does befall the rest ? They were blinded ; so the text, And the rest were blinded. In like equipage Christ speaks in the 10th of John, that he had sheep which were not yet to be called; so at verse 16, And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd ; and that his Father had given them him. And then oppo: ver. 26, Ye are not of my sheep ; and the same different events do follow upon each that are here said to sitely he speaks of another company befall these two companies here. Even as here, of those that were his sheep he says, ver. 16, They shall hear my voice, and them I must bring; and verses 27, 28, My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish. But of the other, You believe not,

because you are not of my sheep, ver. 26. Observe, it is not that Christ says they were not of his sheep because they believed not ; but, on the con trary, they believed not because they were not of his sheep. And it was election of the first sort that put the difference; for the first, he calls his sheep, because the Father had given them him, and that before their calling and believing; for, says he, I have sheep which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. So it was his Father s gift of them afore calling, for which they are in these places called his sheep ; and given by his Father with such a command as, I must bring them in, says Christ.

4. This separation by election is out of pure grace; that was another thing I put into the doctrine. And so it is here said to be according to the election of grace; that is, grace was the founder and sole author of that decree, and that election merely of grace ; for it follows, ver. 6, If it be of grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace; which plainly excludes works of man, as foreseen, and therewith shuts out also the will of man, which is the author of works, to be in any way the cause of such an election as foreseen. He makes these two utterly exclusive one of the other, that is, as to the point of electing; as it follows, If it be of works, it is no more of grace ; otherwise work is no more work. Admit but the least of works, it is no more of grace out of which God electeth ; they are two contradistinct, opposite things.

For the further confirmation of this main doctrine, now gathered out of the eleventh chapter, I might here largely shew that the same is the very scope of the ninth chapter, and withal give the correspondencies which these pas sages in this eleventh chapter do hold, with the like in the ninth chapter ; in which ninth he had treated the doctrine of election and preterition, as in the proper seat for them ; and this eleventh chapter that follows is a part of the application and praxis of that very same doctrine treated in chapter ix. And it is as evident to me that he treats in that ninth chapter the doctrine of the election of persons, without the consideration of any worth or dignity in them foreseen, as certainly as that the coming of Christ in the flesh, and his being crucified, were foretold in Psalm xxii. or in the 53d chapter of Isaiah.

He had indeed begun in a way of general thesis, or summary position, to propound the doctrine of election in the chapter afore, and how effectual calling, &c., flows from thence, and depends thereupon, as so many links upon the first link of that golden chain ; that is, in chapter viii. from verse 28-30, * We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born amongst 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. And upon occasion of that grand objection I fore-specified, that God had left the com munity of that nation of the Jews to obstinacy against Christ and unbelief, whose yet were the promises, &c., and that so few of that nation had enter tained the gospel, he was necessitated thereupon to prosecute and clear the same doctrine more at large, as that which had put the difference between those few that were saved of that nation, and that generality that were left to blindness. And this he begins to do from the instances of the fathers of that nation, in those eldest, primitive times thereof; shewing how that, from the first, election by grace of the persons of Isaac and Jacob in Abraham s family (the founder of that nation) had put the vast discrimination between

20 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. them two, and the persons of Ishmael and Esau, whom God had rejected. And therefore no wonder if the same difference fell out upon the same foun dation, in the succeeding children of Isaac and Jacob. These being leading examples, and types of what was to come; notwithstanding the promise made was to Abraham and his seed, for inheriting eternal life, which the Jews understood to be universal of their whole nation, but was indeed but inde finite, which the apostle s argument, ver. 7, 8, doth shew they were.

The occasion of his proceeding upon this argument, in the 9th chapter, being thus stated, you then have the main subject of that 9th chapter sum marily proposed in ver. 11, the latter part of the verse, viz. : That the purpose of God, according to election, might stand ; not of works, but of him that calleth.

And this doctrine, as thus stated, he fetcheth out from those two instances of Isaac and Jacob, as a genuine inference, and conclusion thence deduced ; which I shall but give the sense of in brief: and this inference or conclusion, though drawn but from those two instances among the Jewish nation, he yet proposeth as a general maxim, appliable to all other men in the world that are elect, whether they be Jew or Gentile. The same reason holds of them as it did of these two, Isaac and Jacob.

That, &c., chap. ix. ver. 11. This particle shews the final cause or intent of God, and of Paul s alleging these two examples according to God s true intent in them ; as if he had said, to this end or purpose, God hath in the Scriptures put this open difference of Isaac and Jacob s persons from that of Ishmael and Esau s, that he might give forth a most manifest and general demonstration of the like in the condition of all others.

That God s pur})ose according to election. Which, first, always imports with it a singling forth one, or divers, from others who are not chosen ; and so here doth connotate the rejection of others, namely, Ishmael and Esau ; or else, secondly, that clause is put in to distinguish it to be that sort of pur poses which are election purposes ; that whereas to reject, or pass by others, is from a purpose too ; but this is his purpose according to election ; or, thirdly, that clause may be thus understood : that God s purpose made according to the way, mode, or manner of election ; which in the eleventh chapter, he using the same phrase, doth there intend it to express that it is out of pure grace. And such was this of Isaac and Jacob s : it was after the way and mode election useth to hold ; out of the principle of pure grace, whence election always proceeds. This further to have been, to the end, That it might stand ; that is, firm, or sure ; as being built upon the unchangeable will and good pleasure of grace in God himself. That did not stand waiting, or suspend upon man s will, to see how it would work, and cast the matter, and use his grace, ere he would decree or purpose their salvation.

Not of works : as they are in us, and from us. And his reason insinuated in that word, might stand, shews why he took that course ; for if it had been of works, that might make the decree or purpose wavering and uncertain.

But of him, that calleth. That whereas God had also decreed that works of faith and obedience should exist in them, he saith yet that his purpose of election to save them depended not on those works, but on his grace, to work those works efficaciously in them ; which when he did elect, he withal decreed to put forth by calling them, which was God s act on them, and gives an invincible demonstration that no work, as theirs, either afore call ing or after, was the measure or condition that in election God went by ; but his calling immediately proceeding from election, begins first with them,

CHAP. II.] OP ELECTION. 21 and works all in them ; that so the whole glory might be his that calleth, and not of them that are called : he working that calling, and the works in and of them thence flowing, from his own almighty power and grace ; and therein executing but that which his purpose of election had from everlasting determined.

This doctrine and maxim the apostle professeth to be a just inference from both the examples of Isaac and Jacob (whom he accordingly wrought an effec tual calling in) ; but had chosen their persons in his eye and purpose simply considered, thus to call and work upon them, and by so calling them, to save them. And from the particular examples of these two, his scope is to shew in them, as examples and types, that God doth the like with the rest of the sons of men, especially that live in the church and household of God.

And this is no other but the sum of the doctrine of election as we teach it, and state it out of him ; which thus in these instances at the first pro pounded, he then pursues in the rest of the chapter, from ver. 14 to ver. 24 : * What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with God ? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ? For who hath resisted his will ? Nay, but man, who art thou that repliest against God ?

Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction : and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. In which words he further proceeds by answering some queries, and three objections, to clear the same assertion laid down in ver. 11 ; which I shall not now enlarge upon, they all so broadly speaking the same very thing which he has thus declared in ver. 11, and inferred from those particular examples of these two, as examples as well as types of the rest of the sons of men, who prove to be either vessels of mercy or of wrath.

And then, when he had thus delivered the doctrine of God s decrees about mankind, unto ver. 24, he then proceeds to the execution thereof upon those : Of him that calleth, elect, which, in ver. 11, he had said was by calling according to that decree ; which calling he, in the last words of ver. 23, expresseth to be a preparing of them for that glory, which was by his decree ordained them. And so he goes on, ver. 24 : * Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. And the difference which effectual calling, proceeding from election, puts between the elect and others, he handles from that verse unto the end of the 10th chapter.

That which, in the third place, I observe, is the correspondency, or rather identity, which the forementioned passages in the llth chapter (wherein my text is) do hold with the like in that foregone, chap. 9th, which shews that his scope as to this point of election is one and the same in both, and which do therefore give light each to the other.

4 In this llth chapter (the scope whereof I have last given), 1, he revives

22 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. the application of that doctrine to the Jews, upon the very same occasion he had entered upon it in ver. 9. And there it was said that these Jews had the privilege of being Israelites, and that to them pertained the adoption or title of the children of God, the covenants and the promises ; and that theirs were the fathers, meaning especially Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; thus in ver. 4, 5 ; and yet that nation should, in the community of it, be left to infidelity, and but so few whom the promises had taken effect upon. This he insinuates in those words, as containing the substance of an objec tion, Not as though the word of God had been of no effect, or had been wholly void and frustrate ; which implies that such an objection did lie in men s minds, or at least might do, and so weaken the truth of that doctrine of Christ, which he had delivered in the former part of this epistle, as being utterly inconsistent with so great and high titles of privileges enumerated in the verses afore. 2. They imply that there were yet some whom the word of God had taken hold upon, and these enough to vindicate the truth of God s word declared concerning them; and, thirdly, those words, not as though, otr oJov, sound plainly a prevention or preoccupation of that objection ; fourthly, the word there spoken of is meant the promise made to Abraham, and his seed, to be heirs of eternal life, which is thus expressed concerning Isaac and Jacob, the two persons here instanced in the text, that they were heirs of the same promise with him, as Heb. xi. 9, which the Jews understood to be universal unto all his seed after the flesh ; and that, therefore, they were * all the children of God, as their reply to Christ shews in John viii., which the apostle his answer and arguing in ver. 7, 8, Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children : but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called ; that is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God : but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, shews to have been at the bottom, as the cause and occasion of this his vindici-ce, or apologetical discourse, as I may well call it. Now, then, look at this false supposition, that all the people of Israel were the children of God, by reason of their being Abraham s and Israel s or Jacob s seed ; and hereupon those their titles and privileges aforesaid were the occasion, in that ninth chapter, of his treating of the doctrine of election there ; so here, in this eleventh chapter, he reassumes the very same occa sion, when he goes on to apply it to the Jews, beginning at the very first

I say then, Hath God cast away his people ? He speaks in reality the same thing ; to which he answers, ver. 2, with that distinction taken from election, God hath not cast away his people whom he foreknew. The verse, occasion is the same, and the answer is the same ; and the objection is solved by the doctrine of election.

2. The difference put between the true Israelite and the outward, is resolved into election, and that of pure grace as the foundation thereof: election obtained it* ver. 7, and the rest were blinded. And that election, such as was out of pure grace, by virtue of which it was that they obtained it, by obtaining through that election an effectual calling; for want of which, the rest, or non-elect, were left to their hardness. Such a grace as was purely grace, unintermingled with works foreseen, as in the verses afore, when he said, a remnant, according to the election of grace, ver. 5. He then explains what that grace was, and indeed that word carries its own inter

then it is no more of works : otherwise grace is no more grace, ver. 6. Insomuch as Austin, comparing these passages of both chapters together, pretation with it : For if by grace, saith he, * and especially that of ver. 11 of chap, ix., For the children not being 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 calleth ; with these now mentioned in chap. xi. ver. 5 and 6, observeth the accord* and agreement of the same scope in both.

3. And, thirdly, the accord appears in that the apostle termeth those few of the Jews called the election, a remnant, in both places ; also in chap. ix. ver. 27 : Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved ; which, as relating unto the words, ver. 25 and 26, De Dieu interpreteth as spoken of election, and so fully accords with * There is a remnant according to the election. The corollary brought off from these references and respects of these two ver. 5, chap, xi., chapters, one to the other, as touching election, is, that if election to life and salvation out of pure grace be the subject of the eleventh chapter, it must be also intended in the ninth chapter. Now the difference that is put between the election and the rest, in that eleventh chapter, is purely and clearly that which is in order unto the obtaining of eternal life, and there fore must be intended in the instances of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, also ; which some have gone about to divert, by contending the scope of both to have been solely in respect of temporal things, and that in their posteri ties also.

And surely, if many of the several passages in either chapter be compared together, this election we contend for, without respect to the foreseen con ditions, will appear to have been the subject in both, if in either of them ; they both speak ad idem, unto the same thing.

This for the interpretation of 1st, 2d, 3d, 5th, 6th, and 7th verses of the eleventh chapter.

I shall now proceed to the instance alleged by the apostle of an election and non-election, in Elias s days, among the people of that nation ; or to an interpretation of the third, fourth, and fifth verses of the eleventh chapter.

Lord, they have killed thy projihets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him ? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

The allegation of this single instance for all other is to confirm his asser tion, viz., that there was an election ; for so he closeth it at last, in ver. 5, Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace ; also to confirm what he had last said, that God had not cast away his people whom he foreknew ; but had an election of grace con tinued in that nation of the Jews, when yet the face of the generality of that nation were apostates from God, and his true worship ; and that yet God had a people whom he foreknowing had reserved to himself, whom the pro mises made to that nation had taken hold of, and with an eye and respect unto whom, and for whose sake the nation had the promises indefinitely given to them, even as in chap, ix., in the fore-part thereof, he had in like manner discoursed. And his inference from thence accordingly is, ver. 5. And therefore it followed not that because the generality of that nation believed not in Paul s time, but were hardened, that therefore Christ Jesus, whom the apostle preached, was not the true Christ, because it had no greater effect upon the multitude of that nation, who were, in profession, and in the style of the old covenant, the outward people of God, whilst yet God had a very considerable number that had embraced Christ, and the promises made in him, and were the true people of God ; that is, * whom God * Cui loco satis iste locus concordat. Ep. 106 ad Sixtum.

24 OP ELECTION. [BOOK I. foreknew, says he, should be existent in those days. Even as there were seven thousand in Elias s time in God s list and catalogue, which were enough then to make this good, that though the generality of that people were left to unbelief, yet God having a number, though but of some, whom election had saved, and preserved from a froward generation, that God had not cast away his people now, when Christ was preached to them ; not now, when so few believed ; for God had far fewer in Elias s time among the ten tribes ; for still God had them, and as many of them for a people to him, embracing his Son, whom he foreknew, and had chosen for his ; and this was sufficient to break the force of the objection they made. But why God foreknew so few among them in that age, this the apostle resolves into God s good pleasure and foreknowledge.

This is a pat and pertinent instance to this purpose, and in many parti culars parallel to the state of things in the apostle s days, which is likewise the apostle s scope, besides the former, as the apostle s own words in the applying of the instance shews, Even so then also at this time. I shall therefore compare them in a few things.

1. In himself. God hath not cast off his people, for I also am an * I am left alone; which shews, if there had been but one Israelite that had believed in Christ, Israelite; so Elias had instanced in himself alone: ver. 3, it had solved the cavil.

2. Elias makes intercession against Israel : They have killed thy pro phets, and digged down thine altars ; and they seek my life ; and so now might Paul have said in like manner in his times, that his countrymen, the Jews, had stirred up persecution everywhere; their great business was to go about to throw down the churches, and sought his life above all others ; of which you may read in the story of the Acts, and in the epistles, summed up, IThes. ii. 15, 16.

3. It was election made the difference in men s spirits then and now, which election of those in Elias s time, is expressed by this, I have reserved to myself/ pays God, ver. 4, I have left, as the words of God are in the story of the Kings; answerably election that now was in Paul s time, he calls them

Xtfipa, or xaraXf/z/^a, a remnant, a residue, or reserve, the word reserved in ver. 4 answering to Xf^/xa in ver. 5. 4. They are parallel in the fewness. There were then but seven thousand, and now in Paul s time not many thousands in comparison ; for although at first there was a great flush, and that, Acts xxi. 20, the brethren -of Jerusalem say unto Paul, Thou seest, brother, how many thousand of the Jews which believe, yet afterwards there was an ebb, both in a cessation of any more being converted, as also by so great an apostasy of many that had professed Christ ; as it was evident to Paul God had cast off the generality of that nation.

But the main thing I observe is the force of this word xareX/aw ; it im ports, first, a laying hold on some when all were going, and they are there fore said to be reserved, as things that are left when others are gone. And of those that be elected, he says that he reserved them to himself; oppositely, the other, he left them [to] go where they would : he let them go after Baal ; he suffered them to walk in their own ways, as in Acts xiv. 16; He left them to their own counsels, Ps. Ixxxi. 12 ; he left them to themselves ; but, says God, those I reserve for myself. And this expresses the grand end of election, with difference from what becomes of others. Election is a reservation unto God ; it is his own reserv ing persons for himself ; they have the whole of him ; all the love, all the blessedness he hath, they have among them. It is not only he chooses them

CHAP. II.] OF ELECTION. from within himself, as having no motive out of himself why he should do it; therefore it is said of election, which he purposed in himself; but further, it is for himself, he reserves himself for them, and reserves them for himself.

Use 1. And therefore it is as grand an evidence as any other, that thou are elected, if thou sequesterest thyself unto God, and choosest him for him

My lot is fallen in a good ground ; the Lord is my portion, says my soul. self, and sayest of him,

2. Let the saints therefore not live to themselves. We live not to our selves, nor die to ourselves, but to the Lord ; for we are God s, reserved by election.

3. Let men take heed how they meddle with the saints ; they are God s, reserved for himself. Says David to Saul s courtiers and his own enemies, Know that God hath chosen the man that is godly (David means himself) to himself, and therefore take heed of wronging or opposing of me, Ps. iv.

4. God is engaged to carry thee on, and to carry thee through, for he hath reserved thee for himself; therefore he will not lose what is so selfly* designed and chosen for himself. The Lord s portion is his people. 5. You see what keeps men in evil times, as these seven thousand were kept in the times of Elias, from the superstitions and idolatries of the times ; it is election. Rev. xiii. 8, And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship the beast, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

6. The worst and most persecuting times that are, cannot extinguish the elect. Ahab and Jezebel could not, nor yet cause them to defile their con sciences. Jezebel searched every corner, and yet Elias lives; and three hundred f prophets were hid with him in a cave, and lived, though with bread and water.

7. If you be the elect ones of God, that God hath reserved for himself, it is no matter what times you live in. The Lord hath appointed in several successions, greater and lesser difficulties. Some times wherein the churches have peace, and some wherein they stand in jeopardy of their lives every moment ; and some must have the worst, for as the day is his, so the dark some night is his, as the psalmist speaks of good and evil times. Thus those did in Ahab s time ; and what matter was it, seeing God had reserved them to take them to himself. If it be thy lot to live in as bad as they did, yet whereas heaven is reserved for thee, and God hath reserved thee for himself, thou needest not be anxious ; thou shalt stand up in thy lot, as the angel comforted Daniel, who would fain have lived to have seen those blessed days the angels told him of. When times in any age are upon the tropic of turning from bad to good, there are some precious ones shall die just in the vertical point, as old Simeon did, and never enjoy the prosperity of them.

8. Be content with little in the world, and out of the world. Thou seest that God, that made the world, contents himself with but a few, but a rem nant ; and so he hath them safe with him to heaven, he satisfies himself with the enjojing them to eternity. Were thy houses and thy goods burned, care not, seeing God hath reserved thee wholly for himself.

That is, particularly or exclusively ED. t Quan hundred ? ED.

26 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

CHAPTER III.

That, de facto, God hath made an election of some out of pure grace, with a non-election of others, proved by the story of all ages of the world, through the Old and New Testament.

I found upon the same text of Rom. xi. 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th verses, this second assertion, that these two companies or sorts of men, thus diffe renced, the election, and the rest not elected, have been in all ages of the world, and have divided mankind, and shall to the end.

1. All the world are and have been either the election or the rest; yea, and therefore those other are termed the rest (the tenderest word that could have been used), as being the other whole remainder when the elect are taken forth. As if you have a great heap afore you, and you cull out some, and what are the remainder are called the rest, there is not a third company; and they are so distinguished, as that none of the elect do become of the number of the rest, nor of the rest do become of the number of the elect. And therefore you must never intermingle them, by thinking that a man may be of the elect to-day, and at their death reprobate; for these two, as contradistinct sayings, remain such to eternity. If any of the elect were finally hardened, then this other saying, the rest were blinded, were not true ; or if any of those that are the rest did obtain it, then that first, the election have obtained (as they stand thus differenced one from the other), were not true. The elect and the rest stand severed in such a contra-distinction, by two such events appropriate to each ; you must take election and obtained it as eternally yoked, and belonging to the company alone ; and on the con trary, the rest were blinded, as the issue of that company alone ; who are not said to be the rest, because they are blinded, but being the rest that is severed from the election, it comes to pass that they are blinded; as on the contrary, the election being a company chosen out from the rest, they obtain it, and are not finally blinded.

2. That this division is and hath been in all ages, &c. I found it thus far upon the text. You see the apostle instanceth in two ages, and parallels them together in this very respect. Elijah s times in the old, in which God had an election (though the worst of times), seven thousand men, and the rest fell all to Baal ; so even in this present age, says he, it proves to be among my countrymen the Jews. And the word so tlien is an inference from the former instance to prove it, as well as it is a parallel to exemplify it. So that although he instanceth but in two, these ages past and present, yet it leads on and gives a just occasion to extend inquiry into all ages. How doth he prove that there is an election now as well as a parallel ? Or how doth this follow, that if he had an election before, he hath now ? Because elec tion nunquam excidit, saith Pareus, election never ceaseth to be in the world. A church unto God must then cease to be extant, for whose sakes the world doth stand, and will continue no longer than till God hath all his elect out of it, and then will the end be.

To evidence the demonstration of this, that there is an election, &c., I shall make use of no other argument than a representation and scheme of the course and current which runs down through all times, as the Scripture stories have purposely, in a continuation of instances of persons elected, drawn a line of election, and oppositely, together there is a line of rejection through out all ages ; which way of proof is most proper and suitable to the course of the text, which hath recourse to an exemplary instance of election, con-

CHAP. III.] OF ELECTION

tinued in an age as deplorate as whatever in the Old Testament. This draught of the whole, set in one view, may prove pleasant to you, and will b3 profitable for your instruction.

There are those in the world that say God hath loved all mankind alike as to salvation, and to that purpose hath in all ages given them helps and divine assistances in common, more or less, which we usually term common grace, which, if their wills, being stirred up and moved thereby, will use well, then they may and do obtain faith, and an effectual calling unto salvation. And upon the right use of those common adjutories it is that God doth then elect them, and not till then ; or upon the foresight from all eternity that they will do so. But if they do not use those helps well, then they are reprobated or rejected.

But from that rehearsal of instances through all ages, when put altogether, it will appear that the special grace of election hath put the difference, the one obtaining (as the word in the text is) by virtue thereof, the election hath obtained it, while the rest of mankind, with all their common helps, have perished, being left to the blindness and hardness of their own hearts in the use of them: And the rest were blinded. And the story of the one sort set oppositely to the other, as the Scripture in all ages doth, will evince it. Now my argument from matter of fact, or from the examples recorded in such a continued series, to prove that this proceeded from God s eternal pur poses and decrees, and that one are argumentative of the other, is founded upon this rule, which will not deceive us, that what hath been done and fallen out in the world, and as it hath been done, that God afore decreed and determined should come to pass, yea, and in that manner as it hath come to pass, the infallibility of which maxim is abundantly evident in Scripture declarations, and from undeniable reason, drawn from the perfections of God.

If, therefore, in the stories of all ages, this differing condition and disposement of persons be found, then certainly the decrees of God must have been the supreme cause and determiner thereof. But above all things else, this general rule will undeniably hold in the matter of grace and election out of grace ; for there is nothing more God s own, to dispose of to whom he pleaseth, than grace in us, and glory to us, out of the freedom of the grace in himself, and so are evidently dependent on his sovereign wih

Shall he not, says Christ of him, do what he will with his own ? And for the confirming of this rule in this special case touching election, that the matter of fact, or what doth fall out in persons, as touching their salvation, doth come to pass in the event, according to God s everlasting decrees thereabout. I shall only mention what an apostle, in an assembly of apostles, Acts xv., did only mention and allege to this very purpose, as the ground why the Gentiles came now, and but now, to be converted, which was newly begun to be done afore their eyes in that age, ver. 14 ; yea, and together therewith, the falling down or decay of the house of David, or the church of the Jews, and the building of that church in the room thereof; applying for the issue, or fulfilling of both these, the prophecy of Amos, * After chap. ix. His words the apostle rehearseth in Acts xv. ver. 16, 17, this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, that is fallen down ; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doth all these things. And to cause this great alteration foretold to have the more weight upon the minds of that assembly, and cause the greater observation by them, he adds, ver. 18, Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

28 OF ELECTION. [BOOK L

The coherence of which passage with that afore, brings forth this conclu sion, that as God had foreknown and decreed, even so he had foretold ; and as he had both decreed from eternity and foretold, even so in the events it came to pass, and that at that time wherein he had foretold and decreed they should. Therefore in the close of the 12th verse, you read how the prophet Amos doth add these words to his prophecy of it, saith the Lord, who doth all these things. It was not therefore his simple foreseeing what man would do, nor what these Gentiles would do in their turning to God, and that this conversion of them should fall out at that very time or age ; for the prophet notes that circumstance also, After this, I will return, says God, to do so and so. Whereby it appears that the conversion of the Gentiles, and that at that time, and not for two thousand years time afore, notwithstanding all those common helps that had been (as must be supposed) continued to them ; this, he says, was the Lord s doing, and was marvellous in their eyes. It was the Lord that doth all these things, that so foretold it all, and every particular of them, who is said to work all things according to the counsel of his will, as Eph. i. And the apostle, he imputes and ascribes it there unto : ver. 18, * Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. He brings this matter of fact or event, or that these things thus fell out, and God s everlasting foreknowledge of them as his sole work, to gether, and shews how the issue or event and his decree corresponded, and were answering one to the other. He had foretold them long afore he did them or brought them to pass, and foretells withal that it should be his doing, and not man s, that effected them. And both his foretelling and the effecting them, he tells us, were from out of his foreknowledge and decree so to do.

So that my conclusion from all these three stands firm, that all these things, or these matters of fact and real events (as he terms them), as they fall out, so they were foreknown and decreed ; and that therefore by the like issues and events in point of men s having had grace and being saved, we may infallibly judge and infer what were his decrees. Let us hold, then, the contemplation of this rule in our eye in all the instances that I shall give of persons. That look what we find fell out in the execution, was but the effect of God s foreknowledge, even as the conversion of the Gentiles at that time was the same, and will hold true of the conversion, faith, and sal vation of every person recorded in the Scripture story of their godliness ; yea, and therefore also we find matters of fact, or things to be done and come to pass, are said to be written in God s fore-decrees, as in the Scrip ture of truth : Dan. x. 21, I will tell thee, saith the angel, what is noted in the scripture of truth. And yet there was no outward scripture as yet had spoken of it. God s decrees, therefore, are the scriptures in which matters of fact are first written. And therefore, what our Scriptures have set down and written, are all but extracts and copies taken out of the scrip tures in God s heart, in which they were written from everlasting ; wherein it is equally said, the names of all those particular persons that are elect men were first written as the first-born, and thus Clement, and those with him, whose names are in the book of life, Philip, iv. 3, says the apostle ; and therefore by the same law and rule, we conclude that all those particular persons whom out of the Scriptures we shall make recital of as just, and holy, &c., we may safely write upon each and every person of them, that they were elect, and that they become holy and righteous, it was by election; and of the other sort, of wicked and ungodly, left to their natural blindness, we may say, they never were written in that book of life, but under the title of the rest, left out ; yea, and as the apostle s word is, Jude 4, forewritten

too in another book. We may say of every one of each sort the Scripture gives the different catalogue of, Concordat cum originali.

And so I come to the story I proposed ; which is the map of God s decrees in the execution of them, who doth all these things exactly, according to his everlasting purpose about them, whose his works are known to him from the beginning.

I begin from the fall, with the first two that were put forth into the world ; next after Cain, an election brake forth in Abel : he was of the election, and Cain was the first-born of the rest, or seed of the serpent. You know that God, when he preached to Adam and Eve, had by prophecy divided all into two seeds. Of the one, Christ was to be the head, the seed of the woman, &c. ; and of the other, the serpent. And the seed of the serpent are not all men as by nature, but those that prove wicked, and have an enmity against the saints. Now, 1 John iii. 12, Cain is said to be of that wicked one ; there began the seed, as election of grace and works here in the 6th verse, make up the fundamental division. So the covenant of grace and the covenant of works are the concomitants that follow thereupon. And to shew that the covenant of grace followed upon election, and so the other upon works, they accordingly did work in the hearts of these two first men, the sons of Adam : Cain betook himself to the covenant of works, as God speak ing to the way of his heart shews, If thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted ? but Abel being of the election, he betook himself to faith, he dealt with godly faith : Heb. xi. 4, By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness ; that is, he was righteous. And faith betakes itself to the grace of God, or God s special grace and love, and is proper to the elect. So, then, Abel was of the election of grace. Now, Titus i. 1, it is called the faith of God s elect. And to manifest that Cain was a castaway, he was presently upon it cast out of his father s family, where the presence of the Lord was, and never returned ; but he and his people fell a-building cities. The election obtained it, as the phrase is of Abel, Heb. xi. 4, and Cain and the rest were blinded.

But then Seth, he through election obtained it, and election ran in that line among his seed, and then men that were of him began to call upon the name of the Lord. They were worshippers of God, and professed themselves to be of the separation from Cain and his posterity ; and though few of them were elect (as by and by), yet among them we have some, as in those godly persons, whose catalogue you have in that of Seth s children, Enoch, Methuselah, &c. But in process of time, as the world was filled and multiplied, even those that professed themselves the sons of God cor rupted themselves, as you see Gen. vi. There was few of them regenerate, they were of the company of the rest ; for you read in the Gen. vi. 3, speak ing of the sons of God, My Spirit shall not always strive with the sons of men, for they are all but flesh. They had the gospel preached, as 1 Peter, chap, iii, by Enoch, &c. ; and God s Spirit strove with them, so as to assist their wills to turn, but not to overcome their wills, and so they remained but flesh. And again, at ver. 5 of Gen. vi., And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God had cast up the accounts of the whole world after sixteen hundred years, and he brings in this general, that every imagination of their thoughts were evil, and only evil, and that con tinually, even in these sons of godly professors, who yet, notwithstanding, were thereby evidently unregenerate. For a regenerate man s thoughts are not only evil, for he hath a world of good thoughts and affections. And again, ver. 12, And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt:

80 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. All flesh, of one and the other sort, of Cain s seed and Seth s. It is worth the inquiry into the original cause of this. Why, one there is, they were left to their free-will grace; that is, those common helps of light of nature, &c., to assist their wills. They had the preaching of Enoch, Noah, a preacher of righteous ness, and the Spirit of God accompanying their ministry ; for he did strive with them. And Christ was preached to them, 1 Peter iii. And the Spirit s striving must be supposed to move and assist their wills, and these opera tions men call free ; yet the pondun, or weight of flesh and corruption, pre vailed, and carried them another way, and they were blinded.

But you will say, Was there none of the elect among them ? Yes, Noah was, and some of his family. Well, but still what put the difference of Noah from the rest of the whole world? Look into the same chapter. Gen. vi. and the 8th verse, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Pray, what do you think to be the meaning of finding grace in the eyes of the Lord? It expresseth election in the words of my text. As also when God says of Moses, the chosen of God, I have known thee by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight; and is all one with the apostle s By grace you are saved, Eph. ii. ; and so he became heir of the righteousness of faith, Heb. xi. 7, for faith follows election inseparably. So, then, the election obtained it, and the rest, with all their free-will helps (yet being left to flesh), were blinded and hardened. This is a strange thing, that among an whole world of people there should not be found one whose free will, assisted by common and general grace, should have obtained it; for he styles them the world of ungodly. What ! not one ? And that Noah by election-grace should obtain it. Who would not venture to be saved by the way of election-grace, when it is a world to one that a man is saved no other way ?

Thus the old world, as the apostle calls it, both began and ended in By grace you are saved.

Let us now view the world that now is, as the same apostle calls it. No sooner doth Noah with his three sons come forth from the ark, which was the epocka from whence the new world began, but the election and the rest began anew to be declared, even among those three sons that had been pre served from the flood. And this appeared by prophecy of Noah, directed thereto by God : Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, says he, Gen. ix. 6, which imports that God was his Lord, and had chosen him, and blessed him with all manner of blessings. But what of the other, Cursed be Ham, he shall be a servant of servants, which is still that whereby rejection is ex pressed. Japhet and his posterity should one day be persuaded to live in the tents of Shem, which was meant of the calling of the Gentiles, the European Christians, ver. 27, fulfilled more than two thousand years after. For which, with difference from Ham, when Shem s genealogy comes to be recorded, Gen. x. 21, it is first prefaced, Shem, the father of the children of Eber; that is, of the church that was to be of the Hebrews or Jews. And then it is added, * The brother of Japhet. Was not Ham the brother of Shem also ? Yes ; but Japhet was to be the father of the Gentiles, of whose race the church of the Gentiles was afterwards most to consist; and so they are yoked as brethren in this blessing, as Simeon and Levi in evil.

From these sons of Noah did come the division of the nations that then rose up. God divided their languages, appointed the bounds of their habi tations, according as the three sons of Noah, and their sons that came of them, did disperse themselves. The number of which nations, in their division, you have recorded in the catalogue of those fathers of them that

descended from Noah s three children, Gen. x., which to be the scope of that chapter the last verse shews : By these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. And the number of those fathers, and so of the nations, is found to be just seventy. At this division of the nations, which in his counsel God appointed, Acts xvii. 26, God was then to choose again in what nation or nations he would have the great current of his election to run. This division of the nations is said to be made in Eber s time, Gen. x. 25, who was the great-grand child of Noah, or the third succession descended from his son of blessing, Shem ; for until then all the children of Noah and his sons lived together, and were of one language. But after so long a time it was that they were confounded in their language, and began to scatter at Babel (and not afore his time), and from that time to be scattered, and so did first begin to be set up those several nations, which yet at the first must needs be supposed to have been done in some succession of time.

But why is it with such a special notoriety said, this division was made in Eber s time ? Even to signify that upon the division God began to separate the Jewish nation to himself in Eber, whom he first set out to be the father of the Hebrew nation, or the church of the Jewish nation, to begin with him. At the division of other nations, the elect of Noah s family having before that division lain promiscuously intermingled with those that were those nations, but not till then divided. Therefore, chap, x., at the very entrance of Shem s genealogy, Moses doth with the like observancy begin it thus, ver. 21, Shem, the father of all the children of Eber. And why of Eber s children, when Shem had other children, whose genealogy he also there records, as Elam and Ashur (the fathers of the Assyrians and Persian nations), who were the elder brethren to Arphaxad the father of Eber, and Eber, too, was the third from Noah by this Arphaxad.

It is high time now to demand what should this long narrative tend to ? Even unto this, to make way for and to discover that next great and long stage of election in its new race after the flood, upon this division of the nations, how and what course it took and held, viz. that when God was no\v after the flood to begin to choose among the nations when they were first divided (which we have heard was in Eber s time), that then he chose the Hebrew nation from among all those nations, through whom this mighty current of election should run for above two thousand years continuance.

Every tittle of this is the result of the foregoing passages, compared together, as any intelligent reader, by putting things together, will easily discern ; for in that it is said in Eber s days the nations were divided, is imported withal that in him and from him did the Hebrew nation begin to be divided from the rest, as the other nations were from one another. And accordingly we find his posterity (when even few) was called Hebrews, as their national denomination and distinction from those other nations they lived amongst: Gen. xiv. 13, * Abram the Hebrew, it is said, and * Joseph the Hebrew, Gen. xxxix. 14. And therefore also when they grew up into a great body, and were multiplied so as to deserve the name of a nation for their numbers, and as then living in one of those divided nations, viz. among the Egyptians, they then re-assume that title, and are again styled Hebrews, Exod. xv. 10. But yet more expressly in Balaam s prophecy the whole nation is styled Eber: Num. xxiv. 25, They shall afilict Asshur (meaning the Assyrian nations, so called from their father), and they shall afflict Eber, that is, the Hebrew or Jewish nation, named Eber from this their forefather in like wise.

And then for the other part, that at the division of the nations God caused

32 OP ELECTION. [BOOK I. his election to take its course through the heart and bowels of that Hebrew nation, with difference from the other sixty-nine nations, as the event suffi ciently evinceth ; so another scripture, added to these, doth signify and con firm. And you have it as a memorial set down in that highly divine song of : Deut. xxxii. 7-9, Remember the Moses, which was his last to that people days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee ; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel : for the Lord s portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inherit ance. He bids them look back unto ancient days, the traditions whereof their fathers had left down to them, and among other, how his eye of grace and favour was upon them, to single their fathers forth then, when he divided the nations (relating to that famous division, Gen. x.). The number of the children of Israel being, when first in Egypt, seventy souls ; and just so many, even seventy heads, or fathers of the nations, is the number they are divided into, Gen. x. ; and from thence to have continued to that day the same to themselves, who were their posterity, with this great difference, that unto the nations he appointed (as also Paul, Acts xvii.) bonds of habitations as their portions and inheritances on the earth, as in verse 8; but had that eye of grace upon this nation, as to make them a portion and inheritance unto himself; for (says he) as thereby expressing God s special love by this, ver. 9, For the Lord s portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inherit ance. And by these and the like expressions it is that election is signified in many places parallel to this ; as Deut. vii. 6, The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth ; Ps. cxxxv. 4, For the Lord God hath chosen

Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. And you see it is so in my text; which, though as it is spoken of that whole nation, was but in a type ; yet in that type was shewed that in that nation peculiarly there were those his chosen people that were ordained to eternal communion with himself.

Well, but you may demand what became of the other nations, and what was the general condition of them ? Truly, their lot fell to be the rest, to speak in the language of the text. The apostle hath given a brief resolve ; and that being added doth make the proof of the other part of the doctrine, and so the whole of it complete. Acts xiv. 15, 16, We preach to you, says Paul to the Lystrians, that you would turn from these vanities (so he terms their idols and false gods they generally worshipped) to the living God. We preach unto you, that ye should turn from these vanities, unto the living God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all the things that are therein : who in time past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways ; which he adds, to shew how the condition of all nations was the same with that of these Lystrians, given up to the same idolatry. The issue, then, of all comes to what is in the text, that the rest were blinded. God took [the] election out from among the Jews for himself, and the rest were left to the counsels of their own wills.

We might here leave off, and sit down and take breath, for the two thou sand years and upwards space that follow, as having seen how, arid where [the] election was disposed of, together with the preterition of the rest. That God had alone known, and owned the Jewish nation, and an election proceeded forth from amongst them, as by the prophet Amos, a long while after the times we have been now upon, God utters himself. And so we might come immediately to the times of the New Testament ; but that we

CHAP. III.] or ELECTION. 83 find among Eber s children, both before and after it grew up into a body as a nation for numbers, some eminent observations in the story of the Old

Testament, how election went on to make the like difference, even amongst them ; and hath (as if the Holy Ghost delighted to do it) recorded many apparent particular instances of an election, and the rest, to have run along in their families and tribes ; and this I am bound to do, the rather because our apostle in these 9th, 10th, llth chapters to the Romans insists especially on those instances as most apparent examples of what I pursue.

1. Before they grew up to be a nation for number, as in Egypt they became, the genealogy of Shem and Eberis set down, Gen. xi., from ver. 27 to the end of the chapter, and centres in Abraham.

So then we are to begin anew in him, and from him, whom God made his covenant with, for him and his seed after, saying, I will be thy God, and of thy children, which was indefinitely spoken; but the apostle informs us all were not children, but those were the children that were children of promise ; that is, those whom God in giving out the promises did intend therein, and they were only his elect.

The prophet Isaiah, chap. li. 1, 2, calls upon that people to consider Abraham their founder and original: Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abra ham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. And unto what should they look at in him or her ? 1. At what his condition was afore his calling: a server of other gods ; until his calling, an idolater ; from the midst of whom God did single him out, which Joshua lays afore that people to look at and consider : chap. xxiv. 2, 3, And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor : and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. Was it, then, his well using of natural helps, or additional light by education ? Surely no. But as degenerate children of Eber, he and his father both were servers of other gods. Therefore look, 2, that it must be election or electing love that moved God so to call him, and could be no other. Moses in the general layeth afore their consideration God s love and choice of their father : Deut iv. 37, He loved thy fathers, of whom Abraham is counted first and chief. And chap. x. 14, Only he had a delight to love them, and so set his heart upon them. And that word only singly points out that his love to have been the sole cause ; it was only that he loved them, &c., and so in like manner chose you after them. As it follows in Deut. x., but more particularly and expressly, Nehemiah in his solemn prayer says it of Abraham, chap. ix. 7, Thou art the Lord the God, who didst choose Abram, and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gave to him the name of Abraham. For an election of grace was most conspicuous in his example. Therefore, ver. 3, * I called him alone (says God by the prophet there). Consider that too. I know that that word alone interpreters wholly carry to import that he was called a single or an alone man when God called, as in reference and in way of opposition to what follows ; and I increased him in so numerous a pos terity out of that one man s loins. But why not also, and perhaps rather, that God singled him out alone in respect that he was the first that was called ; and his father, and Lot, and Sarah were by and upon his calling moved to turn with him to the true worship of the true God ? But he alone first, and so was the restorer of religion in that family ; and therefore in him

VOL. ix. c

84 OP ELECTION. [BOOK I. election did first eminently break forth in God s so extraordinarily taking him forth alone as he did, as Paul differenceth his conversion from other

Jews, without being instructed by man, but by revelation. And this Stephen observes, as with difference from those others that left their country with him. Thus, Acts vii. 2, The God of glory appeared unto our father

Abraham, when he was in Mesopatamia, before he dwelt in Charran ; the title of the God of glory is thus given him, because God appeared in a glorious manner to him, and he also is alone there mentioned ; because he was the he goat, and first leader of his father and them into Charran, and after his father s death, of Lot into Canaan. And this Ainsworth hath also observed upon the 31st verse of Gen. xi., especially from those words in that verse, that Lot and Sarah went forth with tham from Ur of the Chaldees ; that is (saith he) with Abraham and his father ; whom Abraham acquainting with the oracle of God to himself, his father repenting of his false worship went out with him (as Ainsworth s words there are) and so Lot with them ; that is, with Abraham and his father. And that God revealed to Abraham his electing of him, and so that his first call proceeded therefrom, as also of all the spiritual seed, that one passage cited and interpreted by Paul, Heb. vi., hath abundantly satisfied me ; Abraham being therein made the pattern of us in election, the original of salvation, as well as he is in point of believing and justifying, the way to * God sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I salvation : Heb. vi. 13, will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee ; that is, first, I will bless thee in thine own person, and then in multiplying thee into a spiritual seed, the heirs of promise with thee ; of whom thou shalt have the honour to be styled the father, because therein thou bearest the type of my Christ, who is the everlasting Father, and my first chosen, and others in him. Now the apostle in applying this to the comfort of elect believers, who were intended in that part of the promise, * in multiplying I will multiply thee, as is plain in the place he cites, Gen. xvii. 22, * In multiplying I will multiply thy seed, he interprets this promise to have proceeded from, and to declare God s eternal purpose of election, by his inserting by way of gloss those few words, the immutability of his counsel, as that which his promise proceeded from, and expressed, ver. 17, Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath. And what is the immutability of his counsel, but his unchangeable decrees ? A promise made by God to us is one thing, and God s counsel is another ; his counsels are his decrees within himself from everlasting, as Eph. i. 4, 9, 10. And what other is a promise with an oath but God s immutable counsel, or election, put into promise ? And who are * the heirs of promise, but the same whom in Rom. ix. he terms the children of promise ? And if children, then heirs, such as Isaac there is said to have been, Rom. ix. 7, 8. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called ; * they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God : but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. But though we have seen the election to have obtained it in faithful Abraham, yet that is but one part of rny assertion ; you may yet inquire concerning the other part. Are there none recorded to have been the rest, as those that were blinded, so to set off the grace of Abraham s election, and render it the more conspicuous ? Yes, verily, even in his father s house, his own brother Nahor. You not only read not of his not removing* with Abraham, as converted with him to his religion, which his father Terah * Qu. his removing ? ED. that is,

repenting did, and Lot, of which you may read, Gen. xi., but Nahor would not stir, not he, a foot, though father, and brothers, and sister went out from Ur of the Chaldees, but remained still with his idolatrous countrymen, and continued an idolater, and derived it down as his religion to his posterity. You know, or have heard it, I suppose, out of the story of Laban s (Nahor s grandchild) his images, Gen. xxxi. 19, which himself calls his gods, ver. 30 ; as also how, when Jacob and he came to take an oath, * Jacob sware by the god of his father Isaac, who was then living ; and Laban sware by the god of his grandfather Nahor, ver. 53, yea, and in the plural calleth them the gods VPN, the gods of Abraham, and the gods of Nahor, judge between us ; whether meaning thereby that at first Abraham himself had served the same gods that Nahor had done, or that Laban joined Nahor s gods with Abraham s, the true God, and so that Nahor served both, so to blind* him self and Jacob by oath, I have not time now to dispute ; for, however, thereby it is plain that Laban professed to worship those gods, and so other gods besides the true, which the jealous God will in no wise bear in those he calls to draw near unto him to worship him. Whereas Jacob swears only by the fear of his father Isaac, that is, whom Isaac feared ; and answerably, Laban professeth further, that these gods he swore by were the gods which his father Bethuel, and his grandfather Nahor, Abraham s own brother, had worshipped as their gods. So, then, you see of what religion they of that line were of, and that they had continued idolaters in their suc cessive generations, and thereby are manifestly declared to have been of the rest that were blinded.

Abraham s family (as a worthy interpreter! hath observed) did in his next and immediate succession bear the type or resemblance of the future condi tion of the church ; and in his family and next successors there fell out, of all other, the most pregnant instances of election and preterition ; for as his family was the first part, so the epitome of the ensuing whole ; and accord ingly the Scripture hath made the most singular observations hereof. There are two pairs of instances in that family ; 1st, of Isaac and Ishmael, the immediate sons of Abraham ; then, 2dly, of Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac, extant whilst Abraham was alive.

That Isaac was a child of pure election-grace, as the aforehand cause of his faith and holiness, and not the subsequent, of election without works, and that as such he was cast into Abraham s bosom, as a precious gift, whilst Ishmael was excluded from that blessing, is evident enough from the story itself in Moses, although the apostle should not have moreover expressly told us so, and alleged it to that purpose ; for that God, ere he was conceived, should declare him heir of the same salvation with Abraham, and immutably and irreversibly estate the covenant of grace upon him, as an inheritance settled on him by an entail, with a professed difference from Ishmael : Gen.

Xvii. 10-21, And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed ; and thou shalt call his name Isaac : and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for * Qu. bind ? ED. t See Rivetus in Genesim. Exercit. 102, cap. 21. Cum tamen certum sit domnm Abraham! per ilium tempus fuisse typum ecclesise, non solum analogia sumpta a parte ad totum, quae tamen in hoc argumento negligi non dcbet ; sed maxime a constantissima Dei natura, cujus una est semper sibi constans erga ecclesiam voluntas, unaque ratio quse ex hoininibus sibi facit filios ; quemadmodum igitur in familia Abrahami per electionem suam discrevit fratres ut unus esset hseres, alter excluderetur domo, quamvis ipse Abraham aliter statuisset ; sic enim per electionem suam asternam dis crevit filios promissionis, quibus fidem dare voluit, ut in semine Abrahami censerentur, ab iis qui carnis prserogativa turgentes, non sunt Israelite secundum spiritum.

36 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

Ishmael, I have heard thee : Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and I will multiply him exceedingly : twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time the next year ; which you know how the apostle applies unto the covenant of grace and works : Gal. iv. 22-26, For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh ; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are of allegory: for these are the two covenants ; the one from mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. And that afterwards, whilst Isaac was but young, and lay as a sacrifice bound upon the altar, God should by an oath confirm the promises made of blessing him, and with him his spiritual seed: Gen. xxii. 16, 17, By myself have I sworn, in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and .as the sand which is upon the sea-shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. Whereof

Isaac was the first included and intended, for it was in reference to, and upon occasion of him that God uttered it. Thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son, from me, ver. 13, therefore I will multiply thee in him in so numerous a seed as are the stars or sands. This oath, as we afore observed out of the apostle s interpretation of it, was intended of the spiritual seed, the heirs of promise, such as Isaac was, the declared son of promise ; and this oath declared how that promise proceeded from God s immutable coun sel, as the apostle interprets it, which is election, that sure foundation, the Lord knows who are his, and knew well what he then did in so swearing. And shall we think that God s oath and irrevocable promise was built and founded upon the immutability of Isaac s free-will grace, and such helps, as he should by free-will use them, which he should for the future have in Abraham s family, in common with Ishmael ? Isaac was yet to live a long while in the world, and might, according to the principles of free-will grace, have fallen away and proved unregenerate ; and God could have no such sure and certain assurance of him as to venture, as I may so say, an oath upon him, with a peremptory irreversible blessing of him. What ! and establish his everlasting covenant with him upon the uncertain fickleness and mutability of free-will, no otherwise ? Nay, would God have pawned by oath his own self, by myself have I sworn, so as to cease to be God, if Isaac and Abraham both should cease to persevere in faith to the end of their lives, for it was Abraham s case also, according to their position, to have been assisted but according to the rule of free-will grace s assistance, as surely as God said, surely, &c. The foundation of this oath lay deeper in God s own heart ; it lay in the immutability of his own counsel, which he purposed within himself, wherewith he invincibly resumed and undertook to carry on Isaac s and Abraham s wills to the end ; not in the stability of what he fore saw was within themselves. But we need spend no more time upon this of Isaac, nor would have done, had it not made for a comfortable issue to us all, of which by and by.

The apostle, therefore, to confirm that distinction of his, of an election, from the common Israelite, he instanceth to that end in the persons of Ish mael and Isaac, and then Esau and Jacob ; which instances do manifestly declare, first, that the promises of God to Abraham, that God would be the God of his seed, Gen. xvii., were limited in their intent to the persons of Isaac, and so to Jacob, as leading examples unto the rest of that seed of his

that should be children of the promise ; in affirming of these, in particular, that they were, in God s foreknowledge, the only children of the promise, and not those other, either Esau or Ishmael ; only with this difference, from others of the elect to follow, that Isaac and Jacob were definitely and by name declared children of the promise, whereas the elect seed, which were to come after, are but indefinitely spoken of in the promise to Abraham. I will be a God of thy seed, not naming who, and yet not intending all of his carnal seed, are therefore indefinitely delivered and uttered, and so are to be understood ; yet so as, in that indefinite promulgation of them, God did intend within himself (who alone knows personally who are his) those very individual persons whom he had chosen, and these only ; and they only are the children of promise, even as Isaac and Jacob are said to be.

Only Isaac and Jacob came by name to be mentioned in personal promises of them ; but the other of the seed elect, their names are concealed, yet still so as the promises are only theirs, and they only children of the promise, as well as Isaac and Jacob were. All the indefinite promises of salvation are but the expressions of election, and its intendments, indefinitely declared as touching the persons ; yet those persons were fixed upon by God, and for their sakes those promises are given. And this is evidently the scope of the apostle s argument there, to prove that all are not Israel, that are of Israel, nor all children of the promise ; or else his proof of this from those instances had not held. Though the promises were, because indefinite, to be promulgated to all, that none knowing but that himself might be a per son intended, as well as any other, might be moved to seek for an assured interest in the promise, by effectual calling and conversion. And because of this general promulgation, it is that Peter exhorts the Jews in that man ner as he doth : Acts iii. 25, 26 : Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kingdoms of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

Now, as the apostle proves by these two pair of instances of Isaac and Ishmael, &c., that this was a leading case of the like difference among the people of Israel to come, so he as plainly resolves this difference put between them (and so in their example among others) into God s election, who, hav ing pitched his eye and grace on some, doth in the foresight and intuition of them, effectually designed by him, give forth and utter those promises of salvation, which are but the very declaration of an election amongst the sons of men ; and the matters or things that are promised therein are but what election did design, only declareth them, as to us, but indefinitely as to per sons ; so that still these elect only are the children of the promise in tended ; which that they are so is in the end discovered by effectual calling, and conversion wrought in them and not in others. That all this is so (and it is a great so), is evident by the llth verse that follows in that 9th chapter, For the children, namely, Esau and Isaac,* 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 calleth.

It is clearly resolved into God s purpose by election, and shews how that election discovers itself upon the children of promise, by causing the pro mises to take hold, by working faith in the hearts of those who are intended by God in the promise, and are only the true children of the promises, * sons of peace, as Christ aforehand, when he sent his apostles to preach the gospel of peace, enstyles them ; and thus it was that election manifested * Qu. Jacob ? ED.

38 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. itself in Isaac and Jacob. And election manifested itself in the effectual calling both of Isaac and of Jacob. As the last words in ver. 11 [shew], the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. And although in the instance of Isaac, he hath not mentioned a scripture that hath the election of him (and yet that in Gen. xvii. 21, My covenant will I establish with Isaac, is a plain declaration of the thing itself), and then the difference professedly here put between him and Ishmael, and others of Abraham s children, doth sufficiently evince the grace of election to have been the cause of the difference. And however the drift and current of the apostle s discourse clearly insinuates it ; for in the other instance about Jacob, he manifestly declares it in those words, ver. 11, that the purpose according to election might stand. And his allegation of Jacob s instance, and of Isaac s, are both to one and the same purpose, which is to prove an election, which he proposed as his thesis or assertion, in the words afore. If, therefore, the one doth so expressly mention an election of him as the cause of this difference of him from Ishmael, then, certainly, the same holds as intended in that of him as well as that of Jacob. Now, that election was the declared cause in the case of Jacob, he produceth two testimonies out of the Old Testament, the one given his mother whilst both were in the womb, the elder, namely, by birth, shall serve the younger ; the other uttered by the prophet, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Servitude was * Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And in Esau it signi used to express the curse of rejection, as Gen. ix. 25, fied also the loss of the inheritance which he had by birth-right, which was the type of heaven; all which agrees with the case of Ishmael, Gal. iv., son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman/ Aud so thereby the inheritance of heaven was declared not to be designed by God to him, and so the promises not to intend him. And this was said of him when yet he had not done good or evil ; that is, without the con sideration of the difference of any works in either to have moved God to have put the difference. And this comprehended with Esau, first, the Edomites who came of him, in whom the curse began, and descended to them, as in the same prophet, Mai. i. 4, They shall call them the people against whom the Lord hath indignation ; whereas on the contrary, the love and blessing took hold first on Jacob, and so descended down to those that were the children of promise amongst his seed. Thus much for what of this argument is in the 9th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

Now, how punctually doth the apostle continue to prosecute this same argument here in this llth chapter, though more amply and in plainer terms, yet to the same issue and effect, whilst he assumes the same distinction of children of promise, there distinguished from the rest of Israel, as children of the flesh, as here he doth of his people whom he foreknew* as the ori ginal cause of that difference now in the apostle his days put between a few and the rest of Israel, that were passed by ; which he doth in plain words, ver. 5, Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And ver. 7, What then ? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for ; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. So as whoever will but consider the reference arid respect these and other passages in this chap, xi., have with those other in chap, ix., must withal acknowledge, that if election to salvation be meant in this llth chapter (which no man can deny), that it must also be intended in chap, ix., which scope divers have gone about to frustrate and make null.

Well, I come to those. Now when Israel grew up to be a nation, and to be a church unto God, as they are called in the 7th of the Acts, why that

God did take the whole nation in the type, because he had an election among them, it is put upon election, as you will see in Deut. xiv. 2. Says he, The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people to himself above all the nations that are upon the earth. That he chose them above all the nations, was it because they used their free will better, for which he thus chose them ? Oh no ; he tells them along that they were a stiff-necked people ; and he tells them he did foreknow what they would be : Deut. xxxi. 21, I know the imaginations which they go about, for I see their wickedness, yet have I chosen them. Their vine was the vine of Sodom, Deut. xxxii. 32 ; their vine worse than the vine of Sodom. If you read it as it is in the margin, worse than the heathen about them, Ezek. v. 6. He justified Sodom and Gomorrah in comparison of them, Ezek. xvi. 47, 48. Yet election pitched among them, though they had changed his statutes more than any people ; Thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways ; look in Ezek. v. 6, And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them. Yet the election took place among them. My brethren, it is to me a great observation, though he chose them to be his people in a type, that there were a company among them on whom his * the chosen of God, and Aaron. What, to office only ? No ; there was more in it: Exod. xxxiii. 12, I know thee by name ; and at the 19th verse, when God was to proclaim his mercies, he said, I will make all my goodness to pass before thee, and heart was set. There was Moses, as he is called, I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. The Lord professes this aforehand, that he intends this but to some special ones among them: I will be merciful but to whom I will be merciful. The apostle quoting it in the case of election, adds, Whom he will he hardens.

It was an election whom he knew by name. What is election ? Why, it is, I will be merciful to such and such. Merciful, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee ; that is, that hath chosen thee, and pitched his mercy on thee.

Well, then, when the people were come into the land, and the worship of God began to be settled, still election ran one way more than another. There were, you know, ten tribes and there were two tribes ; election shewed which way it bended. I shall give you a place out of the Psalms : Ps.

Ixxviii. 67, 68, Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved. He speaks of the times of the judges. The rejection of the ten tribes began to shew itself soon ; he says, he refused the tabernacle of Ephraim, but he chose Judah. After Solomon s time, they fell to wor shipping of calves (let me tell you, it is the declining of election that undoes a nation, when election grows low, and ceases in an age), till at last the ten tribes were cast off, and they are at this day ; but the tribe of Judah had election among them.

Well, come to gospel times. When Christ first sent his disciples out, he gave them a command, and he gave them an instruction, as you may read in the 10th of Matthew, and the 10th of Luke. In Mat. x. 5, 9, says he, * These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not : but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Yet afterwards, when the regions were white unto harvest, then he bids them

go and preach to every creature, Mark xvi. 15. You have a direction which he gives them,

40 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

Luke x. 6, Go ye and say, Peace be unto this house ; but be not troubled if it be not entertained, If the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it ; that is, one that is ordained to peace and salvation. What says Paul ? Hath the word taken none effect ? Brother, says he, * there be many thousands of the Jews that do believe. If there be a son of peace, it shall rest upon that soul. Why now, then, when our Saviour Christ was gone off the earth, gone up to heaven, he sent the apostle, and where the election took place, they obtained salvation. What is the reason that the apostles were forbidden to preach in some places amongst the Gentiles, and bid to stay in other places ? It was because that God had much people there. Look in Acts xvi. 6, Now, when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into : but the Spirit suffered them not. What is the reason, on the

Bithynia other side, when they were at Corinth ? chap, xviii. ver. 9, 10. Paul being at Corinth, the Lord spake to him by a vision : Speak, be not afraid : for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have much people in this city. And when they came to a city, one expelled them, others entertained them. What is the account that Paul gives of it ? Acts xiii. 48, As many as were ordained unto eternal life believed. There were but a few among those Gentiles that believed, others stirred up persecutions, and they expelled them their coasts.

Jesus Christ from heaven forbids Paul to stay any longer at Jerusalem, but to go to the Gentiles: Acts xxii. 18, 21, I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. Whither shall he go, then? Ver. 21, And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. It was as election ceased, or was found, so they were sent accordingly to preach. Where there was a good company of the elect, the gospel ran like wild fire. 1 Thes. i. 4, says Paul, I know your election to be of God. Why? For our gospel came not to you in word, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. You know what manner of men we were among you. God did mightily raise up my spirit, and did a great deal of good. I need not tell you why the Jews were cast off and the Gentiles called; you may read from the 9th to the llth chapter of the Romans.

Come to the dark times of popery, after the apostles were gone off the stage. He tells you that all the world should wonder after the beast; it is in two places : Rev. xiii. 8, All that dwell on the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Lamb s book of life. Look in the 17th chapter, ver. 8, And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

You are come now to our very times. There will come a time when those hardened people the Jews, that they say spit at the name of Christ; con tinually hardened more and more, and caked in hardness this sixteen hun dred years ; the Rom. xi. tells us that there is a time coming wherein all Israel shall be saved; ver. 25, 26, I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits ; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, &c. Why? But what is the case of these elect? As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers sake, ver. 29. For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.

CHAP. IV.] OF ELECTION

The Gentiles have had it so many hundred years. What is the reason of * Oh the depth of the difference ? It is election ; therefore he concludes, riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

CHAPTER IV.

The instance of Noah, and his being saved in an ark, and God s covenant made with him, proved more largely and fully to be a great exemplar and typical representation of election and the covenant of grace.

In that draught of the line of election that runs through the whole Scrip tures, I could but briefly touch upon that one particular instance of Noah and his sons ; but my meditations have been since more especially enlarged about this Noah, that not only himself, in his own person, as recorded in his story, to have been a special instance and example of electing grace, and of the covenant thence flowing, but farther, that God s covenants made with him and his seed, and God s dealings with him according to those cove nants, were prophetic figures of his covenant with his church, in the times of the New Testament; who were, by virtue of the election of grace, to be raised up out of his loins. And the demonstration of this out of the Scrip tures is the design and subject of this appendix, which I chose thus to sever from the former, because it would have taken up too much room in that brief enumeration of so many other persons that are instances of election in that catalogue ; and yet it subserveth to the same end and purpose. I therefore annex it thereunto, as an appendix to that discourse.

I have a long time looked at that which both the Old Testament and the New style the covenant of grace, or the * new covenant, to be but election purposes and designs put into promises ; God expressing therein the gracious intentions and resolutions of himself towards his elect, which had been taken up by him from eternity; only whereas election in God s heart then did design the individual persons, together with the things decreed to them ; he hath in the promises and revealed declarations of the covenant of grace, con cealed the particular persons, and doth only indefinitely propound the sub

sinners jects of those promises, touching the persons intended, that they are of mankind, and that of all sorts and conditions, to whom, and upon whom, God therein declareth that he will certainly and infallibly make good that covenant and the promises thereof. And himself hath therein undertaken

new hearts and new spirits, to teach them to know him and his Son Christ, the mediator to perform it in them, though not for them, as to give them of that covenant, and the like ; and in such absolute terms of promises on God s part doth that covenant run, with difference from the covenant of works, so as the materials of the covenant of grace are all one with election decrees in the things decreed, though the persons are not named whom God will infallibly bestow them upon, but yet with greater certainty declared that God will perform it to and amongst mankind ; and yet the persons who being left indefinite, that ought to set all a-work to seek to come under it, in such ways as God hath commanded all men that [are] within the hearing of it [to] seek him in [it]. Noah s story doth partly in the reality to his own person, partly in the type of things in that story, [contain] these two eminent parts concerning our salvation.

1. God s covenant of grace, and God s everlasting kindness therein,

42 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. which is the spring of that covenant, and for that I take Isa. liv. 9, 10 for my text.

2. The type of the mediator of that covenant, Christ, which was the ark; and how that Christ, as signified in our baptism, is the sole author of salva tion to us; and for that I refer to the 1 Peter iii. 20, 21, Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the filthiness of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

8. The work of the covenant in us and upon us, namely, of faith, &c., which God hath as peremptorily also ordained to be the means of the appli cation of Christ for salvation to us, and without which we shall not be saved. And for this take Noah s instance : Heb. xi. 7, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteous [ness] which is by faith. The example of Noah there in the type set out, gives us a lively pattern of the work of salvation in us, answer ing to his faith about the ark (that is) through the work of application to us by faith on Christ.

4. The difficulties, distresses, hazards, temptations, through which we pass (after our being in Christ), under the covenant of grace, ere we arrive at heaven; and for this I take those words in the fore-cited Isa. liv. 11, thou afflicted, and tossed with tempest, and not comforted! speaking to his church, which in their coherence with the verses afore, 9 and 10, have mani festly a respect to Noah s condition in the ark, which in those 9th and 10th verses God hath first made mention of. And it is the first of those, upon Isa. liv. 9, 10, which I single forth for my present argument ; which is an exemplification of election, and of the covenant of grace in Noah s person and story.

SECTION I.

Of election, and the covenant of grace, and the church of the New Testament, the subject of both, as typified forth in NoaJis story. That Noah, in hi* own person, was intended as an example of election; the covenants made with him before the flood, and with him and his sons after, were types of the covenant of grace; proved in a discourse on Isa. liv. 7-11.

For a small moment have Iforsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from tlieefor a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted !

ISA. LIV. 7-11.

That these words speak, in the first place, the pure covenant of grace, and the everlastingness and perpetuity of that grace and covenant, as it flows in God s heart in and from election, may be apparent in the very reading the words ; and, secondly, that they refer to the story of Noah s covenant and

waters at the flood, as the figure and exemplification thereof, I hope, through God s grace, to make evident throughout this whole discourse ; but at present,

1. For the first, you have not only the very word covenant in express terms, ver. 10, My covenant, and that of my peace, hut also the pure grace and kindness of God, out of which he made the covenant, and which he exerciseth throughout in all the dispensations of it. This those many words that surround the text do declare ; as that, with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, ver. 8; my kindness shall not depart from thee, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee, ver. 10. And that the grace of election, though it be not under that term or word mentioned, yet in sense and reality is specified, that word, with everlasting kindness, insinuates, as grasping within it both everlastings ; a kindness everlasting for time to come, being but the continuation of an everlasting mercy and kindness that hath been for ever of old : Ps. xxv. 6, Remember, Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving-kindnesses; for they have been ever of old; that as God s own everlastingness comprehendeth both, Ps. xc. 2, Even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God, so doth and is his lovingkindness towards us. And those other words, Says the Lord that hath mercy on thee, miserator tuus; which is a periphrasis of election, and is tantamount as to say, The Lord who hath chosen thee, as Rom. ix. (where election is handled), the apostle expressly doth shew.

2. For the second of these, that these things are found in and may be fetched out of Noah s story and covenant, declared to him upon occasion of the flood, appears from this in the text, that God, to verify the truth of his covenant to his church, allegeth and referreth both himself and us to the waters of Noah: This is the waters of Noah to me, saith he.

Three general heads of the first part of this discourse drawn forth out of the words, ver. 9.

In which words, and those that follow, God doth (for they are his words by the prophet, as his mouth), 1, at once point us both to Noah s person (whom therefore he twice mentions), and his waters in his salvation from them, as an example of that covenant and mercy which now he promiseth unto his church, and all her children (as ver. 13 they are called), to perform the same to them as he had done it then to him ; as likewise, 2, that the story of him and his waters or flood, and God s covenant with him, his sons, &c., and oath thereabouts, though in the letter the semblance they bear was but of the temporal salvation and deliverance from the flood, yet in the mystery thereof they were (as is here signified) intended as figures of God s eternal covenant and mercies unto his elect church, which were to come out of Noah s and his sons loins ; 3, which church, that is here specially pointed at concerning his covenant, with which he says, This is to me the waters of Noah, is the church under the New Testament, and the seed of Japhet especially, whom this covenant and promises do more particularly concern, as in ver. 1, 2, 3 of this chapter will appear. And these are the three heads and branches of this general part of this discourse.

1. The first of these three heads hath two branches in it.

(1.) The first, concerning Noah s particular person, that he was first intended in it as an example as well as a type of that grace, and election, and covenant here declared to the church.

(2.) The second, that the covenants made with him afore the flood, and with him and his sons after, were figures of the same, &c.

44 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

(1.) Noah in his own person was intended as an example of the covenant

TaT himself was the principal and first covenanter, declared heir of the covenant of grace, and that made known to him by God himself upon that occasion of the flood, is evident by this, that he is said by faith to have entertained it, and accepted on his part God s declarations made then to him as understood by him to be the declarations of the covenant of grace. And therefore it must be that God also on his part had with that intention uttered that covenant unto him personally. Now that Noah did well under stand and apprehend that under the type of the ark and his salvation thereby, that a further salvation than temporal was signified thereby to him, and another manner of ark than that of gophir wood, even Christ the promised eeed, to save him from a more dreadful inundation of wrath to come, and so from a greater destruction than that which the waters only brought upon the lives of the ungodly of that present age ; that, I say, he understood by faith these things, the Holy Ghost, that knew both Noah s heart and God s also in his covenant to him, and transactions thereupon with him, hath informed us: Heb. xi. 7, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith, which last words, he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith, do give us the true intent of the former words, by shewing us that Noah had in those dealings of God with him the very same righteousness for the object of his faith, which our gospel now proposeth to us, and which our faith doth lay hold upon ; for why else doth he propose it as an example of tha Haith he exhorteth us now to have ? which the same apostle in his other epistles doth in the same phrase and language style the righteousness of God, and the righteousness of Christ, which is by faith : Philip, iii. 9, Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith ; which right eousness for justification he more setly treateth of in the epistle to the Romans, under the same very words : Rom. iii. 21, 22, But now (that is, under the gospel) the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Now Noah was a prophet, Gen. ix., and among other prophets witnessed to this righteousness, himself first believ ing in it, and then being a public preacher of righteousness, as the other apostle calls him ; and not only of that righteousness of an holy life, in which he himself so exceeded, which follows upon believing, but of that right eousness which is by faith, as it hath Christ for its object. And certainly, if he were a righteous preacher, as he was, then that righteousness himself had recourse to [for] himself and his own salvation, that he preached unto others for their salvation. Now it was that righteousness Noah had an eye upon (as typified by his ark, and from thence had learned it), and had recourse unto for his eternal salvation, as the apostle to the Hebrews testifies ; although he were, as is testified of him in respect of his own inherent righteousness, the most righteous man in his generation : A perfect and just man. And in sign and token that yet he had his eye upon this righteousness out of himself to save him, it was through the same faith he betook himself to that ark, a means wholly out of himself, to save him from the waters, which otherwise all his own righteousness would never have done ; for why else is it there said, that by preparing the ark, he became heir of the righteous ness which is by faith ? Which righteousness by faith, to be Christ s righteouness, all sound protestants do profess ; and as the righteousness he

believed on, and was made heir of, was this gospel righteousness, signified to him by the ark, so the rest of those things there mentioned did in their several designs much type out to him things spiritual, and of like spiritual mystery. As the flood typed forth the wrath of God unseen by carnal eyes ; and the condemnation of the world there spoken of was the condemnation to hell, and not to the waters only, as Peter informs us ; yea, and he con demned the world more by preparing that ark, and by preaching a gospel righteousness to men, or the Messiah to come, whom he is also said to have preached in the figure, 1 Peter iii. 19, 20, than by all his holiness, as that Heb. xi. 7 doth witness.

Let us now approach to bring together what I premised concerning the covenant, and grace, and election, which are the subject of the text in Isaiah, and mine also, and the passages which we find in Genesis concern ing Noah, together, and see how appositely they correspond and agree to this my purpose.

[l.J It is greatly observable, that in the sacred story Noah was the first of the sons of men unto whom God ever spoke of a covenant. There was promise indeed of Christ, the woman s seed, uttered before, which all the patriarchs before the flood lived upon ; but under the title of a covenant never no mention, no, nor of the word grace till now. Noah had the first honour of both these expressions, grace and covenant. And therefore most properly and meetly hath God here in Isaiah singled out the instance of Noah for both ; for, primum in quolibet genere est mensura reliquorum. The first in every kind is the measure of the rest of that kind that do after fol low. This of covenant you find in Gen. vi. 18, But with thee will I estab lish my covenant ; there is the first ; and, 2dly, the expression of grace is * But Noah found grace in the eyes of to him, and first to him in ver. 8, the Lord. And it is God s own speech unto him, though spoken by God as in the third person of himself. And it is not the addition of Moses the penman, but it comes in a continued sermon made to him by God himself, and uttered privately to none but him ; and that speech is pure New Testa ment language: to find grace, and obtain mercy, as Heb. iv. 16. And after it had been thus first uttered to Noah, this speech came after into more frequent use, both in the Old and New Testament, as unto Moses, Exod.

Unto David his chosen, Acts vii. 45 ; and the blessed Virgin Mary, Luke vii. 70, thou art ingratiated, gratia donata, endowed with God s favour ; and the sense is the same. And this title Noah was the first xxxiii. 12 ; that bore it, as a new addition to the coat of arms of God s elect, which from that time they have worn as the highest title of honour.

[2.] And it was not afore now given to Noah ; yea, grace in the Hebrew (as Ainsworth observes) is in a manner the anagram of Noah his name, though the letters in the name Noah do in their direct order signify rest; yet such a rest as is out of grace given and bestowed, which an inverted order of the letters signifies. See for this Ainsworth on Gen. vi. 6.

[3.] And, thirdly, it was the grace that is and was in God s heart towards

in the eyes or mind of Jeho vah ; and not that grace which was in Noah s heart : that was but the him, that is meant, as that additional shews, effect. To find grace in one s eyes, is indeed a phrase used likewise of man s being favourable to another (as in those places Gen. xxxiv. 11, 1 Sam. i. 18, and many other) ; which yet comes then to be used, when the kindness sought, or to be bestowed, depends merely on the good will of the man who is to cast it upon the other, and wherein they that seek it, when that man ner of speech is used by them, do acknowledge no merit or worth in them selves, why that favour should be shewn them ; and therefore much more it

46 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. hath that import, when it is spoken of God, and of his grace towards man, of whom the apostle says, who hath first given to him ? &c. ; and moreover imports, that God s eyes and foresight saw nothing in the creature why he should endow him with it; yea, furthermore, to find grace in God s eyes, is when God prevents the creature, in its very seeking of it ; as Isa. Ixv 1, am found of them that sought me not ; which was because they had found grace in God s eyes afore they sought it, and without their having done any thing to move him to it. And the word found, also, which is added unto grace (as here), doth superadd to this import. The Grecians call a thing unlocked for, not dreamt of, or freely cast on one (by chance as it were) without his looking for it, they call it fupjA**, a thing found ; and such is God s grace, as that word, found grace, intimates : all which expressions suit perfectly with grace in God electing, or with electing grace. The eminentest person to whom grace (as electing) is attributed, was Moses, who bears that title, Moses his chosen, Ps. cvi. 23 ; and the election of him is : Exod. xxxiii. 12, I know thee by name, and expressed by this very phrase thou hast also found grace in my sight ; that is, God had chosen him freely, to be personally and individually his. And we find God s foreknowledge is put to express election, as it is God s foundation : The Lord knows who are his ; and God s people whom he foreknew, in Rom. xi. 2, are in ver. 5 but a remnant according to the election of grace ; and so towards Moses, God s grace cast on him was the sole product of God s will : so ver. 19 of Exod. xxxiii. interprets it, and applies it to him, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, God therein giving Moses the true ground and account why he was gracious unto him, when not to others ; and therefore those very words are cited under the instance and case of Moses, by way of discrimina tion from Pharaoh, as the opposite person whom Moses had to do with, to prove election, Bom. ix. 15 ; and in the same tenor and meaning of speech, * found grace in the eyes of it is, that God declares of Noah, Noah hath

Jehovah ; and it may also be said of him, that God knew him by name ; for to testify his having pre-ordained him, and separated him from the womb (as Paul speaks of himself), unto salvation ; as also that deliverance in the flood, out of his mere free grace, he inspired his father with a prophecy about him at his very birth. Look as God inspired his great prophet Enoch, to give his son Methuselah a name that foretold the flood, and the year of the coming of it, being by interpretation, he dieth, the emission, or dart cometh, meaning the flood : Enoch, being a prophet, foretelleth this his son should die, and then the flood should be emitted ; and therefore our days, as Methu selah s were, are appointed and set ; in like manner God inspired Noah s father with a name, which foretold the restoring of the earth from that curse,* even from Adam, all along due to it, from the flood ; and for the giving both the earth, and a new world of inhabitants, rest in it again, by that Noah, who was then born unto him : thus Gen. v. 29. And this being foretold of him at his birth, when he had done neither good nor evil (as in the case of Jacob s election out of grace, and Esau s rejection, the apostle argues), doth plainly argue it was God s free grace towards him, which had separated him from the womb hereunto, and no righteousness at all of his ; and out of the same grace still continued towards him, now when he acquaints him with his pur pose to bring the flood, he tells him he would deliver him out of it ; and that * I might at large give an interpretation of his father Lamech s prophecy of him, and shew how he was declared an exact type of Christ to follow. The founder of the new world, the church, the remover of the curse, by being himself made a curse ; the easer of our toil, and all sorts of miseries we labour under, and giver to ua of rest, Mat. xi., Heh. iv.

it was his sole grace, borne to him from the first, that was the cause and designer of that his salvation, thou hast found grace in my sight, and there with utters a covenant, obliging himself so to do. And though God mentions the grace, or righteousness, that was in Noah also, yet as that which that free grace which had been in God s heart towards him from his birth, yea, from everlasting, had wrought in him, to make him meet for that mercy and deliverance. Yea, and further, to testify he knew him by name, and had ordained him out of pure grace unto this, he gave him a name, that in the letters inverted bore the stamp and impress of the grace of God (as was before observed) ; even as at the Baptist s birth, he by a wise disposement ordered him a name, signifying in the indirect placing of the letters, grace, shewing that he was out of that grace separated from the womb unto his work, &c., as Noah here had been.

[4.] And, fourthly, this was done (as I added) with a discrimination or dif ference put between Noah and the rest of the world, out of special grace to him ; and election, or choice, which is to single one out from others, always supposeth a leaving out of others ; and the occasion whereupon it comes in, * But Noah found grace, &c., which is spoken even whilst on is with a but; the other hand God just afore had told him, in the verse afore, I will destroy man whom I have created from off the earth, ver. 17 ; and then, at the 18th verse, But with thee will I establish my covenant. He is at his but again ; thereby denoting the same discriminating grace of election, as if he had said, But with thee (singling thee forth personally, and by name, from the rest of the world) I will establish my covenant (that is, make this as a sure and stable covenant with thee : as afterwards David speaketh of God s cove nant of grace with him, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5) ; which I do not with others. So then, do but join ver. 8, But Noah found grace, &c., together with the words of ver. 18, But with thee will I establish my covenant ; and then you have, 1, grace declared to be the foundation or spring of this covenant, ver. 18 ; and, 2, that covenant itself declared to be stable and irrevocably firm from out of the same grace, I will establish, &c. ; and, 3, all put together rising up to this, as if he had plainly styled it, the covenant of grace. Thus it was to Noah s own person ; yea, and such a covenant as we usually describe the covenant of grace to be, proceeding from election grace at first, and continued stable and firm out of the same, as we have before in Noah s example explained it.

And, that it was the covenant of grace unto Noah s person, and proposed in him as a pattern and example to us, who were after to believe, there is further reason for it. If the same covenant, as it was afterwards estated upon Abraham and David, are so to be understood (as generally we acknow ledge), then surely the first covenant that under that title and notion God did promulgate to mankind, and whereof grace by name was the foundation, established with this man ; a man of as great holiness and acceptation with God as any of them were, for which you may take the judgment of God himself, who ranks him in the head of the first three (I allude to David s) worthies of the Old Testament, Ezek. xiv. 14 ; a man perfect in his gene ration, and singled forth of an whole world destroyed before his face, unto which he had been the preacher of righteousness, the righteousness of faith, whereby men are to be saved in all ages, and thereby condemning them for neglecting and refusing that salvation, Heb. xi. 7, even to hell, 1 Pet. iii. ; and further, the beginner and founder of a new world ; and, in that respect, a type of the second Adam, yea, and the father of him, namely, Christ according to the flesh, yea, and with him of all the elect, whether Jews or Gentiles, that after succeeded ; then surely, I say, this covenant was to

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Mmqplf the covenant of grace, as well as unto any of them, and promulged S3JMS. and head, as on behalf of the elect his sons, to proceed salvation of sea may be answered, that so did the covenant declared to David (in the first delivery of it, in 2 Sam. vn. from ver 12, and so on speak but of his house, and establishing of his kingdom to his seed ; whilst yet his own salvation (2 Sam. xxiii. 5, God made with me a covenan , and this is all mv salvation ) and the salvation of the elect through Christ, was intended therein ; so here, it may also be replied, that the word grace, as it is spoken of God, and to express his grace, is too deep a word to be bestowed only upon a mere temporal salvation; but only used where tt eternal grace and love of God is the fountain of it The favour God bore even to Adam in innocency is nowhere so far ennobled as to be styled grace ; nor are the gifts in temporaries termed grace, though they be called spi ritual gifts, in their kind, and freely given to the rebellious a so But, besides such returns as these to this objection, that which will mal the answer complete, is the consideration of the second branch afore pro posed, namely, (2 ) That Noah s covenant, over and besides its being to his person the cove nant of grace, and he an example thereof to us therein ; that also both that covenant afore the flood for his temporal salvation in the ark, Gen. Oth and 7th chapters, and that other after the flood, Gen. ix., were figurative or pro phetic types in God s intention of eternal salvation, unto himself, and the elect of his posterity to come, especially under the New Testament.

When this is joined and added to the former, and proved that it was the covenant of grace to Noah s person, &c., makes not only the answer to the objection sufficiently complete, but also will prove a foundation to the main things to be built up in this following discourse.

This position, the apostle Peter doth in terminis affirm, in his 1st Epistle 3d

God waited in the days of Noah, whilst the ark was chap. ver. 20, 21, a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us. It is express, that the salvation of him and his sons was intended as a figure, and a figure that did bear a likeness, or parallel in it, unto our everlasting salva tion, and the things thereof. And further, that it was not only to Noah himself a figure of his own everlasting salvation, as figuring forth to him thereby that God would save his soul eternally, but prefiguring that salva tion which is now revealed unto ?/s (as his words are) and therefore prophetic of ours ; for what under the Old Testament is called a figure, or a type of things of the gospel, that did God and his Spirit intend by that as a sha dow, to signify and foretell a substantial reality of those things to come under the New, in the truth and verity of them ; for so in the like case the apostle warrants us to understand: Heb. ix. 8, 9, 11, The Holy Ghost signifying thereby, says he, ver. 8, &c., they being a figure for the time then present, as ver. 9, * of good things to come ; so ver. 11, namely, those good things under the gospel, and the same must hold here in this ; for the apostle as expressly calls it a figure here as therein those mentioned.

If that salvation, then, in the ark was a figure of that gospel salvation now, then Noah s covenant out of special grace (in compare to the world) for that salvation of him and his sons, was in like manner intended for a figure of that covenant for our salvation under the gospel ; yea, and also of that discrimination of grace, which was the foundation of Noah s covenant. And,

CHAP. IV. J OF ELECTION

moreover, this must have been the figure also of a far more transcending grace, to be the foundation of our covenant, proportionably in an excelling glory of it, unto what the greatness of our salvation bears (as being the effect thereof as the cause) in compare with that temporal salvation of Noah s ; and that grace of ours is no other than that * exceeding riches of grace our gospel so extols, Eph. 1st and 2d chap. These all are of a like coinmensuration and elevation in this their kind and proportions, as an everlast ing covenant, an everlasting salvation, proceeding from an everlasting grace aud love. And then that which was the sole outward means of Noah s salvation, the ark, must have, it being a figure in this round, a super-excelling outward means answerably thereunto ; as the sole means prefigured, and that is Christ, the mediator of that covenant, in whom alone we are gra ciously accepted, and who is the author of that eternal salvation. These all hang together (as we say) on one string ; are all connexed, coherent, and * Thou hast made a covenant with me, saith David, sure and stedfast, and this is all my salvation, 2 Sam. xxiii. ; and grace and salvation joined : By grace ye are saved, said twice over, Eph. ii. But you have them all joined, even Christ our ark, and all use and universal suffrage of all the prophets that have been since the world inseparable, covenant and salvation : : Luke i. 69-73, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy pro phets, which have been since the world began ; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us ; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham ; yea, and I may say, which in the began figure he sware to Noah too. And my argument for this is fetched, not from the real inseparable connexing and hanging together of the things themselves ; and that therefore if but one of them be set forth in the type, the other must be, by consequence, and from the conjunction of the things themselves in the verity itself, be supposed also to exist. This argument, though it might hold (I say) to prove the existence of those other things that are so connexed together, yet might prove an argument that would fail us, if we should go about to argue from the type itself ; for then the things argued must be also found to have a lineament of similitude in the typing of it forth in the type itself. Now no one type also is in all things a complete representation of the whole substance of all that are connexed with, and appertain to, the thing signified in the type. And therefore it was, that God hath drawn and painted out the things of the gospel in so many several pictures, that one might foreshadow more specially the resemblance of one thing, another of some other. Yet this I will affirm concerning this type of Noah s, that this one of Noah, as it is instanced in by our apostle Peter, hath the likeness of as many, and specially of all those four we have insisted on (which are the main studs and substantials of our salvation), as perhaps will be found in any other single instance of any type whatever. Our apostle in that place terms our gospel salvation not barely figure, ruro;, but GLVTITUVOZ, a like figure (as we translate it) ; a correspondent figure (as others). TUXO$, a figure, imports a likeness, but avr/Yucrov, a like likeness ; * that is, an "Avri in composition doth enhance the signification of that which it is com pounded with. As Xurgov signifies a price, dfcvr/Xurgov imports a full and adequate price, every way answering; it speaks equivalency, and when it is added to the like ness, that is, in a figure to the thing figured, or, e contra, in a thing figured unto a figure, it imports somewhat more than what is ordinary and common between things of that nature ; that is, than is between other usual figures and things figured in comparison unto this. And if it be said that the word here, avr/Yu/rov, is applied VOL. IX. D

OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. ordinarily m umci an.^^ , ness shall be found in this, if narrowly observed ; the parallel lines of each run along further, and correspond in very many things alike. Now, there fore, it being thus spoken in respect of similitude or likeness, we might warrantably go by this rule (which in expounding the signification of types, is a good and sure rule), that when and where we find a type of the Old

Testament applied by the Holy Ghost, to some good thing that was to come under the New, which is the main substance of that type ; yea, and although it prove to be the thing prefigured in the New be instanced in, and pointed at, but in some one particular ; yet this warrants our application of other parts wherein a likeness or resemblance doth appear between the ngure in the Old and the thing figured, as we find them scattered up and down, though they be not punctually and precisely applied to each of the particulars, between which and the figure the likeness proves to appear. The Holy

Ghost pointing us, though but to one parallel, sanctifies all the rest that appear parallel also. This rule holds in expounding parables, and it must needs be safe in expounding types. So then, if Peter had only instanced but in one particular, that the salvation in the ark, &c., was a type of gospel salvation, sealed up in baptism, we might warrantably have made upthose other we have mentioned ; as that this ark was the figure of our Christ, as he is applied to us in baptism ; yea, and of whatever else we find to be in baptism touching our salvation, analogous, or bearing resemblance with those passages about Noah s salvation in the ark. We see that the apostle himself makes an application of the very number of persons that were saved in Noah s ark, to have had a significancy in it of the paucity or fewness of the persons who shall find the like special grace under the gospel, to be effectually partakers of salvation, although multitudes shall profess Chris tianity, and be outwardly partakers of baptism, as in Noah s days there were many that professed themselves to be the sons of God, that perished in the waters. Thus our apostle makes use of that small circumstance of the paucity of the persons ; and because our Lord had foretold in his hear ing, that there be few that find the narrow gate and way that leads to life, Mat. vii. 14, and few that shall be saved, Luke xiii. 23, and that for this cause that few are chosen, in comparison of the many that are called ; especially of the many that go to hell, therefore Peter observeth the few ness, but of eight persons that were saved in the ark, puts that into his * that is, eight souls were figure, there, of the ark : wherein few, says he, saved. He intends not, though retaining the number of eight, the definite number of persons, that is, of eight only, under the gospel to be saved, the number of his fellows, the eleven apostles, exceeding in his view that number ; but he set down few, as indefinitely signified by that eight, then compara tively to the whole world.

Now, then, to confirm my argument, that the Holy Ghost by Peter s pen, having pointed us to Noah s salvation, and his sons with him, as that which was the figure of our like, though far super-transcending salvation now under unto the thing figured, as denoting our baptism, and gospel salvation to be the truth, the substance figured, I answer, that however it is for the likeness, for the near resemblance that is between them, whether it be attributed to the figure or thing figured, it shews that, in respect of mutual similitude, it is given for this respect to the other. For the figure and things figured are relatives, in respect of their like ness ; and so it comes all to one, with which of the two am 1 is compounded ; for in Heb. ix. you have avriruva applied to the shadows of heavenly things.

the gospel, God hath by that one particular instance (if there were no more) sent us to the story of Noah, and therein unto all that concerned that of his salvation in the ark. And therein we finding also not a promise, but a covenant established with Noah for that salvation ; a grace likewise in the heart of God to have been the foundation of that covenant ; an outward means, an ark, the only means that could have been of that salvation, and this wholly of God s inventing, and therein Noah to have been preserved in midst of waters ; and then viewing over the New Testament (and the Old too, so far as pure gospel is up and down manifested therein), we there do find up and down a covenant made, and established with, and for the said salvation (which salvation Peter expressly guides us unto) of God s elect under the gospel ; and an exceeding abundant grace, the original cause and fountain of that salvation and covenant ; and Christ, whom God hath set forth as the only means, or name under and whereby men should be saved from that wrath, that, if found out of him, will fall upon all the world. These things, and all these things, being so expressly set out unto our view, both on the one hand in Genesis, and in this conjunction mentioned, and those other, all of them which are the substantial points of our Christian religion, we finding in our gospel as causes of our salvation, %g/; dvr/ pag/7og, grace for grace, covenant for covenant, salvation for salvation, and an ark for Christ, how shall we otherwise but conclude that these are parallels ? Or in Peter s language, avrhv-Tra, like figures, the one of the other, for in likeness and resemblance they correspond one to the other.

But we are not put to it for the proof of all this, to proceed by this way of consequential inferences ; for behold they are all the four of them more than impliedly specified and yoked together, in this one text of the apostle Peter ; for as there is Noah s salvation for our gospel salvation, so his ark typifying forth our Christ, and that as expressly ; for his adding as his last words in the verse, saved in baptism by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a manifest reference unto and resemblance of the manner how Noah was saved in the ark from out of the waters, and in being carried through the waters safe to land, it still rising up under them as the storms did fall, by parts or by wholesale, upon it, and endangered the overwhelming of it, till at last it arrived safe, and rested on mount Ararat : an exact figure and semblance of Christ in passing through the waters of death, storms of that wrath and curse due to us, poured forth upon him, by and under which it was not possible for him to be holden, as Peter speaks, Acts ii. ; and so Noah received it as Abraham did that of Isaac s delivery, as a figure of the resurrection of his ark Christ, and of all in him.

And whereas, here, baptism is said to be the figure of the ark, not Christ, I answer, * Know ye not (as Rom. vi. the apostle Paul speaks) that as many as were baptized into Christ, were baptized into the likeness of his resurrection ? as also of his death first, that like as Christ was raised up, &c., so we being planted together in and with him, should after baptism walk in newness of life. So then it is Christ, in whose name we are baptized, and into whom we are implanted, which is the significancy of baptism.

Again, 3dly, that the baptism is made the thing figured, doth as evidently prompt us to the covenant of grace, as included in baptism, and so to have been prefigured therewith ; for what more properly doth baptism serve, or was instituted for, as an end containing in it, than to be the seal of the new covenant of grace, even as circumcision was of the old covenant ? Gen. xvii. And baptism also succeeding in the place and office of it, as Col. ii. tells ; yea, and circumcision was then suddenly* the seal of the covenant of grace, * Qu. certainly, or similarly ? ED.

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iTthe founder of the covenant, and the communion of God the Holy ( the pplier of the covenant, are sealed up unto us, even all of these, and %2Sf*l doth comprehend, and all these Wf*~*^ therefore full well might the apostle (as he doth) tell us, that Noah s s tiT?% of ours ; for in the figuring our baptism, it

U as contain n a figure, all these things in it ; all that belong to us now, that is, undo he gospel; both which words he with an inculcation urgeth upon our observation that we might be deeply apprehensive of the abounding; sigsubstantial salvation were included in it alone, to the end %andean*** our thoughts awork, to search out the full mystery thereof at large m all nificancy of this though but one type, how much of our gospel the particulars of it.

This as to Noah s covenant afore his entering into the ark, &c.

There was a covenant (I must not call it another covenant, but yel second time renewed with enlargement, and withal said to be establ with Noah and his sons after his and their coming out of the ark, and prc mulged upon his having offered up that famous sacrifice in Gen. vm. the < God spake unto Noah, an. verses. And then in Gen. ix. in the 8th verse, his sons with him (so it runs there unto them as well as to him), saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and your seed after you ; and again, ver. 11, And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. This, say I, was the figure of the covenant of grace, to the church of the new testament, that were to be the seed of him and his sons (of which hereafter). And unto the words of this second covenant with Noah more especially, it is that the words ot my text in Isaiah relate: ver. 9, For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth ; so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee; that is, my everlasting wrath shall never overwhelm thee; for of that wrath, that universal flood, that passed over the rest of mankind, children of wrath, was the figure. Which words, not to destroy the earth, are found in and do belong to that covenant in Gen. ix., as you will clearly see if you compare the even now fore-cited words out of verse 11 of Gen. ix. And this covenant God styles here in Isaiah the covenant of his peace, ver. 10 ; for as that covenant in Genesis viii. ix. chapters was upon Noah s offering that sacrifice and peace-offering in it, chap. viii. 20, with which God professed himself so well pleased as it is said, he smelled a sweet savour, ver. 21, so signifying himself at peace, and atoned with Noah and his sons, and propitious unto the new world they were to be the restorers of (for that was the season God took to express this covenant in). Now, this sacrifice was in the figure, as the former sal vation in the ark had been (as you heard out of Peter) a figure, &e., of. a greater sacrifice than this of Noah s, even of Christ s; with which, and for which, and in the intuition of which, God established this covenant, which

he termeth the covenant of his peace, both because he [isj pacified by Christ s sacrifice, who is our peace, Col. i. 20, 21. As also because he promiseth peace, his peace to those the elect of mankind, to come out of Noah s sons loins. And that Christ s sacrifice was figured out by that of Noah s, the apostle hath discoursed; whilst in speaking of Christ s, he useth the very words wherewith God s acceptance of Noah s is expressed by: Eph. v. 2, And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour; which latter are the very words in Genesis. And besides it is certain that, unless God had smelt so far off aforehand this sacrifice of Christ s that was to come, the smoke of beasts sacrificed had but an unsavoury scent in God s nostrils as well as man s; but the smell and savour thereof (though so long afore) per fumed this of Noah, and went up into the nostrils of Jehovah.

But not only Christ s sacrifice is thus in these speeches pointed at by the apostle, as signified in Noah s (and a covenant was then, and at all times, used to be ratified by a sacrifice, Ps. 1. 5, Heb. ix. 18, 20, and so on); but furthermore, as touching our covenant of grace, it is evident that when God himself did most solemnly proclaim and set forth that covenant as to come in the days of the new testament, that he hath likewise recourse unto like words and passages, taken out and borrowed from that latter covenant of Noah, thereby to express that new covenant of grace by, and confirm the stability of it to us ; which is a consideration of some moment to our subject afore us. There are three chapters in Jeremiah following one another, wherein this covenant of grace is set by, and professedly handled, by way of prophecy, so as nowhere else the like in the Old Testament: first, chap, xxxi. ver. 33, 34, But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, thus speaking with difference from the old covenant then more in view, and it is his new gospel covenant, the same which, Heb. viii., the apostle citeth, as that to write the law in their hearts, &c., as you may read in those verses. Now, to confirm to them this covenant, he adds in that place, ver. 35, Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar ; The Lord of hosts is his name; where what our translation reads, which divideth the sea, &c., our English Annotation out of the Hebrew renders, which stilleth or maketh quiet the sea, or settleth the sea when the waves thereof roar; that is, (as they) do keep the sea within compass, and make it rest within its bounds. The tendency of this to my present purpose you will perceive when I have added what in the other chapters we find to follow. Then again in the 32d chapter, God rehearseth more pieces that belong to the same covenant of : ver. 38-40, And they shall be my people, and I will be their God : and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for grace ever, for the good of them, and of their children after .them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me ; though promised to begin upon his elect people that were to return from Babel to their own land, as the*rest of that chapter shews ; for the covenant of grace had a secret efficacy to the elect in the old testament as well as in the new. Then, thirdly, in the 33d chapter God receiveth * other particulars belonging to the same covenant, and that as they were more evidently to be performed in the days of the new testament; for to those days do the words of the 15th verse refer (which * Qu.

< revieweth ? ED.

54 OF ELECTION. [B OK L davs and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up uS David anl I shall execute judgment and W*-~"^ and verse 16, In those days shall Judah be saved and Jeiusalem shaU: <In th Ose comes in amongst the midst of those promises in that chapter): and this is the name wherewith she shall be called The Lord our Righteousness; that is, when Christ, who is the mediator of ***- dwell safely nant, should come in the flesb, in which days the covenant o grace

appear nakedly and operly in its pure glory; and the ncwtotfa old covenant with the Jewish church (under which this of the new didL hen run undermost, hidden, as arteries under the veins) should decay as grown old, as the apostle in the said Heb. viii. doth argue.

Now, God having thus so explicitly set forth the substantial materials of this new covenant in these three chapters, then for a close to all he had said about them there cometh a special word to Jeremiah: yer. 19, /And the wore of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, &c. And it is to verify the stability or everlasting sureness of this covenant, as in Isa. lv., the next chapter my text, is celebrated. He doth insert, and (as it were) call m for witnesses to attest and confirm the said stability thereof, divers of those passages which we find in the covenant made with Noah, which purpose they serve most aptly and suitably unto; for in making that covenant with Noah, trod

I will establish my had uttered himself in these words of everlastingness, covenant with thee, so to certify and assure the like stability of this covenant of grace, the materials whereof had been in these three chapters so largely insisted on. Now, moreover, as his transition, ver. 19, is, a special word must come, and is added on purpose, and alone, and over and above the former, to verify the unalterableness of it, and that as exemplified by those unalterable things promised to Noah in his; for what follows first in verse 20 ? Thus saith the Lord, If you can break my covenant of the day, and of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; there is one passage in Noah s; and verse 21, the reddition follows, Then may also my covenant be broken with David. Then may also my covenant (that is, my gospel covenant) be broken with David, unto whom, as we all know, was made the promise of Christ, who himself was the spiri tual David, the mediator, and with whom the new covenant for all the elect was published by God in David s time (which I need not enlarge upon the proof of to be meant in this place of Jeremiah). Then again a second pas sage of Noah s is inserted in verse 25, Thus saith the Lord, If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; and it follows, ver. 26, Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant. As God produceth the materials pro mised and specified in Noah s covenant, so he expressly utters them under the word covenant ; yea, and calls that with day and night his covenant : my covenant, twice mentioned, ver. 20 and 25, thereby manifestly calling us to look back to Noah s covenant, made for day and night ; as in the making of which he had an eye to his like ratification and firm establishment of his covenant of grace, and as hiddenly intended by him then, when he uttered this of Noah s.

And now let us but review those passages in Genesis and in Jeremiah, and compare them together. First, those in Jeremiah : ver. 20, If you can break my covenant with the day, and my covenant with the night, &c., where do we find mention of a covenant that God made with the day and with the night, which God should term his covenant with them or about them, not a covenant, one with another ? And observe the language in both : in Gen. viii. 22, < Day and night shall not cease, saith God there

upon his sacrifice ; which are in the sense of them the very words used in Jeremiah xxxiii. 20, * If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, that there should not be day and night in their season. This is all one as to have said, I have made a covenant that they shall not cease and even so we find in Genesis, and where else it is* to be found under the name of a covenant and if you can break that my covenant, &c., then may also my covenant of grace with David be broken. Again, in Jere miah, the 25th verse, he joins to his covenant with day and night (as his too) an alike settled appointment of the ordinances of heaven and earth : If I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; appointed, that is, settled in a certain, constant, and perpetual course, with which sense the fore-cited words, chap. xxxi. 35, 36, do agree, and withal explain them : Thus saith the Lord, that giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, If these ordinances depart from me, saith the Lord. And we all see that these have not failed nor departed, or (as God s word is) ceased from or before him. But you will say, These last mentioned in Jeremiah are the ordi nances of heaven only, and they are not mentioned in Genesis ; and again, demand what are those on earth ; I answer, these two, or both, come all to one in the real intention of them ; for the ordinances for revolutions and courses of the heavens, sun, moon, and stars, being the causes of the ordi nances and vicissitudes of seasons on the earth, as the effects of them, which are indeed the ordinances of the earth. And of these we read, Gen. i. 14, < And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to 18, divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; and to rule over the day, and over the night; and to divide the light from the darkness. Hence, then, seeing both these ordinances do coalesce in one and the same issues, for those in the heavens are ordained for those on earth ; and that also you find these ordinances of the earth in Gen. viii. 22, Whilst the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. Hence, therefore, all that Jeremiah says of the ordinances in the heavens, of sun, moon, and stars, are in effect comprehended in Gen. viii. 22, as if there they had been named. And although the settlement of both these ordinances began at the creation (as in Gen. i.), yet God having cursed the ground for man s sake upon Adam s fall, which God in the 21st verse afore of that Gen. viii. professedly doth make a recognition of to this intent, to shew that he now began with Noah upon a new covenant ; and that else there had been an end and dissolution of both sorts of ordinances, whether on earth or heaven ; but that God upon a new account and score, even the intuition of Christ s sacrifice, typed forth in that of Noah s, did anew say in his heart, and declared also to Noah, I will not again curse the earth for man s sake. But whilst the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. So, then, it is not the natural covenant by the first creation, if appointments of these then might be called his covenant, for God declares that to have been void by his curse for sin ; and therefore the appointment for the continuance of these ordinances, now, since Noah s time, renewed by a covenant of mercy, its making and institution, whereby the grand charter of these was de novo, begun to be verified and confirmed.

And now will you take notice of that other piece of God s covenant with Noah about the waters, their not returning any more to cover the earth, which you find in Gen. ix., which is expressly alleged by God in terminis in * Qu. is it ? ED.

56 OF ELECTION. [B OK L my text in the prophet Isaiah, and to the same effect in Jeremiah, and in berth still ascertaining the firmness of the covenant of grace Now, in Jere miah the words run, Thus saith the Lord, that stilleth the sea when the waves thereof roar; and he says it to the end, to confirm his covenant of grace. And then it is said, he stilleth them when the waves raged most roar ing to recover their lost prey, and threaten another deluge, but that God restrained them from overflowing the earth again; for in order to their not overflowing the earth again, it is there spoken elsewhere, his stilling them, and setting bounds to them, is noticed to be with that intent: Ps. civ. , Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they turn not aain to cover the earth; and Jer. v. 22, Who hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it ; a though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though theyroar, yet can they not pass over it ? and Ps. Ixv. 7, Who stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.

Now, bring this to Genesis; is not this express in Noah s covenant? Cren. ix. 11, 15, And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood ; neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh ; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And so now you have God s promise and covenant for and with both earth, heaven, and sea, and the waters thereof, alleged by God as witnesses long ago, forelaid and ordained, shall I say, suborned ? yea, and you see God gageth and pawneth one covenant to perform another, the covenant of Noah to make good this covenant of grace. And that whenever we read this covenant, he would have our faith look back to this in Genesis, which we see hath not to this day failed in performance, thereby to confirm us in the belief of this gospel covenant, made and delivered under David s name for the whole elec tion. We all acknowledge David s covenant to have been an example of, at least figurative of, the covenant of grace.

The rest of the passages in that covenant of Noah, I shall have occasion to meet with in the application of several other particular parallels that are found between Noah s covenants and this of the covenant of grace ; if these alleged, and thus compared, be not sufficient for the proof in the general.

SECTION II.

The application made by God himself of Noah s covenants to exemplify and confirm, his covenant of grace, as it is in Isa. liv. 9.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me : for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth ; so have 1 sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. ISA. LIV. 9.

Having hitherto been a-producing other scriptures to prove that both Noah s covenant to his own person is an example and pattern of the like grace to the elect, and likewise that those his two covenants, afore and after the flood, were figurative of the same covenant of grace to the church of the new testament, I return now anew with the more confidence to further exposition of this text, which I chose for the ground of this subject ; as in which I found God himself alleging it, and applying it to the foresaid intents and purposes ; and this is the first application that was made of it by the prophet Isaiah ; and the other out of Jeremiah, &c., which I have nn Tover,

followed after this of Isaiah. And this in Isaiah is so signal as God doth plainly point to it : This is as the waters of Noah to me. And that the thing aimed at here is the covenant of grace, the coherence of the words with what went afore, and follows after, doth in the general shew.

In the words just afore, the 7th and 8th verses, the promises to the church of the Gentiles, under the new testament, are : For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. After which immediately succeed the words of this 9th verse. Now these promises in verse 7 and 8 are a prophecy of what mercy and grace he would shew, in saving those his elect from first to last ; and these words that follow my text come in as a confirmation and illustration thereof, by alleging a most lively figure and correspondent type that had long before passed between God and Noah ; in a way of covenant, as on God s part, declared by God towards him, which upon this occasion of his prophesying this new covenant to his church, the sons of Noah, God calling that of Noah to his fresh remembrance, breaks: This is as the waters of Noah to me. As if he should out thereupon say, This is that very thing which I intended to prefigure and fore-signify, then when I sat at the flood (as Psalm xxix. 11) in and by those passages with Noah, which were at and about his flood, which God calls the waters of Noah. This, even this, which I even now have spoken of, my grace and mercy to my church, who are his sons and posterity, in the words imme diately afore ; even this was the mind and mystery of those my promises, which I made then to him upon occasion of and about those waters ; which is just such a like speech, as I shall after in the particular explication shew, as that of Christ to the Jews, where, pointing to the type of himself, he says, I give you the sign of Jonas. And this Noah s waters were to me, which latter word hath also a great emphasis in it, as to this import in hand.

They were such in my account, and ordination in mine own secret intent, which I had within myself when I uttered them ; and this I therefore now upon this occasion declare to have been the mystery of them according to this matter ; that so you may have your faith confirmed in this covenant of grace the more, in that it was in my heart so long afore, and in my intentions then fore -signified, by what I spake and acted toward Noah.

Then in the words after he doth in express terms call those promises of ver. 7, 8, The covenant of my peace, or my covenant of peace, as others ; because those promises contain (as I said) in them the principal substance of the covenant of grace arid peace ; and by expressing it thus under the title and notion of his covenant, he gives us to understand what he meant by Noah s waters, and sends us to the story of the things that c This is the waters passed then about it to know the meaning of his saying, of Noah.

About which we shall find that he had established two covenants with Noah, both before and after them waters ; whereof the first prefigured some eminent pieces of the covenant of grace ; the other signified other particu lars thereof, and in a special manner the stability of it ; and therefore it was they were two in a figure, because no one figure is sufficient to signify the whole ; and therefore God revealed it at those sundry times, by parts, but yet so as in their tendency both served to be figures of that covenant ; for so the covenant of grace is, which is but one, and is therefore styled in the singular, the covenant of his peace, but typified forth by those two of Noah s, which in that respect do coalesce in one.

58 OF ELECTION. [B OK L

Now, 2dly, there be two eminent things contained in those promises, verse 7, 8. . -

First, That whereas God had for some time (which in comparison ot eternity he calls a moment, though it had been a space of two thousand years) forsaken the Gentiles, as if he had rejected them from ever being a church to him, that yet he had in his eternal purposes designed a gathering of them observe that word, ver. 7 a taking of them into his bed, as an husband his spouse (for he carries it under the metaphor of an husband taking again his wife unto him : ver. 5, Thy Maker is thy husband ) ; so that his forsaking and rejecting of them so long had been but to magnify and greaten his own mercies towards them in the end the more ; and this first piece of his prophetic covenant, to gather them, you have in ver. 7, For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; but with great mercies will gather thee; wherein observe also how he puts the attribute of great mercies upon this their gathering, and great in two respects therein.

(1.) In relation to what they should be so long afore this grace breaks forth upon them, which you exactly find set out, even then when accom plished (as here it is promised and prophesied of), Eph. ii., where the apostle impresseth this very consideration upon them ; ver. 11, Wherefore remember, says he, that ye in times past, Gentiles in the flesh, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. And in speaking this to the Ephesians, he speaks the same to all the rest of the converted Gentiles, Romans, Colossians, Philippians, &c. And he remembers them of this, to that end they might thereby acknowledge that infinite great love and riches of mercy in electing them from everlasting ; and out of that electing love and grace freely first set upon them, it was that he had now called and gathered them. The con sideration of this he had promised, and forelaid into the apprehensions of them, in chap. i. ver. 4, which he drives home in the same chap. ii. ver. 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us ; his great love and mercy, that is his word, and it is God s own word in Isaiah, you see, upon the very same consideration.

(2.) Observe, it is the grace and mercy of his first gathering and convert ing them that God in Isaiah puts this greatness of mercy upon ; and the same doth the apostle there, in Eph. ii. 5, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ ; by grace ye are saved ; quickening here in the apostle s language, is gathering of them in God s here.

It was their first gathering then, and so on of their posterity, that God speaks of in that 7th verse in Isaiah.

The second eminent thing in God s prophetic promise in Isaiah to his Gentile church, is in the other following, ver. 8, In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. In which the eminent thing to be superadded to the former is the everlastingness of the kindness, after their being gathered. And otherwise the other words in both verses come unto one. The meaning of which is, that he would continue unto the persons of them, after he had gathered and converted them, an unchangeable kind ness with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee to last ; and that is, which shall not only not fail to follow them unto everlasting, and never be taken away or removed, but further, should be so rich a treasury as should last the spending upon them in ages to come, even to eternity (as in Eph. ii. 7, That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in kindness towards us through Christ Jesus ), and never be spent.

Now, answerably, there are two eminent distinct parts or pieces in God s application of Noah s covenants, which in their principal scope do correspond, as in the figure, with the eminent matters of those two aforesaid promises of God s : the one more specially respecting the one ; the other, the other of them. And, if you observe withal, there are two rational particles of for, which (according to what our translation hath rendered) are distinctly placed and set afore each.

1. For this [isj the waters of Noah to me. There is the first for; and that serves more especially as the reason or illustration of the matter of that first promise in ver. 7, and likewise in further correspondency to that 7th verse, I take it, those words have a more special reference unto the first covenant of Noah s, made afore his entering into the ark, and whilst in the ark, to save him in and from the waters or flood ; for that bears a resemblance with God s promise to gather, of which by and by.

For as I have sworn that the waters should no more go over the earth ; so have I sworn I

The second for, afore the second sentence that follows it : will not be wroth with thee, &c. This passage doth evidently, and without possibility of contradiction, refer to that second covenant made with Noah, after he was come forth of the ark, and had escaped the waters ; and unto that alone doth that passage refer, as by comparing Gen. viii. 21, and Gen.

: And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said ix. 11 appears in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man s sake ; for the imagination of man s heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done. And I will estab lish my covenant with you : neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood ; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And this latter passage hath a more peculiar and proper respect unto the matter of the promise in the 8th verse, namely, the everlasting continuance of that kindness of God s ; the unchangeable fixedness of his mercy not to be removed or taken off from that Gentile church, or his elect therein, after they are gathered. And for the confirmation and illustration of this everlastingness, &c., it is that he refers unto that latter covenant of Noah s, whereof he speaks thus : For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth ; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. In which words he gives the greatest evidence and demonstration of that fixedness of his mercy that could be, in that the matter of his oath sworn unto is, that from out of that mercy, and the resolved everlastingness of it, he undertakes to have so watchful a care to prevent whatever it be, might, and would otherwise provoke him unto ever lasting wrath against them. And that must be supposed to be such sinnings as by the rules of his word should put them into a state of wrath again ; for in that he says, I will not be wroth with thee, &c., there must be supposed, yea, and intended, a preventing the cause of such a wrath in the person he swears for ; for if they in such a manner sin, as unregenerate men do, which the apostle terms doing sin, in a continued course, with full consent of will, then according to the rules of his word an eternal wrath must fall upon them, and they become children of wrath again after gathering, daad in sins and trespasses, as afore. Again, this effect and fruit of his everlasting kindness in the 10th verse answers to the figure of God s oath to Noah, to see to it, and take order by his omnipotency, to still the rage of the waters, that they overflow the earth no more in wrath. And he here says he hath sworn he will do the like to the hearts of his elect, and thereby professeth himself to be as able to take order, and rule men s hearts and lusts, as he doth the waters ; and both are alike joined: Ps. Ixv. 7, Who stilleth the

GQ OF ELECTION. [B OK L

noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.

lusts that war in ^-member

TumuUs are from the raging of men s

James iv 1 2. And this everlasting kindness, and the firmness and faxedn "of it, and the unchangeableness, unalterableness of the covenant fcat proceeded from it, he further amplifies and enargeth upon ver 11 upon Occasion of this oath : For the mountains shall depart, and the h Is shall be removed, hut my kindness shall not depart from thee ; neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee

If any be not satisfied in this order and disposement of these two several sentences in ver. 9, both in these two references to the 7th and 8th verses respectively, and then also concerning that other unto Noah s two covenants respectively, under so distinct and different an allusion peculiar to each, 1 shall further add this account touching either of them.

1. As to the first sentence, this is the waters, &c., its special reference to Noah s first covenant, about his salvation in the waters, there is this reason to induce me, which ariseth from putting these few considerations together.

(1 ) A fresh remembrance is had and uttered by God of Noah s covenant, in this 9th verse, to confirm his covenant of grace, that appears by what hath been said. ,, (2.) That in the pursuit of this allegory, from the mention made of Noah s waters ver. 9, we meet with a most passionate exclamation, proceeding from God s deepest affection, uttered in ver. 11, thou afflicted and tossed with tempest, but with and under so manifest an allusion unto the like com passionate bowels towards Noah and his doleful condition, whilst he was a-saving him in the waters and in the ark,* as no man that will look to and again upon the aspect which the words, ver. 9, and of these ver. 11, do cast one upon the other, can be able rationally to deny. Now those affec tions towards Noah, as considered in that condition, and whilst in that con dition, were as manifestly stirred up in God s heart upon the remembrance of that first covenant made with Noah when he was to enter into the ark, and which in the letter of it concerned God s saving him in the waters, which punctually ngrees with what we read in the story of Noah s waters in Genesis, where, after the continuance of so many days tempests, by flood gates of waters from heaven, and prevailing of waters from beneath, related chap, vii., it is thereupon said, chap. viii. 1, that God remembered Noah, and those with him, &c. It was a remembrance, that, of tenderest compas sions, as we know that word remembrance useth to connotate and import. And in allusion unto this, you have his passions and compassions break forth towards his church, and uttered with a most pathetic outcry, thou tossed, &c., proceeding from the remembrance of his covenant towards his elect, which had been the main subject of the fore-part of the chapter ; and you know bow frequently in Scriptures it is spoken, God did this or that, remembering his holy covenant. And so it was here.

(3.) Hence, thirdly, there being first a memoir, a mention, or remem brance of Noah s waters, as notifying (by a metonymy) God s covenant with Noah about his waters, ver. 9, whereby to set out this his covenant to his 7 occasion thereof, and in coherence there church, and then afterwards b} with, these sympathising expressions break out in ver. 11. Certainly, then, that covenant with Noah, the remembrance of which was it that is said to have caused that commiseration in God towards him at that time, that must be found somewhere in the 9th verse, at the bottom of those words, if we

Videtur Dens adhuc respicere tempora Nose, quando totum imindum generalis inundatio delevit: appellat ecclosiara, respiciens arcam, quoe cum octo tan turn animabus juctabatur in fluctibus. Sanctius in verla.

will dive unto the bottom of the scope of the mention of them. Now that covenant was (of his two) the first of them, touching God s saving him in the waters, as by the story is undeniable. And therefore that covenant must necessarily have been alluded unto ; for otherwise the correspondence in the allusion between the two parts of it, had fallen quite besides, and had been disproportioned. For Noah s second covenant was to secure him against the waters any more to return upon him and his posterity. And that cannot in any reason be supposed that such this passionate exclamation, tossed, &c., should be referred unto; for it looks upon Noah as viewed in the height of those waters and tempests, and supposeth him in the midst of those waters ; so as between Noah s first covenant, and such an exclamation as that which was occasioned by it, there is a full congruity and proper coherence. The first part, giving just occasion for the latter, these suit as cause and effect ; but not so at all doth Noah s second covenant and this condolement match and correspond. But that alone considered gives not an occasion for it, and cannot comprehend in it the whole scope of Noah s waters, which yet generally interpreters would have it do. So then, here being these two sentences or speeches in the 9th verse, For this is the waters of Noah to me, the first ; * For as I have sworn the waters of Noah shall go no more over the earth, which is the second, and there being two covenants made with Noah about his waters (as they are called), differing in this, that the first was with promise to save him in the waters which were inevitably decreed to come upon the world for their destruction ; the other only to secure him, that they should not any more return to drown him and the earth ; it seems most probable, if there were no more reason on our side, that the first of those speeches should cast its eye of allusion and aspect upon the first of those covenants, as its pretended correspondent, and the second sentence upon the second covenant. The latter is apparent in the words, and was it that drew interpreters eyes wholly thereupon, to attend that, and overlook the first.

But that so emphatical an indigitation, or pointing so as with the finger in the first, * This is the waters of Noah to me, which are in the first uttered, seem to me to point rather to those waters which we read, de facto, did come upon the earth, and which Noah escaped, than to speak of another flood which did not come upon him, and which is yet termed the waters of Noah in the sentence following, meaning only that not the like waters, to those that did come upon Noah, should any more go over, &c., yea, that not another such ; whereas in this first instance he points to the flood itself that did come, from which the other not to come hath its denomination of Noah s waters, but tralatitiously, or at a second derivative hand, taken from the waters that had foregone, supposeth that positively such a flood had been. And that is it which properly and originally bears the name of Noah s waters, which is all one as we use to say Noah s flood, meaning that flood which de facto did come, and the latter mention of it is but the promise of a negative, a preventive promise, namely, that God would not again overflow the earth a second time with the like, and supposeth the danger of the flood already past, or at least Noah saved in it. Is it not, then, more proper and direct (may we not think) for that first speech, This is the waters, &c., to intend rather that positive salvation which Noah then was to have, and had, upon the first covenant, and which must necessarily be first supposed he should have ere the latter could be so much as spoken of, and which the promise of it necessarily implies in that word, no more go over the earth, that this first flood to have gone over is afore, yea, and that salvation of Noah s from that flood being that great salvation of which the Scripture speaks ? Can we

62 OF ELECTION. [B OK L think that God, in making a remembrance of his covenant about v and so of his promise to save him in them, should omit and pass that over altogether in silence ? Now, and if it be to be found at all in this 9th verse, it must be in these first words, This is the waters of Noah to me as pomting to those then present waters that came upon the whole earth which Noah was saved out of by virtue of that first covenant with him, and therefore mus be supposed to have been intended.

If any object, and say, Yea, but the second sentence, and the very expli cation he gives why and for what purpose he had spoken the first, as nrst proposing the mention of Noah s waters in general, this is the waters ol

Noah but with a purpose, and no otherwise but to bring m and declare this alone, that as he swore of those waters, they should no more return, so nor his wrath, &c., and so that this is the sole and whole intent of his mention of them. And to this do the generality of interpreters narrow it, and make both sentences to be in the scope of them, all one, and adequate, and only to serve to express God s faithfulness in not casting off his people, or in not givincr them up to wrath again, after he hath taken them to be his people.

3 I answer, 1, That it often falls out in alleging of a type more generally, that but some one particular part or branch of what it typifies proves to be instanced in, when yet there may be many other particulars of as great moment that are not explicitly mentioned. As when Christ says to the Pharisees, Mat. xii. 39, 40, as his after words shew, in indignation for asking of him a sign, who had given them so many, to testify invincibly that he was * An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and their Messiah, there shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas : for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The sign of the prophet Jonas ; that is, who was an iutended sign by way of type of me to come, and that in more respects than one. Yet our Saviour seems expressly to instance but in that one particular of his being three days and three nights in the whale s belly ; as which signified (as Christ explains it) his own being in the grave, or the heart of the earth three days, so is it here. The like might be instanced in the case of many other types, as in that of Noah s salvation in the ark, to be the figure of baptism, 1 Peter iii. 20, 21, which yet contains many other parallels not mentioned. ? Am. 2. It is true that the mention of Noah s waters here doth serve fitly to usher in, leads on unto that one particular that follows ; but yet if any will allow me but that this speech, This is the waters of Noah, is a general proposal of them first made, as notifying in general God s covenanting with Noah about those waters, whereof that one that succeeds is a particular com prehended in it, I should not much contend ; but to confine the scope of God s allegation of it unto that one branch instanced in, and thereupon so to exclude altogether its aspect, or any reference to the waters or flood of Noah that de facto came upon the earth, and in which, though Noah was saved, yet was tossed with tempests, this cannot be allowed ; for that in the remembrance of God s covenant made with him, God did commensurate* him in those waters, as a type of our great initial salvation from a state of wrath, which those that would make the scope to concern only God s oath, that the waters should return no more, do and must thereby includef it. This I do and must contend for to be included and intended (yet with pro fession to submit to cogent reason, that shall be made to the contrary) ; having this further to be added as a reason for it, that if this part of Noah s first covenant and salvation from the waters be excluded here, then is the * Qu. commiserate ? ED. t Qu. exclude ? ED.

CHAP. IV.] OP ELECTION

great type of our main, great, and first salvation by Christ excluded, to be meant here also, whilst yet his purpose is to illustrate and set out to his church his covenant of grace for the whole of their salvation, which in this chapter, yea, and in the two following chapters, he insists on, by way of promising and prophesying thereof, and inviting men to come under it as offered. See chap. Iv. and Ivi.

If any shall yet object that the second for, set afore the said speech, * This is as I have sworn, &c., is apparently the reason why he said first, the waters of Noah, and therefore it is to be restrained unto that one particular, I answer, I do as yet rather incline to think that there being two of these causal conjunctions of for, the one set before the first speech, for this is the waters of Noah, another afore the second speech, as I have sworn. And although the latter for is otherwise rendered by some interpreters, yet I take the version of the word as our translation and most others have turned it ; for, warranted by the same use of the word in the Hebrew so signifying, in 1 Sam. xv. 15, as Mr Gataker hath observed ; and so I under stand the two/ors as partitively to notify two distinct reasons of two several matters or things about these waters, in the sense before explained, and not that jointly they fall into one and the same thing only. I take the latter for not to denote a subordinate reason of the former for, or reason, but each to be distinct and co-ordinate, and to stand alone in their connection with the matter in the former verses ; and that the first should be a reason specially of that part of the covenant mentioned in the 7th verse foregone ; the latter specially as the reason and confirmation of that part of the cove nant in ver. 8. And the like distinct references made by causal particles, though immediately following one another, yet the first to relate as a reason of some matter foregone that is further off, and another later to somewhat that went more immediately afore, you meet so ordinarily withal in the Scriptures, specially in Paul s discourses, as I need not give instances of them.

Thus much for the account of the first branch proposed, why these first words, For this is the waters of Noah to me, should have, and especially have respect to Noah s first covenant to save him in the waters ; and as for * as I have sworn, that they respect his second cove nant there is no question ; I must further add the second branch proposed, and so I shall make this head complete ; viz., The special analogy that is between Noah s first covenant and waters, and the matter of the promise in the 7th verse ; and for the other, the corres the words that follow, pondency between the matter of the 8th verse (in what it differs from that in the 7th verse) with Noah s second covenant, namely, the everlastingness and stability of the covenant to be the thing aimed at in both ; this doth more clearly upon first sight appear, that there needs no large discourse more than in order to clear the first.

1. In general, as touching both. Noah s two covenants were both of them for his salvation from the waters, but with this difference : the first was with this promise, to save him from those present waters that did drown the rest of the earth ; the second, to preserve him, and the earth for his sake, from any more such a flood of waters its coming upon the earth, and so to secure him from all fears of destruction thence ; which considering the danger of their so doing, and sin ners desert of it, might truly be called a salvation preventive ; and a secur ing to him that great salvation positive, which God had vouchsafed him in and from the waters past ; and that second promise for the future, made that

64 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. first salvation in the waters to be salvation indeed, and without which it had only been but a reservation of him and his unto a second destruction from another flood. Thus you see in Noah s case, that these two are distinct, and yet both concur to make that his salvation perfect and complete.

Answerably unto the type of these in general, the like difference may be discerned, and must be acknowledged to be in the matter or point of our eternal salvation, to perfect it ; and so both of which are distinctly provided in that one covenant of his grace, whereof those his two covenants were imperfect shadows, Gal. i. ; first, our being called out of this evil world, or the rest of mankind, and by faith put into Christ, and thereby into a state of salvation, or the grace wherein we stand. This is everywhere in Scripture termed salvation, as in Eph. ii., By faith ye are saved, even upon their first believing ; and by grace ye are saved. Ye are at present, both from the wrath that is inevitably coming upon all the world of ungodly, and by having the inheritance of eternal salvation (as to the jus, or right, or title to it) settled and established upon you ; but there being an interstition or space between this of the right and entering into the full enjoyment and posses sion, there are therefore promises for perseverance, to keep and preserve you safe unto that possession, which is termed also salvation : 1 Pet. i., * Being the end and final period of your faith, the salvation of your souls. And unto this possession of salvation we are said to be kept by the power of God, 1 Pet. i. 5 ; and to that end the promises are for perseverance : 1 Thes. v. 23, 24, And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of ^our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it ; as also, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are under grace, or in the covenant of grace ; and both these are promised together in the covenant of grace, as to give a new heart and a new spirit, Jer. xxxi., whereby we are first wrought upon, so to put his fear within us, that we shall not depart from him. In the succeeding chapter of the same pro phet, Jer. xxxii. 40, I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good ; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me ; and again, you have both together as parts of his covenant (as it is here called) Luke i. 60-72 whereof one main part is, ver. 74, 75, That he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all our days. Now it is the first salvation that puts us into the state thereof in the right of it, which is Noah s first covenant, to be saved in the waters, which the apostle Peter makes the figure of our baptism. Now the promise to put us into the state of salvation in the whole right thereof, is that which answers to God s promise to Noah, to save him from and in the waters ; and it is the main and great promise of the two, and which the promise afterwards to keep us doth and necessarily first suppose to ^ have existed. And this salvation we call initial salvation; that of our being kept to persevere, and that sin shall never have dominion over us totally and finally, is but the continuation of us in that state of first salva tion until we come to the full possession, even as providence is of creation ; m them is continuance, and we shall be saved. And God s estating us at nrst therein is the performance of his covenant, and from out of the same grace out of which he after continues and preserves us in that estate ; and it is the whole covenant, for the performance of it, which God calls to remem brance with himself, the waters of Noah to me ; and as a witness and attes tation thereof, here produced unto us : so as we must either wholly cut off

that great first performance of it in calling us, as no way here intended, or we must take it into the figure, Noah s waters, here remembered upon occa sion of it. These things in general. As for the particular analogies between Noah s first covenant for his sal vation in the waters ; and this of our salvation at first.

1. As that was made in order, Noah s first covenant, &c., so this initial salvation is also the first, and foundation for perseverance.

2. We may be certain that our first initial salvation was typified out by Noah s first covenant ; for the Holy Ghost so applies it : 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21. Noah was saved in the waters, which is a figure of our baptism, which now saves us. Now baptism is first the sacrament which seals up initial salva tion ; our being put into Christ, and born again ; and seals up the whole of salvation as in the right thereof unto us. And most pertinently doth the apostle make Noah s waters the figure ; for as Ainsworth* has fully, though briefly, expressed it : Noah was baptized into Christ s death and burial (in the ark), but raised up again with him also.

And 3dly, How congruous a correspondency and affinity doth the first part of the covenant, for gathering his church at first, and calling them by grace, and their first being put into union with Christ (and this to do is certainly the performance of his covenant, and the first part thereof also) ; hold with both these, as the 7th verse doth utter it : For a little moment have I for saken thee ; and left thee to thy natural darkness and deadness ; but with great mercies will I gather thee. This denotes his first making of the Gen tiles his church, and bringing of them unto, and uniting of them to his Son ; for the first and second verses tell us, that they had been barren, and had brought forth no children for a long time. And as it denotes their being gathered out of the world, so especially unto Christ, and their union with him. And under that word Jacob prophesied of him : Gen. xlix. 10, * Unto him shall the gathering be.

4. And how fitly doth Noah and his family, their being called out from the whole world, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark, saith God, Gen. vii. 1, yea, and the beasts, which bear the resemblance of the fore gone state of the Gentiles that were newly gathering, made a church unto him, as I shall after shew ; gathered out of the rest, and by special instinct coming unto Noah, and into the ark. And how great a correspond ency doth the working by God upon Noah s spirit upon the fore-belief of the flood (and he fearing the wrath of God therein, prepared the ark), hold with the work of conversion and gathering souls into Christ, whereby men save themselves from the rest of a froward generation, as Peter s word is, Acts ii., will afterwards be shewn in the uses. And though Noah was a godly man afore, yet that high dispensation of God s saving him in the ark was as new conversion to him, and bore the lively resemblance of a soul s first gathering to Christ.

5. And, as upon his entering into the ark, there ensued storms and tem pests, and rains from above, and waters from beneath, and this for some months, so the time of souls first conversion and gathering into Christ, is usually accompanied with violent temptations, doubts whether in the state of grace or no ; fears at every cast that comes, lest they should be over whelmed, split upon rocks, and overturned by mountains ; which occasioneth God to cry out in pity to them, thou afflicted and tossed with tem

! though viewing them in a safe condition in their ark, Christ. This Peter gives notice of to his converted brethren, 1st Epistle, chap, v., ver. 10, pest

1 The God of all grace, after you have suffered awhile, make you perfect : * Ainsworth on the 16th verse of Genesis vii. VOL. IX. E

66 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. stablisb, strengthen, settle you! The suffering here is not chiefly those outward, of persecutions, for they were not freed from them all their days ; but these were such as arose from the special malice of the devil, who is a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, ver. 8. But these are such afflictions as they are settled against, and yet common, more or less, unto all converts throughout the world, ver. 9, after their conversion, and whilst they are weak : the issue of which is some better strength and rest unto their souls.

These parallels you see between Noah and his first covenant and salva tion, &c., and our first gathering, &c., in the 7th verse.

As for the second part of the 9th verse, which contains the promise of preservation, and a security against the return of that curse of these waters any more, that this alludes unto Noah s second covenant, after he came out of the ark, as none can deny that reads the words ; so the parallel between them is more obvious, and that the scope thereof is to confirm us of the everlastingness of God s kindness that shall follow us all our days after con version, which is promised, ver. 8. This I partly have shewed afore, and shall furthermore, in the explication of the words that follow that passage, in declaring and engaging an everlasting unchangeable kindness and mercy, and that by oath, against all such fears of sins in our hearts that threaten to over flow again ; and that sin should never have dominion over us, because we are under grace. This I need not largely insist upon. But instead of an enlargement that way, it will be more behoveful to answer some objections that may be made against this latter part, to have been intended as a type, but at all only brought in by God, as a mere allu sion and bare similitude, by which God illustrates only and confirms the stability of his covenant of grace. And the objection is this, That that covenant with Noah, Gen, ix., was but a covenant of common providence, and the concerns thereof, as that summer and winter, day and night, should not cease ; yea, and was made with every living thing, as well as with Noah ; and answerably had but an outward natural sign to confirm it, the waters should no more destroy the earth ; and hath nothing to do with the covenant of grace, nor can be supposed to be a figure of that cove nant under gospel times.

For answer, 1. As to that, that it is but a providential promise of conti nuance of the world from the judgment of waters any more ; outwardly it was no more; but this hinders not from its being in the mystery a typical promise to Noah, and those of his seed elect that were to succeed, to sonify the perpeluity of the covenant of grace to them, and that God would never suffer his loving-kindness to depart ; this, I say, no more hinders, than that that promise under that other former covenant to Noah, to preserve him and the beasts in the ark, should not be the covenant of grace (in the figure), as yet we have for certain heard out of Peter that it was ; for both were but for outward salvation in the letter.

2 To that next part of the objection, that it was made with the very beasts.

Nor doth this rationally prejudge it from bearing this figure. 1 No more than that because the beasts and cattle came forth of Egypt re thelr redem Ption toa not fth redempbyhrist 2 Nor no more, than that because the cattle drank of the rock, as well as ^^ I ^5 thf re tbat r ck Was not Christ %rativelv and sacramentally ; which yet the apostle expressly telleth us it was 1 Cor x

Nor, 3dly, was that covenant made primarily, or in a direct and principal respect, with the beasts, but with Noah and his sons ; and with the beasts but secondarily for his sake, and as appurtenances to man, and belonging to him ; otherwise they are not capable of a covenant, because no way to be made sensible of it ; and, therefore, but as an accidental appendix of man s charter, or lease granted, it is that they are put in. And, again, look as for man s sake the earth, and all things in it, were accursed, Gen. iii., and then they were destroyed for man s sake by this flood, as God professeth, Gen. vi. 6, 7 ; so, on the contrary, God declareth, that when he saw* those crea tures in the ark, that it was for his sake ; and therefore this clause is twice added, Gen. vi. 19, 20, to keep them alive with thee ; that is, for thy sake. And in like manner it is said, Gen. ix. 1, 2, 8, And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea : into your hands are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things. So as it was to preserve mankind that these creatures were preserved, and that they might have subjects to have dominion over.

4. Yet further; all the creatures may well be said to come under this our covenant by Christ ; for we profess and believe, not only that Christ, by his death, made a purchase of all, and by his sacrifice procured the standing of the world, in order to the elect for their good, and so their preservation comes to be included in the elects covenant and promises ; but there is by Christ a liberty one day to be conferred upon the whole creation, in their being delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God : so as in their capacity they have a share in the privileges of the new world, that world to come, typified forth by Noah s new world, and promised upon his having offered his sacrifice, wherein he was Christ s type. So that this is so far from being an objection, that it serves, on the contrary, to render the analogy more complete.

But as to this of the beasts and the rainbow, there is another notion yet to be cast in, of a figurative representation, that these beasts in the ark did hold with the elect themselves to be converted under the gospel, as will put a farther end to this or any other objection of this sort ; but I reserve it to a greater advantage, to bring it in the particular parallels between these of Noah s covenants and our covenant of grace.

SECTION III.

A more particular explication, both of the phraseology, manner of speech, and matter in the 2th verse, confirming the foregoing interpretation.

This is, he says it of the promises he was speaking of, and of his covenant to his church, ver. 7, 8.

But you will ask, how is it such promises, and the matter of them, should be called the waters of Noah ?

The waters of Noah are in this first sentence metonymically used to signify all those passages at and about the flood, concerning Noah s salvation, figuratively applied to promises of God s covenant ; it being usual in all languages, by mentioning one circumstance or eminent occurrence, as the * Qu. saved ? ED.

68 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. day or the place whereon or wherein such memorable things were done or spoken, to denote the things or facts done on that day or place, together with that eminent occurrence ; as when it is said, The day of provocation in the wilderness, it serves to mind and notify all the singular provocations of that day or time; so in like manner, as when our Saviour said, The days of Noah, he intends thereby to notify the things done in those days, Mat. xxiv. 37 and 38 verses compared. In like manner, by the days of Lot, Luke xvii. 28, he intends to notify the things then done : They did eat, they did drink, says he, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, &c. In like manner it is usual to mention some one eminent occurrence instead of all the rest, to hint all the rest that were at the same time acted together with it or that belonged thereto. Thus here, the waters of Noah ; that is, all the occurrences, passages then, or things done ; and the remembrance of those things being so like, yea, in many things the same, occasioneth him in the midst of his declaration of those promises of grace to cry out, This is the waters of Noah to me, the very same I did then. Now the things that were then done at those waters, were an uttering a covenant by God for Noah s salvation in those waters ; likewise God s secret purposes and intendments, then only known to himself, by those transactions with Noah as in a type did fore-signify his like gracious pur poses towards his church, which he utters and declares ; also Noah, his tossing and trials in the waters, and God s remembrance of him then in the midst of them.

And thus, in saying this is the waters of Noah to me, it is as if God had there said, the promises and covenant I have but now declared towards my church make me call to mind what I said to Noah at the flood, when the waters would have destroyed him ; and also to remember what my grace, my intentions, purposes, my affections, my heart was then, and at that time ; and those my transactions with him then, I intended, and aimed to prefigure, and portray out these my like gracious purposes to my church, to come out of his loins, which I meant in after ages and in due time to declare and open the mystery of; and accordingly I now upon this occasion do declare it m my prophet Isaiah : < This is the waters of Noah to me ; I then had them all in contemplation afore; I had all my elect church to come in my view ; all my promises of grace, all my promises of salvation were alore me then ; I intended them all in the figure and type of Noah s salva tion, and of his sons; and when the time of the accomplishment shall come, 1 shall further and more amply declare this to have been in my heart and design by my apostles.

To me. There is a great deal of emphasis in that adjection, and serves for confirmation of these things which have now been spoken. 1. It imports that God so looked at it, and intended it as such. A man usetn to say of a thing that we account to be such and such, it is so to me : To us there is but one God, &<,., says the apostle in the name of Christians, so we judge and believe; these waters were my covenant; so it stood in my thoughts, and so it should stand in yours. 2 It imports that a thing is privately and secretly, and within one s breast, so or so intended and esteemed. It is to me, who am privy to my own intentions; so to God between God and himself. And this imports the next sentence suggested

For as I have sworn, the waters of Noalf shall no Tr tf Tl ? T f i N W lo k Ver a11 that sto in ^nesis, then mat on of %*&? Testament

7 find not the leasi intiEd2fi? i od had taken about this matter - And if G d had kept his own counsel, we could never have challenged him with this

parallel of an oath to both his covenant and ours ; his intentions therein were known only to himself ; but himself knowing his own mind utters it here ; for it is to me that the waters of Noah are my covenant of grace.

3. Lastly, This to me imports God s acknowledging himself obliged to fulfil his covenant of grace to the elect ; for though none did know this to have been his intentions in it, yet it was enough for him, within himself to have intended it so. And it is enough to us for him to say, This is to me the waters of Noah ; and as I performed that then, so I hold myself obliged now. My own purposes had then, are my bonds between me and myself ; and I can no more alter my purposes in it than I did recall my covenant made to Noah then, when I made it. This being the true intent and meaning of these words ; further, as for the form of speech itself, to say of the promises of his covenant of grace, This is the waters of Noah ; this form or manner of speech is usual. As,

1. When we would parallel two things that are alike, we use to say, this is such or such a thing, namely, to which it is like. Thus Christ speaks of John Baptist : Mat. xi. 15, This is Elias ; he speaks it of John in coher ency with ver. 13. And why, but because he was such another man in his course of life, zeal, office, and way of ministry as Elias was, and living in like corrupt and depraved times ; as the angels described him, and foretold against his birth : Luke i. 17, In the power and spirit of Elias, to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. Thus here, God paralleling his covenant with Noah, &c., with that to his elect church, and upon the remem brance of the likeness and sameness, says, This is the waters of Noah. Even as Christ calls Jonah s being in the whale s belly three days and three nights, the sign of Jonah ; that is, of being in the grave, and rising then up again.

2. But specially this is and may be used when one thing is the prophetic figure, type, or sign of another, that they are mutually and indifferently named the one the other, That rock was Christ, the figure hath the name of Christ that was intended and prefigured in it, 1 Cor. x. 2. And vice versa, or on the other way, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, 1 Cor. v. 7. There Christ, the thing prefigured, is styled the figure ; and in this case it is not by way of simple metaphor, in that the things are like one the other, but there is this further special foundation for it, that when one thing is intended for the type of another it is all one, and to be a fore-running pro phecy of the other, which must therefore necessarily be fulfilled, and come to pass. If Adam be the type or figure of Christ, then what follows, but as the apostle argues it, that Christ is he that is to come ? Rom. v. 14.

Adam, says he, was the figure of him that was to come. And so the things prefigured by any type must of necessity be things to come, and to come to pass ; for they are prophecies, and prophecies must have their accomplishment.

And in this case, the figure and thing figured do both bear the same name ; therefore Christ being the prefigured, in and by the first Adam, is termed the last Adam, 1 Cor. xv. But you shall find the very same form of speech used, and the same indigitation made in the like case, Gal. iv., when the apostle would prove the different conditions of two sorts of persons, into one of which all mankind do fall, namely, either to be under the covenant of works, or the law, or of grace, that is, the gospel ; having for the proof of these (for types rightly applied are argumentative) alleged how Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond woman, the other by a free woman, and dilated thereupon, he claps his hand down upon it, and with the like indigi tation cries, For these are the two covenants ; terming the intended types or figures under the Old, by the name of the substance, or things signified

70 OF ELECTION. [BoOK L under the New. So in like manner, Rev. xi. 4, of the two witnesses under the New Testament, typified out by Zechariah s two olive-trees under the OldThese are the olive trees, &c. Again, Eph. v., when the apostle had related the passages at Adam and Eve;s marriage as they are found in Genesis, of a man s being joined to his wife, and they two being one flesh, he in a like form of speech, quasi digito monstrans, instantly subjoins, this is a great mystery, as being intended of Christ and his church God m his secret intention had that aim in it. So here, whilst God had begun to express his loving-kindness, and was going on to do it, he as it were, < Inis is suddenly struck with the remembrance of it, claps down his hand, the waters of Noah to me. This ; there is indeed this difference, that whereas in that of Adam s marriage he takes, as I may say, his finger oil from his relating the thing signifying, and lays it upon the thing signified

This is a great mystery ; but here, vice versa, on the contrary, as Jacob his hands, he takes off his speech from the thing signified (namely, his covenant: This is no other than the of grace), and lays it upon the thing signifying waters of Noah. But it is all one (as I observed) for the thing figured to be denominated by the name of the figure, as e contra, the figure by the title of the thing figured. And so the paraphrase upon the words may run thus, as if God had said : In the passages of the waters of Noah I was a-drawing a model, a shadow of what I meant to form up, and make a substance and reality of in after ages, in my covenant of grace.

This to be the import of that weighty addition, to me, the paraphrase of some doth concur in, Tale quid concept apud me. I was in my thoughts con: that is, whilst I was ceiving, and forming such a like thing within myself making those transactions with Noah. Others thus : Videor mild esse in diebus Noe ; that is, whilst I am declaring, and speaking, talking of, and resolving to perform my covenant of grace, I think with myself, I am at the flood, as in the days of Noah ; and doing the same things over again, which I did then about Noah s salvation, and with the same heart, and out of the same gracious resolutions ; and being privy to his own intentions, he tells us plainly, This to me was the waters of Noah. And now I utter my secret purposes therein, that were as then private to myself.

; SECTION IV.

Some special particular parallels between what is found in Noah s covenant and the covenant of grace.

1. Absoluteness ; which, how, and what it will appear by comparing things with things spoken of in that history, and the order of their being spoken of first in chapter vi. When God s counsel or intention within him self about saving Noah and destroying the world is held, and there laid open, God s grace towards him is in the first place solely and abstractly mentioned as the cause thereof, whilst no mention at all, not the least, is made of Noah his holiness as mingled therewith ; as for which, and upon which, God did cast that grace upon him, in ver. 8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But pure and unmixed grace, which* works, by being alone mentioned, is made the total and only cause of that matter : ver. 8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And then, indeed, in the story of his generation which follows, ver. 9, &c., there comes to be recorded Noah s holiness, These are the generations of Noah : Noah was a just man, * Qu. without ? ED.

and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God/ So as Noah s personal righteousness follows as the effect of that grace which God bore to his person, and is no way connected with that grace, as that for which God cast that grace upon him. He was first found the object of God s grace and favour, and not grace first found in him ; thereby plainly to insinuate, that for no righteousness in him it was that God did first absolutely pitch his grace upon him, abstractly from the consideration of his holiness, and that was the fruit of that grace of God s; as was also the case of the blessed virgin, Oh thou that art graciously accepted or graced. That thou of all other women shouldest be the mother of the Messiah, the Son of God, says the angel, Luke i. 28, 32. To be sure this privilege could by no worthi ness in herself come to be bestowed upon her, so nor this of Noah.* Nor is anything of his inserted as a condition of that grace. Again, at the 18th

But with thee will I stablish my covenant. Hence again, there is no mention of condition on Noah s part, but only of what God by covenant would do on his ; and therefore absolutely declareth himself, that he not verse, only makes a covenant, but established it ; and under this word undertakes to perform it, and bring it to a full perfection, so as whatever should be neces sary and requisite on Noah s part, God at once undertakes to work in him as part of his own covenant. If you read over the whole covenant of grace, as it is prophesied of by Jeremiah, chap, xxxi., and quoted by the apostle, Heb. viii., you will find that all that is requisite to salvation on man s part, God undertakes to work it in them, and causeth effectually their hearts to concur therein.

But it may be said (which also the Eomanists object), that in chap. vii. 1, when God did put Noah into the ark, he said, Come thou into the ark : for thee have I seen righteous afore me in this generation.

I answer, That the performance of promises, when they are to come to execution, do require such and such qualifications in the persons to whom they are performed, when yet the decree and purpose of those promises, and the making of those promises, depend wholly and immediately upon God s grace as the spring and fountain of them. Thus heaven and glory, as they are in God s purpose designed, are merely of grace, when yet God executively bestows them not, nor brings us to salvation [but] by and through faith and holiness. As 2 Thes. ii. 13, God hath chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth. Now, observe how this was spoken of Noah, when the thing came to be done, and he was to set his foot into the ark. And it comes in order after the declaration which God s grace utters of his counsel and purpose, which we read in the aforesaid chapter vi. 8, 18. God considered not Noah s being first righteous ere he did cast his grace upon him, and thereupon did it. The like language unto this of God s to Noah will Christ use to his saints when they are at latter day to enter into heaven, but shewing withal how his grace hath put a differ ence between them and others, and had made them meet for that inheritance : Mat. xxv. 34, 85, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in. So first, and it imports God the Father s first choosing of them to have been the cause of all they inherit.

For any man to interpret the absoluteness of the covenant to be that God saves men absolutely without any requisite qualifications wrought in them, is manifestly to cast a reproach upon the grace of God itself in the doctrine of f Hoc enim habent a gratia, qua Deo fuerunt accept! , priusquam aliquid ab iis acceptaret. Rivet, in locum.

72 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. it. Whilst it is professed that his grace covenanted to work in them, and accordingly worketh both the will and the deed, according to his good plea sure, where he means to save, and never saved any without they be wrought in them ; nor doth that doctrine (if not perverted by men s presumptuousness) encourage men to use no endeavours, because God covenants to work all ; for God, when he will save, setteth men s will a-work to use all endea vours in a subordination to his grace ; as in that exhortation you find it, Work out your salvation ; for it is God works the will and the deed, yet still, according to his good pleasure. And this absoluteness of electing grace the apostle sets forth, Rom. ix., It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, that useth means and endeavours, but of God that sheweth mercy. Yet without men s willing and running (such as wherewith souls trust not therein, or think to obtain by their endeavours), God that sheweth mercy saveth no man ; yea, shews his mercy in causing so to will and to run as to obtain. According to his abundant mercy he begetteth us, 1 Peter i. 3. He shews the mercy in working that ; and being savingly wrought on, keeps us through the same mercy ; so says my text here in Isaiah, My kindness shall not depart from thee, nor the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.

Nor indeed are those we call conditions of the covenant on our part, as believing on Christ, turning from sin, other than necessary means of being made partakers of Christ and salvation. As if one should say to an hungry man, there is meat which shall be yours, to live by it, if you will eat it and digest it, else not. In this case, who will say this is barely a condition, for it is the very partaking of the meat itself whereby a man makes it his own. So for a father to say to one he bestows his daughter upon in marriage, Lo, she is your wife, take her and marry her. This is not a condition of her being his wife, as external to it, but it is that very intrinsecal and essential act whereby she becomes his, and he her husband. Take the instance in hmd. Noah s preparing the ark, and his entering into it to be saved, are not so properly to be styled conditions which God took from him, and so thereupon to save him, but they were necessary means for Noah to save himself; yea, his entering into the ark and abiding therein (whereunto the act of our faith on Christ answereth) was his salvation itself. God himself

Come, enter thou, Gen. vii. 1, and he was safe and saved by so doing. Unto which that of Christ s answers, Whoever sees the Son, and comes to him, John vi. 85 ; And he that cometh I will raise up at the latter day, ver. 87, which is interpreted, he that believeth, ver. 40, 44, 45. All Noah s holiness would not have saved him from the waters, but his being in the ark saved him from the waters. And that salvation as so considered, is that which bears the figure of our salvation. And when he was in the ark all the while, although his meat and drink kept his bodily spirits alive as a man, yet his salvation, considered as it was a salvation in the waters and from the flood, was his being in the ark ; and that salvation, precisely as such, is that which is in the figure. This for the first absolute ness of this grace and covenant. says to him,

2. The second parallel is the everlasting stability, snreness, fixedness, and constancy of the grace of the covenant, which, ver. 8, is termed, everlasting kindness ; and the covenant itself as unmoveable as are the mountains ; Then may the covenant of my peace be removed, ver. 10, and this signi fied by the stability of Noah s covenants, both first and second. And there fore the word, I will establish my covenant, is used of the first, Gen. vi. 18, and of the second, Gen. ix. 11. And the same word is repeated here in Isa. liv., In righteousness shall be established, ver. 14. And to

typify forth this stability of the covenant did Noah s second covenant in a special manner serve ; and therefore the very words thereof are to this very purpose rehearsed in this verse of my text. And to this very purpose I shewed how many of the words and passages thereof are referred unto and transposed into the grand charter of the covenant of grace, to confirm the perpetuity thereof, as in three several chapters set together of Jeremiah you find them, which I must remit the reader unto. And for this purpose it is that God produceth his oath in the text, as that which he professeth to have intended in this covenant with Noah, As I have sworn, &c. And the like parallel oath, in correspondency thereunto, he amxeth to his covenant of * So have I sworn I will not be wroth with thee ; that is, with grace here, a wrath to destruction ; even as he had sworn the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth to destroy it. And an oath, we know, is immut able, as Heb. vi. 18. Yea, moreover, God professeth himself resolute and peremptory in it, concluding, Thus saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee ; that is, that God who is set in his heart, and purposes to exercise nothing else but mercy towards thee, even as God, to express his peremptoriness in shewing mercy to Moses, I will be merciful to whom I will be merci ful. And truly there is this considerable about God s alleging his oath to Noah, that if God had not said that he intended an oath, in that he intended an oath in that his covenant with Noah, we could never have challenged him of it if he had kept his own counsel. For read the whole story there, and there is no mention of an oath, or any words that tend that way, only that God should have said in his heart, I will not curse the ground any more, Gen. viii. 21. But God was privy to his own intention, and so upon this occasion declares it ; and his manner of speaking here secretly imports it, This is the waters of Noah to me ; that is, between me and myself, who knew my own intentions.

But you will say, will not men s sins break this covenant, though God will not ?

I answer, They would infallibly break between God and us, if God should not take order to keep us from such ways of sinning as would bring ever lasting wrath upon us. Promissis se curaturum (saith Piscator well). He will have a watchful eye and powerful hand to prevent such sinnings. As upon occasion of his like oath to the perpetuity of his covenant of grace, he declares to David, in Ps. Ixxxix. 30-32, If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments ; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments ; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. And by those chastisements I will reduce them again. But, as ver. 34, My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. And that God had all our sins before him, and well considered what they would be, when he takes this deliberate oath, the very parallel instance (afore us) of what is inserted by God in Noah s cove nant, may inform us. The words in Gen. viii. 21 are, God said in his heart, I will not curse the ground any more for man s sake ; for the imagination of man s heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done. Thus the oath in the figure speaks. And that which answers it in the covenant of grace is, that God foresees what our sins will be ; and yet he knows what he hath to do, obliges him self with a non obstante, thus everlastingly to save us ; for he views them aforehand, and takes care they shall not be such that he should be everlastingly wroth with us; He knows our frame, as Ps. ciii., and considers it to be merciful to us, and nevertheless goes on to establish this covenant with us.

This for the stability of his covenant.

74 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

8. A third parallel is, that God hath made and confirmed his covenant of grace sure and stable, and in and through the sacrifice of Christ the Mediator.

Covenants, we know, were wont to be made with sacrifice, Ps. 1. 5. Now

God s covenant on his part was to be ratified, Heb. ix. 18-20. And when God s covenant is in this 9th verse styled the covenant of his peace, it imports as much as, not of grace simply, but of peace ; as of God being pacified by an atonement of a mediator. And the aspect this word peace may seem to have here unto what in the chapter afore had foregone, where the sacrifice of Christ being prophesied of, it is said, He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peacewas upon him ; through which, God being pacified towards us, makes a covenant of peace with us. Now as Christ is styled our peace, Eph. ii., and so it being made by him, through the appointment of the Father, it is called by God the covenant of < It pleaseth the Father, that Christ, having made his peace peace by the blood of his cross, to reconcile to himself, &c. And in this respect the parallels fall most fitly between that covenant, Gen. ix., made with Noah, a figure of God s with us. It is worth our comparing the one with the other ; for not only, de facto, it is found to have been so, that ere God established his covenant with Noah, when come forth of the ark, he offered burntofferings on the altar to God, and that God was well pleased therewith : Gen. viii. 20, 21, The Lord smelled a sweet savour, a savour of rest, as in the Hebrew, that is, of peace ; and said in his heart, &c., he would curse the earth no more, and thereupon established that covenant that follows. And that Noah, the father of that new world to come, was herein a type of Christ, and that this sacrifice of his was the type of Christ s sacrifice, we all acknowledge from the warrant of that allusion, and same ness of language the apostle useth of Christ s sacrifice that had been uttered of this of Noah : Eph. v. 2, Christ gave himself for us an offering, a sacrifice to God, for a sweet smelling savour, which I insisted upon afore. But it may further be noticed, how that he makes the parallel yet more con spicuous, and as setly designed, by comparing the order and coherences of this 54th chapter of Isaiah with the foregone chapter, the 53d. That that chapter treats of Christ s sacrifice, and then this 54th chapter, and also the 55th and 56th chapters, do treat of the covenant of grace, the covenant fol lowing thereupon. And they succeed each other in the very same imme diate coherence that Noah his sacrifice and covenant did one the other in those two fore-mentioned chapters in Genesis. For look, as in the latter part of that 8th chapter he relates the story of Noah s sacrifice, that then in the 9th chapter he records that covenant thereupon, just answerably in Isaiah, after he had in the foregoing 53d chapter foretold Christ s great sacrifice of himself: Bearing our sins and sorrows, making his soul an offering for sin, with promise that many should be justified thereof ; and he should see his seed, &c. Immediately after this he subjoins, how upon this sacrifice God covenants to rear up a new Christian church (of which the next branch is to treat), and establisheth this covenant therewith under this very figure of the waters of Noah. And as no prophecy speaks more fully and clearly of Christ s sacrifice than that 53d chapter of Isaiah, so nor none more perspicuously and evangelically of the gospel covenant than the 54th chapter, and the two other that follow. And in the 55th chapter, the 5th verse, this covenant is called the sure mercies of David, that is, of Christ, having purchased them for us by his death, and by rising again having applied them to us.

As Mr Gataker, English Axmot., rather My covenant of peace, Ezek. xxxiv. 26 and xxxvii. 26, that is, of reconcilement to thee.

4. The fourth parallel is, the tenderness of God s mercies to his elect, whom he takes into his covenant, in all these distresses and extremities. This is by the parallel of Noah s story set forth to us ; for what can be sup posed more sympathising with his people, or argues a deeper sense and sounding of bowels, than to hear God, in the midst of their afflictions and temptations, cry out on the sudden, and with the greatest vehemency, thou afflicted, and tossed with tempests, and not comforted ! There is no speech or passage which we find our God to utter in Scripture more pathetic or passionate than this ; and yet you see (as before I touched) it is repre sented under a perfect allusion to and compassionate remembrance that God s heart still had retained of Noah whilst in the ark, floating in those waves and horrible tempests, which coming in immediately with coherence with the remembrance of Noah s waters, This is the waters of Noah, &c., in verse 9, as a remembrance of his covenant with his people, could not have been more probably carried over to any other similitude or allusion in Scrip ture whatsoever, suppose this coherence had not been; but for the pertinency of it, I shewed before what remembrance God had of Noah whilst in the ark, Gen. viii. 1. And if Noah s instance had not been alluded to, I appeal to any what exemplification they can find to set out to the life the sympathisings of a condoling heart of another in misery like unto it, nor could the movings of God s bowels have been more elegantly uttered. Methinks it is as if the dearest friend, or most loving husband or father, having his dearest relations of wife, and children, and friends in a ship at sea, and viewing them to sit within the rage of wild waves and winds, which he, standing himself safe on the immediate shore, sees and beholds with his own eyes, and at every bending of the ship near to a suppression under those waves, his heart beats, and he lamentably cries out at every toss and motion, and thinks with himself, how must their hearts be afflicted, and not comforted in the midst of all, that are shiftless and helpless in this storm, and know not what to do ! Like to such an one doth God express his affection here.

5. As touching the eminent subject of this new covenant, and of election of grace, that is, the persons to be saved, or that church this covenant is established withal, our comparing together what is prophesied thereof in this 54th chapter of Isaiah, and the prefigurations thereof in Noah s ark and story, and his own prophecies given out about it, will afford another (if I may not call it a parallel, yet) concordant harmony, yea, identity, to be the same in both.

Who and what that church should be, is lively set forth in Noah s story, under a double notion or consideration of them.

(1.) Of their persons, whom that church should specially be made up of.

(2.) In respect of their condition, viz. all sorts of sinners.

(1.) For the first, this 54th chapter of Isaiah informs us, that the church which God applies all these promises unto, and intends all these his com forts to, was the Christian church of the new testament, which was to rise up soon after Christ s death (which many other prophecies had foretold), and in a special manner the coherence of the 53d chapter, and this 54th chapter, shews ; this also (as it served afore for the former purpose, so now for this) you have in chapter liii., the most renowned of all other records in the Old

Testament, prophesying of Christ s death, and therein a promise as his pur chase and reward : ver. 10, * Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ; he shall see his seed, &c. And as in the event it proved, that soon after Christ s death a new Christian church began to be reared, so in order follows next in the prophet a prophecy of that church; for immediately upon it, in chapter liv., from the first verse and so on, succeeds this church, as therefrom exist-

76 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. ing, which was to be both his seed and spouse, Thy Maker is thy hus band, and children to be brought forth to him. See the first verse: Sing, barren, [that didst not] bear; and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child : for more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife. Here is a former wife-mother spoken of, and here is a new wife (that formerly had been barren and desolate), and a new seed, or children more numerous than those by the former wife, and these are manifestly discriminated, the one from the other ; and it is to this new spouse that God applies this his oath of Noah s covenant and waters, which is nowhere else to any such purpose at all mentioned in all the Old Testa ment. Well, but who is this barren woman, this anew received spouse ?

Let us hear the apostle s interpretation of it, who those are whom he applies it unto: Gal. iv. 25, Jerusalem that now is. He speaks of that Judaical church under the name of the mother city, which then was existing, and as not yet destroyed, when he wrote this epistle. And this church, the old wife would needs hold up in opposition to that new church and wife ; that frame and form of worship of the old testament, though she kept thereby herself and her children still in bondage, as it is there ; but there is (says he) another

Jerusalem, which is above, and is free, the mother of us all; which new

Jerusalem was now, under the new testament, declared to be the mother of us all, the venter of a new generation. To prove which, he citeth this very place, Isa. liv. 1, as a prophecy thereof: Rejoice, barren, &c. So, then, here is a new church this chapter of Isaiah concerns, and an old one which it is severed from. And it will not be a block in the way of the application of this scripture, which I shall drive at (which is, that the new church out of the Gentiles is principally aimed at), whether the Christians of the Jewish nation, and the churches at Jerusalem and Judea be understood, and taken in to have made up, during those gospel times, part of this new church. Although there is this against that in that very chapter, that the church he now foretells he would anew assume, the wife he had cast off, [he] would cast off no more after he had received her, whereas he hath cast off the Jewish nation from having children by her, or out of her, for these fourteen hundred years. She was in a manner cut off in Paul s time, whereas out of the Gentiles he hath con tinued a numerous church to this day. It matters not, I say ; for the chil dren out of the Jewish nation then (though the first gospel fruits), were but a few in comparison to those the Gentiles have brought forth to God, and soon became barren again. And yet it will not be enough for the full completing my drift, that this new wife, the church under the new, is that which is prophesied of here by Isaiah, unless in the next place I also shew that this was either typified or prophesied of Noah s story, that we may say of it, This is the waters of Noah, &c.

[1.] In the general, the allusion from thence will hold, that Noah and his sons were ordained by God to be the founders and beginners of a new world ; as we use to say, they began the world anew. Thus in the letter they were, which Peter s phrase insinuates, whilst he calls that afore Noah s times the world that then was. And answerably thereunto, the times of Christ and his apostles are styled, in the current language of the New Testament, stilo now, to have begun a new world. Thus Christ speaks, the kingdom of heaven is at hand ; and as a new sera or account, the gospel times are called the last days ; so the apostles ; and the world to come, saith Paul, Heb. ii., which did then begin ; for it is set in opposition to the time of the law given by the angels, ver. 2; and so of the Jewish state. The analogy holds thus

between them, that look as when in the old world, all flesh had corrupted their way, as Gen. vi. 11, 12, and among the Jews, religion being afore so * God having suffered in times past all corrupted, and among the Gentiles, nations to walk in their own ways, Acts xvii. 16, After dumb idols as they were led, 1 Cor. xii. 1, that then God raised up this new gospel church as * the time of the reformation, or a new world (the time of which is called change of the old, Heb. ix.), the saints and churches you read of in the epistles superscribed unto them, to the Eoraans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the Hebrews. Thus in general for the type, but, [2.] Furthermore, when Noah came forth of the ark to begin this new world, he falls a-prophesying, and prophesies after that second covenant made with him of this same new church: Gen. ix. 27, God shall enlarge Japhet to dwell in the tents of Shem, which was when the Gentiles were converted. And now let us return again to Isaiah, and see whether he doth now also prophesy in a language conform to this of Noah s, as if he had re newed but Noah s old prophecy, as intended of this new church. Read on : Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations : spare not, lengthen thy the next two verses of that chapter cords, strengthen thy stakes, for thou shalt break forth on the right hand, and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited ; which repeats but the punctual fulfilling of that pro phecy of Noah in Japhet s seed, under the same language of enlarging Japhet there, and enlarge thy tents here, and of dwelling in the tents of Shem there, through the efficacious persuasion of the word that went out of Sion and from Jerusalem in the apostles ministry. For after this Moses, the relator of these things, setting down who were the sons of Japhet in chapter x. verses

2-4, in the 5th verse he shews what parts of the world their allotment was : By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. Now, we may know that those isles of the Gentiles are those of Europe, the Grecians, Germans, Britains, &c. ; and so called by a special denomination, Europe abounding with islands more than Asia or Africa by far. And we find among the heathen records that they styled themselves Japeti genus, the seed of Japhet. You, brethren, even you, are a portion of that seed, Japetians all ; and whose forefathers have been persuaded to dwell in the tents of Shem, and the gospel is amongst you to this day; you are, with other nations, the church in all these prophecies pointed at, and children of this covenant, which hath taken hold of many of you. And we have heard with our ears, and our eyes have seen it, the fulfilling of that which follows in that 13th verse of this chapter: Your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

This as to the persons, or what generation of men, simply considered.

(2.) For the condition of the persons this new church was to consist of, it had a representation made for it to prefigure that, namely, they should be sinners of all sorts that the worst of nations in the world brought forth, according to the several kinds of their degeneratings and profaneness. I must now again retrieve that objection which I before have made, namely, that there were all sorts of beasts, and fowls, and creeping things in the ark, which were saved from the waters, in a corporeal salvation, as well as Noah and his sons ; yea, and with whom, after Noah and they came forth of the ark, that second covenant was made. And the objection is, that therefore this covenant cannot be drawn into a figure of the gospel covenant with the church, his elect.

78 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I.

Besides those answers then given, I then made a reservation of one for this place and I have now on purpose proposed the objection anew, to usher in this new parallel that is now to follow, from what the very beasts prefigured We read, Acts x. 11, 12, how in the first beginning of the gospel or of this new Christian church (as Peter speaks of it, Acts xv.), there was a vessel let down from heaven in a vision to Peter, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts in the earth : wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And the interpretation of this to Peter was, that the catholic church under the new testament should consist as of men from out of all nations of Noah s seed, whether clean or unclean, Jew or Gentile who should now be converted to the faith of Christ ; and that this was signified unto Peter by all these sorts of creatures. Now, bring this to Noah s ark and covenant, Genesis 7th and 9th chapters, the ancients (as Austin*) readily understood the coming in of all nations under the gospel into the church to have been prefigured thereby. And how usual it is Scripture to set out the several sorts of wicked men under the similitude of beasts as Herod by a fox, Nero by a lion, the circumcision by dogs needs not be enlarged upon. I may therefore apply what God doth in Ezekiel touching his people, whom he had represented under the figure of sheep throughout chapter xxxiv. He in the last verse, by way of exposition of that parable, The flock of my pasture are men, says he ; so, on the con trary, I may say, these beasts are men, the wickedest of men, and all kind of sinners of them. And truly when I consider how much that one alone in the Acts answers to the other in Genesis, and find in comparing both places the very same enumeration as to the kinds of these in both places, to be these generals, fowls of the air, beasts, and creeping things, and how some of every sort of these, are in both places pointed at, I could not reject this as a mere phantasm of man s imagination, it having so far the name of a scripture for its warrant, as by this comparing these scriptures together doth appear.

Obj. And whereas it may again be objected, that the covenant, Gen. ix., is made with Noah and his sons and their seed distinctly, and apart from that of the beasts and all living things ; and so the figure of these beasts cannot be brought into this account.

Ans. The answer is, that what some part of a type doth not serve to reach, that another shall ; types are but imperfect shadows, and therefore are so formed as one to represent one piece of the substance to be shadowed out under one resemblance, and another piece, or limb under another, whereof multitudes of instances might be given. So, then, although the church of his elect, whom God made his covenant with, and for, were to be men, as for their persons, of Noah s seed and posterity, and in that respect the cove nant is by name made with them ; yet their condition, as sinners, was in the several variety of their bestialities as sinners, set forth under the figure of those several sorts of living things, to the taking in of the most venomous of sinners, serpents, and creeping things. And so by both the representations the figure is made the more complete, which under one alone would have been too imperfect. It is then but putting this double consideration respec tively upon either, and the objection is solved, and the full mind of the figure appears to the life.

6. Lastly, that very rainbow, which is said to have been and then served to be but an outward providential remembrance to God, no more to drown the earth by waters, hath yet in the new testament another rainbow, whereof

Sicut cuncta genera animalmm in area clauduntur, sic omnes gentes ecclesia continet. August, contra Manichceum, lib. xi. c. 14.

that in Genesis was but the rb paivopsvov. You may behold its appearance when you will, twice in the Revelation. The first time, set and constant ; the second, occasionally; and both set up for the comfort of this new

Christian church (which we have shewn was the subject of the covenant), as that in Genesis had been for the confirmation and establishment of Noah s world.

The first appearance of this rainbow you may behold Rev. iv. 3, where it is placed for a constancy, to endure and continue unto the end of the transactions of that book, at which chapter beginneth the general pro phecy of the fates of this universal Christian church, gathered (as was ob served) out of all nations, tongues, and kindreds, as where you also read, chap. v. 9. And in that 4th chapter, at the first entrance to the prophecy, and by way of prologue to the whole, is God presented as sitting on his throne, ordering and governing all occurrences that should befall this church, having a representative of that whole church in all ages, even as a parliamentary assembly before their prince and king, standing afore him and his throne. And there appears a rainbow round about that throne of God, ver. 3, which is in a perfect allusion to this of Noah ; for the fate of the church of the new testament was all along throughout all ages more afflicted, tossed with tempests, than ever the Jewish church had been ; for, ver. 5, Out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings (which always accompany tempests), of the breaking forth of which you may frequently read in that book. Now for their support, and constant comfort, against those dreadful dispensations of God s, doth this rainbow appear.

To signify to us that memorial which God himself hath of his everlasting kindness to his church in the midst of all thundering dispensations whatever, as a sign and symbol unto his church of the light of his countenance shining on them in their thickest and darkest clouds ; for a rainbow only appears where and when the sun also shineth.

And this new testament rainbow excels (as the substance always doth the figure) that other, take it but as it was in the figure.

(1.) In that it is constant and fixed for all times, whereas that of Noah s covenant appears but occasionally.

(2.) The old was but as a half-moon rainbow, a semi-circle, whereas this is round about the throne, and encompasseth it ; it is a whole circle. And his church are encamped likewise in a round, and he in the midst of them. So let God turn himself in various dispensations, and look which way he pleaseth, yet still he doth, and must necessarily, view his church through his rainbow, putting him in mind of mercy. Yea, and all those lightnings and thunderings, though never so fiery, he shoots, must pass through his rain bow, and so proceed out of mercy, and pass through loving-kindness unto them, shewing withal that in the midst of his fiercest anger he still remem

all his ways are mercy and truth unto them ; ever bers mercy, and that fulfilling that in Psalm in., The Lord is gracious and merciful, and will ever be mindful of his covenant. To shew both that all his ways are mercy and truth, for even all those thunderbolts and lightnings do come through that rainbow, which doth blunt the force and draw out the venomous vapour that is in them, as they come forth and are directed to his people ; as also that himself is ever mindful of his covenant, Ps. iii. The second appearance of this rainbow is occasional, and for a special purpose. There is, upon many forbodes, and seeming more than probabili ties, out of the Revelation, one great fate to come upon the churches of Christ, the last killing of the witnesses, that hath been so long forewarned of by many witnesses. How long first, or how soon, none but God knows ;

80 OF ELECTION. [BOOK I. it may perhaps lie at the door, which, when it comes, will prove the most violent of all the foregone; even as that of Dioclesian (the last of the ten persecutions upon the primitive saints) was the greatest of all forewent it.

And so this heing to be the last, from antichrist and his followers, may likewise prove to be of all persecutions the sorest, and m which shall be accomplished, and so ended, the scattering of the power of the holy people, Dan xii And indeed, so great is it like to be, as it occasioneth Christ him self (the same angel that appeared in the 12th of Daniel) to come down from heaven on purpose, in an extraordinary appearance, to support the saints in a special manner against that trial. And this angel is no other than Christ himself, as appears by one speech of his in the llth chapter, ver. 3; for the narrative in the forepart of that chapter is uttered by the same angel, will give power to my two witnesses, saith he. And to call them his wit nesses, none but Christ must be allowed to speak, no mere created angel might do it. f . Now, see what an appearance he comes down withal, when he cometh with this sad message, which we find in chap. xi. His appearance in chap. x. 1, is, that his body was clothed with a cloud, his face shining as the sun, and a rainbow upon his head, and all of these significant unto the purpose specified.

(1.) There being so violent and huge a storm a-coming immediately upon his church, and that should come upon his whole church, that is, his body ; his body is therefore said to be clothed with a cloud all over, for his head and feet are otherwise there particularly described, and therefore it is intended it was his body was that of him which the cloud environed. Other slaughters of his members have been at various times particular, upon several parts of his body apart ; but this last is to be universal, to the whole that remain in the streets or jurisdiction of the great city. Even as the waters of Noah was the only universal flood, though particular floods have been before and since.

(2.) Yet, secondly, his face shone as the sun, to shew that his everlasting grace and kindness was not only inwardly within himself, and in reality in this sad hour still the same that ever it had been to his people in their utmost prosperous times ; and that his heart had nothing but graciousness of intents, thoughts of peace towards them ; but that outwardly his face (which is the index of his heart) should shine upon their souls, in lifting up the light of his countenance thereon, whilst their outward man was under those sore persecutions.

(3.) And the sunshine of his face and favour, causeth a rainbow to shine on the cloud about his head, for a memorial and assurance to his church, that this flood shall not destroy them. Though it may afflict and toss them

it shall come to pass, that when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be in the cloud ; and I will remember my covenant. And truly I conclude, let Christ come with what clouds he pleaseth, and cover us his body all over with them, so sore, even as in Gen. ix. 14 (in the figure), it is said, as his face shine as the sun, and he lift up the light of his countenance upon us ; and set up his rainbow, the symbol of his everlasting kindness and mercy, and we shall have sufficient to support us.

SECTION V. How the story of Noah was a type of the Mediator of the covenant of grace, Christ which was the ark.

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison ; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the Jilth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con science towards God), by the resurrection of Jes-us Christ. 1 PET. III. 19-21.

That which Peter holds forth concerning this our salvation, is reducible to two heads, which, drawn forth and set out, will give us a full exposition of the apostle s scope therein.

I. Noah was then a preacher of the gospel, and of salvation by Christ, even as we the apostles now ; that is Peter s scope. 1. We read in the second epistle of our Peter ii. 5, that this Noah was then a preacher of righteousness. What righteousness ? That of the law. That is, of the righteousness of a rigid repentance only ? No ; it is said, Heb. xi. 7, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of righteousness which is by faith. Noah himself was taught of God from that figure, being saved by the ark (which Peter here applies to the salvation of the soul by Christ) ; he being thus instructed by God to have his recourse unto the righteousness of the Messiah by faith, he became, says the text,. Heb. xi. 7, * the heir of the righteousness of faith ; that is, of the same righteousness that we Christians do now believe in. There was a new and clearer illustration then, and thereby added and revealed to Noah s faith, besides that had been afore through the promise of that seed to Adam. And Noah s faith being thus more fully and explicitly enlightened in that point, than any or all before him, it is said, he thereupon became the heir of the righteousness of faith anew ; and because he was with a fresh light and clearer discovery brought to embrace that righteousness of the Messiah, which had been but darkly and obscurely, in comparison, before revealed, thereupon out of his own personal faith and experience, he became a preacher of the same righteous ness unto the world, for their eternal salvation also ; for as he believed, so he spake. And further, he is declared to be a free-grace man in his faith as to God s acceptation of him, he wholly relying on the sole favour of God for salvation ; wherefore God says, Gen. vi. 8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and not upon the account of works. And so in like manner for the Messiah, he understood that his ark, he was forewarned to prepare, was the figure of him ; even as of Abraham it is said, in the same Heb. xi. ver. 19, that he understood and received his son Isaac, in a figure of the resurrection, namely, of Christ, and so of us, himself and all in Christ unto eternal life ; and still, I say, as he believed, so he preached this gospel, the same with ours, that is for the substance of it.

2. The gospel being thus preached by Noah,, it is further said by Peter, that Christ in his divine nature was he that preached in Noah s ministry, as really as now he doth in the apostles (when gone to heaven), he is said to do : Eph. ii., He came and preached peace to you which were afar off, &c. Thus afore flesh assumed, as well as now since, for it was he who being o Xoyog, the word, that still spake in all those dispensations to the fathers ; and so Peter here, In which Spirit he went and preached, &c.

VOJL. IX. F

82 OF ELECTION. [BoOK I.

3. Only there was but one Noah, that is in that latter part or age of that world, who (some way or other) preached to the whole world to condemn it, as Heb. xi. 17, thereby making way for their destruction and damnation that followed thereupon, as upon disobedience to the gospel it now also doth ; but now under the gospel, great is (and was in Peter s days) the com

1 as the psalmist speaks. 4. Peter, to admonish the present world of that great sin of neglecting the pany of preachers, great salvation, tells them, (1.) That as then, so now, few are saved by this gospel preached. Few, that is, eight persons then; and now, take times and means, the whole world lies in wickedness, comparatively to these, few are saved.

(2.) That look, as then the event was, that the souls of them that dis obeyed went to hell ; he preached to the souls in prison, says Peter, and by prison, hell is there meant (as Christ s speech imports) ; he shall be cast into prison, and pay the utmost farthing ; so it will foil out inevitably now, and with a greater damnation, as the means are greater.

(8.) Their sin was cleaving to their lusts, and pleasures in wives, and eating and drinking, that they would not be persuaded to embrace Christ ; which is here termed

disobedience ; so now. And that we may further clear this to have been Peter s scope to institute this parallel, those correspondent allusions which Peter useth (speaking here of those of the old world), unto what in the very story we find in Genesis recorded of them, doth evidence this, and are very remarkable in three par ticulars. Whereas, (1.) Peter says that Christ in his Spirit went and preached to them ; answerably in Gen. vi. 3, Christ thus speaks, My Spirit shall not always strive, that is, in the ministry of my servants, as hitherto it hath done of Enoch s, and others, and particularly in that of my servant Noah.

(2.) Whereas Peter says that the long-suffering of God waited for their repentance upon Noah s preaching, in like manner Christ there in Genesis in the same verse says, Yet man s days shall be a hundred and twenty years, as a space to repent in, after and upon Noah s preaching and warning so long before.

(3.) That clause inserted by Peter, that they were the spirits of those men that were now in prison, that is, in hell, who were then preached to by Noah, holds an affinity unto that known tradition and language among the Jews, that of all mankind afore or after, those men Noah preached unto, of all others, had been notified and famed to have gone to hell ; insomuch that hell itself (this prison) had its name from their company and inhabitation there. They were made a proverb of all in the Old Testament all along ; to go down to the company of giants, was all one to go to hell ; thus in the Proverbs* again and again, as Mr Mede hath observed. Those giants were the ringleaders of the ungodly, as Peter speaks of the whole of that world who perished, and generally went to hell, and so being the firstborn of hell, as it were the first inhabitants of that place, hence hell had that denomination, as on the contrary of saints to Abraham s bosom. As if we should say to malefactors, you shall go amongst your companions of thieves and cut-purses, to Newgate, so designing forth that prison from the com pany there.

II. That our being saved by Christ now, was signified by Noah s being saved then in the ark, through or in the midst of the waters.

For whereas he says, baptism now saves us, the meaning is, Christ now signified in baptism saves us, who was prefigured then by the ark in * See Prov. ii. 18 ; xxi. 16. ED.

the waters, for it is Christ that is signified and sealed up in this ordinance

That rock was Christ, 1 Cor. x. 4, so of baptism. And as it is said, this baptism is Christ, and signifies him, and his saving of us.

And look as Noah preached this salvation by Christ to the old world verbally and in sermons, so that very action of his, in building and enter ing into the ark, and God s transaction with him, and his preservation therein, was the figure of Christ s saving us, signified to us in our baptism.

And though the ordinance of baptism itself, as now instituted, was not understood by Noah then as prefigured, yet Christ and the salvation itself signified thereby was.

I was long kept from the right understanding of this place, by my ordinary and cursory reading of it, by our translation ; and so perhaps many others. They translate it, * saved by waters, so ascribing their salvation to the waters, as the means of Noah and their salvation ; and so I still understood the allusion here had been, that the outward element of our baptism being water, and that Noah having been saved upon the waters, that therefore the parallel had been that they were saved by water, as the instrument, and as signifying and typifying forth the blood of Christ washing us, and saving us, as those waters had done them.

H But when I came upon this occasion narrowly to examine this matter,

1. I considered that the salvation by waters in the flood held not at all a correspondency with our salvation, through our being washed in Christ s blood, as in baptism is signified; whereas here the apostle affirms, that there is a like figure answering each other, which, to be sure, holds not in this. For the persons of those in the ark were not washed by the water of the flood at all, as we are washed in baptism by Christ s blood ; but it was the ark only which was washed with those waters.

2. I found that the salvation of Noah is said to have been in and by the ark. So expressly in the text, wherein (speaking of the ark) eight per sons were saved as the means of their salvation ; and as for the waters saving them, that was but an accidental effect, for otherwise the waters overflowing tended to destroy them.

by the water, is more properly, both to the sense and phrase, rendered

3. I found that dia vbarog, translated here

through the water, and so the sense is ; in the ark they were saved from the flood, being carried in it through all its waves, and still kept safe from all danger from them ; as in the Acts, chap. iv. 22, it is through many tribulations we enter into glory (it is the same particle). So these were saved through these waters, which otherwise of themselves, directly and indeed, did threaten and hazard their salvation.

Again I found dia uSarog is rendered in this very epistle, in the water, or the midst of the water, by this very apostle, that kept to his own dialect : 2 Epist. iii. 5,* The earth that now stands in the water, or, in the midst of the water. Just thus here, they were saved in the ark, floating in or through the midst of the waters.

4. So as those words, the like figure whereunto, refer not, 1, to the word water, but unto the word ark, as wherein it is said, they were saved ; 2, or else, unto the matter of that whole foregoing sentence ; and so the coherence runs thus, that the substance of our salvation by baptism, or Christian baptism, answereth in similitude unto that salvation of those eight persons in the ark then, and is a like figure thereunto.

So then the summary result of all is, that Christ our ark, and our salva tion in him, now signified in baptism, was the thing lively forefigured in that salvation of theirs in the ark, bearing them up in and through the waters.

See Mr Mede in his paraphrase upon that chapter.

g4 OF ELECTION.

BOOK II.

Of the order of God s decrees about man s election and reprobation.Of the end to which we are ordained; a supernatural union with God and com munication of himself. The infinity of grace discovered therein.

CHAPTER I.

That God had a respect unto man considered as im fallen, in his election of him unto the end, and also unto man as fallen into sin in his decrees to the means.

This distinction to the end and to the means, in the decrees of God, is so generally acknowledged, that I need not insist on it.

But concerning what is the end, and what are the means, as in my sense

I intend it, needs some explication.

1. The end is either (1.) God s glory, and that I call the supreme end of all. Of this my assertion proceedeth not. (2.) There is that fulness of glory God designed to bring his elect into, and this I call the ultimate end or issue of all (as the other the supreme]. And this end (which the apostle terms

* perfec

the end, 1 Cor. xv. 24, and Rom. vi. 22, and Christ the tion of his members, John xvii. 22, 23 compared) is that I mean, when I affirm that the decree to this end was not after, or upon the consideration of, the fall first had. But, indeed, that all those means to accomplish or bring us through unto the attaining of this end, they all suppose man fallen as the object of them.

2. And then, secondly, I distinguish again of what are termed means to this end among several divines. The pure superlapsarian he takes into the means to this end, the creation, and the permission of the fall, and calls them means to bring about that intention or decree to that ultimate end or glory specified.* But I do limit myself that those only are means, either which on Christ s part he, as a redeemer, hath performed thereunto, or which on our part are wrought in us or by us ; such as are calling, justifying faith, and repentance, which are termed preparations unto glory

Whom he hath afore prepared unto glory. Also good works, and an holy life : Eph. ii. 10, Which God had afore prepared (so in the ix. 23, margin and Greek), that we should walk in them. He will give grace as the means then, glory as the end. These I am sure are such means as do, ex se, prepare for glory, by way of direct and proper influence. And all such do presuppose a fall, and are a restoration of us out of it. And it is of these I now speak, and unto these I do limit my discourse.

And as for that other of creation, &c., sure I am that that holiness in Adam by creation, whilst he stood, and in which he was created, was not a * Nisi tribus illis mediis, 1, homine condendo ; 2, condito integro sed labili ; 3, denique lapso, intervenientibus, ad istos fines Deus pervenire non potuit. Piscator

Quest, de Objecto Praedestinat. p. 176.

means at all of that glory, that is, of that election glory, which we are now speaking of. But therefore it must be cast upon some other consideration, notion, or account, than of a means which election should have prepared for that glory. Also the sin of Adam, no man must say that it was a means, but at the utmost of it, but an occasion, or rather indeed but a mere outlet or passage through which election wrought itself into a new enlargement or amplification and magnifying of the grace of itself towards the elect, in a new way, considered as sinners, and as now become miserable, which by creation they were not ; in which new way and course the grace of election would further expiate, and as with a fetching a compass about, bring us to that * glory it had designed (as in Heb. ii. 10 the phrase is) ; thereby the more illustriously to glorify itself by making thereby a new edition of ultimate grace, which should give all anew after sinning, and desert of the contrary, foreseen.

Whereas the former grace, considering us unfallen, and designing us unto that end, was a mere supercreation and supernatural grace through Christ as a mediator of union ; but this last was by him as by a Saviour purchas ing all anew, and restoring us unto such graces, now utterly lost, as were requisite for man fallen to have ere he should be brought unto glory.

But what aspect or subserviency any way, creation or permission of the fall have unto the decrees of election or reprobation, I have a more proper place to shew it in. But it is certain they serve but in common unto each of those decrees, and are but such matters as common providence. That which at present I would say is only that I rank them not among proper and direct means unto that ultimate end spoken, but I limit the proper notion of means unto such as do suppose the fall ; for that Christ considered as a redeemer ; as also that we should be called and believe ; these are all such means as have an immediate influence into that glory, as all do and must acknowledge ; and they suppose the fall first, and therefore I limit the decree of the means unto such. This for the stating of it. Now as touching my assertion, as thus stated, viz., his making this apart ment, that in the decree to the end God had an eye unto man considered as not fallen, I am not alone in it. Polanus speaks adequately unto this my sense, whom I the more willingly cite, because he also makes Christ as he is Christ the head and foundation of election, considered afore the fall ; as also, suitable unto this my present argument in hand, I profess myself to do. He speaking how man is the subject or object of election, and how con sidered by God therein, hath these words :* God in his decree of election did behold (or look upon) his elect as to the end he predestinated them unto, so as men absolutely in common, without all consideration of qualities in them. But if we consider the means leading to the end, so he looked upon men, not as in their upright condition (afore the fall), but as they would be corrupt of and in themselves by the fall, and fallen headlong by their own default into eternal death. Than which nothing is more fall unto that division or distinction of means and end which I have made.

I know there is a controversy among divines, not at all whether election be not as well to the means as to the end, and so unto both, none that I know deny that, but the controversy is, whether the whole act of God s

Eos Deus in decreto electionis intuitus est, quod finem attinet, ad quern eos praedestinavit, ut homines communiter et absolute extra aliquam qualitatum in iis considerationem ; quia de iis disponendi liberrimam potestatem tanquam Dominus habet. Sin vero media ad finem ducentia consideremus, intuitus est homines non ut integros, sed quatenus futuri erant a se, et in se corrupt! per lapsum, et in mortem seternarn, propria culpa prsecipitati. Polan. Synlag. 1. iv. c. 9, p. 249, folio.

36 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. decreeing unto both should not have been pitched, either wholly upon man considered in the mass of mobility afore the fall, or wholly upon the mass of mankind considered and viewed first as fallen into sin. And many c jude it incompatible that both should stand. f profess not to enter upon the merits of so great a question here, but only that both conditions were at once viewed by God, so that one was neither first nor second to the other in time, but that God having all afore him in his immense understanding, had in his purpose of election to the end a respect unto man considered as unfallen, but in that to these means, unto man considered as fallen ; and decreed both, and all in one and the same determination of his divine will.

That there have been some eminent divines that have gone about to recon cile those different opinions, whether men fallen or unfallen were the object of predestination, may be well known among them that are versed in this controversy.

That judicious and good divine Keckermanus, he first states the contro versy :* The whole question (says he) about the object of God s decree of election is, whether men were absolutely considered (as creatures) or under the consideration of the fall ; and then determines it by the application of this very distinction in the sense I have given it. Thus : The decree of election" falls under a double consideration : the first, in respect cf the end, namely, life eternal ; and so the consideration of the fall was not necessary, because the fall was not a means thereof, but rather an impediment ; secondly, this decree may be considered as in respect unto man s frail condition, which God foresaw, as also of the means, such as in respect unto man s (frail) condition were to come, namely, of redemption and regeneration ; and so the decree of election necessarily includes a respect and consideration of the fall.

And interpreting that to the Romans, chap. viii. 29, Whom he hath foreknown, those he hath predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Son, he further draws out of these words the state and decision of this controversy. The apostle (says he) distinguisheth the decree of God into two acts: 1, foreknowledge of such as are his; 2, of predestination. Which when I weigh (saith he) I understand by the foreknowledge, his decree simply considered of giving to men eternal life, as man is considered without the consideration of the fall. But by predestination I understand God s decree concerning man fallen, as he was to be raised up again, and to be brought to eternal life. And indeed election, in the import of it, is very ordinarily: the first to be unto the end distinguished by divines from predestination simply ; the second to import the decree unto the means, as including the end.

I shall here omit what Junius and Piscatorf have attempted to the recon ciling of this controversy.

But I add this : 1. That God s decree unto these means specified, they

Tota quaestio est de objecto facti hujus decreti, utrum niminim fuerint homines absolute spectati, an vero sub consideratione lapsus. Ad quam questionem respondendum videtur electionis decretum dnpliciter posse considerari. Primo respeciu Finis, vid. vit seternse, et sic non fuisse necessariam considerationem lapsus ; quia lapsus non est medium hujus fir is, sed potius impedimentum. 2. Considerari posse decretum hoc, ratione turn ipsius hominis, cujus fragilis conditio a Deo praevidebatnr; turn etiam mediorum qualium respectu humanae conditionis futura erant ; vid. redeniptionis et regenerationis. et ita decretum electionis includere necessario respectum et considerationem lapsus. Keckfrman. System. Theolog. t See Junius in his Arnica Collatio cum Arminico ; and Piscator. Qucext. de Objecto Prcedcst., p. 1J6.

must certainly presuppose the consideration of the fall ; for to believe on Christ a redeemer, &c., necessarily presupposeth it ; and although these concern the execution of God s decree, whereby to bring men unto that end, yet certainly God decreed the means from everlasting as well as the end.

2. That for God to have decreed unto glory without any respect or con sideration of the fall, thus far, even those that are of that other opinion, that is, for election after the fall considered, do yet freely and frankly acknowledge.

That most learned, perspicuous, and candid author, Bishop Davenant, * that if by predestination any do understand the de doth acknowledge, signation unto the end, viz. of glory, as many (says he) of the ancient school men did ; and by reprobation, only the negation of that act (namely, a nonelection unto glory), though I think (says he) it is not necessary to suppose sin to have been first in the person or subject, either elected or reprobated. And his answer is, Because sin (as first foreseen) is altogether impertinent unto either of these acts ; for it is not the ground or reason of electing or not electing (as all confess), nor is it a qualification of the subject, without which these acts could not befall these persons, as appears evidently in the case of angels. Thus he, although for his own opinion, he rather inclined to think that the Scripture (as Austin had done) seemed rather to place the decrees of the end and that to the means, both of them upon man presup posed as fallen, and yet speaks tenderly in it.

Now, I readily grant that the decree of end and that of means were both in God s mind at once, and in it neither had a priority or a posteriority. But still the question will be, whether both these estates of man unfallen and fallen (though in execution they succeed one after the other), yet lying alike level unto the prospect of the divine mind and will of God, he might not have, yea, had not in the decree of the end, or to glory simply, a respect unto man, considered by him as unfallen, as the terminus a quo, or rise in his choosing of him, as also in his denying that glory to other. And then again, in his decree of the meam or way to that glory, he had not a respect unto that fallen condition of man ; and both thus, the one and the other, and all lying at once afore him, whether he did not place and pitch his decree to the end upon their unfallen and creable condition, and make that estate or condition the terminus a quo of it, and his decree to the means upon his fallen condition ; and this is it that I affirm.

Obj. 1. The learned bishop urgeth that predestination in Scripture is not only to the end, glory, but also to the means, as faith, &c. which means (says he) are such as "suppose man fallen, and therefore election to the end doth also.

Ans. 1. For answer, 1, 1 grant that election to glory as the end, doth not take up the whole of the act of election, as the object of it ; but takes in election to the means that makes up the whole of it ; nor do I find those schoolmen he speaks of, that they do not acknowledge election to be also unto grace as the means. But it no way follows that because election to those means do suppose man fallen, that therefore election unto glory also should necessarily do the same ; for the grace of God in his electing us unto glory, first of man considered as unfallen, might and did design an ampletion or * Primo si per prsedestmationem quis intelligat solam designationem ad finem glorise (sicut multi intelligunt ex antiquioribus scholasticis) et per reprobationem solam uegationem hujus actus, yel decretum non elegendi ; puto non necessarium ut supponamus peccatura fuisse prsevisum, quia peccatum ad actum divinse electionis,velnon-electionis omnino impertiiienter se habet. Davenant, Dissert, de Elect. p. 116.

QQ OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. magnifying of itself, the more by permitting them to fall into sin, whom he had ordained to glory, and so redeem them and save them through such means as are requisite to save man fallen, and through them to bring them unto glory. ... . Am. 2. And, 2dly, we find that the Scriptures, when speaking of election, do pitch the ordination of it upon no other than eternal life and glory, as the object of it ; and faith, which is that consequent of that ordination to life : Acts xiii. 48, As many as were ordained to eternal life, as the end, believed, as the means through which God brought them to that end ; yea, and through which I acknowledge they also, by an act of election, were ordained to be brought ; yet still the ordination unto life is there only and precisely mentioned. He says not; those that were ordained to believe, believed; but those that were ordained to eternal life, believed, as that through which they arrived at it. But as this election to the end was one thing, and that to faith as the means another, so they may respect these two several conditions of man chosen mentioned. Again, elsewhere, though it be true that faith is said to be given by an act of election, as well as eternal life, and therefore is styled the faith of God s elect, Titus i. 1, yet eternal life is there also, not distinctly alone and apart spoken of, in ver. 2, but as that which being originally promised by God, who cannot lie, afore the world began, viz., as that which being promised and decreed, had drawn on the believing, and the ordination thereof by election ; so as although these two are conjunct, yet still they may and are to be abstractly considered, not only as distinct decrees, but as those that may be determinated upon the elect under distinct considerations or notions of fallen and unfallen.

Obj. 2. And again, that it is said, 2 Thes. ii. 13, He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth. Where our election to the means and to the end are joined, and that end itself is termed salvation, which respects the fall ; for out of that it is that we are said to be saved.

Ans. 1. I grant that that ultimate grand story of God s being all in all, hath upon the fall the title of salvation anew put upon it ; and Christ s purchase of it anew for us did deserve that title. And so I grant also ; yet when we were ordained unto these means of faith, &c., we were withal ordained unto this end, as it is salvation ; yea, and as that which was to be purchased anew by Christ as a Redeemer, by reason of the fall foreseen ; yet this hinders not another gift of it by God, and title of us thereby to it, by an act of election in Christ as an head, without respect unto the fall, and as it considered primely and simply glory, the glory which God gave Christ himself as an head first, and he and his Father by that title, unto us as so considered by him : John xvii. 22, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them : that they may be one, even as we are one. Things being fallen, he was fain to purchase it anew for them ; but as in that respect it is termed salvation, ver. 13 of that 2 Thes. ii., so it is also styled the glory of Christ in the next words, ver. 14, to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, that which Christ had given him by an election before the foundation of the world, John xvii. 24, which, as an head to us, he says he had given us, ver. 22, and is therefore, in 2 Thes. ii., styled the glory of Christ, as elsewhere the glory and kingdom of God, which Christ is said to receive us unto, Rom. xv. 7.

Ans. 2. So as in truth the allegation of this or other Scriptures to the same purpose, is but to insist and to urge one truth to include another, as falls out almost in all controversies ; for as it is a truth that there is an elec tion to the end, without consideration of the fall, and these means to that

end upon the fall, so also it is as great a truth that an election to the end is specified in Scripture, when it no way relates unto the fall, but is considered apart from it. Thus those benefits we are chosen unto, Eph. i. 3, where election is handled, tanquam in proprid sede, are such as no way depend upon the consideration of the fall, but hold upon our election unto Christ, and are given by election upon grounds higher and distinct from that of his being a Redeemer: ver. 5, * Having predestinated us unto adoption of children, by Christ unto himself; which, if relating to God the Father, speaks this great truth, that God ordained us into immediate communion with himself, as else where it is said ; or if that word doth refer unto Christ himself (as some), yet farther still, a predestination to adoption is all one in effect, as to say, predestinated unto glory ; for adoption and a sonship in election unto Christ, speaks withal a title unto glory, as that place, Romans 8th, shews : If children, then heirs and coheirs with Christ, &c. ; and, it is added, heirs with* God himself, as Christ also is. And so those words, Eph. i. 3, Pre destinating us to adoption to himself, as referring to the act of God the Father as predestinating, it is all one as to say, we were predestinated to inherit God himself, and to immediate communion with himself ; and so it refers us to that ultimate glory, when God shall be all in all. Now this title of adoption holds clearly by another right besides that of redemption ; for Christ, as the natural Son, being by election onef head and husband, a rela tion unto him upon that account bestowed, doth convey adoption and sonship to us, and so a right to that inheritance ; which agrees with what I have elsewhere said. In like manner, by our choice unto complete and immutable holiness, in the 4th verse, is not meant that imperfect holiness in this life, which is ordained as such to be means of glory (as our sublapsarian divines allege it) ; for it is that holiness which is without blame before God, and so such an holiness which will never be subject to change or mutation ; yea, and so perfect an holiness in God s own view, for time to come as well as time present, as God shall find no defect in to blame. Whereas even the most perfect holiness the angels had by creation, whilst made mutable, was charged with folly and imperfection in that respect, Job iv. 18 ; but this is that unchangeable holiness, the holiness which is the end itself, as well as glory, and the concomitant of it, or the ground-work of it ; and this also might and doth flow from a relation unto Christ, as an head given by elec tion, and an influence from him considered as such, and not only from him, as supposed as a Redeemer first, although to man when fallen, he is an head also ; and these benefits are accordingly there distinguished from those that Christ, supposed as a Redeemer, doth convey ; and severed from those other by the apostle in the same place, ver. 7, In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his * Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence grace. And so on in calling us by the gospel, ver. 8, 9, : having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he had pur posed in himself; which are manifestly the benefits or blessings (as here are called, ver. 3), of the means which suppose us sinners, and being sin ners, we are carried through them unto glory ; but those former are benefits of the end, which in that their fulness there spoken of take place in the other world, and which we were capable of, being designed unto, without the con sideration of being sinners, or Christ his being a Redeemer, as might at large be shewn, and as Bishop Davenant acknowledged ; and are accord ingly distinguished from what we have by redemption. We must not there fore allege the one of either to exclude the other, but take both in their * Qu. of ? ED. f Qu. our ? ED.

9Q OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. differing respects to either condition of the elect specified ; to unfallen the one, and of fallen the other. , Obi. 8. And a like unto this objection taken from 2 Thes. 11. 13, are those other, as that election is said to be joined with giving us to Christ, and that runs as he is a Redeemer and Saviour, to bring us to glory ; and therefore the whole of election, both to means and end, must have proceeded only upon foresight of the fall. But, The answer is, That Christ himself beareth (as was even now said) two relations and respects to us : first, simply of an head, and that in the first place ; and then, secondly, of a Saviour: Eph. v. 23, Even as Christ is the head of the church ; and he is the Saviour of the body. His being an head there, is his being an husband to us ; and so the foundation of that relation to God, of being his adopted children as by marriage with his Son ; and that latter of our Saviour necessarily respecteth sin, but not the other ; and accordingly election may and doth respect those several conditions of the elect. And a double giving to Christ in both respects will well fall in, and agrees with Christ s pleas made to his Father on our behalf, in the 17th of John.

Obj. 4. Another argument against my assertion, urged by others, is, that election being an immanent act within God himself, must therefore be unicus, but one single, complete, and perfect act at once, and not divided into two, nor incomplete ; whereas to suppose that there is an election to the end, and then unto the means, and one to respect man unfallen, but the other man fallen, seems to render it imperfect, incomplete, not at once, but distracted, &c.

Ans. For answer, I must tell those that will urge this argument, that take all the decrees in God (which are immanent acts in him), both the decrees of election and reprobation, and those of common providence, and there is but one individual act in all of them, and yet themselves will acknowledge that the Scriptures do set them forth to us as distinct acts ; and that dis tinguished by election to diversities of objects they are terminated upon, and as proceeding from several properties in God, some from justice, some from mercy. As likewise, in respect of their dependence in, and of one thing upon another, the reason whereof is in this, that the series of things are set out to us ad nostrum intelliqendi modwn, and as the things do suit, and sort, and correspond each with other. And thus they were made distinct acts, election from reprobation, and both from his decrees of common providence. Now, bring this general notion of all acts thus made distinct, though all one in God, and the distinction may be accounted to have been in election itself, and the like in reprobation itself. This matter is clear. Bishop Davenant, although he professeth to be against those instants or several moments (take them as the school ainrmeth of them) to have been in God s decrees, yet in the point of reprobation, himself holds not only a distinction of acts, negative or a non-election, and positive, a pre-ordination to damnation (which two acts all generally do confess) ; but furthermore, he doth positively express him self in this manner, It is a far differing thing, says he,* to will to punish one, which is reprobation positive, and not to will or decree to give him glory or the chiefest good, which is the negative act. The first, says he, cannot be in God, but with a respect unto sin first considered as preceding ; but the other act of non-electing to glory may be considered without any respect unto the sin of the person. His reason I omit, because the thing is clear. And he adds, Concerning those divines, that, under that one word of repro bation, do jointly include both those acts of pre-election (the negative act), * Dissertat. de Electione, ch. xvi. p 173.

and predamnation (the positive), that they could never as yet judge anything certainly about reprobation. * Nay, he goes on further, that God did not will or decree to punish, nor put forth a positive act, in the first or same instant (as in reason we are to apprehend of God s counsels) in which his will was not to glorify such as he passed by, but in the other instant, in which he considered them as sinners. f And again, * God s deputation or ordain ing men to death is not to be conceived as that which was performed in the same signo rationis (or instant according to reason) in which God s nonelecting them was appointed, but in another, after which such a non-elected person, finally persevering in a state of sin, was foreseen. ! Now if in the two sorts of this sort of decrees in reprobation, the one was and might be passed without the consideration of sin, and so of the fall, the other, but upon the foresight of it ; yea, and performed, as he says, in several instants, according to reason, and the manner of our conception (according unto which the Scriptures have set forth these things to us) ; then why should it be uncouth to any that the two acts of election, viz., to the end and to the means, which those other two acts of reprobation do accom pany and answer to (as the dark shadows to light bodies), should be con sidered not distinct only in themselves, but distinguished also by this, that the one is transacted in the divine will and understanding, without respect had unto sin or the fall, and that the other should respect the foresight of the fall.

Obj. 5. Another farther objection may be against the partition of God s decrees, as suited to the end and the means, and so against that decree of our election in Christ as an head, without consideration of the fall considered ; that this is to make two elections, that first to the end to be incomplete without the other to the means to complete it. Whereas it is an error our divines find fault with in the Arminians, to make decrees incomplete, and then afterward complete ; yea, whereas God decrees all unico actu. Ans. 1. The Arminians, indeed, are justly charged with incomplete decrees of election, their sense therein being, that then only when a man first believes God doth elect him in Christ to salvation, and that that act is also suspended, and in that sense it is an incomplete decree ; because that man thus believing may fall away, and therefore election with them is not completed until a man doth die, and the man is found to believe at death. Now this kind of incomplete and complete election, and in this sense, we utterly deny.

Ans. 2. These two acts of ordaining unto the end and the means, as I have stated them, are but two gradus or degrees || in this decree, as in respect to the things decreed, and that of the decree to the end, velut initium propositi Dei, but as the beginning or entrance of God s purposes, and so both not to be understood as of two acts of decree, though for our understand ing we are enforced thus to speak.

Ans. 3. That God, considering and viewing all at once unfallen and * Qui sub unico vocabulo reprobationis ambos hosce actus divinse voluntatis, praeelectionis scilicet et prse-damnandi, conjunctim includunt, nunquam poterunt aliquid certi de reprobatione affirmare. Ibid. t Neque voluit eos punire in primo instanti rationis in quo noluit glorificare, sed in illo altero in quo illos consideravit ut peccatores. Davenant, ib. p. 174.

% Hsec ad mortem deputatio non concipienda est ut in eodem signo rationis peracta quo non-electio statuitur. Sed in alio posteriore quo non-electi perseverentia finalis in statu peccati prsevidetur, p. 175.

Qu. parts ? ED.

II Hos duos actus nonnulli vocant gradus satis apposite. Alstedius Theol. Didact. p. 206. Et decretum finis veluti initium propositi Dei. Ibid.

92 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. fallen, unico intuitu, with one act of his divine omniscience, yet consigned, or designed in two differing respects, of what himself comprehended in one act, as unto two several objects which he decreed, as, namely, that decree to the end, or to glory, to respect man simply considered, that state or con sideration best suiting, and being more correspondent unto that sort of decree, but that to shew his grace the more, he designed him withal to these means of redemption, &c., specified upon the intuition of the fall, for they only do suppose the fall. Like as in the act of God s justifying of us, he first justified us when we had been afore and until then utterly ungodly ; and he withal worketh tmnctification and godliness in the heart, which is really a new condition, differing from that state afore. And yet when we are thus made godly, yet still his act of justifying of us is terminated upon * But to him that worketh us, considered by him as ungodly; so Rom. iv. 5, not, but believeth him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. And his proof for this is, the instance of Abraham s being justified many years after he was godly by sanctification ; whereupon God, when he justified him, must needs be supposed to have had afore him, and in his eye, both that Abraham was now a godly man, and yet he was, be cause he had been once, an ungodly person. He terminates or pitches his justifying him in the act thereof upon him considered as ungodly. Thus in like manner, although God had man s pure estate and his corrupt estate both in his view afore him, yet he chose to terminate his election to glory upon the pure estate, as well as upon him considered in his fallen estate, and as to be redeemed out of it.

So as my assertion no ways introduceth any pause to come in between the decrees of the end and the means, to make the first incomplete, no, nor so much as two acts (as in God himself), but only a termination of one and the same act of his will on two several objects he had at once in his view and understanding, according to his good pleasure.

Ans. 4. I find that, in another case, divines of note and worth do acknow ledge such a kind of incomplete act in God as this I here propose in these decrees.*

To conclude ; that this was the opinion (the tendency at least) of those ancient schoolmen, thus to distinguish these two acts in election with a differing respect unto these two conditions of men, fallen and unfallen, is evident enough. There is this evidence in general, that Suarezf should in the name of the rest afore him, pronounce th;.t to have been the more common opinion of his schoolmen, that the election of men was afore the permission of the fall ; and that yet themselves, as generally, should acknow ledge another decree, viz., to give them faith, &c., which latter doth in the nature of the thing itself necessarily respect man s fallen estate.

Particularly, first, as for Scotus J his draught of election runs thus, that in the first instant God decreed glory to a certain number of elect ; then in the second, decreed to give grace ; then foresaw the fall, &c. ; yea, and in * See Walceus, torn. ii. Contra Carvinum, cap. 26. Sed quid si nos dicemus in Deo fuisse quidem affectum miserendi certorum hominum. sed huiic affectum impeditum fuisse a justitia, quominus actu complete salutem iis destinaret, atque adeo inter hunc affectum, et peremptoriam ad salutem misericordiam, Christi electionem, ac proinde et satisfactionem intervenisse, ac turn demum eorum salutem actu complete intendisse, ac decrevisse, cum decreta jam morte Christi, atque iis Christo redimendis datis, justicise Dei plene in decreto Dei est satisfactum. t Probabiliorem existimp, communem sententiam theologorum assereutium electiouem hominum prseuestinatorum antecessisse permissionem originalis peccati. Suarez. part iii. quest. 1, disput. 5.

J Lib. i. diss. 41, quest, unica. et lib. iii. disc. 19, qusest. 7.

his series of decrees of reprobation, makes a respect to have been had to both estates.

Reprobation is considered, says he, 1, negatively, wherein God ordained not to elect them ; 2, affirmatively, by which God ordained after the per mission of the fall to damn them for sin. The first consideration must be as afore the fall, the latter doth suppose the fall.

And if reprobation did respect both those estates, then much more elec tion ; because election hath of the two the more benign and gracious aspects to manifest itself all sorts of ways, to illustrate itself by grace, cast on both states, the highest and most comprehensive.

For Aquinas, he is alleged by those writers for each of the opinions, whether of the pure or corrupted mass. Suarez, who had studied him as much as any of his followers, cites him for this opinion, if, says he, what he delivers be but attentively considered ; * and Bishop Davenant himself mentions him as favouring that opinion.f And although Aquinas, part. 1, quest. 23, art. i., ad tertium, seemeth rather to put the term from which, or object of predestination on which, God should pitch his predestination to be man considered as fallen ; yet Suarez, interpreting him, compounds it with that very notion and distinction I have prosecuted. Aquinas, J says he, speaks of that predestination which is unto the means by which men are Baved, but not according to God s fore -intention or election unto glory.

And as for Calvin, he is cited for either, both for massa corrupta, or the fallen mass, to have been the object of predestination, by Bishop Davenant in express words, p. 116, out of Calvin s Institutions as also in his Treatise of Predestination against Pighius ; and yet that he is cited for predestination to have been afore the consideration of the fall, is so well known, as there needs not any allegation for it. It is the common opinion put upon him. Now I cannot think that a man of so great a judgment was wavering in the point, but that he had indeed both in his eye, and saw by the Scriptures that there was in God s decrees, as laid forth therein, a respect had unto both.

CHAPTER II.

A brief draught of the order of Christ s election, and ours, as it lies represented in the Scripture.

I. God was pleased, and so resolved, to go forth to creature communion.

II. His own glory was alone the supreme end therein ; he made all things for himself: Prov. xvi. 4, * The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. And this was his sole, supreme motive : Rom. xi. 35, 36, Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again ? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Omnes salvandi electi fuerunt ante prsevisum peccatum Adami, ut absolute futurum et ante voluntatem permittendi illud. Hsec conclusio sumitur ex Thomas qusest. 23, art. i. ad tertium, et ex articulo quarto, si attente legatur. Suarez, lib. i. de PrcKdest., c. xii. sec. 8. t Uissertatio de Elect, p. 115. Potest (secundum Thomam) actus prsedestinationis cadere in subjectum peccati miseria nondum implicatum. Imb videtur Aquinas magis inclinare in illam sententiam, quse asserit ipsam reprobationem de facto antecessisse preevisionem originalis peccati. t Loquitur Aquinas de prsedestinatione quoad Media per quse homines salvantur, non quoad primam intentionem, seu electionem glorise. Suarez, ibid.

\ Institut., lib. iii. c. xxiii. sect. iii.

9i OF ELECTION. [BOOK II.

III. The principal glory he designs to himself in election, is the manifes: Eph. i. 5, 6, Having predestinated us, tation* of the glory of his grace according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

IV. His Son, the second person, who was predestinated God-man, simply considered in his person as God-man, and absolutely first decreed; for we are chosen in Christ, Eph. i. 4 ; therefore he is supposed chosen first, as the soil in whom we are set and chosen. We were predestinated to the adop tion of sons by Jesus Christ, sic. avrbv; ver. 5, for him and his glory, as many understand it*. So in 1 Peter i. 20, Who verily was foreordained, as Christ, afore the foundation of the world, but manifested (and ordained to be manifested, as he is the Lamb slain*) in these last days for you. There are two be/ores annexed to this predestination, /or<?- ordained and before the foundation of the world.

And he was first ordained for these higher ends than our salvation is,

1. For God s own self to delight in more than in all creatures he could make, to be the man God s fellow, Zech. xiii. 7; and Isa. xlii. 1, My elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I was daily his delight, in the con tinual thoughts of me ; and my delights were with the sons of men, Prov. viii. 31. We were chosen to be Christ s delight, but Christ to be God s.

2. To behold the image of himself in a creature, and of all his attributes. That life and brightness shining therein, as could never have appeared in all mere creatures ; but did in him, who being the brightness of his Father s glory, and the express image of his person (it is spoken of the person of Christ as God-man, as the next words in their current coherence shew). Of this image, see my sermon on Col. i. 15-18.

3. By that union with that man to communicate the Godhead unto that one creature, the man ; thus decreed to be assumed, in such a high, supe rior way, as could no way have been otherwise communicated to mere crea tures ; see my said sermons on Col. i. All which are ends that stand out of his being mediator for us ; and are far higher ends than the glory thereof, or our salvation accomplished thereby.

V. Upon and together with his being predestinated God-man, there falls upon his person as his inheritance to be the sovereign end (I say not the supremest end, for God himself is above, and the end of him as well as of all things else ; but a sovereign end as in respect of us and all things, he having joint authority with God, under God, over all), of all things else God should make, and the end of whatever of his intelligent creatures he should be pleased to choose unto glory; according to that 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23, All things are yours, and you are Christ s, and Christ is God s, which is spoken in respect of endship. That as you the saints are the end of and for which all things were ordained, so you ; Christ is the end of you, and God of Christ : John xvii. 10, All mine are thine, and thine are mine ; and I am glorified in them. And so it is said of him, that for him, and by him, all things were created, Col. i. 18, as well as it is said of God the Father, Rom. xi. 36. And as it fell to him by inheritance, God s Son, now subsisting in our nature, being one person therewith, so God freely gave it him, and be stowed it upon him : John iii. 35, The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.

VI. In this predestination of this man unto that union, and constituting him through that union to be the sovereign end of us and all things, there was conferred on that individual man that was thus exalted the highest grace or favour, transcending all that grace which was or could have been * Compare the words in the verse afore.

cast upon all his elect, any way considered ; so that if the election of us be to the praise of the glory of God s grace, 7m much more. There could be no desert foreseen, no worth in that man simply considered, that would require such an exaltation. It must be said to him as well as to any other creature, Who hath first given him, and it shall be recompensed to him again ? Rom. xi. 35. And to be sure, he had more given him by that election of his than what the whole creation had, or possibilities of being created could have had ; for all his righteousness extends not unto God, all is nothing to him, Ps. xvi. 2. And in that God was for ever perfectly free, as to his will, to have decreed him or not, to have decreed either that man, or any other intelligent creature, to this high dignity, it was therefore free grace in him to decree it. And the greater was the grace, by how much the dignity was above what [by] the law of creatureship unto men or angels were their dues by first creation, and enhanced also by this, that that creature alone was exalted unto it, and none other partook with him. It was the glory of the only begotten Son of God, peculiar to him who was that one Lord, 1 Cor. viii. 6. And therefore the predestination of the man Jesus is made by Austin the highest example and pattern of the election of grace

that is of us. And thus God s greatest end in predestination to manifest his grace (from whence election hath its title to be styled the election of grace) was accom plished in him above his brethren, that he should be to the praise of the glory of God s grace, far above what we are.

VII. From the pattern and example of whose election it is evident, that grace is not to be limited, or only to be understood of the favour towards creatures that have sinned, and are delivered out of sin and misery; for the highest grace (which divines style gratia unionis, the grace of the personal union in the man Jesus), above all other elevations or demonstrations of grace whatsoever, was found in the instance of him, who could have no sin, nor was capable of it, the grace of that union was so impregnable, and far above all danger of it ; wherefore grace, and the election of grace, as all election unto glory is, when it is said to be of grace, and not of works, im ports not solely an opposition to, or exclusion only of, works since the fall, but of all sorts of works, in what state soever ; of works in innocency in Adam (the reward then promised being of works, not grace, Rom. iv.), and also of the angels, whom the best divines acknowledge elected out of grace, and not works of their own foreseen ; and so their instance therein may be conjoined with that of Christ s, in that respect to confirm this.

VIII. God having thus absolutely chosen him, and therewith endowed him with the royalty to be the sovereign end of all, whom God would either de sire to create or elect to glory, those whom, therefore, he would or did elect of us men, were and must be ordained, and intended in their very ordina tion of them in election, to be for his glory as the end of their election, as well as God s own glory was (as is acknowledged by all) the end of their election.

We were not absolutely ordained (as Christ in his singular predestination was in the first intention of it), but from the first of ours the intention of God concerning us was, that they should be Christ s, and have their glory from him, the Lord of glory (as, 1 Cor. ii. 8, he is styled). The person of Christ, God-man, was predestinated, for the dignity of himself ; but we, for God s glory and Christ s. And though God the Father, first and alone, de signed who the person should be, as he did this and that individual of us, yet that there should an election of any, this was for Christ s sake as well * Incarnatio summum exemplum gratise: nee potuisset gratia Dei gratius cora-

quam ut ipse filius Dei hominem iudueret. De Civitate Dei, lib. x. c. 19.

gg OF ELECTION. [BOOK IIas for the glory of the Father: Thine they were, and thou gavest them me/ and that all men (elect) might honour the Son, as they honour the Father, John v. 23. So as God in their election had his Son m his eye as Godman, and in the intuition of him as their end, it was he chose them, and for his sake, to be his fellows, companions, Ps. xlv. 7 ; as he was God s] de light, so that we might be his, as in Prov. viii. 31, Rejoicing m the habi table part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men. And further in the act of election God gave them to him, for this giving them to him was conjunct with the electing of them ; yea, and our election is ex pressed thereby, not as mediator only, to save them from sin, but as mem bers to an head ; as a mere and pure gift to his person, for his honour, to have fellows and companions belong to him, who might, m their allotment and sphere be partakers of a supernatural glory with him, and from him, yea, and m: John xvii. 22, And the glory thou gavest me I have him which was his glory given them, (as concurring with thy election of them, at thy giving them me to be mine), and thou thus loving them as thou hast loved me, ver. 23 ; that is both them and me with an everlasting love ; yet in and with thy loving of them thou gavest them to me, and for my glory as their end, and for which chiefly thou lovedst them ; as ver. 24, Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Now he was loved in his election from everlasting, and they also with him, and chosen in him, and out of that love were given to him ; and to what end, or out of what intention ? Even to behold, and admire, and adore him in his person and glory, as being that very thing they were ordained for, more than for their own glory, which he mentions not, for it ariseth from their beholding his, and was ordained for his. And what glory is it of his ? The glory of his person first absolutely decreed him, which is the height of his glory in heaven, where it is they are ordained to behold it ; and therefore he says, that they may be where I am, whither he was now a-going, even the highest heavens. And what is the main motive to God there mentioned, thus to love them, and to give them to him in election ?

For thou hast loved me afore the foundation of the world. He resolves his loving and electing them into this : For, &c. ; that is, thou having chosen me absolutely for my own glory, in thy first and primary inten tion ; and then thou lovedst them, and gavest them me for my sake, to that end, to behold that glory which in predestination thou gavest me, that so all of them might redound to the glory of me, as first and singularly chosen.

IX. We being thus chosen for Christ s glory as our end, and for his sake, as well as to the glory of God s grace towards us, God did ordain a double relation of Christ unto us for his glory, additional unto that absolute glory of : 1, the relation of an head, wherein we were given as members his person to him, as members of the body are to the natural head, or as a spouse unto an husband to be her head; 2, the relation of a Saviour and redeemer, which is a superaddition to that of headship, and both these for the further glory of Christ, and also for the demonstration of God s grace towards us.

These two relations we find distinct: Eph. v. 23, Even as Christ is the head of the church, and the Saviour of the body ; both which are as distinctly related, as those which were by the good pleasure of God s will, decreed him to be, Col. i. 18-20, And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence ; for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell ; and (having made peace through the blood of his cross) by him to

reconcile all things unto himself ; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And all that is over and above the absolute royalties of his person, set forth in the verses afore.

X. These two relations of his to us, have answerably a double and distinct aspect and condition upon us and of us in our election, which election was re lative unto these two of Christ s, and not absolute as his was : 1. Of our persons, without the consideration of the fall, in massa pura, in the pure lump of creatureship, or as to be created ; and under that consideration God ordained us unto that ultimate glory, under relation to him as an head, whether as of members, or of a spouse, and church to him, or rather both ; of either or both which our persons were fully capable before, or without the consideration of, our fall. 2. Of our persons viewed to be fallen, and so as objects to be saved, and redeemed from the thraldom thereof, under our relation to him as a Saviour. *

XI. And each of these were for the glory of God s grace: 1. In his designment to advance us, considered purely as creatures, to an higher glory by his Christ than was attainable by the law of creation, but wholly super natural ; for to have ordained us was pure grace, no less than to redeem us from sin or misery when fallen may be said to be, and was wholly indepen dent of works, or without works of any kind ; even as Christ s election (who is in ours our pattern) was an election without works of any kind, that is, or without the consideration of works of any kind. And unto this notion of pure original grace may those words well be thought to extend, 2 Tim. i. 9, Not according to works, but his purpose of grace, which was given us in Christ, afore the world began, as comprehending this we speak of, as the mother of all grace, even of redemption grace and calling ; and it is a mighty argument that it was a mere grace in God s heart that moved him to redeem and call us, not according to works, afore the fall, if that this first purpose of grace towards us, and ordination of us to glory, was not founded on works that could any way have been supposed to have been afore the fall performable by the holiness of our creation, that being but the law of our nature when created, and by creation due. And see ing there is such a grace acknowledged, de facto, to have been towards Christ, and the elect angels, why may it not be supposed to have been here in our election also ?

But although this grace was the original mother of grace to us, and that therein lay the grand and ultimate design, for it will have its full accom plishment last after all, and as the issue and perfection of all ; and God might have immediately, upon the first creation of each of us, have taken us into that glory, yet for the further glory of Christ, and ampliation of or ampler demonstration of his grace, and to the end to draw it out and ex tend it (as the Psalmist s word is, Ps. xxxvi. 10, Draw out at length thy lovingkindness : so in the Hebrew) unto the furthest length it will reach to, God was pleased not to ordain to bring us in an immediate manner unto the possession of that full glory, in beholding the personal glory of Christ our head (as was specified), as soon as we should be created ; "but withal permissively ordained, that we, who were thus ordained unto this glory as our end, should by the way to fall into sin, and therefore ordained to ^ create us first in a mutable condition, as the law of mere creation re quired ; by which falling into sin there was way made for an ampliation and illustration of the grace of God unto us as sinners, which causeth grace to abound, as Rom. v. 15, thereby to shewthe riches of his love and grace in extend ing them, or rather turning them into mercy by letting us, the objects of his * See for this the foregoing chapter, of the order of God s decrees. VOL. IX. Q.

98 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. grace, fall into the extremest misery ; for mercy properly respects present misery, and is but love or grace extended, or love becoming mercy also to them it loves, when viewed to be in misery: God, who is rich in mercy, for the love wherewith he loved us, Eph. ii. 4. First loved, and that be came the foundation of mercy to us as sinners ; and unless sin had been thus in execution first, afore we should arrive at the glory we were ordained to, as the ultimate complement of all, additional riches of merciful grace to. us as sinners had never been, without which grace had not had its full demonstration as towards us. Hence, XII. And upon this occasion it was, that Christ had for his great and further glory the office of Redeemer and Saviour snperadded in his election unto that of headship, and that because our being miserable and sinful is that which is our present and immediate concern, which we are most solicitous about in this world, whilst we are sinners ; yea, and con tinues our concern until we, by that final sentence and judgment passed at latter day, have them for ever declared and published to be forgiven ; and therefore both mercy is said to be shewn and forgiveness to be ob tained at that day, 2 Tim. i. 18, Mat. xii. 32. Therefore it is the Scrip tures do set forth Christ to us most thereby, though they are not altogether silent in the other, and thereby call and draw our thoughts and intentions most fixedly thereupon.

XIII. And these two relations of Christ, of head and Saviour, are simul taneous with God s election of us, considered in those prospects fore-men tioned, and neither afore nor after, neither in time (for so no decree in God is afore or after another), but not in order, as to our understanding. For he could not be our head but there must be his correlate, his body ; and so of the other, of being a redeemer. Neither had Christ been ordained to either, had it not been for us and our salvation. But still the election of Christ s person remains in the primary and first intention of it absolute, and for itself, and for higher ends than these which are specified ; and that did not depend at all on us or our election. And although there were these other ends m God s heart in relation to us which occasioned his relative election, as I may term it, of Christ as in relation to us, yet God said within himself, if I may so represent it, though I have those other ends to be accomplished by him, yet I choose his person for himself, and unto that person all glory above all, and for those higher ends fore-mentioned, which alone were motive sufficient to choose him, if I had no other, though I take in all in the choice of him (for in God all was but one act). He is at once mine elect and de light, and withal my servant in redeeming

Behold my servant Whom I uphold, in that work of redeeming I have ordained him for, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. XIV. As the glory of the person of God-man, absolutely thus considered, was the pnmo-primitive design, as I may so speak it, which God s heart was intent upon, and then next unto that his ordination of him to be an head unto us, as a body to him, and that by our mere union to him as an head, and bare relation to his person as such, he was ordained to be the sufficient, efficient, and author of many sorts of blessings ; as of sonship from his sonship a gracious acceptation of our persons in him as the chief beloved, heirs of the same glory with him, heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ. And all these blessings were we capable of, considered as pure creatures, through union with him, and needed not his death to have purchased them for. us, and are made distinct from the blessings of redemption, as Eph. i. 4-7, &c., worU: Isa. xlii. 1,

?! *e *atb chosen M ^ him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: havinfll

predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. And he is the object in whom, as a supreme sovereign good to us, in whom, and beholding of whose person, and that glory of his, we shall for ever be made happy. This was the first design in God s intention, which comprehended us, Christ and us in mutual relation together ; so it shall be the last in execution, as being the greater of these two ; and in execution or performance also the most lasting, even for evermore. It will be the issue, the conclusion, the crown of all. For after the work of media tion for us as sinners is fully over, and every way perfected, and the day of judgment ended ; when sins shall finally be forgiven, and then for ever for gotten, as the promise intended, Christ will give up his mediatory kingdom and glory to his Father ;* and then that regnum antemundanum, that king dom afore, and abstracted from the consideration of this world, or what we were, or Christ as Redeemer for us therein, shall for ever predominantly take place, when God, in the Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be all in all to him as God-man as well as us ; and when Christ the Son, having laid down only the economy of his mediation as a Redeemer, shall yet in his person, as he shall appear with the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in him, and the brightness of the glory of God shining in the human nature, which he can never lay down, or divest himself of, shall be as he is, and was constituted, an head, an husband unto us ; and we chosen as fellows and companions with him, be the object and efficient of our happiness for ever, by our behold ing that his glory, according to that of John xvii. 24 (I opened): Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. And after the day of judgment ended, it is whereof the apostle speaks, when he says, We shall be ever with the Lord, 1 Thes. iv. 17.

CHAPTER III.

That the supreme and utmost end or termination of election (as it respects us), is God s choosing us to himself, and to a supernatural union with himself, and communication of himself, proved from 1 Cor. viii. 6.

And we in him. 1 Cor. viii. 6.

WE have seen the mutability of our first estate by creation, the infinite distance of the creature from God, the high and lofty One ; the necessity of supercreation grace, if any either of men or angels be fixed immutably unto him, which God was pleased should be by an election by grace of some. The next is, That God (who was at this distance from us as creatures, &c.) did by that election also ordain those whom he so singled forth unto a supercreation union with himself and communication of himself, as the highest and utmost end (as to what concerned us) he elected them unto ; so as the height and top of our salvation is consummated, and that union with himself which is far above that oneness we had by the law or dues of our creation.

To found this assertion on the words, 1. Observe the difference he puts between this us, as a special parcel of * For this see Dixon, Cameron on 1 Cor. xv., and divers others.

100 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. his creation, from the all things. We and all other things are from him, of him, or by his power, as the efficient cause. This is common to us and all as his creatures. But we he speaks of as a company or parcel, severed and set apart to some higher excellency and dignity ; and this special separation of us from all -things is twice said : One Lord, &c., and we by him. We a-re in him, that is, taken into himself out of a special love and by a special union with him. The word /$ avrov signifies both in him, and so denoting this union ; and -so interpreters (being to give but some one signification) generally choose to render it. Yet withal it signifies to him, as denoting our : a being of us in the most eminent and appropriation to him peculiarly singular manner, a peculiar people and treasure to him, as himself often speaks. It also imports our being singled forth for his highest glory ; ei$ avrov,for him; that whereas all things are for his glory as well as we, yet they not so for him as we ; and therefore to be for him is here in the text set over our heads, not theirs, as if we had that lot alone, not they ; because we are ordained so to be for him, and in such a singular way and manner as all things are not. Nor doth all the glory that ariseth out of them to him rise up to any considerableness, in comparison of what shall, and doth, out of us, and specially out of this our union with him. Our being in him is the great foundation of our being for him*

2. And for the further illustration and confirmation of this interpretation, I have recourse to a parallel scripture to this: Eph. iv. 5, 6, One Lord, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Observe the difference of the phrases used about all things there, and of -us.

1. Of all things, it is said he is above all ; whereby I understand the sub limity and transcendency of his divine nature and essence, as being of an higher differing kind, infinitely above that being which all creatures have by participation from him, and is all one with that which in the prophet Isaiah God speaks of himself, when he speaks of union with his creatures, of which by and by. He is that high and lofty One ; so in his nature, yet so as, 2dly, he, though diverse from the creatures, yet is near to, and piercing through all creatures, and filling them. He is present with them all, yet holding a distinct different being from all. He is through all, excluded by none, as the air is not out of our dwellings. So first, as his being is no part of their being, nor mingled with them, but above all glorious excellency and perfection; and then through all, in respect of immensity of being. But these two are spoken in common, as in relation to all creatures, and common also to us. But, 3dly, he turns his speech to the saints, and adds, * in you all. There is your difference put by grace from them all. In you that are saints : oh, an infinite difference and grace

! He that is thus that high and lofty One, far above all, and in a common way present to all his creation and cannot be otherwise, he is, over and above all this, in you all, and in you alone ; united to you, and one with you, in a special manner, and upon a special relation. He, the high and lofty One, whose being stands out from all the works of his hands, as transcending the scale of their entity ; inhabiting eternity long afore there were any creatures made, and as then dwelling in, and possessing himself with an all-sufficient blessedness ; and he who, now he hath made them, is still above them all, as an immense supreme Being can be supposed to be above what his hands made ; as he speaks in Isaiah ; and withal filling all : < Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool, saith God there; and is through all, as Paul expresseth it here.

3. Yet, thirdly, this high and lofty One affected a special union with some, and he mentions that sublimity of his own divine being, as he doth

his omnipresence with and through all creatures, here, to shew and enhance great condescension of his grace and favour, to be that he is in you, and dwells in you, that is, to be united to you above all the rest. That is but a common presence vouchsafed to all things, he is through them all, but an indwelling in us, with a communication and participation of himself. Oh

! This is the height of our privilege and happiness. And the height of the grace and favour of this, in both respects, God infinite grace himself doth set out and magnify unto us, in that prophet Isaiah, chap.

Ivii. 15, compared with Isaiah Ixvi. 1, 2, For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot stool : where is the house that ye build unto me ? and where is the place of my rest ? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord : but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. But I defer that scripture unto an use of magnifying the grace of God, in ordaining such an union.

That such a supernatural union with God, and communication of God, is the height of, and his ultimate design towards us, in his choosing of us ; that one comprehensive expression (we so often meet withal) is big with, that he chose us for himself, as Ps. cxxxv. 4, Jah hath chosen Jacob for himself; and Rom. ix. 4, I have reserved seven thousand to myself; which, ver. 5, the apostle interprets to be (in the case of others he speaks of) an election of grace ; also Isaiah xliii., ver. 20, My people, my chosen, and, ver. 21, immediately follows, This people have I formed for myself.

All which to be meant of election I have at large elsewhere shewn. Now, Thus to choose us for himself is not only to set us apart to be a peculiar treasure of precious goods ; as among men, especially kings, above all other things, what they love and delight in they use to hoard up, reserve, and keep in store for themselves. As, Eccles. ii. 8, Solomon, who had power and opportunity above all men else to do it, says, He gathered gold and silver, and the peculiar treasure of kings, consisting of all sorts of rarities and precious things, brought from all countries and provinces (as it follows there), which they accordingly value. And thus in Exod. xix. 5, says God of us, Thou shalt be for a peculiar treasure unto me, and, Ps. cxxxv. 4, He hath chosen Jacob for himself, is explained, and Israel for his pecu liar treasure.

Nor is it only that God hath separated them for his peculiar worship and service, to be holy unto him, consecrated, separated for ever to glorify him, < Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruits of his as Jer. ii. 3, increase.

Nor speaks he it only that he hath chosen them to shew forth his praise, as in that Isaiah xliii. 21, we cited, it follows, They shall shew forth my < the Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil, Prov. xvi. 4. This his end is common praise. For in that sense, unto all things, yea, even to the wicked, who are yet otherwise lost unto

God, and those whom he remembers no more. But this of ours is in a con trary way peculiarly for himself, and so as his glory on us is wholly in a way of grace and kindness. You may therefore observe it in Eph. i. 5, 6 ; * to the that unto his predestinating us to himself, ver. 5, is added, ver. 6, praise of the glory of his grace. Now, put them two together 1, He hath chosen us to himself; 2, For the praise of the glory of his grace,

OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. 102 and thev speak a special communication of his very self unto us in a way of grace, in pure and mere love and kindness, as whence that glory of his Srace should arise. Now, if it be thus, that it is a communication of himseli in a way of grace, then, 1 This promiseth first, that all that which grace can do for us, in com municating God himself to us, and that all that he will do for us, for his glory and the magnification thereof, is to arise from out of what favours he shall shew us, and no otherwise. He shall have no more glory in us and on us than accrues out of what he bestows and lays forth in grace upon us ; so that our happiness as the effect, will extend as far as his own glory as the end. It speaks that his glory on us shall not be severed in anything from our good ; as in that other, it being said that all things and the wicked are for himself it is. But here that his glory which is to be had out of us, and likewise our happiness, doth both run along complicated, twisted, inter woven together as threads in one woof, and are of like extent, whereof his glory is the gloss, and our blessedness is the groundwork or stuff. And therefore if he design to have a glory to the utmost, then he will shew favours to the utmost, and grace will be sure, of all others, to glorify itself to the utmost, and in the utmost way the creatures are capable of, remain ing mere creatures.

2. Yea, secondly, in that for himself is put in, and annexed to the glory of his grace, it manifestly shews that grace is so large-hearted, as it gives all, even to himself (as we say). It is not to shew grace only in all sorts of gracious effects, and in heaping favour upon favour, as a king doth upon his favourite ; but this is to communicate to us himself, to the utmost, and in the utmost way that mere creatures (for Christ always must be excepted) are capacitated for.

3. Thirdly, It is the communication of the whole of himself, whether of his divine perfections, so far as to bless us therewith, or likewise of all the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; for these, namely, persons and attributes, are all that are in himself, and are himself, or which he hath in and for himself to enjoy and be happy in. And all in God shall as truly serve to make thee blessed, according to a creature s capacity, as it serves to make himself blessed in his own immense sphere of blessedness. If thou hast himself, and the whole of himself, thou shalt be heir of God, Rom. viii. 17, for thou shalt be a joint heir with Christ ; and it is all in God is Christ s inheritance, Ps. xvi. 5, The Lord is the portion of mine inheri: thou maintainest my lot. And thou canst not have more ; for, as Rev. xxi. 7, tance, and of my cup

he that overcometh shall inherit all things ; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. God himself hath but all things for himself ; and thou shalt have himself, and what canst thou have more ?

4. Fourthly, He reserves himself for thee, and all that is him. As the text, Rom. ix. 4, speaks of his elect, that he hath reserved them for himself, so he hath reserved himself for them, and all of himself wholly for them.

Is God your inheritance ? (as afore). Then none shall share therein but the designed heirs ; the rest have portions.* Is it God that is your inheri tance ? It is he, then, that is said to be reserved in heaven for you, 1 Pet. i. 4. There he waits, as it were, for you, and that until you shall come, and lets the crowd, the great ones in all ages, pass, as they pass afore him all along, reserving himself (as in election he did design) for you: as if a great prince, in a dream or vision, should see the idea of one not yet born, and should fall in love so with the image of her, that he reserves himself till * Qu. no portions ? ED.

she is born and grown up, and will not think nor entertain any other loves.

5. Fifthly, When he hath brought thee through all disasters to heaven, then, even then, to shew that his first, and ultimate, and eminent design in electing of thee, was for himself, in that special sense I have singled forth, lo ! your first entertainment or welcome thither will be, a presenting you to himself. Oh wonderful ! We have need that an angel tell us, as he did * these are the true

John, upon the Lamb s marriage, Kev. xix. 9, that sayings of God, so slow of heart, and dull, through unbelief, are we. But you have it express and full, to the same purpose which now I have held forth, in Jude 24, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, &c. He speaks this as of what God means to do ; and those he wrote to being yet alive on earth, he therefore brings it in and presents it to their faith in a way of exhorting them to praise and give glory to him aforehand, upon the account that he is able to do it (as his doxology runs), yet so, as withal it more strongly imports, he will certainly do it. And who is it that will do this ? What ! is it spoken of Christ his presenting you to his Father ? No, not here in this place. Or is it Christ his presenting you to himself, as being your designed husband ? No, neither ; although you shall see that by and by said of him too. But it is the great God, the Father himself, for it is the presence of him, the Father s glory, which we are pre sented afore ; and you see withal that it is the same person that presents us

afore his own to himself whose presence it is afore which we are presented, presence of glory, so that it is he whose glory it is. And again, it follows, ver. 25, * To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion arid power, now and ever. Amen. All which attributes are the attributes of the great God the Father, in the usual current of doxologies ; and yet you may take in both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, considered unitedly in that one act of presenting us, as they are one God, though three in person, who will thus present you to themselves, or himself, as one God, so as it shall be one joint act of them all, and yet as one God ; and that of our Saviour is no objection, for it is said of them all three, that they save us.

It is added in that place, with exceeding joy. It is at our very first coming to heaven this is spoken of, and spoken that, as we on our part shall rejoice, as you will all say we shall have reason, so God on his part too. He is pleased to present us with great joy to himself, as making our salva tion his own concern more than it is ours ; and that it is spoken of his joy, doth that word shew : that it is a presenting us to himself afore the presence of his own glory, and shews that he esteems it to be matter of joy to himself to have us so with himself; and though expressed of him but after the manner of men, that are overjoyed when their children come home to them, yet sufficiently signifies that his heart works with joy in the doing it, as of the father of the prodigal it is also spoken. And the word, presenting afore his glory, manifestly declares whose joy it is which is most intended, even his own, more than ours. For it speaks how it is his own interest, his self-interest, his glory, which moves him ; and what he hath in his heart when he doth it, that moves him so to present us, and therefore fills him with joy in doing it. And it is as much as to say, he doth it for his own solace, with the highest delight and greatest pleasure to himself ; he gratifies himself in it. It is matter of dearest enjoyment of those whom he hath so long loved, which he taketh in them, now when he sees them perfectly holy. As elsewhere God is said to rejoice over us : Zeph. iii. 17, * The Lord thy

1Q4 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II.

God in the midst of thee is mighty ; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with ioy he will rest in his love, he will rejoice over thee with singing, life, when absent from him, much more when we come home to him, and he hath us present with him in the presence of his glory. And that land, the < shall be called Beulah ; that is, Thy delight is in her : for the Lord type of it, del Hiteth in thee, Isa. Ixii. 4. He loves us when sinners ; but delights in us but so far as we are holy. And now, when he sees us come first afore his presence, faultless and perfectly holy, then his delight and his joy in us is full ; and then, at that time, when we come first into his presence, says God with himself, Lo, I loved this my creature from everlasting, and I designed him then by choice, not only to be mine, my peculiar, but I chose him for myself to rejoice in, and to communicate my whole self unto. And now that, after so long a time, seeing that holiness I designed, to be com pleted in him, to prepare him for my enjoyment of him, and for his full en joyment of me, in the presence of my glory, I thus solemnly present him with exceeding great joy unto myself ; for I shall have more joy and solace in him than he shall have in me : for it was for myself that I first did choose him, as my ultimate end, which is now accomplished and perfected.

And thus understood, respondent ultima prinris ; and that maxim, so used and applied, in the point of God s decrees, that what is last in execution is first in intention, and e contra, is fully cleared up. Though I think that that will not hold in all things about those decrees, yet in this it is perfectly true, this being the ultimate end of God s first choice and cast of his eye upon us. And in like manner, you see, it is last in execution, he chose us for himself; that was his primitive intention; and he presents to himself, as last in execution. He delighted with infinite delights to choose us, fore seeing all he meant to bring us to ; and above all, his own enjoyment of us.

Thus Deut. x. 15, Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. And at the last, he presents them, having accomplished his end once, to himself with exceeding great joy.

And now, to tell you how happy and blessed you will be for ever, after this so solemn a presentation of you made by himself to himself, none knows but himself, that knows himself and his own blessedness. Only, in brief, carry home this, that you will be as happy as God himself can make you ; as for the kind of it, of which I spake before.

I might next shew you that we are also ordained for Jesus Christ ; for unto him, and for him, you were likewise chosen, as well as for the Father,

God the Father as I have interpreted that in Eph. i. 5, where it is said, having predestinated us by Jesus Christ, g/c avrov, unto him, that is, to the same Jesus Christ, as well as g/ c auro v, or, that God the Father did it to himself: I take in both in that g. g aurov, both to him, that is, to Christ, as well as to himself ; that is, to God the Father, who himself predestinated us. And Christ himself, from heaven, said of Paul, he is a chosen vessel to me. Yea, and Christ also chose you from everlasting with the Father ; and as God the Father predestinated you for him, that is for Christ his Son, so Christ also for himself. And that he will in like manner present you to himself also, you have it in Eph. v. 27, That he might present it to him self a glorious church ; and you will easily grant that this might in some respect more properly be said of him than of the Father ; because, as the discourse in that chapter was, he is the husband, and the church the spouse. But, as Christ is an everlasting Father, Isa. ix. 26, as well as an husband, so God the Father is our husband, as well as Christ : Isa. liv. 5, For thy Maker is thy husband ; and multitude of other speeches shew :

married to thee, and the like ; so that each of them may be said to present us each to himself.

But, besides this passage in the Ephesians, Christ himself doth more than insinuate the same with the greatest affections, and as with a delight to speak of it, in John xiv., as being that thing which most intimately and ultimately pleased him, and was a gratifying of himself, even this, that he should one day take us to himself, to his infinite personal joy and contentment. For he having first said, I go and prepare a place for you, as a kind bride groom doth for his spouse, and then that I will come again to fetch you, he adds, and receive you to myself. The words are, John xiv. 3 : if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. You see to himself still comesin ; and methinks in those words he doth express his heart in such a manner as implies that it was his own dearest interest that filled and acted his very soul in so speaking, as well as our interest ; and that all was, for himself to enjoy us, and to that end to have us with himself for ever.

Thus much for the first part of my assertion, for the communication of himself. There remains a second branch intended in it, and that is, union with himself, which in reality is the first of the two.

All communication in a wav of grace is founded upon an union with him first who communicates himself, as upon which it is he doth communicate. Thus all communion between man and wife, in such acts as are proper to that relation, is founded upon their being by a marriage union first made one flesh, by an assumed relation first constituted between them ; their union and relation is not founded upon such transient acts of communion, for such, without a previous marriage union of right and order, would be fornication, but upon a marriage union first made. The schoolmen do make something equivalent to this, the ground why God shews mercy to his children, that God makes and reckons them first, ut allquid sui, as some thing of himself; the Scripture speaks the same, when it saith, they are as dear to him as what can be thought dearest to one s self: Zech. ii. 8, that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye ; and Deut. xxxii. 9, God made himself the portion of his people, viz., by giving himself to them; and by virtue thereof it follows, he kept him as the apple of his eye, ver.

10, thus in the Old Testament Why persecutest thou me ? Acts, ix. 4 so in the New. When I heard a language I understood not, says God, Ps. Ixxxi. 5 ; and he speaks it in the person of his people when in Egypt ; for otherwise there is no language which God understands not ; and it is God that utters that I there, as the next words shew, ver. 6, I removed his * Thou calledst, and I delivered thee. Now this union was election s design, whereby to bring about that com shoulder from the burden ; and ver. 7, munication of himself; thus the psalmist, Ps. Ixv. 4, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee ; or, as Ainsworth, makest near to thee ; as also, who shall separate us ? Rom. viii. 35 doth imply ; and from hence flows the communication of himself, as it fol lows in that verse of the psalmist, he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house ; which house is himself in our hearts, and so by this choice of his to that near approach unto him, we come to have all of what God in heaven doth communicate ; whereof that temple and house was then the type, in the language of which the psalmist there speaks.

And that the communication of himself is founded upon union, is emi nently seen in the man Jesus, whose predestination is the pattern of ours : Rom. viii. 29, For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among

1Q6 OF ELECTION. !B OK IL many brethren ; and whose union with God is the instrumental original of ours The whole foundation of that glory, &c., the man Jesus bathes his union with the Son of God, whose original right it was to say I m my Father and my Father in me. It was that union of him with the bon who had this union with the Father, gave him right to all those other privieges: the man, God s fellow, he hath This entered him fellow with the Trinity as in Zech. xiii. 7 ; and this union alone gave him right to have hie i himself, and made all the royalties of the Son of God naturally to flow m upon him as his due. Insomuch as our divines have said, that there is no other grace shewn to him, but this gratia unionis, the grace of union ; to that union drew along all else with it, as of right and by inheritance. But yet to us, all our privileges, and communications that follow, are as perfect grace to us as our union at first. Yet still they are all founded on the grace of an union from whence communion flows ; and look, that as union with God was the height and top grace vouchsafed Christ, and the end of his predesti nation, so that of ours is of all the grace communicated to us.

CHAPTER IV.

That our union with God the Father, and Christ, is the utmost end of our election, further proved in an interpretation of several passages of Christ s prayer, in the seventeenth chapter of John.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : 1 in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. righteous Father, the world hath not known thee : but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them, thy name, and will declare it ; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

JOHN XVII. 20-26.

The assertion was, that God, in and at his electing, did ordain the body of his elect to a supercreation union with himself, and communication of himself, as the highest and utmost end, he (as to what concerns us) chose us unto, above the law or dues of our creation ; and so as the height and top of our salvation is consummated in that union, which is far above that law or dues which is by the law of our creation.

I repeat the assertion., because now I am to prove it, and every part of it, which I shall endeavour by these four or five following deductions out of this prayer.

1. The subject of his prayer, his whole church. The subject of this prayer, or persons prayed for, in this part of it, are his whole church of his elect, to the end of the world ; and the aim of his prayer, or thing prayed for by him, in ver. 21, is, that they all (that * may be one. He had prayed for himself to is, all and every one of them) ver. 6 ; for his apostles then present, from thence to this 20th verse ; but

here, for his whole church, who, in the whole body of them, must needs be supposed infinitely more dear to him, than those eleven persons, his apostles, so small a parcel of the whole, who are a company which cannot be numbered, as Kev. vii. 9, who now stood afore his view. John and Jude wrote catholic epistles (as they are entitled). And this part of Christ s prayer we may st}

7le, Christ s catholic prayer. 2. Let us next take in the greatness of this person who prays, and all the circumstances he then stood in, when and whilst he was uttering of it ; and think with yourselves, of what an infinite weight and concernment that prayer for that his whole church must be of. That he, the great Son of God, that had been glorified with God s own self afore the world was, the true high priest, bearing now all the tribes names, that is, all the persons of his elect, and every one of them, on his heart, all, ver. 21, and every one, and being within a small space, to go forth to be taken, and then to offer up himself a whole burntsacrifice for them, and every of them ; and now by his prayer, pouring forth the bottom of his heart and soulblood desires into the bosom of his Father for them ; and this, chosen out as his last and solemn request, to be left upon record to all posterity for them ; and this also the last part and conclusion of that prayer, when his heart was most enlarged (as towards the end of prayers ours use to be), himself rapt up into heaven, and filled with the sense of his own sooner approaching glory, when he breathes it forth almost at every word ; when you find him also deeply affected with the joyous thoughts of that glory and happiness which his whole church should have, in order unto, and through this union, effected by his mediation ; and which should be the fruit and effect of that his own glory, and those his sufferings ; and how, at the latter day, his glory, and his church s blessedness in their conjunction with God through him, should so gloriously appear, and be acknowledged even by all the rest of the world ; and that his heart was full of all these contemplations and foresights, you may discern from every verse, especially 23 and 24.

Now, then, consider that he being thus, through his shortness of time, to single forth one boon or largess, to ask of his Father, who (he pleads) had loved him afore the foundation of the world ; and as he urgeth also, had loved this his whole church, and every member of it, as he had loved him. And that to utter this request, as his dying request too, with his last breath, I say, If you look on him in these circumstances, you will all conclude that it must be some grand thing his heart was now big withal, and of all things else the choicest and most comprehensive of good, yea, and of universal concernment to them all. Sure you do, and would expect in this case, that it should be the utmost blessing which he could ask ; or that he knew (who was his Father s counsellor) to be the best his Father would bestow. And now what is it ? It is union, union, our mystical union. There are indeed some other things fall in, but I may assure you this, our union is the grand subject of the whole, the ocean all the other run into. And in that 21st verse, he at first plainly proposeth it, as the sum of his * That they all may be one ; and spends the rest of his intended request, prayer either in explaining what union he meant, and indigitating over and over, in more particularising expressions thereabout, which are tvfor substance, this one and the same thing, even this, * That they may be one, as I in thee, and thou in me, &c., that they may be perfect in one ; and pressing his Father by those nearest endearments between himself and him, which he knew were the most taking effectual motives to grant it, as his eternal love to him self, and the same love to them, ver. 21, 23, 24. And he goes over and over it again, and amplifies upon it, as one that knew not how to leave it, nor to

108 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. get his heart off from it : so dear and precious a request it was to him (which is usual with us in petitions our hearts are in), yea, and ceaseth and leaves it, but because he was called off by another as great an occasion, for the very time appointed by his Father for him to be taken by Judas and his crew was now come ; read chap, xviii. And he so longed to be baptized with that baptism, that he resolved to be at the place, designed aforehand to meet them, rather than come too late. And that he was mindful of the time, his words, chap. xiv. 31, Arise, let us go hence, do shew. And so he was forced to break off, and yet then he makes it his last word, That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

3. But, thirdly, what union is this intended, or with whom ?

Our commentators do generally (except some few) limit it unto that kind or species of union, which the catholic church hath and shall have for ever one with another, and among themselves, as gathered out of and separated from the world, into one body, to Christ as the head ; and the oneness to be that of love and affection, to be of one mind and judgment, and to pre serve concord and the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, according as it was at first exemplified in the primitive pattern, who were of one heart and of one soul, Acts iv. 32 ; and so fast joined and glued together, as the word is, Acts v. 13, that, as of of the rest (that were of the world) durst no man join himself unto them. And yet the people magnified them, and many were added to them. All which agrees (say they) with Christ s speech, ver. 21. That this their being one, the rest of the world did tacitly acknowledge Christ to be the Messiah ; and the sight of it brought divers to believe, as ver. 14.

But sure this is too narrow a vessel to contain the big words by which Christ expresseth this union here to his Father ; but it is directly and im mediately intended of that grand union of all unions whatever, even of our union with God and Christ themselves, which doth indeed by way of con sequence draw on after it, this other union of saints one with another among themselves, as the sunbeams being one in the sun, the nearer they become unto the sun, they be so much nearer unto one another, and among them selves, as being originally united unto the sun itself ; yet still this is not the union primarily intended here.

And although the common current be for that other opinion, yet there are some commentators of great note, who cast their thoughts upon this last proposed opinion.

Toilet being convinced that those words of ver 21, As thou, Father, art in me, and 1 in thee, that they also may be one in us, do in the very sound of them reach higher than that inferior union of the saints one with another, yet thus far complieth with the common vogue, and compounds it, bidding the reader attend, that there is a twofold union of believers.

(1.) One among themselves, from the unity of faith and love, and that that is it (says he) Christ means in the former part of ver. 21, in those words, that they all may be one. But, (2.) There is another, our union with God and Christ, and their indwelling in us, and we in them ; and of that union (saith he) the following words are to be understood : As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee ; that they also may be one in us.

Joannes Bence* also, in his excellent (though short) manual, falls into the same ; Brugensis comes off to the same, though later, yet at last. Those other issued with it upon the 21st verse ; but Brugensis falls in at the 22d verse, upon those words, that they may be one, as we are one. Not * Super quatuor Evangelia.

only (says he) that they may be one amongst themselves (for he had [prayed] for that already), says he ; but that they be one with us : for that is it which follows, I in them, and thou in me ; and so they may be perfectly one. Which (though he carries to the sacramental eating Christ s body, &c.) yet concludes, the most perfect union that can be with God and Christ is here intended : and for this cites the interpretation of Cyril of Alexandria, that most ancient and grave author ; and truly I judge we might have discerned this higher up than either the 21st, 22d, or 23d verses ; for I hope by the connection of ver. 10, 11 (in the latter part of which, ver. 11, the matter of union is first mentioned, that they may be one as we are ), I hope, I say, afterwards to make it appear, that our union with God and Christ is there the eminent subject in the speech. Upon which verse, our own judicious

Cartwright, upon ver. 11, where this union is first spoken of, propounds this question, What union it is that is meant? whether that thereby they are one among themselves, or that with Christ, and with God, or rather with all these ? And answers, Omnmo cum omnibus ; altogether, and upon all accounts, it is our union with all these. And that that of our union with himself, and his Father, is chiefly intended by Christ, his reason shews, viz., that this part of Christ s prayer is but herein consonant unto that he had so much impressed upon them in his sermon to them immediately afore, in * Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth mucb fruit. If ye keep my command chap. xv. ver. 4, 5, 10 : ments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have kept my Father s com mandments, and abide in his love. Which is all one, as to say, union with himself; and so, what he had so much urged upon them in his sermon to themselves, he now puts into a prayer to his Father for them.

And even those that are for that union of the saints amongst themselves, as the primary intendment, yet are forced to take in that latter union with God and Christ, as that which is the fundamental cause of the saints union amongst themselves ; as in whom, they being one first, do become one with one another.

And so the question will rest in this, whether the union of the saints, &c., be first and directly intended by Christ ; and that of our union with God and Christ be but supposed as the cause thereof, though not expressly held forth in the words ; or that, primarily and directly, our immediate union with God and Christ be meant, and that other union be supposed, but as the consequent thereof; and so, but secondarily and implied, as that which doth and must necessarily follow upon that union first had with God and Christ, and so in the first place prayed for here by Christ.

Our Mr Hooker of N. E.# who hath wrote sermons upon these verses, from verse the 20th to the end (which are in print), he doth plainly and directly cast the interpretation solely upon the saints immediate union with God and Christ, and says, that though the other follows thereupon, yet it is not here otherwise than secondarily intended ; but that immediate union with God and Christ is alone the primary and direct intendment which Christ s prayer and petition falls upon.

He makes apology why he so dissents and diverts from the common opi nion. I profess, upon the consideration of all, to make none for this dissent, but shall give my reasons instead thereof. And the reasons are, 1. That those words, As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, are a manifest explication of what manner of union

* Qu. New England ? ED.

110 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. he intended, when first he had said, that they all may be one. In which first words he sums up first, in general, the pith of his petition ; but then explains it by this, that they may be one in us ; and again mdigitates it ver 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfect m one ; and so plainly terminates or issues upon the Father and the Son, and our being in them ; and herein he speaks what union he meant, as plain as plain

The other interpreters divert this, by making the intent of him in his men tion of the Father s union in the Son, and the Son s in the Father, to be, to hold forth, by way of example, what the union of the saints amongst themselves should be ; even after that manner of nearness of union, as that whereby the Father is in the Son, and e contra.

But this interpretation so applied to the saints union among themselves doth destroy itself ; and I infer from that very thing, that the union he intended is such as bears a similitude of that union, in respect of their being one in the other ; and so form up a

2. Second reason, both negative and affirmative : (1.) Negatively, that the union of the saints among themselves is not such as that it may be said, that they are one in another. They may indeed be said to be one with another ; and being members, they are said to be members of one another, Eph. iv. 25 ; but they are never said to be members one in another : Peter is not in Paul, nor Paul in John. (2.) But affirmatively, our union with God the Father and the Son is such, as that multitudes of scriptures give testimony, that the Father is in us, and Christ in us, and we in Christ; and do use these very phrases to express our union with God the Father and the

Son ; as when it is said, God dwells in us, and we in God, 1 John iv. 15 ;

< Unto the church

the church that is in God the Father : 2 Thes. i. 1, and of the Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Yea, it is the phrase Christ useth in this very gospel of John, chap. xiv. 20, At that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. And there, to be sure, he intends not that union the saints have amongst themselves ; but simply that which they have immediately in and with Christ, and that exemplified by what he hath with the Father ; and here indeed in this union, the similitude of that which the Father and Son have together, ver. 11, or after the example of God the Father s being in the Son, and the Son in the Father, is found to hold. And I acknowledge it to be the archetypal example of this our union with the us, that is, the Father and Son ; and so, that they may be one in its must be rather meant of our immediate union with that us, in that manner the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father ; for after the similitude thereof we are in them, and they in us.

And truly, this was a phrase or word so sweet in Christ s mouth, and so dear to his heart, as he will have it the very last word in this prayer, and I in them ; as if he had said, take this in as the very punctum or point which this latter part of my prayer centres in.

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfect in

3. In ver. 23, one ; that is, they being in me, and I being in them, this makes their union in us perfect. Now the union the saints have among themselves is not the perfection of their union ; it is but a piece of it, and so incomplete ; but, on the other hand, their being one in the Father and in Christ, and so in the w, is that which is the perfection and top of their union, which the other is not ; and, therefore, this is mainly intended.

4. Lastly, ver. 22, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. These words declare the

CHAP. IV.] OF ELECTION. Ill very glory of the saints in heaven to be but a means to consummate and perfect (as his word is after, ver. 23) that union which was the intended and proposed subject of this his prayer ; and, therefore, that union here intended must be a greater and higher thing than all the grace in this life ; yea, and all the glory of the saints in heaven (abstract it from their union) ; for the end is better than the means (which is Mr Hooker s reason, and was long since also mine). This all reason acknowledgeth ; and, if so, then certainly the union of the saints among themselves, in being one in love, affection, concord, of one heart, not only as in the highest attainment they have reached to in this life, but not as it shall be in heaven, cannot be the full meaning of this that he saith, the glory I have given them, is for this end, that they may be one. This lower union, as I may call it, is but a part and piece of that grace the saints in this life have, among the many other graces vouchsafed them. And alas, how imperfect is it ! and in heaven also, is but a part of their glory. But this supreme union of the saints in the us here, is meant of Christ and God ; their being in them, and they in them, as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and this in the full accomplishment and perfection of it. This may deservedly be said to be greater than the whole of that grace and glory, simply considered, the saints shall have here and hereafter.

There are two things yet remaining that were put into the main doctrine or assertion, not hitherto spoken unto.

1. That this union with Christ and God was and is the very design of God s electing of us from everlasting ; and this also to be proved out of this prayer of Christ in John xvii., for that was it was also undertaken for, whilst

I chose that Scripture forth, as a punctual proof of the whole.

2. The second is, that the union is such as is the highest (next to that of Christ s) the creature is capable of; a super-creation union, or above what Adam had by creation.

For the first of these, which, in order with the former, makes the parti cular. It may easily be discerned by multitudes of passages, how Christ tra versed with his Father, the Son who lay in his Father s bosom ; he recounts transactions between himself and his Father, or concernments that reached so high for their original. This, in a cursory view, will appear by ver. 5 : 1 And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. And by ver. 24, lovedst me before the foundation of the world ; which he enters as his plea for his saints beholding his own glory, which he had with the Father, ver. 5. But more particularly, it appears from his pleading God s electing of us, whilst he seeks to obtain this union for us, as the highest thing could be asked ; and therefore this union was included in that election as the design of it.

Now, that he pleads election in order to that union, is evident from his pleas, ver. 6, where it is he first enters upon our concernment : I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word.

Thine, how ? By election, whereby it is we first became his : 2 Tim. ii. 19, The Lord knoweth them that are his. When* he calls

his people, when* he foreknew, that is, chose, Rom. xi. 2, as I opened it ; his, that is, his elect, * my chosen, as his own words often are, of them in the Old Tes tament ; and in that he had manifested his name unto them, whilst yet ye had preached to others indifferently, he shews what it was that put the * Qu. whom ? ED.

Q2 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. difference, even that these belonged to God: Thine they were, and thou gavest them me.

and thou gavest them me, repeated so oft, both ver. 6, That clause also, 9 11, 12, 24, I confess, it is to be understood of God s giving them at effectual calling them, and in that sense was true of these apostles ; but that is not all : there is a double giving ; one at our calling, and another at and with election. And that giving to him was a distinct act from that of mere election, though done at election. They were first the Father s by elec tion, who singled forth the persons, and then gave them unto Christ upon his electing of them, and so these two are here joined ;_ thou gavest them me, for they are thine : first, thine by election, then given to me, in the same sense that grace is said to be given in Christ before the world began, 2 Tim. i. 9. In the same sense were these given to Christ afore the world began also, which is the import of that phrase, John vi. 37, 39, All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me ; where the Father s giving is not their effectual calling, for that is besides noted out by coming to Christ. But it is an act of the Father s, preceding conversion, or their calling ; for it is the cause of their coming ; so the words manifestly shew, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And when was it that act of giving was put forth afore calling ? Not at the instant of calling, but in some time before ; for in ver. 39 he says, of all that thou hnst given me, as in the time past ; and that was afore he came down from heaven, as his words shew : ver. 38, 39, for I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing. That is, it was the instruction given him afore he came down, and he came down with that errand, he brought it with him, that of all the Father had given him afore he came from heaven, he should be sure not to cast off, nor lose any he had thus before given him ; and if afore [he] came down, then from whence must that act commence, but from everlasting ? when it was that that grace was given in Christ, as 2 Tim. i. 9. And truly, in ver. 24, that clause, those whom thou hast given me, cannot well otherwise be understood. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. For the glory given to Christ hast given me is apparently said to be from everlasting, as the reason and explication given of it shews, For thou lovedst me afore, &c. And therefore, if the giving me those thou hast given be suitably understood, then it is, that thou hast given me those from everlasting also ; which is so to be interpreted, because he had said in the words just afore, thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me ; and so, amongst other likenesses, from everlasting, as thou hast loved me.

Besides, there he prays for his whole church to come ; and how is it that they had been given him ? And that was not at calling, for many of them were yet uncalled, and therefore given, it must be, in God s everlasting decree.

This argument the words of ver. 2 do manifest, As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. This as many, are as many as he had amongst all flesh of mankind in all ages, and of all and every one of them many, he says they had been given him by his Father, which was before they were, many of them, yea, most of them, born in all ages to come ; for they are all that many whom he died for and prayed for accordingly ; which is strengthened by ver. 20, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, which is adoing to the end of the world. Yet of all

these he speaks in that second, that they had been given him ; then when he prayed for [them] this prayer ; yea, and long afore. The second (or, in order, the fifth and last) additional assertion was, that this union was the highest the creature was capable of, next unto Christ s, and a super-creation union, above the dues or rewards by creation. This, though I mention, yet I need not much insist upon the proof. I might say, no more, but that this our union is brought in wholly by Christ, as the head of his church, and here pleaded for us upon his transcending interest, on the highest accounts that that interest will afford (which is wholly super natural). And how high that will reach, our thoughts cannot rise up to apprehend. Sure I am, that look how far Christ the Lord from heaven exceeds the first Adam, a man on earth earthy ; or that the elevation of a * quickening spirit, super-excels the low and inferior state of a man, who is a * living soul ; and the unions with God, which each of these were the subjects of, and conveyers of the like with them proportionate to us (being compared together), will be found more or less excelling ; so far will that union conveyed by Christ also excel, and the one be but natural, by crea tion dues, and the other supernatural, as the comparison of the two Adams, instituted by the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. teacheth us to make the estimate. But, because I confine myself to this prayer, that one passage in ver. 22 is over abundantly sufficient to prove this ; And the glory which thou hast given me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. This is Christ s glory in himself, by personal union, communicated to us by a participation from him, even as Christ s glory was from his Father s glory immediately, as his Son by eternal generation, and to the man Jesus, or God-man, by personal union ; this is a genealogy or descent from an higher fountain or rise than Adam s union was, and more fixed. But this branch will and may appear and rise up afore us, out of almost every thing I can speak about this union ; and when I come to speak of the height of this union itself, it will every way be justified to the children of union, and unto that I shall refer it. That it was a top union, super-creation, &c.

1. See Hooker of comparison with Adam ; see Cartwright on either ver. 11 of John xvii., or ver. 21 and 22.

2. It is God s glory given over Adam s head, as ver. 22, John xvii. Adam never had the honour to have given that ; it is proper to Christ, and had it given afore the world.

3. It is the utmost he prayed for, and so a corollary from that head (that it is the great thing Christ prays for), it is argued, it was the greatest could be prayed for. See Cartwright s Harmony, third part, on John xvii., page 321, 322.

Use. Learn, then, from Christ what thing of all other to pray for, and to make the most endeared object of our desires. There was an one thing of David s desires : Ps. xxvii. 4, One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. And what was that ? He speaks according to his eleva tion under the old testament : that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. And this indeed is near unto what Christ here under the new (and David s is spoken in the type of his) ; and this of Christ s is, that God the Father may dwell in you, and that Christ, God the Son, may be in you, as the Father is in him, and make your hearts his temple, wherein he shews and utters all his glory ; that you may be one with the us here ; that Christ may dwell in you, and you in him ; and thereby you will come to behold the beauty of the Lord indeed : VOL. ix. H

1U OF ELECTION. [B OK H - that they may behold my glory, saith Christ, ver 24. It is to have fel lowship with the Father, and with the Son, as the apostle John speaks. Sd, t; otherfol ow me hat was a man that came nearest to Christ of any as I follow Christ what was the great and first pursuit of his soul I

Philip Hi., where in some half a dozen verses he sets out the spiritual exer cises and pursuances of his soul (I use to call them Paul s ascertions*) ; and there the first and main great one is this, ver 9 - That I may win

Christ and be found in him ; that is, united to him ; that is the grand point of his desires. You pray for redemption and forgiveness of sins, &c., and you do well, for ye have need on it; and to sinners, when they are heavy laden and burdened with their sins, it is that which is first objected and laid before them by the Spirit in the word ; but yet let me tell you, there is a thin* behind that is more remote and further off, and hidden to our thoughts at fast, and that is, union with Christ and God, which in the utmost enjoy ment of it will take place in the other world, when sin shall be forgotten, and remembered no more; yea, and which is a blessing of blessings, that we might have been made perfect in, though we had never sinned ; yea, whi is beyond heaven and glory itself, abstractly considered as it is ours, which is beyond our beholding, the glory of Christ in heaven ; for it is that which is accomplished in us by that beholding. And, my brethren, a true genuine spiritual desire, carrying out the heart unto a union with God the lathand the Son, this proceeds from pure love, from a love to the things and persons themselves the soul would be united to ; love is always joined with a desire of union ; and so much the more purely that love is carried to de sire an union with things lovely, so much greater is that love.

I add this : what though your hearts have not been so intensely and directly carried out to seek this for yourselves, as the top and crown object of your desires ; yet be not discouraged ; the apostles themselves had it not thus in their thoughts, when Christ prayed for this for them ; their faith and their spirits had been little carried forth to, and exercised about, this union.

I been so long time with you, and believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ? John xiv. 9, 10. But in that day they should know, namely, when the Holy Ghost came upon them, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you, ver. 20 of that 14th chapter. And here in this his prayer I observe, that he mentions them but so far as they had then gone ; and, ala ! it was but a little step ; as they have known that thou hast sent me ; and they believed in me, ver. 8 ; and again, at last, ver. 25, These have known that thou hast sent me ; but they yet knew not their spiritual union with Christ, which therefore he prays for. And again, at the 26th verse, he saith, I have declared unto them thy name, and that by an inward manifestation of many things I have taught them outwardly, concerning thy name, and love, and the way of salvation by me ; but yet they were defective in great and many things therein still, and needed new declarations of new and further things unto them. And, * and I will declare it ; ye know how short therefore, he adds those words, they were in knowledge. Ye believe in God, believe also in me ; hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name.

1 And therefore it may much rather be supposed that they needed God s revealing to them, inwardly and sensibly, their union with him ; and therefore he prays for it again in the very next words, and concludes therewith. They little dreamt at this time of bis praying of this so high a mystery, the sense thereof was reserved till after his being glorified ; our union is hid with God in Christ, as our life also is ; and our growth in grace lieth in higher advances of spiritual knowledge, and * That is, things that he strove after. ED.

CHAP. V.] OF ELECTION

impressions of heart affecting us, running along with accordingly upon what is still more and more spiritual.

CHAPTER V.

The infinity of grace and condescension in God, the high and lofty One, to ordain such an union and communion with himself of us his creatures, who are at such a distance from him as we are creatures; and more than doubly infinite grace, in that we are also sinners.

Use. You have, then, great reason to adore our holy, and "great, and blessed God for this his original and foundation grace of ordaining this high and supercreation union of and communication with himself, and of yourselves thereunto. My exhortation is, that under the contemplation of God s height and greatness, you would especially adore his grace, according to the tenor of the angels song, Glory be to God on high, goodwill to men, &c., Luke ii. 14. My intent is not upon this occasion to magnify this benefit itself, and shew how great this union in itself is ; but to magnify the grace of God s heart himself in ordaining it, and us thereunto.

Only touching the union itself, I shall say but two things at the present, that shew the greatness of this our union.

1. First, That bate but two things, which you that are mere creatures are eternally incapable of. 1. Never think to become God himself; I will not again say not only bate, but abhor, that thought. First, you must be so united to him as God and you may still remain distinct beings for ever. And indeed this were not union, but sameness and identity ; but yet so near will this oneness be, as God will be all in all to you, and * all the fulness of God shall fill you, as Eph. iii. 1 9 ; and so fill you, as the fire of an hot furnace doth a small piece of iron cast into it (when yet not dissolving it, or converting it into fire itself), that you see not, or discern not the iron, but it appears to be altogether fire ; it so fills, penetrates, and throughout possesseth it. So in glory, yourselves will not mind or think of your own selves, or of your glory as yours, through your being swallowed up into the thoughts and enjoyments of his glory shining in and through you. 2. Bate you also that union which the man Jesus hath with God (God s first fellow), which is to be one person with him that is God, and so by inheritance to have the name, and be styled, Son of God, yea, God, &c., though his creature frame remains distinct from God eternally, in Col. ii. 9, The fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, that is, personally, in him, as bodily notes (which I cannot stand to shew) in our and other languages. When you would sig nify and denote a person, you use the denomination of a body; such a body did this, you use to say, and somebody ; yea, and nobody, that is, no person. As body signifies person, so bodily personally; and thus the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ by his union with the person of the Son of God. But this is his transcendent privilege alone. Would you be all Christ s ? I pray, content yourselves ; there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, and we by him, 1 Cor. viii. 6.

But, excepting these two, call all the angels and spirits of men made perfect, and let them imagine for you the sublimest, highest, nearest union with God else, and communication of God himself accordingly, and you shall have them, and be perfect in one, as Christ says, as we are one, John xvii. 11.

2. The second thing I say of this union, it is indissoluble : Who shall

116 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. separate us from the love of God ? Kom. viii. 35. And if not from his love, then not from himself; for his love made the union, and will never suffer a separation. Neither his height, who is the high and lofty One, shall work in his heart, the looseness of his heart towards you, nor any, nor all, of that depth of sin and misery; for his love hath an height, and depth, and breadth, and length in it passeth yours. And in this our union (as in other things) transcends that of Adam s by the law of his creation ; the least sin dissolved it, it was but a running knot ; and how slight and slender an union and friendship must that be founded upon, quamdiu bene se gesserit, and which the least wry, unwary thought may unknit ! And so the creature could look at the love of God with it, but as might be turned away. And to love, or apprehend one s love to me as one that may perhaps one day hate me, this is venmum amicitia, the poison of friendship.

This for the union itself; now for the greatening of the grace thereof (which is my proper scope). I shall only refer you to God himself; hear what himself speaks of it, and what he sets it forth by; how he himself values the favour of it who best knows how to value it, that is, best acquainted with himself, and knows what he bestows on us, when he unites himself.

The scriptures I refer you to for this are, Isa. Ivii. 15, Tor thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the con trite ones; parallel with Isa. Ixvi. 1, 2, Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build to me ? and where is the place of my rest ? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord ; but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word.

1. It is union with his poor creatures which he here indigitates, and holds up to their view, as the great benefit bestowed. With him will I dwell ; by which phrase, in the New Testament, union with God and Christ are still expressed, as also in the Old : 1 John iv. 15, 16, Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love ; and he that loveth, dwelleth in God, and God in him. And the highest union of the Son of God, in and with the human nature, is termed the dwell ing of the Godhead bodily or personally, Col. ii. 9. Now, the course God takes to magnify this his grace of union, or indwell ing in us, is, by setting forth the greatness of himself in a comparative with our meanness and lowriess.

I shall not here at large or industriously set forth his height or loftiness, that is not my main design at present, though that was elsewhere my argu ment upon the same text, which I opened then, to shew the distance of God from the creature ; but at present my single intent and purpose is to glorify this grace of union.

Brethren, God here appears in and puts on as great a glory as anywhere else the Scriptures do express, and he doth it to endear the condescension of his love in uniting himself unto us. I shall make instance of it in each par ticular, whereby he sets forth his greatness.

(1.) The high and lofty One : high, for the transcendency and excellency t his being; lofty, for his sovereignty and dominion. To speak to each.

[l.J The high One, or Most High, a title frequently given him in Scrip ture, and even by the devil himself: < God most high, Luke viii. 28. And

CHAP. V.J OF ELECTION

it notes out his divine being and essence to be of another kind than his creatures are of ; yea, and infinitely surpassing theirs in that respect ; as in Eph. iv. 5, 6, One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. 1. He is said to be above all, denoting the sublimity of his Godhead and being; and in an higher kind excelling theirs. And, 2dly, he is through all, in respect of the im mensity of his being, that extendeth to and pierceth through all. Or if you look that other parallel place, Isa. Ixvi. 1, 2, * Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool : where is the house that ye build unto me ? and where is the place of my rest ? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord ; but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word ; where God, comparing himself in like manner with his creatures, speaks thus slightly of them and their existence. These ! why, these have my hands made, and made out of nothing

! which expresseth their utter difference in kind from him, as well as his efficiency; for what are the artificial works of any man s hands unto what himself is that made them ? and bespeaks of their existence. Those words all these have been Pareus renders per eum existunt.

Now stand aghast, my brethren, to think that infinite pure being of his (which runs through all immixed with his creatures ; and that, in the kind of it, doth transcend and differ, as a man doth from a picture he hath drawn ; or as the rational soul or an intelligent spirit doth from the body of a man, or the sensitive soul in him, or in a brute) should contract so near an one ness with us his poor saints. When Adam was to have a companion, God brought all sorts of earthly creatures to him for him to choose one out of ; but they being none of them of his kind, he refused them all. And shall God vouchsafe to mingle himself with us, and dwell in us, as the soul doth in the body, be one with us, and make us companions with himself, yea, and reckon us as himself. It is spoken of as a debasement of our souls that their condition should be to dwell in houses of clay, Job iv. 19, and their foundation to be in the dust ; and will he that is the potter dwell in his earthen pots he makes, and become one with them ; for him that is above all and through all, as you have it in Eph. iv. 6. It is the immensity of his being that he fills heaven and earth, and he were not God if he were not so immense. For this God to be in you all (which is spoken of the saints with a discriminating difference from all else, and to enhance the grace of which he had rehearsed those other) is grace indeed, and a presence infinitely be yond that common to them with all things, of being through them.

Put together these two ; that he that is above all in the eminency of his being, and but through all things else, should further be in you all. And there is the grace.

[2.] The lofty One ; which imports, 1, that, according unto that height of his being, he might, in a grandeur answerable thereunto, carry it towards his creature loftily and aloof ; and might, out of a due and just valuation of himself, so keep off from any communion with them. Sure I am the Scrip ture speaks at this rate of him as of what he might do, and that out of lofti ness, when it says that it is an humbling of him to cast an eye, or so much as a thought, upon any of his creatures ; not on earth only, but in heaven. This is expressly spoken of him : Ps. cxiii. 5, 6, Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high ; who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth. It is as if he had said, It is a condescension or stooping, a coming down from his loftiness, to cast a thought or look upon any of them under any consideration ; to take them

OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. so much as to be the object of his cogitation. And in this sense we use the phrase of one who, knowing his own worth and height, and rating himself proportionably, that he is too lofty to deign to do such or such a thing, that is far below him. Oh, therefore, how far must he be from deigning to have any such a thought or inclination as to be one with us, and to dwell in us, and exchange thoughts, affections, and joys with us in so near a manner! yea, bestow even himself upon us ! I had almost said, to cast himself away

! I will make this supposition (if it could be upon such worthless things supposed), that if any creature should ever have so presumed and aspired as to have made such a but far-off motion to him, how would he, put of ^his loftiness, have with indignation rejected it, and them that made it ! Well, but this grace within himself made the motion for us, and caused this lofty One to think of it.

It is said in Scripture that he purposed all things within himself, Eph. i. 11 ; and to be sure this, of all others, must have been purposed within himself, and have come from himself, and that makes the grace of it.

2c%. The lofty One ; that is, in respect of absolute sovereignty, as in 1 Tim. vi. 15 he is described, Who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. And further, to make it appear he is so, he hath a Son that is lesser than himself, considered as God-man, namely, Christ, and who is accordingly styled the Prince of the kings of the earth, Rev. i. 5 (even as the king s son "hath the title of prince under the king his father), whom he will, in his times, one day shew, and cause to appear in glory, as it is in the same place of Timothy. And this his Prince or Son, * the King of less than himself, is yet under him as God-man, styled also kings and Lord of lords.

Think with yourselves, then, but of a great and lofty spirited prince, that is Lord of all, that he should deign to unite to himself the lowest beggar, and take her into his bosom, and bestow his son or prince upon her in mar riage, and unite himself therewith in the nearest tie and bond of union. And yet earthly kings are but kings by birth, and in their essence or nature but of the same kind as other men ; and yet this doth God. To conclude

neither height, nor depths, shall this : in Rom. viii. 39 you read that separate from this love of God in Christ Jesus. Shall not separate implies an union made ; heights are those heights of God s loftiness, in being so infinitely above us ; the depths are your depths of lowness, miseries, and sins. Now these hindered not his conjunction with us at first, nor shall they ever separate or work off his heart from us. In marriages of persons mean by birth, though perhaps rich, with or into the nobility, it is often seen that their height and loftiness makes them in time despise those they have mar ried, and to have their hearts taken off from them for the disproportion in respect of meanness, so that it proveth in the long-run an uncomfortable union. But it is not thus with the lofty heart of our God. His loftiness and your lowness, his heights and your depths, make the happiest union that ever was, because it is his grace makes it and brings it about, and holds us together.

2. Who inhabiteth eternity; that is, 1, when none of these his creatures bad a being, but made in the beginning of time, Gen. i. 1; whereas he, for an eternity of time past, when there was no creature with him, as Prov. viii., ver. 23-32, dwelt alone in himself, who is his own eternity, and is an house to himself, completely furnished within himself, and hath no need of us or anything, nor would not have had unto all eternity to come : Acts xvii. 24, 25, < God, that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands :

neither is worshipped with men s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. They thought their gods such (as Paul s speech implies), that they contributed a glory unto them to build them temples, to invite them to come and dwell and receive worship and sacrifices from them offered therein.

And the vulgar Jews had some like narrow conceits of our great God, as that our parallel place, Isaiah Ixvi. 1, insinuates ; for what doth God say there to them ?

Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool ; where is the house that ye build unto me ? and where is the place of my rest ? Which is as if he had said, This temple, nor all these things, are neither worthy of me, to be a place or dwelling to me, nor have they all room enough to hold me, that they should be my rest, to take contentment in.

Solomon himself, after he had built that stately temple (the wonder of the world whilst it stood), when he came to dedicate it by that solemn prayer, 1 Kings, chap, viii., that God would dwell in it, and hear all sorts of petitions made in it, or towards it, as the throne of his presence, doth, in the midst and full career of his prayer, make a stand, and puts a strange check or correction to himself, and a stop to his petitioning any further : ver. 27, But will God indeed dwell on the earth ? Behold the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have builded ! Whereas God s promise to dwell therein was the very corner stone of his prayer, laid at the entrance of it: ver. 12, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness, which he builds all his petitions upon. This so abrupt a clause and parenthesis to a prayer that had run on so smoothly for so long a series of such petitions for God s presence, seems at first blush to have been a recalling or calling into question that his foun dation. But it was either a divine rapture, an ecstasy, swallowing up his soul into an adoration of God s infinite graciousness so to descend, or that his faith took breath a little, by a brief query made unto God, seeking to draw and suck in from him a confirmation and strengthening of his faith therein, that so immense a God should thus dwell, &c., was a thing became too big for his narrow faith to retain, without some new impression from God to enlarge and widen it. And truly, by such free queries made in prayer, the saints often draw from God manifestations and impressions of his love ; as to say, But wilt thou indeed pardon, and yet love me, or the like. For that this should have been vox dubitantis, the voice of unbelief or of doubting, I cannot well suppose, although the thing was, but that God had said it, in itself utterly incredible, because that, ere he began his prayer, he saw with his eyes the presence of God filling this temple, ver. 11. And having his faith fully confirmed there, he at the beginning of his prayer rehearsed the promise God had long before made of dwelling in it, ver. 12, which the dark cloud was the testimony of. I understand it, therefore, to have been vox admirantis, the voice of admiration and astonishment, pro ceeding from a strong faith of it. His spirit was stounded at the thoughts of it, whilst he was carrying it all along in his prayer, and was indeed the main petition in and of his prayer ; and therefore when he had recovered himself, or came, as it were, to himself again, having uttered this, he goes on in the next verse, 28, as he had done before, Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, Lord my God, and so on ; so as this, bat will God indeed dwell on earth, and in a temple made by me ? This was but a stounding parenthesis, that so immense a God, whom the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain, should vouchsafe to dwell, &c., and it is as if he had said with wonderment, But is this true,

120 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. and true indeed ? Oh, infinitely strange, and beyond all imagination condescension that would never have entered into the heart of man, and never enough to be admired at. Thus this proceeded not out of doubting of the thing, though thus great, but from an adoration of God that he should vouchsafe it, considering his infmiteness and immensity, thus to lower him self to dwell under so unworthy a roof ; as that centurion also spake of Christ, whom this temple of Solomon s did typify. However it was, whether the one or the other, or both, either serves as a great step to my purpose, which is to greaten the grace of God in dwelling on earth ; and withal, take this along with you, that the prophet Isaiah his grand wondering, and this of Solomon s, was, that he that inhabiteth eternity before heaven or the heaven of heavens were built, or a stone thereof laid, should thus do.

But will you have me unfold the mystery of all this admiration of Solo mon s, and bring it down more home to my scope in hand ? For God to have dwelt thus in that outward pile of building, the stone, gold, and furni ture of Solomon s temple, as understood in the outward letter, was not the great object that Solomon s faith or wonderment was exercised about ; yea, that simply or abstractly, or alone considered, if no mystery had been in it, was not at all to have been believed. For, if so, then it had been contra

God that made dictory to that we heard from the apostle, Acts xvii. 24, the world dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

Solomon s temple, indeed, was God s ordinance, having the promise of his presence ; but there was this further deep and great mystery intended by it, which Solomon s faith and the believing Jew had in their eye, and that we must understand to have been the subject of his admiration as well as of his faith.

This temple, and the ark in the holy of holies thereof, in which God dwelt between the cherubims, was his Christ that was to come in the flesh, God s Immanuel, or God with us, even the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily and substantially in an human nature, whereof this temple and ark were but the shadow (which opposition of shadow and body is another inter pretation we may take in, to make that phrase of dwelling bodily complete). It is Christ who is that true tabernacle to be in heaven, which not man but God pitched, and was to be the ark of his testament, as Christ under the new testament is called. And Christ not being then to come, there was nothing extant on the earth visibly to signify that presence and union of God with man by, as this of Solomon s did ; so as this of Solomon s was in a shadow ordained to be, and hud promises belonging to it, and a reverence peculiar to it, though it was but a dwelling in darkness, as ver. 12 of 1 Kings viii., and in a shadow. This temple likewise signified God s church and saints on earth, and in heaven likewise, as those in whom God dwells by so intimate a presence ; which inhabitation of his in them, is by derivation from and in the virtue of that personal union that the man Jesus (typed by the ark) had with the Son of God, and dwelling in him therewith.

By these things forelaid, the subject-matter of Solomon s wonderment, 1 Will God indeed dwell on earth ? doth prove to be really and indeed intended (though thus veiled under the temple, and Solomon s admiration so immense a God should dwell in it) of a wonderment that this God should vouchsafe to dwell in the temple of Christ s human nature, as Christ himself calls his body, John ii. 19, and the fulness of the Godhead bodily fill and possess it ; and that then, through him, in the hearts of all his saints, his mystical body, whether in earth or heaven, united unto him as the head. And we that live under the new testament, and understand the mystery of

CHAP. Y.] OF ELECTION. 121 all these things, should therefore fall into a far deeper astonishing admira tion, with ravishment, at the thoughts of this, as Solomon did at God s dwelling in his temple, and this when we shall further consider that Solo mon, in this his prayer of consecration of his temple, did therein sustain the type of our Jesus, consecrating his flesh and human nature, by strong cries, and tears, and humblings of himself to his Father, whereof the 16th Psalm and 22d Psalm (made for him), are evidences, as also his story and the epistle to the Hebrews shew. So that, indeed, this argument in hand will rise in this : that the man Jesus wondered as much at his own advance ment unto this honour, that God should vouchsafe to dwell personally in so sorry and poor a man as himself (considered as a creature) was ; and that he says as well as Solomon, for Solomon doth it as representing him, And will God indeed dwell in a tabernacle of flesh, and by virtue of that union take me up into glory ? So near himself that I should be able to say, I in my Father, and my Father in me ? Oh, wonderful ! And if all this will not make an impression hereof on you, that even this done to Christ (who is that holy Thing, that holy One, &c.) is matter of such astonishment. Then add to this of Solomon s, that other more clear testimony of David his father in Ps. viii., wherein, whether you understand David himself as a pro phet taking up the like aghastment to speak in his own person, or whether in the name and person of Christ, he utters it as that which the man Jesus as man should take up

What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, arid hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet. And : his words of him are these, ver. 4, 5, 6, that he speaks these things of Jesus as he is man, the application the apostle makes of these words, as properly intended of Christ, so as of no man else, in the 2d chapter to the Hebrews, ver. 6-9, do directly shew : But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all things in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him : but we see Jesus, that was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. Yea, and it may well be thought that David uttered this as in the name and person of the man Jesus himself ; for he had the fullest experi ence, and knew best what these high and glorious visitations of grace, or dealings of God, proper and peculiar to himself, were, and which were such as were vouchsafed to none else of the sons of men. He therefore had the greatest cause to speak these things himself unto his Father, who, though a Son, learned obedience, and to know what a man he was in distance from God. And surely if David spake these things of him by way of wonder ment, and they therefore being true of him, he therefore did frequently in his soliloquies with his father utter the same, or what were equivalent thereto, so as to meditate and say to God, Oh what was I, and what am I, the son of man, so sorry a man, that thou shouldst thus visit me, or that thou shouldst be thus mindful of me ! that is, set thy heart so on me, to visit me in my incarnation at first, when thou tookest my frail flesh into union with thy eternal Word and Son ; and that I should be called the Son of God, and bear the name of thy Immanuel, God with us, by virtue of that union ; and that thou shouldst then make this flesh or manhood of mine, by being

122 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. through death made lower than the angels, the means and instruments of so great a service to thee as to save by my death thine elect of the sons of men; and then, after that work performed, I should be crowned with glory and honour, far above all principalities and powers, and have dominion over all the works of thy hands, and have all things put under my feet. My brethren, you may extract much of the substance of this language out of many passages in John xvii., and his prayer in the garden ; as to which latter, tbe 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter to the Hebrews, I take to be a comment upon it, Who in the days of his flesh, when he had ottered

Tip prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared ; though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

And now when thou hast seen Solomon, David, and Christ himself, won dering at this, then return to thyself and fall down afore this God, and wonder at thyself and the rest of thy fellow-sinners, that God should deign thus to visit and mind thee and them, and say, Oh what is man, that thou art mindful of him, that we, such worms and wretches, should be thus and in this manner so highly honoured as for the high God to dwell in us ; and will God indeed dwell in such houses of clay, mingled with sin, and make us his temple ? Thus, 2 Cor. vi. 16, You are the temple of the livin

God ; and Rev. xxi. 2, 3, And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. Where the church is described, 1, by her union with Christ, ver. 2, as being his bride ; and then by their union with God, and his dwelling in them, ver. 3. And if Solomon wondered God should dwell in that his temple, made of the best and gloriousest of inanimate creatures the world affords, but such as never had displeased him, and if David and the man Jesus wonder that God should so dwell in him who was the holy One of God, how much more that he should dwell in us, who were once temples of Satan, and in whom at present sin dwells, as Rom. vii. 20. Oh infinite grace

And having thus led you along through these windings, and landed you at the same point we began with, let your thoughts thus possessed return again to our prophet Isaiah, who raiseth this wonder far higher than Solomon did, and reflect with yourselves and say: Oh, that ever that God that hath not the heaven of heavens only to dwell in, which yet cannot contain him , but that hath had eternity to dwell in still, should ever ordain to dwell in a cottage that was built but yesterday, and take that up for his eternal habi tation, cages of sin and uncleanness, and bring eternity down with him, the fulness of God into so narrow a heart, yea, and to fill them, in the end, with all the fulness of God, as in that 3d to the Ephesians, ver. 19, ye have it ; that the whole blessedness of God should come down into thy heart, who extendeth himself to fill all eternity, both past and to come, in one instant. And because thou wert not extant then with him, during his eternity, nor knewest none of what his thoughts were then, for him to bring with him down into thy soul all the thoughts of love and affection, and all his dearest delights he had then of thee and in thee, during that eternity, whereof you read, Prov. viii., when he was alone. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together; and so possess thee of his eternity past, as far as it is possible for thee to be possessed of it ; and to gratify thee so far as to open the full mystery of his will, the intimacies of his counsels so far as they do concern thee ; to discover the manifold contrivements of his wisdom impregnated of love, in-

tended aforehand ; and forecast how to shew his love in the most ample and graceful way to thee, thereby to take thy heart. He will bring down, I say, with him into thy heart, all those everlasting transactions he had with Christ about thee ; all the promises he made to him for thee, as Titus i. 2 ; all the blessings which in his own gracious purposes he had continually a design of blessing thee with in Christ. That these and all other the deep things of God, the bottom of his heart, as the apostle styles them, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, but which God then was a-preparing for them that were to love him, these he will reveal ; whereof some, and in part, his Spirit, who searcheth the deep things of God, doth now in this life upon sense of union, begin to make known, as things freely given us of God. And the whole that remains, will God himself, in that other world, fully unfold and relate unto thee, for the space of another eternity yet to come, as being time little enough to do it in ; for, oh, how many are thy thoughts to us-ward ! If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered, says he, that was our friend and his counsellor, Ps. xl. 5 ; and that that psalm was penned for him the next verse shews.

3. Again, thirdly, in Isa. Ixvi. 1, you have this also mentioned: Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool ; and where is the house ye build me, and where is my rest ? And in Isa. Ivii.

15, I that dwell in the high and holy place ; it is I that dwell with you and in you ; that is, that he, who hath built himself a throne for himself, which is in heaven, an high and holy place (as Nebuchadnezzar, forsooth, says, he built himself a palace, for the glory of his majesty, so he foolishly boasted) ; that this God should choose to build another throne for himself to dwell in, in a poor and broken spirit ; and therein by grace to reign, as Rom. v. 21, as being a spirit, of all other, so disposed and framed as to give grace the honour and dominio/ti of all. Kings use to say, that the hearts of their subjects are their surest and best throne, and to sit in which they most delight ; and be assured of it, that God accounts your hearts a greater throne than what that high and holy place, the local heavens, is to him, which is called holy, because the glory of the holy God doth so appear there, as no unclean thing did ever enter it, or can abide in it ; and that God magnifies this place so much that he hath holy spirits with him there, and none other, whose holy hearts, and the glory they give him therein, he accounts a far more glorious throne than the place ; for it was for them he did build and prepare the place, as Christ speaks, John xiv. 3 : And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also ; and Heb. xi. 16, * But now they desire a better: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called country, that is, an heavenly their God : for he hath prepared for them a city. And thus much is in sinuated in Isa. Ixvi. 1, where God first asketh them the question, where is the place of my rest, and abode ? He speaks it to these templers, as I may call those Jews that cried, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord ! Where is it, can you imagine, says God, I should have room or rest in ? a sufficient dwelling, wherein I may dwell like myself; dwell like a God, so great a God as I am ? What ! will you confine me to your temple, and think that house good enough for me, that have heaven for my throne ? When he had thus confuted them, he answers it himself: I have spied out a place for my rest, you little think of; yea, which you generally despise, even a poor broken spirit ; and I will rest in my love there, as Zeph. iii.

17, for ever, and seek no further ; and not rest only, but sit down therein with the greatest joy and full contentment. The Lord thy God will rejoice over thee with joy ; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with sing-

124 OF ELECTION. [B OK IL ing. It is his love canseth him to do it ; and they are a poor people, ver.

12, even as here in Isaiah he also characters them.

4 The earth is my footstool ; and I could kick it, or tread it to dust and nothingness, if I pleased, as well as I trample upon it now as my foot stool. Well, but these poor contrite souls, whom I looked at, ver 2, and have looked at, and had in my eye from everlasting, these clods ol ear and dust, these worms creeping on this earth (yea these small pieces, and small motes and atoms of this earth, compared to the whole ot it), these I have taken into my everlasting aims, and taken up into my bosom

dwell in them, even whilst I make the whole earth my footstool ; and they shall sit on my Son s throne, as a queen doth with her lord, and he sits on my throne, as Kev. iii. 21 : To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my lather in his throne. ... , . ,

5. Whose name is Holy. And so holy as the heavens I dwell in, which I call my high ,and holy place, are not pure in my sight ; that is, do not come up to that holiness which I am fully delighted m ; and yet I, this highly holy One, will be one with these sinners ; and that they are sinners, and their sins is that that humbles them, and breaks their hearts, and doth it whilst they look upon me in my holiness, who am so holy, as I cannot endure to behold any iniquity ; and who, if I had chosen for holiness, would have chosen the angels that fell, whom I made excelling in holiness, as well as strength ; I chose the humble, poor, and contrite spirits, broken lor their sins, and the miserablest and remotest in their condition, from any such a preferment and favour as this, to be vouchsafed them ; yea, and in their own thoughts, the farthest off of all the rest of my creation, looking with trembling at my word, fearing the shaking of every leaf therein ; at every example of my wrath upon others, at every threatening ; yea, lest I should in wrath swear against them as I have done against others ; lest I should tread on them, as men use to do on worms, whilst they lie crawling with their mouths in the dust, if there may be hope. But what is the reason he should affect thus to unite with such to choose, and so should ordain them to be such then when he chose them ? That whereas he had respect in his choice to nothing in the creature to move him, for which he should first choose them, he would shew he had not, by this, that those he chose, he ordained withal to be such as should neither really have anything to respect, and in their own apprehensions of themselves, utterly without anything in themselves he should regard. But the clean contrary, which their being termed the poor, and humble, and contrite, do both here in the prophet, and up and down in Christ s speeches, import ; he decreed them therefore to be such, and to work these apprehensions and dispositions of spirit in them, to prepare them for this union, and to accom pany it when it should come to be actually bestowed on them. The pure creatures, had they stood without his election grace, had been too full, too rich, and apt to reign, in some respect, without him ; and all the rest of mankind that fell, are full of themselves, of their own righteousness, and their bellies are filled with his hid treasure of outward comforts, privileges, &c., and they are all, whilst remaining such, too full for God to dwell in ; intus existens prohibet alienum, there is no room for him, as of Christ it was said at his birth, in the inns. There is not a creature emptiness in them, to take me in to the full of my goodness, that so I alone might fill them ; and, says God, I bring fulness enough with me where I come ; the fulness of my Godhead, which filleth all in all ; and I need no addition from what is in my creature ; and the emptier my creatures are, the more receptivity

CHAP. VI. J OF ELECTION

and capacity there is of me, to take up my dwelling in, and whole posses sion of them. And therefore their poverty, vacuity, and brokenness of heart, not only as sinners, but as creatures, and their becoming in their own eyes stripped and divested of all their excellencies they had, or might imagine to have, as such, even to be brought to nought in whatever they may think they are, as the apostle s word is, this makes them fit for my Godhead to fill. And these are the meet matches for him with all readiness to close with ; then, when they can no way subsist in themselves ; nor have comfort in their own being any longer without him ; nor in anything else besides him ; nor bear up their own souls from sinking, even to nothing, and worse than nothing ; and are become actually, and in their desires, nothing in com forts, nothing in their own righteousness, nothing in their own ends and aims, nothing in their own abilities to any good, nothing in any creature privilege ; and that when they look back unto their best estate by creation, they see their subjectness to vanity, and continually to have fallen and lost all (as they did) when the soul is thus humble under its creatureship, and the vanity of that ; and likewise of sin, and its sinful condition. Now, says God, looking at the disposition of such a soul, now shall I be God alone in the heart of this man ; here I see a seat to erect a throne to myself in ; when I come to join with this man, I alone shall be exalted in that day ; and he that glorieth will glory in the Lord ; and my design in my election is, that no flesh should glory in my presence, or where I come to dwell and reside, and manifest my presence in: 1 Cor. i. 28, 29, 81, And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are : that no flesh should : that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. glory in his presence

Again, If God would have the whole of glory entirely to and for him self, these empty nothingnesses are fully fitted to give it all wholly to him, and to entertain him upon his own terms of being glorified as himself can of creatures. But above all, these are prepared to give him the glory of his grace, which in this condition will be sure to be acknowledged, and to be adored as the donor and founder of all unto them.

To conclude ; there is not, nor could there have been, a greater demon stration given, that God had no respect to what is in us, for which he chose us, than that he should design, together with his choosing us, to bring us (in the deepest sense of our own hearts) unto this utter emptiness of all respect for which God should regard us ; and choose out this as the highest and most pleasing frame or qualification of heart in us, upon which he should promise to come and dwell in us, or rather declare that he doth dwell in us.

CHAPTER VI.

The primordial or foundation motives in the heart of God, that moved him to affect , design, and decree so high an union of creatures with himself, as they are expressed in Christ s prayer, John xvii. The first m.otive was to mani fest and declare Gods name, and to illustrate his grace and mercy to the sons of men.

The Holy Spirit, who is the intercessor in us, and who searcheth the deep things of God, doth offer, prompt, and suggest to us in our prayers those very motives that are in God s heart, to grant the thing we desire of him, so as it often comes to pass, that a poor creature is carried on to speak God s

126 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. very heart to himself, and then God cannot, nor doth not deny. But yet therein the Spirit prays not immediately himself, but forms those prayers in us, so as we are they that pray. But, Here is one, as great an intimate with God as the Spirit himself is, who here prays himself personally unto God, and was of counsel with God from everlasting ; and therefore, surely when he shall speak to God for anything, and go about to move his Father thereto, he must needs utter the bottom of what did move him from everlasting, and will move him now to bestow it.

He speaks the intimacies of things between his Father and himself, which are privately known to them, with the Holy Spirit alone.

And truly, methinks when I read this prayer, and therein his pleadings and memorials to his Father, I am admitted into the cabinet council of heaven, and am made privy to what were and had been the bottom grounds that swayed that great consultation from eternity unto that determination which he prayeth to be accomplished.* Likewise, it became Christ, that as the thing prayed for, our union, was the highest and utmost good that was to be, or could be prayed for by him for us, so answerably, to bring forth the deepest motive in God s heart to urge him withal to grant it; for he was his Father s counsellor, and prays accordingly.

The inducements are many. I shall single forth two principal grand ones of those which we find here in this prayer, which two do yet make three, the latter being divided into two.

1. The manifestation of God s name, that is, of God himself, in his per fections towards us, especially of his love and grace, in his doing of which God s manifestative glory, as it is made to us, doth consist.

2. The second is taken from the oneness in essence, and then the inti macy and sweetness of communion that was and had been from everlasting between his Father and himself as persons, and so amongst the three per sons themselves, the us and the we spoken of, ver. 11 and 21.

There is a third, from the interest of Jesus Christ as God-man, and from the love his Father bears him. his Son, as first setup to be personally united to that man Jesus, and in him and through him, cast and diffused upon his elect, as they be considered in him and for his sake, with difference from the world. But this I shall refer unto another head, of Christ s election as he is God-man, and his interest in our election.

Motive 1. To manifest and declare God s name.

I. This he mentions first and last of his prayer ; the first at the sixth verse (where our interest begins to be mentioned), I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. There election is made the ground why he did declare God s name to them ; and therefore had been the motive in God s heart why he had by election given them unto

Christ : Thine they were, and thou gavest them me : the force of which lieth in this, that because he had designed them by election to be his, he did ordain that he should manifest his name to them, as that which had moved him to elect them. Then again, ver. 26, I have declared thy name, and will declare it, which is at the conclusion of his prayer. We must first explain what is meant by God s name.

1. In general. God s name is God himself, and expresses what he is that is * Bless the name the only true God, as he had said, ver. 3. When it is said, of the Lord, that is God himself. What is his name, or his Son s name, canst thou tell? as Prov. xxx. 4, and Ezek. xxxvi. 22 ; his name is put for * Non ex nudo tantum fidei et charitatis sensu Christus orat, sed ingressus, ante oculos habet arcana patris judicia. Calv. on John xvii. v. 9.

CHAP. VI.] OF ELECTION

his glory. Now that this was the great design of God, to have his name declared by Christ in such a manner as never before, Ps. xxii. shews ; which, as in Christ s name, it prophesieth of his being crucified in the fore part, so the effect and consequent of that being crucified is, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee, ver. 22, which is quoted also Heb. ii. 12. And this declaring of his name, and this great congregation, is not to his saints only upon earth; it reacheth to hea ven, and unto all that shall be there manifested. Ver. 26, when he saith, I have declared what he had already done upon earth, and I will declare, it was not only what he would do while they were upon earth, but in heaven also, so as the declaring of God s name is the great design of God in this world to his saints, and to be perfected for ever in the world to come.

2. Christ came not only to open what God s name was, as it was more frequently held forth afore in the world, as explaining the attributes of God, as they are set forth in the Psalms and elsewhere, not so much as to open the heart of God in the continuance of our salvation and the bottom founda tions of them.

3. Especially, therefore, to lay open his grace, and love, and mercy to mankind, that was the most eminent peculiar subject of Christ s declaring God s name ; so it is expressly said by Christ himself, ver. 26, I have declared thy name, and will declare it ; that thy love may be in them. So then, that part of his name especially is it Christ pretended, with which accords that passage, Ps. cxxxviii. 2, I will praise thy name for thy lovingkindness, and for thy truth : for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. The true intimate meaning whereof is this, thou hast magnified that part of thy word that speaks thy loving-kindness and truth above all thy name else that is in thy word ; and so refers unto that name proclaimed, Exod. xxxiv. 6, The Lord God gracious and merciful, abundant in good ness and truth.

II. To declare thy name, Father ! (who is the fountain of the Deity). This he saith in the 25th verse, * Father, the world knoweth thee not : but I have known thee, and I will declare thy name. Jesus Christ came in an especial manner to open the heart of the Father to the world : John i. 18, he came out of the bosom of the Father, and he hath explained him ; he hath disintrinsecated him, laid open what is in him, in his thoughts, pur poses, and ends of sending him into the world. The design of his preach ing in his sermon in the Gospel of John, is to let open his Father s heart, and his own as the Son. And this is the knowledge which he boasts of as - ver. 25, that was Christ s eminent skill and learning, and therefore I declare and teach it, ver. 26. Though all the treasures of wisdom besides were in him, proper to himself, and magnifieth, Father, I have known thee, yet he magnified this wisdom above all.

III. The declaring the Father was to declare also the other two persons, how they are in God, and that himself, the Son, proceeded from God the Father. The Father, as he is the fountain of the Deity, so he is set for the three.

In a word, all in God is reduced to these two: 1, the perfection of the divine nature of the Godhead itself ; and, 2, the three persons subsisting therein; and enjoying of those perfections, and the manifestation of these persons, and of their joint counsels and offices about our salvation, are the great subjects of Christ s preaching, especially in the Gospel of John. And I am to shew .how these were the original inducements to him ; for God is primordially moved with nothing out of himself. And therefore I have singled forth these two out of the many other motives which Christ useth in

128 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. this prayer (as namely, tliat one I mentioned of his own interest as Godman which yet I here leave out and refer to another place, because as he rSuch iUs a thing out of God himself, and set up by election, as we are.

These things first explaining what God s name is, I come secondly, to shew how Swas a motive ; for which there are these demonstrations : 1 IUs the nature of perfection to manifest itself, and so it is in God ; and to be brought unto union with God is the utmost perfection of the crea ver 23, ture -I in them, and thou in me, that they maybe made^^inan*, tdo unto the uttermost that they were capable of. Now, it is the nature of true perfection to manifest itself; our Saviour here expresseth it by he word M this name, which accordingly holds forth the reason of the manifest tms uuuie, wuiu itself for it is a known rule, that it is the nature of true Peion to be manifetativum sui, to manifest itself; and so it is m God, and that moved him. Not that by being known any perfection could be added to himself, but that he might perfect others thereby, as our Saviour here that they may be made perfect in one, praying for this union We see the creatures desire to manifest their poor and low perfections, but hey because they think themselves perfected by being known to others, which style God himself indeed condescends to utter himself in, in the manifestation of his perfection, as in that speech, his power is perfected in weakness 5 xii 9 but in a clean contrary sense the phrase there imports to be made known or manifested ; that is, to be made known or manifested to be most perfect and glorious, in and upon occasion of our weakness, for m any other respect than of giving an occasion to discover itself, what perfection can weakness give to power ? As for making any such manifestation, there was no necessity or impulse on his part for himself to have done, for ms essence bein* immense, it is comprehensive and big enough to have contained his .ownblessedness within himself without flowing over. He is to himself a perpetual spring of happiness, and also a sufficient cistern to receive and hold and retain all the nowings and reflowings thereof within himself ; all falls still back again into himself, which is from the infinite vastness of his being, and therefore it is a mere act of his grace and will, which the bcnptnre everywhere so celebrates and attributes this unto.

Besides, it was far from any necessity or addition to his perfection to have them thus made known, for there were three persons that communicated m these perfections, that knew, and loved, and delighted, as I have shewed elsewhere, in each other s blessedness.

But then, secondly, these his perfections being crowned with goodness and grace, his goodness moved his will unto this communication of himseJt; and it is as known a maxim that goodness is sui communicativum : Ps. cxix.

68, Thou art good (in thy nature) and thou doest good, that follows ; and the greatest goodness he can do us, is to make known his goodness. Thus God to Moses, Exod. xxxiii. 14, I will make all my goodness pass before thee.

But it was not simply his goodness, but his grace, which is the top per fection of his name; and this grace our God did value as his choicest riches: his grace, his mercy, you have it up and down in Paul s epistles. And this, as it is the excellency of his goodness, so still helped forward to make his will to communicate all his goodness, for (mark it) grace and mercy are such attributes as have not himself for their object, though for their subject ; and ^ Himself indeed so if any needed a manifestation unto creatures, then these. is the object of his own love (he loves himself), but himself is not the object of his own grace, to be sure not of his own mercy. God is nowhere said to be gracious or merciful to himself, nor is it meet to have it said of him ;

and therefore in this respect he is not said to be rich to himself, but, as Rom. x. 12, he is rich to others, even to all that call upon him. God, in deed, hath a glory arising from his own mercy and grace, but then it is but what is dispensed unto others ; the riches thereof are disposable no way but to the use and benefit of creatures. Well then, says God with himself, These riches lie by me, and I have no use of them, and yet I have them ; I will therefore put them to use, and lay them out upon others, as rich men do their riches, and lay them out upon some purchase. So God resolved that one day somebody might be the better for them.

And lastly, to instance in no more particulars, take the result of that whole blessedness which arose from the enjoyment of his own perfections, namely, the sweetness, the contentment, he had in his own happiness ; it most strongly moved him to make creatures partakers of it. He would not be happy alone ; he would have others (as Christ expresseth his spirit, and his Father s also, John xvii. 23, 24) who might * see his glory, and be glorified in seeing of it. And this is made the original of this gospel of salvation, and of our salvation itself. For what other doth the gospel hold forth than God s blessed intentions, contrivements, and purposes for our salvation, for the glory of his name, which Christ came to preach and declare ? The motive there unto is intimated in one small word added, yet clearly enough, 1 Tim. i. 11, According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. It is a sure rule, wherever you find any special attribute of God singled forth in connection with some other thing that flows from him, it is still such as is peculiarly effective, or more properly the cause of that thing mentioned ; and so here, the blessed God (blessed in the enjoyment of his own glory) is here inserted to shew what had moved him thereby to make his creatures blessed, and therefore to con trive the whole of this gospel of our salvation.

But it will be said, If this goodness and blessedness in himself were that which moved him, why then shewed he not this favour unto all ?

The answer is, That is not my part now to speak to ; the account thereof belongs to another place. My present business hath been, that whether it should be to many or to all, to manifest himself was the motive. The second answer is, That it was not to many, because grace was the great thing in his name he meant to shew, and was that which managed his goodness, and had the prevalent sway and hand in this matter, as every where the Scripture ascribes it, then the glory of this grace will shew itself in a free love, and so in a choice of the persons. Says grace, I am free and * I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. So the words run in Moses : Exod. xxxiii. 19 will use a freedom, and not communicate them to all, I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful ; and as Paul, Rom. iii. 18, * There is no fear of God before their eyes. And was yet more free in this, and therefore he calls the elect vessels of mercy, singled out of mercy, * on whom, and unknown,* he will make known the riches of his glory. He compares them to smaller vessels, and himself to the sea that fills them ; and what is it ? A created glory out of himself ? No ; but that glory which is in himself, which fills them in making them glorious, which is properly his own ; and thereupon if it be to be resolved and determined by the will of God and the graciousness of his will as concerning what persons, or why not others, then and thereupon the apostle demands, Rom. ix. 22, 23, 4 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known, en dured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction : and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore -appointed unto glory ? This hath still bred a murmur- * Qu. unto whom ? ED. VOL. IX. I

OF ELECTION. [B OK

Betollfm apart is that which made him godly; and therefore do yon all and sin not by murmuring at it; for God will enjoy his freestandl awe, dom, having mercy on whom he will.

CHAPTEB VII.

The oneness and intimacy of communion which the Father, and Son, and Holy

GTLdand hare amongst themes, u as an original and pnmoal motive of God s ordaining us unto union and communion mth himself.

It is an ancient and renounced* saying of Nazianzen, Bonum unitatis a Trimtate origin*** ducit, that this good blessing of unity draws and derives its rise and original from the Trinity; that three persons subsisting and being one in the Godhead, was the foundation and original inducement for the union of a creature with God, or of persons of an intelligent nature, who AnTthXwhich hath induced me to take this as a motive, and not as a bare exemplar and sampler of it, is the inculcation and reiterated mention bv Christ of his and his Father s oneness so oft and so many ways m this short prayer. You find it first in ver. 11, that they be one as we are; and again, ver. 21, that they all may be one ; as thou, Father ar in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one mus ; and ver. 22, That they may be one, as we are one ; and then again, ver. 23, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. These so many repeated indications, with so much urgency in this last short prayer, I know not how to understand them to be only explanations of what kind of union M meant, which I intimated before was yet meant ; or that only their unioi was the pattern or exemplar of ours, to which many interpreters do omy carry it Nor it is only to shew the order and descent of our union ; as that first, the Father is in Christ, which union of them is the supreme rank c union and then, Christ in us is a lower and inferior. All these, I confess, are intended, and as such intended, and are high instructions and doctrinal truths to be observed by us concerning this union, from this his so praying about it. But he uttering them to his Father prayer-wise, or m way ot petition and supplication to obtain this union for us, I cannot but witl consider them intended also as arguments and grounds to move him there unto as well as any other. And the rest of the passages are generally so understood. And there is one word in ver. 21, That they also may be on< * as we are in us. This word also hath more in it than what is in ver. 11, one ; or than that it should barely be to signify, that by way of exemplar or similitude on]y they should be one; but it further speaks an inducement to move his Father to grant it, because he and his Father were one ; that therefore also let them be one in us. Which is as if he had said, Thou knowest what an entire intimacy of union hath been between us, Thou in me, and I in thee, and how sweet it hath been unto us ; I enjoy it, and thou art and hast been intimately delighted in it. Farther (says he), be moved to let these also have the like participation of it in us, and with us.

That each of the persons in the Trinity do speak one of and to the other in this language of us and we, and withal that their being one in essence or in the Godhead, though persons distinct therein, is signified thereby, I have c renowned ? ED.

CHAP. VIL] OF ELECTION

in a foregoing discourse* traversed the Scriptures to demonstrate, beginning at Moses, Gen. i., Let us make man, and carried it on throughout unto this very speech of Christ s in this prayer, and found that alone, with other such Scriptures as fall in with it to illustrate it, to be a full and rich argu ment of the Trinity of the persons, and their being one God, so as I sought no other proof. And I did single out and premise that sole proof, because the pursuit of that truth under the style of us did happily aforehand make way for, and especially give light unto, this I am now to prosecute upon this foundation : As we are one. At the first making of man there was such a consultation of the persons held, and God the Father says to the other two, Let us make man accord ing to our image. Wherein yet man s union with God was then no way expressed or signified by the union which those three persons had in the Godhead, either as the motive unto it, or as the pattern of it. Nor was that communion they held made any motive or inducement to make man, but all that is said is, that he should be made according to their image. Whereby whether the image of the divine perfections in holiness and righteousness, or of Christ as God-man, predestinated afore all worlds, be meant, is not material here, but only that a consent and consultation of the persons was held to make him such. But here we see that when this supercreation union, whereby the elect were to be made one with Christ, and so with God his Father, and by consequence with the Holy Ghost indwelling in us also, comes to be spoken of, our Lord doth, as in the person of the second person (which he was) as well as of man, pray to his Father to vouchsafe a like union unto that of their own between themselves, and, as a motive there unto, induceth the oneness themselves had, That they may be one in us, as we are one.

And look as when the apostle would move the saints to be one among themselves, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, as Eph. iv. 3, he there enforceth his persuasive by the unity of the * There is one God, the Father of all, and one Lord Jesus Christ. There is but one three persons in their offices or relations towards us : ver. 5-7, that hath dominion over you all, and there is but one Spirit, which, as the soul in the body, enliveneth, informs all and every member. In like manner when Christ, in prayer to his Father, would move him to admit and entertain us into that oneness with the three persons themselves, he urgeth it upon the union and fellowship those persons have among themselves ; and it is not their having agreed to take several relations or offices to us, and for our salvation, which he specifies and denotates them by (as in that other in Eph. iv.), but simply their oneness and communion one with another.

And although the third person, the Spirit, is not here in this prayer specified (as neither is he in usual blessings of wishing grace, &c., or doxologies, and glory be to, &c., but only the Father and the Son), yet elsewhere

Let us make man, I have shewed) he comes (besides in that of Genesis, in as one of this supreme its as a third person, and that as particularly as the Son and Father here : Isa. vi. 8, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? The second person, the Son, had appeared in glory, ver. 1, compared with John xii. 41. And who then is this other person that says, Whom shall / send ? who ako is one of the us, but even the Holy Ghost, who (as Acts xiii. 2) sends out his ministers as a distinct single person of himself ; and that it was the Holy Ghost, will be evident, if we also compare Acts xxviii. 25, And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, * Vide Of the Knowledge of God and Christ, book i. chap. ii.

132 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II.

Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers. The apostle applying that speech in Isaiah expressly unto the Holy Ghost s having uttered and said it. So then, as there in Isaiah, there are but two persons, the Son and the Spirit, who are in express mentioned, and yet in that MS

11 three are intended, so here in the we and us which Christ speaks in the language of, unto his Father, the Spirit is also involved and intended.

Yet I find Calvin to caution against this interpretation, which the ancient fathers against Arius did so much and so oft betake themselves unto as a strong bulwark and fortress, maintaining and defending the deity of the second person in oneness with the Father, as we are one ; they also withal observing that oneness of the persons in the divine essence to be the pattern or exemplar of our union. But Calvin, although he takes notice of this argument of the ancients, yet runs counter, and affirms,* that whenever in this chapter Christ speaks of his being one with the Father, he speaks not simply of the divine essence (or his being one with the Father in respect of that essence), but speaks it only as he is God-man and mediator. But Gerard herein doth rightly oppose him, arguing from that parallel speech of Christ s in chap. x. ver. 30, I and my Father are one, which being taken with Christ s own interpretation of it, ver. 38, The Father is in me, and I in the Father, both which are just the same speeches that Christ useth of his union and the Father s here ; now, there, says he, we must understand it of the oneness he had with his Father as God, and so as simply considered a person that was God ; and that was it the Jews quarrelled his speech for, that he being a man, made himself God, ver. 33. But I shall compound this difference, and yield unto Calvin thus far, that Christ herein prays, both as he is mediator and man, and also in the name and interest of himself, as second person, as in many other passages he speaks ; and there is no absurdity in comprehending both, whilst both inte rests conduce, and are pleadable to obtain the same thing. May not any one, who hath two interests or personal conditions, whereupon to pray for one individual., use arguments from both ? There is no contradiction in so : as for a prince to pray as a king for his subjects, and .as a man and doing a Christian, upon a common account, and to urge motives from either. And if two such pleas may agreeably and suitably meet in and under one expression that will comprehend both, who shall except against this ? espe cially when the one of them is the foundation of the other. The truth is, Christ hath a double oneness with his Father ; the first and original one ness, as he is second person, one God with his Father ; and this is the sovereign, essential, and supreme rank of onenesses which is proper to the Trinity ; it is the oneness of the first three simply and alone considered amongst themselves. But, secondly, there being an admission and assump tion of the man Jesus (who spake this) into a personal union with the Son of God, the second person, he thereby is become free of the us, or of the company of the persons, and one with them : in respect of which union, the man Jesus might and doth say, as on our behalf, Let them be one with us, as I am with thee, O Father ; and this union is a lower union than the first, and the first is the original and the ground of this : and when one inte rest is the ground and original of another, we may very well understand both to be comprehended in such a speech, but yet especially that which is the original one ; for it is in the virtue of that, that the secondary underived one comes to have its existence. And therefore his being one with * Tenendum est quoties unum se cum Patre esse in hoc capite, pronunciat Christus, aermonem non haberi simpliciter de divina ejus essentia, sed unum vocari in persona mediatoris, et quatenus caput nostrum. Calv. in John xvii. 21.

CHAP. VII.] OF ELECTION

* That they may be one, as we are one, &c.

God, as second person, is chiefly to be attended in the saying, Look, then, as in the fore-cited place, John x. 30, he says, I and my Father are one, he there speaks both as second person, and that in that respect he is one in power, will, &c., with God his Father (for in respect of equal power it is he speaks it, as the former speeches in ver. 28 and 29 do shew) the same holds true in all other essential attributes of the Godhead, that as such, he is one with the Father in them (which is the primary and funda mental oneness), and yet withal we must take in the man Jesus, who being one person with that second person (who was thus one God with his Father), that he also in a true sense speaks it, as appears by his own explanation of that former speech: Say ye, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God : and so one in essence with God ? And then, ver. 37 and 38, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not : but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him, which he speaks as God-man, as well as second person ; for he refers himself as to the evidence of this, that he was in the Father, and the Father in him (which is all one, and to be one with God, as ver. 30) unto the works put forth visibly in him, as he was a man visible afore them, whom they heard to utter it : Believe me for the works sake, that the Father is in me, and I in him ; and so that I am the Son of God, and therefore as man one with the Son of God, who is one God with the Father. In like manner, when here in prayer he says, My Father and I are one, this speech is to be understood as comprehending both these unions, both as Son of God, as second person, and also God-man, through union with that person.

Thus much in answer to Calvin s caution, and for a general introduction unto this second motive, from the three persons.

SECTION I.

The second motive in God s heart, drawn from the union and communion of the Three Persons in the Trinity, branched into two particulars: the first is, that their union in essence, or their common enjoyment of one and the same

Godhead, did move them to make creatures partakers of such an enjoyment, as far as they could possibly be capable of it.

This motive, drawn from the Trinity, divides itself into two branches, which in themselves are distinct, and apart to be considered :

1. Their oneness in essence ; or that the Father, and Son, and Spirit, have, in their common and blessed enjoyment, one and the same Godhead, and all the perfections thereof; and how this did move them to make creatures partakers of the same enjoyment, as far as creatures possibly are capable of.

2. The second is, their mutual intercourse and society, as persons, one with another, and the sweetness of that converse those three persons had among themselves ; that also was an inducement to take up creature -fellow ship and communion into a participation of that sweet society.

These are different notions and considerations ; the first being founded upon the oneness of the three persons in an one enjoyment of that one God head ; the other upon their converses had between themselves, as persons subsisting in that Godhead, glorifying, loving, and speaking to each other from everlasting.

134 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II.

The first of these I found upon John xvii. ver. 10 and 11 : And all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

In which words the grand and final petition, and in which all the rest of the words do centre, is that short clause at the close of ver. 11, that they may be one, even as we are one. But he had permitted as a foundation thereunto (or for a foreexplanation rather), what it was he meant to com prehend in the last words of that petition, as we are one. And the words he premits that do fore-explain his clause, are the first words of ver. 10, All things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine. And these two pas sages, which are the first and last in those two verses, are to be brought together, and more closely connected, as holding the nearest intimacy, as will appear. But yet there is the interposition of another petition before this last grand one, that coming between keeps them two passages a long while asunder, and from closing each with other, until he should finish that other petition ; and that intervening request is, Holy Father, keep them which thou hast given me through thine own name. And to insinuate that to keep them in holiness, is that which he means, he accordingly compellates or calls upon his Father under the title or attribute of Holy Father ; thereby suiting the attribute to the thing prayed for, as that which was to be the cause proper of the thing prayed for as the effect, and the fittest motive thereunto, which is frequently done in Scripture prayers. Now, this some what long petition, with these adjacents, coming between those two, first, verse 10,and last passages, verse 11, mentioned ; the last of them (which I call tho grand petition), that they may be one, as we are one, at the first appearance seems wholly, and only to join, or connect with, or belong to, that long intervening petition, whereunto he prefixeth this motive also, And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. The petition is to keep them in holiness ; and that whilst they are * that they may be one as we are in the world : Keep them in holiness, one. And it is true, these do relate and connect thus together ; but they do not solely, or only refer thus together; as if that they may be one, &c., were cut off from, and had nothing at all to do with, those other so distant

1 &c. ; words at the beginning of verse 10, All that are mine are thine, whereas, indeed, there is the nearest alliance and affinity, yea, identity be tween the very last words, as we are one, with those first words, All mine are thine, and thine are mine. Both of them are perfectly one and the same in sense and substance, and a plain explanation the one of the other ; for, for Christ to say to his Father, All mine are thine, and thine are mine, is all one as to say, we are one. For the first signifies that there is no thing that we have diviswn, apart, as Calvin s word is, and must therefore be one : so perfectly doth this express their unity. When, therefore, Christ shall, in the close of this grand petition, make this as his great ground and foundation to obtain this like union on our parts, both with himself and his Father, and urge and plead as we are one, which imports both that because we are one, as also after the similitude of our being one, let them be so ; and when we do find that declaration that went before (and indeed stands

All mine are thine, and thine mine, to be the most exquisite (though in larger words) description or periphrasis to set out what and wherein the alone), unity of these two persons we doth consist, then certainly that speech, All mine are thine, must most rationally be conceived by us to have been in tended and forelaid as a like ground and plea for this our union also, and

CHAP. VII. J OF ELECTION

withal explanatory of it. And being one and the same in substance and effect of sense, it must be accounted that Christ doth, both at the beginning of this part of his prayer, and again in the close, enforce this for us ; with a double repeated strength. In the first, that seeing we are so much one, that all things the one of us have, the other hath ; and thou having designed an oneness for them with us, let them attain a participation of the same ; that all things that are thus ours, may be theirs also together with us. And then again, that in the close he should reiterate, * that they may be one as we are, this drives the nail home to the head a second time, and at last. And herein we may discern our Lord his vehement zeal and desires for us, to have this our union granted and accomplished with his Father and him self ; and that it should be sure to be such a union, that is as like unto their own union as was possible, in the participation of all things which themselves have in common between them. And this, he shews, he desires above all things else which his soul did, or indeed could desire for them, which argues the depth of his love and dear affection to us. And indeed, there is nothing is, or can be, above this ; and you see how express he is, to set out what he meaneth by that oneness he prays for, and wherein it consisteth, in so ex quisite a deciphering of it ; namely, verse 10, that it was a participation of all things with God and Christ, which themselves have one with another ; no less, than that all that is God s might be theirs ; than which, there is not a more comprehensive and greater blessedness (as to the matter of it) to be conceived or imagined.

You may now also easily discern the reason, why he brought in that in terposed petition, that they might be kept in holiness whilst they were in this world, afore he would conclude with that final grand petition, that (so) they may be one, &c., which yet was his general aim and centre, wherein all lines afore in verse 10 and 11 do meet. It was an advantage that the bringing in of that was delayed to the last. Here are two things differing, that are the several subjects of these two several petitions: the first, is the accomplishment of a perfect union of us with Christ and God, to be attained in the life to come ; for it is the perfection of our union which Christ s heart and eye was intent upon in this prayer, as appears by verse 24. And this * that they may be one. The second is for the means, in order to the attainment thereof, that they may be kept in holiness, and this throughout the rest of their time in this life. And this is in the intervening petition subordinate to the last, as a means is the last petition, and final conclusion of all, * that they may be one, as the particle ha, that, doth shew ; and to an end ; this being kept he prays for, as that which in this world was to be done for them so expressly ; * these are in the world, and now keep them, &c. And therefore the oneness, in order to the attainment of which he intends this, their being kept, &c., is principally that union at the end with him in the other world ; which also this falls in to confirm, it is, that all things of God s and Christ s do become theirs ; and so makes them as entirely one with God and Christ, as mere creatures can be : it is he that overcometh shall in herit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son, Rev. xxi. 7. And they do but narrow it, who understand it only of our oneness one with another ; and who limit it yet further, unto that which ought to be in this life, which I have spoken to elsewhere. Now, then, although that first passage at the beginning of verse 10, All mine are thine, &c., might pre

that (so) they may be one, according to the true tenor of Christ s meaning in those other sently have had to succeed it, that last petition at the end, words, yet our Lord, to make his prayer yet more full and comprehensive, he choe to fetch in and interweave this other, which he knew was the

136 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. necessary means for the attainment of complete union, and suspends that conclusive one, that they may be one, which was the end and aim of all, until that was finished ; and then doth at once bring in what was his aim, and the elixir of that his premised speech, All mine is thine, &c. Take both the description also of what that oneness was he prayed for ; take it also as it imported the most bottom ground, and strongest motive to obtain it at his Father s hands ; that seeing we are both so happy, as that all things are mutually one another s, let them all be theirs also, according to thine own intendment ; and then you will see which was the end why he would have them kept in holiness without fail throughout this life. And indeed it is the great end, the greatest we can arrive at, and the end of all the words ; into which as into the common sea, or receptacle of all, those remoter words, all mine, &c., do with the fuller stream pour forth, and empty themselves most of all.

In fine to sum up all (for I would be understood), it is as if Christ had said, Father, seeing that all things whatsoever in the Godhead, or any way belonging to the Godhead, being in common mine as thine, and thine as mine ; and in that community, that unity and communion of us both consists, and is that whereby we as two persons are one, communicating in all these ; yea, and that withal these apostles, whom I now pray this for, are in a more special and endeared manner both thine and mine, and endeared to us by our mutual-like propriety and interest in them for each other s sake ; my great request is, that these may be also one as we are, that is, by their oneness with us, let them partake of, and communicate in, all the good things and blessedness that we do, even of the divine nature, and of what belongs to us, in their capacity, with us : even as we by our being one, do enjoy all these glories together (only we are one with an essen tial oneness and communication, which these can never be) ; but let these be one with us, in a fruition of all of ours for their good and happiness, as far as creatures are capable of it, for their eternal blessedness.

There being not a greater truth which concerneth our salvation, or that makes for our comfort ; and it being so full to that which we have pursued, and which hath been the main design of our election, wherein Christ, know ing what God s heart is, doth pray at this rate, viz., our union with God ; and this text also more clearly expounding, and laying open wherein the quintessence of our union with God consists, viz. in a possession and en joyment of all that is mutually God s or Christ s ; and also it discovering the very original motion, motus piirno })rimus, the first firstly motion of all other, and is the very corner stone and original both of our election and salvation amongst the persons : I shall therefore insist yet more largely, and speak to what may be further supplied to what hath been said, to confirm more fully the truth of this interpretation and connection.

There are four things incumbent on me to explain, in order to demonstrate this to have been the true and natural scope.

1. What should be the extent of the

All mine are thine, and thine are mineJ that is, what that all should be, and what it reacheth to ; and whether it be to be limited to the persons of the apostles, of whom he had said afore, they are thine, in the words afore ; and in the words after, I am glorified in them. Thus some, especially the Socinians, would have it, so to cut off the argument from thence that Christ is God, because all things the Father hath are his.

2. Since that speech of his is spoken of his Father, and of himself; and himself therein considered as the second person, as well as that he is Godman, and so of them as simply they are persons in the Godhead, though not

on * Christ s part, as he is God-man, is also intended, and to be taken in ; now it is to be queried whether the intent of this all things, &c., reach unto the perfections of the divine nature itself, for so I do include both the one consideration of them as well as the other.

3. That this speech, All mine, &c., doth most expressively set forth, yea, is all one in substance with what he closeth this part of his prayer with, * as we are one ; and is all one in effect as to have said, Herein ver. 11, consists our oneness, that all mine is thine, and thine mine, according to the similitude of which, let them be one with us also.

4. How putting thus all these things together, there should be a motive plea, and an argument arise up in it, that God the Father, and God the Son (as two persons), being one in the enjoyment of the divine nature, and all things belonging to them, that therefore he should have ordained, and accordingly should be moved now to grant, that these his elect should be one as they are, and admit them unto this communication of all things also, and wherein that motive should lie.

These four things are punctual to the point in hand, and must all four necessarily concur to the demonstration of it.

1. As to the first, there is some appearance, and that entertained by many

I pray for all those thou hast interpreters, that he having just afore said, given me, for they are thine ; and after, in the next words that follow in the same ver. 10, I am glorified in them (and in both these meaning and in tending the persons of his apostles) ; that therefore in these words that come between his sole, or at least primary, intent, should be only to plead that all the persons that are mine through thy gift, ver. 6, are thine, and thine are mine ; and that therefore we, Father, being, both my mutual interest and consent, engaged to these persons, as ours alike, therefore save, keep them, and make them one with us, as it follows, ver. 12. And thus unto the persons of the apostles, whom he prays for, do some interpreters wholly and strictly limit the words, and the Socinians especially ; the all here being to be limited (say they) unto the subject he was speaking of, which were the persons of the apostles. And by this their limitation of it, they utterly exclude and cut off all or anything else belonging to the Godhead in common, as no way here intended.

But I would and do take in all, both the persons of the apostles and all things else : the persons, as the subject prayed for, involving and strengthen ing his motive ; for in that they were mutually and alike his Father s and his, and for one another s sakes ; and then all things I take in, as the things for which he prayed for them to be made partakers of, with the Father and the Son, and also as the ground of the petition. And thus compounded both senses will stand, and be involved.

You must know that the word All mine, &c., is in the neuter gender, and so notes forth properly things, not persons only. And in that parallel

All that the Father hath are mine, it is spoken of place, John xvi. 15, things, and it is so translated there, All things the Father hath are mine, and accordingly, it must here be understood that all things universally that are mine are thine. We may also observe that these words, All mine are thine, and all thine are mine, are in their station a parenthesis, which Brugensis hath observed, and reads as such, and so stand out apart from the words. And as concerning the apostles persons, the sense runs currently on afore, and after, without these words. And it is apparent, they are a maxim superadded by the way, that submit themselves, not as if they had nothing at all to do with what is immediately said round about them, but yet as uttering

* Q.u. though on ? ED.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK H. some further thing, and spreading and extending itself unto all ^.^what soever, thouo-h upon occasion of having said of the apostles to his Father, They are thine ; and so thence they do include the persons of the apostles, -.-!,! 1 . A .. . -w-t 4-\\f\4c\\\ Tninrrc that they are mine, and thine, for, lo ! all things whatever that are mine are thine, even to the Godhead itself; and upon that account it is this speech relates to and involves the persons.

But it may be objected that if the apostles their being his, should coi this were in but upon this general account, whereupon all things elseare, only a common interest, and so they would be his but as al Hhings els

Whereas he intends, and in the reality of the thing it is so, that these apostles were his, and the Father s, upon a special property, as chosen out of all things else. This may some object, and that therefore we must either limit the speech to the apostles persons, or if we would interpret it of all things whatever, as well as of them, we must leave the apostles out, because their special interest cannot be intended by the common one. I will not detain the reader here with disputes about this question, but have cast it into the margin.* But the solution of all these difficulties willbe easy, by supposing (which is rationally to be supposed) that there is tacitly implied, and to be supplied, this further maxim to be added unto that fore-mentioned, that look as in their several ranks, or kinds, or degrees, any or every thing amongst the all things, are owned to be mine, or thine ; and as our pro priety in them is more or less, and so in our value they are dearer, or less dear to us ; according to this measure these apostles and the elect, being thine and mine, in a special lot and degree, are therefore infinitely dearer to us than all creatures besides. Now of these he had said to his Father, they were thine by special propriety of choice and election out of all ; and ^ they became mine by thy gift: They are mine, and thou gavest them me ; and that therefore look in what endeared respect they were thine, they are mine in the same also. And this rule supposed (which those former words give warrant for) fetcheth in the persons of the apostles as God s, and his own choicest elect, and with them the persons of all the elect else, saints, small and great ; and will also admit an extension of the speech unto till things

It is certain that if we should limit this speech to the persons of the apostles, then Gerhard s argument would have place. Saith he, if you limit this to the persons of the apostles, as that whereby Christ should make proof of that he had said just afore (which they that do must make to be the coherence), They are thine, and then bring this as his reason, and for for) all mine are thine, &c. Then, says he, you make

Christ to prove but idem per idem, the same thing by the same ; and it had been but as if he had said, These are thine, for the persons of these are both mine and thine ; now this must be admitted. And again, to have intended to say. These apostles are mine, for all the persons that are mine are thine, and thine mine, and therefore these, this had been thwart to his scope and method, which was singularly to pray for, and present his apostles as his chiefest and choicest elect, and pattern of God s election of the rest ; so as if he had intended to note forth that they were his and his Father s elect ones, then rather all the elect with them must come in as intended, for he says all things, &c., as well as the apostles ; and so still it would fall out that the apostles persons should come in, but because the whole body of the elect are God s, and his ; whereas Christ s method in this prayer and this place is, vice versa, clean otherwise, for he mentions not the rest of his elect until ver 20, Neither pray 1 for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word : having intended this foregoing part of his prayer especially for his apostles, for their particular com fort, and all other the elect, but by consequence and inference from what the ap6stles were to him. So as the main and grand lot of the interpretation must still be ex tended unto things, All things that, are mine are thine.

else that are God s, in their several order and decree ; which ends the differ ence, and comprehendeth all we aim at in this point.

This for the first head, what these all in general should be, not only the persons of the apostles, or the elect (though included in the all), but all things whatsoever.

2. The second contains two things in it. t all mine are thine, &c., reacheth unto and principally intends the perfections of the Godhead itself; all those divine glories are mine and thine, and thine are mine.

(2.) That this speech is spoken by Christ in the persons of himself and his Father, considered as they are two persons in the Trinity, enjoying the same

Godhead, and not only as he is God-man (and I am for both); and unto this sense many interpreters of weight do carry it. There hath been a question raised by some, whether any sentence in this prayer be uttered by Christ under the notion or consideration of his being the second person in the Godhead essentially considered, and so to speak anything simply as that person ; or that rather (as they assert it) all that which he speaks of himself in this prayer should not be understood of himself as he is man, personally united unto God, and so that in that sense only it is that he as God-man, head of his church, should speak this here, That they may be one, as we are one. And one general argument they have is this, that otherwise the second person, as such, should pray ; unto which (ere we go any further) there is this easy answer, that the man Jesus prays, yet as the mouth that urgeth the interest of the second person (to whom he was united) as such, which is for his honour as he is God, and not a lowering of him; it is the man that prays, but it is the name of the second person he is united unto which he prays in. Indeed, for the second person, simply as such, to have prayed for anything belonging to him properly as such, as some would * And now, Father, glorify thou me with understand the words, ver. 5, thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was, this indeed had been below him ; but that his interest, as he is God, should be urged on our behalf, this is no more improper than for us to plead what is in the name of God the Father, as God, The Lord God, gracious, &c.

For the second, the ancient fathers, in their disputes against Arius, who held Christ not to have been God, or a second person co-equal with his Father, partaking of the same divine essence or Godhead with his Father, had a great recourse unto the passages of this prayer, and particularly to this, All mine are thine, ver. 10; and as we are one, ver. 11, 21 ; Thou in me, ver. 22, 23 ; that therefore he was one God with the Father in essence, though they were distinct as persons in that one Godhead ; one, as God, though as persons distinct, which is argued from his saying we and us.

Thus also our divines, in their opposition against the Socinians, who deny

Christ to be God, or a second person in the Godhead, make use of this place.

Now, by all things he means all things that are God s, whether they be essentially his (that is, all attributes of the Godhead), as also all that belong unto God by his dominion over all as he is God, such as his works ad extra (that is, which exist and are wrought out of himself, as the world, the sal vation of men, &c.), which are by possession God s. These, or whatever else that are God s as God, he intends here to be his, as well as they are his Father s.

But above all, the essential perfections of the Godhead, which are (as Brugensis on the words expresseth them) all those uncreated, infinite riches and glories of the Deity whatsoever ; for the Father communicates all and the whole of himself unto the Son, giving him, by his eternal generation of

140 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. him, the fulness of the Deity; and so the sense is, all mine, that is, what ever essential glory or perfection, whatever blessedness, &c., is in thee is in me, for we are one and co-equal in respect of essence, and of all the same divine perfections of the Godhead ; though as persons, and in our relation as such, we are distinct (personal properties being necessarily here to be excepted), for he says, We are one, and so supposeth two persons distinct, whiles yet he saith that they are one, or but in all things else they are one. Now this, all of us that believe the Trinity do hold ; but that which is to be proved is, that the intent of this speech is eminently to include these in this place, for which observe, [1.] First, He says universally, all things; et qui dicit omnia, nihil relinquit, which are Austin s words upon it: He that saith all things, leaves no thing excepted.

[2.] He says not, as in Mat. xi. 27, All things are delivered to me of my Father, but speaks in a language indifferently appropriating all to himself and his Father: All things are mine as well as the Father s; all things that are mine are thine, et e contra.

[8.] That parallel place, John xvi. 15, All things that the Father hath are mine, doth confirm the like to be the intent here ; and this here, compared with that speech there, confirms the same to be the intent there ; he there says, not in an indefinite way, what the Father hath is mine, but puts a double universality upon it (as Gerhard hath observed on the place), nuvra, all things, and adds, offct, whatever, all things whatsoever ; which doubled emphasis is left out of our translation. If he meant not to have said that he had the essence, the nature of God, the perfections of the Godhead, how should he say, All things whatever which my Father hath, and yet be understood that there is an infinity of things or perfections which his Father hath as God (as eternity, immensity, &c.), which Christ should not have intended whilst he said all things whatsoever ? Who shall limit this universally universal, and except the essentials of the Godhead, when Christ (whom we all acknowledge God) doth not except them ? We say the Father hath omnipotency, the Father hath eternity, immensity, &c. ; and these are < whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Surely these should not be excluded here ; not by us, who all believe that he is God, and hath all Christ s, for all and the whole Godhead communicated to him in the fulness of it, for essenticB communicatio facit omnia communia, the Godhead being communi cated by the Father, all things of the Godhead, or that can be attributed thereunto, are communicated to all three, only the distinction of persons excepted. Nor is it an objection worth much considering that he saith, that the Father hath are mine, and therefore that he should mean by that word hath the things only which the Father possesseth as external to him ; as the things which concern our salvation, and the like, the world, and the fulness of it, as a man is said to have his goods possessive ; but the Father is said to have his own essence, and the perfections of it, as well as the works of his hands. The phrase is used of what he is essentially; as, Who only hath immortality, &c., 1 Tim. vi. 16, which is an essential attribute ; or as a man is said to have a soul in him, noting the substantial being of him.

But moreover that which confirms this to be his scope is this, let it be further observed in that place, John xvi. 15, that plainly he declares at once both that he is God as well as his Father ; as also that he is the second person in order next unto his Father in the divine nature, and in order afore the Spirit ; and both these you must suppose intended, or he had not given a sufficient reason or account of that which follows. And you may observe by the words that immediately follow in verse 15, Therefore said I, that he

shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you, his professed intent to be to render a full and sufficient reason why he had in the words of the 14th verse immediately afore this 15th verse said, He (the Spirit, namely) shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. And farther they are an account of what he had also said in verse 13, He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, from me and my Father, that shall he speak. Now, if he had not been truly God, and second person in the Godhead, he had not held out a full and sufficient reason why the Holy Spirit should not speak of himself, but must have all that he speaks and shews from him ere he can shew them to us ; but being second person, he could truly say, Though the Spirit is God, and the third person of the three, yet I am, in order of subsistence, afore him ; and I am God likewise with the Father, and the second next person to the Father, and therefore he is to receive all from me.

Now for the first, that he is God, and one God with the Father, that he signifies and expresseth by this, that all things his Father hath are his, which is what I have argued to the same purpose. And that he is the second person of the Godhead in order also, he declares by the same words also, all whatever the Father hath are mine. Take them as they are a rea son that the Spirit must receive all from him first, &c., for they are mine, and mine all in order first; and so of necessity the Spirit must have all from me as well as from the Father. And otherwise, his account had been weakened by this, that the Spirit else might have had all from the Father without him ; for this is an assured rule, that look in what order the per sons are in subsisting, and dependence each of other for their personal sub sistence in the Godhead, in the same order they do depend upon each other for their operations also as they do for their subsistence. The Son s sub sistence, or his being God, is from the Father, who is the fountain of the Deity, and his Son isj* very God of very God ; and thereupon his operations, as the Son, do depend upon what his Father first doth, and that he doth nothing but what he sees the Father do, and the Father shews it him : John v. 19, 20, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of him self, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doth. And as elsewhere, I speak not of my self, saith he : but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth the works, John xiv. 10, and chap. viii. 28. And what is the reason of this depend ence in doing and speaking, but his being God, of and from the Father ? Whereby it is (as the words have it) that all that the Father hath is mine. Now look, as his person hath all in order first from the Father ; and there fore it is he cannot speak anything of himself, nor do anything of himself, but only what the Father sheweth him, as you heard himself speak of him self ; in like manner, and upon the same ground, the] Spirit must have all from him too, as he hath from the Father. It is not sufficient that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, as he is said to do, John xv. 26, that there fore he should have all wholly from the Father, and shew it to you, and pass by the Son of God. No, saith Christ ; he must have it from me too ; because the order of our subsisting in the Godhead is, that all the Father hath is mine first in order of nature ; for my generation by the Father, as his Son, is first, ere the Holy Ghost s procession, for he is the third person; and then, all that the Father hath being communicated to me, thence it is that the Spirit proceeds from both. For even that power to breathe forth the Spirit, together with the Father, is one of those things intended when he saith, * All that my Father hath is mine. So as it is the account of the

142 or ELECTION. [BooK II. order of their subsistence, as the foundation of this their order in working, which he aims at in saying, All that my Father hath is mine, as well as to shew he is God, and that therefore necessarily the Spirit must take of mine, since it is I that send him as well as my Father. This he had said afore, ver. 6 of that 16th chapter. And it is as if he had said, This I had not power to do, nor ought to have taken upon me to say or do, unless I were God with the Father, for the Holy Ghost is God ; and were I not God as well as the Father, and that the Spirit proceeded from me, I, as merely Mediator, could not have sent him.

If then this parallel speech in chap, xvi., ver. 15, imports that all things in the Godhead were his with the Father as a person that was God with him, why should we not, yea, how dare we but understand it of the same in this prayer also ? For the one comes in as a part of his doctrine in a ser mon just preceding afore his prayer, and this follows after in the prayer. This for the confirmation of this sense from John xvi. 15.

[4.] A fourth argument from the manner of this speech in John xvii. 10, is, that Christ speaks in terms of equality with his Father, All mine are thine, and thine mine ; that is, mutually, and equally, and alike ; and therefore it is spoken of him as God, and a person in the Godhead. Yea, lo, he says not only all mine are thine, but he says vice versa on the other side, all thine are mine. It is after the manner of equals among men ; you may observe that when the same things are said of two equals, the manner is indifferently to place either first and then the other So here, mine thine, and thine mine ; no matter which first, so the same things be said. It is to shew they are equal. But if Christ only spake this as God-man, in and under that consideration solely, the Father being greater than he, he would not have ranged it with this equality, unless he had spoken as he is a person of the Trinity equal with the Father, and one God with the Father. There fore it is he speaks it as second person chiefly, especially if he had spoken as God-man, and had withal intended by the all things that are mine are thine the apostles persons only, as some have it. He would rather have said, All thine are mine. And why? Because he had said before, they were first the Father s, and thou gavest them me.

[5.J Toilet upon the place casts in this, that our Lord had spoken afore of the persons of the apostles, how they were thine, Father ; so in the 6fch verse, thine by election, which is signified in that speech, Thou gavest them me, and they were given to me as I am God-man. Therefore here in these words, says he, Christ ascends to urge a further and higher interest in them, and in all things else, viz., as he is God, and coequal with the Father. And certainly that other particular interest, viz., that the persons of those apostles were both his and the Father s also, he had before so suffi ciently expressed both in ver. 6, and over and over again afterwards, within this small compass of the words that follow in ver. 11 and ver. 12, as it mav well be admitted that some greater thing, and more intensive, should in these words be intended.

This for the second branch, that by all things is not meant only all things extrmsecal or all of the persons of the elect, &c., but the divine essence itself, and the perfections thereof proper to God, and common to the three persons, that all these were his as well as the Father s. m 8. Thirdly, This speech doth fully import, and is all one as to say (though in a larger compass of words), that his Father and he are two persons, oSe in essence; or (as he himself after in fewer words expresseth it), We. are one.

And mark it, brethren, that very thing it is that his prayer here doth issue m, That they may be one, as we are. For two persons to have all

the perfections of the divine nature equally and in common, All thine are mine, and mine are thine, this is all one as to say, that these two persons are one. This is so clear, as I need not insist on it. And truly Calvin, who is against the interpretation of we are one to be meant of the oneness of the persons, as in the divine nature of God, throughout this chapter, yet when he is upon this place, he, considering the weight and extension of this word all things, hath these words,* The unity of the Father and the Son is such as they have nothing apart between them. Which is that very thing which I say, that their being one God is expressed by this, that all things are in a community theirs.

4. This issues all the former, that it is spoken as a motive or plea, that * they (the elect) should be one, as we are. There is this aspect, this true and genuine connection between these two passages, though (as I therefore at first noted) there comes in a petition between for that which was to be the means of their union ; yet these first words, All mine are thine, &c., do centre in this grand petition, * That they be one, as we, or, * Let them be one. And the reasons of this their first connection and reference are these : 1. So it is that that speech, All mine are thine/ &c., stands as a parenthesis from the rest of the words, whether afore or after, and are to be separate by an inclosure from the rest. And so Brugensis reads the words, and in his comment notes it to be such. It is a speech stands by itself among the rest, and sent aforehand, a good way off, expecting a mate, a cor respondent, it should yoke and clasp withal, and this is it, That therefore they may be one, as we are. And the coherence of the words in the verses afore these words, All mine are thine, &c., and of those that immediately follow them, you may observe that the other verses run on smoothly without them, so as those words are a parenthesis, I pray for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine, ver. 9, and I am glorified in them, ver.

10, and so on. And interpreters generally are so wholly intent upon this, that the persons of the apostles are only intended in his saying all mine are thine, as they fill up the whole of Christ s meaning therewith ; which also hath caused them to judge the oneness of the saints themselves to be only meant in those words, that they may be one. But I hope I have sufficiently proved it, that our oneness with God and with Christ is here to be understood. 2. That they may be one is the centre of his prayer, which what is before determines and falls into, and therefore this passage of all mine centres therein also. 3. The suitableness and correspondency, yea, sameness of sense that is between these two passages, All things that are mine are thine, and that which is last of all, as we are one, is such as makes it undeniable. For if any should have studied never so much to express what the Father and Son being one is, or what the unity of the persons, in respect of their essences or Godhead, is, it could not be more fully and adequately set out than by this, that it is a communion of all things in God between those persons ; and that saying of Christ which expresses this communion, All mine are thine, is the same with this other, As we are one. So then, that our union with God should be expressed by our being one in our measure and proportion, as the Father and the Son are one, is the most significant way of expressing it that could be, so as we see all to agree in a blessed harmony.

Now the force of the plea therein, wherewith he moves his Father, is, that they being one in the enjoyment of all these uncreated riches of the Godhead which are mutually theirs, as of that essential wisdom, power, * Tenenda est unitas Patris cum Filio, quae facit ut nihil in se divisum habeant. Calvin in loc.

144 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. omniscience, holiness, blessedness, glory, all, and being thus one in essence, had agreed and conspired in love towards these (for all the acts of the God head Fnternal are common to the three persons). And so it is as if he had said I am concurring with thee, Father, as second person, in the choice of these persons, and in the love of them, or in what degree of special love soever there is, in respect of which they may be said to be thine, m the same love and degree thereof, they are mine also as second person ; and oh, therefore, bring those whom we have loved into a communication of all those glories and riches with us ; let them have all things that are ours, with a xa&us, an as, by way of similitude of what we have therein ; let us not be happy alone, nor keep the communication of these things wholly among ourselves, but let them have all, as far as mere creatures are capable of ; which that it might be fully accomplished, according to my true intent in my saying, All mine are thine, &c., and completing my prayer about this, I enlarge itere I conclude, and end it with this further request, that thou wouldst keep them in this life in holiness, that so they may perfectly attain this blessedness, that all that is mine and thine may be theirs also, as hath been designed by us for them ; which I reinforce in these words, to be granted them, that they may be one as we are one, which is effected by their having all in common between us, whereby we are one, communicated unto them also, whereby it is they shall be made one with us also. And oh, let them thus have all, though not with an essential sameness (that is im possible), yet with a fruition ; let them have all the power, wisdom, grace, love, blessedness, that is in thee and me ; let them have them all in the en joyment to make them happy possessively, though not essentially ; (or, as * one in us, ver. 21, not Christ afterwards differenceth it) let them be with us, and as we ourselves are one with another, for as their union with us is of a lower kind, so the communication of all these must be ; yet let them have all as far as is communicable ; let all their interest be ours but their sins, which let us separate from them, that so they may be entirely one in us, that they may be able, in the knowledge and sense of their one ness with us, to say in their measure unto us, All ours is thine, God, and all thine is ours, and may say the like to me the Son, I am heir of thee, Father, for I am thy Son, and to inherit all things in thee, and let them be heirs of God, and of all of God, with me, co-heirs with me, as Rom. viii. 17 hath it. And this plea of his, as second person, for us, shews the bottom counsel of the heart of God among the Holy Three from everlasting, when that blessed and Sacratissimus Consessus Trinitatis was held, that most sacred sitting of the Trinity, as Gerhard speaks on John xvi. 14, 15, that Concilium

Trinitatis, as Rolloc on the same place, then it was this motion on our be half was made amongst them, which the Son here expresseth ; and the original ground of that motion was the communion the three persons do hold in that one Godhead, therefore they designed to communicate the same to those they loved and foreknew, and were then a-choosing unto an union with them. And this the second or middle person, God s counsellor, Angelus magni Concilii (as the Septuagint renders it, Isa. ix. 6), he, knowing his Father s counsels, utters it here in John xvii., through the mouth of the man who was now become one person with him ; his part being now in a way of prayer to move his Father, he reminds him of the original ground thereof, and he doth it to his Father in a prayer, rather than in a sermon to them his apostles ; and he does it in this his last prayer, in which he layeth open the secrets of God. And higher than this we cannot go. And that this is the true meaning of this connection, All thine are mine, and mine

are thine, with this, That they may be one, as we are, if ever I did sub mit any interpretation that ever I have given of any scripture in my whole life, I do submit this.

We may see, then, the great stead the being of the Trinity stands us in. We see first the original motion made for our eternal blessedness to have [been] founded on this, that there are three persons that have the same Godhead, and all in it as one ; whereby they were moved to make the creatures one in them, and to communicate all in the Godhead, and all else that was theirs unto them, and for them for their good.

SECTION II.

The second sort or branch of the motive in the three persons. The mutual in tercourse and society which as persons they have, and had one with another; and the sweetness of that converse was an inducement to them to ordain crea tures to be taken up into the like communion with themselves. This 1found upon John xvii. 21.

That they all may be one] as thou, Father, art in me, and 1 in thee, that they also may be one in us. JOHN XVII. 21.

Wherein, among other things, the intimate communion of the Father in and with the Son, and of the Son in and with the Father, is expressed by the Father s being in the Son, and the Son in the Father ; and that con verse is of the import of those terms of expression. And besides the per sonal indwelling of the Father in the Son, which divines call circumcession of the persons, those phrases do import all sorts of intimate acquaintance and knowledge of each other. We use to say, we know such a man as if we were within him. Now, the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and so are perfectly acquainted one with the other ; and therefore, accord ingly, that which > follows, that they also may be one in us, is as much as for him to have prayed, that they in like manner may partake of, and enjoy in, a like communion and intercourse in us and with us, as we are. And such a blessed intercourse between the Father and the Son, the 5th verse of this chapter shews to have been from everlasting: the glory I had with thee afore the world was ; as also Christ had in his sermon, chap. xvi. 13, 14, towards the end of it, made mention of : < Whatsoever the Spirit shall hear, that shall he speak:_ he shall glorify me, and take of mine ; all the Father hath ismine. The Scriptures do present the three persons, not only as three witnesses to us, but as three blessed companions of a knot and society among themselves, enjoying fellowship and delights accordingly in them selves ; and indeed, if this had been wanting, there had not been an abun dant or a complete happiness, for much of sweetness lies in society (the sweet ness of a man s friend, is Solomon s character), which, if the divine nature had not afforded in having in it three persons really distinct, knowing, rejoicing in, glorying of, and speaking unto each other, there had not beena perfection of blessedness. But from forth of this society, an allsatiety did and doth arise ; the Son is presented as in the bosom of the Father : John i. 18, No man hath seen God at any time : the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him ; and John x. 15, As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father. And the Son speaks not, but what he hears of the Father, as you find again and again in that Gospel of John ; nor doth the Spirit speak but what he hears of both : John VOL. IX.

146 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. xvi. 18-15, Howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth ; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine ; therefore said I, That he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

And this fellowship and communion mutual is, and was, matter of infinite delight and pleasure in them, as Wisdom, i. e. the Son declares, Prov. viii.

30, in there uttering what had been between the Father and him afore the world : Then was I by him as one brought up with him ; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; and this he says was before the world ; and then, when their delights thus lay in what by way of intercourse had passed between him and his Father, as those words, rejoicing always afore him, signify; that he, as a companion, had been always in his sight, his pre sence, his company ; now conformable and like unto, and next to these delights which had been between themselves, were their delights in the sons of men : ver. 81, Kejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my de lights were with the sons of men. The sons of men are sociable creatures, intelligent and understanding, and much of their delights lie in mutual con verses. Now the delights of these divine persons with the sons of men afore the world was, lay much in thoughts taken up aforehand, of what a sweet fellowship one day they should have in admitting them into an intimate con verse and acquaintance with themselves. The sons of men were their delights, not as things that are incapable of converse are said to be, but which the correspondencies held among persons do aiford. You read in the apostle John, 1 John i. 3, of a fellowship which we now have with the Father, and the Son, and they with us ; and as in ver. 7, that following clause ex pounds it, we have fellowship one with another ; that is, they with us, and we with them. And it was the thoughts of these mutual delights in our and their fellowship, one day to be had and enjoyed, when we should actu ally exist, was a special objective matter of delight unto their thoughts so long afore ; they infinitely pleased themselves in the view and contemplation of this. Now when I say it was such, both to the Father as well as to the Son, my ground even in that place of the Proverbs is, chap. viii. ver. 30, 31, that although it be Wisdom, the Son, that only says, my delights were with the sons of men, yet that the Father s delights were in common with his in them, the words afore instruct us, I rejoiced in the habitable part of his earth (he loving the very ground they go on), wherein these sons of men should dwell. The insertion of his name, by* his Father s, shews us it was his Father interest as well as his own, yea, and his own for his Father s sake. And elsewhere his Father is said to have delighted in them, to choose them, Dent, x., which common interest this text expresseth, thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; and mine are thine, holds good even here.

And the mention thus first of these proper delights, peculiar to the per sons, and then of theirs inus, and the thoughts of our fellowship with them to come, and the one in so near and immediate a conjunction to, and with the other, strongly insinuates that they affected this secondary fellowship with us creatures, from the delights of what originally they had among themselves, both as the exemplar of that to be had in time with us, and as the rise and inducing motive, that so they among themselves, and we together with them, might all rejoice together, which was the freeness and greatness of the grace Of it ; that though they had a perfection of delights in what was proper to * Qu. viz. ? ED.

themselves, yet they would have other company to delight in. It was the sweetness and delightfulness of their own proper consortium, which induced them to have more company, partakers of their joy, who might rejoice to gether with them in their capacity and proportion, who might therefore bless and adore them for taking them up into it, and make, as Christ speaks, their joy, if possible, more full ; they would not be happy alone. And that the three persons, both singly and joint, were prone and propense unto such a creature-fellowship, and admission of them unto their converse with themselves, the Scriptures and the reason of the thing doth shew.

For as you have fellowship with us, attributed to the Father and the Son, in that of 1 John v. 3, and other places, so you have as express the communion and fellowship of the Spirit, distinct from that of theirs with us : 2 Cor. vi. ver. 13, 14, Now for a recompense in the same (I speak as unto my children), be ye also enlarged. Be ye not equally yoked together with unbelievers ; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? and what communion hath light with darkness ?

And the reason of the thing, how it came to pass it should be so, may be fetched and drawn down from what was said in that head of the first princi pal motive, viz. the manifesting and declaring the name of God ; whereby, as I shewed, was principally meant the grace, love, and goodness in the divine nature, all which are in common the perfections of each person alike, of one as well as the other : for all mine are thine, and thine mine, saith

Christ." As therefore the Godhead, or divine nature, is disposed to this union and creature communication to us, so they being the properties of the per sons subsisting in that nature, the persons themselves are inclined there unto, both jointly and singly. There is love and infinite riches of grace in God the Father : Eph. ii. 7, That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus. There is grace in God the Son ; a free heart to bestow the riches, the fulness of delights, that himself possessed

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich ; and : 2 Cor. viii. 9, there is the highest readings* and propenseness in the Holy Ghost unto creature communion also. You have all in one verse : 2 Cor. xiii. 4, grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. And as I then shewed that it is the property, the nature of goodness, grace, and love, to communicate and manifest themselves to others, so we find the same said of the persons singly, each of them having the same blessed property. Thus of manifesta tion it is said : John xiv. 21, 22, He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him ; and ver. 23, My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Thus of the Father and Son. And there is the manifestation of the Spirit also, 2 Cor. xii. ; and he is promised to dwell in us, and be with us for ever, John xiv. 17, and is the revealer of God s and Christ s mind to us, and of the deep things of God, \ Cor. ii. 10-16 ; and all these dispensations in time have, for their spring and well-head, these original purposes and transactions from everlasting.

They each singly, and jointly for one another, desired to have themselves made known to us, to the end to be glorified by us. The Spirit loves to glorify the Son to us : John xvi. 14, He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. The Father to have his Son * Qu. readiness ? ED.

148 OF ELECTION. [BOOK II. honoured as himself is : John v. 22, 23, For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son : that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.

Father, glorify thy name, says the Son of the Father ; John xii. 28, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again, says the Father to the Son in answer thereunto. They love to have their own personal in-beings, and communications among themselves, made known to us, as far as we are capable: John xiv. 20, At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

The man Christ Jesus united to the second person speaks the sense of that person, and his Father s also in this : John xvii. 21, 22, As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. Which is as if he had said, Thou, Father, knowest how blessed and delightful this oneness of ours together hath been unto us ; what infinite joy and happiness it hath produced to us, and in us ; and it will be sweet to us to have fellows who also may be partakers of our joys, who may both be enjoyers of it themselves, and also may understand what hath been among ourselves from * Ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you ), and adore us all eternity (according to those words of Christ s, John xiv. 20, for it. You see also that this man, God s fellow, when he was taken up into that fellowship, he became of the same disposition, he desired not to be alone. And he had it from the disposition of the person he was united to, the Son of God ; and so God gave him fellows thereupon, Ps. xiv. 7, and he being manifest in the flesh, expresseth and utters but what was in the heart of all the three. Thus this natural society of the three, and the pleasure thereof, induced this acquired, and sought-out society, made up of creature converse with this God and three persons, to whom be all glory for ever.

I conclude with this, the divine nature, and the three persons are all, and the whole that are in God ; and, lo, you have all these graciously inclined unto this our union and communion with them, and then you have all that is in God become motives, and inductives to it, and you can have no more.

I might add for the confirmation of this notion, that what was in the nature of God had influence upon his gracious will to move him to do the like for us in many particular instances. Only what he should do for us, being matter of will in him, he might do it, or not do it as he pleased, and to whom, or whom not, as he pleased, because it was matter of will, yet something that was natural was the inducer of his will thereunto.

Use. Oh let us take heed lest we be left out of this royal society

! as by allusion to what is lower and lesser I may call it, lest our lot should fall to be with the rest of the world, as in ver. 23 of this John xvii. Christ sets it forth ; lest that we only know, and that too late, that there have been a ^ company of men whom God hath loved, and taken up into union with himself, to be ever with the Lord, when ourselves shall have that fatal sen tence pronounced against us by our Lord Christ, Depart from me, I know ye not. And it is that you are workers of iniquity that will cause this eternal separation. He therefore saith, < Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity ; and as the apostle saith, Let every one therefore that names the Lord,^ depart from iniquity. The words of Christ concerning the world are these in the 23d verse, That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me, which will be the effect upon all the world of wicked men at that great day, which is called the day of their visitation, that they shall see unto what an infinite blessedness the saints

are raised up unto, through union with God and Christ, and what a glorious Christ he will appear to be, that even they all shall know that God hath sent him, and that he is the Christ indeed, and has loved these his members, united to him, as God has loved him. But this conviction will be too late, for it is to be joined with depart from me, and therefore seek unto God to keep you in this world, to keap you pure from the evil of it, that the world lieth in, that in the end this union may break forth in you, and upon you, unto your own glorious sense of it ; and so Christ s words run, Holy Father, keep them through thy own name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we.

To sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the phraseology of the Old Testament, though Christ used it coming in the verge of it ; but to sit down with the us, the three, another manner of three than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to sit down with God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and to have these to dwell in us, and we to dwell in them, this is Christ s language, this is New Testament language. Oh to be bound up in that bundle of life with the living God, and with Christ, that hath life in himself! Oh let this be the whole of the strength of the aim of our souls, and be moved and affected so with it, so as not to want a part and share in and with this good company

! They were sufficient company to themselves when they inhabited eternity, and sufficient to make themselves happy one in another ; how much more are they sufficient to make us so, by taking us up into their intimate converse ! Suppose (we will make but a supposition of it) that God had chosen but one soul besides that man Jesus, whom he took up into one person with his Son (for we mere creatures should not have been imme diately united to God without a mediator of union, who was more than a creature, and therefore his presence is necessary unto our happiness, as ver. 24), upon this supposition, how infinitely blessed would that one soul have been in the sole and single society of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and with the man Jesus, made one person with the Son; he would not have needed to have had the company of Peter and Paul to have made that c I in thee, and thou in me, would have made that happiness perfect ; but soul perfect in one. It is but an additional and adscititious happiness which the saints have from their oneness one with another; but it is, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, is their happiness in solido, wherein the substance thereof consists. If of that single soul

Christ had said, Father, I will that this soul also whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, that it may behold my glory which thou hast given me, this soul would have been perfectly happy. Have you had experience at any time, any of you I do not say you have not grace, if you have not had it of that in John xiv. 21, * My Father will love him, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him, i. e. have you had the Father telling you he Joves you ? And then again, have you had the Son saying to your poor souls, how he loves you, and manifesting himself, and his heart unto you ? And have you had the Holy Ghost communicating himself in like manner ; and this vouchsafed here in this life, in some short converses of each of these persons with your souls, which are but imperfect manifestations of them to us in this life ? Oh what sweetness will there one day be then in heaven, in the fulness of converse and manifestation of these three persons, when it will be, if not all, yet the great discourse that will be had and heard in heaven with your poor souls, by all the three per sons, bringing all the delights they have had in you from eternity down into your hearts, and making discoveries of them to eternity.

150 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

BOOK III.

The infinity of grace in God s choosing us, proved from the nature of election, hath simply considered in itself, and also compared with that other act of reprobation.

CHAPTER I.

The grace of electing us simply considered, and the greatness of it proved from the greatness of the benefit.

I. LET us consider, it is the election only. Critics will put upon it a meto nymy in rhetoric, as the creation for the creatures; but in God s book and rhetoric it speaks and denotes a grandness put upon the persons chosen.

To such, ELECT is the greatest word can be asked of us. One of Christ s most eminent titles, Isa. xl. 1, mine elect (speaking of Christ) ; and even the Pharisees, apprehending that the Messiah should be some emi nently eminent person, expressed it by this, The Christ whom God hath chosen, Luke xxiii. 35.

II. Let us consider, Who hath chosen ? God : 1 Thes. i. 5, Knowing your election of God. In all choices the person choosing puts a value on the chosen, and upon the act. To be made choice of by a king unto such an office-employment, or by a whole state that are wise and honourable ; how doth it dignify a man ! It is one of Titus s commendations : 2 Cor. viii. 19, who was also chosen of the churches, &c. ; but that the great God, the blessed and only potentate, the only wise God, who hath glory, immortality, majesty, and dominion, and power, should choose so poor, contemptible, weak, and * For ye see your calling, bre foolish a thing as thou art : 1 Cor. i. 26, 27, thren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called : but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are : that no flesh should glory in his pre sence. And as the emphasis is put upon Christ s choice, the Christ whom God hath chosen, so it is put upon ours also,

* the elect whom God hath

chosen, Mark xiii. 20.

III. And these two put together

: 1, elect, or chosen ; and then, 2dly,

4 whom God chose. And it speaks, 1, all worth, honour, and excellency the chosen of God must needs be choice, it makes them such. If elect, then precious, 1 Pet. ii. So of Christ ; then again of us. Take God s eminent saints, what is their highest title and honour ? Moses the chosen of God, Ps. cvi. 3 ; Aaron the chosen of God, Ps. cv. 16 ; Paul a chosen vessel, Acts ix. 15 ; Ye are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, 1 Pet. ii. 9, that is, elect. He had begun his epistle with, To the elect, &c., chap. i. 2 ; and that phrase, Xdog si$ vtei KoiriGiv, as the rest there mentioned, is taken out

CflAP. I.] OF ELECTION. 151 of Exodus v., where it is a peculiar treasure to me, says God, above all people. It imports all that is dear and precious to God : Isa. xliii. 4, * Since thou wert precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable ; that is, since I have chosen thee, and loved thee, as it follows, and thereby becamest precious in my eyes, that hast been> and art, and shall be honourable in mine, so in all the whole creation s esteem ; this did put the preciousness. Men s choosings are out of whom they find the choicest : 1 Chron. xix. 10, Joab chose out of all the choice of Israel ; but God s choosing makes them choice.

2. It speaks all blessedness, and the fulness of it. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, Ps. Ixv. 4 ; yea, he is most blessed, Ps. xxi., or, as the Hebrew hath it, set for blessings, set apart, and appointed for bless ings. He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in things heavenly, according as he hath chosen us, &c. It is the womb, the treasury fountain of all blessedness.

3. Let us consider unto what he hath chosen us : unto the nearest approach to God, that is, to the highest communion with himself; and that is founded on his choosing us to the nearest union with himself.

4. Let us consider the time since when he chose us. Of old ; of old, even from everlasting were we ordained unto this salvation. Paul dates it from the beginning, 2 Thes. ii. 13. God hath loved us ever since he was God, and whilst he is God he will continue to do so. The eldest date of his being God is from everlasting, and his continuing to be God is to everlasting

Ps. xc. 2, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world : even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. And his love to us is as old : Jer. xxxi. 3, * I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; and Ps. ciii. 17, The mercy of the Lord is from ever lasting to everlasting. And as it is a love as ancient as God himself, he hath loved thee ever since he was God, so it is a love that hath fixedly con tinued ever since eternity ; it hath been constant ever since the very time God chose us, even unto the moment of our being called. This I take to be * The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, the genuine aim of Jer. xxxi. 3, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. The true aim or sense of that Scripture lies in this : it is a true dialogue between God and his church;* God had begun, ver. 2, Thus saith the Lord, The people which were left of the sword, found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. The church now in desertion interposeth her complaint and scruple, The Lord hath indeed appeared of old unto me ; that is, in former ages, which is a concession to God s speech in the fore going verse, what he had been to her of old. The people in the wil derness found grace, &c. True, say [they], the Lord hath appeared in former times : Oh, but now, what answer doth God return to this ? Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. (The word saying is not in the original, and its being put in hath marred the scope.) As if he had said to her, Again dost thou speak of my appearances of old to thee, and as if now

I had left thee ? Yea, my love is of an ancienter date by far, than my appearances unto thee, which thou sayest are of old ; ? . e. those appearances you speak of were but a thousand years ago in the wilderness, &c., but my love in my heart to thee hath been from everlasting, &c. Everlasting is opposed to old ; hidden love, unknown love from everlasting, unto appear-

That which hath diverted this interpretation is, that our translation hath made the forepart of the verse to be God s speech, as well as the latter, The Lord hath appeared of old, saying, whereas saying is not in the Hebrew ; and therefore the first is the church s speech, and the other God s reply. Vide Junium el Tremellium.

152 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. ances. It hath suffered no ellipsis, no interruption, no pauses between ; to ratify which, God sets his great yea, or his amen. Yea (says he), I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; which to be all one, that of the apostle shews, 2 Cor. i. 20, All the promises of God are yea and amen. It is a great yea this ; and set to the greatest thing that ever God did concerning us, which you may see how himself accounts of by it ; and it comes in the way of a most punctual answer unto the greatest doubts and thoughts his people use to harbour. And further, besides his own yea or asseveration, he gives this evidence that he had borne such a continued love unto them : There fore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee, ver. 2. Now consider, what should it be that moved me so to do, when you had nothing but enmity in you against me ? Certainly, it could be nothing but my own mere lovingkindness borne towards you before, that must move me to it : it must be some aforehand purpose; and when, or at what time, think you, did that kindness first begin in me, or that loving fit first take me ? Was my love ever nay, and then after a time become yea ? No, says he ; here I am an everlasting God, and I have no new purposes, that are of yesterday, but which are as of old as myself am ; for then I should have an alteration or change made in me, as you creatures have ; new thoughts to-day, which I had not yesterday ; and to be sure, in my love towards you, of all things else, I have not such ; for I love like God, like the great God, where I love.

Neither could there be anything but such a love so borne to you, that could ever move me to call you, for there was nothing in you to draw on my love ; for the truth is, I was forced to draw you, you were so backward and utterly averse. And now, after I have called you, I am a God that changeth not : Mai. iii. 6, For I am the Lord, I change not : therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so my love is from everlasting to everlasting

Ps. ciii. 17, But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him : and his righteousness unto children s children.

CHAPTER II.

The infinity of grace in God s electing us, discovered by a comparison of it with the other act of reprobation. The vast disparity between election, and the grounds and issue thereof; and the act of rejection of others, and the grounds and issue thereof.

I can put the doctrine of the foregone discourse unto no better use than an exaltation of the grace and love of God towards his in his decrees of elec tion ; both, 1, to the end, as of them considered unfallen ; and, 2, to the means, considering them as fallen, by and through a comparative made of these his decrees of election with those parallelly opposite of his denials of those, both end and means, unto others; which so vastly differing comparison between the one and the other the called elect of God are deeply to consider, to the end the more to adore the surpassing grace of God towards them.

And that this high duty is due from us upon the account of this difference and discrimination that electing grace hath made, I shall insist but upon one grand example, that of Christ himself on our behalf. We find our Lord blessing his Father on our behalf upon this comparative account : Mat. xi. 25, 26, Jesus said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes : even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.

In which passage observe,

1. That God s good pleasure in putting this difference between his elect and others is here the subject-matter of his speech.

2. That Christ, the natural Son of his Father, and so privy to his secret counsels touching these disposements, doth rest and acquiesce in his Father s good pleasure, which with an emphasis Brugensis* hath observed out of these words, Na/ 6 Harye, which we translate even so ; but he renders it, Eecte, Pater, Thou hast done rightly, Father, in so doing ; so in the highest measure approving it.

3. That he allegeth no other reason for this difference, but only his Father s good pleasure, and resolveth all into that : he speaks not, qua ratione placuit, upon that reason it pleaseth his Father, but only that it pleased him ; and therefore only allegeth it, because it is that which should silence all. f 4. That which is special to my purpose is, that he not simply approves of this, but singularly blesseth his Father for it ; and that not onlyor merely because he had revealed these things to his babes, but comparatively also, setting before it, and together with it, his having hid these things, which * Father, I are the means of saving men, from the wise and prudent. thank thee that thou hast hid them, &c. ; which he mentions as that whereby his Father s love was magnified the more unto his elect, in whom his good pleasure was pitched. And Christ was moved to do this, they being those he loved so much, having been given him by the Father as his sheep to die for.

5. The occasion he takes for this his thanks, uttered in this comparative, was the hardness of heart and impenitency of those many cities he had preached to, ver. 20, and especially of those wise and great men that lived therein, and had been made partakers of his ministry.

Father, I thank thee, &c., must be understood in such a And his saying sense as the apostle useth : Rom. xvi. 17, God be thanked, ye were the servants of sin. What ! doth he thank God simply that they had been such? No; but that which follows must be taken in, viz., but ye have obeyed from the heart, &c., which expresseth their conversion. So as that theylhad been the servants of sin is brought within those thanks, not simply, but by way of comparison, to extol the more the mercy of their being now the avowed servants of God, which this former contrary condition did set out the grace and wonder of. And thus here in Christ s speech the like intention holds.

Now what affected Christ s heart to provoke him to so high a thankfulness on our behalf, ought to affect ours unto the same end, and so much the more, as it is our personal interest which this concerns. Thus far in general, that it is our duty to compare the difference of these two procedures of God to the sons of men, to the end to bless and magnify the Lord the more for his special love to us.

I come particularly to institute the comparative itself, that is, to enlarge upon the particulars of it; all which particulars I shall reduce to two heads.

First, That infinite disparity that is between those two acts themselves, of election, and the grounds thereof in the heart of God, and the issue thereof, and the act of rejection of others in the grounds and issue thereof; setting both in view together, by which the transcendency of electing love will the more appear.

Brugensis in verba. t Ejus beneplacitum pro mille rationibus amplectenclum. JSrugensis ibidem.

154 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

Secondly, A comparative made in respect unto the persons refused and elected, as considered in the common condition of both, and the circum stances which both stand in ; and that he should, viewed in the same cir cumstances and condition, choose thee, and not others, which will also wonderfully magnify the electing love unto us. And for the several of these : 1 Thes. v. 9, you may take two texts as instances of such a comparison

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The matter of this comparative are the two acts themselves, and although brought in there as motives to us unto obedience, yet also they serve as well to usto be matter of thankfulness, that God hath not ordained us to wrath.

In the connection of the words immediately afore, they follow as the object of the hope every Christian hath : God hath not ordained them to wrath, but, &c. And in saying hath not appointed us to wrath, he stirs them_ up to reflect upon what he hath done to others, and supposeth such an ordina tion of God s to have been towards others.*

2c%. For the second comparison, of persons, you have, 2 Thas. ii. 13, * But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

This, you see, comes in a more express way, provoking unto thankfulness ; and those words, but for you, &c., do as expressly refer unto what the lot of others was, whose fate he had particularly deciphered in the verse before : ver. 11, 12, And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

1. For the comparative between the acts themselves. It is not unknown that in election there is discerned by divines two eminent parts, as some call them ; or gradus, or degrees of proceeding therein, as others ; several instants the schoolmen call them. And it is also acknowledged by them that there are two eminent parts of what is termed reprobation, oppositely accompanying those two of election, as dark shadows do lightsome bodies ; for election acts are the first and primary in order of nature, and reprobation acts do follow or answer thereto, as those words, speaking of election, the rest were blinded, Eom. xi. 7, does shew. God s first act (which his heart is upon) is his choice, and those left out therein are called the rest ; as when the choice of some are first culled out of an heap, those that remain are the rest.

* As many as were

The first act of election is adfmem. Thus Acts xiii. 48, ordained to eternal life believed.

2. To the means to that end as in 2 Thes. ii. 13, Through sanctifica tion of the Spirit, and belief of the truth whereinto Christ s death and redemption is also to be taken in.

Now, how the first of these is to be referred unto man considered before the fall, as the object of it, and the latter unto man as fallen, as the object of it ; as likewise how there are two acts towards those, the rest, whom vulgarly we call reprobates, that answer unto these two of election ; I have in a former treatise handled.

The one is a bare not ordaining them unto that ultimate glory which is the end, viz. God s being all in all to them, as 1 Cor. xv. 28 ; the other a withholding from them these effectual means, after or upon foresight of their fall. Such means, as through which he ordained his elect to come unto that * Negando quod nos posnit Deus in iram, affirmationem insinuat, quod reprobos Deus posuit ad iram. Cajetan.

glory, denied to those other, which act it is the word reprobation doth pro perly denote.

In the first they are considered as unfallen (I express it so indeterminately, unto them whether as created or creabiles, or that were to be created), and so that ultimate glory, being supernatural to the creature by the law of creation, that glory was God s own propriety, which he might dispose of as his own at free pleasure. In the other act of denial of the effectual means, they were considered as fallen into sin, and therein justly denied those effec tual means by which the other are restored out of that estate.

Now, my business in this first branch is an exaltation of election grace, in respect of these its two acts of grace shewn in election, through the help of a comparative disparity of the two acts of electing grace, with those correspondently opposite acts of reprobation in their aspects unto either state.

1. Compare we that act of absolute ordaining them unto that ultimate glory, as viewed without the consideration of the fallen estate, with that other of simply not ordaining the rest to that glory.

It is true concerning either of these that there is in both a pure absolute act of dominion exercised, even in his not ordaining those unto that glory as the end, as much as electing these other unto that glory ; for that glory is wholly supernatural, and purely God s own. And I may here apply that speech of Dominicus Bannies, Est manifestatio maxima; libertatis, quam, habet divina voluntas circa dispensationem bonorum supernaturalium, qua maxima est perfectio divina. In the bestowing therefore of this supremest glory, the greatest liberty of the divine will is seen. And as liberty and freedom is most conspicuous in it, so answerably a love super-eminent; insomuch as let us suppose God should by another decree bestow never so many and so great good things on these, and yet not this superlative good of super-creation glory, the bare denial or omission of this were an act of hatred in respect to a mere comparison of that love in that ordination of others to that glory.

I conceive that the instances of Jacob s election, and the denial to Esau of this ultimate blessing, do most properly and pertinently hold forth the differ ence of these two bare acts of election to glory, and the negation of it, as to what God doth towards men, considered as afore the fall, even as Pharaoh s instance in the same, Rom. ix., was alleged of men considered as fallen and hardened; and therefore the apostle saith, upon occasion of this example, 4 Whom he will he hardens; whereas in the estate of the example of Jacob

Being not yet born, and Esau, he here useth this gloss of his own upon it, nor having done good nor evil, that is, as they were purely and abstractly considered from any sin or guilt any way contracted, as also beforethey were born, our birth being that which brings us into an actual and visible resi dency in this world. And unto this he applies that in verse 13, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, thus in the type alleged, signifying men unfallen. Now, God ordained Esau (in the type) to many good things and great blessings, as in Isaac s blessing of him : Gen. xxvii. 39, 40, * Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above, &c. But that which was the blessing indeed, this his brother (he says) had taken away, ver. 35, which was by that election (which we are upon). And thus did God without the consideration of the fall, ordain his chosen to that supercreation glory, though he denied the rest that great good. He yet did purpose to ordain them to other good things of an excellent nature and kind, as that creation perfect holiness which was God s image, and the dominion over all the work of his hands, which Adam, and in him we all, were appointed unto by the law of his and our creation, which condition we all predicate as a complete happiness ; but still this was

156 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. not that good we speak of, not that glory in which God becomes all and m all And although unto so great a good all men were in this manner made heirs of, yet that will hold true which was said of Esau in comparison of Jacob s portion, Esau have I hated; and in that comparison, election to that super-creation glory only hath the name of love. And I understand the purport of those speeches thus, that there was so vast a difference put, and so great a love cast upon the one, and so transcendent, as that com paratively the other was as hatred ; I understand it, I say, that this love was so infinitely high as that it made all other love, and that love to all mankind in their creation, to be but as no love, no glory (as the apostle says of the law in comparison of the gospel which excelleth), yea, it was as hatred.* And thus I am taught to understand that hatred may be under stood of a lesser love, when set in comparison with a love far exceeding ; as when our Saviour speaks of what love ought to be bestowed upon himself, so deservedly above what to father and mother, he says, If ye hate not father and mother, ye are not worthy of me. Hatred there imports not barely a less loving, but also serves to express and set out how great a love that must needs be, and ought to be, that shall only deserve the name of love, in comparison unto which all other love, of what is and ought to be in other respects the highest love amongst men (for we ought to love parents and wives above all other relations on earth), should be accounted hatred ; and that whilst we thus love them, we must but love them with a love so far below that love we owe to Christ, as it must be but an hatred of them in collation with that towards him. And thus in like manner to magnify the love he beareth his elect Jacobs, he termeth that love he beareth all others of mankind but hatred.

And the comparing alone of this supernatural good with all other good things God did bestow either on Adam, or on men after the fall, in gifts supernatural, as enlightenings and tastings of the powers of the world to come, &c., or outward blessings, the glory and happiness suppose which millions of worlds could afford, might alone be sufficient to enlighten us in this argument to magnify electing grace by. I may say, that if all the common mercies and favours of all or any sort that God hath scatteredly vouchsafed to and among all men, were heaped upon one man alone, and he made the possessor of them, they all would be found too light in the balance with the endowment of this eternal weight of glory on us, and so light as that they will be allowed no better account than of hatred ; and it is a big word to be said this.

It is true indeed that commonly men do not discern or conceive of the greatness of this election privilege, made without or afore the consideration of the fall, but by the fall and the misery they are brought into by sin. Yet in this other way of comparison I have now made, these other good things fore-mentioned must be acknowledged (if taken in by us) to be a most pierc ing and accommodate way to aggrandise it by. I shall further urge this comparative of it, with this supposition made concerning Adam s state and condition. Suppose we that Adam and all men had stood to this day (and to illustrate things we may make suppositions of things that were never, but might have been, as Christ does, Luke x. 13), and not only so, but should have so continued for ever, and that God, out from among them, had elected some to that ultimate glory and kingdom we have been speaking of, whom * Thus Vasques and Estius: Habet se ad modum odientis, quod aliquid dcmum qui uni dat, alter! non concedat. Deus amat omnes homines in quantum vult aliquid bonum omnibus ; in quantum quibusdam non vult hoc bonum, nempe vitam seternam, dicitur eos odio habere. See Arrowsmitfi, p. 314 ; and Daven. de Electione, p. 177.

he had taken up immediately into it without redemption, &c., whilst those others should have enjoyed but that holiness and happiness they were created in, and continued in still upon earth, such as Adam and Eve themselves did, which is the opinion of many divines, he only should have enjoyed ; what an infinite difference would this have been ! as much as of an earthly and heavenly state. And thereby even all along during that estate so con tinuing, there had been an infinite illustration given unto that heavenly glory, in that a complete happiness on earth, in enjoyment of God, had, as a lower way, been extant, infinitely short of that heavenly glory elec tion had designed some of them, over the head, as we say, of that earthly state.

But, further, if we withal suppose (as de facto it was), that all this holi ness and happiness in Adam s state did mutually depend upon the change able vertibility and slipperiness of free will, liable to fall, and so to forfeit it all in the twinkling of an eye, by admitting one sinful thought, whereas in that first act of election we have been speaking of, this ultimate glory was immutably and unchangeably endowed upon those God foreknew ; and so whereas that other holy and happy state hung but as a comet or meteor, wavering in the air, this gift of glory was fixed in God s heart towards them, as the sun is in the firmament, as Ps. Ixxxix,, whereas the other were not liable only to fall, but de facto would have fallen (even as Adam also did), at one time or another. What an infinite favour and grace then was it aforehand to ensure this victory of his elect ! Whether fall they, or not fall, they lie under an unchangeable decree.

Again, under this head the comparison comes in between God s intention of our salvation as his end in election, and of men s damnation in the point of rejection.

It is true, that in his decrees of either, his own glory is the supremest end in both decrees ; but yet in the point of election, the glory and salvation of the elect themselves is an ultimate end, which his heart is directly and absolutely set upon an end simply and for itself desired by him, as which his soul singly and absolutely delighted in, for and in itself ; whereas in re probation the case is otherwise ; damnation is the end indeed of the persons, yet no otherwise but as death is said to be the end of life, which is indeed the issue, the terminus which life expires into ; but it is not the end for which we live.* And accordingly God professeth of the death of a sinner, that he hath no pleasure in it, that is, not simply for itself. Every end of anything is optimum quid, and the perfection of a thing ; but damnation is the extremity of evil, and the highest imperfection ; and therefore was not the end God propounded to himself, which he cannot be said to make the creature for. And, therefore, most assuredly the matter of election and re probation is not stated well by those who say, that men s damnation and reprobation, and man s salvation in election, do stand in a like posture or reference in God s intention, that is, intended by God upon like terms, for his own glory s sake. No, there is an infinite difference ; for besides the tendency which our salvation hath unto his glory, it was also intended by God simply and directly in itself as his end, though inferior to his own glory ; but that of damnation was never intended by him for itself, as an end which he delights in.

This for the act of election, considered as afore and without the fall, and * Cum seterna damnatio non sit finis hominis, sed tantum extremum, rb ut vocant Grseci, omnis finis est optimum quid et perfectio rei : damnatio autem est extremum malum, et summa imperfectio, et ultimum malum, ut mors est terminus vitse, quse non tamen est finis vitee. Keeker. Syst. Theol. lib. iii. chap. iii.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. omparative of that glory denied in that act unto those God passed by, with a c all the other good things God did or might bestow upon them.

But it pleased our God permissively to decree those elect to fall together with the rest, as for many other holy ends, so for this one especially that respects the matter in hand, that we might discern the difference of immutable holiness running along with glory, which election brings unto, Eph i. 4, from that of created holiness ; which, if we suppose man had not fallen from, but stood by, his free-will grace had not been so manifestly discerned, but the glory of it would have been obscured and attributed unto man s free will, and not the grace of election.

I therefore, secondly, come to a comparison of the acts of election and reprobation, as they were framed for and respected man s fallen condition.

Now this first purpose unto this ultimate end, though it stand firm, yet it cannot bring unto that glory but by new means, and such as must be suited to bring sinners to God. And hereupon that first decree to glory, out of absolute dominion, will not now serve the turn ; for without faith and holi ness no man can please or see God. And without these God stood as per emptorily resolved none should see his face, as he did to that other, to bring us to that glory ; and therefore a decree of these new means are necessarily required. ^For though God should have taken (as he might), his elect by the first decree, immediately out of that state of creation, with that holiness they were made in, unto that supreme glory, yet that holiness then, though perfect in its kind, was never ordained as a means to that glory, viz., the kingdom of the Father, as faith on Christ and holiness flowing from thence now are ; for that anything should be a means unto glory, depended upon an ordination of God, and an ordering of one for the other. And this ulti mate glory, the kingdom of the Father, and God being all in all, should never have gone by works only, which was Adam s covenant ; so that, if we should suppose that act of his grace had purposed and ordained to take up these his elect unto glory, out of that state of holiness by creation (supposing Adam also not to have fallen, but to have propagated that holiness to his posterity), yet the holiness of that covenant had not been an influential means to that glory, but was thus far, and upon this account necessary, yet, indeed, it must have been continued ; for if it had not, then guilt had arisen, and so a bar unto that glory ; so that indeed it was a requisite, sine qua non, but not a means of influence by that covenant, no more than creation itself was.

Well, but now upon the fall, there is an absolute bar to glory: the elect are fallen into the demerit of the contrary, of hell and damnation, as well as those others which the Scripture calls the rest or the refused.

Hence, therefore, if the elect be brought to glory, considered as fallen, there must be new decrees of means in order to that end ; Christ must be come a redeemer, a redeemer from sin, to remove that demerit ; and then on our part, faith on him, and repentance for sin (in which two our calling consists), are ordained to be given them to bring them to salvation. When those means came to be decreed, it will be tried whether his first purpose of ordaining the elect to glory be firm or no. In the apostle s words, Eom. ix. 11, now when they are considered as fallen, whether God will now in this necessity (as absolute as the former), further shew forth his love in giving Christ as a redeemer, and effectual calling to you, not at all proceed ing therein by works, which our first creation-covenant proceeds by ; and if fallen man would have attempted to perform, he could never have obtained at God s hands, to call or work repentance in them.

Now, as to the magnifying God s grace in his ordaining to give his elect those new means after the fall, these things may be considered.

1. When the decree of those means should come to be made, there was, and must have been, a new or second election, or renewal of that first act of ordaining to the end, as often after the miscarriages of the elect the Scrip ture speaks: Isa xiv. 1, For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob, and will yet choose Israel. And as for the thing itself, it is no absurdity to say, that God in continuance renews his acts of election every moment ; but here there was a necessity of it, a necessity at least of another act to be added to the first, namely, that which divines mostly appropriate the word predestina tion unto, as they distinguish it from election simply considered, which, say they, more ordinarily imports barely a choice unto the end ; but predestina tion to be an ordaining of means, and through these means unto the end. And therefore, now there needed a new further extent of love and mercy, not only to continue his resolution to love, notwithstanding the fall, but to con trive the means of carrying them through to glory notwithstanding that fall. And upon and for this act it is, and upon ocasion of it, that the Scripture so celebrates the love of God. God so loved the world, as he gave his only begotten Son, namely, as a redeemer, John iii. 16 ; and 1 John iv. 10, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And herein the strength and firm ness of that first act of election appeared, and shewed that God was so resolute therein, that nothing could dissolve or alter it. And thus by this order of decrees (which in the former treatise we shewed), and by this second act, the grace of election comes to be the more magnified.

2dly. That together with this new act ordaining to these means, there was a denial of giving the same unto the rest, to whom he had also denied glory afore in the first act of preterition. And this second denial of the means, to be made with so manifest a difference, doth mightily enhance electing grace: Mat. xiii. 11,

It is given to you to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. And how given to them, but by and from election ? The election obtained it, whereas the rest was blinded. As * Ye believe not (which is the means to salvation). Why ? Because ye are not of my sheep, namely, by election ; also John also Christ : John x. 26, * But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto vi. 64, 65, me, except it were given unto him of my Father ; compared with John xiii. 13, I speak not of you all ; I know whom I have chosen : but, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Where the reason of giving faith is plainly resolved into election (and it is not chosen unto apostleship, that is there meant, but unto salvation before the world), and exemplified in the instance of Judas there brought, as also of those others spoken of in that 6th of John, which enjoyed the best and most powerful outward means (Christ s ministry) that ever was or shall be ; but it was election that put the difference, by which they were made Christ s sheep originally, and which ordained to give the other apostles saving and effectual inward means, and workings of grace, over and above those outward means vouchsafed.

And this is amplified as the former was by this, that as in the first act of election, though God gave that holiness that was by creation due, or to be due unto those of Adam s posterity, suppose he had propagated, whom yet he had denied that supreme glory unto, or did ordain that creation holiness to be a means to that glory, so here with this second decree of his elect to saving means. God indeed answerably ordains to give the best of good things that in this world men are capable of, unto many of those the rest,

1GO OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. which are yet short of true faith and grace. He gives them spiritual gifts, unto the rebellious also, as he says in the psalmist, enlightenings, tastings of the powers of the world to come, which are given indeed, that men might be saved, as Christ speaks of his preaching, which are an outward means of salvation, John vi. ; that is, they have a tendency to salvation, even as Christ s ministry (as himself witnesseth) tended to the salvation of them that heard those things. I speak, says Christ, that you might be saved, but yet they have not salvation in them, or accompanying them, and annexed to them, as Heb. vi. 4, 5, and 9 compared, true grace is said to have. And God doth this to illustrate by this difference his electing grace in giving saving means unto his chosen.

3dly, Let us compare the grounds of those acts themselves, viz., the decree to give effectual means to the one, and the denial thereof to the other ; let us compare, I say, these two together, and such a difference appears, the grounds or foundations of doing the one and the other, as will serve greatly yet more to enhance the grace of God in this act of election to the means, through that comparison of those several grounds.

The foundation of his decreeing his elect to those effectual means proves still to be as pure an act of dominion, and so out of mere love, and grace, as much as was the former act of election to the end, and with a superaddition of mercy to it, yea, and further degree of dominion exercised therein ; where as on the other hand, the ground of his denial of those means to the other considered now as fallen, becomes not an act of pure dominion, but of justice, though put forth by his will.

And how from this comparison of these two there accrues that which will yet magnify the grace of election, I shall shew after I shall have first cleared and explained the premises.

That God s denial of effectual means to those we call reprobates, to bring them to salvation, after man is considered as fallen, is not as then an act of pure dominion, sovereign dominion, but has a jus ordinatum in it, which justly may move him thereunto.

It is true, indeed, those that hold all acts of election and reprobation to have been after the fall considered, they do in this respect make reprobation an act of pure dominion, namely, that if the inquiry be why he chose those and those, and not the others, and why he reprobated, when he might have chosen them whom he cast away ; and on the contrary, have cast away whom he chose, according to that, I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful, and whom he will he hardens ; and in so doing (say they) God looked not at all at sin as the motive to his passing by those individual persons he did pass by ; and though this be true, yet I withal must add that there remains still this difference, that sin and the loss of holiness man had before the fall, did bring in a desert to be reprobated, and to have the means to bring men effectually to salvation denied them ; and this none can deny. And there fore it is acknowledged by some,* that though sin is not causa reprolationis, take the act, est tamen causa reprobabilitatis. And further, that efficacious means should be withdrawn is from their sin, they being now fallen, according to that of Christ, lest they should see with their eyes, &c., Mat. xiii. 15. For the fall foreseen did from the first pre clude them from those means, for it brings in a want of all good, and possesses the whole of the heart with the contrary unto all those means, so as God should not have needed to exercise any act of dominion unto the person thus fallen, in this denial of means, for the guilt and power of sin in the heart do preoccupate and prevent, or rather prepossess the room of those * Wollevius, lib. i. cap. iv. can. 5.

principles which are now to be the means of bringing men to glory, so as although as to the persons whom, after the fall viewed, he reprobated, whilst he chose others to those means, there was indeed a dominion exercised ; yet as to the thing denied, there was not a pure prerogative exercised, but a jus ordinatum concurred with it, and was mingled with it ; a just cause or reason de jure, or in right, for God so to do; and this is a certain truth, that not to grant a thing de novo, or anew, that is by a forfeiture excluded and debarred to be given, is not a mere act of denial thereof, or pure act of prerogative, for there is desert in it, why it should be done ; but this is the case in the point afore us. And I speak thus of it, although they forefeited in Adam what indeed was less in some respects than is required now, as the means to bring them unto glory, yet in substance it is the same image of God that was created then that is created now ; yet so as by the guilt of that loss there arose a just prohibition in law against the giving of new means to bring fallen man to salvation by, without a new interposition of sovereign grace.

So as now the working of that grace and of holiness in us, that are now ordained to be the effectual means having salvation in them, as the apostle speaks, Heb. vi. 9, flow all purely and immediately from election, and the fruits of it ; yea, and become an act of higher dominion than was exercised in that other, to the end, and that not only because that all is a free gift, as Rom. v. 15, 16, in this respect, that there was an utter want of power to bring forth such efficacious acts unto salvation, yea, a principle contrary unto all the works of grace ; but also in this, that there was a desert to the con trary by a law, even the law of our creation, so as now there must be an overruling dominion of grace exerted to work them. And now

it is not in him that runs, nor in him that wills, but in God that shews mercy, which is spoken in respect to the means of salvation. And indeed all the withdrawings of those means after the fall are to be considered as judicial acts in God, as leaving them unto sins, and damnation following thereupon. These are all along, after the fall, acts of judicature on God s part, and his decreeing of them, or disposing of them foreseen, are to be put unto the account. And as God decrees not to damn, but only for sin, so he decrees not to withdraw the inward means of salvation, but for sin foreseen.

Hence therefore, for God to choose to the means effectual to bring to salva tion his elect considered as fallen, there is a jits absolutionis in it, heightened to the highest ; but in reprobation, not to give them to man fallen, there was what should move him to it, and a justice in it. Now, if this second act of election unto the means be thus an act juris absoluti in the highest kind, which the other is not, as by the former com parative appears, then how may and should we afresh magnify the grace and love of God shewn therein ? If God had, in decreeing to give those effec tual means, gone by a jus ordinatum, or a rule, or anything revived in us that should have deserved the giving those means, as our running, or our willing, as motives to bestow them, then the dominion of giving them had gone by a jus ordinatum ; and then it had gone by works, and had not been of him that calleth, namely, out of his pure dominion, as that opposition declares in Rom. ix. ; and then his grace and love would have been lessened in this act. But being otherwise, now the purity of the glory of grace con tinues still as high, and shines as clear and glenous,* as in that other act of election to the end ; yea, higher, for the reasons given aforesaid, How, then, should this love and grace be magnified by us in this second act of election by these considerations ! * Qu. glorious ? ED. VOL. IX. L

162 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

1. For where more of dominion is and appears in an act, that is, an act of grace, there is the more of grace shewn therein ; for then it is grace absolutely, and every way grace, when there is nothing obliging or moving thereunto in the least, and grace is then grace when it is every way grace, and kept free of all obligations or encouragements that are from us. It is not only the greatness of the gift that sets out the grace, but the freeness and absoluteness of the giving and bestowing of it ; now where there is the more dominion, there is the more liberty in the giving, and the more freeness, and so the more grace in it. Kings are said in their gifts to be gra cious, because they have so high and sovereign dominion, and free from obligations to their subjects. The glory of grace lies in freedom, when it is mero motu, as the style of kings in giving gifts doth run.

2. In that former act of election to the end, towards us as not fallen, but creabiles, or as considered in creating, appears (as it was indeed) an absolute dominion, because in bestowing it God bestowed purely what was his own, and wherein there was maxima libertas, as out of Bannies was shewn. And besides the greatness of the dominion, its being a destination to so great a glory doth enhance it. For think with yourselves, a thing out of nothing, decreed to be created, and then created, and whilst it is yet nothing, could no way be considered to have anything in it to move or oblige, but yet so as still there was nothing contrary which could be viewed therein. If you will say it was simply in the power of God and the sovereignty of God to ordain this, but yet there was no bar to hinder the procedure of it, and yet put in a caveat or plea against it in the least, but where sin is (as in man considered as fallen) there is a law. utterly to the contrary, as was said, and therefore it is a higher dominion to remove those cross bars, to answer those pleas, and overrule and give means to fallen man to salvation anew, than to ordain to the end at first. And therefore it is the Scripture sets forth by this the love of God to us, that while we were sinners Christ died for us, and so God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, and the like, which were but means to save man fallen.

3. There was in that fallen condition, when it was in view, causa reproba Ulitatis, a cause to have been reprobated : not so in the former act. A reprobability there was, to the denying of all means for the future, and so of salvation itself; for without these means, none that were fallen could be saved, and there was the same provocation to deny it to those the elect, considered as now fallen, as was to the other, if the dominion of grace and lovehad not stepped in. And therefore in Isa. xli. 9, it is said that when God s law chose thee he might have cast thee away : Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee and not cast thee away. Of which speech there maybe a double meaning: 1, that God was immutable in his love, that whom he had so chosen he would never cast away; or, 2, that when he chose them, it was free to him, and he might as easily have laid them aside. It was to him but as a man would turn a key one way or the other, to lock or unlock. It was but saying, yea, or no ; I know you, or I know you not.

* Qu. love ? ED.

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CHAPTER III.

The infinity of grace in electing us further evinced by a comparative made in respect unto the persons refused and elected, as considered in the common condition of both, and the circumstances which both stand in. Of their first condition in the possibility before the creation, as then viewed by God, repre sented in his infinite mind, the elect were separated from the others rejected.

This for the first head, of comparing the acts themselves ; my next is a comparative of the persons elected or passed by, as they are considered in their conditions or circumstances out of which they are chosen or refused. And for this my text is 2 Thes. ii. 12, 13, * That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.

Those words, but for you, are a discrimination and exception of these from others, whose condition he had declared in the immediate verses afore, ver. 11, 12, in these words, * And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And that election had put in that but, and made the difference ; so stirring them up to thankfulness, by his own giving thanks on their behalf.

It is true the condition of those considered as fallen into sin is the matter here compared, yet is it in a special manner pitching the comparison upon the condition of persons. I therefore take it for a groundwork for what concerns a comparative of persons, whether considered as fallen or without the fall, no scripture adequately comprehending both. Yet upon occasion of handling the comparison about the state of man fallen, I may extend it to either, and begin it higher with that afore the fall, which other scriptures warrant the truth of, as our divines have defended it out of Rom. ix., and other places.

1. The state of elect and non-elect, afore or without the consideration of the fall, is that of creatureship simply and absolutely considered, wherein God in and at his decree for creation, whilst he was determining to create, and viewed the whole crop of them a-growing up but as yet in his purpose and will to create them, his gracious goodwill did, together with that his creation decree, both of those he elected and of all things else, put forth that election purpose, pre-ordaining them to be the first fruits of his whole creation, setting them apart for himself, and consecrating them unto the highest communion with himself, and of ultimate glory above the rest of their fellow-creatures, and thus but as considered as creatures, though in their kind wherein they were to be created.

You have this foresaid expression in the apostle James, That we might be the first fruits of his creatures ; and put we all the particulars that do follow together, and the assertion will come out of them.

1. It is the whole heap or harvest of the first creation, as standing on the ground afore him, he means by creatures, whereof these are said to be the first fruits ; for it is the saints universally, all of them, that are as the first fruits, severed and differenced from the rest of God s creation as universally taken, and not of some special saints of that age, the first fruits of other saints to come, as Vorstius would have it.

2. The first fruits were in their original condition, but of the same that

1C4 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. other their fellow-fruits were of, and were considered but as such in them selves, only were by God s choice consecrated to himself in a special manner, because the first, as the first fruits of their kind.

3. These in James were made the first fruits wholly by a free election or choice of them ; but those other first fruits were those that were first by nature s production shot forth out of the earth, and then consecrated by God.

But that these persons should be the first fruits was the whole of it merely from a choice made of them, from a special love and good will, calling and singling them forth out of that common creature condition, that which they were by creation. And the text insinuates thus much, even God s special good will to have been the cause, as the immediate words afore do shew, Of his good will he begat us, that we might be the first fruits. What will ?

That svdo Kia (whereof Eph. i. 5) ; that special good will from whence their being begotten again, and their being the first fruits, which is the end and issue thereof, and all do flow. And indeed the reason of the thing itself would carry so much ; for it is election from eternity that moulds all, orders all to the main end thereby aimed at, and so must have done this, and it could have no other original it depended on.

4. Then surely that special good will and choice must be supposed to have taken them up as viewed in the common condition of creatureship. And it must not be said that this their election was only (in the order of act) after the fall, but he climbs up higher, and places it from the first with that of their own and others creation, out from amongst whom, and considered simply at creation (together with the rest of their fellow-creatures, whereof as such they were to be the first fruits), it was they were chosen. And why else doth he say, of the creatures or creation, and not of mankind ? Why not of man fallen, but of the creation? and the first fruits of the whole first creation ? This doth at least import that they were chosen the first fruits, as early as they and their fellowcreatures, considered as creatures, and decreed to be created. So as these two decrees of creating all things, and electing -of these with the first, must at least have been twins of the same birth at once brought forth, for they have mutual respects of creatureship and first fruits one to the other, and are as old one as the other. And what is said to be the first thing compared with other things, must be sup posed to exist from the first with those that are compared unto. And there fore these two, creatures and first fruits, had the same order in God s decrees ; and those two acts and decrees are allied and akin, and associated more than any other, comported, and connexed together.

5. Add this also, that the first fruits were not styled the first fruits of the rest of the kind, when corrupted and proved rotten ; not of a basket of Ezekiel s bad figs, so bad as they could not be eaten. No ; it were most improper to institute such a comparison ; it relates therefore to the creation of all things, when viewed in his purpose and decree as good (as, after the creation perfected, God did view them and approve them) and such like wise in his intuition of them in his decree and purpose such to make, and under that view ordained these in the issue to be made such. And there fore this doth refer to a decree made of them at that of the creation, and that then it was God did will them the first fruits.

If it be objected, that he speaks there of what they are made by regene ration, and not of God s first decree ; and regeneration supposing their being ordained the first fruits, and upon the -consideration of the fall, _ I reply, It is true indeed, he speaks not expressly or immediately of what his decrees were, but it must be supposed, according to what was said even now, that they are the moulders and framers of what is in the event.

Secondly, it is true, that in the execution or performance of the decree they became not actually the first fruits, but by regeneration, which supposeth them fallen ; and yet this the ultimate end of being the first fruits, may and was notwithstanding (according to the former arguments) intended with the first of their creation with other creatures.

Now this of their being the first fruits is eminently and emphatically in the text set forth, as the ultimate end of all, ?/g ro eivai, to the end that they may be the first fruits, which end was first designed conjunct with the decree of the creation of the whole.

And although in execution or first performance they first became at regene ration to be the first fruits actually by this new creation, and that supposeth the fall afore, viewed (that is granted) so as their hva), or esse actuale, is the fruit thereof, yet their esse notitionale, their being such, might be and was intended as the end of their creation, and with the first of the decree thereof.

It is evident that the being the first fruits is here the end of their regenera tion, and yet intended and aimed at with their creation, and his good will, that was from eternity engaged in both ; but his decree of you to be the first fruits, was the primitive decree as of the end, and that of regeneration, but as of the means to accomplish that end. This the means of execution, but that of being the first fruits of the creation, that is the end ; and indeed denotes the ultimate end, even that the performance of it will be next unto Christ s; for it is to be even the first fruits of the whole creation, as he the first-born of every creature, and in the issue to be exalted and preferred unto the highest top of glory, even above any of his creatures, angels or men. And unto what a height the privilege and dignity imported thereby will amount to, will not be known until the latter day be over, and that we be estated into the glory and kingdom of the Father : Mat. xxv. 34, Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. And it became him, by whom are all things/ to join the decree of creating the elect (as the subjects of that kingdom), and to elect them therewith as their ultimate highest end, and of their first creation.

In fine, therefore, as to the objection itself, the sum of my answer, and the series of the words, is that by regeneration, which is decreed after the fall foreseen, our being God s first fruits of all creatures, which was decreed at and with that of the creation of all, doth by regeneration begin to be effected in a smaller degree of first fruits in this life, and accomplished in glory.

And so the contexture fairly stands thus, as if he had said, that God hath created us anew out of his everlasting good will, thereby to bring about that which was his great and first design of all other, of making us the first fruits arid glory of the whole creation, and conjunct with his decree of creation of them, and all things else, and as such viewed by him when he first decreed to make them as the ultimate end, he with their creation had ordained them unto.

2. Let us advance the terminus a quo, or the objective consideration of us, out of which election at first took us, yet higher. Mundus nondum conditus, the world as yet not decreed to be created, must first be in God s view ere he put forth that decree to create it. For so in every artificer the frame and model of what he purposeth to make is first in his thought ere he resolves to make it. And by the rule aforesaid, viz. that creation and election ran as parallel acts, there was, and in order of nature it must first be supposed, that those elected were first in view, but as things he could both create and elect under the view of eligible and creable, and the state of

1(56 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. other things to be created, and these to be elected and created, was but of mere possibilities ; to have a being decreed them as God pleased, whether yea or not ; and so their state they were taken forth of when first elected was the same with that which all things created had afore the decree of their being created, mere possibles in reality of creatureship, pure nothings every way, utter nonentities, which yet God could decree, and give an existence unto.

When I say every way nonentities, not having a shadow of being, the meaning is, that not only they were nothing, in that they were not yet de facto created ; for so the whole world, until decreed to be created, was no thing in actual existence ; but that they lay afore God, as not yet so much as decreed to be created, and so had not a being in God s decree, till that passed on them together, both for their creation and election to glory.

For the understanding hereof we may, with the schoolmen, make a three fold esse or being ascribed to the creature.

1. An esse actuate, an actual being, which is when it is created.

2. An esse volitum, which is a being that lies in God s will, which is the state of them after God hath purposed to create them.

3. An esse possibile, which is a mere possibility, afore God s decree passed to have being first decreed it, and then to be by creation given to it, which lying in God s power in that he can, if he please, make it, or otherwise not, merely lies in God s understanding in the image or forms of it.

Now the state and common condition of all creatures, immediately afore God decreed to create them, was this latter only, which arose from this, that God s power presented to his infinite understanding an infinity of shadows or ideas, images of creatures, which he might make if he pleased, which yet he never did or ever willed to make ; and the number of these are infinite, because his power is infinite to create such, and his understanding is infinite to fashion and form up the shapes or images in his mind, of all that his power can effect. Man is narrow both in his understanding and power, and his understanding may never have the forms or models of all that he is able to do or make, for to enter into his thoughts. But with God it is other wise: his understanding, being infinite, doth form up the idea of all, and everything his power can effect distinctly. The state and condition of these things, as they lay in God s simple single intelligence, the Scripture

To God all things are expresseth in such speeches and terms as these, possible.

Now the mediate state of all the elect afore God s decree to choose them, being no other than this of all things else, as they lay in a capability to creation and the decree of it, and under that view of things possible only, they were objected or proposed to God s will, both for their creation and election together ; and God s choosing of them having been (as was said) an immediately conjunct and associated act with God s decree to create them, without a presupposition of their being yet to be created, much less fallen ; and that both these acts proceeded hand in hand together, or rather like twins twined about together, and their hands embracing each other, not de pending upon any other consideration or view that was had of them : this, I say, being supposed true, Hence it will follow that the state of God s elect was of mere possibles, as immediately afore their being elected, as other creatures or themselves were in respect unto creation, and the decree thereof ; for it is certain there could be no other state of things afore creation was decreed, nor could the divine understanding have any other view of anything, or all things, until his will had passed a decree upon them, and given a fiat to create them. And what

could that be other than that which God s understanding hath now still in his mind, of things which he never means to create, and yet might if he pleased ? And the same was the case and condition immediate of the elect, unto election and creation both, until the divine sanction of his will had come upon them. Till then they were mere appearances and shadows, as all things else were, which God might or might not choose and create ; and still they lay in that indisposed heap of things, about which God had made no deter mination at all, no, nor ever will make any, they floated in a mere vacuity and pure emptiness, both as to being or glory. And look, as his decree to create gave his elect and others a being to come in due time, so his decree of election estated on them that glory to come, and both immediately brought forth by these his decrees out of that mere lump of possibilities fore-mentioned. Let the more learned reader excuse my so often repeating things to the same effect : it is for the weaker their sakes, that they may both understand and fixedly retain the notion of it.

The proof of this, that God might have chosen others out of mere possi bilities, whom he hath not nor never would, and so that they remain in their pure possibility to eternity, may adequately be drawn from God s offer unto Moses : Deut. ix. 14, Let me alone that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven ; and I will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they; and to be in their room a surrogated people to him, as they by election had been, for else he had not made up a supply ; yet this people God never did make, nor will make, but could have done. The like: Luke iii. 8, I say to you, God is able, out of out of the Baptist s speech these stones, to raise children unto Abraham.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the common condition of the elect, and rejected, in the fallen estate of man kind. The infinity of grace toward the elect, magnified by the consideration of their being segregated out of that general corrupt mass, wherein they lay equally with others. God s infinite grace in choosing us also discovered by the vast disproportion of number between the elect and the rest.

We have seen what that act of election without and afore the consideration of the fall doth afford.

Let us now descend unto what the prospect of man s condition, as it lay also afore God, and was disposed of by him, considered as fallen, will in the like comparative way contribute to this argument. And this the Scriptures do more enlarge upon, as that which doth far above the former magnify the glory of electing grace, and by so much more as the evil of sin man is fallen into, and the misery thereby, doth exceed a state of mere no thing, or of no being at all, or but mere possibility of being. And here also that query of the apostle hath its most eminent lustre, Who made thee to differ? 1 Cor. iv. 7. God. And what in God ? Election : The election obtained it, and the rest were blinded. And it is this comparison between elect and the rest after the fall, it is the condition wherein the one or other are found in after the fall, which is the chief and principal to enhance this discriminating or differencing grace, al though the comparison of number will follow us in this too.

Now the view of the conditions of men after the fall, are reduced to two heads.

1. The common alike universal condition, by and through the fall of

168 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

Adam, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, as the apostle declares. Or, 2. The several and more particular conditions amongst mankind upon the : as, for instance, several sizes and degrees of actual sin fall, in their variety and other circumstances, which men elect, with the rest, stand in, and were thereto foreseen and disposed of by God, so to fall out, when he then chose us through the means of salvation,"all and each of which do tend to magnify this election grace.

1. The common, universal, and alike condition of man fallen. And to set forth the greatness of this grace and mercy, is the full and set scope of the apostle in Eph. ii. 1, 2 r where, speaking of their calling (which is the look ing-glass of election), he presents them alike dead in sins and trespasses, as the whole bulk and body of mankind were in, and these elect ones, chap, i., together with them : We, says he, even as others, that is his compara tive, as it is mine here, and those others were of such as God eternally left in that condition, passing by them, and leaving them even as he found them : and by this he heightens the grace, love, and mercy God had borne to them as the cause of all this: ver. 4, According as he hath chosen us in him be fore the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and wiihout blame before him in love : and he concludes thereupon, by grace you are saved, ver. 5, an infinite grace, manifested by this common condition of us with others. And although these things are spoken of them, of what they were at and afore the time of their calling, and in their unregenerate condition, yet this act of election we are now upon, that had man fallen for its object, and the common condition thereof, did take men, and viewed as at and afore calling them, they are found to be in. And of this act the rule certainly holds, that look what a calling God found us to be, in that election viewed us, which that passage, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27, For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, evidently shews. Those words but God hath chosen, &c. come in as an explanation or confirmation of the former words, You see your calling ; as if he had said, Look what those were whom calling singles out, and what they are after calling in paucity ; the same they were, therefore, for their conditions, whom God chose, and in his view such to be.

2. And here let us now add to the consideration of this common condition the infinite number of those others whom God hath laid aside in this fallen condition, in comparison of so very a few, who, together with thyself, were elected out of them, which the event doth manifestly declare the multitude of those left, and the paucity, or fewness, of those whom God sets his heart upon ; and unto what a stupendous infinity will this enhance the grace of that election towards those few. Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved, and that rem nant is that of election : Eom. xi. 5, A remnant according to the election of grace. A remnant signifies a small number in comparison to the whole. As also his comparison, ver. 29, shews, Unless God had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. That notes their fewness, being but as when the most of a man s crop is sold and eaten, there is but a very small part reserved for seed against the next harvest. The like unto this doth that comparison of the first fruits in James and in the type import.

Now the paucity of men enjoying any privilege magnifies it the more ; as

in the case of Noah s preservation and salvation fore-mentioned in the third chapter of the first of Peter. It is expressly noted, that few with him were saved, that is, but eight persons, saith he, unto the whole world, ver. 20.

Likewise, Luke the 12th, says Christ, * the.se things do the nations seek, ver. 80; viz., the things of this world; and God gives them to them, but in opposition thereto : ver. 32, Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father s good pleasure to give you the kingdom ; q. d. he hath reserved that of the kingdom for you. And his scope is withal to shew that hereby it is rendered the greater mercy, and that so few of you should be preserved unto such favours, whilst the rest are left to seek other things as their best and only portion. The old law in dividing the lands by inheritance to the people of * Thou shalt give the more inheritance unto many, and unto few thou shalt dimmish or give the less inheritance, Num.

Israel, had this rule given them, xxvi. 54. But this inheritance of heaven and of himself, God took a few of mankind, and gave the whole of that inheritance to all and each of them.

It is said, Deut. xxxii. 8, that when God divided the inheritance to the nations, he set their bounds according to the number of the people of Israel.

Seventy nations (as Gen. x.), according to the number but of seventy souls, which was their whole number when they came out of Egypt, Gen. xlvi. 27. A small proportion of seventy men, to seventy whole nations of others, of one man to a whole nation. But then, what did God reserve for these seventy men, and those of their seed which he had chosen? It follows in the same

The Lord s portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance, whom he reserved for himself to be his inheritance, and he place of Deut., ver. 9, to be their inheritance, as you often find. And this only because (as in the same Deut., chap. x. 15), * Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Although at ver. 14 (and he says it with a behold of infinite

Behold, the heaven and the heavens is the Lord s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is ; which is as if he had said, Though he had enough before him of angels once in heaven, and of men on earth, yet this is thy privilege above all, that God chose out so few at first when he chose thee, which, ver. 22, he minds them of, wonderment), * Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons ; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven. And again, though he had the heaven of heavens, large enough for millions of worlds of men to have filled it, many mansions, as Christ says, yet he took those few of Israel, and of those but a remnant to possess it, and gave the earth only unto all the rest ; with which falls in Ps. cxv. 15, You are the blessed of the Lord, which made heaven and earth. For so it follows, ver. 16, The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord s ; but the earth hath he given to the children of men ; that is, he hath culled or singled forth you from out of the rest of the chil dren of men, as whom he would bless with all blessings in heavenly things, but hath given the earth, and the blessings thereof, to the rest of the chil dren of men.

And now, to affect your hearts, begin to cast your eyes first upon that world of mankind which is now extant and in being at this day, and you may even well nigh say of the men of this age and world in all nations at the present, as the apostle did of all nations for the time past until his times, God suffers them to walk in their own way. Or you may say as the apostle John said of the same age, and the then present evil world (as Paul epithets it, Gal. i. 4), so of this present froward generation of mankind, that the whole world lies in wickedness. And those few of us that are of God are thin sown, a poor small handful of gleaning unto the whole great

170 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. crop of mankind ; you have it 1 John v. 19, This we know, saith he there. And by the same anointing we also now may see the same event, and de facto to be the same. And what falls out thus in the event is but speculum decretivum Dei, the looking-glass of, and representeth what lay in, God s decrees from everlasting.

And oh, how deeply should the comparative of this affect our hearts !

For a few to be singled forth and saved, when a multitude, yea, a generality of others are suffered to perish, how doth it heighten the mercy and grace of a salvation to us, that is but of a lower kind, as if but temporal deliver ances from bodily death, or the like ; and for God in his providence to order many outward means to save and deliver a few, which he denies to those others who perish, how doth this affect the persons that are preserved

! How much more when it falls out thus in * so great a salvation as this is, as the apostle says of it ! This you may see in such examples as were but types and mere shadows in comparison of this very thing, as in the instance of Noah and his family in the flood appeared, God saved Noah, says the text, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, even the whole world of them. And it is resolved into this by God himself: Gen. vi. 7, 8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord ; which grace was as there heightened by this comparative of his destroying man from off the earth, as in the same verse, who were a world of ungodly, as the apostle says. The same appears in the example of Lot, pulled out of Sodom by the hand and force of angels, even as we were ordained to be delivered, as by force, as the word sdcaro signifies in Col. i. 14 ; Saved out of the fire, says Jude ; and Paul also

The Lord being merciful, says the text, Gen. xix. 16. And behold with what and how deep a sense and value did Lot entertain in 1 Cor. iii. 15 ; this mercy. Lot did greaten it to himself, from this comparative between him and those in Sodom, in the same Gen. xix. 19, Behold now thy ser vant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life.

But there is this further to be considered in our being thus delivered forth of this our condition of like sinfulness and wrath, that was different in the case of Lot or Noah. Noah was righteous in his generation, &c., and of Lot it is said, his righteous soul was vexed, &c. They were not guilty of the same sins in common with others, for which God brought the flood and fire. And their condition was then, de facto, changed by grace from the state of sin unto a state of holiness.

But here, when we were ordained unto salvation, we lay afore the great God in a like condition of guilt and reprobability, as to the means, that all lay in ; and that then the decree concerning us should alter and change that state of sin into which we were fallen into a state of grace and righteousness, as the means to bring us to glory. How stupendous was the mercy of God towards us ! All had sinned, and * there was no difference, as Rom. iii. 19. None such as between Noah and the old world there was when God saved him in the ark.

CHAPTER V.

The infinite grace of God in election, by a view of the particular conditions of elect and others compared.

These particular conditions are drawn from the several sizes and degrees

CHAP. Y.j OF ELECTION

of actual sin greater or lesser in the elect, compared with others passed by ; or else some other outward circumstances, wherein many of the elect and those others are found sometimes the same, sometimes again diverse in the one and the other (all which conditions are disposed of upon the foresight of the fall), and yet all of them do in various, and sometimes contrary respects, in a way of comparing each condition with the other, conduce and conspire all and each of them unto the magnifying of God s special and super-eminently singular grace of election (as indeed all things serve to do). The particular instances will shew the truth and meaning of the premiss. There are many of them, and it may prove that I shall instance but a very few.

And yet, ere I come to those particulars, I must yet premise one thing further; namely, that the elect, in comparing any of these particulars I shall instance in, may take a survey, for the affecting of his heart, of the conditions not only of believers in the present age, but that have been in all ages past, yea, and to come, and some way or other (as I shall endeavour to direct) improve it for the adoring God s grace to himself. Look, as in the last general comparative, common to all mankind, thou hadst the whole world of mankind afore thee, in respect to the common condition of sin and misery, so here thou hast, in forming up this new sort of comparison, the particular cases and various conditions of all sorts of men in all ages, and those as fore-viewed by God when he chose them, to compare with thine own, to the end to glorify his grace towards thee in particular the more.

My warrant for our entering this comparative into the condition of persons in all ages, is, first, that passage in 2 Thes. ii., &c., which shall be my present text : But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. For that particle, but for you, sending us to the verses afore, there we find the condition of others set out, whom God had rejected, but hath chosen you. Now who were these others, but such as the apostle foretells were yet to come, and to be a more corrupt generation than ever had been in the world before them, and that were to come many years after ; concerning whom he prophesies thus, ver. 3, There must be a falling away, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; ver. 9-12, Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And then follows that, * But we are bound to give thanks for you, that God hath chosen you, &c. And this man of sin he means is antichrist, the pope and his deceiving clergy, the whole body of them, who for so many ages should be able to deceive the whole world, as their multitude, those deceived, are termed, Rom. xiii. 3, and to continue and prevail throughout many and many ages after these Thessalonians should be in their graves, being at this day, and to make up the greater part of the European world. Now these Thessalonians, that lived in the first pure age of Christianity, were notwithstanding, in blessing God for their own election, to take their view unto that whole succession and multitude of men, and for so many ages, during which popery was to continue, and comparing themselves (though but a particular comparison) with the condition these generations were to be left unto by God s just pre ordination, to magnify that love of God to themselves, as illustrated by all

172 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. that unrighteousness and infidelity so great a multitude, for so long a con tinuance, should be given up unto.

Thus doth he propose this very comparative to heighten this love of God s, and their thankfulness for election. In Rev. xiii. 7, 8, the Holy Ghost makes the same comparison, indeed, between a few elect and the others of all nations, tongues, kindreds ; yea, in a manner all that dwell on the earth that worshipped the beast ; and, on the other hand, a few elect that should not be deceived by him ; which he doth to greaten the same love of election. Thus expressly, ver. 8, And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There is this small difference between these two comparatives in these two scriptures, both of which yet remain full to this purpose we have in hand, that that in the Revelation concerned and was spoken of those elect who should live in those very ages wherein popery and antichristianism should reign, and be in its ruff, who should be then alive, and see with their eyes all the whole world, &c., worshipping the beast (who is the same man of sin in the Thessalonians), that so they might adore and worship God and the Lamb for their election out of the rest of the world, with whom they then lived, and with the highest admiration attribute their preservation from that idolatrous worship unto their having been written in the Lamb s book, and glorify God. Whereas these Thes salonians lived in the apostle s times, when that mystery began but to work in heresies that were the forerunners of that apostasy, and as smaller streams, emptying themselves at last into that great sea or lake, and yet were to take in the prospect of this apostatising world so long afore, and yet to adore and glorify God, that by election had secured them in their effectual salvation ; and this they were to do, as well as those other elect, that were to live in those times amongst those idolatrous worshippers. However, both instances serve to our argument in hand, viz., that this comparative with others ought to be made by us both with the present world, and corruption of the times and persons we live in, and with whom we live ; and also to be intended to all ages to come, yea, and the world that shall be, to the end of the world ; and then, by like reason, ought also to be improved to the like glorifying of God for his electing mercies, in comparison with his rejection of men in all ages that are past, since the beginning of the world.

So, then, this our comparative stretcheth itself over all times, and to take into the account the infinite number of persons that have been, are, and shall be, whom God hath cast off; and are accordingly bound to give thanks unto God for his election of us, and not them, from out of all, as we and they lay in one heap and view afore him. And the reason is clear ; for when God elected thee, thou wert not chosen out of the lump of this present age, but all the sons of Adam lay afore him in a like great level. It was free to him to have appointed then any of the several times they should live in, when he disposed of their several everlasting conditions. He then ap pointed the times they should each live in, so as he might have allotted thee to have lived in any of those ages, past or to come, as easy as the present time thou livest in ; and therefore there is the same reason thou shouldst set thyself in this comparison with the whole lump of mankind in all times as with that with whom thou livest. And thou art to consider election to have proceeded upon the common first level, and so to compare thyself with all men that are, or have been, and when all mankind shall be visibly extant, either the goats at the left hand, and this little flock at the right, when with us they shall hear that voice, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the

world. To the other the contrary pronounced, Depart from me, I never knew you ; and thereby reprobation expressed in its negative act of nescio, I never knew you, as in the other speech declared oppositely, you were foreknown and chosen hereunto ; and accordingly that kingdom they were entering into was prepared from the foundation of the world, unto which they were chosen. And the opposite negation thereof will be avowedly pro fessed and acknowledged by Christ himself to have been at the head of these two issues of the sons of men. Whereby, how will (as it must needs) electing grace be infinitely extolled, and with what exaltation of it, and exul tation of spirit in us, and adoration of God, will this comparative (so little minded) be then entertained by us, even which I have all this while exhorted you unto ; and yet whose heart almost doth the consideration of this enter into and strike ? Indeed, because what is yet to come we know not, and what is past is failed out of sight, and so affects us not. Oh, yet how conspicuous shall all this be at that day when Christ shall have the whole world ren dezvoused afore him ! even when the succession and account of the world shall have been finished and perfected, and the stories of all be told.

You that are the chosen of God, having this large prospect afore you, may further affect your hearts with these particulars of your several condi tions.

First particular. You were fore-viewed by God when chosen, as those that would actually of themselves run into the same excess of sinnings, the very same sins, with all and the like circumstances of aggravation, and in a continued course of sinning, afore their effectual calling, that others, the rest, are and have been, and shall be left unto ; no difference at all in that respect neither, as the same Eph. ii. 2, 3, * Wherein in time past ye walked accord ing to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience : among whom also we 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, as well as others. And then comes in the like but * But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with ver. 4, Christ, &c. as in that 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14. Now consider that God hath and doth suffer these others to go on and persist in that course to the end of their days, and to die in their sins. And if thou hadst gone on, what a monster in sinning wouldst thou have proved to be ! How great and swell ing a toad in wickedness ! This might have been thy lot. But God hath ordained thee by faith and repentance (whereby he called thee with an holy calling) to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ. This the foregone rule given, concerning both calling and election, doth sufficiently also confirm ; for calling finds us in all the sinfulness of our forepassed course, and there fore election viewed us in the same at calling. The same horrid sin of crucifying Christ, which the elders of the Jews ran into, and the generality of the people, for which they were remitted to that condemnation/ thousands of the elect Jews were guilty of, together with them, and yet they were saved from that froward generation, which expression, used by Peter, respecteth the generality of that nation in that age, and is used to set forth the great ness of that salvation tendered them (they now beginning to repent), so to move and promove them thereunto, and to draw them unto faith on Christ ; and yet the sin of crucifying Christ was committed by them that were there saved, as well as by those that perished. And as the persons were ordained to one or the other of these ends or issues of them, so all things that con cerned that hideous act, were all fore-determined by God s eternal counsel,

174 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. as they were committed by the one as by the other : Acts iv. 28, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Second particular. That even after effectual calling many of these elect (and it may be it hath been some of their cases that hear me) were foreviewed to run through many of the same sinful temptations, yea, and to fall into the like gross acts of the like kind of sinning for a season, which of themselves would hazard and endanger their ever coming unto glory, if elec tion redeemed them not, as much as de facto it falls out that the damnation of the other is carried on thereby. And the difference lies in thisthat God takes and resolves to take advantage against the one, as he did against Saul, and the Jews that crucified Christ, when not against David, nor against those. This magnified electing love in the case of David and Solomon, in that though they forsook his laws, and walked not in his judgments, but * Nevertheless, I will not break my covenant, &c. Ps. brake his law, &c.

Ixxxix. from verse 28 to 35. The apostle Jude doth the very same, for writing to the saints of that age, the preserved in Christ from amongst such fatal ruins as other professors had then fallen under, the whole structure of their profession falling on them, and the fall of that house was great, as Christ speaks, he, to magnify God s electing grace to us, sets before them, first, their having been chosen and beloved by God the Father, in ver. 1, as the foundation of their preservation ; and then the contrary fate of those wicked men in that age, ver 4, There are certain men, who were ordained afore of old to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus

Christ. And the very measures, both of their sin and their condemnation, he, to this our purpose afore us, sets out, ver. 11-13, Woe unto them ! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves with out fear : clouds they are without water, carried about of winds ; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Third particular. Thou mayest single forth the worst of mankind that are now in thine eye alive, and acting the height of wickedness, or whom thou: the gigantic monsters of mankind, as hast heard or read of in ages past were the sinners of the old world, great for renown in sinning, the Hectors in wickedness, as the worst of emperors, the Neroes, or the wickedest popes, the men of sin, many of whom sin hath sublimated unto meriting the name of men of sin, in comparison of other sinners ; thou mayest take also such as have had their spirits envenomed with that which is the devil s sin, a wilful malice against God, his Christ, and their saints, the sin first against the Holy Ghost, the Pharisees, the Julians, &c., that have been in the world ; pitch upon any, the thought of whose case did at any time most dread thee to be in, and go home and bless God he left thee not to the same ; that thou wert not Cain, nor Judas, nor any of these fore-mentioned (which thou mightst have been) ; and, further, that God hath chosen thee to such a glory. For what in God made thee to differ ? That which you heard out of the Thessalonians : But God hath chosen you. That very Scripture doth not only give the warrant to do this, but doth plainly and directly excite to it, whilst he sets afore them some of those wicked popes, &c., whom he brands with the dreadful mark worse than Cain, the man and men of sin, on purpose to aggrandise the mercy of this particular election thereby, that they were not left by a permissive decree to have been such as one of them.

Fourth particular. On the contrary, compare thyself and thy condition in sinning, with those that have been far less sinners than thou hast been, and this consideration also will conduce to exalt electing grace towards thee ; for upon the consideration of the fall God viewed this their condition of less sinning, together with thine, and yet chose thee and refused them, when it is certain there was found a far greater matter of reprobability (as I spake afore) in thee than was in them. It is certain, both from Scripture and experience, that God vouchsafes that transcendent mercy and privilege of his word and gospel unto some that were, and afterwards prove, the wickedest of men, whenas he denies unto others far less wicked, and more teachable and receptive of it. Thus in the prophet Ezekiel, God tells the prophet that if he had sent him to any other nation, utter stranger to any of his messages from God, as a prophet, which were familiar to the Jews, yea, that were un acquainted with the prophet s language, had I sent thee unto them, they would have hearkened unto thee : Ezek. iii. 7, But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee ; for they will not hearken unto me : for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. And yet God passed by them nations. Now God, according to his pleasure, disposeth the outward privi lege of his word with so great a difference towards men, even of them whom he calls, away so much more doth he sbew it in electing grace, in his not vouchsafing to cast it upon lesser sinners, nor to go by such a rule, but often upon greater, as upon publicans and harlots, when not upon pharisees, the strictest sort of justiciaries, as Paul, Acts xxvi. 5, said, and as Christ s speeches and parables shew. And look as God s vouchsafing his word (gospel) to those fore-mentioned, was the highest aggravation by reason of the comparative difference between them, so, on the contrary, that God hath left such a multitude of better-disposed sinners in all ages past than we, and yet given us both the outward knowledge of his word, and inward grace of his Spirit to accompany it, this heightens his love and mercy to us. In Mat. xi. Christ having instanced in the most debauched cities that have been in the world, Sodom and Gomorrah, and withal in the most civil and most in genuous of all the heathens, Tyre (I characterise them such, because of their ingenuity unto God s people the Jews; not malicious as was Edom, &c., but friendly and assistant, even to the building of the temple, and who by their vicinity might easily have been made partakers of the privileges of the Jews), all advantages they had, and their susceptiveness and aptness to have received the gospel if preached unto them was such, as Christ says, that if those works had been done in Tyre, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. And yet God afforded not to these the knowledge of his ways, much less of the gospel, as he had done to these cities of the Jews whom Christ there upbraids, the mercy of which towards them he upbraids them with to their just condemnation; which, when he had done in verses 22-24, he takes occasion from thence much more to magnify God s mercy vouchsafed unto his elect (whether those few of those cities whom his ministry had wrought upon, or others elsewhere converted by himself or John) in his subsequent thanksgiving, we have so often made mention of : ver. 25, 26, At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in thy sight. In which speech he had his eye upon those fore-cited examples, both of Tyre and Sodom, in compare with these hardened

Capernaites ; that God had hid these things from both lesser and greater sinners, and had not only outwardly declared them, which he had done unto

Capernaum, but inwardly and effectually had wrought upon his babes

176 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. thereby for it was upon occasion Christ broke forth into so solemn an adoration of God, as these words At that time Jesus answered and said do shew, for they are continuatio oration**, a continuation of his former discourse, as Chemnitius observes; and the word he answered, referreth not to others having first spoke to him, whom he should have answered, but it relates to the matter foregone, and so that he speaks answerably thereto, so as this of Christ, and the matter by-past, do hold a congenial connection with the former. And Christ s adoration of God for electing those he had con verted, drew down into it, and involved in it, a comparative with those ex amples of those others mentioned that had been passed by, both Tynans, Sodomites, and those of Capernaum.

And indeed, if there were no other, this alone would argue what 1 intend, viz., that by the same rule whereby Christ aggravates the sin and punish ment of those cities, a sin so highly perpetrated against so great a mercy of Christ, his preaching the gospel, which he had not vouchsafed to sinners of a lesser size, and that would have repented if they had enjoyed it, and that notwithstanding God had not designed it to them ; by the same rule, I say, by way of parallel, a like reason (though alleged to this clean contrary pur pose) ought those that had been converted by Christ s ministry in those cities (and so ought we) to have celebrated God s electing grace, in his hav ing revealed those things to them inwardly and effectually: the very outward manifestation of which to those Tynans, &c. in former ages, would, if they had known them, have brought forth some fruits of repentance, as the Ninevites had also done. And these babes he speaks of, upon Christ s speech, and after his example they might have said, We, whom our Lord hath thus converted, and God fore-chosen, had yet as hard and impenitent hearts as any in Capernaum and Bethsaida had, until God, by his mighty power, inwardly revealed his Son to us ; yea, and they were some of the nations that were our neighbours in former ages, that were far less sinners than we, and of more noble and ingenuous spirits, more readily to have entertained the gospel (as of the Bereans it is said), and God passed by them, ! What cause have we but hath revealed it unto us. Unspeakable mercy then to bless God in the sense thereof, for this his discriminating good pleasure towards us. And if Christ involves and wraps in the examples and instances of these into his thanksgivings, as matter of thankfulness, then how ought we ?

But we need not go by inferences thus to make good the truth of this branch, for God hath more plainly and explicitly resolved this difference of : Deut. x. 15, 16, greater and lesser sinners, &c., into his electing grace

Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. When he says only, that secludes all other motives and considerations, and shews God barely and simply chose thee out of love above all nations else, not for thy righteousness. He speaks it in a comparison with other nations, and not simply alone ; for he there brings and presents them to a view of other nations, and so the scope runs thus, that they were no more righteous than other nations whom he refused, nor did he refuse other nations upon that account ; and not only so, but that they were worse than other nations, as that additional, be no more stiff-necked, imports ; insinuating thereby the special obduration of that nation above any other ; it is a comparative speech that too. And with that character God frequently brands and upbraids them, as more peculiar to them ; as in Exod. xxxii. 9, I the Lord said unto

Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.

And in chap, xxxiii. 3-5, and Moses in his time had said the same of them ; Exod. xxxiv. 9, which in Deuteronomy he repeats again and again to them, as upon his constant experience of them ; and tells them, though the nations that were cast out were very wicked, and for their wickedness cast out, that yet they themselves were in a more eminent manner, a stiff-necked people ; compare for this Deut. ix. 5, 6, * Understand therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people. This was that brand and black mark of them, by God himself, which Moses terms hardness : Look not to the hardness of this people, and their wickedness, Deut. ix. 27, which God fore saw, yet he chose them ; yea, he saith it of them, whilst he is a-telling them he chose them above all people, as those places shew ; insinuating also thereby, that as he chose them above all, so that they were stiff-necked above all.

Fifth particular. Thou mayest compare thy condition with others, whom God hath wrought great and mighty works upon, that yet fall short of saving grace ; as those in Heb. vi. 4, 5, that have been enlightened, tasted the good word of God, and the power of the world to come, and yet fall away, as ver. 7, in a way of supposition he there intimateth, and experience hath shewn in multitudes in our days afore our eyes. And as in the third par ticular, I bade thee there single forth the highest and worst of sinners, and magnify the grace of God towards thee, in that thou mightest, and wouldest of thyself have been like to them, yea, the same; so now I send thee to the best of sinners (as I may so term them, for, for a time they are such), that have by a work of the Holy Ghost been elevated and raised up to the highest pitch of gifts (I cannot say graces) which brought them near the kingdom of God, that were even at the door, as the foolish virgins were, and yet at length shut out ; and many other instances of such do the Scriptures afford. The first prove last, and the last first, that is, some of the most forward and eminent professors vanish, and come to nothing ; and poor weak believers, they come to be the first, that is, the highest attainers of grace. Now, what is it that puts the difference but (originally) electing grace, as our Saviour hath resolved us ; Mat. xx. 16, * So the last shall be first, and the first last ; for many be called, but few chosen. Those last words, as that particle for shews, give that as the reason of it. By the like comparison, though of a lower size, the apostle Paul doth magnify electing grace in the latter end of chap the 9th and 10th to the Romans, and at the beginning of * The Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the llth, which continues that his discourse, chap. ix. 30, 31, the righteousness which is of faith : but Israel, that followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. And again, x. 20, 21, But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not ; I was made manifest to them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a dis obedient and gainsaying people. Which in the beginning of chap, the llth, he resolves into election of grace, ver. 5 and 11, * Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

Thou mayest in the contemplation of this branch, enlarge thy thoughts unto all the several sizes of those who have been more or less wrought upon by works not saving, which defect is herein, in their not persevering, and so * Look diligently lest any man fail the grace of God ; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and VOL. IX. M they fall short of grace ; as Heb. xii. 15,

178 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. thereby many be defiled. And herein thou mayest extend thy thoughts unto the highest attainments, of such that have after proved apostates, thou hast ever read or heard of, that have abounded in all knowledge, come be hind in no spiritual gift, whilst thou a poor, weak, yet sincere saint, art behind in all such kind of spiritual gifts of praying, speaking, utterance, memory, &c., and yet hast a little thing in thy heart, called sincerity and honesty of heart (as Christ calls it), towards God, which is the fruit of elec tion, which puts as great a difference between thee and those, as is between a star in heaven and a -meteor in the air, or glow-worm on the earth. The other may have done far greater outward service to Christ in outward works, as in prophesying in his name, &c,, and have suffered as great things for Christ, and may have inwardly been wrought upon with affection to things spiritual, though not spiritually ; their conversation, their speeches, their prayer about holy things, the same ; and the difference to be but as of oil in the lamp, serving to present performances, and oil in the vessel, in the heart itself, inwardly and habitually bringing forth fruit, but yet without root in themselves. They have yet wanted that great principle of love unto God, and his saints, as 1 Cor. xiii., Paul there, though in a way of supposition, affirmeth their defect to lie therein : ver. 1-3, Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have no charity, it profiteth me nothing. But, if thou canst (though in a very weak, yet sincere measure), say, as the apostle, of these believing Hebrews, chap. vi. -9, 10, that thou hopest better things, and things accompanying salvation ; for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed towards his name, in that ye have ministered to his saints, and do minister ; the difference be tween thee and them in appearance so small, but yet is such in that respect, as is between the counterfeit of a jewel and a diamond itself ; and yet in reality, and according to true worth, and the price which God sets upon things, should have so infinite a difference as by the issue and event (so great as salvation and damnation are -of), appears, which issue it is that election -did design to bring the one unto ; and that same providential free-will-grace rising no higher than mere self-love, wrought upon by spiritual objects, brings the other unto. Oh, what thanks art thou bound to give unto God, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by the gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ !

This, as to the point of -actual sinnings, and a comparative reared there upon in these several variations. Secondly, there are certain circumstances which were cast and disposed of by God upon the fall among the sons of men, the continuation -of which serve in as great a variety to enhance this election grace also towards those that are his.

Sixth particular. As take such as are hard ; contempt, poverty, honour, and riches, thou mayest consider the great disproportion of thy outward condition in this world, with what hath been and is of those others, flie rest, whom God hath past by, that give a just occasion in the like variety for the declaration of God s grace to thee. Thou art poor, and mean, and despicable in the world : and take thy intellectual parts, the most of you are weak, and comparatively a foolish generation ; and the children of this world, says Christ, are generally wiser in their generation. You know how

Paul urgeth and indigitateth this for the saints to reflect upon in comparision with others : 1 Cor. i. 26, For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; and resolves the obtaining of it into election, as the dis poser that it should so be : ver. 27, 28, But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty ; anc? base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. So as an eminent glory ariseth to God thereby. Our Saviour also particularly instanceth in such a difference of wisdom for all other whatever, &c. For it is the greater excellency man hath to glory in, and excelleth folly, as Solomon says, as far as light excelleth darkness : Eccles. ii. 13. Wherefore Christ

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou magnifies this grace of election : Mat. xi. 25, 26, hast hid those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. And it is for certain, that the consideration of these kind of outward differences, although they are but such as are and continue, but whilst we are in this world, had a mighty weight and impression upon our Saviour s heart whilst he thus extolled his Father thereupon, as those considerations which do mightily tend to the glory of God s grace in choosing such comparatively to others, and therefore should have the like place and esteem with our hearts ; for Christ was privy to God s counsel, and an equal estimator of things as they stand in God s own intention and esteem. I need not amplify how much the Scriptures do inculcate this very thing, as James ii. 5.

If you say these are but outward respects, that are but for the moment of this life, how should these then have much subserviency to glorify electing grace, which is to eternity and from eternity ?

I answer, Even as well as our outward sufferings, though but for a moment, work an eternal weight of glory to us, these small differences in condition insinuate and conduce to the everlasting glory of God s decrees, and particularly for that of wisdom. The matters of the other world run upon other feet, another account, from what in this world men s natural abilities and gifts, largeness and quickness of understanding, and notional knowledge, even in divine things in this world proceed upon ; they con tribute nothing at all as any preparative of the understanding, the subject they are in, to widen or extend it the more, or capacitate men to take in the knowledge of God, as in heaven he is known ; but an understanding that was narrow, and clung, even of fools and weak ones here, is there stretched by an intuitive height of glory to take in the knowledge of God more sublimely and largely than the widest in outward wisdom, although withal they be saints, when God yet doth not vouchsafe a greater measure of intuitive height unto them. The saints, that are of the largest size of understanding, and of the greatest capacity here, shall not at all have the greatest measure of knowing God in heaven ; but babes and weak ones may excell them. Much more is it true of worldly-wise men, that their great parts make them not nearer, &c. God hath no need of any kind of men s abilities to make them more capacious of seeing his face in glory, no, nor of attainments to a greater measure of faith or holiness here. And, therefore, God in election is at a perfect liberty to choose out babes, and to leave out those wise ones ; yea their wisdom is the greatest hindrance unto that grace election worketh.

And what Christ applies to wisdom in such respect unto electing grace,

180 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. them mayest apply the same unto any other excellencies whatsoever, as riches, glory, power, renown, &c., Isa. xli. 9. God magnifying electing grace, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away, sets it out by this, that he singled them, he chose them out from the chief men of the earth.

Again, on the other hand, those few elect that are honourable, and rich, and mighty in this world, they have in other respects as great cause to glorify God as the former, as upon another occasion James speaks, The poor rejoiceth he is exalted ; the rich hath cause to do so, and that both in respect of the fewness of that sort of men, Not many wise, not many noble, and therefore some. These of high degree may exalt and adore that grace which singled them forth from the heap of those their peers in riches and honours ; thus a prince and nobles that are godly have cause to do so, in respect of the fewness of such. Ne unus ex centum, says Calvin often, as he a-dying sent back word to his king, having sent to visit him, Tell him I am going to a * Have any of the rulers place where few kings come. So for nobles, &c. or pharisees believed on him ? John vii. 48 ; which none of the princes of this world knew, 1 Cor. ii. 8, but only Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. And as for the rarity, so the privilege, for a prince to be born to a crown here and hereafter, what a great mercy is it ! And here in the manage of thy meditations about this branch, thou mayest again assume and make use of that forenientioned survey of the conditions of men in all ages past, and through that telescope take in the prospect of all men that have been great and worthy in this world upon any such re spects, and then viewing thyself in thy differing condition of meanness, lowness, contemptibleness, every way, mayest thereby take occasion to exalt the grace of God to thee, who hath loved thee and chosen thee ! Oh think with thyself what and how many wise, heroic, valiant, virtuous, generous grandees, what great souls have been in the world, men of renown in the famous nations, as the prophet speaks, Ezek. xxxii. 18, Son of Man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit ; whom God hath laid aside in hell, with their swords under their heads and their iniquities upon their bones, as the prophet Ezekiel speaks, chap, xxxii. 18-22, but hath chosen thee, a despised man ; and as godly Isaiah says, He hath chosen thee from the ends of the earth, and from the chief men thereof, and not cast thee away, that is, as he hath done them. There is a small word in Peter, which is yet of infinite import to this, 1 Pet. i. 5, Begotten, says he, to an inheritance reserved in heaven for you, ready to be revealed in the last time. Reserved for you (that is the word), though it had been ready, or prepared even from the beginning of the world, as Christ speaks ; and the import it seems to speak to me is, that God having had in all ages past multitudes of persons that had passed afore him, whom he might have bestowed this inheritance upon, and as they passed along they might have tempted him (if I may so speak after the manner of men) to have letted and bestowed this inheritance upon millions of great and excellent souls. If respect of persons (which phrase is pro perly meant of a respect unto men s outward condition) might have had any place with God, so as to have given their places away ere you had come into the world, and have filled heaven, and the number of whom he meant to save, with such goodly personages as these, yet those places in heaven reserved for you stood thinly inhabited, and in a manner vacant, all that while. Oh ! therefore stand astonished at his special grace to you, says the apostle. That he reserved it for you, and that he still said all along with himself, Pass them by, let them all go, I have others who are yet in

mine eyes I keep those mansions empty for, and none shall have them from them. And the wonder is set forth by this, that it was for those that are born in these latter days of the world, and, as Paul says of himself, born out of time, as one would think. I may illustrate it by what indeed was the type of this, 1 Sam. xvi., even by the stay of David s choice to the kingdom. God, to set off the greatness of his grace, ordered first that ten* sons of Jesse should pass afore Samuel (as the word is in ver. 8-10) the elder first, so goodly a person, and that looked like a prince already, and so great a mnjestic grandeur in his person, that Samuel when he looked on him, said at first sight, Surely the Lord s anointed is afore me, ver. 6.

If Samuel had been to choose, this should have been the man, he would have said, What shall we look any further ?

* But the Lord said unto

Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or at the height of his stature, for the Lord sees not as man sees, &c., ver. 7. And in like manner to this did the other ninef brethren in a successive way pass afore him. But God had (to speak in Peter s language) reserved this kingdom for David, the young est, not yet grown up, nor now at home, but out of sight in the field, and so out of mind, a youngling, born out of time. It entered not so much as into his father s thoughts that God should have intended him, or that he have stayed his coming, having such other choice of so many worthies afore him. But Samuel, inquiring if he had no more sons, bade him send for him, and no sooner came he in but God said, This is he, ver. 12. I have stayed for [him] till he should come, &c. And by this, or such like repre sentations as these, mayest thou in like manner quicken and actuate thy meditations of thy election, and the mercy in it. And we that are born sixteen hundred years yet further downwards in the world, after Peter wrote this unto them, after so many more revolutions have passed over the gene rations of the sons of men, we have more occasion and matter greater to improve and enhance this grace towards us, that by virtue of eternal election, we should be in this latter end of the world begotten to this in heritance, reserved all along for us from the beginning, I say, by virtue

Of election.

Form what was it that had thus reserved it for thee in these days, and for them then ? The apostle had premised it at the first dash, in an entrance in ver. 2, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, that was the original of all, and it was it he had said, that God had viewed all others that had been afore him, but foreknew and fixed his love by choice on these, and overlooked all the rest, winked at them, as the apostle s phrase is in another case. These have my hands made, but it is these to whom I look. .

Election itself is, in respect of the persons chosen, styled a reservation of a remnant : Rom. xi. 4, 5, I have reserved unto myself seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then that at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. As a man foreseeing common and general ruins, makes a reservation of some few whom he especially fancies to be kept out of it, thus election is there expressed ; and here, in Peter, there is a reservation or keeping of an inhe ritance by virtue of the same election ; as by a father for a son whom he loves, till he come of age, as Abraham did the inheritance of Isaac, reserva tions both, equipollent unto which is that acknowledgment of the apostle Paul of himself, and those others in the primitive times, That God had hid

Seven. The three that are named, ver. 7-9, are included amongst the seven in ver. 10, as appears from the next chapter, xvii. 12. ED. t Six. ED.

182 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IIL the mystery of the gospel from foregone ages ; having ordained it for our glory, kings and prophets having desired to see and hear what we do, as Christ speaks, Luke x. 25.

And hereby thou mayest adore the constancy of God s love, and the firm ness of his purpose, according to election, as the apostle s speech imports, Rom. ix. 11. It is like as if a prince having (as some have feigned) had when young, a foresight in a dream, of a great beauty as then unborn, should be so set and fixed in love unto her, that although when grown up, he hath a thousand greater beauties perhaps to pass afore him at sundry times, yet is so constant in his purpose to the person whose idea he had taken in, and resolved to make his spouse so long afore, as he refuseth them, and stays till she is both born and grown up marriageable for him. And by this similitude (casting off what after the manner of man was to be supposed to make up the parable, and for the imperfection thereof must not be applied to God), you may help your conceptions also of God s love to you, who having had but the idea and image of you afore the world was, yet bore that entire and indissoluble affection to you, comparatively to those infinite mil lions that have been in the world, and hath shewn it by this in refusing them, though appearing in all sorts of excellencies unto him, and staying all that while, reserving himself for you, as in that speech, I have reserved to myself, &c., you have it; and reserving the inheritance of heaven and glory likewise for you.

Seventh particular. There are other sorts of outward circumstances, rela tions, and considerations, that the elect are placed, wherein God comes near home to you, as in near relations, &c., that are more approximate. Thou mayest perhaps behold this much of differencing grace put between thee and others in thy father s house, thy own family, kindred, thy relations, and compa nions, play-fellows, school-fellows, friends, colleagues, fellow-servants, and multitude of the like relations. By the providences of God, others have been yoked and conjoined with thee, and thou with them ; and by the dif ferences which by election God hath put (as in the issue of men s lives, courses, and spirits, doth and may appear) between thee and them, thou mayest discern conspicuously God s special electing love that hath taken hold of thee, when not on them, they remaining still in nature, or some, yea perhaps many of them, having died without any evidence of a saving work upon them, and so in their sins.

That infinite love of God to thee, hath cast about and contrived all sorts of ways (and even by such ways as these) to make endearments of itself unto us ; and his variety of wisdom did, upon the foresight of the fall, dispose of men s conditions several ways, to the end to enhance this love to ,his own by, if we had but eyes to see and understand, hearts disposed to be affected therewith accordingly.

But you will say, do such small differences as these put between men so conjunct in one and the same relations, or like employments, partnerships, office, &c., that one should be taken and chosen of God, and the other rejected ? Have such small circumstances as these any weight or influence to heighten electing love ?

Yea, verily, much every way ; for evidence of which take these instances : 1. The instance of Jacob and Esau : Mai. i. 2, I have loved you (says God to Israel, as ver. 1), < yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved usV Do you say so ? says God. Nay, then, I will give you a manifest demonstration of it. Was not Esau Jacob s brother ? saith the Lord. Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau; thus speaks God again. This so near relation of being brethren, although but an outward relation, yet served wonderfully to enhance

and make apparent the grace shewn to Jacob through so vast a difference ; yea, and the greater nearness of the circumstances there were in that con junction, proportionally the love appeared ; and so, by the like reason, proportionably in other relations that are more afar off. This instance the apostle Paul takes the advantage of, and improves it to this very purpose I now insist on, applying it to election and rejection, Rom. ix. (for thereof he plainly treats in that chapter), ver. 10-13 ; and his instance is so full to my purpose as nothing can be fuller, and he accordingly presseth it. These two, Jacob and Esau, were not half brothers only, as Ishniael and Isaac, whom he had spoken of afore, ver. 7-9, having but one father, but not one mother, and yet he argues it from them also ; but here are two, who had one and the same father and mother, of whom also they came not in a succession of time, one in one year, the other in a year after, as. brethren use to do, but both were conceived at one time, yea instant, which those words indigitate, ver. 10. When Rebecca had conceived

by one, even our father Isaac, at one and the [same] act of generation, she conceived them both out of the same substance of matter that came from Isaac s loins at once ; where (when fallen into her womb) there was a division made by God s providence, one part thereof settling to the one side of her womb, and made Esau, another to the other side, and made Jacob : they were twins ; and, as we say of two pieces of the same cloth cut out for several uses, there was but a pair of shears went between them; no difference, whether in worth or works foreseen or the like ; born also at the same birth, wherein if were there any difference, Esau had it ; for he was the eldest, and so by the law then in force had the dignity of the birthright ; and afore they were born God declared his different purpose and counsel about them, * The elder shall serve the younger, and so be deprived of his birthright, and thereby of the blessing and of the inheritance of Canaan, the type of heaven.

Now this nearness of relation and circumstance heightened the love in the purpose of God according to election ; that is, his discriminating purpose in his freely having aforehand chosen the one and rejected the other ; for to that very purpose God, in Malachi, mentions it, to set out and greaten his love to Jacob, as Paul, in this his citation of it, doth to make good his assertion of the different grace in the promise of salvation, whereof election was the original, and the promise the extract copy. Yea, and to this purpose of aggrandising God s love to Jacob, it is that Paul also intends it, as those words in ver. 10, which are introductory to this instance, do shew, only this, &c., as connecting this new instance with the former instance of Ishmael and Isaac, ver. 7 and 9, and both to the same purpose ; who, although Abraham s children, yet on Isaac was the blessing settled and entailed, and not Ishmael, which greatened God s special love to Isaac in that respect. Well, but saith the apostle, Not only this instance or example of Isaac s, &c., doth shew this, but much more that which I now bring (saith he) of Jacob and Esau ; and from both I have what I pursue to make good, viz., that the nearness of such relations, through circumstances therein, that do make relation between brethren the nearest, ought to be a matter of provoking such persons elected to glorify God s grace towards their particular, and taking up God s own words, to say with themselves, Hath not God loved me, and that with a transcendent discrimination, when he hath afore mine eyes laid aside those that lay in the same womb that I did, or that were my brethren by the same father, or perhaps my parents themselves ?

And you may and ought to extend this comparative to other relations and circumstances wherein thyself and others do stand, and are or have been

184 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. yoked and coupled together in, though not rising up to so great a nearness. Thus Peter and the apostles did, that Judas who ate bread at Christ s table with them, was an apostle sent forth as they: For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry, Acts i. 17, should prove a cast away, and themselves chosen. Compare this : John xiii. 18, I speak not of you all ; I know whom I have chosen : but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. And John xvii. 12, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name : those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition: that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Take for con firmation of this the instance of the two thieves, both brethren in iniquity, and fellows in the same condemnation in being crucified together, the one on Christ s right hand, and the other on his left ; and that whilst they were hanging on the cross, election should break forth in the one and call him, and Christ should take him within an hour or two after into paradise to him self, and the other left to his own accursed cursing spirit, and at the same time dying with the other, should go to hell. Do not you think that this association or fellowship in these circumstances, though remoter than that of brethren, did not wonderfully affect the good thief s heart, whilst he with out question heard Christ promising him, This day shalt thou be in para dise, whilst with the other ear he heard his fellow thief persisting in his blasphemy, and dying in his sin ? A difference put in such like near cases and circumstances as these, although but in outward mercies, and not in point of salvation, do use wonderfully to affect men s hearts ; as in the case of Pharaoh s butler and his baker, both in the same prison and in danger of death together, Gen. xl. ; and that, according to Joseph s prophecy of the fate of each, ver. 33, 19, that Pharaoh should, upon his birth-day, when princes use to do acts of grace, as ver. 21, restore the butler to his place again, and he gave the cup into Pharaoh s hand ; and so, on the contrary, hanged the chief baker, ver. 22, as Joseph had interpreted ; and thereupon, is not that butler s ingratitude eminently branded, that he laid no more to heart the kindness of Joseph, although shewn but in telling him his different fate and destiny, that was shewn within three days, as ver. 13, Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him. And if the mere predic tion of this should have obliged him unto a grateful acknowledgment, &c., unto Joseph the diviner, as he styles himself, how much ought he to have done it unto Joseph s God, who it was that revealed this to Joseph, and whereof assuredly, to the end that God might have the glory, Joseph had declared so much unto him, who in his everlasting purpose and providence was the author of this merciful difference ? And if you say he knew him not, this yet however you must say, he was obliged then to extol the grace of Pharaoh towards him herein. And there fore all you that know God and are known of God, and that it is he who made thee to differ so greatly from another that is thy fellow and companion ; now should this comparative affect thee to think with thyself, [he] who lived so many years in one and the same family together, and were joined in partrship or office together, so and so familiar in a constant converse, and that it now proves God hath received me for himself and left him to Satan, and his lot and portion, and has so cast and designed this difference that thou mightest understand and consider it, and be affected accordingly

! And this as certainly thou shouldst do, as on the contrary thy fellow and marrow and associate once with thee, doth in hell for ever lie under this tormenting Consideration amongst others ! That such a brother, such a companion" sucn a fellow-apprentice, fellow-servant of mine, is by electing grace calling

him gone to heaven, and there is in everlasting bliss (as Abraham told the rich man that Lazarus was), and, lo, here I am tormented, and shall be for ever ! As the loss of heaven will cause weeping and wailing, so that thy fellow should obtain it when thou art refused, will cause indignation and gnashing 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 stones 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 inten tion 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. xxiv. 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. xvii. 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 demonstra tion 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 king dom, 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. xx. 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 Scrip ture 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. viii., 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 text the difference is

186 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. 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

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, accord

2 Tim. i. 9, ing 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, frmtratur

! 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 * The highest note in the musical scale. ED.

with the heathens, whilst he says, Ps. cxlvii. 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 order ing 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 pur poses, 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 1 praise of the glory of his grace, as Eph. i. 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. v. 18, Heb. ii., 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 pro vidence 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, 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 asetting 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 f have said) that puts a great

See my first sermon on 1 Peter v. 10, The God of all grace/ &c. f Quia hsec secretio negativa (vel non-electio) quse in reprobatione reperitur, pendet ab ilia secretione quse est in electione ; hinc reprobationis fiiiis remotus est splendor illius gratisa, quse in electione manifestatur. Amesius Medul. 1. i. c. 25, n. 36. Amesius cites for this in the place now quoted, Rom. ix. 22, 23, He endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath, that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy.

188 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. nnd a glorious reflection and lustre upon his grace towards his elect thereby, and was intended by G-od 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. xvi. 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. xi. 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 advan tage 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. ii. 1-3, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in tres passes 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 disobe dience : among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our fiesh, 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 two fold 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 oWwg, 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 v. 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. ix. and x. 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 pur poses of mercy and grace, and those other, his purposes ot 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. xi. 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 pur pose 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. xi. 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 num bered with us, 1 John ii. 19. Yea, and the Israel he speaks of were suchf as were sons of Belial, but that sought after righteousness : Rom. i. 81, had a zeal for God; chap. x. 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 in deed 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 * Vide that of Ames. Med. Theol. lib. i. c. 27. f QU - were not such ? ED.

190 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. were Israelites, io whom pertain eth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the pro mises, &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 llth chapter, at least pursues it in all them chapters, as the ultimate conclu sion he aimed at, which, by chap. xi. 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, ix., 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 to gether, 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 nonelect.

First, In that known place, 2 Tim. ii., after and upon occasion of the mention of Hymeneus and Philetus their apostasy, ver. 18, Who concern ing the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is passed already; and overthrowing the faith of some, he presently subjoins, ver. 19, Never theless 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 repro bation, 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 foun dation 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, Bern, ix. 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 vi., in the beginning of which chapter he

had delineated the state of temporaries that fell away in the highest of their attainments, ver. 46, 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 con firmed by God s promise and his oath, in ver. 16-18, That by two immut able 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 differ ing 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 premise 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. iv. 3, 4, and you know the different issue of either as unto salvation, and the ground thereof, out of Heb. xi. 4, and 1 John iii. 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. ix. 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 pro ceeding alleged and thus explained in Heb. xii. 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

192 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

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 pro fession. 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, ii. 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 dif ferent 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 forementioned ? 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 shewn it to the purpose.

Third instance ; in Ephraim and Judah. The like we find between the ten tribes and 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 Ixxviii., 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 Eph raim, 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, over, he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Eph raim ; 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 estab lished 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. x. 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 xi. 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. Notwithstand ing 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 xi. 40 ; yet lo, what says God in 2 Sam. vii. 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 ofjus tice 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 VOL. ix. N

194 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. 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 tem porary things.

1. You have an instance in Peter and Judas.

These are the first and leading ones unto 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 con sidered 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 for swearing 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 * I know not the man, he might have said, as at latter day he will to curse, Judas, Depart from me, thou 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 sor row, 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 com pany 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 text ; read the whole : Acts i. 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 writ ten 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 he 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. vi., from ver. 4th to ver. the llth, as in one scheme, as also scattered in divers other passages of that epistle, especially chap, x., ver. 22-27, and from ver. 32 to the end, the connection whereof, : But we are not of them who draw back unto in ver. 39, is this summary 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. i. 15-18 ; Hymeneus and Philetus over against those whom he had known to be his, chap. ii. 17-21. In chap. iii. 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 conti nuing and persevering, ver. 11 ; likewise Alexander the coppersmith, of whose zeal and sufferings for Paul you read, Acts xix. 33, but now turned apostate ; as in ver. 14 of the same 4th to Timothy ; as also in 2 Tim. ii.

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. ii. 16 ; and up and down in the rest of the epistle, from first to last. Peter the like, in his second epistle, chap. ii. throughout, graphically describes both professors nosv 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. i. 1, whose pure minds he stirs up to look for and hasten to the kingdom of Christ, chap. iii. 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 of professors in the last scene of the primitive times, and Jiolds 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 Chris tianity in the profession of it, 2 Tim. iii. 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 gang, which in those times were then extant, whom he accordingly points unto, ver. 6, Of this sort are they, &c. So as those examples then were parallels of what in after ages was to come, which differ-

196 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. ing sort of professors extant together, will continue until the end, and be found to hold true, even at the very last. For at Christ s coming, Mat. xxv. 1, 2, our Lord tells us, that then, that is, at that time The kingdom of heaven shall be like unto ten virgins, &c. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. There are as many of the one sort as of the other, and both had lamps, and both slept ; yet the one sort fell short, and were shut out ; the other were preserved, and taken in.

CHAPTER VII.

A brief exposition of Jude, by way of confirmation of the precedent doctrine, that God s discriminating grace appears in the vast difference he puts be tween enlightened temporaries and his elect that persevere, with uses and directions proper to the doctrine out of that epistle.

This hath been the doctrine, and here is a whole epistle made on purpose for it, both for the confirmation of it, by the greatest and most famous in stance of all others (which I therefore reserved last) and plentifully affording the most pertinent uses fitted unto the doctrine.

An introduction to the exposition. Before I can set out the doctrinal points and uses contained in this epistle, I must first speak some things as to,

1. The inscription. 2. The time, or season.

3. The occasion of writing the epistle. 1. The inscription, To the preserved in Christ. This inscription or dedica

To the tion of the epistle in general speaks the argument of the whole. preserved in Christ, which comes in after beloved in God the Father, of which reading afterwards. A strange and uncouth title, and not found in other apostolical epistles ; as Beza also observes, he giving withal this wit ness concerning it, that this passage alone fully testifies or argues the epistle to have fallen from an apostle s pen. It is indeed full of a spiritual emphasis in itself, and also breatheth forth the spirit and design of the whole epistle, which is the sum of this doctrine I have insisted on ; for the true reason and ground of his saluting the Christians under this title of the preserved in Christ, was the occasion of his writing against another sect and company of men, said to be fore-ordained to a contrary condemnation, ver. 4, which two sorts of men he sets as in opposition each to other, as those words, ver. 20, But you, &c., do expressly shew, besides the evidence of the thing itself. And this so glorious a preservation, and that other so dreadful a condemna tion, do take up the whole. And the epistle containeth nothing else ; I say nothing else, but what belongeth unto these two ; we are therefore called the more deeply to consider this argument, in that one whole and entire piece of Holy Writ, should be on purpose penned by the Holy Ghost upon this argument, even as Solomon s Book of Ecclesiastes was to shew the vanity and vexation in all worldly things. I shall not be solicitous about any accurateness of analysis, but will endeavour to give the rays and gleam of it under these heads.

2. The season and time of writing thereof. Jude lived the last of the apostles but old John ; and at this time when he wrote this it may seem that Peter, and James, and Paul were dead, with the rest of those apostles, who did not write anything, who yet in their preaching had foretold this great apostasy Jude here speaks of. And this (as Estius hath observed) may not obscurely be gathered from his manner of citing the other apostles: ver. 17,

But, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, as speaking of them now dead, and not then extant, as to whose living testimony, otherwise, he might have had recourse ; and therefore also bids them remember their words, as of persons now gone off the stage ; whereas Peter, when he wrote his second epistle concerning the same men that Jude here writes against, speaks in another strain : 2d

Epistle, iii. 2, Be mindful of the commandments of us the apostles, the most being yet alive as well as himself. Not so Jude. However, it is certain our Jude wrote in the latter end of that apostolical age, or the last of those primitive times, whec the profession and course of Christianity had now ran out well nigh (if not the full) forty years since Christ s ascension into heaven.

In which space as perfect an essay and discovery has been made of what period, end, or issue, the profession of all, or any sort of professors con verted by the apostles had come unto. Forty years was long enough for such a trial, and it is very likely that, as the people of Israel s coming out of Egypt, and falling in the wilderness through unbelief, Caleb and Joshua holding out to the end, is made in the New Testament a type of those primi tive Christians, and of us all to the end of the world, and the issue of us all, one way or other, as 1 Cor. x., Heb. iii. iv, and is here likewise in the first and chief place of all other old instances remembered by Jude, ver. 5, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward des troyed them that believed not, so that in the very space of time there might some correspondency have been intended by God, that is, between that time of tentation then, and this of the first primitive ages, which was forty years to both.

Now towards the declinings of that age it was that Paul wrote to the Hebrews ; and Peter likewise his second epistle, after Paul ; and then Jude, this his epistle after that of Peter s. For Peter therein setteth a seal of con firmation to all Paul s epistles, and also to that of his to the Hebrews, in a special manner in his second epistle, third chapter ; and both those epistles touch much upon this argument of temporaries, and backsliders. But Jude wrote after Peter, for he in a manner cites him, if you compare Peter s third chapter, third verse, and this of Jude, ver. 17, 18 ; as also because he takes up the instances which Peter useth in his second and third chapters ; yea, the very words whereby Peter had set forth apostates, in that epistle of Jude ; following Peter herein, as Mark in his Gospel doth that of Matthew.

3. As for the occasion. The thing being thus stated as for the time season, the occasion now follows. That age aforesaid of Christians, which had thus enjoyed the apostles ministry whilst they were all or most of them alive, I may compare unto the season of a hot and bright summer, such an one as no age ever since can be supposed to have had the light and heat of.

I also might assimilate John Baptist s and Christ s time to have been as the spring or beginning of the gospel, as Christ expressly calls it, Mat. xi. 12, 13, Luke xvi. 16 ; but the very last of that age, wherein Jude and Peter wrote his second epistle, were as the autumn at the end of the summer; and this of Jude was the last of that autumn, and so the declining of that age as the fall of the leaf, which John calls the last hour, namely, of that first day of the apostolic age, and not of the world only in the evening of which he wrote, and he proves it by this very token, 1 John ii. 18, 19, Even now there are many antichrists ; whereby we know that it is the last time.

They went out from us, &c. And now to return to this my begun allusion. This age was as the autumn, and so fall of the leaf, after that foregone summer, in which the

198 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. goodly fruit of many withered. It is Jude s own comparison, ver. 12 ; he compareth these apostate professors unto trees whose fruit withered, device, tpdivonupiva , the use of which words is to signify trees of autumn* (as is well known), which is translated whose fruit withereth, because fruit and leaves, and all fell off at the expiring of this age, as trees in autumn use to do.

Now, there having fallen out so great a falling away of many, as Christ also foretold should be afore the end of that age, which was at the dissolution of Jerusalem (which also fell out towards the end of this autumn), Mat. xxiv.

12, 13, Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved, hence these saints that continued to keep faith and a good conscience to the end, these were precious saints indeed; as in the account of God and Christ, so of these apostles that were left alive. And Peter so styles them in the begin ning of that his second epistle: ver. 1, To them that have obtained like precious faith with us ; that is, with us the apostles of Christ, and called by the communication of the divine nature, ver. 3; and Jude in like manner here. And the mind of this his frontispiece and dedication is as if he hud said, Oh you preserved ones in Christ, I congratulate you, and Christianity preserved in you, that but for whom the Christian professors of this decayed age had been like unto Sodom and Gomorrah (unto whom Jude compareth those other apostates, ver. 7) ; but you remain as lasting monu ments of perseverance, let this be written on your tombs, * The preserved in Christ, and called. In you, and upon you, hath that other part of Christ s prophecy been fulfilled, Mat. xxiv. 24, For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, that shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were 2}ossible, they shall deceive the very elect. And such are you ; it is apparent that you are them these false Christians could not deceive.

3. The weight and moment of the matter of this epistle, which is industri ously insinuated in his preface unto it : ver. 3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints, which hath been in these times vehemently opposed, and in danger to be lost.

In which words I do take notice of three things (1.) That it was a more than ordinary impulse which he had upon him, caused him to write of this matter and in this manner. It is true indeed, * I had a great desire upon me to write to you, as some other says he, apostles have done, I gave all diligence or study ; that is, I had a purpose and attention of mind to write to you, and waited for the Holy Ghost to come with a stream upon me, &c. But this proceeds not merely out of such an ordinary provocation; for when I did attempt, I found a necessity, Avdyxriv tffjsov (it is undertranslated to say, I thought it needful ), I was constrained or impelled, a necessity lay upon me ; thus Calvin.f And therefore seeing I was thus singularly carried on by the Holy Ghost to write what now I do, it is your part and duty, and a necessity lieth upon you also, to attend unto it.

(2.) Secondly, Whereas this my own desire of writing had pitched upon matters of salvation, as they did in common concern all us Christians, his wordis the common salvation, that is, to have delivered such points of doctrine about salvation in a promiscuous way, as*Paul and other my fellow

Willet: In autumnales aut extremi autumni, item finientis autumni, crad TO p&mff&OU rqv fatoguv, a finiente autumno. t Quod ad scribendum propensus et sedulo intcntus fuisset, ad scribendum necessitas etiam eum coegerit.

CHAP. VII.] OF ELECTION. apostles have done in their epistles ; when, says he, I began to set pen to -paper by the impulse of the Holy Ghost, I was diverted by him from outof that common channel and general road into this particular channel, to write singularly and alone of this argument, the fatal condemnation of many the professors of this age, and the grace vouchsafed you that are sincere Chris tians in the preservation of you. I found my spirit bound up and con fined to this ; and this the Holy Ghost directed me unto, and this alone ; yea, and by a strong hand constrained me, as he did the prophet, Isa. vih. ; I was $tgou,evo$, earned as with a stream into this channel, and it is all the message which the Holy Ghost hath, as by my hand, to deliver to you; yea, and though Peter had written afore of the same sort of persons as dreadful things as I do, yet the Holy Ghost would have me to do it again, he would have this word set on by two witnesses; and therefore, beloved, do you en tertain and regard this with the greatest attention, as that which is more than ordinarily intended for you by God.

(3.) For, thirdly, these things which I write are wholly for you and your instruction, and therefore I write to you, ver. 3 ; it is to you only I wrote this. For as for those others whom I write about, I know it to be as to them but as a sentence of death and condemnation (to which, he says, they were ordained) pronounced by the Holy Ghost upon them, except some few there yet may be on whom he did shew compassion with difference, ver. 22, as of whom there may as yet be hopes ; and therefore take it all as yours, directed and intended for your admonition. And accordingly we may observe how, beginning with the apostates, from ver. 4, he ends with the preserved saints ; with divers exhortations, from verse 20 to the end ; so as indeed what he had so much enlarged upon concerning these apostates from verse 4 to verse 20, served but to afford the stronger consolation and more powerful provocations to incite the called unto those duties he from the first had intended to exhort them unto. Those that he so declares against had not been always profane ones of the world, that had never been wrought upon, or that knew not God ; but such as had been eminent professors of Chris tianity, but now were corrupted in faith and manners more than the worst of the heathen. The wrathful vials of woe and destruction he denounceth against them, as determined and prophesied by Enoch, ver. 16, 17, and by the apostles, ver. 18. This for the introduction the exposition itself follows.

SECTION I.

The first part of the exposition of Jude s epistle, wherein is demonstrated God s discriminating grace, as it appears in the vast difference God hath put be tween enlightened temporaries that fall away, and his elect he doth in Christ preserve.

These things premised concerning the occasion, &c., I come to the matter of the epistle itself, which I shall divide into two parts.

Two doctrinals, And two uses suited thereunto.

I. The first part and doctrinal is, the differing fate and condition of these two sorts of persons.

1. Apostates. 2. Preserved ones. The condition of which apostates is set forth in, (1.) Their sin.

200 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

(2.) Their punishment, from verse 4 unto verse 18, 19. What the condition of the preserved in Christmas, is scatteredly and pro miscuously set out up and down in the whole epistle.

And as to this first doctrinal head, there is a singular use made thereof by the apostle, proper thereunto ; an use consisting of several directions given upon occasion hereof unto those preserved ones, of what their duties are, that they may still be kept and preserved, and this from verse 21. And these two 1, the doctrinal part; and, 2, those uses do make up that which I call the first part of my exposition of this epistle.

In the second part there is,

1. The doctrinal, which concerns the different fountain or original (as in God s heart of old) of both these two so vastly differing conditions of these two sorts of persons.

(1.) The original causes of the preservation of the one, ver. 1, 2, 21, as their having been beloved in God the Father (of which reading afterwards), and given to Christ to be preserved and called, ver. 21, 22.

(2.) The original of that condemnation which befell those other : ver. 4, * Fore-written of old unto this condemnation.

This second doctrine, as the former, hath an use shaped out for it, and proper to it, as had the former been to its doctrinal specified ; and that use begins explicitly, ver. 24, 25, in the close and conclusion of the epistle, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen. And this second-mentioned doctrinal, and this use, I cast together, to make up a second part of this epistle, and all serving properly and pertinently unto the main doctrine I at first proposed, con cerning discriminating grace towards, &c. ; and those two shall be all the uses I mean to make thereof, these being thus made unto my hands by the apostle himself.

I. As to the first part, and therein the first doctrinal head, setting forth the state and condition of these two sorts of persons.

1. What concerns the apostates condition, which I reduce unto these three heads : (1.) That these he so inveighs against had been professors of the true

Christian religion once ; both enlightened professors and eminent professors.

(2.) Their sin and apostasy.

(3.) The judgment denounced against them.

(1.) They were enlightened professors once.

[1.] Ver. 4 speaks thus of them, men crept in, &c. It would seem by that word that there was a solemn admission ordinarily in use amongst professors of Christianity, which admission was carefully heeded and observed, with a strictness and wariness about them, when they were admitted. And the apostles had given all churches warning aforehand that there would be such as would prove false professors in the end, would notwithstanding arise from among themselves ; and some that were wolves in sheep s clothing, as Christ gave warning, and Paul warns the Ephesians, Acts xx., who yet pretended their having had a work of the Holy Ghost upon them, and had been received ; yet on their part (they having never been truly called) their admission is termed but as a creeping in amongst the other that were sin cere. For as Christ said to him that had not the wedding garment, How earnest thou hither? and as John, They were never truly of us, there is one respect for which they are said to be crept in. And it may perhaps be said that many did creep in through negligence and want of strict heed and

vigilancy in those that ought to have taken them in upon a thorough know ledge of them. Elders and churches should diligently inquire into whom they receive, which in those decaying times they did not.

known the grace of God ; for so, ver. 4, it is said they turned the doctrine of grace unto wan

[2.] These persons here in Jude were such as have tonness, both in loose opinions, and also practices, which, if they had not been enlightened in the doctrine of grace more or less, they could not be said to have so perverted the grace of God ; that is, the gospel way ; for the doctrine it consisted of is styled the grace of God, which taught the contrary

Tit. ii. 11, 12, For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, &c. ; and especially the doctrine of free grace revealed therein, and the love of God in Christ. Likewise they are here said to have once professed the true and only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same 4th verse ; for now it is said of them, they had denied him, the Lord that bought them, whom once they had owned. Professors, then, of Christianity these had been, and received into their churches, though crept in.

They were eminent professors ; which the examples he allegeth to set forth, and paint out their condition by, sufficiently shews. These examples are only such as are taken out of the Old Testament (as the manner of the apostles allegations and applications unto men under the New was to do), yet of such therein, for the most part, as had been of men enlightened in the word and law, and had been persons eminent in their profession in their respective times. He compares them to such as came forth of Egypt at first, which is attributed to have been done by some light of faith wrought in them, which Moses testifies of them, Exod. iv. 81. The examples of these men whom he prosecutes the description of in the fore-front, ver. 5, of this epistle, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not. Who indeed were lively types, as 1 Cor. x., of these professors now, who through the light and power of the gospel, by the apostles ministry, had come forth from under that common bondage of wickedness in which the heathenish world or generality of men doth lie; who, as John says, and as Peter says of them, had escaped from them that lived in pollutions and errors of that world ; and this through the knowledge of Christ.

His second allusion is yet higher, even to the condition of the angels that fell : ver. 6, And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. His drift is to compare like sin and punish ment of the angels that fell from heaven with that of those professors, having once shined in their churches as angels of light, but, out of their own lusts and corrupt free will, have forsaken and fallen from that station, as these angels did.

* whom the

Thirdly, Likewise to Balaam, the man (as himself speaks)

Spirit of God came upon ; the man whose eyes were open, which saw the vision of the Almighty, Num. xxiv. 2, 4, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, ver. 16; and what affections he had from that enlightening, you know that passage, Num. xxiii. 10, also shews, * Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. Who yet, for a reward, gave that cursed counsel to entice the Israelites from God, by the Moabitish women, drawing them also to idolatry with that mischievous design, so to bring a curse from God upon them, Num. xxxi. 16.

202 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

And he also makes his allusion to Cain, the eldest son of rejection, yea, and of profession ; for he offered sacrifice to God as well as Abel, as I shewed, yet in the end hated and persecuted his brother, as these also did the faithful Christians.

Likewise so Korah and his company (you have all these three together, ver. 11). Now you read, Num. xvi. 1, 2, Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, &c., took men : and they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. So in like manner these w rere such as had been famous in the congregation of the saints in their times, but now were rebellious against their elders, churches, and all.

In the same verse he says they had once been trees, that had had fruit on them, and after their first death in Adam, had yet had some life, sap, and greenness renewed in them, whereby they had put forth that fruit ; but their fruit was now withered, and they were utterly become without fruit, and were now dead a second time, twice dead ; and so incurably dead for ever, having no life to come into them again.

Lastly ; His allusion is to stars, that had their place and station in the heavens, and gave forth a shining light, and who had seemed in their motion to have gone the common course of the other stars ; so these of the profes sion and practice of the churches they lived in ; but now, after some progress of time, were discovered to be but * wandering stars, and to have had another by and eccentric motion of their own, differing from the common course of the rest ; crooked ways, as the psalmist terms the private paths of such, Ps. cxxv. 5. To instance in no more.

(2.) As to their apostasy, and what sort of apostates they proved, and how great.

[1.] As to the grace of God, which they had entertained nnd professed, their ungodly hearts turned this grace into wantonness ; their lust abused the doctrine of God s free grace, to warrant all licentiousness or liberty to sin, which Peter in other words expresseth of them ; they promised, as if they had had God s warrant and encouragement for it, 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19, For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, &c. ; while they pro mise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, &c. Simon Magus, they say, the first heretic of the primitive times, began this doctrine from the first, viz., that believers were free to do M hat they would; for men were saved by grace, and not good works ;* and taught that good [works] had come in but by accident, through the envy of the angels, that had laid bands upon men s consciences. Thus Irenaaus. Now, indeed, this Simon Magus having, afore he professed Christianity, been, through his famed sorceries, accounted the power of God, Acts viii.

9, 10, But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one : to whom all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God, his pride became such, now under Christianity, as he took upon him to be the great God him self; yea, and in imitation of the commonly received doctrine among Chris tians of the three persons, he affirmed of himself that he was both God the Father, and the Son that was crucified at Jerusalem, and the Holy Ghost ; and so, in imitation of the Christian doctrine, he taught that men were saved by his grace, as being himself alone that God in three persons ; (which is a great confirmation also that to be saved by free grace had been the doc-

Liberos esse credentes agere quse velint ; secundum enim ipsius gratiam servari homines, et non secundum opera justa. /rm , lib. i. cap. 20.

trine of the apostles). But he cursedly added, besides his other blasphemy, that all were at a liberty, as himself, to all sorts of actions free (as the cursed language of some in our age hath been), be it adultery, or any action else never so wicked, there being nothing, as they have said, in itself evil or un lawful, nothing common, unclean ; and though these latter heretics, in this autumn of the gospel, when Jude wrote against them, after Magus had broke his neck, were ashamed to own him as their master (so Irenasus* expressly speaks), yet, saith he, they taught his opinions ; that is, like opinions unto the example of his, viz., that it was God s free grace indeed that saved men (not Simon, they were ashamed to own that), yet so as that grace did utterly set them that believed at loose from anything in respect of its being sin to them.

And the ground of this perverting so glorious a principle as God s love and free grace into so high wickedness, is that monster of self-love which, remaining in enlightened professors wholly unmortified, and the power of it remaining entire, and only directed unto other new divine objects, but is in them suited to a gratification unto self. Hence self in them drinks in and entertains this grace greedily ; but like as an impoisoned plant perverts the rain, yea, a sovereign cordial or water it is bedewed or watered withal, and by reason of its innate venom, turns all into poison like itself, so doth selflove the grace of God.

Two principles there are in man s nature, which (when a man is once enlightened) do endanger him, though to a contrary way, viz., conscience and self-love.

Conscience, not subordinated by faith, sets a man into a legal way, and calls upon him lor strictness to satisfy conscience, but then turns all per formances into legality, yea, even in gospel duties, and makes them, as it were, works of the law. Well, if that rock comes to be discovered, and the light of free grace comes in upon the soul, then self-love meets therewith, which receives the news thereof, that is, the doctrine of free grace, with joy, but converts all of it into itself, takes all to itself; and self is the most dis ingenuous abominable principle that ever was. We daily see and find, even amongst men one with another, how self will take all the love and kindness that another man shews it, and entertains all with selfish ends, and makes for a time some returns answerable, but in the end proves unthankful. But to God (whom, to be sure, naturally we love not, no, not so much as men do one another), to him self-love proves a devil, and will take and swallow down all the love and grace that he declares and revealed towards man ; and not only proves unthankful to return nothing again, but will in the end turn it all into an encouragement to sin and injuries to God, and a nourishment of lusts, which are the darling natural children of self, and not into the service of God : Deut. xxix. 18-20, Lest there be any among you, man or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations ; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood ; and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst : the Lord will not spare him ; but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. Yourselves that have true love to God, yet having this bitter root self, find such (many such) springings up. * Quamvis non confiteantur nomen magistri, attamen illius sententiam docent.

Iren., lib. i. cap. 30.

204 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

And these two rocks men most ordinarily split upon ; the circumcision did fall upon the first, these in Jude fell foul on the other.

You have next their sin and apostasy. And therefore you need not wonder at that wickedness in practice that you here read of, as that they ran into sodomy, fornication : ver. 7, Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Ver. 8, < Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. They were despisers of dominion, dignities, that is, of ministry, whether ecclesiastical, as apostles, or others set over them, as all civil magistrates power, and therefore are said to persist in the gainsaying of Korah, that rebelled against both Moses and Aaron, Num. xvi. 3. And again, ver. 10, they sinned even against what they knew naturally, as it follows of them, But these speak evil of those things which they know not : but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. They sinning as freely as brute beasts do actions of nature ; these having first sinned away their light, you may read the other characters that follow, ver. 11-13, ]5, 16, Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah, &c. (as indeed what wickedness would not hereupon follow). Then, again, in opinions, in the 4th verse, Denying the Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. For men began soon to turn or change (as the apostle s words is of the heathens concerning their religion): Rom. i. 23, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. bo these, the glory of the person of Christ, which consists only of God-man m one person (the man crucified at Jerusalem), into multitudes of specula tions and dotages. They had begun to impose upon the saints, to set up another Christ, even in the time before Paul had wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians : 2 Cor. xi. 3, 4, But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtilty, so your minds should be cor rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preachanotner Jesus, whom we have not preached, &c. And to err in this point concerning the person of Christ, there is nothing more easy, nor nothing more dangerous ; in nihilo facilius, in nihilo pericidosius, erraiur. his person consists in indivisibili, that is, in what nothing must be de leted from, or added to, and so as by either we do un-Christ him, make no Christ of him. There is an unity of faith concerning the Son of God, ph. iv. 4, 5, in all ages, which if any deflect from in the least, they spoil d evacuate the true Christ unto their faith, and embrace a cloud, and run into fancy or ph&nomenon, which we see hath been verified in the varieties esies about his person in elder times ; and since he is the Son of God, oa united into one person with a perfect man, the man Jesus, who was d at Jerusalem in our Christ, add hereto, or detract from this, and to be Christ, a Saviour ; as take away God, and take Saviour the text ha h it ^ ^ ^ ^^^ ^ b ih and S denied him RS

Again, these were high-flown, seraphic, super-celestial professors, and rw *

S! T m T rit as the? Pfessed, that as for all those ordinances had appointed, and themselves had embraced and once joined withal, as the word separating shews), they pretended to be above them, being S o?

Christ

now needing no such things ; and upoS d it was that they separated themselves : ver. 19, These be they

Orb

nefited thereb

who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit, as being past a building up by public preaching, or the like action and means, as the Lord s supper, &c. This you may discern to have been the apostle s meaning in that expression, separating themselves, by the opposite that follows, But you, &c., ver. 20, But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. From these, therefore, and such ordi nances as these, it was they wholly sequestered themselves ; and it was not a setting up these same ordinances among themselves, as we do, but a total relinquishing of them. And yet observe, these would partake in the good cheer of church fellowship therein with the true Christians, and their assem blings, as to such ends, when they had only feasts of love ; and yet therein they, by their gluttony and riot, shewed and discovered they were utterly without all reverence or fear of God, from whom those blessings came, feeding themselves without fear, ver. 12. But truly I would say to all such, that surely while their bodies needed those ordinances of meat and drink (the ordinances of nature), to repair their natural spirits, that surely their souls should need the Lord s supper and all the ordinances of grace much more.

They pretended unto a living in the Spirit, and being filled with the Spirit ; and hence it is that the apostle says of them, ver. 19, These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit, as in perfect contradiction unto what they gave out of themselves, and what they pre tended to, the most of any other. And this their life in Spirit, they pro fessed to consist, 1st, In points of knowledge of higher mystery than the tenets of that common salvation Jude speaks of did (which yet were gene rally held forth by the community of Christians, and once delivered by the apostles), but they pretended unto a knowledge more sublime, and far more spiritual, which the apostle Paul (it beginning in his time) aims at, whilst he reflects thus upon them, Science, or knowledge (as they cried it up), 1 but falsely so called, 1 Tim. vi. 20 ; as also the evangelist John, Depths, as they speak (says he), but of Satan, Rev. ii. 24. The common salvation, as Jude here, ver. 3, once delivered to the saints ; the com mon faith, as Tit. i. 4 ; this they, as too common, despised, because of the commonness of it.

And, 2dly, They pretended to incomes of the Spirit, revelations and en joyments, &c., which their doctrines and that Spirit raised them up unto, above what the doctrine of Christ and faith in him did elevate the true

Christians unto (though that fills them often with joy unspeakable and full of glory), so as they boasted themselves to be the only spiritual men. Irena3us says that they styled themselves, <pvffi crvsy/o-ar/xo/, naturally spiritual, and all other men, puovxo/, living but an animal life, as appeareth by Tertullian s title of a book, and themselves to be spirited above all gracious actings or habits, beyond an having the Spirit communicated by ordinances.

Sensual, says the apostle of them, not having the Spirit. And as to these their rants and high-flownness, the apostle, by similitudes, fully expresseth both them and their doctrines : Clouds they are, ver. 12, that soar high, and the emptier the higher, but without water, that is, any solid doctrine to make their hearts, or others, fruitful ; and ver. 16, Their mouths speak great swelling things, supra modum turgida, v-Trsgoyxa, or like bubbles swelled with wind, which therefore Peter, 2 epist. ii. 8, termed swelling words of vanity. But as for this high pretence of the Spirit, we also find it in 2 Cor. xi. 4, * For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, &c. ; and the reason of it was, as in those words

206 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

The simplicity of the gospel, of the person, that is, Christ, and the afore, truths about him, which they look upon as too mean, and not high enough for them. But what spirit that was they had got instead of ours, and which inspected* them, and made a supply to them instead of our Holy Ghost by ordinances, and which blew them up above all apostolical truths, you may inform yourselves from the same apostle, in the very same chapter, if you read ver. 13-15, Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever, &c.

This for their apostasy.

(3.) As for the judgments he denounceth against them, they are the most dreadful. For Capernaum s case is a universal measure, that the higher men are lift up in enlightenings once, and in their affections unto spiritual things heavenwards, if they apostatise, the lower they fall into hell hereafter, and a diabolical frame of spirit hereupon. This Heb. vi. 4th and 8th verses shews.

Now the dreadfulness of their judgment is set out, [l.J In general, ver. 4, this condemnation with an eminency and tran

[2.] Particularly. 1, Destroyed, ver. 5 ; 2, reserved irrecoverably m scendency. everlasting chains under darkness, to the judgment of the great day, ver.

6, as the devils, to whom in their fall they had there been likened ; 3, suffer

woe to them, verse 11 ; 5, ing the vengeance of eternal fire, ver. 7 ; 4, 1 They perish in the gainsaying of Korah ; and 6ih, are trees twice dead, to be plucked up by the roots, ver. 12 ; 7, to them is reserved the black ness of darkness for ever. Not darkness only, but the blackness of dark ness ; if there be any place in hell darker than another, these shall have it ; and darkness is attributed to hell, as the inheritance of light is to heaven.

The sole observation I raise from hence is, that in such ages wherein the light of the gospel shines brightest and with most power, in that age God in hfs providence disposeth it so, that there shall be enlightened professors to the highest eminency of profession, that fall into the worst of errors, and the most abominable of practices.

. Where there hath been such a summer, look for a great fall of the leaf ; and this, instead of being a stumble or scandal to any against the profession of the true religion, doth rather give a witness and seal unto the soundness and power of it. Such an age breeeds up desperate apostates, like as the excessive heat in Africa doth monsters. The primitive times produced this, and also the times of Luther and Calvin, and of those other holy reformers, did the like, which the papists object against us ; and our own experience in this age, in this nation, hath seen the same ; so as we may say, As it was then, so it is now. Nor could such hellish abominations have been made even principles of religion amongst us, had not our light and privileges in that respect been alike, had not heaven been let down amongst us, or that we had not been lift up to heaven (as they were), this had not fallen out.

I could make a great and large application of all these things, unto the com plexion of twenty years last past, which was the autumn of a glorious sum mer foregone ; and I believe that yourselves, in these characters I have drawn out of Jude, made by him of primitive deserters, have had your thoughts all along, in this my discourse of them, upon a reflexion on our times past which you have seen, and yonr experience had in your view ; and the monsters of our times have been painted unto the life, in these portraitures of Jude s drawing of those of old, of many principles, doctrines, and actings that have been * Qii. inspired ? ED.

found amongst us. The devil hath read over his old collegian methods or lectures anew, but did it with some refinements, that old serpent growing wiser and learneder every age, and attempers his addition of falsehood to the temperament of the ages.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless be The use of the doctrine from those words in Jude 24, 25, fore the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen.

To provoke you, the called and preserved ones in Christ, to give glory to God, and adore him for those differing dispensations of his, with difference from those other professors, this doxology at the close of the epistle, like a strong whirlpool, draws down and swallows up into itself the main stream and current of the whole epistle, as matter of praise to God, and that is the general scope of these two last verses. And it is evident that the main drift of that stream, from the first to the last, had been to shew how the love of the Father, and the mercy of Christ, had been the original causes of the calling, and the contriving causes of the keeping and preservation of those called ones, whenas others had been not only left, but fore-written, unto so sad a fate ; so the epistle begins, ver, 1, 2, Jude the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and pre served in Jesus Christ, and called : mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. So it runs on to verse the 4th, For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ; ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ ; and appointed to this condemnation that follows. Thus the epistle begins, and so it continues in ver. 21, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And thus drawing to a conclusion, the apostle celebrateth God for all these specifications, the comprehensive drift of which celebration, I take up and methodise thus :

1. He takes in all those attributes or acts of God and Christ, mentioned afore, either in ver. 1, 2, or in the 21st verse ; as love, mercy, which are all one with free-grace, and that we should for these glorify God and our Saviour is implicitly intended.

2. Those attributes and acts which have had an hand hitherto, and must have, and still continue to carry on and perfect our salvation ; as (1) his * to him that is able, ver. 24, which supposeth (2) his willingness to do it, and which being engaged, it will be sure to perfect it to the last and greatest act of it ; which last act or scene he sets forth to be a power, presenting them faultless, &c., before the presence of his glory, with ex ceeding great joy. (3) That great attribute of wisdom, which had secretly and hiddenly in his foreknowledge laid and contrived the whole of the design, from first to last, so as to glorify his grace the most that might be towards us.

[1.] To the wise God,

[2.] The only wise God ; and this as shewn in being our Saviour, for all which give glory to him again.

3. He mentions the ends which God had in these several designs in lov ing us, calling us, and preserving us, and to that end lays afore them the demonstration of his (1) glory, (2) dominion, (3) power, (4) magnificence, as Beza renders the word /AiyaXowiu ; and with these, and for these also themselves, celebrate him also, as those which eminently and above all ap peared therein.

208 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.

4. He specifies the time and the contrivance of our doing this : (1.) now at present ; (2.) for ever. The love out of which he did all this was from everlasting , and therefore good reason we should adore him for ever. There is added the whole of our souls giving this praise, contracted and poured out in an AMEN.

You will say unto me, Is not this doxology or praise given to God only upon that general account, that it is ordinarily elsewhere given, as intending only the setting forth of his praise, what a glorious, wise, powerful God he is in himself? And upon that account only to give glory to him, as the apostle seems also to do, 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16, in that passage, Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen or can see ; to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

My answer is, 1, That this being so short an epistle for the matter of it, and that yet it should have in the close a large enumeration of attributes (larger for number enumerated) in this his doxology, than in the close of great and large epistles we find the apostles to have used, this must have some special reason for it, as relating to the eminency of the drift and subject matter therein.

2. And seeing every tittle thereof falls in so aptly, and suits unto that foregoing matter and scope of the body of the epistle itself, which tends to magnify God in his love and grace in electing, calling, preserving to the end, in which his wisdom, power, glory, majesty, dominion do appear.

3. And thirdly, Two of the titles of God here, for which he gives him praise, do eminently relate to his grace in electing, loving us, calling us, .1 - i * m i ji i 11 i again considered; and therefore to him, as such a God, be glory and power, &c. And for this reason all the other of glory, majesty, dominion, power, as contributors to this salvation, are to be included, and glory to be given for them.

4. The instances of the like doxologies, in other epistles, warrant this ; * Now to him that is of power to stablish you, as Rom. xvi. 25, 26, 27, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith : to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen. In which the principal matter of that epistle is summarily wrapt, as the special ground of that praise given to God therefor : and therefore that epistle is a complete system of the doctrine of the gospel, which had been the great subject delivered in that epistle ; and he winds in, as you see, and contracts the brief or main of all, as matter for which God is to be praised and adored by us. And Jude doth here the like, and exceeds that other apostle in enumeration of attributes and praises. The like you find done by Paul to the Hebrews ; he, in a prayer, summing up the most material matters of that foregoing epistle in the close of it, Heb. xiii. 20 ; for which, see my sermon on that text. So as, although I will not wholly limit this doxology in Jude unto the matter of his epistle (though most eminently it is suited to it), but also allow it to be extended unto all of this glory attributed to God in himself (as was objected), yet upon this warrant I shall at least handle all the

particulars, only as they may and do relate un-to the love and mercy of God the Father, and of Christ, as the original and continuing causes of our calling, preservation, &c. As this love is set off by those his differing dis pensations unto the other apostates, as they have been opened ; and thereby, by way of me, I shall endeavour to provoke you to bless God for each one of them, as he doth here those he wrote unto ; and shall briefly shew how all these attributes are to be adored by us, in relation to these dispensations-.

< the love of God the

1. Go> up to the original cause. Take, beloved, Father, ver. 1, and bring it down hither, and say, and cry aloud, To the only wise God and our Saviour, be glory , &c., for that his love. Bless him that he hath such, and so great a love in him, that he can love some of his creatures so well, who had not, nor could give anything to him, to move him to it ; with which the apostle concludes his doctrine of election : Rom. xi. 35. That he hath loved themso wonderfully,, so immutably, so infinitely, in his electing love, that although you read he is willing, for his glory, to pass by others, and to take an occasion to shew the power of hiswrath on such as have prepared themselves by sin for destruction ; that yet he hath it in his heart, nature, and purposes to love some so singularly transcendently, who was bound to none more than to deal with them according to the law of their creation, which was and is the covenant of works. Draw but a draught in your own thoughts, an idea of what a love our doctrine of election out of Scriptures hath given ; a love so great, as everlasting as himself; so free, unlimited, absolute, peremptory, unchange able, invincible, and the same in such respects wherewith he loves the same ; * and then bless him that such a love is in him, which must needs render him lovely, though thou hadst no share in it ; a love of the greatest intimacy, Beloved in God the Father. Let Beza quarrel the phrase as improper ; to my soul, and that as it hath been opened, it is most expres sive, importing that you lie next his very heart, you lay in his very bowels; matrix, in the womb, or mother of his will, as that word in the Canticles: Cant. iv. 9. Moses says, his people are in his hands ; as Deut. xxxiii. 3, Yea, he loved the people ; all his saints are in thy hands : and they sat down at thy feet ; every one shall receive of thy words. And afterwards he says they are in his everlasting arms. And being in his hand, Christ says, None shall pull them out. Well, but you. are nearer signifies

7 womb of God, his bowels ; and a yet, you are in his heart, in the ver} piece of that must be pulled out, if you be pulled out. The phrase imports, as I have shewed, out of 1 Thes. i. 1, and 2 Thes. i. 1, < The Church in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ. You would be safe enough in either of them, but for sureness, you are in both.

2. Consider his commending you, and giving you to Christ, as those that were his own, and whom he had loved ; and had loved them with the same love he had loved himself, as John xvii. tells you. And that, therefore, by all the love there was between them two, God the Father and himself, he supplicates, that God would be sure to love and take care of them. Christ remembered it well, and it stuck with him when he was to die. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; and I have kept them in thy name. Things dear and precious tous, we lay up in safest places. If a king hath a dearest spouse, an only one of his love, and there be armies and dangers round about in the dominions where she is, he will be sure to stow her so as to be preserved in some castle that is impregnable, if he have any such, * Qu. the Son ? ED. VOL. IX. n

210 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. and with a garrison to defend her. Now God hath done so with you in Christ ; he hath committed YOU to Christ, you are the preserved in Christ, and he is your rock, defence, strong tower. Even all that the Psalmist so much and so often celebrates and inculcates, that way is fulfilled in him : nor are you kept in Christ only as in your castle, but as with a garrison, which is all the power in God : 1 Peter i. 5, Kept as with a garrison, as the word signifieth. If any have any jewels, where will he bestow them ? In a cabinet, a strong iron chest. Remember who is your cabinet : it is Christ, who yet is more worth than all your jewels: in him are hid all God s treasures ; as of knowledge, and wisdom, and riches, of merit unsearchable to save you ; so also yourselves, your persons, your salvation are laid up in him, as God s choicest jewels ; and as, indeed, for whom all those other: never fear plundering, you are as safe as all ; yea, treasures are designed your life is hid with Christ in God, Col. iii. Hid as treasures are, and therefore you are as sure and safely lodged as Christ himself is.

3. You have the mercy of Jesus Christ, both in ver. 2. andver. 21, The sure mercies of that David, Christ, as they are called : Isa. Iv. 3, 4, and Acts xiii. 34 compared. These are the summity, the height, the sum of mercies God hath to bestow ; the mercies of eternity. Take all other mercies bestowed on the world, which yet are infinite riches of goodness, patience and long-suffering, Rom. ii., that are spent upon wicked men, to whom also he vouchsafeth such precious gifts, enlightenings, tastings, which you read of, short of grace ; yet if you could suppose all such mercies that have been, from Cain the eldest son of wickedness, shewn and bestowed upon all of that sort, to the end of the world ; if God should heap them all, and every one of them, in never so great measure, of such kind of mercies together, with all those gifts of enlightenings, and that man also were to live as many ages as the years of each man s life that have lived in a succession amount to, which would make a great hole in eternity to come, yet one call of his grace and loving kindness unto those, whom in Christ he terms the meanest, poorest, despicablest, miserablest of his called ones, is infinitely more worth than them all : for all that would not amount to the pardon of so much as the least sin. 0, therefore, look to the mercy of Christ, as ver. 21. In Ps. xxxvi., David having first discoursed at large of God s common mercies towards the wickedest of men, whose wickedness he had set out from the first verse to the fifth, he then stands admiring at the infinite vast heaps of mercies which he leaves with them, notwithstanding that wickedness ; of which I understand the next immediate words: ver. 5, 6, * Thy mercy, Lord, is in the heavens ; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains ; thy judgments are a great deep ; Lord, thou preservest man and beast. Which is to be understood common mercies vouchsafed to man, such as to beasts: that were he not a God that lives in heaven, and in perfect blessedness, from whom those mercies came, he would never leave them with them, nor be in that manner good unto them. He then, in the contemplation of those other so far excelling mercies we are speaking of, with which he pursues his children that know him, breaks out, ver. 7-9, How excellent is thy loving-kindness, God ! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings: they shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house : and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of light ; in thy light shall we see light. 0, therefore, bless God for this his mercy in Cbrist; and the mercy of this Christ our Saviour.

4. Bless God for the continuance of these both from everlasting, after they

had been set upon their persons by the Father, until our calling, ver. 1, and until their being presented to himself before the presence of his glory, as ver. 24. The real import of the word multiplied, says de Quiros, in ver. 2, imports three things.

(1.) A continuation of them.

(2.1 And that by a multiplication.

(8.) Until all be presented and completed.

(1.) Bless him for the continuation of these towards you, his love and mercy, as hath been opened. The constancy whereof I have opened ; for such, and so great a love to continue the same, fixed and firm, from everlast ing to everlasting, is of a long continuance ; and for God to have you in his heart, eye, what can be more ? No lover that ever was, had him or them he loved continually in his actual thoughts, much less for an eternity of time. This is only proper to the eternal and unchangeable God. And that God hath had his people thus in his heart, Isa. xlix. 16, shews, Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy walls are continually before me. God did portray a model or draught of what he would make, and rear them up to be in glory in the end, and he bore it continually in his heart and thoughts ; and did set them, * as a seal upon his heart and arm, Cant. viii. 6, as the Church speaks of his love, ver. 7. It is said of Christ, who had chosen them (as God had done), that whom he loved, he loved to the end, John xiii. 1. It ceased not after it first began, Isa. Ixiv. 5, In those is continuance, and we shall be saved. In those ; what things are those ? His ways of mercy and grace, spoken of before, which poor souls remembering, and having recourse unto by faith ; though God be wroth for a while when we have sinned, yet in those ways of mercy is continuance, and we shall be saved. I quoted afore the 36th Psalm for the difference of those mercies which God vouchsafes his elect, that know him and trust in him, from those that are common to the rest of the world; this in ver. 7-9. And then he continues, ver. 10, continue thy loving-kindness to them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart. The word

draw out at length. It hath been, one would think, drawn out unto a length great enough, in in the original, as also in the margin, is varied, is that it hath been continued from everlasting ; but these mercies, and this infinite loving-kindness, will be drawn out to an infinity of length further, even to eternity in heaven, which follows, In thy light we shall see light. They will stretch and reach from everlasting to everlasting, Ps. ciii.

(2.) They continue and are drawn out at length, and so have been by their being multiplied, which was another thing I opened upon ver. 2, Renewed every moment. And this still proves a higher aggrandizing of this. As they say of beams, or the species, or visual images that flow from the object unto the eye, that they are a multiplication of the same image, without interrup tion falling upon the eye, such as those rays and wings of the sun, it is but one and the same love multiplied in the acts of it continually ; as justifica tion is said to be but actus unicus, and yet is renewed all of the same every moment ; so both is God s choice and love (which shews * overabundantly), that is, what it appertained to ; yea, there is not only a new act of remem

I will yet choose brance, but a cannot forget put upon it, Isa. xlix.- 15.

Jerusalem, Isa. xiv. 1, and Zech. ii. 12. Oh ! at once comfort thyself, and bless and adore God ; thou multipliest to sin, and he multiplieth to love ; thou multipliest breaches between him and thee, and he multiplieth to pardon, Isa. Iv. 7. And the older you grow, the more you do need this multiplication of love and mercy the more ; for your sins, take them from * Qu. flows ? ED.

212 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. first to last, are multiplied. And all your sins of youth, middle age, are afore him, and would one day also encompass you round about, as Ps. xlix. 5, were it not that God multiplies to pardon. Thus also grace, con tinuing to sanctify, is renewed day by day, 2 Cor. iv. 16. Yea, night and day ; yea, every moment : Isa. xxvii. 3, I the Lord do keep it ; I will water it every moment : lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. bless him and adore him for this !

(3.) It is continued until all is perfected, even as here, till thou comest to be presented afore the presence (ver. 24) of his glory, and then thou art

Wherefore also we pray always for safe enough. Thus, 2 Thes. i. 11, you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power ; and Ps. xxiii. 6, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life ; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

And lastly, When thou art in heaven, that is the time when love and the kindness of love are drawn out, and drawn at length indeed : That in ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. Heaven is but the kindness of God, heaped upon kindness ; kindness indeed, and this continued in the fulness of it to all eternity.

Hitherto of our celebration of God for those attributes or effects thereof, which we find to have an hand and influence into our salvation in the fore going part of this epistle.

I come now to those attributes and acts, which here in the conclusion of his epistle he more directly incites us to give God the glory of, for those his dispensations towards us, that are called and chosen with such a vast differ ence from others, as eminently appearing therein ; which part of the epistle begins at ver. 24, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

These words that celebrate his power, &c., have two scopes or aspects, as Estius hath observed.

1. The one implicit, yet strongly implied, viz., a support or prop unto faith, from what in God they should further eye, besides his mercy and love, as which are engaged to preserve them, and that is his power, To him that is able, &c., or, as in Rom. xvi. 25, To him that is of power to establish you.

The 2d scope is explicit, and that is, to give glory to God for that his power joined with his love, as that which would certainly keep them to the end ; and that he should provoke them to praise God for this, afore the work was carried through to perfection (as in those he wrote to, as yet it was not), imports withal God s faithfulness to be joined with that power, which they might be assured of, he would put forth, even all the power that was in him to perform it. Three particular things, then, you have further here to celebrate God for in this verse.

1. His power ; that is engaged by his love to carry you through, to him that is able, &c ; and that his power is said to be engaged to be put forth, (1.) in this life, to keep us from falling; (2.) when you come to die, to present you, &c.

Where, secondly, comes (as a new head to be considered) the end or issue of all, as that which his love had designed (though it is his power must effect it), which is to bring you to the presence of his own glory faultless; for which so glorious end and issue of all you are to glorify God.

Thirdly, the exceeding joy that will be in God and Christ s heart, when

he hath brought you safe home to himself, which argues his great and con stant love. This as to the setting out that division of the words, and the heads drawn out from thence, which I am to enlarge upon.

I. Celebrate his power ; whereto, 1. In general: Ps. lix. 16, 17, But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will : for thou hast been my defence and sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto thee, my strength, will I sing: for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy ; where you see mercy and power are still joined ; as also in Ps. Ixii. 11, 12. In Eph. iii., having first prayed, ver. 19, And to know the love of Christ, which passeth know ledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God : he then adds this doxology made to his power, as that which must work and effect all in them, ver. 20, < Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. The power that worketh in us is all one as to say, the power that is engaged in us, by having begun, is interested to continue to work. And you see how, upon the account of that alone, he gives glory to him (even as here): ver. 21, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. And as his love passeth knowledge, so, for our comfort, his power doth. The like to both you have, Rom. xvi. 25, Now to him that is of power to establish you, be glory for ever : ver. 27, To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.

2. But particularly, bless his power for two things.

keep you from falling in this life ; that is, both from apostasy, which you have seen others run into, and in this life from falling into gross sins, which is Peter s sense of falling (1.) For that it engaged to : 2 Pet. i. 10, If you do these things., you shall never fall ; that is, into any foul, scan dalous miscarriage. As also Paul to the Galatians, chap. v. 16, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. And for that also, secondly, that if they do fall, they shall rise again, and by repentance shew themselves clear in that matter. as if they had never sinned. This is to keep you so, as in the end and issue of all to be blame less : and to carry us in this manner through all rocks, hazards, and dangers, as in respect of sinnings, is a far greater miracle than to steer a ship through the most dangerous seas that are known to be in the world, or to carry a candle through a vast heath in the midst of winds and storms, and to pre serve it from being extinguished.

(2.) The second thing is at your deaths, and at the day of judgment to present you faultless ; which faultlessness must needs be understood of perfect holiness : for it is that faultlessness which is at your coming to glory, and is a further degree than that of being kept from falling, or a being reduced again in this life ; for this faultlessness at death is to be without all sin, made perfect. Is it possible, says the guilty and defiled soul, that ever I should be presented faultless, especially on such a sudden as the instant of death ? Yes ; God hath power in him to do it : Eph. v. 27, 1 That he might present you to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy, and without blemish. And there needs no purgatory for it, but Christ s blood, and the efficacy thereof (so in the words afore), who gave himself for his church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. glorify his love that this is, and hath been, the design thereof: Eph. i. 4, According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Ye see that

214 OF ELECTION. [BoOK III. was the first of his thoughts, as the order of its placing there shews ; and indeed it is a greater benefit, and more than glory. And again, glorify his power that is able to effect this in you, when you look upon your bodies, now vile or base ; or if your souls would cast an eye into their graves, and see how they lie in dust and rottenness, and then consider that God s power is able, and will present them to himself as glorious as Christ s body now is ; the shine that came from which is, and was, more glorious than the sun in its strength, as Paul testifies, Acts xxvi., who himself saw it. And yet be assured his power will effect this for you: Philip, iii. 21, * Who shall change our vie body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself. And now from off the present condition of your bodies cast youi eyes upon your souls, with all the more abominable filth and rottenness in them, and believe that that power that subdues all things [to] itself will change them into so glorious souls in holiness, as they shall be able to bear the presence of God s own glory without dazzling or winking. bless io God his power

To him that is able thus to present you, to him be glory, &c. Amen. This the first main head, to present you faultless in the other life.

The second thing proposed was the presenting of you before the presence of his glory, and your enjoyment of it, which is the ultimate end that God aimed at to bring us unto in his first loving us, calling us, and preserving us ; the end, as it is called, which he made with our Lord Christ : James v. 11, You have seen the end of the Lord, says he, as if it had been spoken in reference there unto that which Paul says, Heb. ii. 9, We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour ; that was the end God made of him. And this end of Christ is the enjoyment of the presence of God s glory; as Christ says of himself, Ps. xvi. 10, 11, < Thou wilt shew me the path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. There is an enjoyment of God in and by effects of his, and means that manifest him, whether of his law, our graces, or creatures. And there is an enjoyment of his immediate presence. And thus Hales, that ancient schoolman (whom Aquinas and Bonaventure were scholars to), did clearly, and with evidence, long since state and difference it.* There is a twofold knowledge of God, says he, one by his effects, the other by his presence to and with the soul. And he is present, says he, to the soul, in that he presents or makes present that blessedness which is in himself (which are the very words of our text here). And the one,f the first, he says, is not of grace, but nature ; but the other of grace. That is, say I, the one was by the knowledge of God, which by creation Adam was made for; the other is by Christ and grace only in glory: Ps. xvi. 11, Thou wilt shew me the path of life ; and is termed in Scripture the glory of God, which Christ receives us unto. Now this glory of ours is not the issue, or event, or close which God s love brings us unto, but it was the original design of all at first ; both unto which he hath subordinated all things ( All things are yours, and you are Christ s, and Christ is God s, 1 Cor. iii. 22, JMty as that which above all things his heart hath been in ; this is the tu*o*/n, or the good pleasure of his will. Now, therefore, that whereby I would provoke you to bless God for is this, that if our glory (as it is ours) be not only the issue of his election, * Duplex est cognitio Dei, una per effectus suos, alia per prsesentiam sui amid am. PKeseus autem est in quantum praesentat seu pnesentem facit beatudinem qua3 est in ipso. Alexander de Hales, par. 3, quest. 61. T Una est sine gratia ; altera per gratiam. Ibid.

but a primary intended end, and the direct ultimate end taken in for itself, out of pure and mere love intended, then there is all reason and obligation on our part that we should give all glory unto God for this, not only that himself intended it should be for his glory, but that he in such a manner also intended it as your glory, yea, and his own glory to be the immediate cause of yours ; and this end of all out of grace to be the close and last scene of this continued plot and story. There is all reason, I say, for this, &c. ; for nothing can be more proper or suitable than that for glory thus intended and designed to us we return glory unto God again, especially when God s glory is the principal and immediate cause of ours, as here in the text you see it is made to be. And therefore no wonder if in heaven the whole of their time runs out, and is spent in glorifying God. For why ? Their glory riseth immediately from the glory of God communicated unto them as the cause. And his being glorified in us ariseth not from the glory which he hath bestowed upon us, but from our being presented afore the presence of his glory ; and so it is but the return or the reflection of that to him and upon him which they receive from him, glory for glory, not only given and received, but for glory given, as the immediate cause of that glory received; and therefore be provoked to give glory to God, as ver. 25, for his presenting you to the presence of his glory, the fountain of them and all, as the design of his pure love and heart towards you, as out of verse 1

I shewed.

The third thing to bless God for is, that himself will present you to him self with exceeding great joy ; which joy is mutual, not on your parts only, but on his also. (What joy will be on your parts, I handled in the use of * Enter into thy Mas direction.) For as it is his joy he admits you into, ter s joy, so it is the joy of his heart to admit you into it, as well as yours to be admitted. And to testify this, he presents you to himself, and rejoiceth with infinite joy (when that time comes) in doing of it.

You may measure what this joy on God s part will then be.

1. By what joy is in his heart at their conversion, which is indeed the first calling of you into glory, as Peter hath it, 1 Pet. v. 10. There is one whole chapter* on purpose spent upon it, to declare the joy that is in God s heart at that time.

Both in the parallelf of the lost sheep and groat, which is spoken of the Lord himself, and shepherd of that lost sheep, who also, ver. 6, says unto his friends, Rejoice with me, so as it is God and Christ himself that are the great rejoicers, for he calls upon his friends to rejoice with him. The bridegroom that hath the bride rejoiceth more than the friends of the bride groom.

Secondly, In the parable of the lost son, ver. 22, the father said to his * let us eat and be merry. It is the father says it, ver. 23 ; and servants, these parables are applied unto what joy is in heaven upon the conversion of a sinner here in this world, ver. 7. Thus in that parable, I say unto you, that joy is likewise in heaven, and the scope in both is therefore chiefly to set forth what is the heart of God the Father, under the representation of the father of a prodigal. Now, if this joy be at the initiation and birth of an heir of glory, how much more is there in the heart of God and Christ upon his coronation, and upon his first arrival in heaven, afore the presence of God s glory, to be for ever made partaker of it.

Thirdly, There is this further manifest reason for it, because the fulness of time, so long afore designed and waited for, is now come, and also the consummation of that which all his decrees about us from everlasting had * Luke xv. ED. f Qu - parable ? ED.

216 <w ELECTION. [BooK III. centred in, and primarily pitched upon, as that which was the end of all aimed at, and that which he had from before the world so much pleased himself in with the thoughts of that day ; for his delights aforehand were in them, as Prov. viii., even so long ago, and still continued ; and to delight so long beforehand, must needs produce full and complete joy, when the thing delighted in is accomplished, and did begin the first consummation of all them delights, as this first presenting us afore him is. Moreover, between his electing of them and this consummation, he had called them, which is indeed a kind of new election, and the first beginning of the execution of the first election, and bears the image of it. Look as a merchant having launched a ship to sea (and such our calling is), for a great, long, and dangerous voyage, with certain hopes of great returns of profit if he come home safe in her, and proves also a ship that hath run through many hazards and dangers of shipwreck and piracies (as we through manifold temptations, &c.) ; and look as the merchant or owner rejoiceth when his ship doth come home so rich laden, through such great adventures, so doth God at our safe arrival in the haven, to which metaphor the Scripture once and twice alludes.

Now that God will entertain you with such an exceeding joy and triumph too (as the word here imports), affords the highest ground unto you to bless him, and give glory unto him in the faith and confidence hereof beforehand. For nothing can more argue that this glory was the design and longing desire of his heart, and delight of his soul from eternity, than that he so exceed ingly rejoieeth when it is perfected ; and it is a true and certain measure we may make hereof, that so much joy as ariseth in any one s heart, in such a case there was so much love, for these affections are commensurable. And therefore if God aforehand tells us he will present every particular person of us afore his own glory with so great joy as to himself, this infallibly argues the like proportion of an infinite love to have been borne by him towards us in his heart. Let us therefore, first casting our eyes backward unto his eternal love that designed all to us, and then turning and setting our eyes forward unto that joy that will be at the accomplishment, retire in the view of both to bless and adore him for all, arid sanctify him in our hearts ; and this for that third and last thing in ver. 4.

SECTION II.

The discriminating grace of election, as it appears in the difference God puts betu een temporaries, and those u hom he finally preserves, further illustrated in an exposition of the other part of Judes epistle ; wherein are discovered the different fountains and causes in Gvd s heart oj our salvation, both original and continued.

You have in ver. 1, 2. of this epistle of Jude, the causes of salvation, and of our being kept, held up unto our view.

Then, secondly, The eminency of that grace and favour illustrated by the opposite thereof, viz. the condemnation and apostasy of others, ordained of old to this condemnation.

Then, thirdly, A provocation of these saved and preserved ones, to give glory unto God for all his discriminating grace towards them, ver. 24, 25. . And that we all should adore and bless this God for all these, is my second use which I intend to prosecute at this time, founding all I shall urge upon you therein, upon what Jude hath spoke before me.

In the doing of which I shall but open the remaining passages in Jude, not

spoken to the last time, and which, added to the former, will prove as some brief exposition upon the rest of the epistle.

To them that are the beloved of God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.

You have the causes of salvation and our preservation in Jude, ver. 1, In this first verse you have the original causes, both of the persons the Father, and Jesus Christ ; as also of the acts in both which are the foundation of our salvation, &c.

1. Love in God the Father, which speaks his electing of us. Beloved in God the Father, for which reading I shall give an account.

2. Preserved in Christ ; which speaks his having given us unto Christ, out of that love, for him to keep and preserve us.

8. That third, of being called, is brought in as the first breaking forth of that love of God upon us, at and from which Christ s actual perform ance in keeping of us, commenceth, and from thence is continued to the end.

Ver. 2, Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied. In this verse you have the continuing and continued causes of our sal vation (as in the former the original), by the multiplication of which, with their proper effects upon us, it is that we are preserved to salvation, which yet for substance are no other than the former, in ver. 1, and these are three affec tions and dispositions in God s heart and Christ s.

1. Mercy or grace in Christ s heart, who undertook the preservation of us.

2. Peace in God s heart towards us, wrought and purchased by Christ. He is our peace, Eph. ii. 14.

3. The love of God the Father at first set on us. These being continued and multiplied in effects suitable to each, I call the continuing causes of our salvation.

As 1, The mercy and grace in Christ multiplying the attributes of mercy on us.

2. Peace from God, being at peace with us through Christ, and multi plying the sense of that peace in our hearts with joy, &c.

8. The love in the heart of God the Father, multiplied in all spiritual blessings, as Eph, i. 2, by which we are carried on unto salvation. And although these come in as a prayer or wish, such as is used afore epistles, yet that here they are brought in with a pertinent connection with ver. 1, and the general scope of the whole epistle, as the causes of the pre servation there specified, I shall after shew.

1. As for the original causes of our salvation and preservation. Ver. 1, Beloved in God the Father, &c. Three things are to be performed for the explication of this :

1. Some reasons why I so read the words.

2. To explain what the import of that phrase should be, In God.

3. To prove that by that expression, Beloved in God the Father, is connotated that God the Father chose and elected us.

You have it indeed here read, and translated, Sanctified by God the Father; but if we consult both commentators and Greek original copies, as they are also cited by interpreters, we shall find that diverse, as authentic copies, as those that read it sanctified, &c., do write it beloved, in, or of, or by God the Father, qya Kvipwoig, beloved, instead of s)y*a0/.vwg ; and the phrase f soD irargi, is all one, say some, with a-rro gu zxarebs, Beloved of God the Father, or did, by God the Father, which reading Pareus justifies, and com mentators generally do willingly agree to take either.

Now where there are found two such readings in so many copies ancient,

218 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. and but a small difference in the Greek words themselves, which might easily occasion a mistake in the writers ; in this case, that which must cast it is, unto whether of the two, the scope, series, and order of the matter afore or after, rationally considered and compared with other Scriptures, do most incline ; and therein (I take it) JiyaKripsvoig, Beloved, in and of God the Father, hath far the advantage and appearance for it, to have originally fallen rather from our apostle s pen.

For which there are these reasons unto me of weight.

1. Their being sanctified is apparently mentioned, and comes in afterwards, included under and in the word called, as in like manner often our sanctification doth ; as in Rom. viii. 80, and saints by calling, 1 Cor. i. And I confess the reading as here it stands, sanctified first, then preserved, and after both of them, then called ; this did always in former times in the read ing of it breed some jar in my thoughts, as if the words had not been, at least, rightly and orderly placed ; but when I met with this other, beloved of God the Father, it reconciled all to me.

2. I consider that the act or work of grace here intended is that which is properly God the Father s, and so is to speak what his special hand is in our salvation and preservation. Now, to say, Beloved of God the Father, speaks what is most proper unto God our Father, and what his hand and original act in our salvation is, and is that which is more generally proclaimed throughout the New Testament, everywhere almost where he is spoken of in distinction from Christ.

For both, 1, love is in a way of eminency attributed to the Father, the love of the Father, when the work of the three persons are distinguished, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, 2 Thes. ii. 13, 16, and up and down everywhere. Also, 2. Election is peculiarly attributed to him as his eminent work ; and to be beloved of the Father and to be elected are equivalent, and are put for each other, or are often joined together, love being the first and chief mov

Beloved according to election; that is, therein and thereby they are the beloved of God indeed. And 2 Thes. ing cause of election. Thus, Rom. xi. 28, * We give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath chosen you, &c., and so therein and thereby hath mani ii. 13, fested you to be his dearest beloved, and for that, and in that respeet bearing the title of beloved; and join thereto ver. 16, where his having

chosen us, that went afore, in ver. 13 is here, who hath loved us.

3. By this reading the series and order of the three things in verse 1 is set right, and rendered more clear at least : 1, beloved of God the Father, who is the first person, as that of election is the original act ; 2, preserved in Christ, which is the second person s part ; 3, called, which is the Holy Ghost s. Beza s gloss and interposition is very observable upon that second, preserved in Christ ; that is, says he,* having been set apart, or chosen in and by God s eternal counsel, they who should be given to Christ to be kept by him. So as he, though he inclines rather to the other reading of sancti fied, and makes a difficulty of our reading it beloved of God the Father, and is against it ; yet he take in the sense thereof, as touched in the other word, preserved in Christ. He discerned both from the scope of the epistle, and the great emphaticalness of that expression, < preserved in Christ. So that election by the Father must be supposed first, and necessarily taken in, and a giving us to Christ (which accompanied that election) to be the proper cause of our being preserved in and by that Christ ; and so that preserved in Christ referred unto the Father s act of giving, and therefore he would Tfnjgjj/*gWMg (i e ) seposifcis seterno Dei consilio, qui Christo traderentur custodiencli.

have it to be brought in somewhere, though but implicitly aimed at in that * preserved in Christ. But why then should we avoid this expression, other reading of beloved of God the Father, which more plainly and expressly denotes that act of God s, out of which and together with which God did give us to Christ ; and gave us thereby with this commendamus and declaration of his will, that he the Father, having loved them first, and thereby made them his, and had now given them to him, and that therefore out of all that love to him, and between them, he would preserve them (which I shall by and by again speak to) ; so then, that beloved of God the Father, that is, elected by him, should be said first to hold the most fair coherence of all other with preserved in Christ, as that which follows next, declaring therein the very ground and foundation of that our preservation, and that as in Christ, and so shewing the true order of causes; God the Father s love first, in choosing, &c., and Christ s next, to whom they were given, and is answerably in order here first placed, it having been the fountain and original of all, the source and beginning of our salvation, as the Father is of the persons.

4. The parallel of other Scriptures does favour this our reading of the words ; the apostle Peter in like manner annexing this benefit of preserva tion, as Jude here, unto election ; for whereas, 1 Peter i. 5, he says, Who are kept by the power of God unto salvation, he had first entitled his epistle, as Jude doth to the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, ver. 1 ; and then, who are kept by the power of God, ver. 5, and the word is the same that here.

5. The opposite mention of God s rejecting and ordaining those apostates to that judgment, ver. 4, as the original of their condemnation ; this casts backward, and refers unto what he had said of these other, their having been ordained unto salvation and preservation. And therefore this reading, beloved of God the Father, is rather to be supposed to have been his mean ing. For, 1, the apostle s scope being to comfort and instruct the saints in this epistle, much more than to set out the fate of these apostates, and the narration thereof being but to illustrate that state and grace to those saints, surely of the two he would to that purpose rather make mention of their election than of the other s reprobation. Especially, 2dly, seeing acts of grace do more readily proceed from God than acts of avenging justice, therefore if the one s reprobation be mentioned (as it is) much rather the others election. i Beloved in God

2. What the import of the phrase should be in God.

the Father.

Beza indeed sticks at the phrase Beloved in God the Father, as the Greek ordinarily hath it. This is an unusual phrase to be used of the act of the Father s election, but it ordinarily runs, and much oftener, chosen and beloved in Christ, but in the Father, we nowhere read. But this is so far from being an objection, as it turns to be a reason to confirm our interpretation.

For, besides what was said, that sv is put for ao, dia, or u, and so it is all one to have said, Beloved of, or by the Father, the phrase in the Father aptly notes out the eminency of that act in God himself, rising up and abiding within himself, in his own heart and breast, in himself alone, as from himself. And such acts, his loving us and choosing us from ever lasting, were and must be acknowledged purely to have been, and thus in ( good pleasure which he purposed in himself, Eph. i. 9. Nor is it an objection of weight enough, that it is said, Beloved and* like manner it is termed, his

220 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. chosen in Christ, to exclude this of ours, as if therefore beloved in God the Father should be improper, no more than because in that place last cited it is said, which he purposed in himself, speaking of the Father, that therefore it should be improper to say the same of Christ, which yet we find, Eph. iii. 11, * According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. For that phrase, in the Father, denotes the sub ject and efficient cause, and that of in Christ, the medium or instrumental cause. Yea, according to this rule, their reading, sanctified in God the Father, should be excluded also, because it is more often said, and in use, sanctified in Jesus Christ, than < in God the Father. 3. The third thing for explaining this of beloved in God the Father is, that thereby is imported and connotated, that God the Father chose and p]pr>f>r3 no Yea, these two are mutually put each for other. The very act of election is expressed by God s loving us : Jacob have I loved, Rom. ix. 13, which is alleged as a proof of Jacob s being elected, spoken of afore, ver. 11, and is there termed the purpose of God according to election, towards him. Thus God s election of Christ (whose election is the pattern of ours) as he is God-man, is expressed by his having loved him : John xvii. 24, Thou lovedst me afore the foundation of the world ; that is, thou lovedst me, and out of love chosest me. And he speaks not of that love he bare to him, purely considered as second person, but that of him as God-man and mediator ; whilst Christ speaks it, he also says, that God had loved us as he had loved him. Now, between the love which God bare him as second person simply considered, there ought not to have been any such comparison made of what his love is to us, so as to say that he loved us as he loved him as second person ; but as mediator it might be said ; and therefore it was all one as to say he chose him ; so that here for God the Father to be said to love us, is equivalent to say he chose us. 2. Preserved in Christ. Between these two, beloved in God the Fatlur, and then preserved in Christ, doth rise up, as couched in each of them, and as the result of both in this connection, Our having been given by the Father out of his love to Jesus Christ for him to preserve, and that Christ undertook so to do.

This is strongly implied here, if withal we bring those other scriptures which Estius and divers others* (having observed this as connotated here) have sent us unto to explain this passage, in which is set forth the original me, the descent, and story of our being preserved in Christ: 1, love in the ather made us to be his ; thereupon, secondly, proceeded a giving us to ist, that as he loved him, he would keep us as the end of his giving us ; which, thirdly, Christ willingly undertook and performs. All these you have fully expressed by Christ in his last public prayer, John xvii.

1, That they had been given him by his Father as his own ; so the second verse begins, that < he should give eternal life to as many as God had given turn. He pursuing this again says, ver. 6, I have manifested thy name

Gerard upon both the epistles of Peter, in which < grace and peace be multiplied are wished (even as here), interpreted there grace to be meant as I did here, and love ami mercy not to be meant chiefly of the effects of grace, but of the fountain of all, the free grace of God : Per gratiam quidam psruvvpijt Sis, intelligent beneficia gratia e ree grace o o : Per gratiam quidam psruvvpijt Sis, intelligent beneficia gratia coiiata: sed rectius mtelligitur fons illorum bemficiorum omnium, viz. favor Dei gratuitm. And for the proof of this sense in Peter, allegeth this parallel in Jude, Nam in "> 5 eXP nitUr PeT * XSOff< ThuS he n l Peter L 2

> as also upon 2 p

unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; then verse 9, I pray for them : I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me ; for they are thine.

2. Given him they were, for that end, for him to keep; and therefore he returns an account to his Father how he had kept them, and indigitates it twice : ver. 12, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name : those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost.*

3. That he had undertaken to keep them upon his Father s giving them, all and every of those words declare ; as, namely, his giving that account of the discharge of his trust therein : ver. 6, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world, &c. ; and that he had done (what in him lay to do) that which might preserve them : I have manifested thy name, ver. 6 ; I have given them thy words, ver. 8. And also by the * They have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou effects he had wrought in them : ver. 8, didst send me. And then likewise by his care to recommend them again unto his Father: ver. 12, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name : those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost.

4. And all this, and those other great benefits that follow, do run up into God s having loved them, which is not only implied in his urging they were * Thou hast loved them as thou hast thine, but that God had chosen them : loved me, ver. 23. Now of himself he says, Thou lovedst me afore the foundations of the world ; that is, hast chosen me, which I shewed even now. And he expressly gives it as the reason why he had. so kept them : ver. 9, for they were thine.

If you will take another scripture they also refer unto, John vi. 39, And this is the Father s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day, these words shew,

1. That they were given by election; for he says, All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, ver. 39 ; and therefore given before their coming, and as the cause of their coming. And when afore, but at the date the Scripture placeth election at ? Afore the world began.

2. Given for this very end to be kept, and that to be God s will and in tention in giving them, and expressed at his giving them, doth as manifestly follow there : ver. 38, 39, For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

3. Their being called ariseth from their having been given by the Father, ver. 37, And all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, &c. And so you have in this one Scripture all those three things met which are men tioned in my text, and likewise the prop, order, and connection of all these : first, beloved of the Father ; and so, secondly, given to, and preserved in Christ ; and, thirdly, called. And this is a clear reason why preserved in Christ is set afore called, because it prc-imports that original act of giving us unto Christ, and also is the cause of our being called. For although indeed Christ s actual preservation of us, and his performance of it upon us begins from calling, and follows for ever after it ; yet because the foundation of that preservation lay in God s having given us unto Christ out of his love, and this from everlasting, as hath been said. Therefore this of preservation in Christ is made conjunct with, and set next after beloved in God the Father, and before called ; for

222 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. calling itself proceeds out of that love, and our being given to Christ, as out of those passages of John hath heen observed. There might other reasons be given why called is fitly set after preserved in Christ, as that because there were some new converts, who had sprung up in that, though a declining age of old professors, which young ones had not had time or continuance long enough to experiment the grace of perseverance as those others had done ; and yet they having been savingly wrought upon with an holy calling, were concerned both in the comfort and duties that he after gives, as well as those others that had been for a long time preserved. Alas ! might some such novices say, I have not had the trial of having been kept long ; I am but of yesterday. Well, but says Jude, thou yet hast the blessed experience of having been called, and thereby mayest comfort and assure thyself of thy being certainly kept against all the fears of falling away, which are incident to such Christians, from the examples of such apostate professors ; the pro mise is as well unto the truly called as it is to you that have been a long while preserved. But though this be a reason of weight for this placing of called last, yet I conceive the other of more. And this for the first, the original causes.

II. The continuing causes of our salvation and preservation in their being multiplied follows in ver. 2, Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be mul tiplied ; and in ver. 21, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Three things are here to be explained.

1. What is meant by mercy, and peace, and love.

2. That here they are prayed for to be multiplied as causes, and the carriers on of our salvation and preservation.

3. What is meant by the multiplication of them. .. For the first, the interpretation I give is, that

1. Mercy in the heart of Christ.

2. Peace or reconciliation having been made by Christ, and continued in the heart of God towards us by and through Christ.

3. That original love in the heart of God borne towards us being for ever continued and multiplied with the effects thereof; these are eminently intended.

I know interpretators generally understand love in our hearts to God, peace in our hearts, and all sorts of good things which are usually wished, under the names of peace, he wishing that these should be multiplied more and more in them.

But though I deny not these, as the effects of the former, to be included, yet I take it that the more principal, the other, as they are in God s and Christ s heart, are mainly intended as being the fountains of these effects, and so the effects with their causes were at once prayed for.

And my reasons are,

1. That look what is meant by love and mercy in ver. 21, the same is meant here. Let Jude interpret Jude. Now there he tells us, ver. 21, it is the love of God, and the mercy of Christ, which we keeping ourselves in, and by faith looking unto them to keep us, are the means of our being kept. Now, in the first verse, he had named, first, God the Father ; and, secondly, Christ. Why, then, his intention is to wish the love of God the Father, and the mercy of Jesus Christ to be multiplied towards us, as being the causes of that preservation and salvation likewise.

2. For one of these, this of mercy, all will acknowledge to be understood of the grace and mercy in Christ s heart ; and not of the grace or merciful-

ness in ours ; nor yet merely the effects of mercy ; and therefore, by the same reason, why should not love also be meant of the love in God the Father s heart borne to us ?

The Query will be, How peace should be meant in such a sense, which yet comes in between mercy and love ? For the multiplying of peace would seem to import only the grace of peace in our hearts, as it is the fruit of jus tification and reconciliation with God, according to that in Rom. v. 1, Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Also peace imports all good things whatever, and so the effects.

Am. I grant this, and take them all in ; but I desire it to be considered, that all those effects of peace flow from this, that there first is a peace in God s heart borne towards us, which we may and must style the original peace of all, whatever that peace may import in us, or towards us. When Christ was born, the angels proclaimed this original peace in God s heart ; Peace on earth, good will towards men, Luke ii. 14 ; and his decrees and * thoughts of peace, Jer. purposes of grace, as to sinners, are styled xxix. 11, For I know that the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, are thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

My third reason why I interpret them of what is in God s and Christ s heart towards us, as well as of the effects, is, that elsewhere these three are mentioned together in the* like salutation, as in the second epistle of John, ver. 3, Grace be with you, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. By grace there, love is meant, being distinct from mercy ; and withal, mercy and peace are added even as here, and thereby not the effects of mercy, &c. But the grace and mercy itself, which is in God s heart and Christ s towards us, are also intended there. It is expressly added, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father ; and that as distinct from the effects on us ; for they follow, In truth, that is, sincerity and love, which are the effects in us of the former, in our hearts.

II. But the query will yet be, How is it that these are multiplied ?

Gerard, upon the Epistles of Peter, in both of which grace and peace are wished to be multiplied, maketh the same objection ; for he there inter preting grace, as I have here interpreted mercy and peace, not of the effects of grace chiefly, but of the fountain of them all, the free-grace of God, as I afore cited him,* thereupon he puts this objection, how the love in God, remaining always the same, should be said to be multiplied.

1. Himself answers it chiefly by this, that in respect of the manifestation of it to our souls, and the shedding it abroad in our hearts, it is therefore: and to this effect he speaks in both those epistles, said to be multiplied

1 Pet. i. 2, and 2 Pet. i. 2. And unto this indeed agrees, what in that second epistle follows : where, when grace and peace are wished to be multiplied, it is added, * In the know ledge of God, and of Jesus Christ: which (as he) is all one with <5/a, < through the knowledge, &c., because through the knowledge of God and Christ, the love and peace that are in the hearts of God and Christ, are come to be multiplied upon us ; so as by this answer and interpretation given, it is still more manifest, that it is the love in God the Father, and peace of Christ, which are the things multiplied in us, through and by the means of faith in us taking them, and receiving of them thereby into our hearts.

But, secondly, I should give a farther answer, viz., that even the love and * See note, p. 220.

224 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. mercy in God s heart, and Christ s, are within themselves truly said to be multiplied towards us. The word *rfoj0ui/0g/?j, signifies both a continuation of the same thing, and a renewal thereof, and also an increase, or the fulfilling of a thing unto perfection.* Now the two first significations do fitly agree unto this love in God to us ; for there is both a continuation of it, after it was once taken up towards us, and that continuation is maintained by a renewal or repetition of the same, again and again, for every moment : I join both, and so it is continued by multiplication. Of justification, divines use to say it is one act at once, act.us unions et individuus; but yet because it is continued, yea, renewed every day, as our Lord s Prayer teacheth us, and many other scriptures, therefore the Scriptures expressly speak of it as a multiplying pardon, Isa. Iv. 7. We multiply transgressions, by adding unto the heap new acts of sinning ; and for our comfort God multiplies to pardon by renewing the act of grace in a full and perfect pardon every day ; not only of those daily sins committed (which yet we are most sensible of), but of all our sins, as at first, Col. ii. 13 ; yea, and correspondingly hereto, the Scripture speaks of God s election itself, which of all other acts of God s, is supposed to have been done but once, and that before the foundation of the world ; and yet the Scripture, in many places, speaks of it as reiterated or renewed again and again, which repetition, or renewal of it, is spoken of upon solemn occasion of God s taking his people into his favour after some displeasure. Thus you have it : Isa. xiv. 1, The Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Jerusalem ; and in Zech. i. 17, upon occasion of restoring them, he speaks thus : The Lord shall yet choose Jerusalem ; and chap. ii. 12, The Lord shall choose Jerusalem again. Nor is this meant wholly and altogether of a temporary choice (as yet in the type I acknowledge it was), but so as that type holds forth the substance towards his elect people among them ; for it is such a choice as upon which his people s sins are done away, and whereby Satan, that impleads them, which in the next words, chap. iii. ver. 2, is rebuked. The angel, Christ, that pleads against him, answers him with this : The Lord, who hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee. And it was by such an election renewed, as bv virtue of which Joshua s filthy garments were taken away, that is, his sins", chap. iii. 4, and so proper to God s elect, which that in Rom. viii. fully answers to, Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God s elect ? It is God that justifies.

Now as justification and election are thus renewed and multiplied, so I say not only, why may not, but that necessarily withal, mercy, and love, and peace, as in God s heart, must be together with them supposed to be so ; for these mercies are but the thoughts and purposes of grace, love, &c., im manent in God borne towards us, as well as those acts of justification and election are acts of God upon us, and yet immanent first in himself; yea, and those mercies and that love are the causes of those acts, and therefore are renewed together "with them, upon this renewal of them within himself. And hence, in the same sense, may love and mercy in God s heart be said, by a multiplication, to be continued to us, as those acts are. And in this respect it is that, Ps. xl. 5, like as the works of God, so his thoughts to wards us are said to be many, and multiplied : Many, Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy" thoughts which are to us-ward ; they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee : if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. It is * Turn de multiplicatione in quantitate discrela, turn de augmento in quantitate contmua accipiatur. Inde quidam reddunt multiplicetur, quidam verb adimvleatur Gerard, in 1 Pet. i. v. 2.

Christ s speech, of whom the psalm is made, anc Tthat relating unto his Father s resolved purposes and contrivements from eternity, and those con tinued unto his sending Christ into the world to die for us, as ver. 6, 7. It follows so, as although his thoughts and purposes were but one individual act at first, and never to be altered ; yet they became many, through a per petuated reiteration of them, wherein his constancy to himself is seen. The prophet David, in Ps. xxv. 6, imprecates God s loving-kindness in these words, Remember, God, thy tender mercies and thy loving-kindnesses ; for they have been ever of old ; which phrase imports it is of old, that is, from eternity. So for ever of old ; that is, all along from eternity per petuated, and therefore suitable to this meaning, he desires that God would remember them. It is good now to remember these, and remembrance is but a reiterated act of the understanding, with the same affections that were taken up at first.

And the reason from all this is as evident, for such acts as are of pure, free, and absolute grace in God, are in their kind such, as though he doth act any of them towards us in this moment, yet to continue the acting of the same the next moment, or upon the next occasion, is from, and depends upon, a new grace in him ; yea, the promises of grace have a fresh act of grace to move him unto the performance: Lam. iii. 22, It is of the Lord s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions (those which are in himself) fail not. They are new every morning (both the mercies which are the effects, and his compassions which are the cause): great is thy faithfulness. And thus much for how they are multiplied.

The third thing is, to prove that mercy and love thus multiplied should here be mentioned and intended, as the causes of preservation and salvation unto the end.

And, indeed, that these are causes hereof, none shall deny ; but the ques tion only proceeds whether here in this salutation and wish, they be in tended by the apostle ? To which I answer, That they are so intended here.

Perhaps in other such salutations (especially in Paul s large epistles) they come in abstractly, or as altogether severed from a coherence with the matter afore or after ; as human salutations among the Jews, and those eastern nations, ordinarily were wont to do, Dan. iv. 1, yet here in this short epistle I take it, they hold a strict coherence with what immediately went afore, and follows after.

And the reason in general of this difference in this epistle and in others is, because that the sole and entire subject of this short epistle (I speak of what immediately concerned the saints) is professedly the preservation of them unto salvation, as hath been shewn ; and also it was the love and mercy of God and Christ, that had hitherto been the preservers of them, as ver. 1. And so as the series and order of things in those two verses proceeds thus : 1. That a love in God s heart hath given them to Christ to keep ; 2. A mercy in Christ s heart hath moved him to undertake this ; and thirdly, in order thereto he had purchased their peace with his father ; 4.

All which, love, mercy, and peace, hath broke forth in their first calling ; and 5. From thence had been their custodes, the keepers of them thereunto. This is the substance or real sum of ver. 1. Hereupon, says our holy apostle, in ver. 2, in a pertinent coherence hereunto, what other is my wish and prayer for you, but that the same mercy, peace, and love of God the Father, and of his Son Jesus Christ (as another epistle, 2 John iii., in words supplies this), be multiplied ? and thereby so continued on you, so as still to preserve you to the end, even all along, from the first being called

VOL. IX. P

226 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. unto the being presented faultless afore the presence of his glory with ex ceeding joy, ver. 24. From this genuine coherence, I conclude, that this his prayer for the multiplication of this love and mercy, holdeth a strict con nection with, and aspect unto, that cause (preserved in Christ] as those which had been the causes of that their having been preserved for time past ; and to that end he prays for the multiplication of them for time to come.

And that which more expressly shews them this reason is the aspect that ver. 11 hath upon this second verse. In ver. 21 it is and hath been made evident, that he points the eye of their faith to the mercy of Christ, and love of God the Father, as those, which from time to come, the eye of their faith was to look at, as the primb moventia, the supreme causes of all other, of their being kept. The words are, * Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And that this interprets to us what love, and in whom, or whose (even that of God s and Christ to us) love it is that in ver. 2 is intended ; espe

Beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Christ, hath been already opened. Now, then, what is the difference between these two verses, but this : that this second verse is an apostolical prayer to God, that the same mercy and love might be multiplied, which, in ver. 21, is an exhortation to them to have the eye of their faith upon ; but so, as both do agree and centre in this, that those are the primary causes of their being kept, this being the common ground of either. And to shut up this, there being the same mercy and love in both verses intended, the argument proves strong from the latter to the former, ver. 2, that if the mercy and love in ver. 21 be directed unto, as the causes of preservation, then that the same are intended in their being prayed for, as the causes of our preservation, ver. 2, which is the point in hand. cially when we take in thereto the coherence of ver. 1, Thus much of the causes of salvation, in ver. 1, 2, both original and continued.

I come next to discover ; II. The original or antecedent in God s disposement of the apostates judgment and condemnation, as it is in ver. 4, There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old fore-written unto this condemna tion, &c. That this passage is set in way of opposition to and comparison with the former in ver. 3, < Beloved in God the Father, &c., to the end to illustrate the grace of electing, and discriminating grace the more, is evident at the very first view of both, to any intelligent reader s thoughts. And how infinitely the grace of election is magnified to us by such a com parative way of setting that of reprobation by it, I have remitted to another place or method. I shall now only give an exposition of this passage, and shew how this ordained of old unto this judgment is to be understood, this being in view one of the harshest speeches concerning God s dispensations to the sons of men, that is found in Scripture. We are first to inform ourselves of these two words therein. 1. Fore-written, translated appointed. 2. This judgment, translated condemnation. 1. Fore-written, so the word in the original. We must know that God s decrees about the persons of us intelligent creatures, the sons of men (being the top of his decrees), are expressed to us under the metaphor of writing in a book their names, taken from what is usual amongst men, that is, of such as have power to dispose of persons and things at their will, for ratification sake, do it by writing, or setting their pleasure down in some record ; as when a man hath goods, or an estate to dispose of, he doth it unto persons

by a written will, or record ; or if offices to bestow, he pricks down (as our kings do sheriffs) whom he thinks fit, and leaves out whom he pleaseth ; as among the Romans, patres conscripti, of senators ; milites descripti, of soldiers. Thus the Scriptures do attribute unto God a book of life, in which the names of all his elect are registered, and thereby we find election itself expressed : Philip, iv. 3, And I entreat thee also, &c., and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life. They do set forth in like manner God s disposal of the rest of mankind, as Rom. xi. 5, they are termed under the same allusion. That in general, Rev. xx. 12, it is said, that at the day of general judgment, * the books were opened, importing that there were other books concerning the rest of men, besides the book of life, which is there termed another book, that is, a more special, and, as it were, a more choice private book, which God keeps by him ; answerable, there is a black doomsday book, in which, what concerns those the rest, is registered and recorded, as foreseen by God concerning them.

And in prosecution of this metaphor, the Scriptures do more particularly set out what concerneth them under two acts.

(1.) Negative ; That they are left out of the book of life, their names are not found written there. Thus Rev. xiii. 8, Whose names were not written in the book of life. So that the first and main act concerning them, is but a leaving them out, and not writing them in that special book. And that negative act is indeed an act of pure, and mere, and absolute will in God, and is but this, That God did not love them so far, as absolutely to design them unto super-creation grace and glory. Observe how I express it, it is but a leaving them out of that book, wherein was an ordaining men unto such benefits and blessings as were purely supernatural, and above the due of creation ; whether for grace as the means, or glory as the end. In such things they were left out, and it was but a mere leaving them out, as to such things unto which the other were elected, and their names set down to inherit. Those blessings are thus expressed: Eph. i. 3, All spiritual blessings; (1.) in heavenlies ; (2.) in Christ, which were not due by law of creation in Adam ; and in such only the rest were left out ; but other wise, as to creation grace, and what herein by any law of their creation it was meet for God to give them, he ordained to give them it to the utmost, and to deal with them therein according to that law, even whatever, as to creatures, was any way requisite, all the good of holiness, life and reward, that by creation could be meet for intelligent creatures, endowed with free-will, to have, which was the law of their creation. This did God set out for them ; but mark what holiness, by a super-creation title, was to be renewed in Christ, and by Christ, if they fell ; the unchangeableness of that estate in holiness, which, as I take it, is the holiness which in Eph. i. 4 i said, that in election, as there it is intended, we were chosen unto, what life, and glory, and a participation of God above the law of creation, or the attain ment thereof, such as is in heaven, these were supernatural blessings in heavenlies, and in Christ ; wherein God was at full liberty to dispose thereof where he pleased. It was no part of that estate which was due to creatures, as creatures, but as a third part of a Londoner s estate is by law purely his own to bestow. Now these were the blessings only which God left them out of his will about. Now search the Scriptures, and you shall generally find, that the stress of reprobation is put upon this negative act ; as throughout the Scriptures of the New Testament I might shew you how it is expressed by this negative of not choosing: as the election obtained it, the rest, Rom xi. 5 ; that is, the non-elected were left out. So the one written in the book of life, implies the other not written ; so of the

228 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III. one, the Lord knows who are his ; of the other, I never knew you, Mat. vii. 23. That word, never, reacheth backward to eternity. So of the one, < which my Father hath given me, John

they are my sheep, John x. 14, vi. 86, 37, <*But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me, &c. And I must bring them, &c., ver. 16, Because I know the Father, ver 15, and whom he hath decreed to save. But ye believe not, because ye are not my sheep, ver. 26. It runs on in the negative.

(2.) But now you will say to me, But here in this place there is a j>ositive act expressed, a being of old forewritten to this condemnation, and that doth import, that God not only had a book of life, which they were left out of, but a book of death, their names were set down in.

I will not answer you here as Dr Hammond doth ; they were forewritten, that is, prophesied of by Christ, Mat. xxiv., which gospel was then writ in Jude s time.

I shall in few words give you my thoughts of this.

[1.] Those men, as to this act, are looked upon by God as fallen ; for however election, and non-election in the sense given, might have proceeded upon man, considered as not fallen ; yet fore-writing to condemnation, necessarily importeth more. And in that their fall, God used no prero gative will at all, no super-creation act, only decreed to permit it : and that Adam sinned was from the mutability of his own will and defect, unto which, as a creature, he was obnoxious ; and for God to have kept him from falling, as here, ver. 24, Jude speaks of us, had been super-creation grace, and belonged to the rank of those benefits which are in Christ, as, to be pre served in Christ, is said here to be ; God must have gone out of his line of communication to have kept him, and it had been an act of supercreation grace.

Then the first man being fallen, by the same creation law it was that all men fell or sinned in him, as Rom. v. 12. I say by the law of creation, the law of our nature, viz., that equal law, that holds as justly one way as the other ; that he, being the first father of all mankind, as Isa. xliii. 27, if we should have received holiness from him, by the same we should receive sin from him ; it was the law of our propagation from him, such as was given to all creatures having seed of life, Gen. i., to bring forth in their kind"; and in that sense we are children of wrath by nature, that is, by the force of the law of nature, Eph. ii. 3, as well as by birth.

[2.] Now, then, secondly, all men being fallen, and their being fallen having been at one and the same instant foreseen by him, as all his own works were uno actu intuitus, by one intuitive act, thereupon all men were now by nature viewed prone to all sin ; for so their nature, being fallen, disposed them even to all or any kind of sin whatever of themselves, and still not by any influence of his.

[3.] Hence, thirdly, their running into sin is only of themselves, and from their own corrupt nature and inclination, according to the outward circumstances and conditions, &c., which they should stand in, and all that of God is said, as to any positive influence of his into sin, you have well: Acts xiv. 1 6, Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in expressed their own ways.

[4.] Yea, and fourthly, they being not ordained to super-creation grace, in and by Christ, by which their sin should be any way healed, in order to eternal glory, but left unto themselves, without it ; hence that mere nega tive, and not being elected, that alone without any positive act of God s ordaining, would have left them to all or any sin whatever. And hence you

find, that in those Scriptures, where but only that negative act of nonelection is mentioned, in the same places, the sins they commit are men tioned as the consequents of it. I do not say the effects, for they flow from their own corruption. Thus, 1. For their not doing good, that they believe not, is attributed as the consequent of their not being God s sheep x. 26, But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 2. For their doing evil, their own corruptions so carry them thereto. Rev. xiii. 8, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foun - elation of the world. Where plainly, their giving themselves up to antichristian worship and idolatry, is attributed to the negative, that their names were not written in the book of life ; for why, super-creation grace being restrained, which at no time was their due, their own corrupt hearts would of themselves carry them on to those sins. So in that other place cited, for I instance in all I quoted, Mat. vii, 23, their damnation is ulti mately resolved into two acts. 1. The negative, I never knew you. 2. Their own, being workers of iniquity. Which a mere negative act of God s could have no positive influence into ; for out of a mere negative, never did anything positive arise ; all this is but to them, whereto the said cause of men s damnation is to be resolved.

Well, but you still urge, that here is a positive act of God s, his forewriting them to this condemnation. Mr Cotton observes, that the word xg///,a, signifies contention, as in that place to the Corinths : 1 Cor. vi. 7, There is utterly a fault among you, in that you have, Kgi/iara, contentions. And that in like manner it should be here used, of their opposition unto that faith, which upon that occasion he has exhorted true believers that they should * contend earnestly for, &c. And so that should come to this, that amongst the sinners of that age, that were afore of old in God s view (when he was the &>yuv6Qviros t orderer of those contentions), he had wrote down their names, as the men and persons that should so oppose the faith ; and so it is an allusion from the manner of those games, which was conscribere, to set down in writing the names of those that offered themselves to enter into the lists.

But, secondly, the strength of my answer rests upon this small word, tic, rovro, to this condemnation, or sinful contention ; and it is to me a mighty word, to clear this matter in hand, that God did forewrite their individual persons unto this or that particular way of sinning. Now consider what that will amount to at the utmost, taking in what was aforesaid ; but only unto this, how that all men lying fallen in God s view, and of themselves prone to all sin, he might leave them to their own swing and corruption, to one sin as well as another ; but he shews himself a God in ordering or rank ing their actual sinfulness, and particular ways of sinning ; some to this sin, some to that sin, that all might not run into any ;* and so it is but merely the disposing of men s sinnings, which of themselves they would commit. When all the world were sinners, and there was no difference, and all and every man would be as devils, and run wildly, headily, and as horses into the battle, into all manner of wickedness, the great God in his infinite wisdom and goodness, leaves one man to such a particular sin, as those here to this contention ; another man unto that, and not all to perpetrate every one, which of themselves they would do. As he turned the heart of the Egyp tians to hate his people, and restrained them from other sins, as he did Abimelech, I kept thee, from that act of adultery. But then he suffers them to take a liberty to such or such particular corruptions and wickedness ; * Qu. that many might not run into all ? ED.

230 OP ELECTION. [BooK III. so as indeed this fore -writing these men to this contention, rather than other sins, was no more than leaving them electively, to that, and not to another, and leaving them to that way of sinning, and not other men of the same age, and in the same circumstances with them ; which particular way of sinning is purely their own way, and their own doings, without his decree having any influence upon them, but setting them in such and such circumstances. And this ordering thus some men to this sin, some men to that, though it be from God s will, to order and leave them thereto ; yet the fact itself is not from God, and yet is justly styled a fore-writing, appointing it so and so, and deserves the name, because it is electively, and designedly, and truly done by him ; and yet herein this appointment of his has no more outward influence than of a man that would draw water into such and such a channel, he adds nothing to the propension of the waters, they run of themselves ; and thus God is said to have turned the Egyptians hearts to hate his people, and to turn the hearts of kings as rivers of waters.

2. This fore-writing to such great sinnings, is but by the way of punish ment of other sins which they first commit ; as Kom. i., * Therefore God gave them up. That these men, Rev. xiii., worshipped the beast; this account is given, 2 Thes. ii. 10, 11, Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie : that they all might be damned, &c. And so he wrote down these men to this contention and apostasy, upon the foresight of their sinning.f

8. Let me add this to justify God, that this fore-writing of men to several particular ways of sinning, when as they are all prone to all or any, and every man would be as wicked as the devil, to whom no sin comes amiss ; to act or set that man to this, is so far from being that harsh act of absolute repro bation, so exclaimed upon, that it is goodness and mercy to the generality of mankind. For, 1, it is done with a restraining them from other sins, which else would make this world an hell. I may express it by this com parison : Suppose a thousand barrels, full of either precious or poisonous liquor, that had each of them a thousand holes to let that liquor run out at ; for a man that is the disposer of them, to stop with pegs the most of those holes, in every such barrel, and to let out here and there as he pleaseth ; some he lets run at the top, and there comes out weaker kind of poison, others at the bottom, whence the most deadly flows ; and he did all these in a wisdom and discretion, and by an appointment with himself : will any one say, that this man is the cause of those effluxes of poison, which he barely lets out, and yet he is the appointer of them ?

Lastly, Hereby God shews an infinite wisdom, in the variety of those his appointments, so shewing every man what is in his own heart, whilst he lets it out in others ; and in this manner, appointing all manner of sinners to be extant in the world, as in Rom. i., as he doth all sizes of grace in his own, and all by appointment.

BOOK IV.

The mighty and powerful grace which God dispenses to his elect, in effectually calling them, in preserving them from temptations and sin, in strengthening and enabling them to persevere unto the end, and in bringing them at last securely to an eternal glory, by all which, the greatness of election grace is more fully cleared and proved.

But the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Jesus

Christ, after that ye have suffered a while, make you [or will make you] perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 PETER V. 10.

CHAPTER I.

The explication of the words. What it is for God to be a God of grace. A threefold grace in God. His purposing grace. That which he dispenses to his e lect. And the riches of grace that are in his nature. What the grace of his purposes is.

OUR apostle Peter had himself greatly suffered for a while. Satan sought to winnow and to devour him, but the God of all grace did by Cbnst, and his fore-warning of him, and through his prayer for him, graciously restore, strengthen, settle, stablish him, as the story of the evangelists and the Acts record. So all this was exemplified first in himself; and he, who himself hath been instructed in temptations and sufferings, is the ablest fore-warner and instructor of others. You know our Saviour did thereupon take occa sion to command him, that when he should be converted or restored, he should strengthen his brethren, Luke xxii. 81. And this our holy apostle, you see, is carefully mindful of, and that to the utmost ; and hath left it behind him for all his brethren to the end of the world, the greatest con solatory against Satan and all temptations that hath in so few words fallen from any apostle s pen.

And when I more seriously compare things together, I am strongly in duced to think and believe that Peter, in uttering these words of exhorta tion and comfort in the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses, had those very passages of Christ to himself in his eye and view ; and be yourselves the judges

Luke xxii. 81, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. And observe the parallel.

1. Satan hath sought; that is, obtained leave of God, by seeking thee (Peter) to winnow thee, and shake forth all grace out of thee. Thus Christ to Peter. Correspondency Peter here to us : Satan, your adversary, goes seeking whom of you he may (have leave to) devour. And as Christ gave

Peter fore-warning there, so Peter here his brethren.

2. Christ prayed that his faith fail not. That was the matter ot

232 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Christ s prayer for him on that occasion. Faith s not failing is Satan s foiling. Answerably the subject matter of our apostle also in his exhorta

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, as that which is the most tion here is, effectual remedy and shield of resistance of all other, Eph. vi. 16. It is not in the faith as understanding the doctrine of faith only, as some would seem to restrain it, because of the article ry marsi, but in the grace of faith, as Calvin more genuinely. And the grace of faith is so eminent in itself, and hath so great an hand, and bears so great a stress in this business of tempta tions, that it deserved here the honour of this article.

3. Strengthen thy brethren. There are but two words, yet both are here in terminis.

Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren in the world, so ver. 9, there is the one, and then ver. 10, * After ye have suffered, God will strengthen you, there is the other. So publisheth he the comfort and concernment thereof to all his brethren in the world ; and contents not himself to utter it barely in the very same word of strengthening, but further surroundeth that, for the more abundant consola tion, with a multiplication of words to the same intent: he shall restore you (see Gal. vi. 1), xaragr/<rg/ ; that is, when you are fallen, set you in joint again, which was Peter s very case, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 4. Lastly, which is not to be neglected, Christ, in strengthening Peter s faith against Satan, sets a but I have prayed, as in direct opposition unto all that Satan could do ; and Peter, when he had set forth Satan as our professed adversary in the greatest dreadfulness, he then in like manner of opposition, brings in his intended consolatory with a but God, the God of all grace by Jesus Christ, &c., set in full array and counter against him on our behalf, as our undertaker, guardian, and the strength of our hearts for ever. This for an introductory preface, and, it may be, not a little conduc ing to discover the main scope of the words.

These words are the public faith of heaven ; that is, of God and Christ, given for the safe conduct of all the called of God, through all temptations and assaults in this world unto glory. Two things more at present requisite to our understanding this to be his scope.

1. That under the phrase of afflictions in the ninth verse, and sufferings in the tenth, not outward persecutions only or chiefly are intended to be comforted against, but all inward assaults, either from our own lusts or Satan, and so all temptations whatsoever. This the coherence, intent, and extent of this consolatory exhortation shews, Be sober and watch, so the 8th verse, this respecteth lusts ; whom resist, this relates to inward temptations of Satan unto sin ; knowing the same afflictions or conflicts do befall your brethren. And then his setting afore the eyes of our faith God, asthe God of all grace, for our relief and help, argues it. For his grace principally and more specially stands to help us against inward sins and temptations to sin, &c. And then that extent of it, the all of his grace reacheth, not only unto all sorts of outward miseries, but unto all sins, which are our greatest miseries, which do need his all-sufficient grace above all other, and which grace in God chiefly respects. And therefore this is extensive unto all evils that grace may be supposed a remedy unto. These, therefore, are the afflictions principally intended, wherein also those very sufferings of Peter mentioned did also lie.

Neither is the word suffering averse to be taken in such a sense. 1. For temptations from Satan. For of Christ the head it is said, He suffered in that he was tempted, Heb. ii. 18, where temptations are plainly termed sufferings. Nor yet unusual to be understood of sins themselves ; in

1 Cor. x. 13, God will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear, this is spoken of sinnings ; and the word to bear imports them to be sufferings ; and indeed they are of all the greatest to them that are truly holy, and to such he there speaketh. And when it is said Christ was 4 tempted in all things like as we are, though without sin, as the issue of the temptation, yet he was tempted unto sin by Satan ; which is the differ ence put between his temptation and ours, Heb. iv. 15, and was no small part of his sufferings.

The second thing is, that the words do hold forth a promise that God will strengthen, and establish, &c. Besides that many original copies read the words in the indicative, xaragrtc&i, he will perfect, and not xarar/Va/, the optative, by way of wishing it, or praying for it. And however, if they should have been intended as a prayer, as they fell from Peter s heart, yet still that prayer supposeth and must contain a promise which God is engaged in to perform, for so all prayers are supposed to do. This being a sure rule, that as we are to turn promises into prayers, so we may extract promises out of all those prayers which we find in Scripture, for promises are the foundation of them ; and so it comes all to one. We will take, therefore, the words promise-wise, as Gerard and others do, to this sense, that after ye have suffered a while, God will or shall perfect, strengthen, stablish you. To confirm which reading and intent, there are more reasons to follow when that clause comes more particularly to be spoken to.

The division of the words. The words being thus understood, the parts thereof are two.

I. The great engagement: the engagement of God and Christ to relieve and carry all that are truly called in and through all temptations and sufferings.

II. The promise of performance, or the execution of it.

I. In the engagement.

1. The persons, God and Christ.

2. The pledge or gage already given by both to assure the performance, Who hath called us into his eternal glory ; no less ; not into the state of grace merely, as Rom. v. 2, but of glory ; that is, the undoubted right to it from the first step we set into our being called.

II. In the promise to perform it.

1. That God will be sure, as he is a God of grace, to strengthen and uphold.

2. The limitation or manner of performance, After you have suffered a while, &c. And, 3. All these are propounded to believers, in order to produce stedlastness in faith, which he had pre-exhorted to in ver. 8, and unto which these words, and every word of them, do visibly look and refer, as a complete, adequate ground set forth unto their faith, and which if we believe, we have abundant matter of stedfastness and security.

I. I begin with the engagement of the two persons: 1, God; 2, Christ, which was the first part of the division ; and accordingly the first words that present themselves, are the first of these persons, but the God of all grace.

Neither shall I insist on these words, nor any of the other, any farther than as they directly tend to, and issue in the proof of my main subject, which I have proposed at first as the sum of all the words, and to serve unto that purpose, I do undertake for each and every word.

1. But God. You may observe in what a terrible manner he had set forth o ur adversary the devil, in all things that may render him dreadful to us

234 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

An adversary for malice, a lion for strength, a roaring lion for dread, The lion roars, who will not tremble ? walking about, seeking, such is his dili gence, whom he may devour, being able by one temptation to drink up (as the word xaraffiri) at one draught, any soul suddenly and at once, as it were, making no bones of it, as he did Judas, and held him fast in his belly, as a lion his prey, so as never to get out again ; and farther (which of itself would increase the trouble), he tells them that all and every saint were in danger at least of being tempted sorely by him, if not continually, yet at some time or other every saint, both great and small, the whole brotherhood (as the word is) were ordained to suffer by his hand, so ver. 9 ; and when he had done this, then in full opposition unto all, comes in but God as a carer and undertaker for us. So he is styled ver. 7, but God, the God, &c. so setting him in full butt, as we say, against the devil and the fears of our own hearts, as our preserver, vindex, and undertaker (as Job), and great care-taker for us, as Peter here, ver. 7. So then, take all these verses and join them to gether, that is, from the 6th to the 10th verses, as meeting in this one great scope, and you may behold (and it is a pleasant sight to see) the devil, our adversary, besieged, and every way surrounded, that if he but offer to meddle with us, God is presented ready to rise up on every side against him (as the Psalmist speaks, Ps. cxxiv. 1). There is God, the mighty God that careth for us, .on the foreside afore him ; then, but God, the God of all grace, on the other side behind him ; and what should we now fear ?

If it were not for this but God, what strange doings from men s lusts, yea in saints hearts, yea and from Satan, would there be in the world ? Parallel unto this is that of another apostle, The spirit that is in us, saints, lusteth

But God giveth more grace to help us against these, James iv. after envy and revenge, &c. And whither would these carry us ?

Oh, that this, but God, were but always in remembrance with us, when * do encom the iniquity of our heels, and strong and various temptations pass round about, to oppose this through faith against them, as the apostle here. The like coming in of a but God, you have again and again in the New Testament, Eph. ii. 4 ; 1 Cor. x. 13. In the Old, Ps. Ixxiii. 26, And if God be for us, who shall be against us ? Rom. viii. 81.

1 &c. But if, moreover, God, as

2. The God of grace ; If God be for us, the God of grace be for us, who then can be against us ? You may observe how proper and suitable the singling forth and mention of this attribute of God s is, a God of grace, when you have to do with Satan in point of personal temptations, &c. When elsewhere, the church at Rome had to do with him in respect of divisions raised up amongst them by him, the style the apostle giveth to God for their relief against him and them is, the God of peace, in full opposition unto divisions ; that is, a God who was able, and would one day therefore settle and compose them : Rom. xvi. 17-20, The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly ; he speaks it in relation unto divisions, as ver. 17. But when our apostle here would raise up our spirits against temptations, which are personal from Satan, or corruptions of what kind soever, he then, as appositely styleth him the God of grace ; no thing so proper, nothing so sovereign a remedy for these as is his grace, no not in God himself. It is that which we need in that case, above all other. When Paul was under temptation, and a * messenger of Satan, or the angel Satan (you may read either) was sent to buffet him, what was it that God did immediately suggest unto him for relief ? My grace is sufficient for thee ; that is, the grace that is in my heart towards thee, and the grace that is the effect thereof working in thy heart, and both are ready to assist thee, and is sufficient for that present need ; yea, all that could befall him.

And this was an answer which God himself gave ; for in answer to his pray ing thrice, it was that God made this return, * And God said, my grace, &c. So then, both apostles, who had both run through temptation themselves, knew none more pertinent supports to faith than this ; yea, God himself could speak no greater comfort than this. It was HE said, my grace is sufficient for thee.

3. You may further observe, that though we find it everywhere else almost the grace of God, and that God is gracious and full of bowels, and the like ; yet nowhere but in this place, this style the God of grace, especially nowhere of all grace ; but there only man needed it, when temptations are spoken of, especially when they come upon him ; and the Holy Ghost re served it for this special occasion. And it is not spoken only to shew what God is in his nature simply, but what he is to his children. Even as else where, when it is said that God is love, 1 John iv. 8, it is not only in tended what God is in his essence, but especially what he is to his children, out of his love, and from his nature, and the like is not said of any attri bute else. And what doth it signify ? Verily that God is all love, nothing but love, is made up (in his carriage towards them) as a God all of love, and so here the like. That God, in point of temptations, sufferings, trials of his children (yea, and in all things else), deals purely upon the terms and principles of free grace, and will in the issue shew he was no other but a God of grace, and of all grace towards us, All whose ways are mercy and love, not one excepted, Ps. xxv. 10. What it is to have God to be a God of grace to us. Now, brethren, do you indeed know what this means, the God of grace, or the grace of God ? Or what it is to have God to be a God of grace to your souls ? To know this in reality, as it is in God toward us, our apostle makes it the periphrasis, the very character of a man savingly converted, If so be ye have tasted that God is gracious, 1 Pet. ii. 3. My meaning is not to enumerate all particulars, in respect of which God is a God of grace to us. It is not requisite to the subject I pro fess to handle (which is my main scope), and indeed it would be infinite ; for that would comprehend all the ways wherein God is gracious, all the benefits bestowed, all the acts of grace which God hath done or does for us, all the workings of grace in us, the whole of what Christ did, which is styled the grace of Christ, by which we are saved, Acts xv. 11, in a word, the whole gospel, and all contained therein, is therefore entitled, the grace of God. I shall first reduce all unto three general heads, which I shall in time and in their order treat only of, and that in generals. There is a threefold grace in God :

1. His purposing grace afore this world, and still continued in his heart.

2. Dispensatory grace in the world, or his gracious dealings with, and giving forth of grace to us.

3. The riches of grace that are in his nature. The grace of his nature moved him to form up all sorts of purposes of grace within himself, and then he dispenseth grace exactly according to those his purposes. And then again, the riches of grace in his nature are such, and so vast, as they have wherewith to maintain and make good both these. The grace in his nature is the fountain, the spring ; the grace of his purposes is the well-head, and the grace in his dealings and dispensations are the streams. When I come to the next head, his being the God of all grace, I shall then speak to the first and latter of these ; but in treating of this his being a God of grace, I shall speak of the grace in his heart, or his pur poses of grace toward us, which are by the Psalmist, Ps. xl. 5, and the pro-

236 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. phet, termed his thoughts of peace and mercy, which in his heart he hath taken up towards us, or which he thinks towards us, as the prophet s word is, Jer. xx. 11. Nor yet shall I speak of all of these his thoughts neither ; for * Thy thoughts, God, which are to us-ward, cannot be reckoned up in order, Ps. xl. 5. But I shall insist but upon such as the Psalmist says, particulars only, as directly serve to the point afore us, of his carrying us through all temptations unto glory.

1. And to speak of this his purposing grace first the text itself invites, yea, requires us ; for it manifestly speaks of that grace which God had in his heart to us afore he calls us, and out of which he calls us, and which moved him thereunto, as that parallel place in 2 Tim. i. 9 more expressly shews : Who hath called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. We are apparently then sent to con sider that purposing grace which was given us in Christ afore the world was ; for as here, so there, it is declared to be that grace out of which we are called with an holy calling, and is rightly styled his purposing grace ; for * according to his purpose and grace, &c. And that of the apostle, Rom. viii., concords with both, The called according to his purpose. Begin we with that then.

(1.) The first act of which grace towards us, and by which, indeed, it is that he first becomes a God of grace to us, is seen in the choosing and singling forth the persons of those he purposes to be a God of grace unto, who are to be the objects or subjects, or rather the creatures of free grace, as I may so style them. Election of the persons, therefore, is styled the election of grace, Rom. xi. 9, and this is the fundamental grace and act of * The foundation of the Lord remains sure ; the Lord knows who are his ; and this the us, not others, in the text imports, all other graces, which are all built upon it : * who hath called ws, out of his being first a God of grace to -w; which word, when I shall in its order come to treat of, I shall then enlarge upon this discriminating grace.

(2.) To be a God of grace to you is to love you (your persons) merely because he loves you. I say merely because he loves you. The very word grace imports so much, without any addition. Grace is the freeness of love ; the import of it is a super-addition of freeness both to mercy and love: Rom. iii. 24, * Justified freely by his grace; Hos. xiv., Receive us graciously, said the church in her prayer, ver. 2 ; in answer to which, says God, I will love them freely. This is grace ; which freeness of grace, because it was first put forth, and was primarily seen, in that first act of the choice of the persons, afore they had done good or evil, to invite him thereunto, therefore it is that it is termed the election of grace ; that is, it was such a choice of persons as grace merely swayed, it choosing accord ing to its own genius, frank inclination, nobleness, and free disposition. And what that was, follows : ver. 6, And if by grace, then it is no more of works (distinguish you of works as you please, it excludes them all) ; grace affected therein to be so absolute, entire, and alone, to and within itself, as it riseth up against all works, and their intermingling any respects of ; them selves therewith, as those which should any way sway or move it in this its resoluteness about persons, and as those that would stain that sole glory that it affected therein ; yea, as being opposite to the very being of it, other wise grace is no more grace, says he. And he speaks all this of electing grace, as the coherence specified shews.

Now this second assertion, I stated it thus, He loved us merely because he loved us. And lo ! this we have in terminis : Deut. vii. 7, 8, The Lord

did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number; but because the Lord loved you. Where you have two things: the act, and the ground of that act. 1. The act is his loving them, cleaving to them in love, as the original hath it, ver. 7. For in his saying, * The Lord did not set his love upon you for your number, there is the most pregnant supposition and vehement affirmation that he had set his love upon them upon some other respect and ground ; and that negative not relates but to the removal of what was not the cause of that love. 2. The ground or motive to that act is set out not barely negatively, as was said, not for your number ; and by the same reason, not for any other qualifications in them, as of righteousness or the like, which he after also doth as expressly name and exclude : Deut. ix. 5, 6, Not for thy righteousness, or the up rightness of thy heart, &c. For what then ? The positive ground is, But because he loved you, which, indeed, is but what he supposeth, and had affirmed sufficiently afore in ver. 7, and yet comes in again with an indignation, purely to shew that this was the only ground or reason itself of that act of his having set his love upon them, 4 because he loved, &c. ; and it is ushered in and amplified with a but, as in opposition unto, and with an exclusion of all other things in the elect them selves that might have any supposition of being motives to him thereunto.

The Lord did set his love upon you, unto these first words of the 8th, but be cause he loved you, that is, put the act, and this as the ground, together, and the issue and result is as if he had said, The Lord loved you because he loved you, and for no reason else as in you, but for this alone in himself, and in his heart taken up towards you, and so loved you merely because he loved you. That is his reason, which were the words of this third assertion

So, then, there being but that supposed insinuation in the 7th verse, at first. And though it be spoken of the election of them in time unto that good land, as in the type, yet as shadowing forth his election to glory as the substance of both.

3. For God, to be a God of grace to you, is to resolve to love you, and that for ever ; to be unchangeable in his love, and never to have his heart taken off you.

There are two words in the text, for upon the text I would found each and every of these heads, and all along.

(1.) That he is such a God of grace to us, as, in calling, he calleth us into his eternal glory, no less, at the very first entrance. He doth not say he hath called us into grace only, or unto his favour, but into glory, and * eternal glory; that is, by calling he estates us into the whole and full right thereof for ever. The meaning whereof, what is it, but that he culls us out of such a grace and love as he did, and doth resolve to be a God of grace to us for everlasting, and therefore calls us past recalling, Rom. xi. 29, even into eternal glory ? A God of all grace indeed !

(2.) The second word is underground, and not rendered by our interpreters ; for having said this first, that he is a God of all grace, who hath called us into eternal glory, then proceeding on, duro f, He, says he, the same God, will perfect you, &c., which durog, there placed, repeats and draws in that former clause into itself, and carries it on to the rest ; and so is, as if he had said, He, this sam,e God of grace, whom I have thus set out, and who hath called you, he will preserve you by settling, &c., and so bring you infallibly unto that glory. So then the mind of it is, that first and last, and all along, he is a God of grace in all. He was a God of all grace to you in loving you afore calling, and out of that grace it was he called you, and he continues the same after calling, to restore you, semper idem, always the

238 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. same, from eternity to eternity, I am God, I change not (of which more afterwards, upon James i.). He speaks it of his love to his people, there fore ye are not consumed, and the ground of this continuance and stedfastness of his love is merely because he is a God of grace to them : Whom he loved, he loved unto the end, John xiii. 1. Grace causeth him first to fall in love, and that fixeth his heart ; his heart is said to cleave in love, Deut. vii. 7 (the word the same that is used of Shechem to Dinah, Gen. xxxiv. 8). But hear free grace itself speak in its own free and proper language and native tongue, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. It was spoken to God by Moses* first, God thereby expressing his having chosen him, Exod. xxxiii. 19, and then applied by the apostle to all the chosen of God, Rom. ix. 15. It is spoken like grace itself, which is moved by and from nothing but himself, and which hath no other reason but itself within him. He loves because he loves ; so at first, Deut. vii. And he will love because he will love, stat pro ratione voluntas, that is all his reason. There is will upon will ; I will and I will. Grace is the most resolved (I had almost said), wilful principle in the heart of God. If in other purposes of his you find his resolution fixed, as Isa. xiv. 27, The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, and who shall disannul it ? much more in this matter ; and the reason is evident, for acts of grace are not barely acts of his will, but of his good will, and of the good pleasure of his will, Eph. i. 5. In which he is delighted, Deut. x. 15 ; and rejoiceth with his whole heart, and his whole soul, Jer. xxxii. 41. The property of grace is to love because it will, there fore to love whilst he hath a will, or love to love withal.

4. This grace thus fixed in God s will is the most sovereign and pre dominant principlein the heart of God, to overrule all other things he willeth, so as effectually to carry on his resolutions of free grace. Grace, as it is the most resolute, so the most absolute principle in the heart of God ; unto

the throne of grace ? Heb. it belongeththe dominion. What means else iv. 16. And why else is it said, to reign unto eternal life ? Rom. v. 21. You find this round about the text in the words afore, ver. 6, 7, Humble yourselves under (or submit to) his mighty hand, that is, his sovereign power, that will exalt you in due time ; so ver. 6, after which follows, * Who is a God that careth for you, ver. 7. All which is carried down to this head of his being a God of all grace. Then in the next words to those, The God of all grace will establish you, &c., it follows, verse 11, To him be glory and dominion for ever ; that is, to him as a God of all grace, who professedly deals thus graciously with his people. The effect of both is, that he being a God of all grace, to whom the dominion belongs ; therefore give yourselves up to him as such a God, whose grace in caring for you, and exalting of you, hath the sovereignty.

And this sovereignty of his grace is given to it, not only in respect of all things out of God, that should be supposed to stand in the way to its reso lutions, but is attributed unto it as in a comparison to all other the attributes in God himself, all which come in and give up their interest as to the accomplishing free-grace designs, which were the supreme and top designs that were to be found in the heart of God. Thus in the first and second chapter to the Ephesians, where he mentions other attributes as having a hand in our salvation, he magnifies the wisdom of God discovered therein, ver. 8, as also the exceeding greatness of his power therein, ver. 19, yet he sets the crown on free grace its head, all to the praise and glory of his grace, so ver. 6. And in reason that must be acknowledged to have the dominion, that hath the principal glory, as that for the glory of * Qu. by God lo Moses ? ED.

CHAP. L] F ELECTION. 239 which all was at first designed. Now the whole of all spiritual blessings (particularly election, predestination, redemption, &c., Eph. i. 4-6) are all

to the praise of the glory of his grace, ver. 6. Yea, those other said to be attributes employed in this work, although they are to have their proper glory out of our salvation, yet in the work of our salvation they have but as it were an acting under free grace, to effect what it designs ; they put in their joint stock indeed, but are content that their glory should come in to them, so far as they subserve this glorious grace in its contrivements.

If any hereupon shall query, Is this the prerogative of grace which you mean, that it saves men, continue they what they will, and so saves them merely out of an absolute sovereignty, because it will save them ?

Ans. 1. God forbid. We defy* such a sovereignty so understood, as if it saved any man without rule, much less against rule. The very text, that speaks as high of grace as any other Scripture, yet when it styles him The God of all grace, as in relation to our salvation, adds, * who hath called us, as without which all the grace in God would not be able to save a man ; and that * Who hath saved us, and called us with calling is to be an holy calling too, an holy calling, according to his grace ; without holiness no man shall see the face of God. The reason of this is, that this dominion and monarchy of grace hath fundamental laws, as all well regulated monarchies have. Let this foundation of the Lord be never so sure, that the Lord knows who are his, yet it is added, Let him that calls on the name of the Lord depart from iniquity, 2 Tim. ii. 19, or he cannot be saved.

Ans. 2. If by prerogative and sovereignty be meant an effectual, infallible, over-bearing, over-powering all in our hearts, and all things else for the bringing about of our salvation, and enabling us to keep those rules that are set us as essentially requisite to "salvation, then from such a sovereignty and prerogative we detract not to affirm, that it is attributed to grace. And there is nothing that may be supposed to stand in its way, or in opposition to this, but, forsooth, man s freewill ; as if God had made a creature, which himself, and all in him, could not rule ; and that such a sovereignty is in his grace, as that it engageth all in God, and draws all in him, unto its assistance ; this we are not ashamed to affirm. And look as grace complies with all those other attributes, as with his holiness, wisdom, &c., in setting such rules, so withal it draws those other attributes into an engagement, to undertake to assist it for the keeping us, and our otherwise perverse wills, within the compass of such rules, and to overcome all opposition to the con trary ; and herein it is that grace its prerogative is seen. In the strength of which it is that, Jer. xxxii. 40, God maketh an everlasting and so abso

That I will turn not away from them to do them lute a covenant with us, good. But what ? Is this spoken in so absolute a manner, that let them con tinue to do what they shall or would do, however he will continue to do them good for ever ? No. But * I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me, and he adds, for ever. The result whereof is plainly this, that unless they have the fear of God preserved so in their hearts, as not to depart from him, God himself must turn away from them, and from doing them good ; and so it is manifest that God considered that as one of his own rules he could never dispense withal, and this whilst he uttered that everlasting promise ; for he cautioneth it there with a but (for with a but it comes in) : But I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me for ever. The resolve of all which is to this effect, that that very same grace, which at first had so fixed him as to say, I am resolved, I will not turn away from them ; the same grace undertook to * Qu. deny ? ED.

240 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. cause them to observe and keep this rule, and unto that end engageth all that is in God (for elsewhere it is said, He doth this with his whole heart ) to put his fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart, that is, wickedly depart, from him. Now unless it were for this his undertaking to work thus in them, God by the mouth of the same Jeremiah professedly declares, he would never save them. Thus chap. iii. 19, How shall I put thee among the children ? so wicked wretches as he had described them in ver. 4, 5, Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. God demurs, as it were, upon the matter : what shall I, then, do to put thee among my children ? Thy present wickedness is utterly incompatible with my rule, therefore how shall I do it ? But free-grace steps forth and answers it, and I said, Thou shalt call me Father, and shalt not turn away from me ; and then God says, I will work on them at last. The effect of which resolve of his is, I will cause him to keep my rule, and so bring him within the compass of the benefit of it.

5. This grace, this purposing grace in God s heart, had the ordering and dispositive power of all left to it, that is, of what should prove opposite, to see to it that it should not hinder ; or, secondly, the disposing of all neces sarily conducing to the salvation of those God loved.

And in the general there is this reason by way of deduction from the former, that if it had the sceptre, the throne (as was shewn), then the dispos ing power of all, the legislative or dispositive power, always follows the dominion.

But particularly in reason, if grace had all the power given up to it, then, to be sure, it would continue and forelay all things so (as to this point of perseverance) as to make sure work : That the purpose of God, according to election, which indeed is no other than free-grace s purpose in God s.* might stand, as Rom. ix. 11, and not be defeated, frustrated, or overthrown ; or as elsewhere, it would lay such a foundation as might not stand only, but heart, * stand sure, as 2 Tim. ii. 19. Certainly free-grace that sat in the throne, among all the other attributes of God, would see to this.

It had all that God should purpose to do before it, all in his hands to dis pose of ; and the heart of God being, through his grace, so full of those two great interests mentioned, 1. Of such a love to those whom he was pleased to love ; 2. The other of exalting the glory of that his love in their salvation; certainly, it would contrive all that should befall us so, as should advance these two interests most. God was now to set down his will, and gave to free-grace the commission to draw up the writings, conveyances, and deeds, with this charge, to be sure to make all sure. And all this, though after the manner of men set out by me, you will find up and down in the Scriptures singly and apart. I shall single forth one place or two, which speak home, in terminis, to the substance of the words I have now delivered this fifth assertion in.

In 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, when David came to die, and then had the prospect of all God s foregone dealings throughout his whole life, what doth he resolve the whole manage of his salvation, he now expected, into ? God hath made an everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all things, and sure : for this is all my salvation. I quote it as being a full and adequate proof to every word of this fifth head.

(1.) This covenant was the covenant of grace, as you ordinarily style it, and it carries that name from all the other attributes ; for, indeed, free-grace made that covenant, and contrived it, and brought God himself under the bondof it. To confirm which, compare Isa. Iv. 3, An everlasting covenant,

the sure mercies of David, this passage in Isaiah eminently alludes to this speech of David at his death, it is mercy s covenant then you see ; and to say, it is mercy s covenant, is all one as to say, free-grace s covenant ; and observe, it is called sure mercy ; and sure mercy will be sure to make a sure covenant.

(2.) This grace, the great covenant-maker there, having all in God to concur with itself, and all that should come from God at its disposure, it is said to have ordered matters, so as to effect and bring about its purpose. The three versions render the word made ready and prepared ; and what is predestination but praparatio beneficiorum Dei, as Austin of old hath it ?

(3.) And thirdly, ordered all things, not a few passages or events only, but all that should concern David, or befall him, even all and every one ; which designment David, in Ps. lix. 10, calls his mercy, properly and per sonally set out for him.

(4.) And all and each unto what end or issue, but unto David s salvation?

4 This is all my salvation.

(5.) And all things ordered so firmly as to make sure work to arrive at that, and bring David to that end, and issue, and period at the last. And this David had so clearly discerned throughout the whole course of his life, in the chain and series of things that befell him, as at his death, upon the view of all he saw by experience, besides his faith on the promises, that the whole had been, and must needs be a plotted, contrived design by God, that it could be no other ; and therefore it is, that now he set his seal and testi mony to this at death ; I have found it so upon the view of all the passages of my life. And in like tenor of speech to this, God speaks in general of all his works : 1 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning, yea, eternity, Acts xv. 18 (which speech yet is spoken by the apostle James, with a particular aim and relation unto his decrees about the salvation of the Gentiles, and casting off the Jews, as the verses before and after shew). As likewise that speech, that he disposeth the whole world, Job xxxiv. 13 ; a word near of kin to this of ordering all things, used by David in his case, but in a more special manner. He useth this word, or what is equivalent to it, in other scriptures, viz., that he hath set in order and appointed his own people, and what belongs to them or concerns them.

You have this in terminis : Isa. xliv. 7, And who, as I, shall call, and declare it, and set it in order for me (and that he speaks of all his works), but it follows, * since or seeing that it was I that appointed the ancient people ; and the things that are coming, and shall come. God here takes on him, to himself alone, the declaring things to come, upon this invincible reason, that he had the setting in order of all things in his eternal purposes, and the calling of things that are not, or were not, into being ; and there fore he alone can foretell them, none having been his counsellor ; for when * who shall set in order for me ? it implies that himself did, and none for him, or besides him. And that word setting in order imports his he says, having all afore him, even as now our compositors or printers have their letters, which they place and cause to stand fixed every tittle in order to impression ; and so things in his counsels stand fixed and ready to be brought into existence, and are all so setly placed as nothing can be added thereunto ; and therefore, no wonder, says God, I can declare things to come.

But then, secondly, for a visible evidence of this, he produceth this one singular eminent instance for all the rest, what he had declared and ordered

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242 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IY.

since I appointed the ancient people, and the concerning his own people things that are coming, and shall come. The ancient people in the Hebrew is the people of antiquity or of eternity, that is, in the time past ; as the word is used in Isa. xliv. 15, 17, and imports how from everlasting, afore the world, he had singled them forth, and appointed them, and accordingly had set in order all things about them, as it there follows ; and in respect unto this also it is that in the verse he had said, I am the first. And herein lies God s argument, or the evidence I speak of: Lo, I have ordered by appointment and decree from everlasting all things about this my so ancient people, and accordingly have in my Scriptures, which you all may read, things about them which have come to pass many of them already, and many other I have appointed too, which shall assuredly come to pass ; and therefore all the world may be convinced that I have set in order all other things, and only can declare them aforehand.

I understand the word translated since, not for a note of time, as if he had meant since the time, &c., but as a note of evidence, or inference alleged, or of appeal unto ; that is, since that, or seeing that, I have done thus and thus about my ancient people, you may be assured, says God, that I have ordered all other things else, and only can declare them.

And for the confirmation of this concerning my own people, I refer you, says God, to all that I have written in all my Scriptures hitherto, and for whose sake it was I wrote them, from Moses s to Isaiah s times, whereof a word hath not fallen to the ground ; yea, and I began to declare sundry things about them when there was not one man of them born, but Abraham him self, to whom I first declared it, Gen. xiii. 16 and xv. 5, so as all the world may thereby see that I alone have disposed and ordered all things else, having exercised my grace and wisdom so exactly herein towards these my chosen ones, and the first-fruits of my creation. I shall cast in another passage of David s ; in Psalm Ixi, he having declared in his own behalf the purpose of God toward him for everlasting salvation, he, speaking of him self, shall abide before God for ever, ver. 7 ; he withal considering what he was to run through in this life, and what it might require to keep him unto the end, and so for ever, doth presently thereupon, in way of prayer, subjoin, Oh prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve me. As if he had said, I have yet a long journey to go, and through many hazards, and thy promise is, I shall abide afore thee for ever. Lord, thou hast need lay up and aforehand prepare an abundance of mercy and truth to preserve me for time to come. I have cited this and that other passage of David s, rather than any other scriptures (which abound as to the effect of this asser tion), to gain the advantage and light which this word ordering, first used by David, gives to this great point in hand, and yet is indeed no other than in the plain song of it, and in fuller terms more largely, you find in the apostle, Kom. viii. 28-30, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 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. And the real issue of all is this, that if God did thus appoint them afore the world was unto salvation, as Eph. i. 3, 2 Thes. ii. 13, then also he ordered and disposed all that should fall out to them, or from themselves, in this world, so as they should no way disannul their salvation, but work together for it: * so as neither life nor death, &c. You know the triumph in the conclusion of that Rom. viii., that as it is said of the law, that coming four hundred years

after the promise, Gal. iii. 17, it can never make the promise of none effect, so here.

(6.) Now, sixthly, if all things were thus ordered aforehand to the salva tion of them, then specially all their temptations, sufferings, distresses, sins, are so either prevented or precluded ; as Psalm lix. 10, The God of my mercy shall prevent me, or so disposed, overruled, and succeeded with repentances, reducements, and eluctances out of them, and all so forelaid together with the temptations, that there is a sureness (which is David s word), yea, an impossibility (which is Christ s), that they should miscarry by all or any of these. And unto this his special ordering of temptations, our apostle in these words of the text, and in what is round about it, hath a special and particular eye and aim ; and as in the whole,, so in several words points at it.

[1.] He first particularly and expressly sets out temptations, &c., as the object-matter about which his discourse was intended, under the name of sufferings from Satan, as hath been shewn.

[2.] He then had presented God as aforehand, ver. 6-, to be a God that careth for us, in reference unto those temptations ; as one whose vigilant and foreknowing care is taken up, and busied both over us and thosa our sufferings. And it is the property of care, you all know, in one that is wise and able to foresee, and order a prevention or relief; and it is accordingly often synonymously expressed by forecast, to forelay and provide against.

[8.] To this scope also it is that he draws our eyes upon, and would have us look at God, in all these things that so fall out, as upon a sovereign God, that hath a mighty hand in bringing them upon us (with which accords that in Acts iv. 28 concerning Christ our pattern, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done ), and then in delivering us from under them, and who hath a prerogative, a power, to order them, sub due them, &c. ; and withal a God of all grace, which grace makes him will ing to exercise and use that sovereignty towards us, and this in relation unto all that may depress us or cast us down, as those words, ver. 5, clearly shew, 4 Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you, &c. Such a prerogative hand it is, as he is said to have brought Israel with out of Egypt, and destroyed the Egyptians ; whereof the same and like phrase is used Exodus xiv. 81, xxxii. 11, Deut. iii, 24, and by which Christ was incarnate, and he blessed virgin conceived, Luke i. 49-51.

[4.] And farther, he declares how in those sufferings and depressments that his prerogative hath a design upon you to exalt you the more in the * Humble yourselves, that he may exalt you ; with which that of David accords, Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down, Ps. cii. 10. issue : [5.J Yea, fifthly, And hath in his eye a time, a due time to exalt you

in due time, in a set time to have mercy ; so as it follows in the 13th verse of that psalm. again, in that he may exalt you

[6.] He again tells us, God hath set both the time how long, and the measure how much, after ye have suffered, oX/yov, which is translated, little while, as for time only, but signifies both a little space, for the time, and also but a little deal, for the measure ; yea, and he has so designed this, that you shall not be exalted afore, but after that ye have suffered first : all these having been thus ordered by him, out of his prerogative or sove reign power, and out of his care moderating them.

[7.] And then, seventhly, He declares his design to be to perfect and stablish, &c., after all these sufferings ; not reduce you only, or bring you forth: What can be more manifest than that this design is driven in all these ? of them, but bring you to a perfection thereby

244 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

[8.J But lastly, If you require the word appointed to be given, as used hereof, you may discern and find it in the word accomplished ; Knowing the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren in the world ; and an accomplishment,* we know, is but the fulfilling of what was afore designed, of which afterwards.

So as the text confirms every tittle of the assertion, and so sufficiently, as I shall not need call in the help of any other Scripture. The main conclusion by way of inference from hence is, that if things be thus, then there is an absolute sureness, unto an impossibility of a miscar riage, which, as I said, Christ himself pronounced concerning the elect in the very case of hazard from temptations. One impossible is used of God s promise and oath pawned to his covenant of grace, and his decrees thereof, Heb. yi. 18 ; and the other, or rather the same, is used by Christ his coun sellor -in the very case in hand, namely, of temptations ; such as if it were possible the elect should be deceived. And well he might ; for God hath ordered and taken care of all, out of a prerogative and grace. God foresees the objection, and hath the answer ready. He permits the wound, the poi son, and hath the antidote, the salve ready. This you have in terminis : Isa. Ivii. 17, 18, For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him : I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and wilbheal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts, &c. It is the worst extremity supposable. He suffers, and moderates the temptation, and appoints the issue, the escape, the outlet of it ; this is also in terminis : 1 Cor. x. 13, < There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man : but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the tempta tion also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. If a great and gracious prince, being to send his son on -an embassy into a far country, where there are many dangers and hazards to run through from thieves and enemies ; but withal if he did punctually foreknow all the coun sels of enemies, their motions as God speaks of Sennacherib, 1 know thy .abode, &c., at what passages they will lurk and lie in wait (as God did of the King of Syria, 2 Kings ii. 8, &c., at such and such a place, as there), and then withal should send an invisible guard (that is invisible as to the enemies) stronger, than they, secretly to accompany them, as he did to the prophet Elisha, either to bring them off when in extremity, or to give them secret warnings to beware at such a time, as in that case, 1 Kings vi. 10, the prophet from God did the king ; or in case they would be too hard for them, then either not suffer them to assault at all, or to befool them, as the prophet in the same chapter did that great host in the way, at Dothan, ver.

14, 15, 19, &e. In this case, if all be thus certainly forelaid, although they may hardly escape sometime, yet they will certainly come to their journey s end, be it never so long. Now this is the very case here : 1 Pet. i. 5, We are kept as with a guard of soldiers unto salvation, says the apostle there ; and God knows how to preserve the righteous, as in 2 Pet. ii., and suffers not the temptation to assault, .unless there be need, as in 1 Pet. i. 6, < Wherein ye greatly rejoice : though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through ma-nifold temptations .; and only to the end to glorify his grace in the issue, as ver 7 it follows : That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And God hath infinite and strange ways to keep and preserve them from sin, and to deliver

* Gerard on that word.

out of temptation. Sarah, when in bed with Abimelech, as some have thought, I restrained thee, says God to Abimelech ; so Joseph s brethren were withheld from killing him ; and David was kept from cruelty and rage by Abigail s wisdom : 1 Sam. xxv. 22, compared with ver. 32-34, David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me : and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou r which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand. For in very deed, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left to Nabal, by the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall. In this case, though the righteous may be scarcely saved, as the same Peter speaks, yet they are surely saved ; for all that hinders is ordered and contrived. Or, to give another instance : The authors and contrivers of romances, or feigned stories, they usually design with themselves to exalt and magnify such and such persons, whom they make great and glorious in the end, or conclusion and issue, but do tell you stories about them first, and all along, of the greatest hazards, encoun ters, perils, difficulties, and extremities by the way, which they run through; and those often such, as he that reads stands wondering, how and by what means they shall be delivered out of them ; but still the author of them hath aforehand invented ways by which deliverances, rationally supposable, should still be wrought unto a glory. And this is a rule and law observed by such, in framing such stories, that they will be sure never to set down such or such perils, or put them into writing, if they had not aforehand the thoughts and ideas of rational ways of delivering them out of them, and themselves being the fictioners and framers of all those stories, both of the one and the other, have all afore them of what they do invent to set down, as their plea sure is, they can and may afore-hand order and frame a thousand distresses, and still as many strange deliverances as they will, yet so as to be sure to make a pleasant and joyful close at last.

Now the great and sovereign God had the sole power and sovereignty of ordering and disposing of all about his people of antiquity afore the world was, or themselves were ; and, to be sure, he could unto a reality of effect, contrive, and with an infallibility dispose of the various conditions, and the issues and events of them, and of all things about them, with such an inter changeable mixture dispersed amongst them, as his wisdom saw meet : and his grace designing glory at last invincibly to be the goal or prize to be attained, his wisdom and grace can and will order all, so as to be sure of that event ; and he doth, and could do this, and effectually carry it on with more facility and easiness, than ever the greatest wits can or have done their pro jections and intentions, concerning those issues of their fancies, as they set themselves to magnify and exalt them. Our very thoughts and purposes are far less the creatures and figments of our minds (which yet they are styled, Heb. iv. 12, 13, compared with Gen. vi. 5), than all things that really are come to pass and exist, and are brought into being (as ^the apostle s word is), which he calls into being, Eom. iv., and that in their existences, that are or were the creatures of his infinite power, wisdom, and sovereignty, for whose pleasure they were created, Eev. iv. 11 ; and he can and doth bring all his resolved thoughts and contrivances that come into his mind, his will "and purpose, more easily to pass, than the greatest understanding can invent, or having invented, can set down in writing, the imaginations and fictions of his brain ; yea, and God can and doth so order them, as to be ,sure to bring it to pass, For who hath resisted his will ? And it is as .certain, for it is the grand proviso and work committed to free-grace to see

246 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. to it in this disposement, that no temptation should be brought upon any of his, which he had not in his purpose a sure and effectual way to bring them out of.

You have had a brief doctrinal scheme, what it is for God to be a God of grace in his purposes about us, specially in his fore-ordering sins, tempta tions, and then reducements and deliverances forth of them, or preventings of them, hitherto delivered, but as in an assertory way.

And the two or three latter of those assertions were, as you have seen, founded chiefly upon that speech of David s on his death-bed, uttered to God, Thou hast made a covenant with me, ordered in all things, and sure, &c. In which you have heard of David s faith about this great point in hand.

This is all my salvation, said he, and so closeth up his eyes. It may not be amiss to take in David s experiments also, upon the view of which it was that he uttered this at his death. And for a further encouragement unto this, let us have recourse unto another speech of his, a little afore his death (for it was upon the occasion of one of the last acts he did that he spake it), wherein he indeed refers us to the whole story of his life, as a most magnific exemplification of the truth of the performance of that covenant. And hereupon, as we use to subjoin examples unto rules in teaching arts, which add no small illustration to those rules, so I shall produce and join unto those two latter assertions or maxims before given about covenant grace, David his trials and emergings out of them throughout his whole life ; in which will rise up and appear an ocular demonstration of what hath been but assertorily delivered, specially in those two last, and in the whole of the main conclusion which was from them last inferred.

The passage is in 1 Kings i. 29, And the king sware, and said, As the Lord liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress, &c., wherein, in this last public scene of his life, which was the crowning of his successor, his son Solomon, he sums up the whole in a general protestation or oath, made both unto God and for God, the matter of which in effect is this, That look as God had promised him in that covenant of grace, that even so he had exactly performed for him in every point and tittle, and therefore would perform that remaining part of his promise, concerning his son Solo mon, yet left behind to be fulfilled.

Concerning which, take it as it is an oath for God, and about his faith fulness to him, I shall afterwards enlarge in the close of this head ; but in the mean time, it fairly leads us into the examination and view of the passages of David s whole life, that are recorded (for he refers us, as you see, thereunto) in the narrative of which you will perceive and discern all things about him had been indeed ordered and made sure, in the manner we have been discoursing.

Now, in the story of David s life, his ordering grace appeared both, 1. In his being preserved in the midst of all outward distresses and hazards to his person, which were and had been temptations to him to try his faith.

2. And, secondly, in his sins, which were his greatest trials, together with repentances and returnings out of them.

The first had been from Satan and his own heart, 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ; the other from God ; and yet all so ordered, as he was safely and surely carried through unto salvation in the issue.

I join both these two together ; for his very outward distresses and deli verances from dangers were a type, and pawn, and pledge to him of his being kept unto salvation, which the promise of the kingdom shadowed out, and yet besides were in themselves also great trials of his faith, as to the

point of salvation ; and both involved in that covenant of his which hath been insisted upon.

(1.) In his being preserved and brought unto the kingdom, what a multi tude and variety of hazards, dangers, distresses, did he run through ? It were infinite to reckon up all, much more to enlarge on each. And as * from Saul and strange deliverances had he. He sums up all, Ps. xviii., all other enemies, as in the title of that psalm, afore his flight from court, in the first chapters of Samuel. And then after his flight, from other ene mies besides Saul : as from Doeg that informed Saul ; from the king of the Philistines, whose champion Goliah he had killed, and the courtiers in formed the king it was he of whom that triumph for it was made, 1 Sam.

And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the xxi. 11, king of the land ? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands ? Which is as much, in effect, as if they had said, This is he that killed Goliath. Then from the people also, that ever and anon ran and told Saul where he was quartered, 1 Sam. xxvi. 1, and when some among them would, to gratify Saul, have given him up ; yea, from his own party, that followed him at Ziklag, 1 Sam. xxx. 1, who speak of stoning him, ver. 1. But above all from Saul, from whom he was in jeopardy every moment, and had been so oft in danger, and so often had escaped, that his carnal reason concluded at length, I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul, 1 Sam. xxvii. 1. The pitcher will be broken at last. And these all were purposely designed by God, who would have it so, whereof this is one suffi cient evidence ; for when he had got into a safe hold, with his father and mother with him, and with the favour of the king of Moab, in whose domi nion he was, he was commanded out of it by God and his prophet Gad, sent on purpose for that end, bidding him come into the land of Judah, yea, arid confined him to that territory, where he was in Saul s power and dominion perfectly. God would have it thus, and him to be within the power of this lion, who hunted him as a flea and a partridge ; as if he had been too safe, and would have been too quiet and secure in Moab, for God to shew forth his grace towards him, but God would have him in continual danger, to enact his grace in deliverances of him; Yet have I set my king, &c., Ps. ii. 6.

(2.) Then after he was king

The conspiracy, it is said, l was strong, and the people increased continually with Absalom, 2 Sam. xx. 2.

[l.J Absalom.

[2.] Then Sheba. 2 Sam. xx. 2, Every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba. It was as great a defection, of the ten whole tribes sheer, for the time present, as that fatal one from Rehoboam afterwards ; but God brought in the tide again to David.

[3.J Then at last Adonijah was made king, against David s mind, and against his promise, and God s also, which was for Solomon ; And all the kingdom was for it, and against David in it, 1 Kings ii. 15. Yet God delivered David out of this and all his distresses, there was none he was not delivered out of. And why ? For all these dangers and the deliverances were part of God s sure covenant, as the pawns and pledges of it, and so were one and the same time forelaid, even from eternity ; and there was no distress designed then but there was also a deliverance out of it foreset, and so all was ordered and made sure.

2. In the personal preservation of him unto salvation. What are the dangers and hazards about that, but sins ? And if ever any man put free grace to it, in that respect, it was David. I may say of it, he did make

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. bold to try whether the sure mercies of David would hold or no, hold tackling or no, he put them to it. Yet all was ordered, and his reducements out of them therewith ; and not barely to bring him off within the compass of the rules of salvation, but with an addition of a glorious issue and advantage, yea, and of triumphs unto free grace. His eminent sins were his murder, and adultery, and numbering the people. (1.) His adultery, and then murder of Uriah, as bad as bad could be. But God not only ordered the means to bring him out of it, sent Nathan the prophet to him, but his repentance also upon his ministry, the accom plishment whereof you have in Ps. li. I say, God not only forelaid these, that his salvation might not be prejudiced, but brought him off with an overplus advantage ; for what were the eminent mercies of David s life ? His son Solomon (for that any other of his children had grace we read lot), however, he was Jedidiah, the eminently beloved of God, and to whom the promise of his house was made. Now behold, and stand astonished ! It Uriah had not been killed, he had not married Bathsheba, and by her, in lawful marriage, it was he had Solomon ; yea, and his repentance was so accepted by God, that (stand astonished at it) he had Solomon for a reward (see Ps. cxxvn., the title, compared with ver. 3), to be sure not of his sins, but ot his repentance, that was fore-ordered to follow his sin.

(2.) A second sin was his numbering the people, and provoked thereunto itan ; and how many more we know not. This was ordered, and his repentance, and the issue of it is as glorious as the other. One of the most

things or promises spoken of, was God s choice of a place whither they should bring their sacrifices, where the temple was to stand, and where aod was to meet his people worshipping of him, the highest type of Christ; and where that place should be, was reserved as a great secret for four hun dred years. Lo, and behold how God ordered it ; David comes to profess a public repentance with the elders ; the angel directs him by Gad to go and set up an altar in the threshing-floor of Arawnah, 1 Chron. xxi. 18, and David sacrificed there, ver. 28, though the ark was at Gibeon, ver. 29. But J Read Xxii * Then David said

thi * the house of the Lord God; and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel And it was so revealed to him ; and from that time it was he began to prepare materials for the temple: ver. 2, &c., And David comnded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and n v, stones to build the house of God ; and Vl n m abundance &c - And Compare with these 2 Chron. iii. 1, monn M T , eg?, .*" threshin* of Oman the Jebus te r buiM the h USe f tbe Lord at Jerasalem in mount Moriah where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place Weren ttl TT* greatest i T* m and ?efc the issues of his great* ns, by which you may judge of all the rest of the passages of his f race itself eus now f Undation

> and hath been of our discourse.

whole life

&X but the Lord delivered them out of all. But he seals it by

experience at his death. And it is as if [he] said, If you ask me what a God he hath been to me ; he hath been a God hath redeemed me out of all dis tress, he hath left me in the arrear of none, not one. At their deaths, saints have used to entitle God by what they have eminently found him to be, and under the title and notion thereof, have recommended that God to their friends to serve. And David here entitleth God by this, and Jacob at his death had done the like, Gen. xliii. 16 ; yea, and as Dr Preston had wont to say,* that he often tried God, but now he would trust him ; David here goes further, he swears for God ; he takes his oath upon it for him : * And the king sware and said, as the Lord liveth that redeemed me, &c. You have had confirmation enough of this head, both from the covenantto David, and from David s example, and from his own testimony both of faith and experience at his death, given in by one of the most tried saints in the world; even this, that God orders and contrives all distresses, temptations, sins, aforehand, together with such issues of them as shall make salvation sure.

Use. For you that be old disciples of Christ, let me speak to you first (the apostle calls them so with honour, Acts xxi. 16), there are some of such among you. You have heard all that hath been said, and you have pro fessed the truth a long time, it may be thirty, it may be forty years ; come: you must subscribe that God is true in hither, let me speak freely to you this his dealing and promise, or study your case that you may subscribe it ; I use that phrase, subscribe to the Lord, for you have it, Isa. xliv. 5. One that was a dying said, Is there not such a promise ? specifying a special promise had taken his heart ; pray turn to it, bear witness, said he, that this promise is true : God is faithful, and hath fulfilled his pro mise to me. The like do you, according to your experiences of his having ordered all, and carried you through hitherto, as hath been related, that as David says, Ps. xcii. 14, The righteous shall bring forth fruit in his old age, to shew that the Lord is upright ; that is, that he is a God of all grace, who having called me so many years ago, hath carried me through all my temptations, and through my sins, and hath kept and brought me hitherto. I do not inquire what your sins have been ; but some may have run into sin more than others, and perhaps scandalous ones. But I demand of you, hath not God still reduced, settled, stablished you more in the end ? As David also says, Ps. Ixxi. 18, 19, Now also when I am old, and grey-headed, God, forsake me not ; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. Thy righteousness, also, God, is very high, who hast done great things: God, who is like unto thee ? God exalts pardoning grace to some more, and sanctifying grace to others ; he is the God of grace. Those ships that have been in long voyages at sea, three or four years out, have gone through hotclimates and cold, passed the equinoctial again and again, and have run through many a difficulty, and great storms, and yet have been kept alive at sea, as they speak, when these shall meet one another at sea near the haven, how will they congratulate ? And old disciples should do so, that God hath kept grace alive in their souls. And I would ask you how many thousand ships have you seen cast away before your eyes ? How many that have made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, as the apostle speaks ? This and that professor, that has run into this and that error damnable, or false opinions and teachings, though all of smaller moment ; others that have struck upon quicksands of worldly preferments, and many split upon rocks, and yet you have been kept. This should move you to * So Dr Preston did to some of his friends.

250 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. bless this your God, the God of grace, the more. Come, let me knock at your hearts ; are none of you old professors, like old hollow oaks, who stand in the wood among professors still, and keep their stand of profession

rain they drink in, as the apostle s word is, serves to no other end but to rot them. These are nigh unto still, and go to ordinances, &c., but the cursing. Or have you green fruits still growing on you, as quickly and lively affections to God and Christ, and faith and love, as at the first, and more abounding ? 0, bless God, you are so near the haven, and lift up your hearts, your redemption draws near ; and withal raise your confidence, that that God of grace, who hath called you into his eternal glory, will keep you for it, and possess you of it shortly.

CHAPTER II.

That God is the God of all grace dispensatoriJy. He gives supplies of grace proportionally to the needs, distresses, and temptations unto which his elect are obnoxious in the course of their lives here on earth. He is the God of all grace essentially, in that his nature contains infinite riches of grace.

He is the God of all grace, dispensatorily, or by way of performance and execution, and gracious dispensations of all sorts. This differs from that other last despatched. There was shewn how God had decreed, permissively at least, all sorts of needs and wants, sins that may possibly befall saints, miseries of all kinds, on purpose, and with a purpose to shew himself a God of all grace, in giving supplies and reliefs thereunto ; but in this head is to be shewn that there is in God that grace, which in actu exercito will supply the needs, and de facto, doth it. He is a God of all grace execu tively, and in respect of the effects. He hath decreed, and is engaged to be the effecter and giver forth of an all of gracious reliefs and supports ; sup plies of all sorts of wants, needs, temptations, sufferings, his elect can be supposed capable of.

I shall despatch this head by three things. 1. By proof out of the text that so it is intended. 2. An explication. 3. A confirmation of your faith added to these proofs. 1. For the first, that this sense is intended in the text, I take my obser vation from the fifth verse, where it is said, God gives grace to the humble, and it leads on to the matter of this text. That word, giveth grace, speaks the performance, a dispensing or bestowing of grace, by way of gracious effects. In his fellow apostle James, chap. iv. 6, there you find it, He giveth more grace, quoting the same words of Scripture which the apostle Peter doth, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. And observe the occasion of it in James ; it is spoken in relation to subduing his people s Justs, particularly lusting after envy ; so in the verses 1-5. And truly that is grace indeed; that when lust, grows high, the grace in God should provoke him to give the more grace whereby to destroy it ; unto them that humble themselves for those lusts he gives more grace to the humble. And therefore when here in the text ne goeth on to give this promise of perfecting, stablishing, strengthening it is in further prosecution of what he had begun with, and relates unto God s giving grace in the fifth verse. And so by this coherence his being styled e God of all grace is to be understood as in relation unto all sorts of gracious effects that flow from him as the God of all grace.

(1.) That other style of his, when he is said to be the God of all com fort, as in 2 Cor. i. 3, helps likewise to clear the sense of this here, how he

the God of all grace in the like manner. Now that is spoken in is called relation to effects of comforting, and what he doth (as in the Psalms it is said, He is good, and doth good ); and so it follows, Who cornforteth us in all our tribulations, ver. 4. And as we may say of that attribute of goodness, that he is a God of all comforts dispensatorily, the like we say of * God that comthis. And again, you have it, chap. vii. 6, of that epistle, forteth those that are cast down. It is an attribute, ab effectu, as that when he is said to be A God hearing prayer, and a God of pardons, Neh. ix. 17 (so in the Hebrew], from what he doth, He is a God pardoning iniquity, &c.

Although this is to be added, that when in 2 Cor. i. 3, he is called the God of all comforts, this may take in his being the God of comforts objec tive, as to us, i, e. that our souls may find in God as our chiefest good all sorts of comforts, and in him alone. And that as God is subjective in him self, a God of all blessedness in himself, unto himself, so all that is com fortable in him is for our comfort. But still the direct and proper scope of that place in its coherence, respects what he is in giving forth comforts to his people. This parallel hath been alleged for the clearing the sense of the phrase, the God of all grace, that is in respect of all gracious effects which the grace in God doth afford.

(2.) Secondly, Let us next come to the thing itself. Look, as when it is * the God of all comfort, in that place afore, you easily understand said, he is that it is spoken respective, in relation unto all sorts of distresses and dis comforts, &c., which the saints at any time have, and are capable of; and so Paul interprets himself in the fourth verse, Who comfortethus in all our tribulations. And then the meaning of that title, the God of all comforts, is, that he hath in apparatu, in a readiness, a particular special comfort to give forth to every discomfort, and that in due time, de facto, he doth il. And then in like manner, when he is said here to be * the God of all grace, it must be understood as spoken respective to every want, to every need the saints may be supposed to be in, and that God hath a proportionable grace for the supply and relief of it.

Only in the third place I add this, as touching these two which I allege as parallels, the God of all comforts, and the God of ail grace, that though that of his being the God of all comforts serves, as I have alleged it, to clear the sense of the phrase, viz., that he is the God of all grace, unto all sorts of gracious effects ; that yet, which tends to magnify this his style of all grace, above and beyond that of comforts (and yet that tends to our comfort too), is that these two are not adequate, or of the same commensuration ; but of the two, his being the God of all grace, is larger in respect of its gracious effects ; for God s dispensations of grace are larger than his dispensations of comfort in this world. He gives grace in cases wherein he doth not give comfort, and so he is the God of all grace in a far larger extent than of all comforts, though still both are alike to be understood in respect to effects ; yea, and often he gives most grace when not comfort, further than so as to uphold the soul from sinking. He carries on some souls, as he did Christ at his death for a while, unto the highest gracious acts of obedience, whilst yet he vouchsafes no comfort ; witness that doleful expression of Christ, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? when yet he was in the highest performance of obedience, obedience unto death, as the apostle aggrandizeth it. Thus in thy temptation God influences thee with grace, secretly assisting and strengthening, when ho

252 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. affords not comforting grace to thy own sense. Carry this home with thee, thou who hast so many years been afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted.

(4.) Fourthly, And take that other epithet, coupled with this already mentioned in the same place of the Corinths, namely, the Father of mercies too ; for that is parallel also with this, the God of all grace, as to the interpretation and sense given in relation to the effects of mercies ; for mercies there so called are the works of mercy, the effects of mercy, and so often and usually styled in Scriptures. And it is not spoken in the * the Father of mercy, but of mercies, which imports a multi singular only, tude, and variety of them. Now, grace here, and mercy there, are all one ; and the God of all grace is all one, as to have said, the Father of mercies ; that is, of all merciful dispensation.

This for the proof of this sense which I have given. 2. Next for explication of the thing itself.

(1.) That when it is said, there is all of dispensatory grace to be given forth, the consectary that followeth from thence is, that there is no tempta tion that doth or can befall a saint that is under the dominion of free grace, but God hath a grace prepared, to be applied in due time. It speaks that he hath a grace fitted and suited to give it forth, as need and occasion shall require. There is no sore in the heart, but he hath a plaster ready spread for it, to be laid on in due season ; he hath cut out his grace into single plasters. The reason of this consectary is, that look as the word grace in the thing itself, is a relative to need and to temptation ; so all grace must needs be a relative to all, or any needs whatsoever. If there were any want which the liege subjects of free grace (so I shall still call them, as in re lation to the dominion of grace), are capable of, and God had not a special grace for it, he were not the God of all grace. For then the misery of these his subjects of free grace would be more extensive, and larger than his grace, which to be sure shall never be said of God. When God is said to be al mighty (which is by interpretation, the God of all power), what is the import of that ? That all matters of extremest difficulty are possible to him ; yea, nothing too hard, as Jeremiah first, chap, xxxii. 17-27; and an angel to the blessed virgin afterwards, Luke i. 35. But you will say, God may be almighty, and nothing is too hard for his power, when yet I may not be relieved, for God is said to be omnipotent, but not omnivolent ; and so he may be the God of all grace, and yet I for ever be denied in my particular case. But I reply. When you shall say he is the God of all grace, who is in himself also the God of all power, put but all grace unto all power, and the result will be, that he hath a gracious will to put forth power, and put forth all his power, and it is at grace s disposal. That he is the God of all grace, makes him all-willing ; and that he is the God of all power, speaks his ability to help according to his will, which grace hath engaged. Join, I say, but these together, according to that of the Psalmist, God hath spoken once, twice have I heard it. Power belongs to God ; also unto thee, Lord, belongeth mercy, Ps. Ixii. 11, 12. And thou that art a dependent upon, and liege subject of free grace, must needs be secure in all thy temptations for a gracious issue ; for if all grace did not serve to help in all cases that grace serves for, grace were not grace. Join God of all power, and God of all grace, and what will not be done ?

(2.) The second thing : As he hath grace for all needs, so he is a God of all grace, to give forth help as the need and occasion shall require. For need is the time and season for grace to shew itself: Heb. iv. 16, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy

and find grace to help, in time of need. And as Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 59, frames his prayer, That God would maintain the cause of his people Israel at all times, as the matter shall require. This is full to my joining the former and this together, for he saith at all times, as well as in all matters. If God should let slip any one due time and season for help to any one need, he were not the God of all grace ; for it is one part, and a great part of being gracious, to relieve one s need, in time of greatest need.

(3.) That God is a God of all grace, in respect of dispensation, shews that God takes not this title upon him, potentially ; that is, that he hath grace in him which is able to help. But it speaks that he is a God that, de facto, in actu exercito, doth and will manifest himself to be so ; and that by instances of all sorts he will actually give full proof of his ministry or econo my of grace (that I may allude to that speech of Paul to Timothy, 2 Tim. iv. 5). That so at latter day, he may have the honour, not only of having been the God of all grace potentially, but the God of all grace actually, and in the performance of it ; and this is seen in sin, which is the worst of all temptations and miseries. There is one temptation or sin, indeed, that is excluded from this grace: 1 Cor. x. 13, There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is human, so in the Greek. The sin against the Holy Ghost, is the devil s sin ; a settled revenge against God, and so is dis tinguished from all other sins that are human or common to men. As Beza, upon 1 John v. 16-18, hath observed ; and the apostle in giving that exception in that distinction hath confirmed the general rule of all sins else, that they are capable of pardon, and the place shews that all such human temptations may befall, and de facto, do befall some or other of the elect.

all manner of sins shall be forgiven ; and then he adds that exception. And not sins committed before calling

Christ expressly saith of sins, that only, but also after. For who shall limit it ? And the reason of that speech of Christ there, is the same that is here, that God is the God of all grace ; and therefore will shew all sorts of grace, in pardoning all sorts of sins ; and as this holds true in pardoning grace, so in supporting and relieving grace. Some will be apt to say, their temptations have been such as never befell any that have been saved. Why truly, as some persons must be the chiefest of sinners, and yet are in heaven, so some must be miserablest for outward trials. I go further, if thou hadst no instance of any that ever was under the like, and knewest no particular promise or example for thy case, yet this one manifesto of God s, that he is the God of all grace, speaks home to thy case fully and sufficiently. God said but to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee, and that was enough. If no man or angel could tell thee of any, yet this is instead of all, that he is the God of all grace ; that would reach it.

3. I shall add confirmations unto your faith, to help you in the belief of this.

(1.) God, who is the fountain of all grace, hath given to all and each saint, all graces, in their several degrees ; yet all for the kind that is proper to make them saints, to exercise towards himself and their brethren, with command to exercise them as opportunity and occasion shall be offered, and draws forth in some one saint or other all sorts of graces ; though in some, one sort of grace more, and other graces in others. So as take the whole body of them, we may call them saints of all graces, as to the exer cises of ail graces amongst them. Hence, therefore, it invincibly follows, that God, who is himself the God of all grace, in his kind, and the Father and fountain of all grace that is in us, that he will be sure to do, and per form this.

254 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

[1.] That he hath given each, and all sorts of graces to every saint habi tually, 2 Pet. i. 3 informs [us], He hath given us all things belonging to life and godliness. And it is spoken in imitation of God himself, of his divine nature, that as he is the God of all grace in his nature, so we have all grace in ours ; and so it follows, ver. 4, Being made partakers of the divine nature.

[2.] He hath furnished his saints with all, and each grace, to the end that, as occasion is, they should exercise and put forth these graces. And accordingly in the same chapter, ver. 5, he exhorts them to add grace to grace ; and in 2 Cor. viii. 6, he exhorts that as God had begun, so he would also finish in them the same grace also. He speaks of a particular grace of liberality to the poor saints ; and means that they should exercise that, and by the same reason, every grace, as occasion and a fit opportunity, and just matter is offered to draw it out to others, as their need shall require.

[3.] Take the whole body of saints, and God doth give opportunity to draw forth every sort of grace among them, all sorts of ways that grace is extendible unto, from the lowest sort to the highest. So there is no kind of grace, no strain or vein of grace, no disposition of grace, but God will give the experiment of the acting of it in one saint or other. Shall I give you an instance of one sort of gracious dispositions, and that of the highest sort, which was put forth in one saint, as an evidence not only of what grace in any other might be raised up to ; for if any one had such a high elevation of his grace, that none [other] ever had ; yet it being the acting of his grace, the principle whereof is common to all, it will follow that the same might be raised up in any other. But also it is an evidence that any other grace of lower sort may be educed and acted in the heart of some other ; and in like manner every grace in some one or other, and that God will in such a like manner certainly do it, The note or strain which I shall mention, being as the note Ela in music, the highest that one man s voice could reach to, it will readily be yielded, that all other degrees lower may much more easily be reached by some or other ; and that they are it will shew how far the divine nature in us, that is, love to God, will stretch and extend. Think with yourselves, how high

! Will it be ordinarily thought and imagined that to wish a man s self accursed from Christ, should ever have been found in the heart of any saint, which yet upon occasion, and a fit ground presented, hath been found in the heart of one saint, who yet professed to love Christ, and did love Christ more than any other saint we read of, to be accursed from Christ, whose enjoyment he so longed for, and so impetuously desired to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, and had been with him in the third heavens yet having before his eyes a meet occasion and opportunity, as he judged it, to put forth this act upon, God did draw it out of him, Rom. ix. 1-3. The occasion was the glory of God (as he thought) in the salvation of Israel, which would arise to God more than out of his own particular salvation alone ; in this juncture he wished himself accursed from Christ. And we may inter pret his heart in it by what was Christ s, who was made a curse for man that sinned, which was his own flesh, and in being made a curse was not separated from acting grace and love to God ; for hisgrace towards God never wrought more than when on the cross, but it was a separation from all present comfort. And thus it was in Paul s heart, who was content to have all the comfort he should have had from Christ, debarred him for ever, but not the exercise of grace, for this was of the highest. And that so he might for ever have glorified God in the highest manner, it being with the greatest self-denial that ever was.

Now what do I infer from hence, but, 1, that there being so full and proper an occasion, or ground for Paul s grace to rise up to this elevation, and that God did draw it out accordingly ; that therefore in like manner God will extract from out of the hearts of the rest of his saints (some or other) all, and any other sorts of graces, when the like meet occasions and opportuni ties shall be, to draw them forth to the end, that he may give a full experi ment of all grace in the exercises of them upon all such occasions ? The second thing I infer is, that on God s part there can be in us no temptation, or need ; no case so desperate in any one that is called, but that there must be supposed that he hath in him a grace, and a love to extend and apply itself thereunto, and overcome it. Shall Paul rise up in the way of the exercise of his grace, unto the highest strain that is supposable, and exceed God in the exercise of the grace that is in him towards us ? There is no case but God can find in his heart a suitable grace for it ; yea, he being the God of all grace too, if there were any case more extraordinary than an other, he would greedily take the advantage thereof to choose, and not slip so great an opportunity of shewing his grace to the uttermost to such a soul, and then certainly for the glory of his grace will do it to all, or any other need, in some of his saints or other.

I might illustrate this by that which is the greatest opposite unto grace in us, and that is self-love in its reign and height. Do you know, or can you imagine into what shapes this Proteus, this monster, this devil self-love, will be turned into, as occasions and circumstances one is put into, may and do draw it forth in some or other ; unto what heights of wickedness it may, by occasion, be broached forth into, what infinite varieties of its workings there are of all sorts ? We may say, that every man s heart in this respect is the seed of all sin ; and yet withal we may say, that every man s corruption is not drawn forth to all, and every sort of evil ; and yet, likewise, that there is no sort of sin, or wickedness, or strain of inordinate acting of self-love, but hath been acted, and shewn itself in some manner or other ; so as take the whole body of mankind, and we may say, the body of sin among them hath had a completeness, as a body in the community of them ; and for this you may read the Scriptures. Look about you throughout the world, stories of all ages, and read your own hearts. If God should seal up to any man, as he hath done to the devils, that he will never be merciful unto them, even any man that hath had the light of the gospel with any power upon his heart, he would certainly fly in God s face, fixed with an eternal revenge against him, as the devils also do ; and this is but the effect of self-love, though the highest ; which is all wickedness in the nature, in the principle of it, and dispensatorily (if I may allusively use this word in this matter), is all wicked ness in the exercise of it, in the body of mankind. And certainly self-love cannot be drawn out to more varieties of sinfulness, and higher actings of it, than the divine nature may be in the saints, in contrary dispositions of in genuity to God ; and therefore, as all sins, so all graces have acted in some saints or other towards God, and their brethren saints, even so as to die for one another (as John speaks), as the opportunity hath been. God will be as sure to give the experiments of the workings of graces of all sorts as well as sins, and though not in the parallel perfection for degrees, yet for kinds.

Now parallel to these things bring your sins, and temptations, all ye saints, before the God of all grace. Will grace in us, and will sin in us, stretch to all sorts of the actings of each supposable, and shall not God s grace, who hath the title of the God of all grace ? He is said to be the God of all grace ; and his grace being the pattern of all ours, and infinitely exceeding it, then how much more shall he do the like, by the exerting of his

256 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. grace upon all occasions of it in all cases, yea, the worst ? Doth God de clare himself in this manner to be the God of all grace, in the high divine principles thereof ; and shall he not, to those to whom he hath said, I will be gracious, put it forth upon all occasions, which are his opportunities to glorify his grace by ?

(2.) Consider, secondly, how that not only our graces will thus extend, and may be thus acted, as hath been said ; but, farther, himself com mands us poor creatures, who have yet but little grace in us (narrow vessels are we in this respect), yet to abound in every grace: 2 Cor. viii. 7, Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and know ledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us ; see that ye abound in this grace also. Observe how it is spoken concerning the relieving of the neces sities of others in their wants, concerning which he gives this particular command, See that ye abound, as in everything, so in this grace also ; and however poor creatures fall short in the performance of these commands, yet the scope and intent of God s command is, and there is that in our grace which might be wrought up to it, that it should be drawn out as any occasion and opportunity is offered to exercise it. Nor is there any way supposable, for so I state it, wherein to shew forth any grace, of any kind, but the intent of the command reacheth it. And do you think that God himself, that commands this of us, and that professeth this style of him self, that he is the God of all grace, in order to the relieving of our wants, whom he hath taken care of, do you think he will not abundantly supply you ? As in the seventh verse of this chapter in Peter, the apostle hath aforehand assured us, for in that he saith, he declares himself to be the God of all grace to his called ones ; it doth not only shew what he is in himself, but it intimates and insinuates a promise of shewing himself the God of all grace to them ; and if in these bis commands he doth bind and oblige us unto obedience, then surely he himself obligeth himself by his promises to perform them. The very same thing that he commands us towards others, the same he will himself certainly fulfil. Alas ! we are creatures ungracious, and have no grace but what he puts into us. And shall God, that is the fountain and original of all grace, that requires this of us, not execute it him self ? Certainly yes. God saith, as it were himself, I am a holy God, true, just, faithful (as was said to us before) ; I abound in all these, and in every perfection else, shall I not abound in this grace also, to relieve the spiritual needs of my poor children, that have declared myself to be a God of all grace ? What doth the apostle John say ? 1 John iii. 17, Whoso hath this world s goods, and seeth his brother need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ? If God speak thus to us concerning a brother, to us, I say, that love but in part, and oh how little ! yea, and in the verse before, he commands us, if the case so calls for it, and require it of us, to lay down our lives for the brethren. And ^shall not that God, of whom the same apostle John saith, that he is love itself, chap. iv. 16, God is love, that is, he is all love towards his own children, for that is the meaning of it there ; and of whom he also saith im mediately, afore the afore-cited speech, in the sixteenth verse of the third chapter, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us ; and thereupon he obliges us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Shall not he, I say, if he seeth a son of his in pure need of spiritual grace, and deliverance out of temptation, shall not he draw out his bowels towards him ? Or else it would be said, How doth this love, this all-grace, by which the apostle Peter here sets him forth, how doth it dwell in him, the fountain of all grace and love ? And he persuades and oblieth

us to lay down our lives for, and relieve our brethren s needs, because lie hath professed to love us so, as to lay down his life for us.

Now, to apply this. Suppose that Christ himself were alive, or that any were alive that were commissionated by him to heal all manner of diseases, as the apostles were, Mat. x. 1, would any of you that had (I will make the supposition) the worst disease that ever any man had, yea, that you had never heard of to have been since the world began, wouldst thou refuse to make trial whether he would or could heal thee or no ? Now God hath set up his bills, as I may say, upon every post, proclaiming himself to be the God of all grace, the God that healeth thee, Exod. xv. 26 ; and elsewhere hath applied it unto souls, * That healeth all thy diseases, and forgives all thy sins, Ps. ciii. ; that healeth thy backslidings, Hosea xiv. 4 ; and often backsliding is the most desperate case of all other, yet the God of all grace hath undertaken to heal them. And as bad a case as a saint is capable of after calling is that in Isa. Ivii. 17, For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him : I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. He did not only fall into interrupted or intermitted acts of backsliding, but he went on, as in a course for a while, in the way of his heart, and that frowardly. Well, but what saith the God of all grace to this ? I have seen his ways, and will heal him, ver. 18. And Hosea gives this his reason of it, even because he is a God of grace, ver. 2, and loves freely, ver. 4, * I will heal their backsliding, and I will love them freely, that is the reason of it ; * and receive us graciously, say they accordingly, ver. 2, when they return to him, so will we render the calves of our lips. The love that is in the heart of God will in the end cause him to turn all anger towards them away, For mine anger is turned away from him ; as it follows in the same, ver, 4, And I will be (anew) as the dew unto Israel : and he shall grow as the lily, and so forth. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things ? prudent, and he shall know them ? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them, though they may often fall in their way ; but the transgressors, that were never savingly called, shall fall, if they persist, therein. It is the conclusion of that chapter and prophecy, and serves to prove this other place in Peter, that God is the God of all grace in dispensing supplies answerable to the needs, distresses, temptations, and sins of his elect children.

(3.) He is a God of all grace essentially, or in respect that in his nature he hath infinite riches of grace, which is the root and fountain of these his designs to maintain and make good this his alldispensatory of grace. He is the God of all grace ; that is, he is an all-gracious God in himself, even as well as that he is said to be a God almighty, which is an essential attri bute. He says not that God is all grace, for he is just also. As when it is said he is almighty, it imports not that he hath no attribute else, but he says he is a God of all grace ; that is, that no perfection that should make him essentially gracious is wanting in him. He is an all-gracious God, and so in his nature. There is a sea of grace in him to feed all the streams that his purposes or dispensations of grace are to issue forth. And so our con solation from hence is, that all the grace that is [in] the nature of God is in this promise of his being a God of all grace to his children, declared to be engaged to afford supplies unto his poor people, even to the utmost expendings and layings forth of those riches upon them, as their need shall require. And further, that in all his dispensations of grace, he will shew himself gracious as God, and to be a great God of grace; that is, he will be gracious suitably, and at the rate of the greatness of his being God, or of so great a

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God. This David (the greatest subject, and favourite, and adorer of this grace that we find in the Old Testament) was apprehensive of, and it took his heart and faith : 1 Chron. xvii. 19, According to thine own heart hast thou done this. And it follows, Lord, there is none like thee, none besides thee ; that is, thou art a God of grace (for it was a point of grace, and of high grace he there speaks it of), and shewest thyself so to be ; for he speaks it of his covenant of grace with him in Christ, then newly declared

What can David say more ? As if he had to him. And ver. 18, he says, said, the favour, the thing itself, is too great for me, that I can say nothing to it ; but if God will have it to be ; even as Paul, What shall we say to these things ? If God be for us, &c., so David here. He speaks as an astonished man that could say no more. The greatness of the thing made him silent ; but he considered that God had done it out of his greatness as God. Thus, if he pardons, he pardons after the rate and manner of a great God, He will abundantly pardon ; not according to your thoughts (saith he), but my thoughts; Isa. Iv. 8, As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts in pardoning ; for it is of pardoning abundantly that he utters this, ver. 7; for this sets his children awondering at him. Who is a God like our God? pardoning, &c., Micah vii. 8. Yet withal there observe how his pardoning mercies, in the exertings and dispensings of them, are limited to the remnant of his inheritance, free grace s subjects, as I call them.

And as it is thus in pardoning, so in all other exertings of pure grace, whatever they be, towards the remnant of his inheritance. He doth them all as a great God. Thus David, 2 Sam. vii., speaks of the advancement of himself and his house to the kingdom, which ended in the promise of Christ, which in ver. 18, 19, he spreads afore the Lord, Then went king David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, Lord God ? and what is mf house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, Lord God; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant s house for a great while to come; and is this the manner of man, Lord God? The latter clause that I take hold of is, Is this the manner of man, Lord God?

The law of man, as in the original, the intendment of which is, to discriminate God s manner of dealings, in point of grace, from man s. And grace being the sovereign in God, enacteth its laws as well as men-sovereigns use to do. And with God, the purposes of his grace to save his children are suprema lex of all other with him ; and all his wonted degrees of grace are made according to his divine greatness, or as God, and are infinitely differing from and superior to those of men, though never so gracious. The height of our comfort (which is the result of this passage of David) lies in this, that in all his dispensations of grace, he is gracious as God, and as becomes the great God to be, and whom he takes on him to be, a God of all grace; and therein to act and do for them, and to shew himself in such a manner and measure to be a God of all grace, as is worthy of so great a God in himself, and that he may be owned as such a God. And how far this will reach never yet entered into the heart of man.

Now, for me to set forth the infinite ocean of the mercy and grace of his divine nature, is not, shall not be the main part of this discourse, but how this may minister support to us, coming in the rear to all the former, and how all the grace that is in God is engaged to succour us against tempta tions, and that it will extend itself to the utmost to carry us through them ; this I shall insist on a little.

It is observable, to the end to shew how this of the graciousness of his

nature, is that which engageth itself to make good the two foregone asser tions about his purposes and dispensations ; that then when God uttered that great charter of grace, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,. and that is the sum of his decrees-, or purposing grace, we have been speaking of, he prefaceth this unco it, I will cause all my goodness to pass before thee ; that is, all the goodness that is in myself and nature, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord afore thee, that is, all that whereby my nature, as to the point of grace and mercy, is to be made known to men. Then and after that, come in, I will be gracious to whom I will be gra cious, the resolve of which two passages, thus joined together, is, that on whom God s heart and will (which directs his grace to the persons whom and how) is set to be gracious by election (which is called the good pleasure of his will, or the gracious purpose of his will ), there he interesteth all the goodness of his nature, and it remains engaged for their good. And to make demonstration of this, he therefore caused the whole train of his goodness to pass afore Moses, to lot him see, and to hearten him by seeing of it, how great a strength, magazine, and treasure of power in goodness, was stored up in him, to maintain that resolution of his will when he said, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And to make good that speech fur ther observe, that whereas at first God had there begun to declare his grace, but particularly and personally unto Moses his person, Thou hast found grace in my sight, ver. 12, 13, 16, 17 of Exod. xxxiii. Yet afore he did proclaim openly and publicly all that his goodness thereafter specified, chap, xxxiv., or caused it to pass afore Moses, he before it, declared this the common in terests of all his elect to be the same that Moses s was, in that matter of grace so proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord gracious, &c. declared first, I say, iti that clause, I will be merciful to whom I will, &c., thereby shewing that what was said and done to Moses herein, concerned the bulk and whole body of the election, that they all (being called) might view anil take comfort in that proclamation of all his goodness in that proclamation, chap, xxxiv. 5-7, 1 And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and pro claimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and pro claimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth ; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the father upon the children, and upon the children s children, unto the third and fourth generations. Just as in Rom. viii., ordine inverse (though in aninverted method) you find the unseparableness of God s love to the whole lump, ver. 35-87, loudly proclaimed in the single name of Paul, ver. 38, 39, For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The just infer ence from both which instances is, that what God in point of grace is to one, that he is to all of his elect ; and .what he is to all (as to their interest in grace), that he is to everyperson of , them ; yea, and withal, that his pro clamation there to Moses, is to shew that he is gracious as he is the great God (which is that I have been a-saying all this while) ; for in the fore part of that proclamation, he first styles himself, and that three times : 1, the Lord ; 2, the Lord ; 3, God ; to shew that he is gracious as God, as the great God ; and that grace and mercy are inherent in his divine nature, and his being, and also to shew that all in him as God, is turned into grace and mercy towards those he will be gracious unto; as when the apostle says, is love, all love. So then, you have all the essential grace in God, which is

280 F ELECTION. [Boox IV. rooted in his being God, the whole of the goodness that is in God, and that turned into grace, to back and uphold your faith. And what engagements greater can your souls desire ?

Consider, then, thou called soul, called with a holy calling (I speak as to this point only now to such), that through that little chink, or narrow pas sage from death to life, thy effectual calling, which was thy first entrance into thy eternity, thou mayest (as through a small cranny we use to view the sun) first contemplate that purposing grace of God s will set on thee ; for by calling election is made sure. And then again, through that being thus fixed on thee, thou mayest behold an infinite boundless ocean of grace and love beyond that of his will and purposes, which is in his divine nature, and mayest draw into thy soul to fill it. Enlarge* (and a little of God soon fills us) all and the whole thereof, for thy comfort and support, haurire dletatem, as he said. Calling will bring thee to election. And therein, if by thy calling, with the Spirit of God shedding abroad his love into thy heart, * knows thee by name, as he said to Moses, and Christ thou findest God knows his sheep by name, and is known of his, thou wilt further find this little word, or sentence of God, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, will be as a sluice set open, and all the grace and mercy in God s nature will through it flow in upon thee as thine, for thy heart to swim in the abundant consolation of.

May I take the boldness, for an improvement of this head, to make a sup position , which yet is not truly to be made on God s part, but which in case thy unbelief should make ; and how wicked supposals that forge will make and bring out, we find too much by experience. We will therefore make it, and give thee a support beyond it, drawn from this topic head, the engage ment of the grace of God in the divine nature, where calling and election have once for ever fixed themselves. The supposition which thy unbelief might make is this, that thou fearest lest God, in his purposes of grace, had been too narrow as to thy particular allotment ; and thou shouldst imagine they may have been too scant, and fallen short through thy top prodigal expensiveuess in sinnings, or remiss neglects of so great salvation since thy calling, so as they should not have been large enough to serve thy turn as to the discharge of what those infinite arrears arise unto, beyond that parti cular portion of mercy his will made at first, and allotted thee (I alluding to that of the prodigal his portion), but that thou hadst sinned beyond the ex tent of purposing grace ; as if God had not set apart grace and mercy enough in those his legacies and bequeathments in his decreeing or purposing will, and that it had not clauses so full and large enough, nor provisions for num ber or variety sufficient that may reach all thy cases and aggravations of sinnings. And so, out of the dreadful view of these, or such-like vain ima ginations, thy faith and spirits sink and despond.

Though this would be in thee, or any, a most wicked supposition, and derogatory to the foreknowledge of God, who knew all thy thoughts afore - hand, and what thy sins would be, yet if thou wouldst but further suppose and believe that he hath bound over all, and the whole of those vast and boundless unsearchable mines of grace that are in his nature, to afford wherewith to discharge his called and chosen ones of sinning, though never so grievous, and that his purposing had kept them from so falling, as is utterly incompatible with grace, certainly this engagement of the grace in his nature may, beyond the former, insure thee against all such fears and suppositions; for to be sure this grace can afford assets, and sufficient enough to relieve against all ; against whatsoever hath fallen out, or shall * Qu. engage ? ED.

fall out, to forgive what is past, and to prevent for the future what threateneth to destroy thee, as thou judgest.

Use 1. You call uses applications; I will give you one properly so called, which presseth you to seek to apply all this to yourselves. That God is a (rod of all grace, is, as I have handled it, but a general to and among all saints. But the query may be, What may I, or you, or any particular saint, apply to ourselves of all this? You find an example of the application I intend made to your hands by David : it is in Psalm lix. 10, The God of my mercy shall prevent me. God, the God of all grace, that is the doc trine ; but the God of my mercy, says David. And again, ver. 17, he is the God of my mercy ; that is the application. And this usage of speech is nowhere else in Scripture.

The God of all grace, says Peter to the brotherhood, but the God of my mercy, says David for himself. The greatest application you can make of anything is to be able to say, this is mine. All the stirs in the world are about meum and tuum, mine and thine. As Luther said, there is more force in pronouns, meum and tuum, than in any words. If a man be absolute to say, the grace of God is mine, it is no matter what else thou canst say is thine, if thou canst say the God of my mercy. I will give you what senses either are or may be put upon that passage, to comfort you in this way of application. And they are reduced unto those three heads, which in the doctrinal part I have gone upon, of grace in God s dispensations, of the grace in his purposes, and of the grace in his nature.

1. The first sense may be, take mercy as it signifies the mercies given from or bestowed by God dispensatorily. Thou mayest say to this God, He is the God of all the mercies that anyway belong to me, or that I ever have need of. Begin we there. Brethren, it is a wonderful condescension that God should make this an attribute of himself, I am the God of the mercy of every particular saint of mine. That as he is thy God, the God of thee personally, so also of thy mercies, it notes out that he hath taken this on him as an office.

When any one takes a title upon him of a particular thing, it argues his undertaking the charge thereof, and that he puts himself under a trust, and enters into the bond of faithfulness to perform it, as to say one is a guardian of a child, or steward of one s house, it betokens an office, a trust, and engageth to faithfulness. For the great God to say, I am Deus tibi d misericordiist I am the God of all thy mercies, it imports a devoting himself to take care of all the mercies that shall anyway concern thee. And when God takes a title upon him, it becomes his name, and God will not take his own name in vain ; to be sure he will perform his trust. That is one sense, and it is a comfortable one.

2. The second is this, that every saint hath in purposing grace a set and sufficient portion for him of grace and mercy set apart and allotted to him, which he may call his mercy, my mercy. Suppose thou shouldst not need all the mercy that is in God s nature for thine own particular, yet be sure God in his decrees hath set apart a portion big enough for thee, and that is thy mercy, a portion so large, that it shall never be exhausted either by thy sins or miseries, which is God s meaning to the apostle : 2 Cor. xii., My grace is sufficient for thee ; and Paul s meaning in that speech of his, Philip, iii., That for which I was apprehended by Christ; that is, that which was allotted me by God, for Christ to give forth to me ; it was his * The God of my mercy shall, or doth, prevent me, or hath prevented me. portion. There is a phrase carries it to this sense in Psalm lix. 10, (1.) If wo read it, he hath prevented me, the meaning is, there is no kind

OF ELECTION. ^BoOK IV. of need I can have, but the God of my mercy hath prevented me in his pur poses from eternity ; as a careful father, he lays up plasters ready spread against the time, knowing that his children will cut their fingers. In the text it is said, God careth for you ; care is that which forecasts what will fall out, and orders what may prevent it. He hath made provision before hand by his mercy for whatever I shall need of any kind, and in that respect he is the God of my mercy. That is the first. Or (2.) he shall or doth prevent me. I am in a distress, and I pray, and God oftentimes prevents me and my prayer. He comes in the nick, in due time, as if he had lain in wait. I can no sooner pray, yea, often before I pray, he doth the thing for me. Why ? For he is the God of my mercy ; he prevents me. In the confidence of which, ver. 8, says he, God shall laugh at them, speaking of his enemies; deliverance from them was the mercy he speaks of. If one stood at the top of a watch-tower that belongs to a city (as in Holland they are wont), and saw an army coming against that town, and withal saw a stronger army (as Elisha did) that would cer tainly prevent them, he would in that case certainly laugh all the while to see what a stir the one kept, and what ado they made, and all in vain ; and in the like confidence hereof David concludes, "he is the God of my defence, the God of my mercy. For he hath prepared a defence for every assault of the enemy ; and the same holds true of spiritual enemies.

(3.) You may interpret it of the mercy in the nature of God, and in that sense you may say all the mercies that are in God are my mercies, carry it home with thee. In this same psalm you find him saying, * I will sing aloud of thy mercy, ver. 16, he calls it God s mercy ; and yet, ver. 17, The God of my mercy ; the meaning is, that all the mercy of God is my mercy, I can lay claim to it as need is. And the reason of it is pregnant ; for, is God our God ? If so, then all the mercies in God, upon the same account, are our mercies ; yea, it was mercy in him that moved him to become our God at first, and that made him make himself over to us ; so that, if thou canst say (poor soul) the God of my mercy, this doth contract the whole of God s being, and all the grace in him, to thyself. Art thou called ? Do but lay thy eye through that little hole of vocation, as through a perspective ; that is, through this consideration, I am one whom God hath called with a holy calling, and saved. And so thou mayest draw in all of God through that little hole ; even all the grace in God s nature hath an inlet through that sluice, and comes in upon thee, and thy faith may take it in. This one expression, < I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, sets open (as I said) the flood-gates of all in the nature of God, to a poor soul, to whom God hath been gracious in calling him. Shall I speak a very big word to you, and so end ? You heard, God is the God of all grace to the brother hood ; I tell thee, if any one soul had all the needs that all the brotherhood have, if nothing would serve his turn, but all the grace of God that he hath for the whole, yea, in the whole of himself, he would lay it out for thee. The Lord help us to consider these things, for they are true. Poor soul, thou usest to say, this or that is my sin, and it is so ; a grievous sin per haps, and I am prone to it. And again, this is my misery ; but withal, I beseech thee to consider, that God is the God of thy mercy, and that all the mercy in God, upon occasion, and for a need, is thine, and all upon as good a title as that sin is thine ; for the free donation of God, and of his will, is as good a title as the inheritance of sin in thee.

Use 2. You have heard what God is in his grace ; shall I invite you to the latter part of an intercourse, which as great a subject, yea indeed a tavounte of free-grace as ever any, had with God, when his soul was filled

and flushed with the apprehension of God s free-grace towards him, when he hung as a little globe of glass in the sun, as full of glory, shining through and through him, as he could take in or hold ? Shall I bring you where you may listen to and overhear at what a rate such a soul talks and speaks to God, when he is in such a frame ? You find it in 2 Sam. vii. 18-22, David sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, Lord God ? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, Lord God ; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant s house for a great while to come : and is this the manner of man, Lord God ? And what can David say more unto thee ? for thou, Lord, knowest thy servant. For thy word sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things, to make thy servant know them. Wherefore thou art great, Lord God : for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

God had first begun with him, and had thereby set his soul thus on fire. God had said his say by Nathan, which that conclusion unto what had fore gone in verse 17, According to all those words, and this vision, so did Nathan speak to David from God, shews. It would be too long to enlarge on the fore-part of this visit made by God in that of the foregoing chapters ; only this I will say, there was never any favourite so courted and caressed by any great king, as David had been by God before this. The occasion God took to express what he did to him was, there came into the heart of David a motion to build God an house, and it was free-grace from God that put that into David s heart too ; for God doth but pump, if I may so say ; it is but as putting in water to draw out more ; he puts in grace, and we return it ; and God took this kindly: ver. 2, David had said, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains ; so he would build God an house. God took this kindly, for God takes advantage to express his love to us. David had spoken this as to day ; God took it so kindly, and his heart was so full of it, that that very night, as you read, ver. 4, he says to Nathan, Go and tell my servant David, &c. ; he would not defer one moment [his] answer. The grace of God is often seen in swift returns and answers to our prayers, and the message is all of grace. God pours out his heart upon him from ver. 8 to 18. And let me only add this, that in all this message of God s about building, to David, an house, and about his Son, David eyed Christ, and understood it so ; for, Heb. i. 5, what God says here of David s Solomon, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son, refers unto the 14th verse of this very chapter, and yet is there plainly applied to Christ. And that David understood it so, that of Peter warrants : Acts ii. 30, David being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, &c. Therefore he eyed Christ, and his eternal salvation in him, as Abraham did in Isaac, and saw Christ s day. And verse 21 of this chapter insinuates this : For thy word s sake, says he (that is, for thy Christ s

and according to thine own heart hast thou done this. Nay, there had been no former word delivered unto David about this which he should sake), here refer to, therefore that Word is Christ, o Xo/oc, like that of Daniel, chap, ix., For the Lord s sake. What God is to us in point of grace, is not my business now, the doctrine hath cleared that enough. It is the after part, David s reception and enter tainment of all this from God, and how his heart took it, that I would make you to overhear, and work an impression of upon you answerable thereto.

264 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IY.

This is it will concern you for a pattern and example to you, and will serve as a proper use of this doctrine.

Now then, thou that professest thyself a subject of free grace, come and sit down a little with David (for as ver. 18, David sat down when he uttered this), and let his meditation be thine ; what David says of his house and kingdom, apply thou to thy soul, for that was chiefly in David s eye: My house indeed is not so, as I had hoped, says he ; * but this is my (personal) salvation : 2 Sam. xxiii., yet God hath made with me an ever lasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire. It is true, thou hast no Messias to come out of thy loins as David had ; thou hast no earthly kingdom to be advanced to, but thou hast greater things ; though thou hast not Christ to come out of thy loins, yet thou hast Christ to dwell in thy heart, and that is more ; Christ to be formed in thee, as the apostle says in the Galatians, and thou art more intimately one with him, than if thou hadst been his forefather, yea, his mother, or hadst had him in thy womb, for that alone is but an outward privilege of the flesh, as Rom. ix; yea, and as Christ speaks it of his mother and brethren. And though thou hast not an earthly kingdom, yet thou art interested in the true kingdom of David, as that of glory is called : Luke i. 82, The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, &c. And what David here speaks of his house, ver. 19, as for a long time to come, thou mayest apply to heaven : thou hast a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1. And, as I said, the truth is, David is fain, as for his own person, to betake himself to this at last. Now this premised, I will go over David s speech, and do thou in such a way apply it to thyself all along.

1. Says he, what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ?

Alas, had God said, thou wert a shepherd, ver. 8, I took thee from the sheep-cot, from following the sheep, to be a ruler over my people, over Israel, and have made thee a great name, like unto the great men that are on the earth ! Now, what in lieu of this canst thou say ? I was dead in sins and tres passes, an Assyrian ready to perish. By grace thou art saved, and he hath caused thee to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. To David, God only said, I have made thee like unto the great men that are but in the earth ; but he hath made thee a greater name, like unto the name of those that sit with Jesus Christ in heaven. The Lord called and converted thee when thou wast in thy blood and filth, and cast out to the loathing of thy person ; and he said unto thee, live ; and he called thee the first mo ment of thy being, called into eternal glory, into as perfect a right of it as ever thou shalt have when thou shalt have been millions of years in heaven ; and God hath hitherto kept thee, and thou mayest say, as David did here, Lord, thou hast brought me hitherto. How many temptations hast thou had to sin ? How many reducements and deliverances ? And the more thy temptations have been, the more of his power has been expended in keeping thee. Thou hast been like a ship at anchor, held by a straw, as to thine own sense, and yet held. Thou hast reason to thank God thou hast been brought hitherto, that thou hast escaped so well, and hast had so good quarter in the world. Thou hast escaped many sins and scandals thou niightest have fallen into, but God kept thee ; this the first.

2. Then, secondly, David being overpowered with free grace in his soul, said Who am I, Lord ? Do thou also put these two together, Who am I, thou great God ! Set that dust of the balance, /, a creature, and I, a sinner, with the great God, the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity,

and humble thyself to the dust in the sense of thy nothingness and baseness.

* and this was yet a small

3. Then, thirdly, take the next words of David, thing in thy sight, Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy servant s house for a great while to come ; and is this the manner of man, Lord God ? (the word is, * is this the law of man ? ) His purpose in that phrase is, as the opposition shews, to set in comparison the wont, the law, the usage of God s free grace, with the manner or law of men s kindnesses, so to aggrandise it. God comes with some one, and that so great a kindness, that shall make a man think, and justly, what can be more ? And yet, before he hath done with him, he will make that but a small thing in com parison with others. Free grace, after calling, loves to exceed itself, outdo itself in what it hath done. God will still do as Christ said to Nathanael, Dost thou wonder at this ? Thou shalt see greater things than these, thou shalt see the heaven opened, John i. 51. I shall give you some instances.

(1.) Look to thy first calling; wert thou called with seeing thy sin? And was thy heart changed then, and sanctified withal, and didst thou find the image of God spick and span new in thee ? Thou thoughtest this wondrous great. But then, (2.) Thou foundest that all this would not justify thee, and thereupon all thy sanctification became but a small thing to thee, and ! then did thy soul cry, Blessed is the man whose sin is covered ; and that I had Christ s righteousness to cover my sin ! And then thou esteemedst all thy sanctification

but as dross and dung in comparison of being found in Christ, not having thine own righteousness, but the righteousness of faith, &c. And what ado hadst thou after that first work of sanctification, to work thyself out of that thy new created righteousness, and to obtain that of Christ ?

(3.) When thou hadst pursued thus after justification through the blood of Christ, and hadst obtained some quiet and easement, and perhaps thereby assurance, then adoption appeared, and thereupon justification alone and pardon became but a small thing to thee, when you were assured of being a son and heir, a co-heir with Christ ; and then your soul began to rejoice with a new joy, as Rom. v. 2, 3, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

(4.) Then union with Christ and being one with him came into view; and then how did thy soul value this above all, and pursued after it accordingly, even to know, that as the Father lives in the Son, so that the Son lives in me, as John xiv. 20. And upon this, all those former privileges simply considered, became but small things: John xvii. 22, 23, you will find union with Christ preferred to glory; and the glory which thou gavest me, 1 have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, &c.

we joy in God, Horn. v. 11, through Christ ; God (5.) And not only so, but is to become all in all. And thus still as thou goest on, farther and farther, so free grace presents thee with new things, greater and greater ; and although thou mayest have known and heard of all these privileges at first, yet they were not set on with an impression worthy of them, but that was done by such a gradual succession as hath been shewed. Yea, I add, (6.) Suppose thou hadst been millions of ages in heaven, and there been satiated with the fulness of God and Christ, yet thou wilt then say, Lord, * hitherto thou hast brought me ; but this is but a small thing, a finite portion of time of enjoyment hitherto, compared to eternity. Eternity is for a long time to come, indeed, as David here, the thoughts of which do multiply our joys by every moment wherein we are yet to enjoy them.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

So as I may really say of this series of dispensations what your new pro jectors of philosophy have feigned ; say they, every fixed star is a sun, and if we should travel over and through the infinite heavens, we should meet still with new suns, which at this distance seem but stars, and then this sun itself would become to view but as a star, when they are ascended up so far above it. Now, it is certain that Christ himself, considered as God-man, and as now shining in his dispensatory kingdom, is but as the bright morning star, Rev. xxii. 16, unto God himself, when he shall be all in all, 1 Cor. xv. But to return again to David. 4. What doth David further say to all these things? Even this, What can David say more unto thee ? for thou, Lord, knowest thy ser vant. He speaks as a man non-plussed ; his thoughts swallowed up his words, as Job s ; he could go no further, seeing that as a creature he could make no proportionable return nor acknowledgment, no, not in words. And the apostle also doth the like, Rom. via. When he had run his course through all the progresses of free grace, ver. 31, he stops with this, What shall we say to these things? I use to say, faith is never non-plussed; but we see that love is. Faith and love divide that verse between them : P God be for us, who can be against us ? that is the voice of faith, and therefore it hath still to reply against all can be said to the contrary, < What shall we say to these things ? for love sits down overwhelmed and silenced therewith, and hath nothing to say but to embrace them.

5. Says David, Thou knowest tby servant, that is, 1, thou knowest what s to thee ; as Peter said to Christ, Lord, thou knowest I love thee, 2. He also resolves all the grace of God bestowed upon him into Gods foreknowledge: Thou knowest me, and that < by name; as of Moses God said, I know thee by name, Exod. xxxiii. 12, 17. And what e intimate intent of his inserting his own name in his speech to God What can David say more, for thou knowest thy servant what, was it to tell God his name ? No ; but it is as if he had said, Thou hast lown David of old, whose name is sweet unto thee ; and therefore I am bold to mention it. Yea, 3, and thou knowest my sinfulness too ; thou knowest our frame, and that I am but dust, dust mingled with sin ; and that overwhelmed me, that thou shouldest have respect to such a wretch, so that 1 can say no more, but Who am I, Lord God ? 6. And lastly, do thou as he, fully admire afresh the infinite greatness, treeness, and nobleness of his grace ; for there are these three things farther in his speech.

(1.) A knowledge of the freeness of that grace, that is, that God doth all this out of no principle but his own heart (and that is properly grace) ; so says David, Thou hast done all these things out of thine own heart, and from no other motive, and for thy word s sake, ver. 21, that is, Christ; ior that these promises respected Christ, I shewed afore.

(2.) The nobleness of this grace. For no other end, says he, hast thou done this, but < to make thy servant know them. When God shews mercy, he doth it but that you may know it, and bless him for it ; as he said, he loves, but because he loves ; so he shews love, but that we may know how much he doth and can love.

(3.) There is the greatness of this grace : ver. 22, < Wherefore thou art Lord God, for there is none like thee ; great, that is, in thy acts 31 grace, for m such God had declared himself: Thou dost all like the great God ; thou comest upon a soul with thy greatness, but it is with the great ness of thy grace. And he compares it also with what man useth to do : Is this the manner of men ?

You have now seen this man in his heights, and it is a very high and a gallant frame of heart that he was in ; all mere ingenuity toward God that he expresseth. And who in such a case would not have wished to have died ? for thou couldst not have died in a better time.

And let any soul be but thus spirited, and hung as a globe of glass in the sun, as I said, during this, and how will that soul shrink, and faint, and sink but to think, I shall sin again

! It would rather die ten thousand deaths.

turned himself and spied the sepulchres, &c., then said he, What title is this I see? (I mention

But, lo, as it is said, 2 Kings xxiii. 16, Josiah this but by way of allusion.) Oh my brethren, I turning but two pages off, no more, from this of 2 Sam. vii., which I have insisted on, as you may also do the like, and what titles are these I see ? Over the third page David s adultery, that is over the first column of it ; then Uriah slain, that is over the second. Is this the man we found even now in the seventh chapter in so great glory, and so sublimated with the grace of God, and that here we see in mire and filth ? David had said that when he was in his elevation, What can David say more ? but say I now, what could David do worse ? As the prophet Jeremiah said, chap. iii. 5, * Thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.

And now I will again take up the apostle s words to another purpose, Brethren, what shall we say to these things ? I will tell you what your work-mongers and legalists, that are opposite to free grace, will say, Here is your doctrine of free grace, you see what it comes to and ends in ; this would they say. Nay, I will tell you farther what God would have said if he had considered David as in a covenant of works : My covenant he hath broken, and I regard him not ; yea, I will swear against him, he shall never enter into my rest ; I will never have to do with him. And give me this man, would justice have said, to make a trophy, an example of to glorify this my justice upon, which would have been more glorified on this man than on a thousand other sinners who never knew what free grace meant.

But let us hear what says free grace to these things. Consider every one of you, though you have not had Bathshebas to lie with, nor murdered

Uriahs, yet you have had those or other such lusts and passions, envies and strains of self-love, unto a monstrosity ; and bearing yourselves high upon your estates, names, &c., in this world, and reigning therein, as the apostle speaks. Well, but what doth the God of all grace say to these things ? I desired you but even now to view David in these two chapters, vii. and xi. ; now I desire you, first, to consider what God hath said for his part to David in that very same 7th chapter ; and then, secondly, what a punctual per formance of it you read of, notwithstanding all this, from the llth chapter to the end of the story.

First, Whereas you often have heard, out of Psalm Ixxxix. 35, how free

Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto grace had said, David. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips, nor fail David but David failed him now stand and wonder; where is it that this covenant is to be first found, where but in this very 7th chapter we have been upon ? There it is, and there first it was that God did give it forth, that once for all ; so verse 11, The Lord tells thee, that he will make thee an house, and when thy days be fulfilled, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will esta blish his kingdom ; he shall build an house for my name, and I will esta blish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his Father, and he shall

268 OF ELECTION. [BoOE IV. be my son ; if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod o men, and with the stripes of the children of men, but my mercy shall not depart away from him, &c. Here is the very covenant the psalmist speaks of, and this was the first revelation of it before David had expressed himself so, as I have been opening.

And here let me but remind you but of that one passage of David s there upon, chap. vii. 20, Thou, Lord God, knovvest thy servant. He knew him indeed, and knew not only how he had served him afore this covenant, but also how he would serve him, even so as in the llth chapter, verse 5, you find he did. Indeed, David spake that speech, * Thou knowest, &c., to another purpose ; but God knew all this, his sin also that followed, and yet knowingly expressed and made this covenant with him. I may say by allusion, to illustrate God s grace, what Daniel said to aggravate Belshazzar s wickedness, Thou, God, knewest all this. After that fatal chapter, the eleventh chapter, we shall see the performance, and how free grace went on notwithstanding to make good all this, and is as busy at work about him to perform his promise as if he had never sinned ; nay, when he was in that eclipse, David was as the moon in the heavens, and he was in motion to get out of it, as the moon also is. Therefore, Secondly, Let us consult the chapters which follow after that : What titles, then, do we see next? Chap, xi., Nathan s parable, and David s

Solomon is born. That was a good lump of mercy upon his repentance, at one birth after all this ; for what was repentance ; and the what next that ? it but the beginning of performance of what he had promised and foretold in chap, vii., I wSl raise thee a son, and I will be his Father, &c. The truth is, though God punished David in most of the rest of his children ; you know Amnon ravished his own sister, and Absalom killed Amnon, and Joab his kinsman killed Absalom, Solomon put to death Adonijah, and so they killed one another to the end of the story ; yet God took Solomon for his. Go on and look over the 22d chapter :* you have David there transfigured again, and as much, in his robes of glory as ever he was in. The moon, that was in the eclipse, is not only out of it, but shines as bright as ever.

And then you find him, 1 Chron. xxix. 11, 14, gathering materials for the temple, which was the last work he did, and the best work that ever he did ; better than killing of enemies, though in lawful war, which in the type caused God to say, that he should not build the temple ; and there again you shall find David in as gallant a frame upon that his offering, ver. 11. He is again at his acknowledging God s greatness, and at Who am I ?

Thine, Lord, is the greatness and the glory ; but who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort ? And this was not now for kingdoms, or for an house to succeed in them, which are the great things man is taken withal. No ; but that he had wherewith to offer, and then for having an heart to offer so willingly ; and though he gave God but his own, as he also there says, for the mercy hereof alone and simply considered, it was, that he humbled himself so deeply, even to dust, whilst

This psalm was penned by David when he was old, as interpreters generally say, and the order of placing it in this story together with, and just afore his last words, chap xxiii., and the title of it, Psalm xviii., * In the day when God had delivered him from all his enemies, Absalom, Sheba, as also the comparing one of his last speeches, 1 Kings i. 29, and the passages of the psalm, do shew. They all, says Muis, do refer unto his deliverances all along, and though from Saul is especially mentioned, and last, yet it was because that was the most eminent ; and so now afore his death he having those deliverances through thirty years past, fresh on his heart, having been the greatest of any of the latter, he puts all together into one summary.

he acknowledged this, and utters that great thanksgiving for this alone. This proceeded from pure grace in his heart, and from a more clarified and spiritualler habit of heart than the former, which might have much of self mingled with it, and shews that by his sinnings he had learned to value serving and glorifying of God more than his own exaltment.

I need not now insist on that excellent spirit of faith we find him in, when he came to die, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. There he had seen somewhat to abate, and fall, indeed, in the hope of his house. I shall tell you my private opinion on it : When God had first talked of making him an house, besides what God intended and performed in Solomon, &c., I conceive that he might have enlarged his thoughts about it unto this, that every one of his present children should be godly. You are all apt, when filled with the grace of God, or under great drawings near of God, to run out in your thoughts too far in some thing or other, and to form up some private faith of your own, of having such or such a privilege, as perhaps persuade yourselves that all your children shall be saved (having prayed for them at such time, or the * my house is not so ; that is, such as I had hoped they would have proved. Solomon and Nathan were good, reckoned in Christ s genealogy, but for the rest we know not what they were ; but yet, says he, Though my house be not so with God, he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure ; for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make my house "not to grow, as I once supposed he would. like) ; but, says poor David now, And now let me once again repeat, What do you say to these things, when put thus altogether ? This I shall only say, Oh, what is man ! the best of men ? and what is God ?

1. What is man, a base unworthy, mutable, and ungracious wretch ? And, 2. The second is greater than this first. Oh, what is God, even the God of ! and so give me leave also to usurp that speech of David, and close with it, all grace

* What can thy servant say more ?

CHAPTER III.

God is the God of all grace, with a discrimination to us, not to others; espe cially such others as have an imperfect temporary work wrought in them ; or he is the God of all grace only to his elect, whom he effectually calls and invincibly saves ; not to others, whom he leaves to fall away. hath called us. 1 PETER V. 10.

I undertook for every word that it should contribute to our subject, either some addition unto the illustration of the grace of God, the God of all grace, or the confirmation of our faith in God s carrying us through temp tations unto glory, or unto both.

Us here may seem to serve to no further use than to denote those to whom he wrote to be the persons whom God had called, &c., and as lightly to be passed over.

But I hope to make it appear that it hath besides this a further eminent and most emphatical importance ; as if he had said, God hath been to us a God of grace in our calling, and in preserving us, but so he is not to others, whom yet he calls, but leaves to fall away ; and this will bring forth a new and great point for the exaltation of free-grace towards us.

270 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

This intention of discrimination in this expression us, not others, by the apostle, will appear,

1. By the reality of the things here spoken by Peter.

2. By the import of the phrase us.

3. From the occasion whereupon Peter uttered this consolation to the church of God.

1. This discriminating intent will appear from the reality of the things spoken here by Peter in the substantials of them, according as they have been already opened, when put together.

For (1.) That God doth, out of special grace, call its, as a God of grace to us, this in Scripture language elsewhere imports, that there are others whom he calls not out of grace, but from some other principle in himself. Thus expressly, Rom. viii. 28, The called according to his purpose ; which * A calling according to his own purpose and grace, and the other part of the distinction is added, in 2 Tim. i. 9, is further explained to be, as in the text, 4 not according to works. These both are in those Scriptures intended for apparent notas of distinction of a calling of us out of grace as the cause, from calling of others from out of his providence,* and which is carried on according unto works. These note a difference in the tenure of callings, the original tenure which they hold of; ours holds in capite, in freehold of grace ; but others have theirs in copyhold of works ; and but dum bene se gesserint, if thou dost well, thou shalt be accepted. So that us here, the subjects of the God of grace calling them, doth in that respect secretly imply and connotate with it, and a not-others, who yet have a sort of calling.

hath called, taken as the effect of grace as the cause, note out a difference of calling for the kind of it, and that these are some others that have a calling different; and this difference we also have in 2 Tim. i. 9 expressly, Hath called us, with an holy calling It is a dis crimination that, too, which likewise doth implicitly note that there are others called, but not with an holy calling. And so still MS, not others, is the voice of both these apostles, and is to be understood, in the reality of it, to be Peter s intention. Now, the privilege promised to the us here, who are thus called, is, that we should be perfected, strengthened, &c. ; which notes out this difference from those others in the issue and event of calling, that others, though called, yet are not perfected, but left in the end to their own wills and ways, to fall away ; for it is a calling according to works, and (2.) Those words, accordingly it is managed.

And whereas it may be said to be intended with a commotion * of differ ence from all others of the world; I grant you may take them in also, as a further amplification of the grace of God towards us, yet I would further add, That this discriminating grace is more conspicuously seen by those others that are called, as well as we, whom yet God leaves to fall away. And, indeed, if you understand it only in the way of the beforementioned dis tinction (as hath been said), then, so conceived, there needed no such dis tinction as in the word calling is intimated, for the generality of the world are of such as never were or shall be so much as called ; it must, therefore, be mainly intended of those others that have had some work of calling upon them, as well as this us themselves.

Moreover, secondly, his scope being to fortify and comfort this its from fears of falling away, and the fears of falling away being occasioned by, and using chiefly and mostly to arise from, the examples of others, that are, in their apprehensions, called as well as themselves, whom yet with their own * Qu. connotation ? ED.

eyes they daily see to fall away, whom should he in this case, by way of discrimination, intend (if he intended any at all) other than these ? In the last place, although us seems to come in without any emphasis at all, and to serve but only as a noun that follows the verb hath called, as if denoting barely the person ; yet elsewhere you find, when it is, as here, joined with calling, that there is a special emphasis set over the head of us, Rom. ix. 24, Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. Where observe, He says not barely, who hath called us, but * even us whom he hath called. The accent is set over the head of the us ; and the effect of Peter s speech here comes all to one with that there, for it is no less than as if he had placed his words also thus, Us whom the God of all grace hath called. And, secondly, To what purpose is it that the accent, the emphasis there over us, but to shew the infinite vast difference which grace and mercy puts between that us whom he hath called, and others ? It is as if he had said, even us, and not others, through discriminating grace ; for which read the words afore, and you will acknowledge as much, ver. 22, 23, What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ? And that he might make known the riches of his glory tin the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory ?

And if any say, that this difference there put is but that which is between the elect and all others of mankind that are the vessels of wrath, I answer, read and annex ver. 15, 16, He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that will have compassion runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. So that from that us, there thus indigitated, that are called also, that attempt to will and run, and to obtain salvation thereby, it is apparent that there is intended a more special sort of men,* from whom even us, by a true calling, are distinguished, unto the greater magnifying of God s grace thereby.

And, thirdly, you may observe the us there to note out the whole church, for so it follows, Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, which two divided the world. This for the reality of the thing itself in Peter s scope, that us is intended in a discriminating sense from others called.

2. If we consult the peculiar phraseology and use of the word us or we, as in the apostles mouth it sounds, when they speak of saints

whom God hath called, we shall find it notes forth the whole body of the true church, as a set and fixed number, that shall not be diminished in any one of them, and who are specially called forth out of the world, yea, and discriminated from another sort of professors, called out of the world together with them who fall away.

I might, yea, I shall, I think, [be able] to give an account of every tittle of this significancy of the word us, as applied unto true saints by calling, of whom only here Peter speaks.

(1.) Us sets out and denotes the whole bulk and body of the true church of God, first culled out of the whole mass of mankind by the election of grace, then called forth by effectual vocation from the rest of the world ; from whence it is, indeed, it bears its name, and is styled by way of eminency, JxxXtr/a, or the church, insomuch that every saint, being a member

Qu. From that us. there thus indigitated, it is apparent that there is intended a more special sort of men, that are called also, that attempt to will and run, and to obtain salvation thereby ? ED.

272 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. of that great corporation, may speak of himself, and of or to another, in the language of we and us, by way of apartment from all the world.

(2.) They are termed an us in a far narrower discrimination than that from all the world, even from them that are called out of the community of the world, by a real work of the Spirit upon them, as well as upon these saints themselves, yet but with an abortive imperfect work of calling and profession that proves vain, as James speaks, as to the issue thereof. Thus

They went out from us, but they were not of us : for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us : but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. expressly you have it, 1 John ii. 19, [l.J He entitles the whole body of truly called ones, that had received that unction from the Holy One, in the next verse, where there is an us four several times.

And [2.], Those, in difference from whom he terms these the us, were such as through a work of calling had once joined themselves unto them, as those words, They went out from us, and continued not with us, do manifestly declare ; yet, says he, of a differing kind and sort from us, for * if they had been of us they would have continued with us, but went out that it might be manifest they were not of us : that whereas they had been accounted and reckoned to be of us, having made a separation from the world as well as we, and professed Christ and Christian holiness as well as we, yet to the end that vast difference that was betwixt that work of calling which had been upon them and that which was upon us, and which did as really distinguish us from them, that that might appear, they were left to fall away, and so to go out from us.

By which [3.] it also there appears that this true us, genuinely and rightly so styled, are, as was said in the assertion, a fixed and standing and durable company or body, whereof not one shall be diminished. And observe how peremptory and conclusive he is in it ; for, says he, If they had been of us, truly called, they would no doubt have continued with us. As if he had said, all of the right breed and calling, or of the right company of the true us, they do continue together for ever, they are a standing durable body to Christ, and every one of them continues so ; and he doth not barely affirm it (which, being an apostle, were sufficient), nor doth he only bring it in by way of a reason, or certain evidence, that therefore those other were none of us, in those words, For if they had been of us, &c., but he would have us out of all doubt or questioning of it; without doubt, says he, there must never so much as a thought be entertained to the contrary, nor ever any question by any of you be made of it.

And [4.J he tells us that those other were therefore left thus to fall off, in and through a special design on God s part, who had this end or design in his thus so ordering of it, that they might be made manifest they were not of us. Now where there is an end there must be a design guiding to that end, and whose was this but God s ? Who in his providence brings it to this issue, like as elsewhere you have it, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you. The manifestation of these in both places was not the work of man, but God s, who knowing who are his, accordingly doth call them; whom he hath predestinated, them he hath also called; and therefore full well knows who are his own true us, as I may so speak. And he knowing also that those other were never in reality and truth of his us, or owned by him for such, none of his rightly called ones, as Christ knew Judas all along that he was a devil, hence he who is a God of holiness and truth cannot always bear with them, Rev. ii. 2. As of the angel of Ephesus it is

said ; but, as there also, tries them that say, They are called, but are not, and proves them liars. God ordinarily at the long run leaves them to dis cover themselves in this world, and they that are otherwise cannot be always hid : 1 Tim. v. 25, * Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand ; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. And this import or signification of the word us is, I think, in all things home to the point we have been treating of and pursuing, and justly inferred from the apostle s language and use of the word.

3. And more particularly, that Peter should upon a special peculiar motive and consideration use this word in this sense in this passage of his, we may perhaps be easily induced to think, if we consider, (1.) That this word us, in this very importance of it, did first of all the apostles fall from Peter s own mouth ; and, (2.) Withal consider the occasion of it then, and how near it came home to Peter ; and then, (3.) The near relation and correspondency that the matter of these verses doth hold with that occasion.

(1.) It fell first from Peter s mouth in this sense, and that in the first sermon we read of after Christ s ascension : Acts. i. 13, 16, 17, * In those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled concerning Judas. For he was numbered with us, ver. 17. The Scripture he means that was fulfilled is afterwards rehearsed by him, ver. 20. In the mean time he prefaceth concerning Judas in these words, He was numbered amongst us. Whom doth he mean by us, but amongst us saints, the church of the New Testament, whereof one hundred and twenty were present ? as also amongst us apostles, whereof eleven re mained and were present, and not one of them ever to fall away, as Christ s prayer, John xvii. 12, shews, None of them is lost but this son of perdition.

(2.) The occasion of the us in that sense was upon the first and most notorious discrimination from that us that ever shall be made, and so famous an one as the New Testament rings of it to this day, of one who in an instant fell from the most eminent calling, having been called by Christ himself, and by reason of that his calling thus numbered and unquestioned by any of them amongst the first saints, and the highest rank of saints the apostles, and had obtained part of this ministry, so it follows, ver. 17. In John xviii. 4, fyou read it signally noticed, and studiously observed by the evange list himself: And Judas that betrayed him stood with them, that is amongst those, or that company who came to take Jesus ; and, says Peter here, Acts i. 16, Who was guide to them that took Jesus ; yea, it would seem he was become as the captain of them : John xviii. 3, Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons. What a dismal standing with these his new acquaintance and companions was this ! For from hence for ever, according to his own choice, he was to take his lot with them for ever, who stood with him then ; he till then had been numbered amongst us, but from thenceforth was numbered amongst the us no more. This is Peter s scope there, and the story shews it ; then and there it began to be manifest that he was not of them, and in the very literal historical sense it is said, He went out from them, John xiii. 30, to go to these other, never to return again, or be of that company any more.

And how near unto Peter s heart this eternal separation and discommon ing of Judas must needs come, at the same time, even whilst he was uttering of it, we may easily apprehend, when we recall that his own fate had been to deny his Lord thrice, with oaths and imprecations, within two or three hours space, after that Judas had betrayed the same his Lord and VOL. ix. s

274 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Master also. His sin came as near (in the kind of it, though not in degree) unto that of Judas, as near in that respect as it did in space of time from Judas his committing his ; whereupon we may well conceive that any, or all of them that heard him that day might presently say within themselves, dost thou talk of Judas his having been once numbered amongst us ? and in thy saying so dost take upon thee still to number thyself with us ? for in saying us he included himself amongst that number still ; yea, but who and what was it put this difference, and kept thee among the number of us, whilst Judas was eternally cut off ? I shall answer for him out of his own words here in the text (and his own heart for certain, if he were here alive, would beat and speak the same), it was the God of all grace who had called me ; and for that he had called me with an holy calling, and had given me saving faith, as he hath done to the rest of you, the us. It was he who did restore, strengthen, establish me, the very same night ; and it was Jesus Christ that looked back upon me, by whom God calls and strengthens, as in the text, who had prayed for me, that my faith, which had been in my first calling wrought in me, should not fail.

And his speech being thus understood, the mind thereof hath this reflec tion and rebound back again upon all the rest then present,and upon the whole church of Christ, to the end of the world ; and it is as if Peter had said, that I who am the first and highest example of discriminating and unchangeable grace under the New Testament, that is, of one set thus in comparison with another of so eminent a station, that I should be thus kept, and still able (through grace) to number myself among you ; this may you all interpret to be a blessed handsel, and an everlasting good omen, earnest and gage unto you, the whole of us, and the whole church of the New Testament to come, that God will in like manner keep all you, that are of our us, unto eternal life, as he hath done me, maugre all temptations that may endanger the con trary, and, nevertheless, that you have seen with your eyes (and the churches in all ages will see the like) another that was called thus to apostatise, God having exemplified in him and me the fate and condition of two sorts of called professors, as leading cases under the New Testament.

This for the first occasion of using the word us in this discriminating sense, and how near it came home to Peter.

(3.) But if we shall add to this the third thing, the near correspondency and affinity that the matter of my text doth hold with that first occasion, we may perhaps be yet further induced to think that Peter intended this sense of discrimination in the word us.

It is evident that his full and fervent aim is, in this close of his epistle, to leave behind him a strengthening confortatory unto the whole church of the New Testament then in the world, and in them unto the whole catholic church to succeed to the end of the world, against the fears of falling away, which those called ones are obnoxious unto, from the experience of their own hearts, temptations, falls, and of the falling away of many that are called as well as themselves. And it is as evident that this matter of comfort given the whole church against such fears is but one and the same with what him self had been comforted withal, from the experience of that difference put by God between him and Judas, and indeed was the necessary inference, con sequent, and lesson learned therefrom, which as he did ever carry about with him, and could not but have the prospect of often in his thoughts, so in a special manner it may, if not that it must, be supposed (if at any time) to rise up in his heart upon this occasion, and so that in the sense thereof he penned this ; and not less rational it is to think that upon these coinci dent apprehensions within himself, and falling upon his own heart, he should

intend here us that are truly called in the same sense of discrimination from others abortively called, in which he had at first uttered it in Judas his case, when he said, He was numbered amongst us. But you will (it may be) be more fully persuaded unto it if you cast but your thoughts back, and recall that observation which I cast in at the entrance of the exposition of this text, which I then said conduced much to the illustration of Peter s scope and heart therein ; how that certainly it had been Christ s admonition unto Peter upon the foresight of his fall, Satan hath desired to winnow thee, but I have prayed thy faith fail not, wherefore when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. That charge, I say, left upon him by Christ, gave fire and vent to his spirit to insert this consolatory con clusion, and administered the materials to him, yea, and many of the very words which he forms his speech in ; and accordingly having first given them warning, as Christ had done in the verses just afore, that Satan did seek to devour and drink up at one draught (which was Judas his perfect case) any of the brotherhood in like manner, he then presently comes in with * But the God of all grace, by Jesus Christ, shall strengthen, stablish, &c. And you may review what a set and formed up parallel in many parti culars there is found between the one and the other, as I then shewed.

Peter here going about to strengthen his brethren, and that in writing now in the same or like words, when he is restored and converted; so as I doubt not to affirm that Peter had a remembrance of, and an eye thereunto in this of his.

And upon all this we will find good reason, that he having that command of Christ in relation to his fall afore, in perfect attention at the penning of this, yea, and as provoking him thereunto, that he should have withal in fresh remembrance, after his fall and recovery, that narration of his own, Acts i. (for Judas his being cut off and himself restored was one of the greatest occurrences that ever befel him, and must needs stick with him the * he was numbered amongst us, wherein most), and that passage especially, at once are summed up and bespoken his own restoring, according to Christ s words, and the preservation of the rest, the whole church to be continued on us to Christ for ever, together with Judas his everlasting exclusion from them, and in all these the discrimination that the God of grace did shew thereby, does eminently appear. For why ? Both this of his own, as well as the other of Christ s, relate to and concern one and the same thing ; so as indeed he could not remember the one, but he must needs call to mind the other ; and thereupon in the idea and impression of them all, he could not but set down these words of my text, which do correspond with the matter and scope of either.

And look, as in my text, and in the verses afore, immediately leading to them, he makes use of the very words Christ gave his command in, and unto the same purpose that Christ intended them ; so in like manner it must be supposed that he makes use of and intends this word us in the same dis criminating sense (which free grace puts between us and others), which him self had used it in, in that first leading instance given between Judas and himself, and the rest of the church there ; and here in like manner applies it to discriminate the whole church of truly called ones that then was, and is to come, from all others that shall profess, as Judas did (whose instance was primum in isto genere), without an holy calling ; and all this he did, to the end to magnify the God of all grace, and the grace that is in that God the more, which alone puts that difference, and illustrates his grace by this difference : To whom be glory and dominion for ever.

276 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

CHAPTER IV.

Effectual calling the fruit of election grace. It is also the foundation of all the following acts of grace. The calling of the elect different from the common u ork of calling that passes upon others, u ho are not finally saved. The difference between them not only in degrees, but in kind. In what that difference of kind consists. Calling according to the purpose of election is a work of that excellency for kind above all other, that God is engaged to carry it on to perfection. This manifested from the special, and unchange able love of God towards us, which produces in us that good and perfect work.

Who hath called us. 1 PETER V. 10.

My former discourse of God s being a God of grace, and a God of all grace, hath run mostly upon what God is in his own heart, in his purposes, in his thoughts (as the prophet) towards us, and in his nature made over to us by his grace. But these having been hidden within himself, although the foundation of all, 2 Tim. ii. 19, it is his calling us, that is, 1, the first outward effect or fruit of that his grace ; 2, and the first manifest token or visible marking forth the persons whom this grace hath pitched upon ; 3, and thereby farther made by God as a pledge, gage, and earnest that he will carry them on, continue that grace, and perfect that his work begun in them.

My purpose is not at all to engraft large common-place heads on this or any other of the words, as not to insist on what effectual calling or what what that glory is, or how great it is he calls us unto, but punctually to keep to this scope, how each and all of these words have that in them as doth conduce to strengthen our faith in this great point of perseverance, and the engagement that God hath hereby both put and taken upon himself to carry us through to the end.

There are five things here in this parcel of words, Who hath called us into his eternal glory, that do exactly serve to confirm our faith in this great point.

1. The first is, that he hath called, therein working a work of such a kind as his grace, that wrought it, is interested to carry it on. The effect of which is that the God of grace, when he calls out of grace, worketh such a kind of work as the same grace doth engage him to perfect it.

< the God of all grace, and therefore will

2. Who hath called ? Even certainly carry it on.

In the first of these the weight of the argument rests properly upon that respect which God hath towards the work, which out of grace he hath wrought ; he hath called. In the second shall be considered, that he calling us as the God of all grace, hath shewn himself so highly to be such, even in calling, that there fore we may be sure he will carry on all other workings which are necessary to bring us to glory.

3. That he hath, called us into glory. 4. Into eternal glory. 5. Into his eternal glory. The handling of which, as they explain the text, so each and all of these make for us, and ascertain us that God will carry us through all tempta tions, &c.

; 1. I begin with the first, that he hath called. There are two things under this head to be handled.

(1.) Some things concerning the work of calling necessary to be premised. (2.) That a true and effectual calling of God is a work of that kind, and perfection for kind, and proceeding from, and out of that grace which I have spoken of, as God hath engaged himself to carry it on to perfection.

(1.) As to the first I shall only say these few things. [l.J A saint s being called is the first immediate fruit and breaking forth of electing purposing grace. The river ran under ground from eternity, and . rises and bubbles up therein first, and then runs above ground to eternity. It is that first and great difference that God puts between man and man ; the first mark God sets upon his sheep, whereby he owns them, and visibly calls them his : Rom. viii. 30, < Whom he hath predestinated, them he hath also called. That is the first and next benefit unto that in God s heart, viz., predestination. You have the same in 2 Tim. i. 9, who hath called us according to his purpose and grace ; and hence, < Make your calling and election sure, 2 Pet. i. 10. He singles forth calling of all things else, calling upon us to make it sure, and thereby election will be made sure, that is, made sure to your faith. It is not that election is not sure without it, The foundation of the Lord standeth sure before he calls, but it is not made sure to our faith thereby. The apostles therefore do speak one uniform language, of one woof and thread, and of a like extent, either when writing to saints they say men called to be saints ; that is one title, as 2 Cor. i. 2, Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, called to be saints, or saints by calling. As also when they write to them under the notion of elect, as 1 Pet. v. 13, The church, says he, elected together with you, &c. ; and you know that of the elect lady, 2 John, ver. 1. These are made terms equivalent in men called, and thereby the apostles signify that they acknowledge no other calling to be true calling, but what was the immediate and proper fruit of election, of which I have been discoursing ; for these are terms commensurate, that is, of equal extent, to be truly and spiritually called, and to be elected ; commensurate, as to the same persons. None are called, in their sense of calling, that are not elect, and there are none elect but either such as are or shall be called.

[2.] A second thing I premise is, that a true and spiritual calling (so I shall hereafter call and notify it) is the foundation of all the actings of grace which afterwards do follow, and thence it is that the weight and stress of this whole matter of making election sure is put upon this calling; for every spiritual acting of grace, to the end of a man s life, evidenceth that first work of calling to be sound and saving, and so conduceth to make a man s calling and election sure. This is evident in that fore-cited place of Peter, your calling and election sure. He hath that at the 10th verse. But he had before premised two things, the first at verse 3, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who hath called us to glory and virtue : from whence it is plain that God, when he calls, doth endow the soul with all and the whole of the principles and seeds of all graces whatsoever, and which it shall for ever act. And this he doth through the knowledge of him who hath called us, that is, a knowledge of God, and at calling; all this is for to signify why it is those words, Through the knowledge of him, are added unto who hath called us. He works not on us as stocks, but through a knowledge of God, who is the caller. For, my brethren, know it for a great truth, that the first light you have in your calling is a new light of God (who is primum credibile), which is the original seminal cause of all that work

278 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. that accompanies calling. It may be objectively your thoughts were not taken up with God so as with nothing else ; no, but yet light of him came in, and in the strength of that you began to see what sin was, as it is in itself against an holy God, and so to see what holiness is ; and this know ledge of God is that which is so eminently, and in the first place, mentioned in the work of the new covenant of grace : Jer. xxxi., I will teach them all to know me ; and when he hath done that, thereby the law becomes written in their hearts. And thus he doth give us all things that pertain to life and godliness, even together with and through the knowledge of him who hath called us to (all) glory and virtue. He gives the whole cluster, the whole lump, whole principles of graces at first.

The second thing he had said before is, that when he hath thus inlaid the principles of all graces at first, he then acts them, he draws them out, and he doth it in what order he pleases, and is a-doing it all a man s life : and this second follows in ver. 5-7, And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, [and to brotherly kindness] charity: and thus adding of these graces, in acts and exercises of them, one to another, is that I mean by drawing of them forth all a man s life. Now observe, as to the point afore us, that the effect or fruit of this adding or exercising of graces all a man s life, is in the following 10th verse said to be a making your calling and elec tion sure. Wherefore, brethren, says he, give all diligence (that is, by thus acting your graces, whereof you received all the principles at your callings) to make your calling and election sure ; for if you do those things you shall never fall.

Brethren, you use to have recourse to the first work only, and what flaws you find in that, if you have not the whole of what ministers set out to you, you are apt to scruple and question the truth of your calling ; or if you have them not in that method -in your discerning which they set them out in, you narrow your comforts thereunto. But give me leave to say to you, by the apostle s warrant, that God, when the light and knowledge of himself comes in, impresseth withal on your hearts all principles of grace, which he is a-broiching and drawing out all your life-time, and hence every act of grace you perform is, and may become, an evidence of your calling, as well as what was wrought at first. The measure, therefore, of your judging of your calling is not simply to be confined to what work thou hadst at first, but to be ex tended to the whole progress [of] thy life, in the course of which thou findest ever and anon such and such an holy and gracious disposition of heart breaks forth towards God that is certainly grace. Now you are to take these as evidences of your calling, as well as that first work, and this that passage in Peter shews : put but the 5th verse and 10th together, and it will rise up to it ; and it is a thing you are much to take in for your comfort. Suppose thou hadst at first (I speak to them that are wrought on by de grees) for thy actings of grace but some few particulars thou discernedst, which yet are substantial to the state of grace, yet for thy help and comfort take in withal what thou hast thy whole life since to view and survey, and therein all thy self-denials and dispositions of ingenuity towards God, &c. ; and _ these are all evidences of thy being truly called, and of thy having received all things pertaining to life and godliness, which by degrees God hath drawn out of thy heart.

Only I must add this, that in the calling of some, there shoots up very uddenly an apparent visible election-conversion ; I use to call it so. You shall, as it were, see election take hold of a man, pull him out with a

mighty power, stamp upon him the divine nature, stub up corrupt nature by the roots, root up self-love, put in a principle of love to God, and launch him forth a new creature the first day, both in the spiritual sense of himself, and visibly to the observation of others. He did so to Paul, and it is not without example in others after him, as you shall see.

First in Paul, 1 Tim. i. 14, The grace of our Lord was exceeding abun dant, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus : the work of both which was perfected in the first four days, that you read of in his story in the Acts, and so in his Epistle to the Galatians, God revealed his son in me, says.he, Gal. i. 12. And it is not without example of the like in others ; as of the Thessalonians, the apostle instances in them : 1 Thes. i. 4, 5, Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. And why ? The work that was upon you was so apparent and sudden. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ; that is, an assurance of the things delivered, as well as in an assurance that they had an interest in them. As ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes : and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost : and ver. 9, And how ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, &c. There were such visible conversions then, and sometimes now-a-days, I call them electionconversions, and they are undeniably such, and visible tokens of election by such a work of calling, as all the powers in heaven and earth could not have wrought upon a man s soul so, nor changed a man so on a sudden, but only that divine power that created the world, raised Christ from the dead ; and the soul that feels it must say so.

[3.] I must yet come in with this, that the Scripture speaks of a calling, a work of the Spirit upon men that is called a calling, and yet it is not that calling the apostle here speaks of, and which we seek for. That speech, Many are called but few are chosen, which our Saviour Christ hath repeated again and again, hut especially Mat. xxii. 14, where, if you look to the coherence, you will find it punctual to this point ; for there came one in that was called, but wanted the wedding garment, upon the occasion of whom it was Christ says, * Many are called, &c. My brethren, you shall observe in the very places I have in the former sermons insisted on for the proof of purposing grace, that the apostle, when he speaks by way of saving calling, he inserts this by way of distinction, Called according to purpose. The apostle is fain here to distinguish upon it, because there is another sort of calling that is not according to purpose: You find it in Rom. viii. 28, All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose. Which distinction evidently shews (the apostle would not so sedulously put it in else), that there is a calling that is not according to his purpose, but accord ing to the pleasure and menage of his common providential grace, which accompanies the word, about which is all the controversy under the name of suffidmt grace.

There are some, both Protestant and Popish divines, that hold election as strongly as any, and do as fully profess that there is a calling proceeding from that election, and that those that are so called according to ^his pur pose, shall never fall away, and that of such this place, Eom. viii. 28, is to be understood. But withal, say they, there is a sufficient grace vouch safed to many others, who are thereby savingly called, and have, by being called, obtained as true grace as the other ; nay, and some of them go on to be saved by the same sufficient grace continued to them, or revived upon

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IY. them, and improved by them ; and in those that do not so persevere, there is yet no difference in the work of calling itself they once had, from that in the elect, take the mere work of it, but only in the event or issue, that some such do finally fall away ; whereas, none of those that are the called accord ing to his purpose, do so fall. And the reason of that difference they give to he in this, that election, and the God of all grace that wrought it, do maintain and carry on the one, but free-will grace having the keeping of the other, it squanders away that work in them, though it may fall out that some of such as improve that are saved. Thus they compound the business. But I should only ask of those of that opinion this question, which the former discourse suggests, How can any man make his election sure by his calling if this opinion hold true ? For the works, you say, in calling are the same, and there is no characteristical difference. And so, those that are elect, are still left as much, yea, utterly, to seek to make their election sure by their calling. That is certain, unless there should be something in their calling which is not found in the others, that should put the difference.

The Papists, therefore, to solve this, plainly say, That no man can be assured but by a special revelation, and by that they mean a vision from heaven by an angel or the like, which is their way of revelation ; and as for the testimonies of the Spirit in the case, they account that to be fanatical.

I demand again, if things be thus, to what purpose is this Scripture, my text, and many other Scriptures, exhorting to stedfastness of faith, and assurance in this point ? That God, as the God of all grace, will carry his called on to the end, as having given us this pawn and pledge, that he hath called us the God of all grace who hath called us, says the text will therefore perfect, establish, &c., with which multitudes of other Scriptures join issue in the point, and give their suffrage unto, whereof some I shall have occasion after to mention. This opinion of theirs enervates such Scriptures and makes them void.

That is the third thing concerning calling, for I am yet but upon the first head, to premise some things concerning calling.

[4.] And now you will ask me some differences between such a calling from election, and the other. Truly it were infinite to enlarge upon differ ences ; I shall give you first a general answer, and then mention two or three differences after.

For a general answer, I shall only say this : there being in every true calling, as you heard, all things given pertaining to life and godliness, the trial of which, and the drawing forth of which, is throughout the whole course of a man s life ; that, therefore, there is throughout, from the first of a true calling, a difference in all actings that do spring from that root ; that is, in all acts whatsoever that are spiritual acts, exercised about any sort of spiritual things and objects. And truly this is to me a great truth; I shall give you some little account of it.

If you demand, have not the non-elect and the elect, from their very first saving-workings, many actings about some things spiritual that are merely common to both, that is, both go so far and so far, and thus far together, as in historical faith and the like ; so as that the actings of each, which theyexercise towards several divine objects, are without any differ ence at all in the acts themselves, having both but one and the same kind of working, till they come to some such or such special act or acts ; that puts the first difference, as of faith justifying as justifying, or the like, purely evangelical ? I confess I am perfectly of another mind. I shall give you two grounds for this, my general assertion. First. Perhaps the very having said, they receive all things pertaining to

life and godliness at first, might carry it ; in that having received all these in order unto the bringing forth all sorts of actings about objects per taining to life and godliness, whatsoever they are ; that, therefore, as they all do spring from that one universal root and principle received, so they do all of them differ from what other men have or act, who have not this root of the matter in them ; for the fruit always answers in kind unto the root, and therefore as there is a new root differing in all things, so must the act ing of it differ also ; conform to which, and confirming which, is that 2 Cor. v., All things are become new in the new creature: as for the principle, he receiving all things belonging to life, &c., so suitably, all things become likewise new for actings, even the knowledge of the person of Christ ; and that not only in the point of faith justifying, or when put forth for justification in him, but the knowledge of his person and of all in him ; if I have known Christ after the flesh, henceforth I know him so no more ; all his knowledge of him, as he was the Messias, was wholly new.

My explication of this first ground is, that whereas you may think and Judge that a man that is savingly called, and a man that is otherwise wrought upon, they both believe that God is, but only in common, from one and the same principle, which serves both alike to act so far. For this, you will say, is but a mere historical faith, and the acts thereof are common to both of them. But give me leave to tell you, that to believe that God is, this in a man truly and spiritually called, is a different act and thing from the faith that is in the other ; and you have Heb. xi. 6, plainly for it, he that comes to God must believe that he is, &c. From this I would infer that to be lieve that God is (which is the A B C of a Christian) he that is called, begins to believe it anew. He begins even there anew, that is, he hath another kind of act of faith about it, and upon another light and ground than another man hath, be he never so much enlightened, if not savingly. So likewise to believe that God made the world, in which the apostle instances also in the same place ; and my argument from that place is, that the apostle s scope is there to give instances of saving faith, and that as with difference from others. For to speak of such a faith as is saving, he had professed to do, and of no other, in that foregoing speech, which leads on to that whole discourse of faith in chap, xi., in these words, in the last verse of chap, x., But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. He therefore speaks altogether of saving faith, and throughout in the following chap, xi., and then all those instances which are there given, must belong all of them unto saving faith, flow from it ; and saving faith, we are sure, is proper to them that are called. And then, all the acts of such a faith must differ in kind from what the same are in others not saved, even as saving faith itself differs from faith that is not saving in others ; and these to me are undeniable things, that therefore from the very bottom or foundations of faith, a true believer begins anew.

To instance likewise in the works of humiliation for sin, and sanctification of nature, which we say are preparatory for faith, they are far different from what are wrought in any other.

Brethren, consider for this but what was the eminent effects of John the Baptist s ministry, of whom it is said, that he did turn men to the wisdom of the just, &c., that is, he truly converted them. Yet what was the most eminent effect of his ministry ? Truly he did but point to Christ, and in like manner unto faith in Christ, as Acts xix. 5 hath it, and as the story of his preaching shews. But the main business of his preaching, and the aboveground fruits of it in men s hearts was, that he but prepared the way for the Lord in humbling and emptying men, which a spirit of sanctification went

282 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. along with, and fell upon them. You find it prophesied of, Isa. xl. 3, Pre pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, &c. The voice said, Cry ; and he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass wither.eth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Observe what I shall say hereupon: That which you call the work of humiliation and repentance, which his ministry set their hearts on work upon, and which was the preparing the way for Christ, and which above ground did more appear, and grow up highest in their spirits, were yet as true evidences of an effectual calling, as any of those actings that followed in those converts upon Christ s preaching that followed. As that all flesh was grass, because the Spirit of the Lord had blown upon it, and had withered the world, and all things in it ; yea, and all the fruits of flesh in a man s own heart that he trusted in, so that he did then see an emptiness in crea tures, in legal works, duties, abilities in a man to help himself as to salvation ; to have all valleys filled, hills cast down, all conditions laid level in men s, eyes, these are and were proper fruits of election, and pieces of true calling. And when our Saviour preached Mat. v. (John having prepared a people for him), observe but what he at first preached to that poor prepared people, who had, I say (John having spoken to them of him), withal some sparks of faith in them towards him. Now, how doth Christ apply himself to these ? Blessed, said he, * are the poor in Spirit. He speaks to these very hearers and converts of John (as some of his apostles had been) that were utterly emptied, and the eminent grace appearing in them, was this emptiness and poverty of spirit likewise. Blessed are those that mourn, in that they have sinned against a holy God, and from whom now they are a-seeking pardon and forgiveness. And blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they saw no righteousness of their own to rely upon. And blessed are the meek ; they lay at God s feet, and at his dispose ; they put their mouths in the dust, if there might be hope ; God

blessed are the peace -makers ; that is, such as having seen themselves to have been in a state of wrath from and with the great God, and seeking peace and pardon at his hands for their own souls, do out of pity unto others, whom they see to continue in that condition, endeavour to convert their souls unto God, to make peace with him, as he in Job speaks. Such dispositions as these were the eminent effects and impressions from the baptist s ministry, and might do anything with them, and they not repine. So also, preparatory unto their being baptized with the Spirit by Christ as fire, and yet they rose not up to prevailing faith, and righteousness was not distinctly brought forth to victory. John pointed them to Christ, as Acts xix. tells, and their faith had him in their eye, but was not bloomed, and in the mean time these dispositions were wrought, and they were effectually called. Now then, suppose (as it falls out ordinarily) that men s minds, at their first be ing wrought upon, are apt to be so intent upon it for a while as thereby to be retarded in their going out of themselves so fully to Christ, and that a great deal of legality doth accompany the work in them, yet still there is the root of the matter a-working up in them, and although self-love may be so much stirred in a man, together and mixed with these actings, that a man can not discern the difference, and that a legality also cleaveth to them that doth much divert the soul, or at least obstruct it in the clear, and pure, and abstract act ings of faith, as justifying, upon Christ ; yet these inlaid principles have their spiritual workings proper to them, and being in their spring and root evangelical, do work themselves out of that legality and self, and come in the

end to breathe in the open, pure, and free air of free grace and justification in Christ, &c.

These hearers of John had received all things belonging unto life and godliness in their first work, and their calling began with these dispositions fore-mentioned, and yet a great legalness of spirit cleaved to them, and much darkness about Christ and his righteousness. And we see now-a-days, men that are called and converted, what ado they have to get themselves out of themselves, and out of self-righteousness, ability, or from acting from themselves, and their own graces, as a new nature in them, and from doating in any manner upon that new grace they have received, and long it is ere Christ comes to be formed in them, and yet there is a true spiritual gospel root that shall and will work itself out of all ; and in the meantime there is a true spiritual difference in those its actings from all workings whatsoever in any other, though mingled and covered with so much of self and legal dross, as hath kept them from a clear emergency, and working of them out of them selves with a prevailing victory, but they lie in such dispositions as those aforespecified, in which spiritual life works like a mole under ground, that is still heaving and casting up the earth it is covered withal, until it gets above ground.

Only I add this, that they receive little certain comfort in any or all of these, till Christ doth come more sensibly into their hearts, and until faith that is in the bud, mixed with all these, begins to blow, as we say, as indeed faith did not in those hearers of John Baptist, until Christ himself came and preached to them, for whom and whose ministry it was they had been prepared by John, though in itself it was not a bare preparation, but a sav ing work of calling in them. And thus much for my first ground.

Secondly, My second ground is this, no man can pitch upon any act, which he would have first to put the difference, but there s a counterfeit of it ; so as you must distinguish upon that also, and so you must upon all the rest. Let a man, called effectually, say he hath assurance, that other sort of pro fessor will say so too ; therefore it is not such or such a particular act that begins to put the first difference, as if all actings afore it were but such as are common to others with them, and no other. No ; but it is the kind of that and all other that puts the difference.

And if you ask, What is that kind of them all, or wherein lies it ?

I answer : It is the spiritualness of all acts flowing from the new creature wherein the difference lies, if we could discern it. Our very historical faith, whereby we believe the things themselves, as that there is a God, &c., would, and may serve to make a difference between a man called, arid one called, only we cannot so readily discern that difference, it is not so sensible.

I found this answer upon that of our Saviour, That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The spirit begotten is the whole bulk, cluster, and lump of graces in our first calling received (we have spoken of), the whole seed infused when first born and begotten, all of which and throughout, is spirit, says he ; and it hath not one only or a few particular objects to be drawn out unto, but all sorts of divine and spiritual things prepared for it to exer cise itself upon, both in the first workings of it, and afterwards.

Now one that is not elect, he is wrought on so as to be manned and car ried out to divine objects that are spiritual ; and one that hath this spirit begotten in him, he is carried out to the same divine spiritual objects also ; how then, you will say, shall we distinguish them ?

I will give you it in as few words as I can. What is the root of all ?

That root you see is spirit. What doth that import ? That he is made a spiritual man; and to discern that, let us go to 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15, The

284 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. spiritual man discerneth all things, spiritually ; * the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned, but he that is spiritual judgeth all things ; from whence I learn that to have spirit begotten in a man, is to make him a spiritual man. And what doth his being a spiritual man capacitate him for ? To take in all spiritual objects spiritually. It is the apostle s own distinction that he puts ; a school-man could not distinguish more exactly ; and it is one general distinction which serves to distinguish all acts of a spiritual man in the going forth of his soul unto spiritual objects whatsoever. You will then ask, What is it for a spiritual man to take in spiritual objects spiritually ? I answer, when he considering them all, or any of them, as they are simply in their own spiri tual nature, is then acted spiritually towards them, and hath suitable spiri tual actings upon them in every power of his soul ; whereas one that is not savingly called, though he be exercised about spiritual things, yet being not born spirit, the whole of his soul is not acted or carried forth to them, as barely apprehended in their spirituality, and so he doth not do it spiritually. But still how may we discern the difference between these two ? It is easy, I do not say to discern it, but to give the rule for it. It is this ; when our understandings take in and consider any spiritual thing, as it is in its own spiritual nature, and thereupon we find something throughout our whole hearts suited to that spiritualness of it, taken in under that apprehension or consideration of it, so to be affected, moved, stirred, carried on according as it is thus apprehended, then, there is a spiritual acting. For instance, let thy understanding take in the spirituality of God or Christ, or of Christ s righteousness (to instance in that) what it is in itself, in the excellency of it, above thine own, as Paul, who counted all his but as dross and dung in comparison of this of Christ ; yea, although thine own should be made up as complete as that which is in the holy angels in heaven ; yea, and as per fect for degrees as the righteousness of all the angels in heaven, if that which is in them all were put into one, yet the soul would rejoice it had such a righteousness to throw away and trample upon, to glorify this of Christ s in justifying of thee. And so as this thy valuation, and affecting to have this righteousness made thine, is not only or merely because it saves thee, but because the way of thine and a sinner s justification, by it alone, tends so greatly to glorify God and his grace. Now findest thou an heart suited to, and thus heartily affected towards it, under these apprehensions about it, or such like to these ? Here is a spiritual acting towards that object, and as a liberal man will devise liberal things, so a spiritual man will be de vising such spiritual things as these, and his heart will work after them accordingly. Yea, take sin as it is set out in the spiritual nature, and as a man considers sin as it is contrary to the purity and holiness of the great God, and contrary to his righteous will, and he finds withal suitably a contrariety in his heart, not only in his conscience, but in his heart against that sin, upon the account of this contrariety to God and his holiness, this is a spiritual acting towards that object. The 7th chap, to the Romans, from the 14th ver. to the end, confirmeth this : Doth he speak of a godly man there under the person of himself ? Yes ; yet he abstracts in that view of his heart, there set forth, the workings of sanctification against sin from faith in Christ ; the issue, indeed, is to drive the soul to Christ, ver.

25, but yet in all the foregoing passage he had barely viewed and considered sin and holiness in his heart, as they opposed each the other ; and his own words tell us his eyes were fixed thereon alone ; I see, says he, and I do what I hate ; and it is not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. I see, says he, in my mind, a law contrary to the law of sin ; that is, take sin as sin, I

have the contrary law in me enacted in my whole man. Have you the like ? This is from the Spirit of grace ; this is grace wrought in a true calling. So that, my brethren, from all these instances set together, I collect and gather that from the first to the last, from bottom to top, there is a difference in all and every spiritual acting whatsoever, since in these fore-mentioned there is.

Only this I again add, that till faith blooms, or blows, as you say of a rose, we cannot have firm comfort in any of those things ; yet however such a difference there is in the things themselves. Also where those with these differences are found, there faith upon Christ is always in the bud, though it should not be fully bloomed. Also though there is this difference, yet if we rest in these things, without acting faith on Christ immediately every day, there is so much legality ; and the apostle had much ado (and we all much more) to get out of himself, and was all his lifetime jealous of his own right eousness, and of his own heart, lest it should at any time turn in to that righteousness he detested, and lest his heart, so much as for any one moment, should be taken and found out of the exercise of pure and clear faith on Christ, as you read : Philip, iii. 9, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Thus much as to a general answer what difference there is in callings.

If jou ask me particular differences, I shall give you two, which I find annexed unto such a calling as is according to God s purpose, and the proper effect thereof; and shall add a third.

You know I mentioned two places for this distinction of being called according to his purpose, Rom. viii. 28, 2 Tim. i. 9. We will have recourse to both these places, and only take those characters which we there find. First, Rom. viii. 28, < We know that all things work together for good to them that are the called according to his purpose, so far we cited it for our purpose afore ; but observe what comes between as a character, whereby we may be able to distinguish, to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.

So that [1J true and sincere love to God is a proper note, and fruit, and effect of being called. The apostle, you see, puts that in when he would make a distinction, and absolutely pitches it there ; they are those that love God. You plainly see, the one is exegetical, or explanatory, or characteristical of the other : Them that love God, them that are the called according to his purpose.

But you will say, Is this that that will infallibly distinguish a true calling from another calling of one that is not elected ?

Yea, and I will give you the greatest evidence for it that the Scripture hath ; it is in Heb. v. 12, compared with the 6th chapter, ver. 4, 5, 9, 10. It is a great instance, and punctual to the point of difference afore us ; and therefore the greater, because in the one he speaks the lowest things of these Hebrews that could be spoken of sound professors: For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teacheth you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God ; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. You are become such ; as if they had been otherwise once. Here is as low as low can be, for men that had pro fessed Christianity for thirty years, as they had. On the other hand he speaks the highest things of the work upon, or calling of a man not elected, chap. vi. 4, 5, Who were once enlightened, and had tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. And at the 9th verse,

286 OF ELECTION. [BoOK IV.

But, beloved, we are per suaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. Now what grace is it that the apostle, to choose, singles out to instance in, as that which was and argued better things in them, than all that other work upon the others rehearsed, ver. 4, 5, and * things accompanying salvation, but this very thing of love ? So ver. 10, For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed towards his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and he yet says of the true believers amongst them, do minister.

But you will say, How shall I know how I love God ? Would you have me give you a sign of a sign ? Suppose Jesus Christ were here, what course would he take ? I cannot take a better. If Jesus Christ were here (and I in his stead, as you know the Scripture speaks), what course did Christ him self take ? He asked Peter the question, Peter, lovest thou me ? Nor * Peter, lovest thou me ? did he go and rifle his heart by signs of that ; but I beseech you but turn over your own hearts in all that hath passed between him and you ; have you never found intermingled with other workings on you, any true strains of love to him ? No dispositions of ingenuity towards him ? None ? Think again ; if Christ did now himself appear, and did put but this question seriously to thee, I know his presence would awe thee to speak what thy heart doth at the bottom ultimately conceive and apprehend, though thou canst wrangle it out, and dispute it with ministers (as your manner is), that you have -no love to Christ, none. Christ is now here present, and we in Christ s stead do put that question to thee.

[2.] The second character averred (for I take only such as expressly and setly annexed) unto a calling according to purpose in that other : 2 Tim. i. 9, Who hath called us with an holy calling, according to his purpose and grace. So then, hath God stamped holiness on thy soul ? Hath thy soul

Whose pure eyes can endure no iniquity, and thy heart cleaveth to him under this thought and apprehension of him, though thy heart and life abounds with that which again and again considered this, how he is an holy God ? humbleth thee, and causeth thee to mourn, as contrary to that his holiness ? Doth thy heart approve of all his commands in all things as holy and good, because this holy God hath given them, though never so contrary to thy lusts ? And is it thy constant wish, Oh that this holy God would make me partaker of this holiness ! and that I might live with this holy God for ever !

I should have an happiness in him ! Are there any such buddings ? any such secret pulses, and strings, or veins of heart as these flowing in thee ?

But you will say to me, holiness is but a legal thing, a conformity to the law of God, and was in the heart of Adam, who was under a covenant of works ; and will you say that it is a certain evidence that the God of all grace hath savingly called me ? I do not say that [it] is, without faith ; but where true holiness is there must be faith, as where smoke is there must be fire ; and being so understood, I do avouch, and will give you an invincible scripture for it, that true holiness in the least degree is a proper fruit and effect of the covenant of grace, and a certain evidence that God will perfect and stablish thee ; take Heb. x. 14, By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. The effect of these words is the same with that I am upon out of Peter ; Paul says, Them that are sanctified are perfected for ever ; and Peter says, He hath called us into eternal glory ; and you will see the God of all grace engaged in it. Thus Paul also speaks, Them that are sanctified he hath perfected for ever, that is, he hath put them out of all danger of miscarrying, as for salvation.

Obj. Well, but you will say, may we build upon this, that those that are

truly sanctified are the persons [who] are thus perfected, and in the covenant of gi ace ?

Ans. Yes, you may build on it, for it hath a duplicate of evidence for the ascertaining of it. 1. That the Holy Ghost, by Paul s pen, hath uttered it, which single witness were enough ; but, 2. Paul expressly says, That the Holy Ghost in another scripture hath testified it ; < whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness, says he, (and his proof is most punctual and invincible), as also that it is the commensurate effect of the covenant of grace : ver. 15-17, Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us : for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them ; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Observe the accurateness and exactness of this proof. There were two branches of that his assertion in ver. 14.

1. They that are sanctified, 2. Are perfected for ever (even as here, called into eternal glory). And the Scripture he cites punctually speaks and joins both these together, even as the apostle doth.

1. Them that are sanctified, in those words, I will write my law in their hearts ; and so true sanctification is expressed in Scripture, My people, in whose heart is my law.

2. Perfect for ever, in those other words, Their sins he will remember no more ; and I hope they whose iniquities God remembers no more are perfected for ever.

Unto which I add (that which I intimated afore), that the God of all grace would appear interested in it, viz., that this holiness, which this pro mise, thus to be perfected, is made unto, proves to be the proper fruit of the covenant of grace, and of that alone ; for of the covenant of grace it is he speaks, when the Holy Ghost in the prophet prefaced unto it, This is my covenant after these days, namely, under the gospel, that covenant whereof the apostle had afore said, Christ was the minister, with difference from that legal covenant : Heb. viii. ver. 6, But now hath he obtained a more excel lent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises ; and ver. 10, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel ; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, &c. There is no other, nor no better ; all truly sanctified are in that covenant ; and none that are truly sanctified are sanc tified otherwise than by virtue of it.

I might add a third, that I may not leave out the principal verb, as we say, viz., saving faith, and it is found in the same: Jer. xxxi. 3, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Hath God drawn thy heart to him ? Specially was it his everlasting kindness wherewith he hath drawn thee ? I do not ask whether with assurance of that his love ; I am not so severe ; for there is another drawing, even in the way of faith, of adherence and recumbency, wherein he hath proposed to thy soul all that which is said of his eternal love to his people, to allure thy soul to himself ; yea, and thereby hath allured it, and hath strengthened thy heart to spread it and plead it afore him blindfold, that he would accept and wrap thy soul in that bundle. Eternal love hath herein found out, and owned thy soul, and thy soul hath owned and laid hold on, or rather referred itself unto [it.] And hath God caused thee, in this manner, thereon to trust, as David speaks, and to give up thyself thereto, as to be saved, to the

288 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. conduct of it, so to be carried on by it, and to fulfil in thee the good plea sure of his will, even the will and the deed, according to his good pleasure, thou working out thy salvation in a subordination and dependence there upon ; and do the drawings and motions of it in thy heart still recover thee from sin when thou art fallen, break thy heart, and humble thee for falling, and the little holiness thou hast hath come in this way ? And dost thou owe the greatest part thereof (at least) to these drawings by God, and pleadings of thine with God about that his everlasting love (or his free-grace, as we usually call it), and thy interest in it ? Dost thou grieve that thou art not made altogether holy by it ? Hath God, indeed, drawn thy heart (shall I say even out of thyself) thus, and taken thy heart thus with this his ever lasting kindness, and canst thou think that this God will leave thee ? What, and have drawn thee with this love ? No, he will never do it. He can never find in his heart to do it ; his love hath engaged itself to thee, and himself thereby. And what is this drawing by loving-kindness in Jere

The God of all grace hath called thee ? And in drawing thee with loving-kindness, hath drawn thee to Christ, miah, other than in the text, according to that of our Saviour, None comes to me but him whom the Father draws.

I will but further cast in this for the comfort of some, which this place in Jeremiah suggests: Oh, thou mayest say, perhaps, I was thus drawn and affected once, and for a long time was carried along thereby in sweet and free accesses to the God of all grace, as sitting upon, and reigning in his throne of grace ; having, together with these accesses, some holy obedience suitable, which I carried away with me, from those near accesses unto: Oh, but wretch that I am, I am greatly fallen and decayed in those grace respects. For thy comfort, read but the words afore in that prophetical passage, Again I will build thee up, and thou shalt be built. I know in the letter it is spoken of restoring their outward condition ; but his ever lasting love being alleged as the cause of it, and his drawing them as a con junct effect, I may warrantably apply it unto their souls, as God also would have those his drawn or called ones among them to understand. What do I then infer from hence ?

Hast thou run into dilapidations and decays of that former work, when it was a time of love, and when thou wert thus first drawn ? Lo, Again, says he, I will build thee ; and why ? For my love is everlasting, and con tinues the same : I will heal their backslidings, and love them freely, as in Hosea. And what is this also, other than what Peter also here farther says, The God of all grace who hath called us, will perfect, the word is restore, when fallen, set in joint again, when laxated or out of joint through falls, as Gal. vi. 1, it is used. This for the first branch of this first head, called, which was intended by me but only as some few things premised about calling according to God s purpose.

(2.) That calling according to purpose is a work of that perfection for kind, with difference from all other works found in others, as thereby God is engaged to carry it on unto perfection. This is added to the former, and is home to the point afore us. I put, you see, God s maintaining of this his work upon these two things.

[1.] His special love, that works in us a work of such a kind as hath a perfection in it.

[2.] That his love continueth an unchangeable respect unto it for the kind and perfection of it, as bearing the peculiar stamp of such a love. These two, in this argument, have a recursus or recoil, a running back again one into the other : 1. His love works the work ; that work wrought hath

CHAP. IV.J OF ELECTION. that hold on, and interest in his love, as it is engaged to carry it on, because it wrought it, which indeed is no other than what is in the text: 1, the God of grace hath called ; 2, this God of grace having called, will perfect, stablish it.

I shall single forth but one scripture, which alone speaks fully, and to the whole of this assertion : it is James i. 16-18 verses, Do not err, my bre thren. Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither sha dow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Upon this passage it is I shall centre my discourse, as being proper and adequate unto every tittle of the assertions, which were,

1. That there is a good, a perfect work of regeneration and calling, which proceeds out of God s special good will.

2. And this with difference from other gifts and works bestowed upon temporary professors.

3. Unto which work God bears an unchangeable respect, without shadow of turning from it ; and that because, (1.) It proceeds out of his good will at first.

(2.) Because it is accordingly a perfect gift, wholly differing from all other gifts whatever that he doth bestow upon the sons of men.

And a glimmering of all or most of these do appear out of the text in the very reading of the words ; especially if their coherence with James his whole discourse before (which I shall presently set out) be weighed and considered.

Although I shall land in this passage, ver. 17, 18, as the conclusion, yet in order unto the greater illustration of the apostle s set scope in these words, I must fetch a compass about, and run over, as briefly as I can, the forepart of this chapter unto ver. 10, which may perhaps cast some light upon the whole epistle, as to what is the main design of it, which hath not been so fully observed.

And the reason why I am to do this is, I did necessarily put in this clause into the assertion, that regeneration or true calling is, &c., with difference from whatever other works or gifts God bestows on any others ; and indeed one great end of God s in bestowing other gifts upon men non-elect is to set off the more that his special grace shewn to his only called ones, in the perfection of that work on them, with difference from all other works that are but the counterfeits thereof; and therefore the consideration of both these together, set in view one by the other, serves greatly to illustrate this great point in hand ; and this, I say, is one eminent scope in James, which I must punctually keep unto, and not digress, so as you are not to expect handling particular differences of these works further than as, in the opening of James any such shall start forth, and discover themselves there to lie ; but the or/ of it, viz., that such a difference there is, and that this is James his design, is all my present business.

I shall draw the current of James his discourse into these rills.

First, He at first breaks in abruptly upon them with the greatest paradox to the world that ever was uttered, and which true Christianity only can receive and embrace : ver. 2, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. 1, All joy, count it matter of joy, and of full joy ; 2, when ye fall as into a precipice, that is, suddenly, without warning or being looked for ; and 3, at once, not by degrees or succession ; 4, into temptations, not one, but many, in the plural ; 5, and those of diverse sorts ; VOL. ix. T

290 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. for persecution draws a train with it, as of poverty, all taken away, impri sonment, banishment (as John often, and Aquila, Priscilla), sickness through ill usage, death, miseries on wives, children, families.

Now for an apostle, God s herald, to proclaim this with so great a triumph to all joy and glorying, as ver. 9, thus aforehand, when they were but put ting on their armour, when men use to do that when victors put it off, and to inculcate this as the best news, and greatest happiness and blessedness that could befall them: ver. 12, Blessed is the man that endureth tempta tion, &c. all this must have this supposal or thing taken for granted at the bottom of it, that the God of all grace had afore designed a most glorious issue, and would most infallibly and certainly uphold and carry all, truly called, through all the temptations to the most glorious issue and achieve ment at last that the heart of man could conceive or expect ; for so he

Knowing this ; that is, laying down this for a certain inserts, ver. 3, 4, truth, take it for granted, and be assured of it at the very entrance into them ; and indeed to have made this proclamation, without this foundation for the bottom of it, had been the most weak and uneffectual exhortation, not to say the greatest vanity, in the world ; for otherwise without this assist ance and undertaking from God, such temptations do work upon our flesh the clear contrary, and it is impossible, at least an infinite hazard and danger, but that they should do so ; and so they would be matter of the greatest dis couragement as could happen unto man. Only understand all this to belong unto sound Christians, and to none else.

Now what is this but the same, and no other than the grand point we have been upon all this while out of Peter here in the end of his epistle, and with which also himself had made his entry in the beginning of the epistle

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations ; that the trial chap. i. ver. 6, 7, of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise, &c.

It is true indeed, James speaks of outward temptations, yet these are always, we know, for a season, accompanied with inward temptations many ways, as in the same ways Peter acknowledged in those words, Though now for a season ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. And our James gives a set and solemn admonition about them also ; ver. 13, * Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, &c. Of which more afterward.

But although this about temptations was James his entrance, and he begins with that as a necessary exhortation for those times, yet it served but to lead on to another greater, and more principal design, and that was a discovery of false and unsound professors, who filled their churches, of whom in temptation many already had, and others would fall away ; and indeed the very design of God himself in sending these temptations was and is to try and discover the sound and unsound, by enduring temptations ; so * That the trying your faith, viz., of you, and the faith that is in ver. 4, * Blessed is the man that you, whether it be sound or no. And, ver. 12, endureth temptation. Hence, though this about temptation was his pre face, yet it gave but the occasion and introduction to that other more general scope now specified, and this discovery to have been the set general drift of the epistle, Aretius* was well aware of, though few, if any ; interpreters else ; that although there are (says he) many other particular propositions handled

Plures stint particulares propositiones, tamen tina generalis, quam surae ex capite i. 22, quee deinceps hinc inde aliquoties rejicitur. See his Prolegomena, $c., to this Epistle.

by James, yet there is one general one, which you may find (says he) in ver. 22, Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves ; and often (in effect) again repeated in the epistle. And the occa sion was, says he, that there were many that professed religion in their churches that were not sound, of whom the apostle gives many and shrewd characters through this epistle, which other interpreters smother, noting them only under the notion of vices or corruptions in practice among them. These characters as these, A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, ver. 8 ; and ver. 23, If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, &c. Then ver. 26, If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man s religion isvain. In the 2d chapter an allowed partiality in keeping God s commands : ver. 10-12, Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. Also of those that would put their religion in faith without works, from ver. 14 to the end. In chap. iii. 14, he speaks of pro fessors whose zeal, though about matters of religion, was bitter, ver. 14-16, But if ye have bitter envying arid strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work. Which he discerns from that wisdom which is truth of grace, whose character you find, ver. 17, But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. In the 4th chapter he gives like characters of worldly professors, the vigour and strength of whose intentions and contentions was spent upon seeking things of this world : ver. 1 and 2, and who if they prayed for them, yet it was to consume upon their lusts ; ver. 3, which sort of men he terms in downright terms, adulterers and adulteresses, ver. 4, for there were of both sexes such : Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God ? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. And at ver. 8 he gives them that counsel and direction which alone was proper to their condition, even to begin an initial repentance and conversion from out of a state of sin, which they yet lay in, ver. 8-10, Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep ; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. And it is certain that the double-minded there was one that was hitherto in his sins, and not hitherto in the state of grace.

Now though Aretius seems first to descry this at ver. 22 of chap, i., yet I hope you will discern the mystery of this discovery to work from the beginning of this first chapter, and to have had a good progress all along unto verse 19.

Secondly. Hence flows, then, the second rivulet the fore part of this chapter runs into, that James doth industriously set out two sorts of pro fessors, sound and unsound, or temporaries ; and also two several works upon them, although intermingledly, sometimes speaking of the one, sometimes of the other ; and all to shew that the falling away of the one ariseth from the imperfection of that gift or work that is upon them, and

292 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. the enduring of the other from the perfection or goodness of that work wrought in them.

For the demonstration of which, I shall cursorily run over from the 3d verse to the 19th, and then mainly centre in the perfection of a true work, out of ver. 17, 18, which is the point for the sake and proof of which I was induced to this exposition of this first chapter of James.

1. Begin we with his beginning at ver. 3, 4, which we have a little

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh already opened, patience, &c.

1. To what sort of Christians doth he speak this ?

Certainly to none other but the sound ; for it is (1.) To them that have such faith as will bear the trial, and will, being tried, bring forth that patience which we have been a-setting out. (2.) They are such as have already had some knowledge and experience in lesser trials and skirmishes, that their faith hath begun to bring forth patience in some measure.

2. It may be seen, by what a character of perfection it is (as opposed to counterfeit and imperfect, says Beza) that he sets upon their faith and the workings of it.

1. The faith itself he there speaks of is a true and perfect work of faith for kind ; for, 10, the operations and issues of it are such.

2. The very word works patience, in the Greek, signifies a thorough and a perfect working,* and not by halves ; if you will English it, say perfecteth patience, that is, begets such a patience as is true, perfect, genuine. This true faith doth. Then again, 3. Let that patience have but its perfect work, as when patience is of the right breed it will have, either in a lesser or greater degree. And then,

4. The effect of all these will be to make you (the persons in whom these things are) perfect, that is, will bring you to that perfection of thirty, sixty, or an hundredfold, which God hath appointed to bring you to heaven withal. Here is perfect upon perfect, and perfect and perfect again ; and faith it is that is the great-grandmother of all these, and therefore it is a perfect or sound faith only he aims to speak of, which begets in its kind still what are perfect, even as itself is. And what doth this other, then, point us to ? and indeed withal interpret that very point of difference which he centres in * every good and perfect gift, viz., in ver. 17. Even as this thus begins it, true believers, as in distinction from what are counterfeit and imperfect, as which will never make him that hath them perfect, as the law s weakness and imperfection the apostle speaks, which true faith, you see, he says, doth. And is not this the very point of difference, also, which Christ in the parable gives between the thorny and good ground ; the one brings not forth fruit to perfection, Luke viii. 14, but the good with patience, ver. 15 ; of which afterwards.

Thirdly. The third head or rivulet is, that in a special manner those words of this first chapter, ver. 11, For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth, and : so also shall the rich man fade the grace of the fashion of it perisheth away in his ways. These words, I say, are in this coherence intended as an admonition unto a rich professor, who being unsound, would certainly wither and fall away if he repented not. And although the former general scheme might sufficiently evince James his scope to have been to set out

Ideo per patientiam excercetur fides, ut per hanc, quam sit perfecta probetur. Beza in verba. KartoydtTai, peroperatur, i. e. plene et perfecte operatur. A Lapide in verba.

CHAP. IV.] OF ELECTION. these two sorts of professors, yet I do further single out this verse more largely to insist upon, because the opening of it will both give further light to this epistle, and also because that the words, taken with the words afore in ver. 9, 10, contain in them a foundation of difference, in this sort of pro fessors, of the imperfect work wrought on them from that good and perfect work of regeneration, ver. 17, 18, and God s different respect had thereto, which is the main point in hand ; and so I set this ver. 11 and ver. 17, 18, in a comparative opposition one to the other.

I shall expedite the opening of this ver. 11 by three heads.

1. Why, under the instance of rich professors, he should express the state of temporary believers, rather than under that of the poor, of whom he had spoken, ver. 10, as well as of the rich ? Or why not under the persons of both ? Why should he take the advantage to bring in this admonition con cerning the temporaries upon the score rather of the rich ?

I shall give an answer to this, to prevent an objection that had been obvious to be made upon the sequel of my discourse.

The account I give of the reason hereof is, The case stood thus : He writes to the Jews, to the twelve tribes scat tered abroad, ver. 1 ; the Jews were then scattered over all countries, and among all the nations.

And observe, 1. That the apostles, in those few epistles which they write to the Jews, give more frequent and sharp admonitions and characters about temporary believers, than all else that were written to the Gentiles. There are three epistles written to the Jews, Peter s, Paul s to the Hebrews, and James s. Peter, you see how he dealt with them in his second epistle, chap, ii., towards the latter end. Paul wrote to the Hebrews, and no epistle speaks so much, so oft, so home, to temporary believers, and of falling short of the grace of God ; of men s being enlightened, and tasting of the powers of the world to come, &c. ; and of being sanctified by Christ s blood, and yet falling away, from ordinances first, and then proceeding to do despite to the Spirit of grace, chap. x. ; and the like admonitions to take heed of such a state, chap. iii. and iv., not all the epistles so much. And 3dly, James, he in a manner chiefly pursues this argument. Whatever might be the reason of it, I know not ; yet this argues there were amongst the professors of Christianity of the Jewish nation there, de facto, extant, more temporary believers, comparatively, than in other nations of the Gentiles.

Again, 2. That nation of the Jews were generally rich, and more given to seek riches than any other nation, and to that end they were merchants, or following merchandise, as they are to this day, full of griping, greedy of gain. And this James, in this very epistle, insinuates, chap. iv. 13, Go to now, you that say, we will go to this city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain ; ep Kogwgo jLeQa, that is, we will merchandise, trade, and traffic ; insomuch that Dr Hammond thinks that this their course of mer chandise was intended here in this llth verse, So shall the rich man fade away in his ways, sv KOPSIUK; here may possibly be (says he) a change of the transcriber for t/Avogsiaic, tradings, or merchandisings, as chap. iv. 13. It is the rich man s speech, eogsveota, we will traffic, &c. The Vulgate hath it, in itineribus ; Piscator," in profectlonibus. They lost religion, and withered, whilst they tumbled up and down for gain from city to city. He here speaks their hearts and their course ; and this was their sin, and this their sin to this very day, and they are apt to hoard up riches. There is no people in the world, where they are not kept down, that do so strangely grow rich as they do. And they tumble up and down the world, as these did. Now, it fell out in providence, that in these churches James writes to

294 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. there were many of such rich professors that were but temporaries, that despised the poor saints, chap. ii. 6, that were masterly men, as James speaks of them, chap. iii. 1, who bustled in their congregations, thinking with their greatness to carry all afore them ; men of unruly tongues, that did set on fire their churches; and of which, in relation to disturbances in their churches, Grotius interprets those passages in chap. iii. 4-8. These had religion in respect of persons, chap. ii. 1, My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons, and sought themselves for all the respect in the congregation, because they were rich and great; and it was the measure they went by in giving of * If there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment ; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, respect, as ver. 2, 3, Sit thou here in a good place ; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, &c. To confound them, Hearken, my beloved brethren, let me speak a word in your ear, says James, I will give you a memento, and mind it well, ver. 5, Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom ? This is full James. The collection from hence is, that though, as the apostle elsewhere says, Not many rich, yet some, there are some of them that are called. Yet there were many of rich people among these temporaries, for the reason I have told you ; and the temporary believers lay most among that heap. There were fewer of the poorer sort that were temporaries. The Holy Ghost knew this, and therefore directs the point and dint of his two-edged sword against the rich, and speaks more comfortable things of the generality of the poorer sort, as of those in which heap election lay. And therefore, above all others, do you examine the work of your calling wrought in you, and the sincerity of your profession ; do you take heed you do not err and deceive yourselves, as ver. 16 and 22. Take heed, therefore, says he, you rich men, you are in most danger, and your rank consists more of such as are unsound.

And, 3, you find in the parable of the sower in all the three evangel ists, where these different works on professors are spoken of, you will find in all the three our Saviour Christ to indigitate that it is riches chokes the seed ; and though he mentions other things, yet all mention riches : The deceitfulness of riches choke the word, Mat. xiii. ; himself foretold hereby, that it would prove the fate of rich men in a special manner. So that truly James had reason to speak to rich professors among them as such, to warn them of this above all other sorts of men, as being those among whom the most of temporaries usually lay.

2. The second thing for the understanding of this llth verse, is the manifest allusion and exact parallel that is between Christ s words in that parable of the sower and James s here. This James, whether he were James the son of Zebedee, an apostle, or James surnamed the Just, the brother of our Lord, was one that followed Christ up and down, and heard his sermons, and so was well acquainted with Christ s parables.

(1.) Our saviour utters his parable of the difference of professors under this common style, hearers of the word, as in all the evangelists; the close of them all is, * Take heed how ye hear, and to this day you call professors hearers. James doth the like, ver. 19, 20, he describeth professors by this title, he is one that hears the word. Thus also in Mat. vii. 26, Every man that heareth these sayings of mine, and doth them not, &c. ; and here in James i. 22, Be not hearers only, deceiving your own souls.

(2.) James expresses falling away by withering ; so you have it in verse 11, * The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it mlhereth the grass..

Look the parable, Mat. xiii. 6 and Mark iv. 6, Christ useth just the same expressions.

(3.) The parable expresses their withering to be caused by the sun s rising and heat : When the sun was up, Mat. xiii. 6, they were scorched ; and because they had no root, they withered away. How doth James express it concerning those rich temporaries ? Says he, The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass. It is expressed the same in terms.

(4.) What doth James interpret this sun s rising but of temptation ? So in the following, ver. 12, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, which is his inference brought down through this llth verse. The parable in like manner thus expresses it, When tribulation or persecution ariseth for the word, Mat. xiii. 21 ; and in Luke viii. 13 more expressly, And in time of temptation fall away. The other call it persecution and afflic tion, but Luke plainly useth James his word, temptation.

(5.) James instanceth in the rich, so all the three evangelists instance in that above all other : Riches choke the word, Mark iv., Luke viii. 14, Mat. xiii. 22.

(6.) How cloth James express the opposite saving work ? 1, By a good work ; 2, by a perfect work, ver. 17. He had said, ver. 4, Let patience have her perfect work. In what language doth the parable speak ? They are the good ground, says he, that (1) having good and honest hearts, they do (2) bring forth fruit with patience ; and (3) do bring forth fruit to perfection. For that is one difference whereby the thorny ground is diver sified from the good ground, They bring not fruit to perfection, Luke viii. 14. Oppositely says James, Let patience have her perfect work, and it will make you perfect. That which is perfect faith, and of the right kind, will, when tried, bring forth patience ; and let patience have its perfect work, it will make you perfect.

(7.) And lastly, whereas in the close of the parable Christ says, Take heed how you hear ; for whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have ; thereby meaning those imperfect gifts and impres sions, and profession thence arising. Now come to James, If any man among you seem to be religious, &c. This for the second head, the parallel of the parable.

3. You have the elegant similitudes whereby he expresseth the unchangeableness of God s love and dealings with and towards this work. The com parison is made between God and this sun which you see ; he calls both the Father of lights ; therein they agree, but with a dissimilitude ; it is a com parison from an unlikeness, as the word without variableness, &c., shews; as if he had said, God the Father of lights is not in these respects as this sun ; also this comparison, with an answerable difference, may be extended unto those grassy fruits, ver. 10, which the sun brings forth out of the earth, as bearing in this comparison the resemblance of that work on temporary believers, as will appear. And on the other hand, he opposeth to them, and sets in comparison with them, those super-excelling good and perfect fruits which God the Father of lights brings forth in the hearts of sound Christians, which he likens not only unto the best first-fruits of the earth, but of the whole creation.

(1.) In general, that his scope is to institute a comparison between God and this sun ; that the phrase Father of lights manifests, which yet some* do understand simply and singly spoken of God, without any allusion unto the sun at all, and interpret it by the like titles given to God in other places, * Erasmus, Vatablus, Dr Hammond.

296 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. as Father of glory, Eph. i. 17, and so to be all one as to say, a Father full of lights, Pater luminosissimus, and so to import only what elsewhere is * who dwells in said, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, and light inaccessible, &c. But that this title of Father of lights is, [l.J Not spoken only of what he is in himself, but in respect to his eifects, that come down from him (though what he is in himself must be understood to be the foundation of it), is plain ; for he is termed Father in respect of his gifts, as these words shew, Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights, James i. 17. And Father, we know, is all one as the Author or Creator ; as Father of spirits, Heb. xii. 9, and elsewhere often ; and here in respect of begetting us, not out of his nature, but his will, ver. 18.

[2.] And, secondly, that it is spoken in allusion to the sun, appears, 1, not only by this, that this sun is known to be the principle and fountain of light, both in the moon, and in the stars, and in the air ; and so God is of all lights in angels, who are called angels of light, 2 Cor. xi. 14, and his saints children of light. He is also the author of that light which is in the universality of mankind : who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, John i. 9. Now, then, the meaning is this, that God, he who is the Father of all lights, in all these owns himself to be, in a special manner, Father of such spiritual lights as are a good and perfect gift,* which regene rates and makes men children to him, as in verse 18, and enlighteneth them with the light of life, as Christ by way of distinction speaks, John viii. 12.

2. This allusion also that of first-fruits confirms ; and, 3, many of those in terpreters that would have him styled thus, in respect of him being light in himself, and so quasi Pater luminosissimus, as Father of glory, &c., yet are fain to acknowledge the next words, no shadow of turning, to bear a com parison with the sun in a way of dissimilitude. This as to the general import of the similitude ; it is a comparison with the sun, which the ensuing particulars will more fully clear.

1. The particulars of the comparison. He expresseth the difference of the two works, perfect and imperfect, under the similitudes of the fruits which God and this sun produce. This the similitude of the first-fruits of the whole creation, ver. 18, on the one part, to which he compares regeneration and all perfect gifts accompanying, doth shew ; being set in comparison with those imperfect grass fruits spoken of in verse 11, on the other part, which he styles but grass, and the * flower of grass, which, though they have an outward grace in the fashion of them, yet are but grass, as his words there are ; and by such he sets out the most glorious gifts that are in temporaries. And the comparison of those two words is exceeding elegant. First. These common imperfect gifts had been most aptly compared to those grassy earthly fruits which the sun brings forth in the stony and thorny ground. For, indeed, how is it that the sun doth bring forth these, or indeed any other ? Not immediately, but out of the principles which are in the womb of the earth, only the sun quickens and enlivens them, and draws them forth by the influence of his being, light, and heat; but creates them, not immediately, but educeth them as forms are out of the principles in the matter, as vapours that it draws up out of the earth. And although Christ in the parable instituted his comparison only between these fruits that are but grass and those other good fruits of the earth that are grain and corn rising up to perfection, yet James his new comparison, * Pater luminum (says Beza), qui est fons et author istius lueis sen notitise, that Light which is perfect and spiritual, which he had afore discoursed of. Piscator, Beza, Grotius.

ver. 17, riseth far higher, as in the sequel will appear, and further sets out these first fruits by their high descent (as I may term it, in allusion to James his phrase of them), as being in their original merely celestial, and in that respect no fruits on earth to be compared with them. And this heavenly original of them the parable took no notice of, but compared them only to those precious fruits of the earth, of corn, &c. ; so as the comparison here, as James advanceth it, runs between such fruits as are but mere grass, and such as are supposed heavenly and celestial. And this their original is here emblazoned in three several phrases.

That they are from above, which is all one as to say from God ; yea, and from God wholly, as of Christ it is said, in John iii. 31, He that cometh from above is above all : he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth ; he that cometh from heaven is above all. And such, in respect of their origin, are these first fruits in comparison to those others. And to this very purpose doth James himself use the phrase in this epistle, when speaking of the difference of true zeal and counterfeit zeal about matters of religion, he sets that difference forth by their different original, as well as by their effects ; that true zeal is a wisdom (or grace) from above, &c. : chap. iii. 17, The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy ; but bitter zeal, mxgbv ty Xov, which we translate bitter envying, ver. 14, and strife in your hearts, though about matters of religion, this wisdom, ver. 15, * descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. It is but the acting the corrupt principles that are in the heart already, principles of flesh, &c., which the devil also will strike in withal to make divisions ; and therefore, says he, glory not in such a zeal (as Jehu did), and * lie not against the truth, in judging that to be true grace. No ; the like may be said of other graces, and of their coun terfeit, for all have their counterfeit. These differ thus in their original, and therefore in their kind and in their effects.

Secondly. These perfect gifts are said to descend, xoarctffainn, as the Holy Ghost himself is said to do, John i. 33 ; that is, wholly and purely comes down from God, and nothing of it is from what is beneath.

Thirdly. These first fruits are wholly by creation, yea, and by a second creation, being the first fruits of the whole creation, and so excelling tho first ; and yet the first creation was totius entis, of the whole being of what was then created ; and therefore hereby these are imported to be wholly from him in the whole being or entity of them. It is the seed of God which is let fall into the heart from above, and so wholly heaven-born for kind, though in degrees imperfect, and though accompanied, in the heart where it is, with innumerable mixtures of self and corruptions. Now as to those other imperfect gifts, this visible sun brings forth common herbs, as daisies, primroses, and such as grow alone in the wilderness ; and such, and no better, are moral virtues which are produced in heathens, and without the word, and are but grass, as all will acknowledge. And the same spirit produceth, with and by the means of the word, enlightenings, and affec tions stirred by these enlightenings towards these objects or things held forth in the word; yet still the work itself, if it be examined to the bottom, springs and arises but from the principles that were in the heart before, only are now elevated, lifted up, and raised and taken up about new divine objects by a new light presented to them.

If you object, are they not said to be partakers of the heavenly gift ? Heb. vi. 4. The answer is, there is indeed a participation of a gift from heaven, but

298 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. it is but in respect of an influence from heaven, without which they would never be drawn forth ; and in that there is a word that comes from heaven, which moveth and aifecteth them, by the instrumentality of which, there being a light to direct them to new divine objects, above what nature or reason, &c., would anyway reveal, or so far enlighten them in, these new objects are set on with power, yet so as the principles in the heart are not radically or intrinsecally changed.

(1.) The understanding hath not a new principle, a spiritual faculty to capacitate it to take in those spiritual things spiritually, and as they are in their own nature. And so, though there seems to be a great change, because both a new light is let in and new objects presented that never were afore, yet as a piece of glass remaining red or green gives every beam of light let in a tincture of that colour that is in itself, so that the objects that come to the eye through it are dyed and tinted also, and so discoloured, whereas through a pure crystal glass they appear in their own native hue and excel lency ; thus is it here, a new crystalline is put in to take in all spiritual things in their own true native hue and glory.

(2.) Self-love, which in corrupt nature that is not truly regenerated is the spring of motion unto all the wheels, the affections, which rise and fall no farther than as self, that possesseth, informs, and spirits all these, doth find itself concerned ; that principle in the heart meeting with such things in the word as do so deeply and nearly concern a man s self, and such things in the word are now set upon the soul with power (which are therefore st} rled the powers of the world to come ) ; hence the will, and all the affections that are seated and rooted in self are awakened, stirred, acted, and they receive the word with joy, and so other things in the word, with other affections, according as the things revealed do concern self, but no farther than as that is the spring and mover.

And (3.) From these the counterfeit of all graces will soon arise and spring up, and a zealous profession for a time.

2. And yet, secondly, all these are (as you may easily discern) in their root and principle but flesh, though produced by an assistance from above, and so are accordingly to be reckoned but amongst fruits of flesh ; and that the best, if you compare them with the fruits of the earth, as Christ doth, but as the * flower of the grass, as both James, verse 10, terms them, and Isaiah also, chap. xl. 6, 7, and Peter likewise, 1st Epist., chap. i. 28, 24, Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever : for all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass ; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. And what is there termed flesh and grass, &c., by Peter, is not meant only of worldly glory, as of riches, honours, &c. (as nor that of Isaiah), nor chiefly so, but also and more principally of all excel lencies and gifts that are short of true regeneration, which he opposeth to them, and which is wholly a right seed, and incorruptible ; but all other are of a corruptible seed or principle, as hath been now explained, and as the apostle styles them there, in distinction from that incorruptible principle and original let down into the heart. And the knowledge of this distinction answers a great objection I shall afterward have occasion to mention. This the comparing of verse 23 shews, Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but, &c. And indeed Christ himself in the parable speaks at such a kind of rate of these bringings forth on the thorny and stony ground, of which James, verses

11 and 13, speaks, and how that indeed, and in reality, all their gifts and graces were not fruit, they deserved not so much as the name of fruit, nor

doth he thus vouchsafe so to style them of the thorny ground (who were the highest sort of those professors), and intended in Heb. vi., ver. 4, 5, as appears by comparing ver. 7, 8, as I have elsewhere shewn : For it is im possible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the hea venly 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. For the earth, which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God : but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing ; whose end is to be burned. Of the thorny ground, I say it is expressly said in the parable not only that they bring not forth fruit to perfection, Luke viii. 14, the root and principles not being perfect, nor are the fruits such. They have neither perfect gifts, nor bring forth perfect fruits. But more expressly both in Mark and Matthew it is said that they became unfruitful ; but yet more expressly in the wgorao /s, or fore-part of that of the thorny ground, as by Mark it is recorded : Mark iv. 7, it is said, It yielded no fruit. Now then, if all the gifts and profession in such professors be not fruits, though never so goodly, and deserve not so much as the name, what must they be accounted then ? Why, truly, no other than grass, as those deaf ears, as you call them, that grow upon house tops, although they have the same shape that stalks and ears of corn have, as growing out of chaff left in the straw, yet they have the name of grass

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by, say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: Ps. cxxix. 7, 8,: we bless you in the name of the Lord. So these here, only they are the flower of the grass indeed ; the highest and greatest excellencies and endow ments that this earth affords, yet but grass. And the reason is, God loved, &c., and his glory aimed at the heart, as the pith and substance of all godliness, Take these out of all duties performed by us, or out of gifts wrought in us, and they are but flesh as well as any other excellencies of honours, learning, wisdom, virtues, &c. For why ? If the kernel, the grain, the corn be wanting, the stalk and the ear are no other than grass and chaff. The most goodly flowers that the earth affords, as lilies, (which indeed are our tulips, and brought from those countries), so glorious, as Christ says, Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as one of them, Mat. vi. 29 ; yet, ver. 30, he styles them but grass, which to-day is flourishing, but cast into the oven the next day. And thus all such pro fession, it is but grass, and will wither here, and be burned hereafter, as John xv. 6, If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. This for the first part of the comparison ; gifts in unsound pro fessors are not fruits, but grass.

But opposite hereunto, he sets true regeneration, ver. 18, and those graces flowing from it, specified by him, of faith, ver. 3 ; patience, ver. 4 ; prayer, ver 5, 6 ; humiliation, and the blasting of all outward glories, a valuation of things at their own rate, ver. 12 ; and then love, ver. 12.

These, and such like, he compares to the first-fruits of the whole creation, by the extent of which similitude he prefers them, not only unto the best fruits, as of grain and corn arrived unto full perfection, unto which Christ in his parable had only compared them. And so that, look what difference of worth or valuation corn or grain do bear amongst the sons of men, in comparison of what is but grass, and the flower of the grass, such a differ ence do these sustain in God s esteem. And what an high rate such fruits

800 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. of the earth have, or ought to have, and would have in times of want amongst men, our James also hath prompted us to consider, honouring these with the epithet of the precious fruits of the earth, chap. v. 7 ; as the Psalmist had afore him compared the tears and prayers of the saints unto precious seed: Ps. cxxvi. 6, He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, &c. ; and compare with it the other, Ps. cxxix. 6, Let them be as the grass upon the house tops, which withereth afore it groweth up.

But observe, that here he doth not compare them simply to the best or first-fruits of the earth, as our Saviour afore him had done, which are yet more precious than gold or diamonds, which the earth also affords, for they preserve man s life, but you cannot eat gold or jewels ; but unto the firstfruits of the whole creation, which is a far wider territory than the earth, and so takes in angels and all, as Austin * hath extended the comparison ; Gratia Dei non solum omnia sidera, verum etiam omnes angelos supergreditur. The grace of God surpasses not only all the stars, but also all the angels: and Aquinas his reason is evictive of it, Majus opus est quod terminatur ad bonum (sternum divina participationis, that is a great work which is ordained for, and terminates in such a good eternal in the participation of the divine nature ; quam quod terminatur ad bonum natures mutabilis, than that which is terminated in the good of a changeable nature.

Now take that grace of the angels which they had by their creation, and it was in the termination and tendency of it (take it as it was by creation only) but a mutable and changeable good, as was sufficiently seen in those that fell ; and the same might have fallen out, and would yet fall out, in them that stood, had they not more than their creation grace.

If, therefore, these gifts be for their perfection the first fruits of the whole creation, then more excelling in their kind than the whole creation, even as when our Lord is said to be the first fruits of them that sleep, 1 Cor. xv. 20 ; and again, ver. 23, Christ the first fruits, and afterwards them that are Christ s ; as Christ is there so styled, in respect of his trans cendent excellency, in comparison of them that are his ; so, likewise, are these the first fruits, so styled for the like reason of eminency unto the rest of the whole creation. Perfect gifts, then, these are, and the most perfect God can produce, and therefore perfect, because they make us the chief and top of the creation. Deus suis donis facto illos petfectissimos* and at last they do make us most perfect.

There is this further in this similitude which James useth above that which Christ had imported, that he likens the producing of these his first fruits to a father his begetting his children : for as, ver. 17, he styles God the Father of lights, that is, of these lights of grace, so, ver. 18, he says, he begets us, that we might be the first fruits of the creation. Now mark this._ These precious fruits of the earth, which the earth brings forth, the sun is never styled the father of them : they are but the effects of his benign heat, which accompany his light. He is termed indeed the father of all those lights that are in the heavens, as the stars, the moon, &c., but not the father of the fruits of the earth, for they no way wear his image, his beams, as we see the stars, &c., do those of the sun.* But God, theather of lights, begets these graces in us, as a father that conveys his image, so that look as himself is the Father of lights, so those that are born of him are light in the Lord, and children of light, as many scriptures in the New Testament speak. And their graces have the perfection and glory to be the image of that light and holiness that is in himself. So that if you * Lib. 2. ad Bonifacium, Fp. 8. f De Quiros in verba.

would fill up this new comparison of James to the full of it, you must first fancy this visible sun to bring forth not earthly fruits only, as in the earth we see it doth, but that every one of those fruits bore and had the image of the sun itself shining and sparkling with light, in their proportion, as itself doth, as if he caused new stars to rise out of the earth instead of stalks, as well as in the heavens we see stars are enlightened by him. And this is the very case here: Philip, ii. 15, That ye may be blameless, and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the minds of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.

Let there be lights in the firmament, said God, Gen. i. 14 ; (pusrvps, says the Septuagint, the same word that is used here. Our graces are such in their original, and ought to shine as such in this world ; and it is as if Paul had said, Look what the stars and those lights are in the superior world ; that you are, and ought to be, in this lower world, and as far exceeding of them stars, as your heavenly Father, the Father of these lights, doth exceed the sun that is the father of those other. And observe, farther, in that Philip, ii., how they are termed at once both < sons of God, and lights, even as here likewise they are said to be begotten of God as the Father of lights ; both places agreeing in this import, that such sons doth God beget, even children of light, and such products as their graces are. And thus much for the first comparison between the works of themselves, with the difference of them, as in our James it is held out in temporary professors, and those that are truly regenerate.

The second comparison holds forth the respect or regard God hath for and towards his first fruits for ever after they are brought forth by him, different from what he beareth unto the other, the work on temporaries : which different respect he elegantly sets out, and amplifies from and by what this visible sun bears, and holds towards the fruits fore-mentioned, which are but grass which it brings forth.

1. This visible sun, James tells us, ver. 11, and Christ also, no sooner ariseth, but with a scorching heat it withers such grass, &c. But not so God s first fruits; he permitteth not temptation to seize on them unless need be, as Peter tells us, and but so far as need is : he restrains the roughness of the east wind that would hurt them, Isa. xxvii. 8, takes care the sun shall not burn them by day, nor the moon by night, Ps. cxxi. 6. This in the eleventh verse.

2. In respect of its courses, motions, and influences towards them, in ver. 17, clearly different from what God the Father of lights holdeth towards his, of which by and by. For, as I said, it is a comparison of God unto the sun, with difference.

And, my brethren, be aware of this once for all, and take it along with you, as the measure and true rule of interpretation to these words, that his chief end here is not to compare God to the sun, in respect of the purity and unchangeableness of his nature or essence, as if it run thus : that though the sun should be subject to a variableness, and to a shadow, and darkness in itself (which to our view it is not, as we daily may observe) yet that God is not. And yet unto this do commentators* ordinarily carry the scope of James in this passage, and in the very reading you ordinarily apprehend this meaning of it. But the apostle s scope is to compare the sun in the variation of his courses and motions to and fro up and down towards the earth, and towards the fruits it hath begotten thereon, and thereby, as by the contrary, to set out what an unchangeable posture, and carriage, and * Solem ilium immutabilem a solo illo volubili seceinit. De Quiros on ver. 17, 100, and many others.

302 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. dealings God holds towards these his first fruits, that it is without variable ness or shadow of turning, namely, of turning off from them ; no, never in the least.

(1.) That it is not so much to set out the unchangeableness that is in himself, as the unchangeableness of his love towards these his perfect gifts, which, having once come down from this Father of lights, he never turns off from them, however, but carries himself without variation towards them everlastingly.

That this is his meaning, 1, not only the very terms of the similitude here used do shew, for they signify the various courses and motions of the sun (of which by and by), of which he says God is without them, and there fore it must be understood he intends to signify that God is without such a variation of motion, posture, or the like towards his children, but, 2, the next words do expressly explain them of his will, and so of the motions thereof : Of his own will he begat us at the first, and accordingly, in like manner, continues the same his good will after the production. This is it

without variableness and shadow of turning, princi that these words, pally point us to.

Though indeed it must be added that this unchangeableness of his will to wards them proceedeth from the unchaugeableness of his nature, according to that of the prophet, Mai. iii. 6, * I am the Lord, I change not. This is the foundation of all ; and therefore it is that you the sons of Jacob are not consumed. Yet still so as it is his free will that, flowing from his nature, coineth between us and that his unchangeable nature which is the immediate cause of it ; for that is also one of the differences here made of God from this sun. That the sun begets its fruits necessitate natura,* out of a necessity of nature, but God, this Father of lights, out of his will, in whom and as he pleaseth.

Also this is to be taken in, that though it be his mere good will moves him to beget us at first, yet that, after he hath begotten it, that then ever after his will bears a respect unto his own gift, as it is a perfect gift ; for those words, * with whom there is no variableness, &c., are spoken as in respect unto those perfect gifts that came down from him as Father of lights, and so do import a respect unto the perfection of them. These things premised, To come to the comparison itself. The terms here used, without variable ness and shadow of turning, are perfectly astronomical, and express the vari ous motions of this sun toward this earth, and the fruits of it. Jerome was the first that discerned this, and Erasmus after followed him, and some other late interpreters, having the scent of it, have acknowledged it, and pursued it ; and yet, which is strange, though they agree that the various courses and motions of the sun are meant, yet they fall cross under which of these words the one or the other should be meant : that whereas to all men s knowledge and observation the sun varies in respect of two sorts of courses and motions, the first rising and setting every day, which we call his diurnal or daily motion ; the other from the northern tropic to the southern ; the first in winter, the second in summer ; in the one descending lower to the earth, which makes winter, whereby he hath less influence of light and heat ; the other in ascending so high again in the heavens, which makes spring and summer ; and this course of his, in the whole reciproca tion of it, is performed in a year s space, and we call it his annual or yearly motion.

Prseterea sol ille naturae necessitate, at Pater luminum amore et benignitate irapulsus. De Quiros on the ISth verse.

These are the various courses of the sun. You see accordingly here are two different words to set these out by.

1. Variableness, o-agaXXay; 2, shadow of turning, rgor Sfc aaotx/aapa ; and yet interpreters that assent to this, that both are intended, differ about it which of the words should import the one, which the other.

I will not much trouble you about it. De Quiros he peremptorily says the first word, iraga Mwyri, imports the yearly motion of the sun, that recessus hyemails, that departure of the sun that makes winter, and quotes Proclus* for the import of the Greek word ; and that other word, shadow of turning, he interprets of his setting and turning into the other part of the earth every night, by which he casts a shadow, which causeth night.

Doctor Hammond is for the clean contrary signification of the words, yet agrees that both these motions are meant : to him I refer any that will read him, for he is largest upon it. However, between both I have what I aim at, that both these motions of the sun are intended, though I for my part incline to think with Piscatorf and others, that by shadow of turning, or the shadow caused by his turning, is meant, that his nightly turning off from this or that part of the world, by setting into the other, and so leaving cold night and a shadow behind him.

But the application of this gallant similitude unto the unchangeableness of God s love and motions towards us, is that I aim at, and which this hitherto hath made way for.

1. This visible sun, by reason of these its motions and turning, leaves a damp upon the fruits fore-mentioned, and indeed all other which it brings forth ; in winter these fruits die, and shrink into the root; every night casts a shadow on them, and a coldness which is prejudicial to them, the sun thus as it were carelessly leaving them.

But, 2, not so God in his courses towards those his first fruits.

(1.) He never alters in the least degree his good will towards them (and in respect of the unchangeableness of his will it is that this comparison is made). We ourselves may change, as poor creatures we do ; but God changeth never towards thee ; his heart towards thee is what it was. Thou indeed mayest have clouds come between thee and sin,!, a dark and cloudy day, as the prophet Ezek. xxxiv. 12, but it is day still ; yea, there may be tempests and storms upon thy soul, but it is day still ; as in countries where the sun is at the highest there are, and most there of all other coun tries ; but his love is in its zenith, stands as Joshua s sun at the top over thee, fixed and perpetually. It alters not, removes not a degree, the fixed ness of its station is pitched and taken up towards thee in respect of ever lasting kindness. He may let thee feel the effects of his love less one day than another, in comforts quickenings (for he works the will and the deed of his own good pleasure), but his love substantially and solidly is one and the same, and varies not, whatever you may think : I know, says God, * the thoughts I think towards you, thoughts of peace, and Jer. xxix. 11, not of evil, in all trials. Nor (2.) art thou to reckon of this love either by the yearly course or long run, as if thou having been in the state of grace for so or so long a time, yet then for the other half-year, or more perhaps, thou shouldst be out of it again (I mention that space of half a-year because it was about that space

Vox enim Grseca cragaXXa, apud Proclum in sphsera soils reciprocationem significat. De Quiros on ver. 17, num. 100 f Videtur esse metaphora ab occasu solis ; tune enim sol ad oppositum hemisphf Erium se convertens obumbrat hemisphserium quod relinquit. L iscator in verba.

J Qu. him ? ED.

804 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. some would have David to have had a total intercision of God s love, until Nathan came to him), and then the other half-year this sun should come back again unto thee in his love and good will ; but take the whole course of God from first to last, and he is thine. Make not thy almanack by such uncertain rules ; God s calendar is otherwise. Remember that God is here said not to be like the sun, neither in respect of its yearly motion, and the alternation and variableness thereof, nor yet his daily ; God s almanack, calculated for eternity, varies not his love in either respects. Count up then with thyself that God loves thee not by the year only ; that is, as if thou take the whole of thy life in gross by the great. No ; but God loves thee by the day ; he varies not in his love ; it is unchangeable in respect of any daily recess of leaving of thee, I say his love is. Jesus Christ, this Sun of righteous ness, his love never sets when once it is risen, but as, Heb. xiii. 8, Jesus

Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. I confess that place is mainly to be taken of his being the same in his virtue and efficacy in the yesterday of the Old Testament, and the present day of the gospel, and for the for ever in the other world ; but withal when I cast my eye upon the 5th verse, where he had newly said to every particular soul, * I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (the fivefold force in that speech you have often heard of), you shall give me leave withal to take in this high consolatory, that Jesus Christ is to every particular soul, in respect of his love, in nowise nor in no degree leaving or forsaking them ; the same to-day that yesterday he was, or at any time of thy life, and will continue the same for ever. And therefore go and carry home this for thy comfort, every one of your souls that have been savingly called for your particular, first cast but your eye on the words, ver. 5, I will never, &c., and then on the 8th, Jesus the same, &c., and see if they do not directly look one upon the other.

Again, when Paul says, My inward man is renewed day by day, 2 Cor. iv. 16, our spirits would be in a miserable plight, if in any day, even of sin ning most, we should not be renewed, for then we should fall back instantly into unregeneracy, but in the worst day of greatest sinnings we do not ; he upholds by renewing something of his grace, and gracious conflicts against sin in us. And though we feel not these renewings, yet I promise you, said old Mr Dod, in my hearing once, I believe I am thus renewed every day, though I discern it not. Yea, God loves thee not by the day only, but by the moment : Isa. xxvii. 2, 3, < In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it ; I will water it every moment : lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Remember but out of the text, how that God s good will varies not as the sun doth, neither in respect of a yearly motion, nor a daily motion off" from these ; but not so to a tem porary work, with which he deals providentially, and as this visible sun doth towards the fruits which it brings forth. -

Use 1. Hast thou had such a work upon thee as even here out of James hath been scatteredly set out ? (1.) That of humiliation, ver. 7, 10, through which by the power of the Spirit this world hath been blasted to thee ; the Spirit of the Lord having blown upon it for ever, that thy valuation of things hath been for ever changed, and withal thine interest changed from things of this world, that thou makest thy height; "TX|/o&, the height, the top of thy desires, esteem, pursuance, the things of the other world, so as thou gloriest not in any excellency ; as Jer. ix. 23, 24, * Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches ; but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, &c., which words do parti cularly speak the very sum of James his aim in these 9th and 10th verses.

(2.) And then hast thou had faith wrought in thee, laying hold on the love of God in Christ Jesus, as verse 3 ?

(8.) And that faith when tried thou hast found to work patience in thee, submission to God, quietness of heart, upon this ground, that thou waitest upon God, and leavest the issue of all unto him, as verse 4, though perhaps patience hath not yet had its full, perfect work which it shall have in thee. And (4.) in all distresses thy heart cleaves unto God, which it shews in earnest addresses unto him for grace and wisdom to carry thee through, and seekest that wisdom more than deliverance, especially when thou fearest to be called to suffer for Christ, which whensoever it falls out thou still resolvest to cleave to him, and adhere to thy profession in all truths and duties revealed to thee, which thou shalt come to be tried in, as those which thou

* confess and not deny, as it is said of

art to hold fast in such a day ; to

* Shadrach, Meshach, and

John, and as the three children, Dan. iii. 16, 17, Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, king. And so thou waverest not, hast not so much as wavering thoughts whether to cleave to God and the times :* And though all this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way ; though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god ; shall not God search this out ? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yea, for thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter, Ps. xliv. 17-23 ; for this is that not-wavering which James intends in those times of distress, and temptation, and not only or mainly a doubting in respect of an assurance that God will hear my prayers in this or that particular.

(5.) And then, lastly, hast thou love to God, which James inserts in ver.

12, When he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him ? Of this I spake something when I spake to that of calling.

And is this the frame and pulse of thy heart ? Let me tell thee from James, or God rather, these gifts a-re of the sort of perfect and good gifts for kind as will in the end make thee perfect ; continue but in the exercise of them, and let them but have more time and scope in thy heart, let them have their perfect work. Yea, and they are such gifts as God out of his eternal good will hath begotten in thee, and which in the end will rise up to be, and cause thee to be, the first fruits and perfection of the whole creation, and for which God hath an unchangeable respect, and will follow and pro secute without variableness or shadow of turning off from thee ; and having wrought these good gifts in thee, he hath an everlasting regard unto them, and out of his faithfulness will continue to preserve them.

For the close, and for your further consolation and confirmation, I shall here cast in this further consolatory. You may observe in several scrip tures, where this good and saving work of calling is spoken of, that there God s faithfulness is brought in, and laid afore you, as the pawn and gage to perform it, that attribute of all other is staked thereat, as that by virtue of which God hath called us, and is obliged to preserve that work of calling by a more special kind of obligation. And there must be some special thing in * Qu. truth ? ED.

VOL. IX. U

306 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. it, and reason for this their connection, but thus you do find them joined

Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Then again, 1 Thes. v. 23, 24, And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly : and I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who hath called you, who also will do it. together

1. By. faithfulness in these places is understood, first, that God is constant to * whom he predestinateth, he himself, and to his own purposes of grace, in that calleth ; and whom he calieth, he glorifieth. And he having in calling given a most full demonstration of the constancy of his everlasting good will towards us, this may fully assure us of the continuance of it ; for the case stood thus, that he had close kept those purposes in his own breast from everlasting, and the persons now called could never have known of them, nor inquired after them, had he not in mere constancy to those purposes called them at first, and thereby discovered himself in his intention to them, which there

the foundation of the Lord is sure, &c. fore afterwards he will bide by; for

2. Or, secondly, you may refer this faithfulness unto those promises which had gone before in the Old Testament, whereof you read, Jer. xxxi. 33, and xxxii. 40, I will write my law in their hearts (there is calling) ; and then follows, I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me. And so in respect to those promises gone out of his mouth, wherein the promises of calling have annexed promises of preservation, in that respect also he is said to be faithful who hath called, &c.

3. But this is yet further improveable for our comfort, and stedfastness of our faith. Faithfulness, you know, is the performance of a trust committed to one by some other that relies upon him, or the discharge of some obliga tion that ariseth thence.

Now upon calling there is a twofold trust committed unto God : one by Jesus Christ, and another by the persons themselves that are called; and so an obligation ariseth upon God thereupon.

(1.) Between God and Jesus Christ, whose interest in the promise I have good reason to draw in ; for the text hath it, called by Jesus Christ.

Christ is our covenant between God and us, and unto whom the covenant was indeed first made, and given by God as for us, and on our behalf, and so the performance of it by God is justly termed faithfulness on his part. God trusted Christ to die for us, promising him that he should see his seed, the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, Isa. liii. 10, 11, which comes to pass by God s calling them and making them his children, as the phrase is, Jer. iii. ; you have the same likewise in Isa. xlix. throughout; Christ died upon this bare promise of God s, having millions of souls that he bare in his womb upon the cross, that were yet unborn, much more that were uncalled and unsaved. Now hence therefore, whensoever God calls any of these to himself, and begins to work savingly upon them, this being the first and fundamental performance of hjs promise to Christ, henoe therefore in a singular respect God is said to be faithful, and shews by this his good beginning he intends as faithfully to carry and bring them throughout unto salvation.

You may find, 1 Cor. i. 9, when this "faithfulness of God is spoken of, the * "Who shall confirm you to the end. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. I understand part of its meaning to be this, that Jesus Christ was, by covenant made to him by his Father, to have fellows or companions, expression runs thus,

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CHAP. IV. partakers of the same grace and glory with himself. The man God s fel low was not to be in heaven alone, John xii., but to have fellow-copartners, Ps. xlv. 14, and to mediate and procure this was the end of his dying, as in John xii. 23, 24, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glori fied. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat full into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit; and unto that end it was he died. Now calliog is the first foundation act of performance of this by God, and then first we are actually admitted into communion with Jesus, and into the right of copartnership with him of all his privileges ; we are then drawn by the Father unto Jesus Christ ; we are then co-apprehended by Jesus Christ, Philip, iii. 12, and have all blessings in Christ estated upon us for ever, to be given forth as need is, and as the time appointed by the Father comes to give them forth unto eternity ; and therefore God, that hath done this in faithfulness, after so long a time since

faithful is he, his covenant with Christ, will perform it to the end. For &c., and Christ lives and sees to it to see this done, and calls upon him for it.

You may find all this most lively set forth by Christ himself, in John xvii., at a time when he was within less than a day s space to offer up him self by dying, when it is he leaves behind him (and it is now upon record) with his Father, what he expected to be performed by him in answer unto his end and covenant in dying. There you find Christ telling his Father, first, that those his disciples, whom he hadfrom everlasting given him, had been converted and effectually called, ver. 6-8, I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them me. Now they have known that all things, whatsoever thou hast given me, are of thee : for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me ; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou hast sent me. And then he commits them to him at his farewell, and as his farewell, ver. 11, I am no more in this world, but these are in the world, and now I commit them unto thee. Holy Father, keep them through thy name. Whilst I was in the world, I kept them in thy name : those whom thou gavest me I have kept, and none is lost. And ver. 20, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their words. This is Christ s last prayer at his death, it was the terms upon which he offered up himself, and it is made for all who should believe and be called, and it is, you see, that they should be kept. He trusts his Father with them, and those thereafter to come in, to call and preserve them, and he prayeth these things in the pre-intuition of, and as fore-seeing, their temptations ver. 15, I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but from the evil ; as if he had said, they are to live to serve thee yet in the world, only preserve them from whatever evil it is their lot to conflict withal, arid rather than they should not be kept from the evil, even take them out of the world. These things having been thus transacted between God and Christ, therefore God, the God of all grace, now when Christ is gone to heaven, both did then, and will be sure to perform all this exactly, accord ing to Christ s word and the full tenure of this his prayer ; and as he did keep those disciples he before had called, and then commended to his Father s care, and made holy apostles of them, whose fruit remains to this day, and themselves are now in glory, so he hath performed the rest of Christ s words, both in effectually calling the rest of those souls Christ died for, and were to believe, through their word, to the end of the world, whom also he keeps and preserves, as we know God did these disciples unto the end of their

808 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. days ; and all this God hath, and will be sure to perform in very faithful ness unto Jesus Christ. And this is the discharge of the first trust made by Christ.

(2.) God is engaged in very faithfulness unto the very souls whom he calls. For not only their conversion it is an espousal of them unto God, * I have espoused you to one husband. And this God doth in 2 Cor. xi. 2, very faithfulness, Hos. ii. 19, 20, I will betroth thee unto me in righteous ness, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.

But truly, besides that God is pleased thus to engage himself of himself, it is further considered by God how great a trust the soul of every poor creature, when God called it and it effectually answered to his call, did then commit unto God. And consider well the terms of your calling (brethren), even on your part. A poor soul at its first coming to God gave up all to him, not yet knowing whether God would save it or no, even upon bare

It may be God may be merciful, casting itself upon him, if there hopes might be hope. And it did this really and in earnest : We have forsaken

and whither shall we go ? And thereupon the world began all, says Peter, to hate them, because they began to profess, and it will never heartily love them again (as it doth not, no, not an apostate, because once a professor of Christ). Yea, they adventured upon, and did take on them this profession of his name, seeing their own inability to think so much as one good thought, knowing that all their sufficiency is of God, and that he it is that must work in them to will and to do according to his good pleasure ; and they knew and considered that the world would be sure to scandal and reproach them for any evil they shall run into, and expect and exact great strictness and exactness from them, or take advantage against them to speak all manner of evil of them, for they did it even for what is good in them. Now if this be the case (as it is), for a soul to give itself up unto the Lord and his ways for ever, this is the greatest, the purest, trust that you have ever heard or read of. And can you think that God will not be faith ful ? Faithful is he that hath called you, and drawn this self-forsaking and so high an undertaking from you. Trust on your part draws out faith fulness on his. One scripture, and no more, for this, 2 Tim. i. 12, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed unto him against that day. All that could fall out between his first believing and that day he committed to God ; because that he was able was one ground, and that he WB.S faithful was the other. 1 know whom I have believed, this referreth to faithfulness ; and that other, I am persuaded, unto his ability, as Grotius hath observed.

CHAPTER V,

The second topic or head of arguments unto our faith from God his calling us, the God of all grace hath called us, or, that in our first calling God hath shewn himself a God of all grace, and therefore will carry us through all temptations unto perfection.

Who hath called us. 1 PETER Y. 10.

Two things are in this head to be spoke to : I. That in that one work of calling God shews himself to be a God of all grace towards those whom he calls.

II. The arguments and inferences from thence, for our support, that God will carry us through, &c., which is the point I shall pursue.

This here you will find not only distinct from what hath been handled in the foregone part of this discourse about calling, but to add a great increase to the confirmations of our faith herein, by new and great considerations.

I. That in that one work of calling God hath shewn himself to be a God of all grace, &c.

In handling this my purpose is not simply to set out the greatness of God s grace shewn in regeneration, and how it so exceeds, in many respects, all other works else which God after doth for us, even glory itself. I have done this in another place. I will retrieve nothing I then handled about that subject. But what I shall now treat of will be a going over the emi nent particulars of God s grace, and demonstrating that God hath shewn himself a God of all grace in each of them, in and at his calling of us ; and then I shall bring them all, and each of them, down into the second branch, and draw inferences from thence for the point I am pursuing.

1. I begin with pardoning grace.

(1.) God shewed himself then to be a God of all grace in pardoning thee ; he shewed a plenitude, a fulness of grace, yea, an all of grace, in the forgive ness of thee. Thou hadst run on the score of sinning from the first thought in thine infancy, and every thought from the first dawning of reason had been evil continually ; and thy sins lay all on heaps, piled up as high as heaven, and stacked down as low as hell, and this for many years continu ance. Suppose that for twenty or thirty years thou hadst done no good, but all thy ways were abominable ; and, lo, then at thy calling, by one act at once, God forgave thee all thy trespasses: Col. ii. 13, And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. And in that lump, perhaps, all sorts of sinnings, in respect of concupiscence at least, or the imperfect puttings forth of them, were found in thee ; for so Paul speaks of himself, as at his conversion he found it, Rom. vii. And thus he was the God of all grace in pardoning thee.

(2.) Also in bestowing on thee then a righteousness, and that of Christ s, which had all obedience in it ; and he bestowed it then on thee wholly, and at once, and not as by parcels afterwards ; not some of it at one time, some of it at another ; no, but in one entire single gift. So as well might the apostle, comparing this gift of Christ s righteousness and obedience imparted, with that one disobedience of Adam imputed (which yet divines say had in a manner all sorts of sins in it), declare that gift of Christ s infinitely to abound, not in merit or worth only, but even as containing a full and perfect righteousness of all sorts for parts, Rom. v. 17, 19, compared, For if by one man s offence death reigned by one ; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gifts of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ : ver. 19, For as by one man s disobedience many were made sinners ; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. God in his heart and purposes is a God of all grace, as I shewed ; and Christ in his righteousness is fully adequate to all the purposes and designs of grace in God s heart ; and all and the whole of this thou receivedst at thy calling, and as much of this as all the saints put together do receive, for Christ is not divided in the gift of his righteousness ; the least called one hath the whole. And this made Paul so to extol the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ bestowed on him at his first conversion : 1 Tim. i. 14, And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Jesus. It was exceeding abundant, iggs-TrXsoWg, supembundavit. It was more than full, or more than enough. And in both these respects he was a God of all grace in justifying thee at thy calling.

2. He shewed himself the God of all grace in sanctifying grace, which consists of two parts, mortification of sin, and the new creature that is wrought in the room of corruption then mortified ; and in each of these God shewed himself_then a God of all grace in that kind of grace also.

(1.) In mortifying grace, in that every lust had its death s wound at thy first putting on Christ : Gal. v. 24, < And they that are Christ s have cruci fied the flesh, with the affections and lusts. A crucifying death it was, like to his, which reached to every vein, artery, and thus this extends unto all the members of sin, inward or outward ; they are all put into a dying con dition : Rom. vi. 6, Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death ; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. It is the whole body of sin, and every member of it, which his mortifying grace extends unto.

(2.) In respect of the new creature wrought. It was then at thy calling that his divine power gave and furnished thee with all things, &c. : 2 Peter i. 3, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that per tain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. I cited it afore, but for another purpose. In like manner, when of the new creature it is said, that all is made new : 2 Cor. v. 17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become new ; though imperfectly, yet all is of the new creature. As Adam conveys all sorts of lusts, so Christ begets for kind his own image complete for parts ; and grace for grace, John i. 16, as the child from the father receives limb for limb.

(3.) Thirdly, Usually at calling he acteth and assisteth that new creature (as new converts often find) with all sorts of assistances, viz., resisting lusts, quickening affections, carryings on in duty, and all sorts of enlargements: 2 Tim. i. 14, Paul speaks of his own conversion, The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant in faith and love. In faith, for justification ; in love, in raising and stirring up affections unto God.

(4.) Yea, fourthly, the foundation of all glory was then laid, which the text hath; as also, Rom. viii. 30, Whom he "hath called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Why should I instance any more? Adoption and right to eternal life is then given: According to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour ; that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, Titus iii. 5-7.

II. Now for the second thing, viz., the arguments of comfort and support from hence, that then God will, as the same God of all grace, carry thee on through all temptations.

Consider he having thus begun as a God of all grace, to justify thee in this manner, and to sanctify thee at once, what is it that now should divert or interrupt this great God of all grace from this going on to carry thee through ? He must be directed * either, 1. By the guilt of sin rising up, and committed after calling ; or, 2. By the power of sin, recovering again its strength in thee. * Qu. diverted ? ED.

1. Not by the guilt of sins afterwards. If anything did, they would pro Toke him not to continue his grace to thee ; and it is they must begin to turn (rod s heart off from thee, if anything else do. But none of these shall be able to do it ; for, consider, if he justified thee at first from such an heap of sins as a God of all grace, and that he thereby becomes engaged to con tinue a God of all grace ever after to thee, then surely he will not stick at pardoning thy aftersins, and therefore they shall [not] hinder.

But to demonstrate this, by comparing matters as they stood in this respect afore calling, with the state thereof after ; compare we things with things afore and after.

[l.J Then, before calling he pardoned a continued course of sinning for many years, wherein there had been laid up heaps upon heaps: but the pardoning of thy sins after calling is at worst but of backslidings, repaired and filled up with many great repentances coming between ; and if, as a God of grace to thee, he pardoned a tract or course of sinning, he will much more, and may more easily continue to forgive such backsliding, so inter mingled with serious repentance, although they have been reiterated sins, fallen into again and again: Turn, backsliding Israel ; for I am married to thee, says God, Jer. iii. 14. Married she had been to God afore, but had gone a-whdring from him. And though in that case man had not mercy enough to receive a wife again, but would stand upon point of honour in it, as ver. 1, * They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man s, shall he return unto her again ? shall not that land be greatly polluted ? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers ; yet return again to me, saith the Lord. Yet, says God, ver. 12, yet return, backsliding Israel, for I am merciful. Besides that, I am already engaged by marriage (and when is that but at one s first conversion ? Then it is that God was espoused to thee), and did then give up myself to be a God of all grace to thee. Moreover, I am as merciful as ever I was, and I cannot, but must forgive thee, and that upon the lowest terms thou canst desire, and I can with honour grant

Only do thou acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy wa}"S to the strangers under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord, ver. 13. As if he had said, So easily am I prevailed with ; for it must be acknowledged the least of requisites unto reconciliation in so high a breach ; yea, and even that also this Avrbc, he, that same God of grace in my text, doth promise to give them an heart to do so, and, more over, to heal their backslidings also, out of the same love and grace, that so he may honourably come off to pardon them ; he performed the condition himself thus in the same chapter, ver. 19, though he sticks at it, and makes a demur upon it (it being the highest act he could perform in a cause so grievous) within himself : How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee an heritage ? &c., yet himself soon thinks how to bring it about, and I said, Thou shalt call me Father ; and shall not depart from me. He might well say, at the 22d ver., Return, ye backsliding children, when himself gave them power to return ; and withal farther promiseth, will heal their backslidings, so in the same verse. And their hearts were accordingly moved to do it, and to answer God s call, as in the following words of that 22d verse, Behold, we come unto thee ; for thou art the Lord our God. God, you see, continues to own them, after their most desperate backsliding, and to do all in them, and for them, and then they return to own him. You have the same, Isa. Ivii. 17, 18, For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him : I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. heal him ; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him, and to his mourners ; as also Hosea xiv. 4, < I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely. And truly, this happy issue of healing in the end, what is it other than what is in the text : After ye have suffered a while, I will strengthen, &c.

[2.J From all which passages this conclusion will remain for me, that if (rod hath married himself by calling us once, and then hath forgiven us, as a (rod of all grace, so many years sinnings contrivedin, for which a man never so much as once repented all his life, then how much more will he forgive those which them intermingledly humblest thy soul for, and appliest the blood of Christ for ? Which is of as much force to be sure, under the New Testament, as it was under the Old, to make reconciliation and atone ment between God, and them that are the called according to his purpose in all such cases.

[3.J And, thirdly, he can do all this with more ease (as I may so speak) than what he did for thee at the first.

For, first, at the first thou hadst an heart that was wholly hard and im penitent, and did God then break it, and melt it, and withal forgave thee all How much more easily can he, yea, and doth he, break thy heart, that hath been broken already ; melt and soften the heart that hath been melted, and which never yet came to be wholly cold after its first melt ing

! And though it should be so, yet one can more easily set that coal on fire that hath been in the fire so often already, than kindle a green stick that never was kindled.

And as he can more easily melt thy heart than at first, so, secondly, he can in this way of dispensation more easily forgive thee, than at the first he did. For at the first conversion he pardoned all, and all at once ; but his course of pardoning thy sins after calling, is but by driblets (as we say) or by lesser sums ; for he now pardons you afresh every day as thou committest them and humblest thyself for them. And so that of John is fulfilled, ^Ine blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. Which words note out a con tinued act ; for such it is to a soul after calling, that blood becomes a foun tain, fans perennis, that daily runs and washeth : Zech. xiii. 1, In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabi tants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness ; that is, it continues to be such after it hath been first opened, as at first conversion it begins to be Afore conversion Christ was as the rock which Moses struck ; it had stood long in the Israelites view, it flowed not at all till Moses applied his rod to it ; but when once struck, it became a continual river that followed them and that rock was Christ, as 1 Cor. x. 4, and that water was his blood, which when once opened, it runs continually, and runs with ease, without any force or violence used, and in that manner washeth out the stains of daily sins with far more ease and expedition (if any such difference may be supwed) than it did those guilts of a deeper die, that had continued from man s infancy till then, and which at first conversion a man was found guilty of.

And did God do this, then, for thee at thy calling ? And will he not after wards, especially when thou art found to humble thyself all along as thou Binnest, and contmuest to seek grace, as a man condemned useth to do for life, arid hast a daily recourse still as thou failest, unto the throne of grace for grace and mercy in time of need ? Thou confessesf , acknowledgest thy sins, appliest the blood of Christ to them, and pleadest forgiveness for his sake, and through his intercession ; and though it is not for these (that is, * Qu. continued ? ED.

these humblings and seekings, as they are thy doing) that God pardoneth thee, yet this way his course of pardoning doth run.

I will only leave this great word with you as to this point, that if this mixed state, intermingled state, of sinnings and repentings, which are the conflictings of flesh, and spirit, should have been ordained by God to con tinue to eternity, avrbg, he, this God of all grace, could and would have con tinued to pardon thee to eternity, and that in this way fore -mentioned, much more easily than he hath given a pre-universal pardon as he vouchsafed first to thee, when thou hadst continued so long unregenerate, or any other one that hath long continued in an unregenerate state, with a perpetration of great sins, as some or other have done.

this, that sins after calling shall not hinder, but still be pardoned, let it be inferred from hence, that God, as a God of all grace, did call and par don, so as at the first we have seen he did.

Obj. But perhaps some of you that have yet been effectually called, may be ready, yea, and have cause to say, Alas, my sins since my calling have been greater and grosser than any I committed afore, Ans. 1. It may have fallen out that they have been more and more hei nous, as to the outward act of some sins ; besides, thou hast perhaps lived years double since thy calling unto what thou didst afore, and also the greatest part of that former time was passed in childhood and younger years ; but since thou art grown up, and according to the course of nature, lusts with them, and though those lusts did receive a death s wound at first, they may yet exercise more strength than thou perceivest such lusts had when thou wert younger.

Ans. 2. The circumstances thou hast been set in may have occasioned, for the acts of them, some worse sins, than thy unregeneracy ever knew.

Job and Jeremiah were certainly more impatient, even almost to blasphemy, than ever in their younger times, for the temptations grew higher.

Ans. 3. As thou considerest thy sinnings all along, thou must consider thy reducements, thy repentance, thy humblings of thyself, that have run all along with them, and have come between thy sinnings, and still have broken the force and extreme violence of them. And these, to be sure, God remembers, and thou thus crying daily to him against them, and confess ing of them, the blood of Christ hath secretly all along cleansed thee still from all those sins.

Am. 4. As thou considerest thy greater sort of sinnings, so thou shouldst withal consider the different manner of sinning, which hath accompanied thy committings of them, from what there did afore, which do really make that great difference between thy sinnings now and afore, that though the out ward acts may have been greater and more grievous since, than any were afore, yet the difference in sin might testify to the sincerity of thy grace ; yea, may and doth serve as an evidence of the Spirit of God his continuing to dwell in thee, and so of God s having still continued to pardon thee all along, through the tenor of the covenant and state of grace first made by him and entered into by thee. Yea, and take thy lesser sins, and compare them with thy sinnings then, in them then thou sinned st with thy whole heart ; whereas now in thy grossest sins, but as with half thy heart. Sin hath not had dominion over thee, that is, not the full rule of thee, as afore i thou hast still sinned with a lame heart, thou hast gone halting about it as one which hath a broken leg ; though thou mayest have had many foul mis carriages against light, yet in thy perpetration of them thou hast been as man that wields a weapon with a broken arm, nor dost thou ever come

* Qu. omit

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. lay the weapon of resistance down, or to give thyself up as a servant whose ear is bored through, unto any of those lusts. Thou still runnest whining, yemens, after them that prevailed with thee, as a prince that is led captive ; neither have thine overcomings been as theirs, whom Peter speaks of, 2 Pet. ii. 21-23. They are, as the dog returns to his vomit again with the whole of his appetite, as greedily as ever, when the sickness of his stomach once is over, his desire to what is vomited is the same; and sothe sow lies down in the mire with her whole delight. A sheep may fall into the mire, but a sow lies down in it, and wallows in it with her whole delight. I ap peal to all the experience of thine heart, if ever thou didst so. If not, then God hatlimaintained an opposition against sin in thee ; and if so, how easy is it for him to pardon thee, in comparison to and above what thy rate of sinning was in thy former condition !

Obj. But thou wilt further say, I fear my condition is much worse than in my former condition of unregeneracy. Am. There I will grapple with any of you that ever have had true grace ; if any be otherwise, what I shall say will not reach them, or concern them.

Come on, take the worst condition thou hast ever been in since, and consider the frame of thy heart therein, and compare it with the best of thy condition afore calling. I put thee to it : durst thou exchange this now with that then ? Consider how then, afore conversion, thou hadst not as then a dram of the least holy affection in thee, no aim at the glory of God : thou wholly didst set up thyself, and thine own lusts ; thou hadst no respect nor fear of God afore thine eyes, none at all; but since, thou hast (take the whole of thy course) carried all along afore thee an eye unto God, though, as David says of himself, Ps. cxix. 176, thou hast as the lost sheep gone much astray, I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek thy servant ; for I do not forget thy commandments. Thou then calledst not upon God unless

111 a formality ; thou hadst no reluctancy against sin, no pursuing after holi ness, as now, though thou fallest short of what thou wouldst be. Thou talkest of devils hurrying thee with temptations ; ay, but thou hadst a devil dwelling in thee, as in his own house, in peace, ruling effectually in thee, and taking thee captive at his will. Thou complairiest of thy deadness now, too, and in duties, and yet performest them with some affections ; why, then, thou wert wholly dead in sins and trespasses. It may be thy graces are not so shining ; but lay thine hand on thy pulse, it doth still beat, though faintly : there are in thee longings after God, and desires to fear his name, and there is a spring of such dispositions in thee. There is a spiritual living creature in thee, which, like the mole under ground, is working up towards the free air, heaving up the earth, and breathes heavenward. Come, be ashamed to talk thus. Are there seven devils entered into thee worse than the former? Is thy latter end worse than thy beginning ? Oh no!

Again, for the other part of justification, God s justifying thee, and cover ing thy sins with Christ righteousness. It was that whole righteousness which was then imputed to thee at thy calling (as was said) by the God of all grace ; and if he had not been a God of all grace, he would never have bestowed that gift upon thee, of all other ; and having bestowed that once, thou mayest build upon it, that he will continue to justify thee for ever. It \voulcl be the highest dishonour unto that so infinite perfect righteousness of Christ, if where and when it were once imputed, it should be once frustrate, and made of no effect unto that person ; for where once the whole of it is imputed (as the whole always is, with all the privileges or consequents that do accompany, and are entailed upon it), it brings with it the purchase of

an eternal imputation, to whom it is imputed once, never to be taken off, or made a non-imputation. Where it sealeth, it makes an end of, and seals up sins for ever, with a seal never to be broken off ; and makes reconciliation for iniquity, and brings in an everlasting righteousness to whomsoever it is applied, which our sins shall never outdo, Dan. ix. 24. That righteousness is so extensively transcendent, as it will not permit it. It shall never be said that sin imputed was too hard for Christ s righteousness imputed, or that it hath more interest with God against one to whom it is imputed, than Christ s righteousness hath. No: Heb. x. 14, For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ; which being perfected, is seen, as the apostle himself there interprets it, in justification (the point now afore us), in that it causeth sins to be remembered no more, as in the following verses.

And this for this inference from the imputation of Christ s righteousness at first, that therefore God will continue to pardon and justify for ever.

2. The second thing that may be supposed (if anything) to obstruct and interrupt the efflux and course of God s grace begun in any of us, in carrying us through all temptations, is the power of sin within a man s own heart, lest that getting head again, God s heart should be diverted from us.

But if God did sanctify us at first, as a God of all grace, in the manner that hath been specified, this affords a new head or ground of confirmation of our faith, that notwithstanding the hazards with which our remaining cor ruption might seem to threaten us, that yet God will assuredly preserve grace in us, maugre all temptations.

(1.) God sanctified thee at the first, by inlaying in thy soul the seeds of all and every grace and gracious disposition that ever was to be, or shall be.

This we shewed in the fore part, and therefore aurdc, this God, as a God of all grace, is engaged to all and every such grace in particular, wrought and inlaid in thee by him then, to preserve it and them unto a perfect consum mation. All temptations whatever, that have anything of danger in them, and that do or can befall thee, are the opposites unto some or other of those graces wrought in thee at the first ; for the law of sin, arid the law of the mind, that is, grace in us, and sin in us, are adequately and commensurately

Hence, opposite, and contrary in every soul in which grace is wrought. therefore, every particular temptation and lust in us must be considered as that which opposeth some particular grace or other ; as James mentioneth envy as opposite unto its contrary grace, James iv. 5, 6 (of which anon).

Now, then, when any temptation falls out, or any particular lust anseth, forks, he that was the God of all grace in calling, and who is therefore the God of that particular grace in his working it at the first, is engaged, and will in a particular special manner, as occasion still shall arise, look unto the preserving of that individual grace, and maintain it, and uphold it against that temptation, so far as that it shall never become_extinct by it, but in tl end and issue, sooner or later, be brought forth to victory.

And, indeed, the whole interest or universal stock of all grace lies every way at the stake, upon this issue of God s maintaining each and every grace in the day of its distress, against the temptations that would destroy it, as will appear bv putting these four particulars together

[1.] On grace s part; for if any particular grace should be made extinct by any particular temptation and lust, then the whole of all the rest oi that charter of graces would also fail and be dissolved, as it was in Adam by tl prevailing of one temptation. Graces, they are all of a knot; break one and all fall asunder ; they were given all together at once at the first, and tney would, and must depart all together at once, if any one doth fail.

316 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

[2.J Hence, secondly, on God s part, he having, as a God of all grace, been the author and founder of all those graces, and they his work, hence his heart works in him, and doth concern itself whensoever any parti cular grace comes to be in danger; and according unto what proportion in his wisdom he sees meet, he doth relieve it, and that upon the account, or in the strength of his being a God of all grace, as hath been said. Yea, and the whole of his grace comes still into the field for the succour and relief of any one grace, so as if all the grace that is in God thus interested will be able to maintain and preserve that one, yea, every grace, the least ; it shall have, m its due season, all in God to raise the siege of any, and every sort and kind of particular temptations whatsoever, set down about it. I say, in his due time, as Peter doth proviso it, ver. 6 of his 5th chapter ; so as though a temptation may prevail for an act, or many acts, yet it shall never unin terruptedly, finally, or wholly ; for even that very grace, when it is most put to the worst, is yet in some degree renewed day by day, as our whole man is said to be. What would you think if all the power of such an empire as that of the Turks, yea, the strength of the whole empire, should upon all occasions come into the field, for the relief of any or every small city that is besieged, which belongs unto its dominions or protection. Now so it is here.

[3.] Consider that the graces in thee have to do and to conflict but with particular temptations singly at once, or but with few, though sometimes with diverse, yet never with all, as two apostles tell us.

[4.] Now, to draw a conclusion from all these things, how easy is it for God, that is the God of all grace, and who wrought all grace de novo, that is, anew at the first, still to strengthen any one grace or graces that are already wrought, and are extant in being in thy heart, against what is or are but a particular temptation or temptations, when grace is thus but singly set upon and assassinated ? And this inference is most strong from the premises, namely, that he that created all graces wholly de novo, or new at the first, should certainly be both able and willing to maintain particular graces still as they are all along assaulted. And his being a God of all grace, doth make him as willing as he is able for it. This as for the point of his upholding and maintaining thy graces.

(2.) Seeing that in such temptations thou hast to do with such or such a corruption in particular, I bid thee take or single forth any one particular corruption or corruptions which thou findest are or have "been most pre valent to endanger thee. Consider that if God, as a God of all grace, at calling first gave an universal wound, a crucifying unto all and every lust in thee (as was shewn), and that he did this when he found the body of sin whole, and in its full strength and vigour, and unbroken, hardened, accus tomed, and habituated unto evil, as the prophet states the case, and withal that this God continues to be the same God of all grace to thee, Aurk, then certainly he is afterwards able and willing much more to help thee out against, and in the end to strengthen thee against, that corruption or corruptions that have been already thrust through, and go limping with a mortal wound, though they rise up with a renewed strength at the present; for it is both a more easy work to him thus to assist thee, and likewise his grace engageth him more afterwards to this, than it did at first to work the whole of all grace in thee, especially when thou findest that he continues to work in thee some hatred of that corruption, some mourning for it, with a desire of the contrary grace running all along with thy being overcome by it. Shall I give you one place of Scripture to confirm the most of what have been lately said ? It is in James, chap. iv. ver. 5, 6, Do ye think that the

CHAP. V.] OP ELECTION. 317 scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy ? But he giveth more grace: wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

(1.) It supposeth that our most bloody conflicts are still with some parti cular lusts and temptations, for so his instance carries it, mentioning only a lust of envy, which saints had then, and have at this day too much of, in them one against another : the spirit that is in us, us saints, for of those he speaks, lusteth after envy.

(2.) A second is, that when a soul, being sensible of that corruption, doth humble itself under it and for it, and bewail it unto God, and hath already a grace begun actually working in opposition to it, that is, to resist that envy and pride, from whence it is that envy riseth, that hath an heart to seek for humility, which is the contrary grace, where God, says James, hath wrought, and continues these oppositions thereto, he, the same God, will, as a God of all grace, give more grace unto that soul, and these two are most express, either in the words or their coherence. For, * God will give more grace, whereby, in the first

[1.] In verse 6 he says, place, is meant, that he will give more of that particular grace, which is con trary to that lust of envy, though together therewith a further increase of all grace also, for they do still increase together. And [2.] it is as express that the persons he promiseth to give this more grace unto, are those whom he hath begun to have wrought some of this grace in.

1st, For the word more grace imports an addition unto grace already sup posed to have been received, which this is to be an addition to ; and also that he will give more grace in respect to the subduing that corruption in the end, which is a distinct thing from the other, and a special grace of itself for God to do it.

And, 2dly, the promise for this out of Scripture runs thus, ver. 6, He giveth grace to the humble. It supposeth, therefore, humble already, and that qualification of humility is also the very radical opposite grace to envy.

And, 3dly, so the promise must be understood to mean this, that where God hath wrought some beginnings of any grace contrary to corruptions, continued with conflicts against those corruptions (as the word lusteth implies, compared with Gal. v. 17, 21), as of humility against pride and envy, there God will give yet more, or further supplies, of grace unto that soul. And more, either so as to prevail over that lust, in the continual assaults of it, or at least to afford that soul, during that present assault, such supplies so far as to enable it to continue to resist it ; but in what degree it shall be, is as himself pleaseth to dispense, yet always so far as it shall be said that that corruption had not dominion over it, but so as still in its highest carrying away the soul, it never obtained that full power it had when a man was unregenerate.

And, 4thly, that God, who is the God of this and of all grace, and at first wrought it, will certainly effectually in the end give more grace ; for as he refers unto the Scripture, for the one part, that there is an envious spirit working in us, so to hearten the poor soul that conflicts against it, he refers him unto other scriptures, that speak as loud that God will certainly in the end give more grace to such a soul ; so verse 6, But he giveth more grace: wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. As certainly, then, as the spirit that is in us lusteth after envy (and truly we are all sure enough of that, for we find it daily working in our hearts), as certainly and much more may we be assured that the God of all grace, having by calling begun any grace, will give yet more grace to prevail

318 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. against the temptation, whatever it be. And as for this latter, besides the places of the Old Testament which he refers his reader unto, two apostles, Peter and James, have asserted the same, so as we may confidently rest upon it.

Use. You see your calling, brethren, as the apostle speaks in another case. Consider, then, in all your discouragements, the terms and privileges of it, as they have been now laid open, to strengthen your hearts, to have a free and bold recourse unto this God of all grace, who sits on a throne of grace in heaven, and hath Christ also as our high priest, officiating by him for us as intercessor, Heb. iv. 15. Dost thou perceive in thine heart some rudera, some foundations of a true calling, though appearing but a little above ground, like as the ruins of some old building that is razed use to be, yet some foundations of a further new begun building there are.

First know this, that it is the God of all grace that hath wrought any of them, and if any, all ; and so is engaged to be a God of all grace unto thee, and that for ever ; he that is the God of all grace will never deny what is true grace in thee ; he never denied his word, but much less will he deny his hand, or any part of it. And though thou canst not see all and each particular that is wrought, nor read every letter of God s writing that is written in thine heart, yet God knows his own hand. Yea, some graces perhaps may be written but in short hand, or ciphers, and not drawn out into letters at length ; they having not as yet been exercised, yet they all are and were written by him at the first ; quod scripsi, scripsi

what I have written I have written it will be for ever owned by him. Be assured that this God, who hath been at such cost in laying a foundation of all grace, will be sure to see to it to perfect it. You heard afore in the former head and sermons that because the work of calling or regeneration was a good and perfect work for kind, that God had therefore an unchangeable respect to it; but when from what hath been said you shall add this to it, that it is, though for degree, an imperfect work, that yet is a complete work for kind, of all sorts of graces, bearing the whole image of God himself in that respect. And that as himself, the God of all grace, is the author of it, from hence also he is the more engaged to perfect it.

If you shall see a great and withal a wise master-builder to have laid a complete and universal model or area, as builders call it, though yet but in the foundations of it, perhaps not a foot high, yet universally and entirely complete, and so rich for the matter of it as to be supposed of pearls and precious stones laid in every part of that foundation, and also so entire in the parts of it, that it will serve for the foundation work of all and the whole of a glorious pile and fabric, whereof that is the model and beginning, so as all that is to follow, or shall be erected and superstructed over it, hath a full foundation of it ; you would in this case conclude that certainly he that had laid such a platform, and bestowed such a cost on this foundation, will not lose all this, but carry it on, and will build it, though the builder which he employs in it, which are our particular selves, build with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other, as Nehemiah did, lest it should be said he was a foolish builder that was not able to finish it. This is the case here upon called ones, for not the wise God only, but he who is the God of all grace, hath begun a good work in you ; he will not lose the glory of his wisdom, but be much more assured he will never lose the glory of his grace, much less the glory of his being the God of all grace, who as such hath laid this foundation. It was the glory of his grace carried on to perfection the fabric of the temple (which was one type of this very building) of Zerubbabel his building of it with a multitude of difficulties, and inter

That he having laid the foundation stone . ruptions, it is said, Zech. iv. 9,

CHAP. VI.] OF ELECTION. of ft, though it were but one stone for all the rest, as you know the manner of master-builders is, that he should have the honour to lay the top-stone so verse 7. And why ? That in the end and final finishing of all, the people all might shout, and cry, Grace, grace to it ! that is, grace had begun it, and grace had perfected it, and grace had carried it all alone throughout those difficulties. Now, brethren, so it is here ; you shall one day have each of you a building made without hands in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. And in the mean time the foundations of it are laid in your hearts, according to what the prophet foretold : Isa. liv. 11, 12, thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted ! behold, I will lay thv stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones, speaking of the church of the new testament. And such every grace, and the exercises and increases of them are, and so it is reared and ariseth up above ground in this world, and the whole work and fabric of it is undertaken and carried on by God, the God of all grace, who laid not one, but every, foundation-stone with his own hands imme diately, and hath left out no one of saving graces, having done it as a God of all grace. ye called ones, shout, and shout aloud, for joy, and cry not only GRACE, GRACE TO IT ! as they did at the finishing of the temple, which was but the shadow of the temple of God within you ; but cry you this note if any, THE GOD OF ALL GRACE ! THE GOD OF ALL GRACE ! That is the New Testament language, so far exceeding that of the Old. And therein bless him for his all-justifying grace, bless him for his allsanctifying grace, bless him for his allglorifying grace which he hath called you unto, as the text hath it ; thereby, and by all these, he hath given you the full right and security of his eternal glory already.

CHAPTER VI.

God s calling us unto his eternal glory is an investing us with a right to heaven; and therefore, though yet ice do not actually enjoy it, yet we may be assured that he uill preserve us safe and secure until he has brought us to the posses sion of that glory. Our being called unto an eternal glory imports that a spiritual life which is eternal isbegun in our souls, and that by being called we are put into an eternal right of glory. The reason of it, because he is the God of all grace who calls us unto this glory. What his glory implies : that it is a certain engagement on God s part that he will carry us through all temptations and difficulties unto it.

Who hath called us unto his eternal glory. 1 PETER V. 10.

The scope of these words in the 10th verse being to ensure us that God will carry those whom he hath called through all sufferings and temptations safe unto eternal life, my professed design hath been to draw arguments for this out of every word of the former part of this verse : But the God of all grace, &c. I having despatched what arguments God s having called us do contribute, I now come unto these other words, into his eternal glory. There are three words which do serve as three heads to reduce these argu ments unto :

1. He hath called us into glory. 2. Eternal glory. 3. His glory.

320 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

1. He hath called us into glory; that is, though not into the possession, yet unto as full a right thereunto, which upon calling we are instated in, as ever we shall have in heaven.

He saith not barely, he hath called us into grace, or into the state of grace, though that is elsewhere said in express terms : Rom. v. 7, * We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand ; which is all one as if he had said, into the state of grace, as we may rightly from thence style it. And for our apostle so to have here spoken, would seem the more suitable to have fol lowed upon that title he had given to God, the founder of all, in the words after, the God of all grace ; yea, and for him to have so spoken, might alone have served sufficiently to secure us, because this alone, for us to be put into the dominion of that estate of grace, affords abundant fortifications and securities unto us against the power of sin, or whatever else, according as the apostle in Rom. vi. 14 speaks, * Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace ; that is, if you be ad mitted once into grace, and under its dominion, and are become subjects thereof, ye are thereby taken into the protection of grace and the sovereignty thereof, and it is the greatest sovereign (as you have heard), and will be sure to take care of you.

But our apostle contents not himself to speak thus low, but fetches his main strength wherewith to hearten us against all assaults from a higher

the God of all region of arguments ; he flies up to the highest that can be, grace, who hath called us into glory, no less. The first foot we set upon after our calling is into glory, and not into a state of grace only; he hath settled that upon us irrecoverably, and hath engaged himself, as he is a God of all grace, to see to it, to guard and bring us to that glory, as with a gar rison, all along ; for the whole of that glory is become our right. And sure if you have the God of all grace as the estator, and then the assurer of it to us, to maintain his own act, and then as for glory itself, the thing estated into, you are sure enough of that in all reason every way, upon the uttermost of securities that can be given, that is, virtually upon all and above all secu rity whatsoever. And because this afibrdeth us the highest arguments, there

Who hath called us fore it was he chose rather thus to express himself, into glory.

This glory was the first-born of God s thoughts and of his intentions to wards us, this was the first thing that rose up in the heart of the God of all grace in his good will to us, for it was the end and upshot of all his designs, and all other, in this life, are but as the means and the way thereto. This was his end, and his supreme end, next his own glory, and therefore first in intention, which moved him to call us : Acts xiii. 48, As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. And accordingly being glorified is placed lastly, as being the ultimate upshot of our being called and justi fied, which, as the means, are in execution placed first, Rom. viii. 30. The ordaining of us to his glory was his highest rest and complacency: Luke xii. 32, It is (and was) the Father s pleasure to give you a king dom ; and the place where it is to be enjoyed was the first of all his works : Mat. xxv. 34, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. It is that heaven which was created the first day, Gen. i. 1. Hence when election comes to break forth first in calling, God s heart is so intent upon this glory, as his first and last end, that although he suspend the giving us the possession for some years, yet he will not suspend the giving the full, complete right of the whole, and that from the first ; he cannot forbear that, but instantly upon calling gives forth a patent of it, which is here expressed by a calling us into glory.

And as God then estated us into it, so Christ also as then received us into * Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the it : Rom. xv. 7, glory of God. He hath now received us into an indefeasible right there unto, although that when we come to die we all still cry out to him for an other receiving of us ; as Stephen, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, that is, into the actual possession of what, as to right, he had received us into before. And we find the Scripture elsewhere at the same, and no lower, rate to speak, than that when we are called we are saved : 2 Tim. i. 9, Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling. The whole of salvation is stated upon us then.

And when you consider this, you will readily acknowledge it eligible to follow after his styling God the God of all grace, to say, * who hath called us into glory, rather than into grace, as that which was most becoming the great God of all grace ; for he that is the God of all grace should give the whole, and all of that grace he ever intended to bestow, in the first moment wherein he began to make a discovery of his grace unto us. This is to act like the God of all grace indeed, and therefore it is most properly said, The God of all grace hath called us to glory.

And here let us stand and wonder at this his dispensation, that after he should have done this so great and so strange an act, once for all, that thereafter his design and ordination should be to set out at once, tempta tions, oppositions, difficulties to encounter, and conflict withal ; and for him to overcome for us and by us, and this for the space of many years to come after, between this his estating us into glory, in respect of right, and that other of our possession of it. Such temptations, as in no appearance might, and were likely, yet would* put the possession of it, so long yet to come, into all hazards, discouragements, and misadventures ; and yet he designs it thus to illustrate his grace the more.

I shall give but one parallel instance of the like dealing, which doth illus trate this by way of similitude, and indeed was intended as the type of this very thing. God sent Samuel to David whilst he was yet young, keeping of sheep, and anointed him king, 1 Sam. xvi. 13, in the open view of all his brethren ; and by that one solemn act invested him into a visible and yet irrecoverable right of the kingdom of Judah and Israel ; and it was the out ward part of David s sure mercies, which was the pawn of all the rest, and of his right to the kingdom of heaven. And thus God did, as then, so long after, although he suspected f the possession of it many years, yet gave it him in the right ; and when God had done this, and therewith engaged him self to make it good, and sware not to repent of it, then said God, Let Saul, and all the power of his kingdom, and that whole people that were his sub jects (who were generally wicked, and took part with Saul), let them do their worst ; and thereupon God exposes this flea, this partridge upon the mountains, that skipped from place to place upon Saul s hunting of him with all the power of that nation, and with all the interest he had in it. Yet still he keeps him and preserves him, in open defiance of him and his Benjamites, and the men of Keilah, and the rest of that rabble, and they might all go cast their caps after him, but take him and destroy him they could not. The heathen raged, and the people imagined a vain thing, and yet I have set my King upon my holy hill, as the psalmist hath it. And just thus it is that God serves the devil and all our enemies within us, and worldly enemies without us. He first anoints us by his Spirit in that great * Qu. as in appearance might, and were likely, yea would ? ED. t Qu. suspended ? ED. VOL. IX. X

322 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. solemn act of calling us into glory, and then it is that he pours his Spirit richly on us, and creates us heirs of eternal glory, as it follows there, Titus iii. 7. He gives his Spirit commission to dwell in us, to look to us, but reserves our possession of it unto a further time ; and the attaining thereof shall be a work of time ; and in that interim or space he lets loose all those enemies upon us, leaves us to the hardest wrestlings and fightings with them, and those accompanied with innumerable hazards of our being over come. And yet so waking and omnipotent is the eye and hand of God over us and upon us, that still he either strengthens us at the instant, or restores us if we be led captive. Now let us see what arguments and powerful inferences of security this one topic will afford us.

First, All grant that if we were in glory and the possession of it, that then sin and devils could not dispossess us nor endanger us. Now in truth it comes all to one as to point of certainty and security ; although right to and possession of that glory are infinitely distant as to the matter of joy and enjoyment ; for by giving us the right, God hath engaged all that is in him to bring us to the possession, and not to suffer an act which was done by him as a God of all grace ever to be frustrate.

Second argument. If at first he gives the greatest and utmost (the greatest that can be given, as right to glory is), then certainly he gives all that serves to the attainment, unto the uttermost he can give ; and the reason thereof further is, because all that which conduceth to bring us thither is less than the right to that glory. Now as in 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14, Beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth ; whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith and holiness they are the means, glory and salvation the end of those means. God chooses to carry us through those means unto this, as the end of all. Now if God, besides his choice of us from the beginning unto the end, will be pleased to instate us into the right of that glory by calling us, this being infinitely a greater matter, and a privilege far beyond the giving us those means themselves, then certainly he will bestow those means effec tually upon us, and carry us through those means unto that glory. He will not stick, after he hath given the greatest, to give that which is a little more, and which is to follow in order to the obtaining of it. I argue this from the greater to the lesser, for so the apostle argues concerning God s giving Christ to die for us : Rom. viii. 32, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? A right to glory given at calling is more than calling itself, and faith and holiness that is to follow, to bring us to the obtaining of that glory: Ps. Ixxxiv. 11, The Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold ; that is, that doth serve effectually to work grace, and that will bring us to glory. Add, Thirdly, How little a space or while there is between thy calling (espe cially thee at the present) and the possession of that glory, and how the Scriptures, speaking of this space, how small a matter in God s account they make it for him to keep thee in that mean while, though to us it is a greater while ; and therefore it is said we have need of patience : Heb. x. 36, 37, For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promises : for yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. It is but a little space wherein thou art in danger, and which thou shalt be tempted in. Now our great and allwise God relieves himself thereby against thy present sinfulness, that doth fall out

in this mean time, and against thy falls and thy backslidings. For, thinks he with himself, yet a little while, and I shall have thee perfectly holy with me in glory, a spirit made perfect shortly, and it is but my own dispensa tion to have thee thus imperfectly holy in the mean time, and thus sinful ; but, if there had been an absolute danger in it, I would instantly rather have taken thee up to myself, as I have done many children of mine soon after their conversion. And if God calls upon us for patience for that little while we are to live, as in Heb. x. 36, 37, himself will have it much more. And for the glory of his justice, God can and doth bear with the vessels of wrath whilst they are fitting for destruction ; much more can he and will he have patience on a vessel of mercy whom himself is fitting and preparing by all those temptations all that while for glory. As Rom. ix. 22, 23, What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction : and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory ? Pure grace is of a much more long-suffer ing temper and disposition than mercy mixed with eternal justice in the end. And he hath to relieve him that idea or picture of what thou shalt be shortly to him ; and besides, hath the foresight of thy returnings back again to him from all thy backslidings with a heart broken, and made more holy ere thou diest.

Let us please ourselves a little with so delightful a view as the prospect of that one place, Eph. v., as to these purposes : ver. 25-27, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved his church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word ; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, without blemish. I shall take up the series of these words, so far as they serve to this purpose ; thus, (1.) The church in this world is supposed to be full of loathsomeness and filthiness to Christ, and therefore Christ is fain continually to be cleansing it, as with water, by his word, virtuous, Spiritful water, which searches into and fetches out all sorts of corruptions, though never so inward, of which also the prophet Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25, speaks: C I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, &c. ; and analogously to this, in the 26th verse, Anew heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of your fiesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And it is spoken of cleansing us by sanctification, as is there expressed, and as by water with the word. It imports it also as distinct from justification, as elsewhere when it is said, he came by water and blood. Water is specified as the cause of sanctifying, and as made distinct from his blood r as the meritorious cause of justifying us. (2.) He in the mean time hath in his eye and thoughts how glorious a church he means to make her one day, not having one spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; which is spoken, (3.) to insinuate how much he relieves himself with what will be the end of his work of cleansing her, as all artists use to do. And, (4.) he hath in.his eye the time, and the few years until that day, namely, at death, for then it is he means to present us to himself, and to his Father, with great joy, as you have it in Jude s epistle, and Col. i. 25 : * Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispen sation of God, which is given to me for you r to fulfil the word of God. (5.) The apostle puts in that clause, not having any such thing, in reference unto our relief also, and unto what discouragements the spirits of believers are apt to have by reason of some such or such special corruption. In saying so, he doth, as it were, point at such or such a thing, the eminent unto the

324 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV* soul, with Christ s declared intention to cleanse that especially ; and he puts that in, because the soul is apt to lay its finger, as we say, on such or such a sore, such or such a lust, that is so prevailing, of which the soul, sighing, says, Oh will this ever be cured! as my pride, my uncleanness, my enmity, &c. Well, says the apostle, appositely to those sayings in our hearts, the day is acoming that thou shalt have no such nor such, no, nor such a thing in thee ; no, not the least wrinkle in thee, which is less than a spot ; not so much as the appearance that ever there was such a thing in thee ; for Christ will scour, and cleanse, and fetch out all unevennesses perfectly, I shall further insist and enlarge out of these words as to the purpose in hand, these things.

(1.) First, That Jesus Christ foresees this glorious issue to come, and hath it in his eye and thoughts, in the midst of all thy horrid and amazing corruptions that are Buffered to break forth, concerning which thou art like one that hath a sore (unto which the apostle also alludes) that still and anon, unto thy thinking, grows worse and worse, and according to the course yet held, what hopes is there it will ever be cured ? But Christ, thy healer, he knows what he is a-doing, foresees all means to make a perfect cure of it, whatever discouragements thou mayest have now in the mean time, and hath that in his mind and intention all the while. And as it is said of a wicked man, that God sees his day a-coming, and relieves himself in his present forbear ance, that there is a day coming in which he shall recover his glory on him by a just destruction, so, on the contrary, he sees thy day acoming, the day of the restitution of all things. He knows punctually when thou shalt die, as well as he knew Peter s death, and as well as he knows where thou livest ; and thou mayest know and be assured of this, that Christ doth know and foresee that at death thou shalt be made perfect ; for he takes up into glory, every day, some souls belonging to him, that were in his eyes as full of cor ruption, whilst they were in this life, as thine is now. I say, this very day (for that gate is always open too for some passengers or other), there were some that came to heaven, whose hearts were full of corruption the day before, yea, this very morning before they died, even as well nigh thy heart is now : as how full of corruption was the heart of that thief, of whom yet Christ saith, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise

! Which souls, ere they came up to him, were made glorious souls, having no spot or wrinkle in them.

(2.) It appears from that scripture also, that this is Christ s dearest inte rest, and the most pleasing thing to him, to bring souls at last faultless and spotless into his own presence, though now they are full of corruptions. He longs for that day, as much as a bridegroom doth, or can do, for his enjoy ment of a spotless bride ; and the reason is, for he greatly delights in the beauty that is, or shall be, in the saints, Ps. xlv. 11 . And look what beauty in a spouse is to a husband, that is full of love and fancy, the same is per fect holiness to him ; and there is one word, yea, two inserted, which vehe mently argues as much, first, to himself, tnat speaks this to be the highest endearment to himself, that the church shall be made perfectly holy ; it shews that she was given him by God so to be made, and that for Christ s own pleasure and delight ; as a man s wife is for himself, so is the church and her perfect holiness, which is Christ s, for his own self; and the apostle alludes to that similitude, for he speaks before of his church being that to him, which a wife is to a husband, before and also after. Then that other word, to present to himself a church without spot, or wrinkle, this argues it to be his greatest interest ; also thy perfect holiness will be the richest present to him that can be presented, yea, and to shew it so much, him-

self will be the presenter of himself to thee,* so much doth he delight therein.

(3.) Knowing and foreseeing this, and delighting in the view of this, of what thou shalt be to him, he must needs certainly relieve himself in the mean time against thy present corruption, and yourselves would do it, if you did believe it as he doth. You commonly use to do it in matters which for a while go contrary, whereof you know not what will be the certain issue. All wise men bear up themselves against any present evil, as a false report or scandal, when they know a few days will clear them ; we do it as to our ser vants, when they are to go away, we say it is but for a while,, and are therefore content to bear many things in them. Thus also Christ in case of his ene mies, and his expecting them to be made his footstool, supports himself in that expectation, that he sees their day acoming, as the thirty-seventh psalm hath it ; and in the mean time laughs them to scorn upon that account, as the second psalm hath it ; and if he doth thus relieve himself towards his enemies, then how much more against the present corruptions of his spouse, whilst he sits expecting her coming to him blameless, to sit down as his queen by himself, having prepared a place for her ?

And then the smallness of time much conduces to lighten and alleviate the trouble of that forbearance in his heart ; nay, the forethought and foredelight of what will shortly be, swallows up his trouble for thy infirmities in * a thousand years be but as one day, what are a few years of thy life yet to come before this the mean time. He thinks many years as nothing ; if happy presentment of thee to himself? How long did God bear with those godly patriarchs after f the flood, who were for certain subject to the same passions, and prevailed often upon with the same lusts that thou art pre vailed upon with ? How did he bear with Methuselah, almost a thousand years ? Yet he held in with them, for he saw the day a-corning in which they should be taken up to himself, and be perfectly holy. Why shouldst not thou think that he can and will bear with thee for twenty, thirty, or forty years of thy life (if it be so long), and with this mixed condition of sin and grace conflicting ? Jacob accounted his seven years service but a few days, because he loved Rachel, Gen. xxix. Jesus Christ can pardon thee all along in the mean time, and ever and anon reduce thee, and now and then come, and not only strengthen thee against temptations, but visit thee, and comfort thee, as one that art a candidate of glory, and hast a right to it, and sittest with him in heavenly places in that respect, and art to be a compa nion with him in that glory for evermore.

(4.) This place therewith insinuates, that he hath an idea of what thou art to be continually before his eyes, which wonderfully takes up his heart, and pleases him. Thy walls are ever before him (as the prophet speaks), as one day they shall be built according to the pattern he hath in his heart.

Great men s wives use to wear their husband s picture on their breasts, in that form or freshness they were in, when they were married to them, from which in time they alter to the worse, and grow out of that shape to what at first they were, and were pictured in. But it is otherwise in this of Christ ; he married thee at thy worst, when thou wert altogether deformed, yet he had taken a picture of thee, as thou wert at first presented to him by the Father from everlasting ; but what thou shouldst be, and the beauty thereof, had such an impression on his heart, and sticked so with him, as he carries that in mind as the perfect idea of that holiness and ^glory thou art to be restored unto, and that by means of himself, which is his glory, as the author and recoverer of thee unto that beauty, which he bearing accord-

* Qu. of thee to himself? ED. f Qu. afore ? -ED.

326 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. ingly in his eye, as it is yet to come, or as it is yet to be his own work upon thee, so at last therein to present thee to himself; and he having these two pictures of thee, both of what his Father first presented thee to him, when thou wert given to him from everlasting, which made him first in love with thee ; and then having the hue of what according to that original himself is a-drawing on thee and means to perfect, this we see takes his heart, espe cially the latter, because it is to be his own workmanship ; as it lessens, if not altogether swallows up the present thoughts of thy deformity, especially when that is to continue for so small a time.

If, as some romances have feigned a lover, a king suppose, had a beautiful wife betrothed to him, whose picture, as the manner is, were sent over aforehand to him, before himself did see her ; but when she is shipped to come, or otherwise in her journey, she falls sick of some loathsome disease, as the small-pox, suppose, or leprosy, and yet suppose you imagine that he knew before she should come to him she should be restored to her first primitive beauty ; though he would be troubled for her present disaster, and distemper or disease, yet he would easily quiet himself for that little space of time in which her infirmity, though greatly disfiguring her, is to continue ; or, if we further suppose him present with her, to be her alone physician that cureth her, and restoreth her unto that first perfect beauty, which he knew certainly he could and should do, he would shew all love and peace towards her, though her disease were loathsome, in hope of her recovery ; and this is perfectly the case here between Christ and the church : ver. 25, Hus bands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church : he that loveth his uife, loveth himself; for no man yet hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth it, nd cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. If a man s own flesh be dis eased with the worst and foulest of diseases, though he hates the disease, yet he loves his own flesh, and seeks out for the cure of it, he nourishes it, and cherishes it ; now so doth Christ, much more upon that ground, that wo are his own flesh, that we are members of his body, ver. 30 ; of his flesh, and of his bone, much more than man and wife are, to whom this exhortation is directed, ver. 31-33. In this case, therefore, Jesus Christ is so far from hating us, who are his own flesh, that he applies all sorts of remedies, with a strong patience for the cure of our infirmities, and is moved to do it with the greater patience, because he knows we shall be restored to perfect health and soundness indeed, and himself shall be the healer, and then with an infinite love and joy, and glory to himself, he presents us to himself most glorious, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. To conclude, I may say of this argument, what the apostle doth : 1 John iii. 2, Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Doth he not speak this to quiet them under their unlikeness to God and Christ in this world ? And do not God and Christ satisfy themselves, and satisfy their hearts towards you in the midst of all your complaints of and about yourselves ? I may say of this, even as they, Beloved, now hath God called you into gloryV and though it doth not appear to us what we shall be, nor what we are in respect of our title to this glory, but we are full of contrary hateful iniquities, yet it appears to Christ what you are, and what you shall be ; and there is that time coming, wherein he shall present you glorious, without fault ; and in the mean time bear with him ; and if, aa John says to them, we know, then to be sure God and Christ knows this much more.

2. Called into eternal glory. Hereby is implied not simply that the glory is eternal, as an adjunct of

it, but that our calling and estatement thereby is into the eternity of that glory, as well as into the glory itself. We are called into eternal glory as such.

That imports two things, as other gospel scriptures explain it to us. 1. First, That he that is called hath a spiritual life begun in him, which is eternal, or if you will, a glory begun in his soul, which is eternal. For sn the image of Christ, wrought in us in this life, is styled glory: 2 Cor. iii. 18, But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And you find it everywhere, by Christ and his apostles, to be said, He that believes hath eternal life. I need name no more scrip tures but that one : John xi., * Whosoever believes in me shall never die ; that spiritual life begun, is one degree substantial of the life eternal, and being begun in us, shall never die, Rom. vi. As Christ s life is said to be eternal, which he hath now, being raised from the dead, so is ours : ver. 9, * Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Adam s grace was not a degree of glory, but according to the best account that hath been given of it by those that hold he should have been taken up into glory in the end ; as to that present grace, that he had before he fell, they reckon him but as one standing for his degree, that is not yet a graduate, or as a messonary* in order to his reward.

2. The second thing imported hereby is, that when a man is called, he is put into an eternal right of glory, not into a present right to glory only, but a perpetual right, at present, or a right that reaches to eternity ; and this the Scriptures strongly and plainly declare, whilst they express it to be our having a title to it as to any inheritance, and that upon calling, or whilst they make a conveyance, not a covenant only, but a testament by will upon the death of the testator, which shall nor never will be forfeited : if it be but a man s testament, no man disannulleth it, &c. Now upon cur calling, which is all one with our new birth, this glory is conveyed and settled upon us as an inheritance, and it being eternal, as an eternal inheritance. You know that the tenure of inheritances is for ever, as we say to you and your heirs for ever, and this establishment is at our new birth or calling: Tit. iii. 5-7, Not by works of righteousness which we have wrought, but according to his mercy hath he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life.

At, and by our new birth, we are made heirs according to his mercy which saved us.

There is this difference between an inheritance conveyed, and a reward for works done, which is bestowed as a reward, that an inheritance goes by birth, and not by works, and yet is for ever, because an inheritance. A king s eldest son is the heir the first instant he is born; at the first moment he hath right to that estate and kingdom, whereof he is the heir, and this for ever. Who are born again of God, it is said we have efyvaiav, a dignity by patent, to be the sons of God by adoption: John i. 12, As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, which were born not of blood, &c., but of God, ver. 13. If we were made sons by patent, then heirs at the same time : Rom. viii. 17, If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ ; and therefore we also find our being born again, and this inheritance eternal joined together, in 1 Pet i.

* Qu. mercenary ? ED.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

3 5, Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again to an inheritance incor ruptible, &c. It was not so with Adam and his grace, which he had by creation, not in his most perfect estate. Even those that hold, that if he had continued in grace, he should at last have gone to heaven, which I con fess I do not, yet they do set out his pretensions unto glory but in this manner ; that after some set time, by God s appointment, a thousand years suppose, as many of them say, he should have been taken up into glory, if he had continued in that holiness he was made in ; yet this withal they do professedly declare, that he should not have been during that time an heir of that glory, no, not till the last moment of that set time. But the state he should have been in, was but of an hireling, to whom the reward was due by debt for working, during which time he should have been an expectant for heaven, but upon his good behaviour, but not an heir until that time was out, and that he had been admitted into the full possession of it. But those that are called, they have a right instantly as heirs thereupon, which right dependeth not upon works foregoing, as that third of Titus shews us, but upon birth, and upon their being called ; only good wdrks are ordained as the way thereunto, as that we should walk in to come to that end. And during that whole time of their being in this world, they are as the son of the prince under age, as Gal. iv. 1, 2, who hath a right, though not the possession; and we are here as children under age, as the apostle in his similitude, while he speaks of heaven, shews : When I was a child, I spake as a child, and understood as a child ; when I came to be a man, I put away childish things, 1 Cor. xiii. 11. It is spoken in reference to our estate in this world from that in heaven, as the words before and after shew.

So then, put these three things together : first, that that glory we are called unto, is in itself eternal ; secondly, that that person that is called, hath a degree of that glory begun that shall never die or perish ; thirdly, that withal, he haih a right unto the eternity of it, and from that time of calling unto eternity; and so, as that that eternal right doth not begin, when first the full possession of it begins, but then when we are first estated into the right of it, as the manner of inheritances is ; and this put together will make the argument complete. Now if we would be satisfied in the bottom reason, how it should come to pass, that at, and upon calling, we should thus be estated into eternal glory, we shall not need to go far off to seek it, for it is in the text. It is plainly thus : That it is the God of all grace that calls us, which speaks it not only to be an act of grace, and not of works ; and grace is grace, and will be grace, and shew itself to be such. In all its gifts it gives like itself; and, therelore, when it gives, it gives the whole, and for ever, without repentance; and it knows in it what it doth when it does so, for it hath wherewith to main tain and make good its own act ; but besides that, it is an act of the God of all grace, he calls us as he is such to us. All grace, in so great a God, borne towards us, what will it not effect, maugre all and everything that should be supposed to hinder ? All grace extends to all times ; it hath no bounds of time set it, wherein it should be gracious, and no longer ; it were not at all grace if so. It imports, that when a man is called out of God s grace, God had such a love he bears to him he calls, as is made up of all love and grace, for intention and extension. And if so, then the endowment into all benefits of grace and privileges which he hath or had to bestow, must needs be then conferred. It imports, that he had a heart replenished with all eternal grace, and the intentions of it towards him ; he had a stock or riches of grace to maintain all he should bestow to eternity, and to keep thee together therewith ; the conjunction of these two, the God of all grace

hath called, can produce no other than a perfect and complete donation to be a full effect thereof, as of a perfect and complete cause ; this cause could bestow no less, and such an effect could not have followed but upon such a cause. We do and must suppose his heart then to have been, at the time of calling, fraught with, and to contain within itself, such and so great riches of grace, if it were all grace, as would be sufficient to hold out and to extend to eternity, and so as to maintain an eternal right and state of glory all the while.

Now, if it were at calling, can we imagine that his heart should not retain as much love and grace after thy calling, as to keep and preserve thee for that little space unto the possession of that glory ?

Nay, my brethren, God had not thus grace for every one of us for an eternity that should but then begin when our calling began ; but there was another eternity, d parte ante, before, out of which he did call us, an eter nity of a higher date than what was the present grace he bore thee at thy calling: Jer. xxxi. 3, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee, or therefore have I extended loving-kindness unto thee, as in the margin ; and therefore no wonder that he calls us for an eternity to come. And here let us stand aghast, to think that our calling is the centre of two eternities, and how there are two everlasting arms as mountains, Deut. xxxiii. 27, which meet to grasp us then, when God s grace by calling first takes hold on us. There was, nor never will be, such an instance in all eternity. We must needs suppose withal, that such a grace must have grace enough in it to continue to all eternity: as, suppose we a river had run underground with continued streams of water from eternity, which began to break forth, and to empty its streams into a new channel, though through but a small sluice at first, which when once it is broke forth, must needs, and will run to eternity in that new channel, for it hath water enough to do it to last unto another eternity to come, one stream following another stream, in omne volubilis ccsvum. Now calling is that sluice, the state of grace and of glory that new channel ; and if indeed anything could fall out so strong, as to mud up, as to endanger the cutting off that course of water, then indeed it might cease ; but it being a stream of grace from eternity, and that of all grace, continued all along, this must needs be so strong, and so full, as to carry all afore it that should resist it, or obstruct it ; yea, it will work out all that doth oppose it in its current, and swell over. It is a spring, as John iv.

14, that shall spring up unto eternal life; and such is grace in God s heart, and such the Spirit in calling hath given us.

I have said it with myself, and to others, and shall never recall it, that if we could suppose such a fulness of glory to come had not been God s ordina tion, but that his called ones were to have lived upon earth in a state of grace only, such as now we are in, mixed with sinnings, corruptions, and : that God had love enough in his heart to save us thereby in this mixed condition of sinning and re grace working, one against the other conflicting penting, and to hold us on so to eternity. How much more, then, when he hath provided a glory to possess us of, and a presenting us so glorious to himself, within so little a while, that he shall not have cause to put himself to that trouble of a patience for so long a time : how much more, I say, according to all that hath been argued taken together, in this may we sup port our hearts with confidence, that he will continue to hold in with us, and reduce us to himself again, out of sinnings, and give that glory at the last ?

I conclude with that in Ephes. ii. 5-7. Having spoken first of calling, who hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) ; and

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ; that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kind ness towards us, through Jesus Christ. By the ages to come there is meant eternity, which chap. iii. 21 shews, wiere he useth the same phrase, Glory to Christ throughout all ages, world without end : this place shews us this issue or conclusion, that God having given us a right to sit in heaven after calling and quickening, such and so true a right unto glory, as that we are said already to sit together with Christ in heaven, the result is this, that God having infinite riches of grace, out of which he called, he hath ordained an eternity of time, to spend them riches in upon us, and to make declaration of the exceeding great (and as the text tells us) all grace, which he hath in his heart for us ; and ages to come, and eternities, are not enough for him to do all this in, the grace is so rich and so abundant.

Now, then, from hence to argue and make an inference from the point in hand : will he not preserve us in this life, and carry us through temptation, having so much grace in his heart laid up for us ? Suppose a father that hath a great estate to leave his child, if his child lives (and truly those that have riches desire children to leave them unto, as well as Abraham did) and this his child is weakly and consumptive, and yet but so, as some bitter cost extraordinary, would preserve, restore, and recover him to perfect health in some short time, would not that father spend some of that estate which lies by him thus to recover him, that he might possess all ? I think he would. And dost thou think that this great God of all grace, and thus rich in grace, would pinch it for a little while, when he professes that he sets apart this inheritance from eternity to them that are called. Let me tell you, that as we say in nature, rather than there should be a vacuum, or emptiness in any parts here below, a piece of heaven would come down to supply it, and make it up. So may I say, in this case, which is but a supposition, though thou shouldst have less grace than what is necessary to keep thee (if you could suppose he should have stinted himself of bestowing but a measure of grace in this world, in an ordinary way, which yet he hath not), he would rather spend upon the stock of glory to supply thee with grace to keep thee, than that thou shouldst miss of all the whole substance of glory.

Uses. Do the Scriptures speak at this rate, that we are received into glory, when we are called into a perfect right unto glory ? Oh that we could live at any proportionable rate ; 1. In the comfort of it and actual expectations thereof. This the holy apostle and primitive Christians did, after the Holy Ghost came on them as a comforter, breathed and had their life in this air. Let us but go to the first verse of this very chapter wherein my text is ; you may there overhear our apostle Peter thus speaking of, or rather entitling, himself, I, who am partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. When persons of birth or quality write superscriptions of themselves, they use to add their special titles; and our apostle writes himself a partaker of the glory that is to come. And John doth the like, Rev. i. 9. And in my text, in the ninth verse, Peter calls all his brethren to the faith and comfort of that, which was as really true of them all as of himself, < The God of all grace hath called us into glory, both me and you alike : are ye called ? ye are all partakers of eternal glory, even as I. He hath it up again in chap. ii. ver. 1, 3. In the first verse he speaks this of all saints, that they have received like precious faith with us apostles ; and at the the third verse, that God hath called us to glory.

Oh how infinitely is this beyond the first thoughts of our aims, that we in our first conversion had ; our primitive aims, as I may so call them ; the aims

of us poor souls that live in this last age of the world ; as if we were, as Paul speaks of himself, * born out of due time, in comparison unto those first Christians. Alas ! what do we groan and sigh after all our days, and cannot so much as obtain the sense thereof, even after no higher matter in our addresses to God than we did in our first conversion ? Oh ! thinks the soul, if I could have but my sins forgiven once (which therefore John com forts babes with) ; 1 John i. 12, I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you; he speaks thus unto them, because this is the chiefest thing theyare usually intent upon ; but whilst we have these low thoughts and pursuits, and at our calling we have not usually much higher, lo, our God, the God of all grace, hath at the same time had in his thoughts an estating us into eternal glory, and will in time shew thee greater things than these, of forgiveness, and being made more Lholy, and the like ; he hath called thee into glory.

2. If at present we be called into the right of the glory of God, how should we walk, and be * holy in all manner of holy conversation and godliness, his kingdom of glory. It is not to walk worthy of the gospel only he is ex horting them unto, but which is higher, that they should walk worthy of God, who hath called us into his glory. They have under-translated the word, into the glory of God. When our Saviour Christ was entered into a state of glory upon his resurrection (although not ascended or possessed of it), you read with what a difference he conversed from what himself had done before ; and should not we, in some conformity, appear to [bej those whom our Peter speaks of in his first epistle, chap. i. ver. 14, 15, < As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in your ignorance : but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. And still let us think with ourselves when we sin, or are tempted thereunto, Should one called into glory do this, or this ?

3. Into his glory. For explanation : 1. Whose glory this is. God s, and God the Father s in distinction from Christ s, as is evident in that Jesus Christ follows. 2. His ylory, although we are the persons who are to be glorified by it, as those words, called us, &c. import. The particulars to be treated on from hence are : 1. That there is a glory of God the Father s, which we are called into, and what that is and will be to us.

2. The glory which will arise therefrom to us, will be a glory revealed in us, and so ours. Yet that it is his glory, rather than ours, and why it is so termed his, rather than our glory.

3. That the bestowing this glory upon the creature is a pure act of grace in him, and proceeds from him (as in respect of the donation of it) as he is a God of grace, and of all grace, and could proceed from no other motive or consideration else.

4. Our being called into such a glory of his by grace, is an assured en gagement on God s part, and a security to us, that God will carry us through to the possession of it, maugre all temptations. And this is a corollary from all the three foregoing, and the general scope of Peter.

1. That it is the glory of the Father, and eminently his glory, there is this abundant evidence for it, that even the glory Jesus Christ hath, though it also be in a most proper sense his own glory Luke xxiv. 26, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ? yet it is

332 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. his Father s glory. Thus Mat. xvi. 27, He shall come in his Father s glory ; whilst yet all the angels are said to be his angels as his proper right, and therefore his glory also ; yet even he comes in his Father s glory, which yet again, chap. xxv. 31, is said to be his own also, And when the son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. But so it is never spoken of us. The mean ing whereof is, that Christ s personal glory is such a glory, as it shall be manifest at first sight, that he is the only Son of God, the natural Son of so glorious a Father, arid that it is his Father s glory that shines in him, com municated to him, that he is the second person by eternal generation. Also as man, God the Father gave a glory to him, as in John xvii. 24, * Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me ; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world, Christ acknowledged ; who, as he gives him to have life in himself, John v. 26, For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and so hath he given him to have glory in himself and it is therefore that it is said to be his also, whilst it is but the Father s ; for after union it then becomes his own and natural to himself, being the natural Son of God. The full effect of all which you have in that speech of John, chap. i. 14, We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God; that is,, as of the Son of such a Father, who is orginally the God of glory, Acts vii. 2, the Father of glory, Eph. i. 17, his Father, who is the Lord of glory, James ii. 1, at which very time, when they beheld that his glory in his transfiguration, Peter says of it, 2 Epist, i. 16, We were eye-witnesses of his majesty ; for, ver. 17, * he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice from the excellent glory, &c. I added as a branch, this first particular, what this glory of the Father s as it is to be communicated to us, is, and how to be understood, as distinct from that of Christ s to us, and in us ; for the opening of which, let us run over these scriptures that follow, from one to the other. In 1 Thes. ii. 12, it is styled both the kingdom and glory of God, as in relation to us, Walk worthy of God, who hath called us into his kingdom and glory. From thence go we to Eph. v. 5, where you have the kingdom of Christ and of God mentioned apart and distinct : No idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. And to shew that the Father hath a glory and kingdom, as in relation unto us, and eminently and distinctly his, you find them both set out as such, even two distinct kingdoms or glories suc cessively one to the other, that all men might first acknowledge the Son, as eminently shining in his glory, and then the Father in his, and we, the called ones, partakers of each of them, in 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28, where, as for the glory that Christ shall come in at the day of judgment (of which you have heard that he then comes in his Father s glory), it is said of it, that after Christ shall have exercised, or appeared in that his kingdom and glory, that then he shall * deliver it up unto God, even the Father, that God may be all in all, both in Christ and his saints for ever shining in and to the saints in a far more excelling glory than that he had shined to them through the person of Christ or his dispensations ; I do not say than he doth in the person of Christ himself, but than to us, either afore the day of judgment, or in and by [him], during the day of judgment. And this is the ultimate glory and manifestation of God himself unto the saints, and therefore the highest, surpassing all the foregoing, as God s last works use to do ; and though the saints shall enjoy it by Christ (as the text here hath it) yet it is as to the dispensation itself, immediate from the Father, when God shall be

all in all, both in Christ and us ; and is by Peter, in his 2 Epist. i. 17, styled (as I take it) the excellent glory : For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, &c. For if you observe it, that glory out of which, and from which (he dwelling in it) the voice came, is attributed to the Father, for he it was that uttered, This my well beloved Son, &c. All glory im ports the goodness of a thing, as rising to an excellency, as the sun we say is glorious, but this is a glory excelling, that surpasseth all glory ; and yet while he uttered it of him, the man Jesus appeared as he shall do in his glory. But that which the Father will manifest himself in, is a glory far excelling that which appeared in Christ, then glorified below, to be discovered one day in the highest heavens to us, beyond what that of Christ s will be to us ; I do not say than is in and to Christ himself communicated, but than it is by him unto us.

And unto this kingdom of the Father it is, that Christ in his last words, when his kingdom is given up, at the shutting up of the day of judgment, invites us to the possession of: Mat. xxv. 34, Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; where, in the very place he mentions, he means to erect and exercise that last kingdom of his unto eternity, and wherein he will manifest and display that his glory ulti mately, in that he says of it, that it was prepared from the foundation of the world. That very place (which Isaiah styles the high and holy place, Isa. Ivii. 15, which he hath dwelt in since the creation) was the first work he did create, Gen. i. 1, and so at the very first foundation of the world ; so his bringing the saints into it, and therein possessing them of his imme diate glory, is the last or TO peya in execution, and therefore his heart was, and is from first to last, so intent upon this ultimate act and scene. But though the place be of his creating, and but a created glory, yet the glory he meaneth to display therein, is his own immediate glory, * God shall be all in all. And whereas it had been before communicated to us by other things, as in the man Jesus, &c. he will besides that of Christ s (whose glory shall still shine) now unveil his own glory immediately, which shall therefore be all in all, and instead of all : Rev. xxi. 23, And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. In comparison unto which glory of the Father s, that glory shining in the man Jesus, shall be but Xuco;, the lamp, as the word is ; but God the Father is the light of it : Rev. xxii.

5, And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. Yet Christ himself, the man Jesus, says of himself, when he proclaims his own coming, Rev. xxii. 16, I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. But the morning star, although the brightest, yet God the Father himself is the sun ; and so as the morning star is the prodromus, or fore-runner of the sun, thus is Christ s kingdom of God s, though he shall still shine with the Father in that personal glory, which he ever did. But the Father s glory is the glory that excelleth, even whilst Christ himself appeared in glory, as Peter styles it, 2 Epist. i. 17, For he received from God the Father honour and glory, &c, And in this kingdom of the Father s it is, that the bodies of the saints shall shine with such an extraordinary brightness, that had yet shined won derfully afore, during the day of judgment, and were spiritual bodies raised

334 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. in power and glory at their resurrection ; yet this glory of God shining through their souls, breaks forth from their bodies, and causeth them to shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father : Mat. xiii. 43, Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father, &c. ; then points to a special time. Observe, it is the kingdom of the Father that is spoken of, and that as it takes place after the judgment, as the verse afore shews, for it is after the saints see the wicked cast into hell, ver. 42. My purpose is not to set forth the greatness of ultimate glory, which the angels themselves know not, nor could their tongues utter; Christ only is * hid with Christ in as yet possessed of it, the Lord of glory, and it is God, nor can this glory otherwise be set out than by a comparative made with the glory that precedes it, afore and at the day of judgment. This I must forbear, for this is extravasal to the direct scope of the text.

II. I come, therefore, unto the second particular I proposed, which is more proper to the text, which hath two branches.

1. That it is his glory, not ours, though we are the persons glorified thereby.

2. Why, or in what farther respects, the glory to come is styled his glory, rather than expressed by our being glorified by it.

1. For the first, it is not barely to denote that God, the Father of all glory, is the original of that glory to us, or as the apostle says, that shall be revealed in us, but that indeed we are but received and admitted into it, and glorified by our being so called into his glory, as here ; and also in * received into the glory of God, Rom. xv. 7, we are but 1 Thes. ii. 12, as strangers admitted into the enjoyment and use of another s propriety. The like tenor of speech is used when they come to possess it, Mat. xxv.

Enter thou into thy Master s joy, not ours ; we did but enter upon his 32, ground and propriety, as I may so speak.

2. Secondly, Why, or in what respect it is his glory, not ours. We are wholly poor empty creatures, as vessels cast into his ocean of glory, which he fills with the riches of his own glory, as the apostle speaks, Rom. ix. 22, at the day of judgment, dum Christi regna manebunt, in the height of Christ s kingdom ; it is rather said that he is wonderfully glorified, than the saints in him : 2 Thes. i. 9, 10, Who shall be punished with ever lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his : when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired power in all them that believe, &c. It is rather Christ s glory in them, than theirs. So the new Jerusalem is said to have the glory of God, Rev. xxi. 11, rather than a glory of its own ; as the stars glory is that of the sun rather than that of stars, that have no such light in them. God s glory appears by this, viz. how glorious he can make creatures.

III. The third general head was, that the bestowing of this ultimate glory, wherein God is all in all, the donation of it is from God, as the God of grace, and not at all by works ; and when I say works, I mean not only to exclude the works of regenerate men since the fall, but even Adam s works in the state of holiness. And the reason is undeniable, because the ultimate glory we have been speaking of lieth in an immediate communication, par ticipation, and enjoyment of God himself, co-heirs with Christ, and heirs of God, he being the inheritance itself. And certainly God hath absolute power over the gift of his own self, where he will to bestow himself thus im mediately, when he gives his whole self up unto the creature. If he may (as himself saith) do what he will with his own, speaking of other things

and gifts, that are not himself, then surely it is his absolute sovereignty and grace to give and bestow himself.

IV. That our being called into this transcendent glory of his is a certain and not failing engagement on God s part, and security unto [us] of his car rying us through unto the possession of it. This I have still made the bur den of every particular, and so of this.

First of all, you see your calling, as the apostle saith : He hath called you into his eternal glory. That is, there is a right accrues by calling unto

the hope of our calling. Not this ultimate glory, which is therefore termed the hope that is in our hearts only, wherewith we hope, but the thing hoped for ; so often in the Scriptures. And the reason of this is, that if God lays at the stake all his own glory, to do the matter of ours, will he not carry you through ? Let that washy, vanishing glory promised Adam for his works be laid at the stake unto free-will, to play its prize for it, to win and run for it, and let that glory be so far undervalued as to be exposed to the uncertainty of free will in its own guiding itself with the mutable prin ciples in itself; but let not this glory, this ultimate glory that God hath to bestow, be pawned and engaged unto an uncertainty. If all in God immediately, and his glory, be the thing promised, then all in God shall be the pawn to bring us to it : Philip, iv. 19, According to his riches in glory, he shall supply all your needs. He pawns the whole riches of his own glory to do it. It is a round and a full argument of the apostle, If he have delivered his Son up unto death, how shall he not with him give us all things in like manner with him ? And if God makes God himself over by the covenant of grace to us, then take all with him. And he gives all that is necessary to the obtaining of it. It is a great inheritance, as well as a free, and, as Christ saith, a goodly inheritance, and surely it will main tain the suit. You know how, upon another occasion, God is called their God, speaking of Abraham, and interpreting the tenor of the covenant of grace, which in that place is spoken as to this sense. The sense of it is, that his being their God in that mariner, as under the covenant of grace he is, was so big a word, as he should have been ashamed if the glory he pro mised them had not been answerable. But I now allege it for this, that God would be ashamed to have it said that he is a God of all grace to any, and that he out of that grace should have called us into that glory, and yet to fail by the way in bringing us to it. This is not a making a glory over from God, but a making over of God himself, the glorious God ; and there fore all in God, if need should be, would bestir itself to make the gift of himself good, and as sure to thee as to himself.

A second consideration, it is a life hid in God with Christ, Col. iii. 3 ; hid, for the security of it, as treasures use to be. And it is not said to be hid in heaven, as a place ; that is no such security as to be hid in God himself. For the angels were in that place, and had an enjoyment of God by virtue of the covenant of works ; but our life is hid in God with Christ.

Thou thinkest Christ sure enough, in that he is hid in God ; your life is as sure as Christ s, with whom it is hid in God. A third consideration of security to us is, that it is that ultimate glory after the day of judgment, when God shall be all in all, which yet the saints are now called into, as to the full right of it ; yet so still as if they be called into the right of that state now, which takes place after the day of judgment is past and over, then certainly nothing can fall out between which shall hinder : for if anything in this world should fall out to hinder, it must be told, and so come in against thee at the day of judgment. But if thou be

336 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. called into the full right of that glory, which supposeth that judgment first past, and such is this glory here I before shewed, then nothing can be sup posed that shall prevent it ; for thou art as called and estated now into the full right of it, as then any one shall be into the full possession of it.

It is true a judgment must pass, and come upon thee ; yea, and a judg ment of all and every work, good or evil, as Solomon, Eccles. xii. 14, assures us ; yet that God of all grace that called thee into this ultimate and afterjudgment glory (for till then it doth not take place), he will order thy steps so as possession itself shall not be frustrated. Fear not, little flock, saith

Christ to them while they were in this life, for it is your Father s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, Luke xii. 32. The kingdom, by way of eminency ; that which is properly the Father s to give, his glory (as we have opened), when he shall be all in all. And it is not his pleasure only, but his good pleasure, which nothing shall be able to resist. And he gives you it now, and estates you into it, as if you had it ; and therefore fear not that you shall be ever dispossessed of it. That God that keeps it will keep you for it, as the apostle Peter saith. And as for the interim time between now and that day, we may expect that Jesus Christ, during his reign, and whilst his kingdom is in force, as till then it is, he will see to it to keep thee, and raise thee up at the latter day ; so as that, at the judgment ended, thou mavest assuredly expect that blessed voice and invitation from him amongst therest of saints, Mat. xxv. 34, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

CHAPTER VII.

The security that Jesus Christ gives us, as well as God the Father, to assure our faith that we shall be strengthened, and enabled to persevere. God is a God of all grace to us by Jesus Christ ; all his acts of grace towards us are in and through him. He elected us at first, and then loved us only as con sidered in him. He loved and chose him for himself, and us for his sake. God having thus laid Christ as the mediator, or rather as the foundation of his grace, it is a sure ground of its continuance to us. All his purposes of grace were made in him. All his promises of grace are established and per formed in and through him.

By Jesus Christ. -1 PET. V. 10.

There are two persons engaged for preservation of us unto glory, God the Father, and Jesus Christ, which was the general division I gave at the entrance. I have despatched those securities, which the interest that God the Father hath in us doth afford our faith. I come now to Jesus Christ, and the interest that he hath herein, which, added to the former, will afford us complete consolation.

And truly let me say this of him, as the preface to what follows, that if he be good for any thing (as he is for all things), he is certainly good at this, to make our salvation sure and stedfast against all opposition, it being founded on him, and committed to him. He is a sure Christ a rock of : Isa. xxviii. 16, Behold, I lay in Sion, saith the Lord ages to build upon God, for a foundation a stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation : he that believeth on him shall not make haste ; that is, not to be con founded, as 1 Pet. ii. 6 expounds it to be. By Christ Jesus. The aspect and extent of these words to the rest in

the text is the only thing as for explanation afore me, which I shall despatch briefly.

Some interpreters would shut up the extent of it unto the influence Christ hath into eternal glory, because that was the thing had been immediately afore spoken of. Others do permit them to stretch themselves farther, unto the words foregoing, who hath called us by Jesus Christ ; and so to take in the influence Christ hath in calling us.

Sun of righteousness spread themselves so But let the wings of this far through the horizon of this text, as possibly from warrant from other scriptures they may be found efficacious to extend, even from the first

The God of all grace, as also unto the latter words, the utmost ends of the text. words, * by Jesus Christ together, and understand it as interpreted, that clause at the first, as of God s pur poses and dispensations of grace to us-ward ; and so it will be no derogation to God the Father to say, and say aloud, that he is a God of grace, yea, of

1. Put (say I) the God of all grace and all grace, towards us, in and by Christ Jesus. God his Father, the God of grace, and Jesus Christ, do run one joint stock and interest in all and every act of grace.

2. Put together who hath called us by Jesus Christ, understanding calling to be that which Christ hath an hand and influence in, as well as his Father. Thus Rom. i. 6, The called of Jesus Christ.

3. Then further say that the God of grace, by calling us, doth estate us into the full right to glory ; but withal add, that he doth it by Jesus Christ. The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. vi. 23.

* the same God

Then, 4, carry them unto the words that follow after, * by Jesus Christ, too, and Christ to be, as the author and founder of our faith will stablish, strengthen, settle you ; and therein take along with you in calling, so the finisher of our faith unto the end thereof, even the salva tion of our souls ; or if you desire rather to have it confirmed to you, in the very word of the text, stablish you, take it from 2 Cor. i. 21, Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God. So then, God, in and by Christ (as here), strengthens, stablisheth.

And therefore it is that by Jesus Christ is placed in the midst, as the sun, to extend its influence unto all ; and read but the words thus, The God of of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory. And so make a colon or stop, or part the sentence there, and by Jesus Christ will, without any rub to the reader s thoughts, take in and spread itself over all these. The God of grace ; the God of all grace ; &c. You know the way and course I have run in handling each of the former words have been,

1. To handle the doctrinal part that each word in their coherence affordeth.

2. To shew how each of those doctrinals do make good this main infer ence, viz., a security to us that we shall be carried on to the end, &c. I mast, in like manner, follow the same method in handling these words, which convene about Christ s interest, and shall make that main inference that God will stablish us, and I shall intermix it with the handling of those first three heads mentioned, at the end and application of each and every of those doctrinals that follow, for it is as the burden of everything in this discourse.

Now, as touching my making out this high engagement of Jesus Christ s in this matter, there are four doctrinal propositions that come round about and cleave to this clause, as broken pieces of steel would do to a loadstone.

VOL. IX. Y

338 OP ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

1. That God is a God of grace, yea, of all grace, by Jesus Christ.

2. I shall consider Christ s person, office, and relation to us, in this dis tinction which is here set out, 1, as Christ; 2, as Jesus. By Christ

Jesus, saith the text. And the distinct influence that each of these have into our salvation, will contribute something apart unto this security or stedfastness of our faith herein.

3. The engagement and interest of Christ to carry us through, as it ariseth from this, that he hath called us, and that God hath called us by Jesus Christ.

4. The interest that Christ hath in that glory into which the Father hath called us by him ; who hath called ns into eternal glory by Jesus Christ. In which glory of ours, and our being brought into it, Christ having an hand as well as the Father ; from thence doth a great interest and concernment of his lie, to see to the preservation, and strengthening, and perfecting of us to the end, as well as the Father.

There are a multitude of other considerations might be drawn from Christ, to infer this main conclusion ; but these are natural and proper to the text, and I confine myself to them, and them alone.

1. That God is a God of grace, yea, of all grace, to us, by Jesus Christ. God forbid I should say, or you understand, as if God were not a God of all grace, as in himself, in his nature, or essentially, or that he were so only by Jesus Christ. The man Jesus adds nothing unto him at all. righteousness extendeth not unto thee, says Christ unto his Father, Ps. xvi. 2. But this it is I affirm, that it is by Jesus Christ he is such a God to us. When I handled that part, The God of all grace, I gave this dis tinction how he was the God of all grace,

1. Essentially in his nature.

2. In respect of his purposes of grace. And 3. In his dispensations unto us. Now this is that I here affirm, that all his purposes of grace, and all his dispensations of grace, they are all in and by Jesus Christ. He would not have been a God of grace, much less of all grace to us, but for and through Jesus Christ. And for a general proof of this, look, as he is here said to be the God of all grace, by Jesus Christ, so elsewhere, that all the bless ings which, Rom. v. 15-17, are styled the gifts by grace, or which grace bestows, these are all said to be in and by Jesus Christ. Nay, there is no act of God s, either immanent in his own heart or breast, or purposes to wards us, or transient, and emanant of himself, conferred upon us, but he hath founded it and seated it in Jesus Christ. Eph. i. 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ. So in general he enume rates the particulars, even from that of choosing us in him, which was an immanent act in him, ver. 4, unto our obtaining an inheritance in him, ver.

11. And whilst he says all blessings in general, and then gives a bill of the chiefest and greatest particulars of those blessings, and that they are all the blessings of grace, as ver. 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace/ and so on in the rest of the verses. Look how far the grace of God ex tends, so far doth the influence by Christ extend ; Christ is left out in none. We owe all to God, and we owe all to Christ. As God is in his grace all in all, so Christ is all in all, Col. iii. 11.

I use to say, free grace, Christ, and faith in us, are adequate ; that is, 1, there is no blessing that free grace hath to bestow, but it hath given and bequeathed it to the elect sons of men. 2. There was nothing free gra.ce had designed and given, but Christ comes as the medium, the instrument of

it, and is God s perfect servant to accomplish it. 3. There is nothing wherein God s free grace towards us hath manifested itself, or wherein Christ hath any way appeared, but that principle of faith in us is fitted to apprehend it, and to take it in, in such a manner as to give both free grace and Christ the right and proper glory, according unto the way of God s grace and intention therein, which no grace in us else was fitted to do ; like as no sense but the eye is fitted to take in all the visible world at once.

I divided this first head into two propositions. 1. That the very grace and love he shews us, was placed upon our per sons as we were considered in Christ ; God did never love us out of him, yea, and all his love is through him. I grant that Christ, considered as Mediator or God-man, was not the motive that swayed God, why he chose these and these persons, and not others. In that respect it is that Christ says, Thine they were. Yet I say that God no sooner thought of choosing and loving any so, but that the love in solido he resolved to convey upon them was in Christ. He had Christ, not only as Mediator, in his eye, in whom he chose us then ; or, that Christ, as Mediator, was considered at and with the election, and as in whom we were chosen, so as we were not considered out of him when chosen, which is express: Eph. i. 4-6, Ac cording as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love : having pre destinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, ac cording to the good pleasure of his will ; to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. We were not only elected cum Christo, together with Christ, but in Christo, in Christ when elected. And not only the benefits which we by election were pre destinated unto, but election itself, as a distinct benefit, is made one of the first of blessings which in Christ, ver. 3, we are blessed withal : He hath blessed us with all blessings in Christ, according as he hath chosen us, ver. 4. But I would say farther, that the love, or grace, which in electing was the fountain of all those benefits, was in and with the love he loved Christ withal, he being the beloved, in whom God graciously accepts or loves us, ver. 6. Which I farther make out thus.

Christ being his natural Son, he loves him indeed immediately for him self, and chose him simply for himself; who is therefore styled by God the * mine elect, and also in whom my soul delighteth (Isa. xlii. 1), that is, delighteth in him for himself; for Father, in a way of singularity, both though the man Jesus, by personal union, became his natural Son, and so beloved for himself, yet that this man should have this dignity was from God s having elected him, and thereunto that speech in Isaiah is inter

This is my beloved preted by God himself from heaven : Mat. iii. 17, Son, in whom I am well pleased. Which two, both of his elected and beloved, Christ hath a respect unto in citing that place of Isaiah, Mat. xii. 18, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. And then God himself again, Mat. xvii. 5, in re peating his former words, adds, Hear him, which was as if he had said, With him my soul is pleased, as my Son in himself, but in you only through him ; and that he was only elected for himself, for God to delight in, and who became the immediate receptacle of all the love of God, and we but elected in him because beloved in him ; and so he was both caput electionis, the head of election, and caput dilectionis, the head of being beloved. And it is certain, that he that is the one, is and must be the other ; he that is head or first receptacle of all God s love for himself, must needs be the head of electing, or of the estating the whole of God s love upon others.

340 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

And truly, if we farther consider the infinite distance that is between God and mere single creatures, that are but nothing, they were not meet and fit matches (in themselves) or objects for his so immediate love, as with and by election is bestowed on them, and is as the original of all the benefits and purposes of God therein. Nor, perhaps, could the creature have borne the weight of such an one singly themselves alone, no, not the angels, im mediately, as they cannot bear his wrath ; and therefore it was transmitted through his first beloved, who was able. Hence, therefore, God met those that were to be mere creatures half the way, and descended and came down into the man Jesus, who by personal union was made more than a creature, and then God could pour out his love, in the fulness of it, on us. But the chief of the reason lies in this, that God, of whom were all things else, and in his counsels were ordered in a due number, and weight, and measure by him, he did observe in this of electing a dueness or comely proportion, and it became him thus to love mere creatures in another, whom he should have cause to love for himself, and who, when chosen, was worthy of it ; yea, and chosen for his own delight first, and by him to estate them into that his transcendent love, and to give them a right unto it as to glory. This was a most wise and orderly ordination, I might shew out of John xvii. 23, I in them, and thou in me ; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Whereas other creatures he loves, but because they are his creatures, and that he made them, and artifex amat opus ; this to shew the peculiarity and transcendency of it, it is a love borne us in Christ, and a loving us as he loved him, yet for his sake. And this for the first, that he is a God of grace to us in Christ.

2. Now, secondly, as to the main conclusion, that therefore we shall be invincibly carried on to glory, you find the fixedness of God s love put upon this very thing: Rom. viii. 39, Who shall separate us from the love of God ? He stops not here, but adds, which is in Jesus Christ. And it is there added as the ground of its unchangeableness, over and above God s love in predestinating of us, of the which he had before abundantly dis coursed in that chapter, ver. 29, 30, and 33 : * 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 jus tified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. The love he bears to Christ is such, and so unto us as beloved in him, it is so strong and pre valent. And it is as if he had said, Although God s love would have been of itself unchangeable, and most constant unto those it should fix upon, yet God thought meet to take in Christ his Son, and to put him as a medium, or midst, or, if you will use Isaiah s word (for we cannot have a fitter), laid him as & foundation first, and a sure foundation between his grace and us ; as for other ends, so on purpose for this, that his grace, in all the emana tion of it, might have a just and consistent ground and foundation for the continuance thereof to us, that as there might be a sureness of his good pleasure in his own heart, so of dueness and equitableness in it upon which that unchangeableness should be grounded, in our being loved, not in our selves (which was creation love by works), but in his Beloved, wholly out of us, as even that love of his had no respect at all to what was in us, but it was purely in his own heart, and now founded on our relation to his Son.

II. As he is a God of grace to us in Christ, so he is a God of all grace to us in Christ.

For, 1, take all the purposes of God s heart towards us, which were the first bubblings up of grace and of love in his will, as from the spring, and which were the matrix, the womb, the mother, in which calling and per severance and all lay. Now although, in the first of the Ephesians, he is said to have purposed all in himself, ver. 9 and 11, ex mero motu, yet chap, iii. 11 withal telleth us that his eternal purposes towards his church and * purposed in Jesus Christ ; nay, the original hath it, $v soffsv, which he calling the Gentiles, whereof he had spoken, ver. 8-10, were * made, con trived, or framed in Jesus Christ ; even as well as we are said to be his workmanship in Christ. They had a foundation, as in God s heart, so in his Christ s, and they are the whole of his everlasting purposes he speaks of, wgo Qeffiv rtiv aiuvuv, the purposes of eternity, the purpose or purposes of ages, as from everlasting and to everlasting they have their firmitude, their sub sistence from him.

And that God made all his purposes in Christ, hence it is that firmness and sureness accrued to them. Christ strengthened God s heart in them, and his hand (he being God s arm, Isa. liii. 1) to perform them ; and surely, if he served to fix God s heart in them, then the faith and consideration of his engagement in them may well serve to secure, fix, and stablish OUTS. And particularly, perseverance was one great design of God amongst the rest, as hath been shewn.

2. Take all the promises, which are the adequate, indefinite expressions of God s purposes, and the channels or cisterns all his purposes run out into, and as God is (as he is styled here) a God of all grace, so the promises, what are they but the contents of all and every of that grace, whereof those of keeping us and preserving us are an eminent part ? and these also have a firmitude, a sureness given them in and by Christ. And although God s bare promise, and his oath added thereto, are said to be two immutable things, Heb. vi. 18, which do shew

the immutability of his counsel to the heirs of the promise, that they might have strong consolation, and have an * anchor of hope sure and stedfast (that is, of stedfastness against all temp tations, storms, and tempests that threaten casting us away, as the allusion of casting anchor doth withal import) ; I say although his promise and oath were alone sufficient, and indeed either of them, as the apostle there implies, yet his Christ comes in also as a third, to add a farther immutability to them, yea, to each of them.

(1.) To make all the promises sure : 2 Cor. i. 20, All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen. He is God s yea, and he is God s amen. When God made all, or any of his promises, Christ stood by, and said amen to them first, or they had never been promulged to us ; and that to affirm this is no derogation unto God, that which follows, as if to prevent any such an imagination, is added, unto the glory of God. For it is God s glory that he should have a Son, so great a Son, as in the very words afore, * the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is always the same, and whose years fail not, Heb. i. 12. In him was ver. 19, he had on purpose styled him, and is God s yea founded. You may build on him. For an instance of all other promises, the yea and amen particularly gives this for all the rest, even in the very word this my text useth : ver. 21, Now he which stablisheth us in Christ is God. God stablisheth, but in his Christ. And the God that hath called you by Christ, shall stablish you by Christ, saith the text here.

(2.) Then, secondly, Christ comes in to make his oath sure (which was the second) ; but that will pass into a third particular, wherein God is a God of all grace.

842 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV (8.) In his performances, to assure us of which his oath was added to his promise, and Christ comes in to both, as undertaking the performance of all. Though his oath made all sure, yet even the performance of that oath de pended upon our Christ to make good. Now look ioto Zacharias s song, Luke i., which was made upon occasion of Christ s being born a Saviour ; * who hath raised up an horn of salvation for us ; that is, Christ a strong Saviour ; and to what end it is that Christ comes in, verse 73 tells us, To perform the oath which he sware to our * Blessed be God, says he, father Abraham, that he would grant unto us. And it is Christ, you see, that must perform all, and the sending of him was the great matter of God s oath. And last of all, the very point we alleged all for, and in the conclusion of all, is made the thing which God sware and Christ came to * That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him with [out] fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. I might here insert a perform critical observation upon that very oath that God swore to Abraham, which we heard even now, the apostle also speaking of it : Heb. vi. 17, sfj,tffirsuffev

02/iw, He mediated by an oath, saith Paul there, so shewing that God in Ills very taking the oath had an eye to the Mediator, as in the intuition and contemplation of whom God took it and swore it, he it was that was to make it good. And to this sense the Greek Scholiast hath also interpreted it ; and it is to be greatly heeded those words in Gen. xxii. 16, By myself have I sworn, should have been rendered by the Chaldee paraphrast, By my word do I swear ; that is, by my Christ, who is the Word, as John after declared him. The oath of a king runs in the word of a king ; God s oath runs higher, not barely in a verbal word, but in his Word, that is, Christ, his substantial Word, who is also God himself; for my name is in him, says God to Moses ; and by my Name have I sworn, so the Syriac translation. The effect of all which comes to this, that in the virtue and strength of this my Son and my Christ, as a Mediator, and in whom is my name, it is that I do make this oath, and he shall see to perform it. Thus much for the first general head, that he is a God of grace, and of all grace to us by Christ Jesus; and the inferences from thence to strengthen our faith in the main conclusion.

CHAPTEK VIII.

What security the consideration of Christ s person, his relation to us, and office for us, affords to our faith that we shall he strengthened to persevere unto the end. As he is Christ our head, u~e are elected in him to all those benefits of grace which were above the dues of creation. As those benefits had no dependence on the fall, Christ considered as our head icas a sufficient ground for God s bestowing them upon us in election ; viewed as we stood in that relation to him, as he is our head, God loves vis in him, and with the same love he does him, and therefore he will love us unchangeably, and never cease so to do. As Christ is Jesus, a Saviour, our first calling into grace, and our continuation and ^perseverance in it, is the purchase of his blood. Sup plies of grace and strength for him to give us ability to strengthen us against temptations and deliverance out of them, is the price of his sufferings.

II. The second head proposed was the consideration of Christ s person, relation to us, and office for us, by Jesus Christ, and see what they will afford for consolation and security herein.

CHAP. VIII.] OF ELECTION

1. Consider his person and relation to us as he is Christ. In his person, you know, he is the Son of God in our nature, God s Christ ; and as con sidered such, constituted and made an head and husband unto us who are his fellows, chosen to be one with him, as God s Christ or anointed over us, and to us, as an head, Ps. xlv.

2. Consider him as Jesus, and as he undertook to be a Saviour and a Eedeemer to us, and who hath by his merits purchased all for us.

I know that both these two titles of his are often mentioned, but with an intent only to design forth who it is that is spoken of when mentioned, namely, that individual person, Jesus Christ. But his mention here being with a by Jesus Christ, as a note of influence and accusation* unto the things here spoken of, give me leave, therefore, to inquire what each of these, and particularly what the consideration of Christ, so far as it may be from Scripture warrant, conceived distinct from Jesus, will afford to secure us the elect of God, of our perseverance, or being carried through tempta tion ; both,

1. By his influence thereinto, and engagement thereupon, as he is Christ.

And 2dly, As he is Jesus. By Christ, and by Jesus each.

I undertook that every word in the text would contribute something to our main point, and truly these two will contribute a great deal, and indeed more than I am able to grasp or mean to fetch in. I shall but give you a small taste of these, and that will perhaps afford some light, comfort, and strength unto faith in this grand point.

You will first ask me, what my meaning should be to put this difference between his being, 1, Christ to us; and 2, Jesus, a Saviour, as you know it: he shall save his people from their sins. I shall open my heart signifies in this particular, as God shall vouchsafe to enable me.

(1.) I find this distinct consideration of him as head or husband, and : Eph. v. 23, Even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Saviour of the body. And by head is meant his relation of husband unto his church, as to his body, as the words then of Saviour, made by the apostle afore shew, For the husband is the head of the wife ; and it is exemplified and prosecuted by the instance of Adam and his wife, considered afore the fall in their marriage, as then typifying out Christ and his church, ver. 31, 32.

And he is first said to be the head, and then the Saviour; and Saviour as an additional unto that relation of head, as those words carry it, And_he the Saviour, &c. As if he should have said, Farther, or moreover, he is the Saviour of his body, besides that of his being an head. Adam, his type, was not the saviour of his wife, though her head. And according unto this double relation there, I do take the boldness here, and warrant to make this distinction and apartment. 1. By Christ, as he is head to this body, which is in a reciprocal relation to him, again called his body, and both together, Christ. 2. By Jesus, as Saviour, which title is proper to him alone.

1 Cor. xii. 12, both he and his body, if you observe, are called one Christ : For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of ^ But to be that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. styled Saviour is proper to him alone, and therefore his relation to us as Christ, is distinct from that of Saviour. There is a controversy among those that are orthodox in point of election, under and in what view in eternity the elect came up before God, whether in their fallen or unfallen estate, when they were the subject of his election.

* Qu. accausation ? ED.

344 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Those that are called Superlapsarians, they say, Man came up into God s mind first, without the consideration of the fall ; and that the creation, and then the permission of the fall, were but as means to bring about the designs of election, which were ordained before the fall. Others, whom you call

Sublapsarians, account the creation and the fall but a matter of common providence, not intended as means to accomplish election, but only as ante cedents ; and that God began his election, having first foreseen man would fall. These are two extreme opinions ; but there is a third, and that is, that both man unfallen and fallen, and all things that did or could fall out concerning man, being in one entire view before God at once, whose infinite understanding grasps and comprehends all in one prospect, as he doth all time into an instant, being all present to God (though of the things them selves one succeed the other in execution), that God had respect to both estates in his election, and that some sort of his decrees respected man as unfallen, and some as fallen. Now it is certain that some respect man as fallen ; for to appoint man to faith in Christ his Redeemer, to appoint man to repentance, such decrees must be upon the consideration of man as fallen.

Give me leave to be of the latter s opinion, and I explain myself thus in it : that there is an election to the end, which is to the utmost glory which I have spoken of, and there is an election to the means, as Christ s redemp tion on his part, faith and repentance on ours, which are in the way to that glory. This notion I have elsewhere enlarged upon, but as to my present purpose, as God s election had these two respects, so suitably Christ bears a twofold relation to us through God s ordination, the one of being Christ and an head to us, which suits his decrees of election as to the end, and which considered man as unfallen ; the other of Jesus a Saviour, which wholly respects man fallen into sin, and to be restored out of it.

I shall take my first rise from this distinction given you, from what is in the text, that God is a God of all grace to us men, in and by Christ, taking the word grace in the utmost latitude of it ; and so that all kind of grace is in and by Christ, as hath been handled. This is a sure maxim, that there is no sort nor kind of grace that is in the heart of God to any of his crea tures, that he did not bear to the elect sons of men. The reason is, because heis a God of all grace to us : now consider this, that grace doth not (take it in the latitude of it) only respect creatures as fallen, but had respect to creatures as unfallen, for grace was extended to the elect angels. And an evidence of it is, that if grace in God towards us after the fall, were only said to be grace in respect of what man is, or can do after the fall, then grace in God were only such a grace as must have the - advantage of man s sin, and became grace only in a respect to man s unworthiness, by reason of sin first laid, as the foundation for it, and that this consideration must come in to make it grace, that what he gave was therefore grace, because man had deserved the contrary ; but that were to lower grace, as it is in God, and to make it to need, and to be beholding to man s sin to make it esteemed grace. That which is, and we call, grace in a king, a mortal, scorns to be so lowered. He is not said to be gracious only to traitors, and those that have incurred the penalties of the law : no ; but he hath favours to bestow on his best subjects over and above their deserts ; and he is said to be gracious in that respect also. So then, grace in God is not only to be esteemed as grace in respect towards his elect, considered as fallen, but it is super-creation grace that is above what is due to the creature by the law of creation. Supercreation grace also, as of a God so great as he, hathpower in his hands to bestow gifts of grace on man considerjd as not fallen;

and this appears evidently in the example of the angels. They were kept by election, and therefore are styled the elect angels in Timothy, and that they never sinned ; what kept them ? A grace above their creation-grace ; for election is an order of decrees above creation. Election prevented their sinning, and that was an infinite grace bestowed above the due of their works, or of their creation ; and it was a grace that flowed from, and accompanied election, and all election hath a grace above the law of creation for the foun dation of it : Kom. xi. 5, 7, it is styled

the election of grace ; and again there it is opposed to works, according to which creation only proceeds, for it is a covenant of works. Whatsoever is of grace, goes by election ; and whatsoever goes by election is by grace, and therefore is not to be narrowed unto grace shewn after the creature hath sinned, but may as well be bestowed and terminated on the creature afore. And although this grace broke no way forth upon man afore the fall, but was a reserve left to be discovered afterwards ; for grace had a second design, an ampliation of itself unto man as sinful, and so God forbore to discover that first design until the other was accomplished. Now if God be a God of grace to man elect, then we must not think that man, God s darling, did partake only of that grace which was discovered upon his having sinned, but had a share and allotment in supercreation grace also ; and that man, considered as unfallen, as well as the angels, and being God s darling, God s Benjamin, in point of grace, had a double mess of grace designed him, had the lower springs and upper springs too, superlapsarian and sublapsarian grace ; for all God s springs are on and towards him ; all that the angels had designed them was intended to man afore sinning, except only that of being kept from falling ; and all that grace that after sinning was requisite to restore him, to the end that God might be a God of all grace every way unto man, as hath been explained, and that he might come behind hand in no sort of grace (as the apostle says of us) that was in his heart.

Now you will ask me what benefits of grace are there (for we measure grace by what good God had to design) to man considered as uufallen, and whereby to magnify that sort of grace to him as well as to angels, that were not due by creation or works, nor never should have gone that way ?

I answer, in general, all benefits that answer the design of election.

(1.) Immutable holiness, which is above creation-dues, was, as you know, bestowed on the angels by election.

(2.) Adoption of sons, which was above creation-dues ; for it consists in a relation unto Christ. Adam was but a son by creation, as having God s image ; but adoption is an higher thing, and depends upon a relation to the natural Son.

(3.) That glory, as I shewed, or immediate communion with God himself.

(4.) A gracious acception, and loving them simply, their persons, without a respect to works, this also was above the due of creation : for if thou do well, shalt not thou be accepted ? was the language of creation-due, and of the covenant of works ; but to have my person itself loved, and irrespectively to works, simply and absolutely, this was super-creation grace.

Now, of all those kinds of benefits, man considered as unfallen was capable of; yea, and grace will be more illustrated and magnified to have had them designed to man considered as not fallen, more than that simply after the fall, as you may discern and might be shewed.

And that the bestowing of those depended not at all upon the considera tion of the fall is evident, the thing itself speaks it ; and as Bishop Davenant and others have acknowledged, sin was impertinent to the bestowing of those, they no way depended upon it. God could love with an absolute

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. love, and graciously accept our persons out of that love, without the suppo sition of sin.

Lo, all these four benefits we find to have been designed unto man by election of grace, and that as distinct from and antecedaneous to those that necessarily suppose the fall : Eph. i. 4-6, According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love : Having predestinated us into the adop tion of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

(1.) Here is immutable, unchangeable holiness : he hath chosen us that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. What doth he mean ? the holiness we have in this world imperfect ? No ; it is that holiness that is faultless, and a holiness that is faultless before God ; and afterwards it is he speaks of that imperfect holiness in ver. 8, which in calling is given us again.

(2.) He tells us of adoption: He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children ; a sonship beyond creation, and such as did not depend upon our having sinned. God could make and therefore decree us thus sons without our sinning ; he could design for us an adoption in our relation to Christ, which gives us right to utmost glory.

(3.) A third benefit that he hath predestinated us to himself, yea, and to Christ, for the words bear both respects ; the meaning is, to immediate communion with himself and Christ. He hath predestinated us to enjoying himself, even God, his being all in all : this depends not on the fall. God could have taken creatures immediately unto himself, and communicated himself, as he will do, after the day of judgment to them.

Again, (4.) Wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. This is Ftill a super-creation grace, not supposing man fallen, and another thing than to be accepted by creation holiness, which was to be accepted by works.

And, secondly, all these are distinct from those benefits which come upon the consideration of the fall. In verse 7 he begins, as in a new edition, * In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, accord ing to the riches of his grace. Then he comes to calling, ver. 8, 9, Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence: having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself; which are bestowed on us also, as by the decree and the means, afore the fall, in bringing us to glory ; and for the bestowing of these the good pleasure of his will, which he had purposed in himself, again comes in, as a farther decree to bestow them; and then * to the praise of the glory of his grace, is brought in at the close of his enumeration of the first sort of benefits that depend not on the fall, for grace is seen in them as well as in those other of redemption, unto which also apart the riches of his grace are ascribed, as the fountain of them.

Our election, &c., unto both sorts are in Christ, so expressly of the first superlapsarian benefits : ver. 4, We are chosen in Christ, &c. And indeed if of grace, then in Christ ; Christ is as large and extensive in his instrumen tality as grace is in ordaining. Now, then, here I clap in this, that Christ, as head, is considered as the foundation of those first sort of benefits bestowed upon man considered as unfallen ; and Christ, as Jesus, or Redeemer, is the author of the benefits of redemption.

I shall only end in this, that as all those first benefits do not depend upon man s having sinned first, so that this foundation of Christ, considered as an

head to us, might be, and was a sufficient ground to bestow them upon us in election, upon our relation to him, as given of God, as he is Christ, and as he is an head and husband to us.

For, first, to make us holy and immutable before God in love, our relation to Christ, as an head, was a sufficient, though not the whole, ground for it, as I have elsewhere shewn. If Christ takes the pure creature to relation to himself, he being the holy of holies, anointed of God, we shall be made un changeably holy in and through Christ ; for by that relation we are called his, 1 Cor. xv. 23. It was Christ fixed the angels, and made them un changeable.

Secondly, Our being adopted sons to God will in a dueness follow upon our being given to Christ as head ; for as he is the natural Son of God, therefore by virtue of our relation to him simply as such, we may well become adopted children by marriage with him, as a spouse becomes the daughter of the father to whose son she is married, there needed not the fall nor his redemption.

Likewise, thirdly, to see God face to face, which by the right of adoption we have, it is but being made members of Christ, of him as of an head, to be brought to that utmost glory, to have it designed for us ; it did not depend upon Christ s being a redeemer only, because it was natural to Jesus Christ to see God face to face ; and we having relation to him, come to the same interest.

So that in the fourth place, that we are graciously accepted in the be loved ; this depended not upon the supposal of the fall, nor upon Christ considered as Jesus only, but the very relation of our persons to him as an husband : Thine they were, and thou gavesfc them me, will do all this. These things to clear my meaning being premised, I come to that which is proper to the point in hand, which is, What doth this our relation to Christ, as Christ and an head, and God s love to us in Christ as such, contribute unto our security, that we shall in vincibly be carried on to glory, maugre all oppositions ?

For answer, I lay this for an unquestionable maxim, that that in Christ which fixeth God s heart most firmly unto us, that that must needs be the strongest and firmest motive to God to carry us on unto salvation ; for in the text he professeth himself engaged to do it, as he is a God of all grace or of love to us, through Christ. That thing, therefore, which in Christ fixeth him most firmly, must needs be supposed to move him most to per form this. Now, consider when in that Eph. i. 6 he is said to have graciously accepted us in this his beloved ; whether of the two, his being a Redeemer unto us, Jesus, or his being his beloved Son and Christ, which of these two must be the principal motive to love and accept us, and which of them is intended in that place ? It being put upon Christ his being his beloved, and our relation to him as such, I would put the question, For which of the two it is that God loves Christ most, whether as he is Christ and our head, or whether as he is our Jesus, undertaking to redeem us ?

It is true he loves him because he died for us at his command Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life but let me tell you, he loves him more because he is Christ ; that he is his Son dwelling in our nature, that it is that makes him the eminently beloved of God. Now, if God s love to us be in and through Christ, and our relation to him, then that in Christ, for which God loves him most, will prove a foundation upon which he loves us most.

We find that this was it which Christ twice useth in the 17th of John, to move his Father to love and save his elect ; first in verse 23, That they

348 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me ; and verse 24, Father, I will that they also that thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. I ask the question, What do you think of God s loving Christ here ? Did he love him from the foundation of the world chiefly because he foresaw he would die for us, and be Jesus, a Saviour ? No ; it was because he was his Son in our nature. Then say I, if he loved us in his beloved, then he loved us most in and for that wherein and for what he had loved him most from the foundation of the world, and us with that kind of love he had loved him withal, and for the relation we had to him upon that his love to him ; and he contents not himself to have said this once, but at the conclusion of his prayer he speaks thus, and it is as if he had said, These are my last words, That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. Whereof I take the meaning to be, that as in the thing itself God s love to us was founded upon his love to him, it was but the overflow of God s love to the person of Christ that flows on to us ; so therefore he prays that we might understand so much. And upon what it is that the love of God towards us, through him, is especially founded, that the love in God, wherewith he had loved him, may be in us ; this he prays for as a matter of the highest moment and concernment for us to know. And then add we this, that if he loves us as he loves his Son, who is his beloved, that then he loves us unchangeably, ver. 23. Yea, and this unchangeableness and fixedness is grounded on a due and equitable ground, for the relation we have to his Son is it that makes us sons ; and so God loving him so natu rally, so strongly as he doth, it becomes him so to love them that are his, as they are called 1 Cor. xv. 23, Those that are Christ s and so are in a near and strong relation to him.

That as Christ said of his Father s love to him, that it is greater than all, that nothing can fall out to remove it, so it is here, his love being fixed in Christ, he may as well cease to love his Christ as cease to love us. And hence it comes to pass that sin doth not, nor cannot, work his heart off from us, but it provokes him to destroy it in us. And there is this equitable ground for it ; it is certain he hates not sin so much, which yet he only hates, or so intensely, as he doth love his Son for himself ; for then some contrary affection about what is in the creature should be as great and as intense as his love to bis Son is. And therefore he can never be brought finally to hate our persons for sin, or because that sin is in us, for what is in us distinct from our persons, as sin is, more than to continue to love our persons, because we are in his Son. Observe but the proportion between the one and the other, and it will invincibly hold ; for else he should value his love to his Son at a lower rate than he doth the evil of sin, which cannot be. I will not deny, but that to forgive our sins by Christ was necessary ; yet this I will say, that sin could never have wrought his heart off from us ; but love to his Son, that caused him to work sin out of us ; and yet what a valuable consideration there is for all this, even in the thing itself, of loving us in Christ.

2. By Jesus, a Saviour of us, as sinners, through redemption, and pur chase, which falls in with what the most interpreters give the account of, as to what purpose by Jesus Christ should come in here, ascribing it to what he meritoriously wrought for us, and purchased for us at God s hand. As when we are said to be called, we are said to be called by Jesus Christ, because his merits bought or purchased our calling, and that God by the virtue and intuition of his merits called us ; so likewise, that we are called

into glory, that he intendeth, it is by Jesus Christ, who purchased all the glory which God estates us into.

Now as to that main point and drift afore us, there are two eminent par ticulars I shall insist on, as the purchase of the merits of Jesus, the consi deration whereof may inseparably secure our hearts for his preserving and carrying us through all temptations.

(1.) That Christ hath bought and purchased our first calling into grace ; and together therewith our continuance and perseverance in that grace.

(2.) That he hath meritoriously also bought off all our temptations, and purchased withal an ability to himself to succour us, and strengthen us through all temptations, and stablish us in the end. This I add here, not only because our greatest hazards and dangers are from our temptations, but because the scope of the text, as hath been shewn, is to relieve us against temptations in a more special manner.

(1.) For the first, there are three particulars which make up the conclu sion I aim at.

[1.] That Christ s merits have purchased our first calling into grace. [2.] That together therewith he purchased our continuance and preserva tion in grace.

[3.J What an obligation there is lying upon Christ that ariseth from both, that when once he hath called us, as that which is the first payment, and purchase of his death, he should then be engaged to see it, that we be strengthened and preserved in grace to the end, as being the second pay ment or latter part of that purchase, without which the first of calling would be ineffectual. These, all three of them, are proper and pertinent to the apostle s scope.

[1.] He hath purchased our calling, by which we are first estated into grace, and that is our conversion, which hath the name of calling given to it being a calling of us out of the world, and a dedication of us as first fruits unto God. Now, Gal. i. 4, this is expressly attributed to that merit of the purchase made by Christ, < Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil world, which, ver. 6, is interpreted, our being < called into the grace of Christ, or < in the grace of Christ, kv yn, as being that which cost Christ dear, and wherein he shewed his love and grace towards us, whom he bought (his soul found an hard penny worth of it) ; for as unto God he gave himself for our sins, to call us, ver. 4, but as unto us indeed that are called, it was merely out of his grace. Thus also, 1 Peter i., God s calling of us, ver. 15, is made the price of his blood ; in ver. 18, 19, For as much as ye know, ye were redeemed from your vain conversation with the precious blood of Christ. Their vain conversation was that course of life and state they had been in all that time afore calling; the delivering them out of which, by calling them and making them holy, was by redemption, and that redemption was by the charge and price of the pre cious blood of Christ.

[2.] Our continuance in grace was cast into his bargain, together with our calling, and inseparably annexed thereunto ; for it imports he bought out the whole of our time in the world. The manner of speech there used is such as if it were said of a father, he had bought out the remainder of his son s time at a valuable consideration, who is an apprentice to a vain, ungodly master, and who had a claim and interest in him for such a term of years ; for when he says, He redeemed you from a vain conversation, the meaning is, that it had a power over you, and an interest in you, so as otherwise you would have continued therein to the end of your days, such an hold had it of you. So, then, Christ bought out of God s hands, with

350 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. your first conversion, your whole time to come, and thereby your preserva tion and continuation in that grace, in as sure a way of bargain as your first calling (which by experience you are sure hath been wrought in you), and this against all claims and recoveries your old vain conversation or your old temptations should ever be able to make unto you, so as never to endanger his losing of you again. Thus, also, Titus ii. 14, Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. He speaks of redeeming us from the power of sin (as the opposition shews), to purchase to himself an * zealous of good works. So, then, all those sins which we should have been carried out into in the whole of our lives after, addicted people to him, in the dominion of them over us, which they afore calling had ; from this and these he redeemed us, and so bought out our whole time at one lump, at one entire and whole bargain.

You have all this fully in that song, Luke i. 68, Blessed be God, that hath redeemed his people ; ver. 69, And hath raised up an horn of salva tion for us, namely, Christ ; ver. 70, That we should be saved from our enemies (specially spiritual), and from the hand of all that hate us ; to perform and remember the mercy, oath, and covenant which he sware, ver. 72, 73. He sent Christ to redeem, and lay a price down that God might be able to perform his oath ; and what was that oath? Ver. 74, That he would grant us, that being (once) delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve him without fear (of our coming in our enemies power, and conquest of us again) all the days of our lives, in holiness and righteousness.

I observe there, first, how he bought our calling ; for then and at calling it is that we are delivered from the hand or power of all our enemies ; from all as well as any one. We heard out of Gal. i. 4, that our calling was a * out of this present world, as here, from all, &c. deliverance

Secondly, That he withal bought out all the rest of our time, after our calling, or first deliverance, or enfranchisement from our enemies, even all the days of our lives to come.

And, thirdly, he purchased not only for us, that we should have power in ourselves to be able to preserve ourselves, if we will look to it, as we should do to ourselves. No ; he fixed it more certainly, he bought this of God, that he would grant us it, the very effectual bestowing the thing upon us.

In so much, fourthly, as God, in the foresight and contemplation of the invincible efficacy thereof, took an oath to grant it to every son of Abraham ; and God never breaks an oath, it is irrevocable. So as, fifthly, we may in this point be perfectly secure, as the words, without fear, assure us ; and so turn all our care and solicitude (which tears and wears the hearts of many, viz., that few shall be able to hold out) upon this, how to serve him the more acceptably.

[3.] The third thing proposed was the force and strength of the obligation that lieth on Christ, and riseth from hence, that he, having thus bought both our calling and preservation in grace, that therefore he should be more care ful and heedful to keep us, and accordingly to strengthen, settle, stablish us in wisdom. It is his concernment. Christ is a wise purchaser, as well as a wise builder. Now for one to make sure of one part of a purchase (which is but the first payment, as we say), and to make all the rest as certain, how great a folly and oversight would it be accounted in any bargainer or contractor, especially when the condition of the bargain is such as if the latter part faileth and cometh not in, that then also the first is null and void, and so as he must lose all benefits and use of the first part, after it is paid

in, and so lose the whole ? To be sure in this case a wise man will look more narrowly (of the two) to the latter part of his bargain than to the first.

I exemplify it thus : if in the 8th verse of the second epistle of John, he exhorts his Christian converts, wrought upon by his ministry, to look lo themselves, that we (ministers and apostles, as well as Christians) lose not those things which we and you have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. You find also how vehemently solicitous, to a jealousy, the apostle Paul was over those he had converted, lest they should in any degree have fallen. Do but read the first epistle to the Thessalonians, chap, ii., &c. The like you have in his epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, Yet his concernment was, but his having been a poor instrument in the hand of Christ to work on them. Without doubt, then, Jesus Christ will be sure to look to this ; he will look to this himself, for it is his own interest and con cernment, which is infinitely greater than what was the apostle s ; he being both the owner and master-workman, he will look narrowly to us, and to the thing he hath wrought in us, to succour, stablish, strengthen, &c., that he have his full bargain out, especially seeing he hath obtained one great part belonging to it, hath called us already, and so hath received the first payment, and so is in possession in part, both of what he hath bought, and what he hath wrought in us. Above all, when the condition or rate is such as he must forfeit that too, and so both his whole work and his whole pur chase become frustrate, as if he had never laid out a penny upon either. It is certain Christ will not lose one farthing, not an iota of what he paid ; * heaven and earth shall pass away rather. God held him hard to it, ami would not abate a farthing, and he will hold God as hard to it, and will look to it, not only to have every individual soul he purchased, but to have also every degree of grace which he purchased for every soul.

(2.) As he bought thy first calling and continuance in grace thy whole time, so he hath paid for and bought off from thee all thy temptations that should any way befall thee, or that should any way endanger thy continu ance in grace ; and hath procured succour, strength, settlement, and estab lishment for thee.

This is certainly the full scope and direct meaning of that passage, Heb. ii. 18, In that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to suc cour them that are tempted. He had said he was a merciful High Priest, to pity us, in the verse afore, and so hath an heart and willingness to pity us ; but in this verse he adds, that he was able ; now mark it, he doth not term him able in respect of his personal abilities, as he is God, but he in tends a further acquired ability, and acquired by this, that he being made a frail man, subjected to temptations, as in chap, iv., he was subjected to all temptations; yea, and in the 17th verse of this 4th chapter, he gives this reason why he was made a frail man, even to make him the more tenderly merciful to us : It behoved him, &c. So that besides his mercies, as he was God (as if that they fitted him not enough), he also became a man, a tempted man, to engage his heart to faithfulness, and to soften his heart to pity us with such a kind of pity with which one man useth to pity another of his nature in distress ; this was an additional acquired mercy in his heart unto that which he had as he was God. Now in a like sense this speech here is to be understood, that he was made able thereby to succour us.

You may ask of me concerning this (as of the others also), Was not our Saviour able to succour us, being God-man, though he had never been tempted ?

I answer, it is true he had that radical or fundamental power, both of

352 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. that and of all things else, as God, but it was this, of his having been him self tempted, which gave him the immediate next power, the potentia proximo,, as we say.

And then you will next inquire, How came it that his having been tempted should give him power and ability to help us, such as he else had not had ?

That Scripture resolves you clearly, In that himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able, &c. So then it lay in that all his temptations were in him all pure and mere sufferings to him. In conformity unto which, here in this text of Peter s, even our temptations are termed sufferings, After you have suffered a while, &c. All Christ s temptations were grievous afflictions and vexations to his spirit, he suffered in them ; and not only his hanging on the cross, but all his temptations from Satan in the wilderness were his sufferings. All the oppositions, reproaches, and contradictions that sinners and this wicked world made against him, they were part of his suffer ings: Heb. xii. 3, Consider him that endured (mark it) such contradic tions of sinners, such as never no man else ; they were part of his endurings. Now this is a certain rule, that whatever you can reckon and account to have been his sufferings, they acquired and merited, in every tittle of them, a redeeming power, a purchasing power of something of like nature for us ; and the emphasis, force, or reason of that lies in those words in Heb. xii. 3, against himself, &c., which is as if he had said, That he, so great a person, should submit to bear it, expose himself, and suffer himself to suffer, to be tempted by Satan and the world, who could have flung them backward and destroyed them, as in the entrance to his last sufferings he gave evidence. So then, as elsewhere it is termed, * the blood of God, so these were the temptations of God ; not objectively only, as we are said to tempt God, but subjectively, so as he suffered in them all personally, as we poor men do when we are tempted. So Heb. iv. 15, Was in all points tempted like as we are ; he in his person as we in ours. Now all these sufferings being for us, and as the Scripture speaks, he therein giving up himself for us, and a piece of himself was concerned and touched upon in every temptation ; they therefore aim to have a redeeming, purchasing power and ability in them for us ; as Titus iii. 14, Who gave himself for us to redeem us. And according to that maxim of his, he uttered, when he came to suffer, Here I am, take me, let these go free, John xviii. 8.

And again, add this, which is as certain a rule, that whatever Christ did particularly suffer in, that suffering hath a special virtue and ability of re deeming us from the like particular wherein we suffer, and he thereby did buy help and succour for us therein. So then, his being tempted bought off all our temptations, either not to befall us, or if they befell us, in the end to leave us. Have we a temptation of shame comes upon us, that is, a busi ness that is matter of shame ? Ps. Ixix. 6, 7, Let not them that wait on thee, Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake ; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, God of Israel. Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. It is a psalm of Christ, if ever any was made for him ; for it is quoted four or five times of him in the New Testament. Now observe from hence, with what intentions Christ transacted things with his Father. And what was the scope and intendment he directed his sufferings in any kind unto, you may learn it by this one in stance farther, I suffer shame, says Christ, I have borne reproach, &c. For what end and fruit was it ?

Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed, &c., and he adds twice, for my sake. The meaning is not as to this sense, because they cleave to me, and adhere to me, and are of my

party, and so that though I were foiled, yet let not them be shent or ashamed for rny sake ; no, but the clean contrary: as Eph. iv. 32, As God for Christ s sake hath forgiven you. He there pitcheth it thus : Because I, for their sakes, do at thy command bear that shame which they should else have done, Lord, take it off from them, because thou hast laid it upon me ; so it expressly follows, ver. 7, Because for thy sake I have borne reproach ; shame hath covered my face. The clear resolve of it is this. Now what is spoken of matter of shame there, the same holds true of any particular thing which Christ suffered, or which befalleth us. We may say of each of his sufferings, that it hath procured of his Father, that we, for his sake, should be relieved in it, and that because he suffered in being tempted, therefore he is able meritoriously, and by way of merit and desert at his Father s hand, he comes to have power to help and succour us in that particular, be it what it will be. I have elsewhere given other instances of like kind out of 1 Cor. viii. 9, and Mat. viii. 17, and 1 Peter ii. 24, speaking to servants

By whose stripes ye are healed. Now so it is in the beaten and abused, point of temptations in any kind ; he bore our temptations, he was tempted, that for his sake we might have either no such temptations, or have them moderated, and in the end struck off. He may be termed a man of tempta tions, as well as a man of sorrows.

Yea, and thou art but so far tempted, as therein to be conformed to him, and merely for that conformity ; so as look upon thy temptations but only as his aftersufferings: Col. i. 24, Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body s sake, which is his church.

Add to this, that as he bought off all our temptations at his death, so he is meritoriously able, and received ability to succour us when he first came to heaven, and so was habitually enabled. This is a certain rule, that look whatever thing he purchased here on earth by his suffering, the like he had ability to perform in heaven, and so meritoriously is enabled thereunto, as one that hath deserved it. The dispensatory power thereof, or power to give that forth, did he receive when he came to heaven ; yea, it was his first entertainment there. God was honest to him, and faithful to him, as he had been to God ; and gave him not only

all power in heaven and earth, by way of mere commission to manage all, as Mat. xxviii. 18, as a king hath all sovereignty by law ; but he supplied him with that which was completely able to effect whatsoever he pleased. The Holy Ghost is able to comfort thee in all thy temptations and tribulations : you know he is called the Comforter, which is spoken properly in respect of discomfort and tempta tions. Christ knew what he did when he promised to send him to them, as need should require, as afore his death he did ; for no sooner did Christ arrive, or set his foot in heaven, but he for us did receive the whole of the Spirit, and all his comforts, and whatsoever he was able to do. Thus Acts ii. 38, And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. He had bought all the cordial succours the Holy Ghost had by him ready prepared for every malady; he had the whole at once given him; for Christ, the head, was made at once complete. God anointed him, as in his own person, with the oil of gladness above his fellows. So with the whole of that oil, which was for ever to be poured forth upon all his fellows, even upon the whole church ; and what he then received by wholesale, he pours out and gives forth to every member of his church, as occasion is, and their need doth require.

Use. Had Christ an issue out of all his temptations ? Then shalt thou,

VOL. IX. Z

354 OP ELECTION. [BOOK IV. because lie suffered, being tempted, for thee, and in thy stead. In the wil

- and the devil left him, and the good angels came and ministered unto him. In the garden he was tempted, and in derness he was tempted, agony ; the issue was, an angel came and comforted him, and God gave him counsel and support, Luke xxii. ; and he was heard in what he feared, Heb. v. 7. On the cross he was put to it : My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? And he was heard in what he feared, not knowing by what he felt, unto what height the wrath of God would rise. It is finished (says he) ; that is, this great brunt is over, and here is an end of all. God delivered him out of all troubles, and he will deliver thee out of all : God delivers the righteous out of all their troubles, says the psalmist, not leaving one which he is not delivered out of.

Yea, I say, thou shalt much more easily be heard and delivered than he was.

It is a sad thing, and may affect any one s heart, to hear the great Saviour of the world complain, as in the next words to those just now mentioned, My God, my God, &c., Ps. xxii. 1 ; in the next words, to hear him go on to complain, my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not : and in the night season I am not silent. And then, to aggravate his grief the more, adds, ver. 4, Our fathers trusted in thee : they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered. Thou art more hard and difficult to me in my distresses, than unto them in theirs ; but, above all, to have him then add, But I am a worm, and no man, whom thou having cast below the condition of other men and saints, as a worm is below a man, takest freedom to trample on me, so as never on any ; yea, and that yet it was so, that for his very sake they all had been heard and delivered in their temptations. The truth of it is, we shall be sooner and more easily heard than he was ; for he bore the stress, the brunt, for all the rest, to suffer being trampled, to procure audience and despatch for thee. Therefore be of good courage, for he hath overcome for thee, and thou shalt more easily get off than he that made way for thy succour.

And whether thy temptations be small or great, thou mayest, by viewing what Christ suffered, comfort thyself against either ; for in that it is said, He was tempted in all things like as we are, it comprehends all sorts and varieties. As he was a man of sorrows, so of temptations. Our spirits are oftener exposed to temptations and disquietments from things that are in themselves small, though great unto us. Gnats trouble us oftener than wild beasts. A mote on the eye frets it ; an hair, lying upon the heart, eats into it ; and when we look to Christ, we considering him as we do men of great spirits, think that small things made no impression upon his great heart. But oh, he had withal the softest and tenderest heart that ever was, more than of any man ; for the same temper of softness that makes him merciful to us, also rendered him most sensible of all that befell him self, and he was left to the infirmity of his flesh in sufferings ; he was affected with the meanness of his parents, disesteemed in his own country, Mat. xiii. 55-57 ; and at his death, when they cast lots upon his gar ments, it was a trouble to him, and he passionately complains, and of the mouths they made at him, Ps. xxii. ver. 13, 18. It is much, that a mm dying on the cross, in his cruel pains and tortures, forsaken of God, aid conflicting with his wrath, and so wholly swallowed up therewith, should have room in his heart and thoughts to mind parting his garments, and casl - ing lots for his vesture, after he was divested of them ; yet he lays to heai t so small an occurrence ; it was his tenderness. In tender flesh, as in that of children, fleas make a great knot and mark with the least of their bitings, which on others make no impression.

CHAP. IX.] OP ELECTION. 355

CHAPTER IX.

The engagements of Christ, and his interest to preserve us, which arise from his having actually called us. In our calling he owned us, and took charge of us, as a trust committed to him by the Father. The thing for which we are apprehended of Christ in our calling is, that he might give forth unto us our whole designed portion of grace and glory which was allotted to us in election, and purchased by him upon the cross. Phil. iii. 1214 explained. Christ by calling us secures usin safe custody, and by a strong guard. From the time of a m-aris calling Christ begins actually to intercede for him, and then takes him into his prayers as well as into his cares.

Who hath called us by Jesus Christ. 1 PETER V. 10.

I shall mention such interests only as are proper to Christ from that share and influence which he hath in his actual calling and converting us, such (I say) as are proper to him therein. And from thence I shall (as from the former) infer how greatly he is engaged to continue his efficacious influence to strengthen, stablish, and preserve us.

In general, it is one great difference of the first and second Adam, that though God would have used Adam, if he had stood, to have conveyed holi ness, or that image of God, by generation to us, which himself had by crea tion, he who was but a mere creature (and constituted the head of all the rest of his kind) could have done that by the law of the first creation ; but still, if Adam had stood and thus had begotten children, never so many, in the image of God, yet he should not have conveyed a confirmation of them in that estate, not a perpetuity or an everlasting certainty of their not falling. That affirmation, by whomever it is asserted, is without warrant ; for such a perpetual establishment is of grace only, and above the law of creation. Those so born in him should still have been left to the mutability of their own wills for the continuance in that holiness conveyed ; but Jesus Christ, the second Adam, serves not only to beget us in his own image then when sinners, which is done by calling of us, but as invincibly to preserve and continue, and uphold it in us, even to bring forth dimmest or but smoking wick unkindled, unto victory. Called in Christ, and preserved in Christ too, as you heard, are one. But more particularly to speak to this. There are four or five acts or things which are proper to Christ in his calling of us, and what he doth then for us, that have a binding force upon Christ to preserve you.

1. The first is, a solemn owning of us by Christ then at our calling: John xvii. 6, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them me ; and they have kept thy word ; speaking of his disciples then living, whom he had converted. First, he declares to his Father how he had manifested his name to them, and the ground of his so doing: thine they were, and thou gavest them me. He gave them to Christ, both from everlasting and in a renewed act, at that time when he first began to manifest his Father s name to them ; both which were mighty engagements for him to plead with his Father, his keeping and preserving them, as also that according to the trust himself had then committed to him, he should be careful to give an account of their perseverance hitherto, as that which was the obligation of him upon their calling, which there follows, They have kept thy word ; and ver. 12, Whilst I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name ; that is,

856 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

I have hitherto performed my part. And his care in heaven for all whom he doth manifest the name of God unto is the same, yea, greater, as his power also is now when he is in heaven. And so as by what he said on earth, counting those few, shews what his care will be to us all now he is in heaven ; the same obligation is for ever upon him.

2. Together with this owning of them at their calling, there was also a taking the charge of them from that time. In the 10th of John there are two sorts of sheep, some uncalled, and as yet going astray, ores palantes : ver. 15, 16, I lay my life down for the sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold ; that is, the uncalled of the Gentiles, who after his ascension were in all nations converted to him, of whom he says, Them nlso I must bring in, as well as I have called disciples out of the Jews, and they shall hear my voice. Now, he says two things of those as yet uncalled sheep: (1.) That it is a duty of necessity which lay on him to call them : Them also I must bring. And they being his sheep, he laid his life down for them ; and so, whom he purchased of the Father, They shall, savs he, hear my voice, that is, they shall be effectually called by me ; (2.) Then after they shall be thus called, observe what that is the first. he as resolutely and peremptorily says concerning them so called by him : * My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any (it is translated any man, ver. 27, but it is not any, man or angel) pluck them out of my hand. Now, as he was engaged by his Father to turn them when they had gone astray, so being turned to him, he becomes anew engaged to them, as becomes the Bishop of their souls : 1 Peter ii. 25, Ye were as sheep going astray ; but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. And look as of these, whilst they went astray, uncalled, he had said, Them I must bring in ; so after their being turned, they having put themselves under his charge as their bishop and shepherd, he must much more look upon himself engaged to keep them and preserve them. It lies upon pastors to take care of their sheep, much more upon Christ, the great Shepherd, as the same apostle calls him; and therefore add to this that solemn profession of his, John vi. 37-39, wherein he says this care and charge of such was committed to him by the Father : All that the Father giveth me shall come to me : and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And when he says that it was his Father s will, and [not] his own, his mean ing is not as if it were not his will, but that his obligation and endearment lay not chiefly in this, that it was his own will or first will beginning in and of himself, so much as that it was a matter of trust committed to him, and therefore the more engaging him to faithfulness. And the trust is to raise them up at the last day ; and therefore to be sure he will, to his utmost, look to them unto that day. And matters of trust to faithful spirits are matters of greatest moment to them. And whether the parable, Luke xv., intend the first calling of a sinner, or some new conversion, after one that is called has been going astray, it is all one to this my purpose to shew the special care of Christ after, more than afore, to turn them. And if the former expression, none shall pluck them out of my hand, be not expres sive enough of this, you have yet a further one uttered by himself, which : Luke xv. 5, And when he had found it, argues still more care on his part he laid it on his shoulders rejoicing; he unfolds his heart there also under the metaphor of a shepherd. And that as I observe is, that when he hath

CHAP. IX.] OF ELECTION

found his lost sheep, after his much seeking it, he then takes the safest and most sure way that could any way be thought of to express a shepherd s: He lays keeping fast such straying creature from ever getting loose again it on his shoulders. And that is the most securing way that could be taken, for a shepherd to have the fore feet in one hand and the hinder feet in the other: He hath it in his hands, saith John; On his shoulders, says Luke. And it is as if he had said, Have I found you ? I will make sure of you from going utterly astray again; I will not leave you loose in my hands, holding you by a foot or a leg, which leaves the whole body free to wring or wrest itself away; but I will lay you on my shoulders, and therewith retain your straggling feet in my hand, as in tutd custodid, in sure custody.

3. There was a most solemn act passed by him, in the presence of his Father, of apprehending us ; and this done by him at our calling, with this intention and avowed engagement, to give forth to us the whole (whatever it be), that is our designed portion in grace and glory, and purchased by him on the cross. This we have in the instance of Paul, Philip, iii. 12, I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Jesus

Christ.

This is a matter of very great moment, both in the knowledge of the thing itself, as also to our present purpose.

(1.) That this Christ s apprehending him was performed at the time of his calling, is evident ; not only because he had been afore relating the story of his own conversion, verses 7 and 8, which on Christ s part he terms

Christ s apprehending him, because it began, and led on all that was to follow ; but chiefly because he termeth that thing for which Christ appre hended him to be, as in the 12th verse, the mark, price, of our calling of God in Christ Jesus, as in verse 14.

(2.) That this is not an extraordinary act of Christ towards him alone (as converting him himself from heaven was), but it declares what is common to us also. Christ, in like manner, and for the same purposes, and with the same intendmente, apprehendeth us also at our callings. And there fore now he calls that for which he was apprehended, the mark of our calling, as well as of his own.

Now (3.) the thing for which Christ had then at calling apprehended ^hirn was that which hitherto as yet he had not fully and completely received, although he had been converted long afore he uttereth this ; so verse 18, I count not myself to have apprehended, namely, that for which I was at first apprehended of Christ ; I have indeed received part thereof, but it is so little, that I, forgetting those things which are past, still reaching to those things which are before, I press towards the mark, &c. ; so as says

Paul, I now mind not so much, what at the time of his calling me I received by grace from him, nor what I have received since, as if that had been the whole, or the main intended me by Christ then apprehending me ; no, but there is yet a farther thing behind, which the intendment of that Bet takes in.

(4.) The thing wherefore he was apprehended by Christ, for himself to apprehend, was all and the whole, that was his particular portion for ever .to be received from God, which Christ on the cross had purchased for him ; and all that God had in and by Jesus Christ intended towards him, and in Christ bestowed upon him by everlasting love, as his particular allotment. And that the whole, the total of these is meant, is plain, besides from what hath been said, that what he had received was but in part, he still pressing for more, upon that ground that Christ had apprehended him for more ; I say, besides this, he in the 13th verse doth farther express the whole of his < If by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. aim to be,

358 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Now the state of the resurrection of the dead supposeth and includes the whole of our salvation, and supposeth us kept and preserved all along in grace until that time ; and our being arrived safe ashore in the other world, as that part which the state and perfection of all the resurrection from the dead ultimately brings us into. And this comprehends the whole stake and * mark and price of the portion of a Christian, which is therefore termed the high calling, as that which was aimed at, and set upon by Christ at our calling, to bring us unto, when he first apprehended us.

(5.) And this was accordingly the great intention of Jesus Christ himself, at the time of calling, and that which by that act he engaged himself to per form, even to give forth the whole of grace necessary to our salvation until the resurrection of the dead ; which well agrees with his own expression, John vi. 39, * I will raise him up at the last day. And it is as if he had said, I mention this of raising him, for then I shall have discharged my engagement.

And as it is finis operaiitis, so also operis, of the whole of calling itself; and in relation unto both it is, that it is styled the price of our high calling. That epithet is given to our calling, because it hath this whole and great portion and inheritance annexed to it as a birthright, as you say an high born prince ; so here. You may further come to understand the importance and intendment of this act of Christ s apprehending us at calling, by comparing it with two other acts of his of like importance, which do precede, and were done by Christ for us afore our calling, and which in their kind were done for the whole of our salvation.

The first act was, that at and by his death Christ purchased all, and the whole of grace and glory, that even the God of all grace, &c., had designed unto us. That is clear by Scripture: Heb. x. 14, For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Alas for us poor creatures ! We, for a long time after we are sanctified, are imperfect, lacking all and everything in comparison. How then are we perfected ? Because that Jesus Christ, by that one offering, perfectly purchased all that ever shall go to make up our perfection. It is finished in that sense. He so abundantly thereby procured all, as he needed to offer himself but once. And if there could be anything supposed to perfect a saint, which Christ had not pur chased, his offering had been imperfect. A second act preceding this of his apprehending us, was, that when he first ascended into heaven, he as an head received every whit, and the whole of all that should be given us by the Spirit from God, even for all the saints that were as then unborn ; all, even all at once, that shall be given forth unto us but by parcels unto all eternity : Acts ii. 33, Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the pro mise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.

And by what was the intendment of those preceding acts, you easily may understand what the intendment of Christ apprehending us then was, when he began actually to apply to us that which he (1.) died for, (2.) received upon his ascension. At our calling, which is the first beginning of the application of our salvation, it is that Christ doth begin actually to appre hend us, which he had never done afore, nor is said to have done afore calling. And this is his third great solemn act, subsequent to and executive of the other, and carries with it the whole of the same intendment in its kind that the other two did in their kind, which lies in this, that he then takes hold of a soul which he purchased this all and received all for, actually to give it forth to that soul. He begins but as from that time, and what

Christ doth first work in calling is not all or the whole for which he appre hended him ; no, Christ doth but now begin with him, but will not have done with him so soon, but continues the work unto all eternity. So as Paul thus thought and counted with himself, Christ having received the whole of my portion into his hands, as a feoffee in trust, it lay by him, no part disposed of, until the time came that I was called, then it was that he took fast hold of me, to the end to bestow what was mine upon me. And I now knowing this, that he hath my portion in his hands, and that at my calling he took upon him the executorship about me, I press him to have this whole out of his hands.

And because this is the true and real intendment of God s calling us, he therefore termeth it the price of the high calling. There is no action of God s so high towards us as that, for it is the final issue of all.

And it being there added also in Christ Jesus, this shews that Christ Jesus being engaged by having called us, that he doth perform it accordingly, which the text falls in with, he having called us by Christ Jesus, by the same Christ he preserves and stablisheth us.

4. A fourth act, which from the time of our calling and his then appre hending us, as also from the other two, is that he instantly thereupon, at and upon calling us, and ever after, puts us into safe custody, he claps a guard upon us. As all power is committed to him in heaven and earth, so he placeth it about a man, extends it and tends it forth as need requires. The phrase that we translate, Jude i., preserved in Christ Jesus, and called, reryigw evois, is four several times, in the book of the Acts, used and trans

They laid hands on lated, put in hold, or safe custody ; as Acts iv. 3, Peter and John, and put them in hold, that is, secured them with watch and ward. Yea, 1 Peter i. 5, the saints are described to be kept by the power of God unto salvation. The word used is, kept as with a garrison ; look 2 Cor. xi. 32, the governor under Aretas the king, kept the city with a garrison. It is the very same word that Peter here useth. Let the soul go whither it will, though it seem to be at a loss, yet it always hath a guard about it, to go with it whithersoever it goes. All the power of God, yea, the Spirit, who is its governor under God and Christ, is sent by them to dwell in their hearts, as a guardian over them. When Christ says, John xiv. 18, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you, the word in the Greek, and so in the margin, is orphans/ And when he says, he would not leave them such, his meaning is, I will commit you to a good, comfortable, and safe guardian, for to such, parents dying, leave their children. And that : And I will pray the guardian he had told them, ver. 16, was his Spirit

Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, &c., who comes with commission never at any time to leave you. Which, ver. 17, he repeats with additions to confirm it, he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

5. A fifth act is, that from the time of a man s calling, Christ begins actually to intercede for him from that time forward ; he takes you into his prayers as well as into his cares. I say, from thy conversion, as I have elsewhere * observed. Our calling is in a more eminent manner attributed to his death (though his intercession procures it also, as it did for these, whom he prayed for on the cross, Father, forgive them, who were, accord ing to that prayer, converted, three thousand of them, Acts ii.), yet our pre servation in grace is more eminently ascribed to his life in glory after his death, and therein, unto this, which is the end and eminent fruit of that his < The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth.

* In a treatise called,

[Vol. IV. of his Works in the present edition. ED.]

360 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. life, his intercession, as appears by comparing those two scriptures, Rom. v. 10, for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son ; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life ; and Heb. vii. 25, Wherefore he is able also to save them to the utter most that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them/ In which words, also, it is inserted, that the persons for whom this his intercession is employed, are those that came to God by him. Art thou come to God by him ? (that is done by calling, he then first drew thee) he will improve his interest to save thee to the uttermost, that is, to carry on thy salvation to the uttermost of cases that shall fall out to the uttermost of time, that is, to the end of thy life, and all along ; in that place in the Romans, he had in brief couched it up in those words, < we shall much more be saved by his life. And in both places he puts the greatest efficacy upon this his intercession, as to the effectual carrying on of our salvation, comparatively to what his death effects : Much more, says he to the Romans ; < Able thereby to save to the uttermost, says this to the Hebrews.

Nay, if he takes thee once into his prayers, he will never leave thee out, but prevail for thee, whatever thy case be, or whatever thou fallest into. A man may be cast out of good men s hearts and prayers, as Saul was out of Samuel s, and the people out of Jeremiah s ; but no man was ever cast out of Christ s prayers whom he once took in. If there be a danger in any case, it must be in thy so sinning, for which God should cast thee off. But Christ s prayers will see to that, and prevail to prevent thy falling into such sinnings as of which God hath said, they shall never be forgiven ; as well as to pull thee forth out of the fire in respect of such sins as are capable of being pardoned, if thou fallest into them ; to which full purpose is that of the apostle, If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 1 John ii. 1.

And the privilege and benefit which a Christian hath by the means and virtue

Christ s intercession is unspeakable, and not enough considered by Christians, to give him the glory of it, and to comfort their own hearts. He intercedes upon all occasions, as the matter doth require ; as Solomon in that so solemn prayer of his speaks, 1 Kings viii. 53. Nor do I imperti nently cite that prayer, or that passage of it, for look as Solomon s consecrationof the temple was the type of the Son of God his dwelling one day bodily in an human nature, consecrated to all the offices of his mediation, so in that high and comprehensive prayer which Solomon made at that con secration, he performed the type or representative part of Christ in his in tercession, ^which he discharges in and by the temple of his humanity, now translated into the heavens. And as Solomon s prayer was that the prayers of the people should be heard, upon this his general prayer made aforehand for them, so Christ s intercession precedes ours upon all occasions, and ours are as the echo or the resound of his.

This constant care of Christ thus to intercede upon all such emergent occasions that might obstruct our perseverance, Christ shewed when he per sonally prayed for Peter, in a case of the greatest need that ever Peter had, and it was done _by Christ out of foresight, I have prayed for thee, per sonally and particularly, upon that occasion of his being tempted, that thy faith fail not. Do we think that Peter alone had the good hap of this privi lege, because Christ was present on earth then with him ? Nay, for all our sakesit is written; Strengthen thy brethren, said Christ thereupon, so speaking thereof as of a matter that nearly concerned them all, for their contort as well as his own. And in the execution and performance of this,

of interceding for us as the matter shall require, it is that he continues an high priest for us in heaven, even to put in for us in and upon all our needs, especially spiritual ; and thereupon it is that we are bidden to come boldly unto the throne of grace, to find help in time of every need, Heb. iv. 16. And we may in the tenth chapter of that epistle, go into the holy of holies, and pull as if our high priest by the sleeve to remember it, in such and such a need. And he is a faithful high priest, as chap. ii. 17, 18.

And he heartily and to the utmost improveth all the interest he hath in his Father wholly for them, lays it all out this way. I pray not for the world, John xvii. 9. And as his righteousness, so his intercession, extends to the benefit and behoof of the excellent ones on earth, and them alone. And if whilst he was on earth his Father always heard him, John xi. 42, when he had not yet finished his work, then much more, now he is in heaven, when [he] hath done the work his Father appointed him, and hath done it in all things to the utmost required by God of him. You heard how he purchased all grace, and relief against all temptations ; and now he is in heaven, he sues out that purchase by parcels as we have need, and when we are in any distress he then vigorously urgeth his own, having been in the like. Thus, Heb. iv., it is spoken of him as of an high priest, whose office was to intercede for the people: ver. 15, 16, We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

And an intercession thus founded upon and seconding that purchase of all which we speak of, and which he had so dearly bought, can receive no denial.

And that which may yet further confirm us in this matter is those prayers of his in Psalm Ixix., which was a psalm made for him ; and it shews he pleads the like unto this day, upon all occasions for us, urging what, and how in particular himself had endured of the like kind, and that because I endured it (says he), free this and that soul from the like ; the words of his you find, ver. 6, 7, Let not them that wait on thee, Lord, the Lord of hosts, be ashamed for my sake ; let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, God of Israel. Because for thy sake I have been reproached ; shame hath covered my face.

Let there be light, and there was light. Christ in heaven is able through his interest to speak the same language, and at no less rate doth he speak, Father, I will, &c., John xvii. 24. And then it is so and is effected. I assure you his word in heaven is taken for a greater matter than delivering thy soul out of tempta tion. For his I will there in that place was that heaven gates should be set

You read at the creation God said no more, but open to let in those he intercedes for. So it follows, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am ; that they may behold mv gl r y> which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foun dation of the world. And if his 1 will thus easily and with a word breaks open heaven gates, then certainly it will avail against hell gates, that they

shall never prevail against thee. I might also add, and enlarge upon two further securities and engage ments of Christ to us, at, and by, and from our calling. 1. That then we begin actually to be united to him by his Spirit, engrafted into him to the end, that as root and branches he and we should live, and (if it should be supposed) die together, which on his part is impossible, but such his undertaking is, John xiv. 19, Because I live, you shall live also;

362 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you, inseparably, indissolubly ; for himself is in the Father, inseparably and for he adds, ver. 20, indissolubly ; it is impossible to pull him out of his being which he hath in the Father, and it is the same of our being in him, and therefore conclude of it, He that believeth on him shall never die.

2. The second is, that we are called into fellowship with Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. i. 9, that is, to be partakers of all, and the same things in our pro portion, that Christ hath been and is partaker of himself, to have all accom plished and fulfilled in us (as the phrase is in Rom. viii. 4) that was, or is, or shall be done in him from first to last, for this is a declared rule of the apostle, that if we have fellowship with Christ in one thing, then we must and shall have it in all the rest. Rom. vi. 5, * For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. And this is founded on this foregone transaction between God and Christ, that what Christ was, or did, or hath been done to him, it was all as in, and to, and by a common person representing us therein, which makes all, and every particular thereof (which we are capable of), as well as any part, to be legally ours, and indefeasibly must be bestowed upon [us] in the end. So the same apostle argues, ver. 6, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that hence forth we should not serve sin. Which he speaks not of that imperfect work of mortification begun only in us, but of all of that which was reckoned as done by Christ in our stead, perfectly and completely, when he hung upon the cross ; and from thence he comforts them, that if they had the least fruit of what he had done and wrought in them, they might assure them

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. And why so, but because as the 9th and 10th verses, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once : but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God ? And there fore you, in whose stead he did all this, may reckon upon and count with selves of the whole, so ver. 8, * Likewise reckon yourselves the same of yourselves ; so it follows, ver. 11, ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. You may build upon it as done ; and all this is sealed up by baptism, ver. 3 and 4, which you know is the seal more eminently of regeneration or calling, and accordingly administered but once. And why, but because at our regeneration and calling (whereof baptism is the seal), the whole that is to come is as certainly sealed up as that now we are called and baptized ?

CHAPTER X.

The engagement on Christ s part for our preservation, that ariseth from his interest in that glory we are by him called into. That it is his glory, as he is our head, and communicated to us only as we are his mem bers, and therefore he is the first and grand proprietary of it. This glory is above the natural dues of creation, and therefore we must be raised up into it by another superior right. The glory of the immediate vision of God was only the natural due and right of Christ God-man. We have our right to it, and the participation of it only by virtue of our relation to Christ ; as it is his glory, he is engaged to bring us to it, and maintain us in it. This glory is his, because he bought it with a price, and he would lose his purchase if ice did not come at last to the enjoyment of it. He hath taken possession of this glory for us, and therefore will take effectual

CHAP. X.] OF ELECTION

care that we be not defrauded of it. His glory is enlarged and greatened by the bringing us to glory, whom he hath thus called unto it, and therefore since his own interest is so much concerned, he will sufficiently look to it to preserve and bring us safe to heaven.

Who hath called us into his glory by Jesus Christ. 1 PETEE V. 10.

The concernment of Christ in this particular is so great, that we may be sure of him that he will do the utmost to bring us into, and so to keep us until the actual possession of this glory.

I. It is Christ his own glory which we are to be brought into, and it is espe cially glory to him to keep us for it ; and upon several accounts the text only speaks of his glory as being the Father s, who hath called us into his glory, but other scriptures do as expressly term our glory the glory of Christ, by whom we are called into it ; and therefore it full well concerneth him to bring us into it, for else he should lose so much of his own glory as would accrue to him in us and by us.

Now that Christ is the great proprietary of this glory, the Scriptures are express. In the second of the Thessalonians, ii. 13, 14, the glory we are called into is expressly termed the glory of Jesus Christ himself: But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth : whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Also, John xvii. 22, Christ assumes unto himself, both that the glory he shall have is his glory,^and that it is his gift also, as well as his Father s. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. And it is his upon many accounts. I shall content myself in this only with those two particulars I pursued in that first head ; namely,

1. That it is his glory as he is Christ our head, the natural Son of God, dwelling in our nature : and so is communicated to us, as we are members of, and a spouse unto him ; and in that respect he is the first, and great, and indeed only proprietary.

2. As Jesus, or the Redeemer, as who hath purchased it, and bought it for us.

1. As Christ, that is, as he is God-man, or man personally united to the Son of God, so it is his glory by a proper and sole right. Understand this : To see God as we are seen by him, to know God as we are known by him, to love God as we are beloved of him ; in a word, to see the face of God immediately ; these things are above the natural due, either of men or angels, by the law or covenant of their first creation ; and so they must come to be elected or raised up thereto by another superior right. This thing aright is evident by this : that if, suppose the angels, the highest rank of mere creatures, and created inhabitants of the heavens (as for the place of their station), had been created under this immediate seeing the face of God, it is certain, then, that they had never, nay, they could never have fallen. I may say, None ever saw the face of God and died ; and the state which the fallen angels had, was the same which the angels had by their first creation in common together ; and that the good angels stood when the other fell, was because they were raised up unto a state above the law of their creation, or any promises that did belong thereto : and they are immutable, because admitted into such a new state made manifest in them, and upon them at

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. their standing, and that was by grace and election/ and not in their natural covenant. Election (which glorious prerogative, with difference from those that fell, is attributed to them, 1 Tim. v. 21) broke forth, and was discovered then upon them, as it is, and doth, at our calling, in and upon us. If, therelore, God bestows this glory in an equitable way upon any mere creatures, though never so pure, it must be by some other right than that of their crea tion, suppose the best state that creatures could be created under. Now what or whose right might this be ? What person might there be, or was there found, to whom these privileges aforesaid of knowing God, and enjoy ing of him, as in himself, might naturally belong unto, and of due belong, and whose interest with God might be such, as to obtain and procure, through his own personal interest in God, any mere creature s participation with him of those high privileges which hold" purely of grace ? I answer, Ihese belonged naturally and of due unto Christ, and to him, as Christ, that is, supposing him united to the Son of God, and considering him as the man now made God s fellow, by being made one person with the Son of God ; for otherwise, that this individual man was united unto the Son of God, that indeed was as merely of grace, as our election is ; but suppose him united once, and thereby we must acknowledge him to have been taken up into the privileges and prerogatives of one that was the natural Son of God : thus, though a creature, yet now in right and dues he was advanced above the rights of any mere creature by the law of its creation. And take we him as Christ singly in his person of God-man, there must be this differ ence in his privileges, above what is any way the natural due by creation to any mere creature whatever ; and that, therefore, if any of them be made partakers thereof, it must be by means and virtue of him, and their relation to him.

Now his right, as a natural due, rose thus : that the only begotten Son f God was in the bosom of the Father, and saw and knew God immediately and in himself essentially, and thereby it came to pass by the personal union, that there should be an answerable capacity in Christ s human nature, so to know God, as no mere creature by creation could ; for otherwise, there had not been between mere creatures, by the law of their creation, and him, by the law of this high union, any difference as to their privileges ; whereas now this high privilege and glory became a natural right of that man united to this Son of God. And so John i. 18, we find it, < No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him. To have God himself to be our inheritance, as immediately to be enjoyed by us, is the height of glory we are called unto, as I shewed. Now this ariseth to us but at the second hand, and upon a new relation both to God and unto the person of the Son of God, namely, of a relation as sons to God, by union and marriage with this natural Son of God, as an head and husband. And thus it is originally only the right of Christ; and ours, suppose us, if you could, the purest creatures that ever God did or could make, but by a borrowed participation. That like as the wife is admitted into a jointure out of the husband s original estate, and into all sorts of rights and comforts with the husband, which she enjoys in a lower degree, and secondarily, so we at second hand are received into the same glory with Christ.

Two or three scriptures confirm this. The first, Rom. viii. 17, < And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-Heirs with Christ. Observe it, for God himself as immediately en joyed to be the inheritance of the creatures ; this is originally Christ s right, and becomes ours by virtue of being co-heirs with Christ.

CHAP. X.J OF ELECTION. 365

Answerably you find in the 16th Psalm (a psalm, saith Peter, Acts ii. 25, made so of Christ as of no other) this is made Christ s prerogative originally.

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot ; ver. 11, Thou wilt shew me the path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; in thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. It was Christ brought up that way of enjoying God, with fulness of Ver. 5, pleasures at his right hand. And as it is a new way as to sinners, Heb.

x. 20, so to the creation of God.

* Wherefore receive you one another, as

A third scripture is Eom. xv. 7,

Christ also received us, to the glory of God, where this glory of God is made originally and naturally his propriety, which he might have kept and received* to himself. And if it is said lie received us secondarily, namely, as brought in by his right unto it, ours is a derived, his the original natural right.

And upon this account, as his, he is engaged to maintain us in it, and bring us to it, as much as an husband is concerned to maintain his wife s estate in all things suitable to his own condition, so far as she is any way capable, either her jointure made out of his own estate and natural inheri tance, and settled upon her by himself by marriage, or her honour, and honourable estate, as is seen by the marriage of a queen unto a king.

Thus by Christ, as Christ, we are called unto glory ; and thus deeply is he concerned in our glory, and so in his bringing us into it.

2. Secondly, consider him as Jesus, a redeemer or purchaser of this glory, and upon that account also it is his glory, for, quod emis, possis dicere jure tuitm, what a man buys or purchaseth is by just right the purchaser s, and whose he will please to give it to. As I shewed, Christ bought our calling, our whole time after, and all our temptations, &c., and with the same price he purchased this glory, as the end and issue of all, so as he loseth his pur chase, the last ultimate bargain in and of that purchase, if we should not arrive at the enjoyment of it, even as was urged concerning all the former : * Which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Look as he in Eph. i. 14, his person is termed Jesus and Christ, so that glory, answerably to each, is styled both an inheritance as Christ, and a purchased possession as Jesus.

And do you consider how he purchased it ? Even by the laying down of all

For our that glory naturally due to him as Christ, and even as it is said, sakes he that was rich became poor, that we might be made rich, by his lay ing down those riches of glory which were his due.

Though he had it by a natural right, as was declared, yet by purchase also all his glory became his, as by a new right; for it is no more absurdity to say, Christ hath a double right to his crown in heaven, than for a prince to have a natural right to his throne and a title by conquest also. This Phil, < Who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to ii. 6-9 confirms, be equal with God ; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. And as to himself, so in a more full and proper manner for us; even as Jacob speaks, Gen. xlviii. 22, to Joseph, Moreover, I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow. And what Christ hath given away and feoffed us in, as purchased with his blood and won by conquest, he will be sure to inain-

* Qu. reserved ? ED.

366 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. tain, as setting a value accordingly upon it, even as Jacob there did upon what he had won and conquered.

Thus much for this, that our glory is /MS, and he the proprietary of it.

II. Secondly, add, that as he hath called us into it, so he hath entered into the possession of it for us, as in our names, in our stead, and in our behalf, and is gone to heaven to take up our places, yea, and to keep them for us, and so is engaged to keep us for them. It is certain that as he him self, upon both those rights fore-mentioned, entered into heaven, and possesseth it, so also, under the name and investiture of both, that is, of being an head to us and redeemer for us, he is entered into heaven, as a fore runner, and that for us : Heb. vi. 20, Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. Mark it, a forerunner for ns; to take up lodgings and rooms for us against we come thither, to keep places for us. Possession is (you say) eleven points of the law, whether taken by yourselves or your forerunner and representer; yea, and upon these considerations of his being an head, a redeemer, it is that it is said, Eph. ii. 6, that we are made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It is a point of honour to him to keep our places for us, and not suffer us to be jostled out ; a point of faithfulness to make good our estates for us, which he was betrusted with, as it is in any that is so trusted to see to it that those the estate [is] intended for be not frustrated of it. And it is certainly Christ s honour to make our places good to us, and see us perfectly settled in them ; we sit as sure as he ; if he be able to keep his station, he will be sure to keep ours.

III. Thirdly, add to all these, that as he is the great proprietary, founder and purchaser of our glory, so that his glory is increased and enlarged by the bringing us to glory, whom he hath thus called into it. That is, not the glory, which Christ reckons on so much, that he should be able to say, I did my part in dying for them, though many of them are now in hell, but that himself being made perfect, through sufferings, God had many sons actually brought to glory by him, as the Captain of their salvation, as in Heb. ii. 10. As it would be the highest glory of a general to bring off and carry his sol diers through armies without the loss of a man, through great conflicts and hazards unto a glory and victory, and to make them more than conquerors in the end. And this of Christ is said ; and this is the very scope of the apostle there, for Christ glories in it, as it follows, Heb. ii. 13, Behold I and the * present them to his Father with great joy, as the apostle Jude speaks. And at that children thou hast given me, when at the day of judgment he shall time, when this shall be eminently spoken by him, he will have all gathered about him ; therefore of that day it is said in 1 Thes. i. 10, He shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day. The glory of the day is his, and our glory in that day is his, being glorified in us. It will not be our own glory, as it is ours, that will be counted of by us as the glory of that day ; it will be his glory, as in us, and that will lie in us, that he hath brought unto that glory all which believe, for indeed all our glory makes up a crown of glory to him ; upon which very ground it is that holy Paul, that was zealously inflamed for the glory of Christ, is emboldened so vehemently to pray for their preservation, whom he wrote thus unto, in the next llth verse, Wherefore we pray always that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and would fulfil the work of faith, that is, to keep and preserve you until then, that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him. So

that the apostle, by what his own interest was in the perseverance of his con verted ones, shews how infinitely more Christ s interest was in their glory, there farther declared to be the end and price of our calling, and ultimate and furthest product, and aim of the grace of God and of our Lord Jesus, which are there brought in as the great effects of all this. So he concludes it, According to the glory of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, even as here, the God of all grace, which hath called us into his glorv bv Jesus Christ.

You see clearly from that scripture that as our glory is designed but for the greatening of his, so also our continuing in grace", to the end that he may be then glorified in us (having been so kept by him), is made a great additional unto his honour ; therefore our preservation in grace, and being carried safe through temptations, is of an absolute concernment to that his being glorified then in us, as without which he should be frustrated, and lose of his designed glory, and as by which on the contrary he will be so infinitely exalted.

I observe also, as to this same issue and purpose, that elsewhere our being kept and preserved in grace runs in our deeds for the term of years of our lives after calling ; and the period thereof to run in the style of keeping us to that day. And to that day is still expressed upon that occasion, either by the day of the Lord Jesus, or the coming of the Lord Jesus ; and these words of preserving us, and * unto that day, are still joined, as having some special inference and aim, and influence upon each other. You may observe it in all those places where those famous promises to confirm us, preserve us, keep us, are recorded ; and how neither of these two were left out in any one of those places ; as, for instance, 1 Cor. i. 8, Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The like Philip, i. 6, Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ; and 1 Thes. v. 23, And the very God of peace: and I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. sanctify you wholly

And amongst other reasons why the period of our being kept is said to be that latter day rather than the day of death (of which I have elsewhere spoken), and why that latter day also (when these two are mentioned) is still styled the day of Christ, and the coming of Christ, the reason thereof is manifestly this, because the keeping us unto that day doth in so eminent a manner, and above all things so infinitely tend and make for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ at that day, even this, that we have been carried through all and preserved. The discovery and laying open of this will make a day out indeed, as we use to speak, a day of Christ, his day, a day of glory unto him, who upon this consideration of having called us and pre served us, will above all other be glorified in all our glory, and we in him. How strongly, then, must we all conceive Christ to be obliged to perform this for us, upon the account in hand, that we are called into glory by Jesus Christ ! If in the second chapter of the same 1 Thes., ver. 19, 20, Paul, a poor minister (whose care and solicitude you may read to have been so great in the foregone parts of that chapter, to keep them in that holy calling they had been brought into by his ministry), thought with himself, and so deeply considered his converts wrought upon by his ministry, that they would persevere to that day, and that upon this account, as appears by those words, * For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ? for ye are our glory and joy ; how much more may we think that Jesus Christ is

3G8 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. concerned (take in all the interests fore-mentioned, that he hath in us and in our glory) to look to it, that we be thus kept

! For we may, through his grace towards us, say it, that we are his crown, and his glory, at that day, and he will then with glorying say, Lo, here am I, and the children which thou hast given me. Lo, I have brought all, and every one of them, safe to this other side of glory, and not one of them is perished in the way and conduct hitherto. And as a poor minister shall have a personal glory for his personal holiness, as a Christian, and a superadded glory as a minister, so hath Christ at that day. One personal, as he is the Son of God dwelling in our nature, of which John speaks: John i. 14, We saw his glory, as the glory of the only begotten Son of God. And another additional, as he is head and Saviour of his church, which is his body, who are the glory of Christ, as 2 Cor. viii. 23, The fulness of him that filleth all in all, Eph. i. 23. So as although his personal fulness is such, as out from it he filleth all as an head, yet considered as to his body the church, that church is said to be his fulness. And so if he should want but a member at that day, or any of his members want a degree of grace or glory designed unto him, Christ should, as in that aspect, as an head, be rendered imperfect ; for as we are complete in him, so in this he is reciprocally complete in us, which interest of his is his own so highly that it sufficiently causeth him to see unto the perfecting, strengthening, stablishing of us.

And to conclude ; if this that follows be found so effectual a motive to him, as by what himself, John xvii. 24, utters, doth appear, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am ; he loves to see them afore him that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me ; if this moved him thus to pray for them, that God would * keep them from the evil of the world, ver, 15; if this moved him to have them kept, and be brought to glory, that they might (as it were) be but spectators and beholders of his glory ; and because he would not be in heaven alone, but be seen and beheld by others ; how much more may the interests and considerations we have mentioned (especially all of them put together) be judged to have power and efficacy upon his heart, to preserve and bring us unto the participation of that glory himself hath called us into ?

Make you sure of Christ, and he will be sure to make you sure, and your interest in glory to you.

CHAPTER XI.

The engagement of God and Christ by promise for the carrying on his tmly called ones through all temptations unto eternal glory. These promises of perfecting, siablishing, strengthening, settling, as to the time of their accom plishment, have not only respect to their gradual performance in us here in this life, but also to our being consummate in the life eternal to come.

The God of all grace make you [or will make you] perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 PETER V. 10.

Ere I enter upon this other part, I judge it meet to give a brief summary account of what hath passed in the first.

Our apostle Peter having himself been a great instance of temptation from Satan, and of falling through that temptation, and so of the danger that all truly called saints are in, to fall away, if God and Christ come not in to preserve, and if fallen, to recover them ; and Jesus Christ having thereupon

OF ELECTION. 369 set him up as a common and public example of both the danger and pre servation, did purposely, and as it were prophetically, forewarn him there upon : 1, how that Satan had a desire to winnow him ; and, 2dly, that he had < prayed that his faith fail not ; and, 3dly, commanding him that when he should be < converted and restored again, he should take opportunity to forewarn, * strengthen, and confirm the rest of his brethren. This command of his God (and ours) he faithfully performs in the close of this epistle, unto all the saints in the world, and that in words conformable unto that which was used in that command of Christ, that we might discern this to have been in the apostle s eye, and his very intent.

1. In giving warning to all the brotherhood of Satan s going up and down, seeking to devour, verse 8, even as he had * desired of God to winnow him.

2. As Christ had said, Thy brethren, so he here admonisheth all the brotherhood, that they must be for some while tempted, as in ver. 9, some way or other as he had been.

3. In the very same word wherein Christ had expressed what he should do to and for his brethren, Strengthen thy brethren, the very same word doth Peter use here, adding withal, The God of all grace shall strengthen you, after a while, even as I was. So as the words in the scope of them are Peter s consolatory to all saints, or the public faith of heaven, namely, of God and Christ, given to conduct us through all temptations and sufferings safely to heaven.

The management and carriage of my handling in the foregone first part, hath been reduced to the these two heads : The first, the engagements of God and Christ to perfect, strengthen, stablish us, unto a bringing us to glory, maugre all temptations ; the second thing hath been the arguments that that forepart of the verse affords, to work in us a stedfastness of faith (as the next words have it), or a security that God by Christ will carry us on. This hath been the way and course of my handling these words, and that so as all those arguments have issued in comfortable supports and encourage ments, that God will carry us effectually on unto eternal glory.

Which arguments, drawn out of those words, have been, 1, from God s interest herein ; 2, Jesus Christ s.

I. God s.

1. That God is the God of grace. 2. That he is a God of all grace. 3. That he hath called us ; and herein I shewed that the true and perfect work in calling is such a work as he will certainly carry it on.

4. That he hah called us ; us, whom he called according to his purpose, with difference from others, whom he leaves to fall away, having wrought but an imperfect work of calling in them.

5. That he calls us into glory. 6. Into eternal glory. 7. Into his eternal glory. And how all these afford arguments to confirm our faith, and assure us that God will certainly carry us through. This I have still shewn all along; and it hath been the burden (as we say) or conclusion of each of them all.

II. The second is from Jesus Christ, The God of all grace, who hath called us by Jesus Christ, &c.

I come to the second part, the promise of performance in all this, whi ;h is contained in the latter part of the verse.

"Aurog, lie (or the same God, whom he had thus described), after that VOL. ix. A a

370 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

will make ye have suffered a little, or a little while, make you perfect, or you perfect, will stablish, strengthen, settle you.

There are two things to be attended herein.

I. The necessary prerequisite by God s ordination, to precede the per formance of the promise, After ye have suffered a while, which is spoke by way of limitation to the full performance of the promise.

II. The promise itself, set forth in four words : He will perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

I. I speak first to the promise ; for though in the current of the words it comes in last, yet that is the ultimate thing intended. That other of suffer ing a while is but a circumstantial requisite thereunto.

I shall unfold it by questions and answers, and then by particular exposi tions of those four words, which contain the materials of the promise, and do express the things promised.

Quest. 1. Whether these words be a prayer of the apostle s unto God, or a direct promise from God ? And whether to be read,* God shall, and that he will perfect, &c., or that it be a desire or wish of his, that God would per fect, &c. Those that are for making it a prayer of the apostle for them, say that here he begins the conclusion of his epistle, which in other epistles is usual with a prayer, shutting up the whole; but that is a mistake, for, 1, as Gerard well observes, he brings in these words as a new particular argument of encouragement, specially directed unto and against Satan s temptations, spoken of, ver. 9, and so refers not to the matter of the whole epistle, but singly to this; and, secondly, he begins the conclusion of the whole epistle afterwards in ver. 14 ; but especially in that, thirdly, that particle, but God, c. (with which he begins this clause), shews it to be a promise of relief against the temptations spoken of afore ; for thereby he positively declares how God would oppositely strike in, and prevent Satan our adversary in his malice, and all his attempts against us, promising seasonably to succour and strengthen us against him. And it is as if he had said, But God hath took order and care about us, and faithfully promised to help us, &c., whereas if only it had been intended as a prayer of his, this but God had not come in so properly ; yea, it had been superfluous ; he might only and barely have said, The God of all grace strengthen you, &c., and left out his but.

And, 4thly, that description of God that follows that but, The God of all grace that hath called, &c., so largely premised, though indeed it be a just ground of prayer for these things, yet deserved, shall I say required, to make promises of these that follow, and what was premised of God s being the God of all grace, &c., was to stamp a sanction upon them, they being so full, so complete an head of topics to make arguments of, to confirm and assert the certainty that God will and shall perform these, specially when I consider and compare this with other places where the same words that are here used are uttered promisewise, and that upon less grounds premised than what we find here, in the very point of perseverance, which is the scope of the words, * Whether the words be in the indicative future tense, xaragr/ffn, God shall perfect, and so of the rest, or in the optative, xaraoTi cat, there are copies for either reading. The like query hath befallen other places in the New Testament ; as Philip, iv. 9. See Calvin on those words, but particularly for this reading it here in the future. Beza mentions three of his copies for it. Robert Stephens the like. The two Spanish copies have it so ; likewise the ancient manuscript sent by Cyril into England so reads it. The vulgar Latin translation, and Prosper. 1. i. de vocat. Gentium, cap. iv., reads it, as doth the vulgar, and urgeth perseverance from the words, as being promises. As for interpreters, there are many so understand it, that it is a promise ; and divers take in both, to be a prayer, and a promise too, as Gerard, Lorinus, &c.

CHAP. XI.] OF ELECTION

as in^2 Thes. iii. 3, But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish yon, Srjjgfgg/, and keep you from evil. Here is the same word that is here the second, and it is rendered in the future, and is a promise ; as also that there adjoined, shall keep you, with these here, and both promises concerning the same thing, perseverance, and the same in sense and effect that these here, and they are both promises that concern perseverance as these do. The like, Philip, i. 6, Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it* until the day of Jesus Christ. Which is uttered in the future as a promise, he was confident, was certain of the performance of, why therefore should not those copies that make it so here be esteemed genuine ? Upon this further argument it is, that the description that precedes, forementioned, The God of all grace, who hath called, &c., and the rest that follow, speak higher, fuller, and stronger engagements of God, that he will do thus, than what in these places now mentioned did precede unto those promises there, where but one attribute singly in each is made the gage, viz., faithful ; and therefore will in the one, who hath begun a good work, is shall in the other. But here all the grace that is in God (that is, the original of that faithfulness) who hath called (answerable to that icho hath begun a good work, in the other), and then superadding, hath called us into his eternal glory. And, lastly, the emphasis of which hath been opened, he calling in the engagement of his Son, as his surety, too, by Jesus Christ (which hath been opened, these thus accumulated and heaped up in this place, suitably, and justly required (as I said at first, if in those other, or any other place), no less than he should make a promise of them, rather than merely a prayer of his own for them; and thus understood there is an even line runs through the whole, and connects those first words, God of all grace, unto the latter, will strengthen; and to that purpose inserts aurog,f (which you find in like manner, Philip, i. 6), that he the same God, that is a God of all grace, promiseth he will perform all these, argues it not to be precatory only, but assertory, and a most emphatically binding, sealing up of the promise of it, and to be a speaking of God to them, rather than a speaking to God for them.

Gerard farther observes out of the following verse, that hereupon he con cludes with a doxology: ver. 11, To him be glory, and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Because that these benefits (here mentioned, ver. 10) in these four words, were so certain to be performed, that he gives thanks to God aforehand.J And those that would have the words a prayer (says he), yet would have him give this glory thereupon, because God had heard his prayer, and had assured him that he would perform it. Moreover, the same author says, That because the words might be taken either for a prayer or for a promise, that therefore it is indifferent whether to put in ear/, to whom glory is, as assuring us, and confirming the foregoing promises, or ecru, to whom be glory ; wishing it, as it is a prayer. And further, the scope being (says he) to assure them of the performance of them, the apostle mentions his power above any other attribute, so signifying that as he had begun with God s being the God of all grace, ver 10 ; so in the close, that his power being by grace engaged for the performance, all glory be to God of so infinite a grace and omnipotent a power. He thought meet not to let so great a matter pass by unveiled unto ; he strikes sail to that, to whom Efl"/r>.g<rg/, he will finish. It is in substance of signification the same. Beza on Mat. xxi. 16. f av Tog, hie magnam habet emphasin. Gerard in locum. j Taru certa sunt bcneficia conferenda ut gratias agit.

372 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. be glory for ever ; and to do this upon this eminent occasion is usual with him in his epistle, so great a matter is the canning on his called saints effectually unto salvation. Thus likewise in Heb. xiii. 21, Make you per fect, by working in you the good pleasure of his will ; to whom be glory, &c. So he crowns it at the conclusion. The like in Rom. xvi. 26, Eph. iii. 17, Jude 24. But that which comes fully home to a correspondence with this my text is his ascribing the like glory to God, upon the occasion of God s effectual carrying on his own salvation, which he first utters in the future, The Lord shall, in the same manner as here, The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to his heavenly king dom, 2 Tim. iii. 18 ; and then shuts and binds the promise of it up with this doxology, To whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen. Just as here, the God of grace will make you perfect, &c. ; to whom be glory and power (for his so doing) for ever. Lastly, this his for ever and ever stretcheth itself beyond all times and ages, even to the length of eternity, considering that his grace and love, out of which he doth all these, will be continued to his own during that length of evers ; and will be in heaven for ever acknow ledged by the saints, for his having so preserved them, and brought them thither, to be glorified with him by his eternal glory, which he therefore does mention as that he had called them into.

But this small difference (if it should prove any) may be easily reconciled ; for if it be a prayer it tacitly implies a promise ; there is never a prayer but it includes and supposeth a promise as the ground and foundation of it.

If any query, But how can the construction of the words bear both a prayer and a promise ? I answer, that if that reading it in the indicative future be received as genuine, it may well bear the one and the other ; Nam sicut HebrcBi futnra pro pr&ceptivis usurpant, sic et interdum pro optativis, as Estius upon the words hath resolved it.

Only I must still adhere to this, that the words should rather be intended for a direct promise from God ; this is more his aim, seeing it is to work confidence in them, and to assure them of the performance ; and it is certain that a direct and positive promise doth conduce more to comfort and * his brethren, than a prayer of the apostle s own, a single person, though an apostle, and never so holy a man ; and was far more assuring of the performance, especially when for strengthen (as Christ commanded him)

The God tified with such super-excelling elogies, and decipherings of God, of all grace, who hath called us into eternal glory. From the first of his calling us, this same God will perfect, &c., on purpose to confirm us, so as we should no way doubt of it.

Question 2. The second question may be about the time of perfecting, when these promises are intended to be fulfilled ; whether during this life only, and so to carry us through all sufferings whatever, or after this life wholly ended ?

Some interpreters would have the fulfilling of them to be in heaven, after all the sufferings of this life perfectly ended ; and the Syriac stretcheth them in ceternum, to eternity ; others are for the performance of them during this life, with some sufferings passed through ; I take in all, and do state and com pound the whole matter thus comprehensively. First, that as for this life, during the term of it, these promises are begun to be fulfilled in us, upon and with sufferings still all along accompanying them ; and ordered so, as still after sufferings running along, God will and doth interpose strengthen ings, stablishments, according as our sufferings and needs are ; yet a special favour often vouchsafed, after we have been exercised with sufferings, inward or outward, for I take them both. For some times past in our lives he doth

CHAP. XL] OF ELECTION. 373 give us, though not a freedom, yet a more settled, established frame of spirit, in respect to and in comparison of what we were most sufferers in ; this for this life. And, secondly, for the other ; that having carried us through them, to the end of our days, he then, to be sure, promiseth to crown us with the performance of all these in a more transcending manner in heaven.

1. As to God s performing these in this life, as hath been stated. The opening each particular of the four will abundantly clear that the more frequent use of all these words do intend it. Beza runs so far into this sense, as he seems to limit the words thereunto ; however, that is certain which he says, that the apostle here treats of what is during our race in this present life. I might for the present instance in each of the words ; tarap TiffH, the first word, which we translate, will make perfect. It is used of advancing the saints to further degrees of faith and holiness, after a while, in this life : 1 Thes. iii. 10, To perfect that which is lacking in your faith ; Heb. xiii. 21, * Make you perfect in every good work (as the * to do his will, and it is added, working in you what is well-pleasing in his sight ; all which are a-doing, whilst we are in this life. 2. The next word, <rr^/|g/, translated stablish ; it is the same word which Christ used to Peter, in that his command to confirm the brethren. And that in relation to temptation, and after falls ; for it was upon occasion of Peter s own fall, as hath been opened ; God having estab lished him after his fall, he bids him to establish, strengthen his brethren ; and the like in 1 Thes. iii. 2, To stablish you, and to comfort you concern apostle prays then for them) ing your faith. And this in relation to temptation, ver. 5, Lest by some means the tempter have tempted you. Likewise the third word, cdtvuffsi, which imports strength against weaknesses, which we are incident to in this life ; and answers unto giving strength in the inner man, Eph. iii. 17. Then the last word, &i/&fX/c0/, he will found us, as the word signifies, namely, in faith in Christ, and God s love ; these are spoken of as in this life apparently, as Col. i. 23, and in the same, Eph. iii. 17. This for the import of the words, that they relate unto this life ; but for the manner how, and in what cases they are fulfilled in this life (which I put into my stating the assertion), of that hereafter.

2. As for the other life, which was the second thing proposed, I do not wholly limit the extent of the words to this life, so as to exclude their reach to heaven.

(1.) It is certain that the like promises, that are in effect the same which there, do reach us and accompany us till they have set us in heaven, 1 Cor. i. 8, Who shall confirm you to the end, that is, of your lives, yea, perform or fulfil it until the day of Jesus Christ, Philip, i. 6, the day of judgment.

(2.) Some of these words, if not all of them, serve to express our fixed condition after death, in heaven. The first word, xarar/fff/, is used to ex press the complete finishing, perfect consummation of God s works ; so of * The worlds were framed by the word of God. Framed is the same word, and you may read it perfected if you will ; that is, he completed both worlds in this perfect settled frame they now exist in, which although they were by piecemeal framed in six days, yet we see them the first creation, Heb. xi. 3, they are brought unto this perfection, and by faith believe they were thus made complete by the word of God, which, Gen. ii. 1, at the conclusion of the work, tells us, Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and so finished as nothing can be added to the perfection of them, And as this word is thus used of the first creation, Heb. xi., so

374 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. it is and may be most aptly applied to the second creation, or workman ship in Christ Jesus, which in this life is a-framing (as the world was in fix days) by degrees, but shall be finished and made complete in heaven. And it is evident that the word xaragr/g/v doth signify both a gradual framing of a piece of work, and then afterwards fully to make it entire and consummate every way, so as nothing can be added to the perfection of it, as critics have observed ; and we may take Heb. xii. 23 to confirm that of our full perfecting in heaven, The spirits of just men made perfect, * or spirits consummated, finished as to holiness and righteousness. And the word xa Tagriffzi here doth, in the ultimate sense of it, comply with that in Heb. xii. 23, such a perfecting as brings to a consummation. The second word, <rrjj*/|g/, translated establish, is applied 1 Thes. iii. 13, 1 That your hearts may be established in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. For indeed, notwithstanding all the glory our separate souls shall have had before, yet when we shall have every thought, word, &c., of our whole lives laid open and made known before all the world (as at that day they shall be), our hearts will need a most special strong fulcrum, support, and sustainer (as the word imports), to establish or bear up their hearts, before the great God and all the saints. And yet withal take this in, that it is that exercise of holiness only which we shall attain in this life, by which Christ will stablish our hearts in the day of that great account, and it is not that holi ness our souls shall have had whilst they were separate, though that only will be perfect. That holiness between death and judgment the apostle there intends not, nor speaks of to be that which should be the matter of support, and establisher of our souls at that day ; no, he singles forth that holiness we had here, though imperfect, consisting in sincerity and truth, as appears by the coherence with the verse afore, ver. 12, The Lord make you to increase and abound in love ; then follows, to the end he may esta blish your hearts in holiness at that day. So as we see it is a work which God doth for us after this life as well as here, even as, in like manner, to forgive sins and to shew mercy is said to be at that day ; yet still, seeing the matter whereby we shall then be stablished is that holiness we obtain here, hence, therefore, we may see God can as well, and doth, by the same holiness, made evident to our hearts by his Spirit, stablish our hearts in this life ; and so the promise fitly serves to both, that God will stablish us in this world, as in the world to come, though more imperfectly here.

(3.) The last word here, g/o-gX/wffg/, which signifies to found, or settle, as in and upon a foundation (of which afore), it falls out that this very word, in Heb. xii. 23, lately cited, is in one copy, and that an eminent original c

found and used to express the consummation and perfection of just men in heaven, and signifying fundatorum, the spirits of just men founded. Which reading Beza J thought worthy to put this gloss upon ; < of spirits founded, says he; that is, of them who are out of all danger of vacillation (or change by frailty), being now actually received into that city, which in * TgrgXg/w//,si/wi>. The word xrar/g/i/ here, doth, in the ultimate signification of it, accord with that nXitou used there. So Beza on Mat. xxi. 16, xar Tjoriau, idem quod, ere Xsffag;^ agr/o>, idem hie valet quod TsXeiov, Ita ut nihil desit* neqtte supersit. In Mat. xxi. 16, Perfecisti latidem, i.e. Summam esse insigniter declarasti. bee Capel also, on Heb. xiii. 21. rt> t Claro-Montanus Codex.

4. ^TeusftsXiufAsbuv. Fundatorum, eorum qui jam sunt extra omne vacillation i s discrimen, in earn civitatem jam reipsa recepti, qu habet fundamentum, ut supra xi. 10. -Beza in Heb. xii. 13.

the foregoing chapter, ver. 10, is said to have foundations (which is answer able to that word founded). By which it appears that the word itself may and will fitly refer to that heavenly unalterable estate, without any possi bility of turning, in heaven ; so as although it should not have been the very original word there written by the apostle himself, yet we see the word itself may fitly serve to that sense, and therefore may be well so understood in my text.

As for that other word in the text, placed before this, viz. cfavwoei, which signifies to give strength, power, vigour, though I find it not directly used to set out our heavenly state, yet it being opposed unto all sort of weak ness, impotency, and want of strength and vigour (ao Qsveia, without strength, Rom. v.), and so imports the cure of weakness, or a restoration from a weakly condition, or a state of impotency, unto perfect strength and vigour. And therefore the one may be judged of by the other, for the positive is known always by its privative, and e contra. And I, finding not only the spiritual weakness and impotency in the soul to be styled affdevsia, (as that, * when we were without strength Christ died for us, Rom. v.), but the state of the body by death (that last enemy of ours to be yet destroyed), to be * It is sown in weak likewise expressed by that very word, 1 Cor. xv. 43, ness, that is, it is sown a dead body, viribus cassum, utterly void of all

but it is raised in power, endued, filled, and furnished with all abilities of power, even such as the angels have, who strength ; and oppositely, cel in strength, and ours shall be made a spiritual body, as it is there ; finding also Christ our pattern, in his death on the cross, and his opposite life in heaven, and his resurrection, to be set out by the same words, 2 Cor. xiii. 4, Though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. And we (says the apostle there, as in conformity to him), though we are weak, yet being in him, we shall one day live with him, namely, in glory, by the power of God. And finding, as all grant, and it is certain, that the word here in our text imports a renewal of strength spiritual in our souls in some degree in this life, in opposition to spiritual weaknesses of the soul, which are our sufferings, therefore I thought, why might not or should not this word of the promise here reach unto that perfection in power and glory, which are in substance all one with the import of this word here ?

And when further considered, how this is most proper and pertinent unto the apostle s scope in the whole paragraph ; his direct purpose being to hearten them against all sorts of sufferings, whether from temptations and infirmities in their souls, or from persecutions upon their outward man, against which there is not a stronger cordial than these promises of that glorious estate which both body and soul shall have in the other world. And seeing the body and outward man hath a great share in sufferings for Christ s sake, we may well think that amongst so many words heaped up for their comfort, one of them at least should be found to glance at that state, yea, more directly to aim at the reward and reparations made to the body at the resur rection ; and seeing that other apostle doth give this very title of aa Qeveias, infirmities, unto that large catalogue and inventory of sufferings in his body, in the second of Corinthians, the eleventh and twelfth chapters, again and again, and at last sums up the sorts of them in chap. xiii. 10, under that ; Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in denomination, necessities, in persecutions for Christ s sake ; for when I am weak, then am I strong ; and that this word here translated strengthen is the direct opposite unto all such infirmities, we may, I say, very readily conclude that it extends to the qualifications of power and glory, which the body shall have at the resurrection in lieu of those infirmities, as a recompense of those

376 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. sufferings, considering withal how the resurrection of the body from death is expressed in the same words, 1 Cor. xv. 43, as hath been shewn. Obj. Beza mentions this objection, that if the glory of heaven were aimed at, that one first word had been sufficient, will make you perfect, he needed not have heaped up so many more.

Am. 1. If indeed that glory, in the perfection of it, had altogether and alone been intended, this might have had some force in it; but the apostle s scope is to comprehend what is in this life gradually a-performing in us, and then at last to be consummated in the other ; and there being many several sorts of sufferings, temptations, and infirmities of soul in this life, there needed a multiplication of comfortable words, more than one, for our more abundant consolation ; which comes in the next question to be spoken to. Ans. 2. Our miseries and sufferings in this life being many and various, the blessedness of heaven itself is set out to us by several words, opposite to those miseries, and expressed to be a freedom from them, so to comfort us particularly against each, as when it is said, < All tears shall be wiped from our eyes, ^They shall hunger and thirst no more, The inhabitant shall not say he is sick, and the like ; and we use to comfort ourselves with the privation of and deliverance from such miseries, and therefore it is termed redemption and salvation, glory and immortality, fulness of pleasures, and the like : and so here, a making us perfect, in "opposition to our imperfec tion m this life ; a stablishing, instead of unsettlement and aptness to change, as m this life ; a strengthening us with a glorious power, in respect of those weaknesses we are here obnoxious unto.

Thus much for clearing the second particular, that these words do con cern our state after this world ; which I have been the larger in, because if, on the contrary hand, we should limit these promises only to what God doth in this life, there would be this objection, which I have not known otherwise how to solve, than by what hath been now asserted ; for it might be said, if these promises be to relieve us against sufferings, &c., and as to be performed only m this life, and performed after we have suffered a while, how is it that persecutions and outward sufferings continue and abide upon the righteous even unto death ? and increase, perhaps, more and more ; yea, and sufferings from Satan, and temptations to sin, continue so long and snarp unto some, even throughout their lives ? And, if so, how doth God perform these his promises, if (as the apostle says) they have hope only for relief in this life ? Hence, therefore, I was enforced, out of tenderness to any that are in such a case to the end of their lives, to entertain and take m that other opinion mentioned, that they should be accomplished m th e< other world to the utmost, though in this world the performance of them is so slender ; yet with a sure and safe carrying on the soul through them all, to an overcoming at last, by continuing so as their faith fail not, which Christ m his speech to Peter prayed for ; and to continue faith and obedience, though with some conflicts and prevailings at times of tempta tions, is yet by Christ himself interpreted to be an overcoming, when it con tinues to the end.

But my special design upon these four words is to open and apply them as reliefs against the temptations of our souls, whilst we are in this life, without any further insisting on their accomplishment in heaven ; which is an uni versal and general reserve for all souls, but particularly of those upon whom a continuance of their temptations in this life, with any extremity, shall hap pen to abide to the last of their days ; that, however, then, amends and repairs will be made for all. I therefore have limited this next prosecution unto soul temptations whilst we are in this world.

CHAP. XII. ] OF ELECTION

And, indeed, even those interpreters* who restrain the sufferings intended by Peter in the former verses unto persecutions, yet are fain to take in the temptations and spiritual infirmities of men s souls, which they are incident to in their undergoing persecutions, and often in seeking to escape them ; and to understand them to be promises for supplies and supports against such failures and incidences ; and these are of far greater danger and damage than barely the outward persecutions themselves, simply considered ; so as the comfort in these promises must be understood chiefly to respect the evils which men s souls are obnoxious unto. Other interpreters, reading with the vulgar Latin but three words instead of four (the vulgar Latin putting the two middle words into one word, as all one), would have them intended directly for our overcoming our three enemies in this life, the world, the flesh, and the devil, in respect of their tempting us to sin ; others, to be three several salves, or remedies, for the three eminent powers of our souls, as they are vitiated and corrupted, as, namely, the understanding, will, and passions ; others, to distinguish them, apply them severally, one to the lusts of the eye, the other to the lusts of the flesh, the other to the pride of life, as John hath summed them up. I confess I like not these their discriminations of them ; yet this I make use of, that they agree with me in this, that they respect our souls, and the corruption and evil of them, and temptations inci dent to them ; and I would not confine them unto the mischiefs incident to men s souls, by reason of or from outward persecutions only ; but I would extend them unto all sorts of soul temptations whatsoever, one as well as another, suitably unto the interpretations I have, and shall give, that by suffering, temptations of all sorts are to be intended by the apostle.

CHAPTER XII.

Whether these four words, perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you, intend one and the same in a various manner of expression, or whether they have severa Hij a peculiar import answering particularly to temptations of a differing sort to which we are obnoxious. The meaning of the word perfect explained: sometimes it is understood of the complete accomplishment of a work. When applied to the work of grace, as here, it denotes the supplying or making up of imperfections and wants ; and that it imports either the adding further degrees of perfection unto the imperfect work of grace first begun in us ; or it reaches the case of lapsed Christians, and signifies their being recovered and restored again. That there are such cases of backsliding, which is not a total apostasy. To make [perfect] such fallen soids, is to repair what was torn and broken in them by their sin. Those who fall into grosser sins are made perfect again by a new conversion.

A third question will be, Whether for our support against all such temp tations, the accumulation, or heaping up of so many words (four), should be intended by the Holy Ghost, as signifying only one and the same thing, and so to be made up, so many ingredients, into one dose, as a catholicon, or general medicine and antidote, which may altogether be applied, and taken for relief against any, or all temptations, as they befall us ? Or whe ther there may not be some specific, particular, distinct sort of cordial in one

See Lorinus, who hath summed up the several interpretations the most briefly and fully of any. Cornelius a Lapide, in his interpretations of the first word xar|-

Tiffet, ut si quid in patientia, vitio impatientise et pusillanimitatis sit lassum, instauret, &c.

378 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. more than another, in reference unto some special sorts of temptations, as they shall occur to us.

Some interpreters do make them up into one bolus, or lump, and to import but one and the same thing,* and yet to be thus multiplied into four, for an exaggeration (as their word is), or more vehement and deep asserting the same, to shew, quam magna) difficultatis sit, nos perseverare, of how great difficulty the matter of oar perseverance is. I would further say, that this is done to the end, to give all believers full assurance of faith that God will infallibly perform it ; he would never have made so many words about it else. And truly, if there were found no other, or further end and use herein, this favourable construction might content us, that God should give four words for one, when one might have been enough, it argues he would have us have abundant consolation from it. That as lawyers multiply words, though to one and the same purpose, thereby to make all sure, and to bind, and fetch in, and comprehend all, that there might be no exception, nor any doubt: which, if there were no peculiar distinct meaning to each word, had been a great security unto us, a fourfold security and left, so here the apostle obligation, by four words, and the rather, because whereas Jesus Christ our Lord had, in his command to Peter, mentioned but one of these words, ffroiov

t stablish, or confirm thy brethren, and no other; and the ro\Jc ab&.<povs apostle enlarges to four, when he comes to perform the command. By one word of God was heaven and earth on the first day made and founded upon nothing ; and sure so many words as these may well serve to found, stablish, and settle our unbelieving, unstable hearts, in this so great matter of con cernment to us.

Yet over and besides this general use to be made hereof, I desire it may be thoroughly searched into, what peculiar confortatives and cordials, in re ference unto particular cases in our lives, from sins and special sorts of temptations, the singular and proper import of each in their use in the New Testament will afford UP.

I dare not undertake to demonstrate the particulars of this ; how the pro per and distinct significations of them, of one from another, do rospectively promise and speak an answerable proper relief to any and every temptation in their particular variety, although I am apt to think with Gerard, that not only whatever belongs to our salvation (namely, after calling) is summarily comprehended in these four words ;f but further, that all sorts of temptations whatever are reducible, and might be referred under some one of these heads of succours and remedies ; for it is apparent that each of these words do not simply express a positive promise, as of strengthening, making perfect, &c., but do connotate the privative, or want in us, of the thing promised, for the use of which the promise is intended ; as that he will strengthen us against weakness } he VfiH perfect us out of imperfection; and against former imperfec tion (as in the prophet Isaiah, chap. Ixi. 3, * He will appoint beauty for ashes ; and verse 7, For shame you shall have double, &c). The remedies here do intimate the maladies they are the cures of, and out of which he proraiseth deliverance.

And for the genuine meaning of each, I take this rule, which Gerard

Quattior ilia verba pene Synonima. JEstius. Hsec omnia idem vel quasi idem sunt. A Lapide. And whoever will read Gerard s allegation of the use of these several words in the Septuagint, will find their significations much do run into one another ; and prove in sense much one and the same. See his Comment, in Loc., p. 794, 795 ; and A Lapide and Lorinus do cite Gagnejus on the word ; Kem eandem verbis multis idem significantibus exaggerari. t Summatim, quicquid ad salutis nostrse principium, medium, eifinem pertinet ; illud omne Petrus quatuor hisce verbis comprehendit.

pitched on, that omnium optima ewplicatio sumitur ex emphasi Gracorum verborum. The best explication of them all (or of all others given by others) is to be taken from the emphasis which the Greek words have, as in the sacred language of the New Testament they are used.

Will make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. This word xaragriasi is sometimes used for the perfecting and completing a work simply, abso lutely, and at once, and without having any respect to a former imperfection, it being once had. And thus it is spoken of the human nature of Christ, Heb. x. 5, < A body hast thou perfected me (it is the word that is here); and that body was formed or articulated (as the word also signifies) by the Holy Ghost, with the human soul, in all the parts of it, in one instance* of its union with the Son of God, for it subsisted not alone a moment. And, Heb. xi. 3, when it is said God framed or perfected the worlds, it is the same word; and the supreme world, the highest heavens, were in one instant created absolutely perfect the first day. But when in the New Testament it is applied to the works of grace, as it is in the text, it takes into it a con notation of, and a relation to, an imperfect degree of being, which is further to be perfected, and out of which God makes perfect. And unto such a sense the word in general expresseth a supplement, or making up of wants ; as 1 Thes. iii. 10, Might perfect that which is lacking or deficient in your faith. And the word iiaregwa (there used) is in its proper signification want, and elsewhere is used to signify needs in outward things, 2 Cor. viii. 14 and chap. ix. 12, which we usually term want; but is there, in the first to the Thessalonians, applied to spiritual wants, and fallings short therein. Now, spiritual sufferings being included in the sufferings here in the text as well as outward, and spiritual imperfections occasioned by outward being intended, this word therefore imports a meet supply, and making up of spiritual wants; even as there, in 1 Thes. iii. 10, it is meant of the perfecting of faith, and what is wanting in it. Now, this perfecting of what is wanting in graces to us, may receive a double intendment :

1. Simply; viz. that the work of grace begun in any of us being at first short and imperfect in its degrees which are requisite to make it fully per fect, in respect thereunto God s promise here is, that he will go on to per fect that work begun ; as Philip, i. 6, Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. It is said of the person who, walking up to the grace received, is without any wilful failure or neglect in his course, and is not guilty of gross or perverse imperfections ; which was Paul s case after his calling, who yet says he was not already perfect after a long stage in Chris tianity: Philip, iii. 12, Not as though l had already attained, either were already perfect ; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

And this is the case which the text respects ; for it may, yea, and doth, befall several Christians, who have had the special privilege so to have walked from the first, who yet need further additions to make them perfect ; and to whom God will, above all other Christians, perform this promise, of making them perfect more and more on earth, unto a consummation of them in holi ness in heaven, yet so as the common law of sufferings first must take hold of them; a law common to them, with all others of their brethren, as in the text. And those sufferings, either outward, wherein the apostle Paul abounded ; or perhaps inward assaults from Satan, though still resisted, so as not to be overcome by them; after which conflicts God comes anew, * Qu. instant ? ED.

380 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. wonderfully to perfect and establish such in faith and holiness. And this seems to have been the case and present state of those Thessalonians when the apostle wrote that epistle to them for we read of no church he wrote to whom he so commends for having kept their first conversion work so pure, and without the least defection, as by his rejoicing in them in that epistle appears and yet he tells them in the words fore-cited, that there were things wanting in their faith, the supply of which he expresseth by this word (which is the end I cite it for), That we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Let men called have had never so great and eminent conversions (as these had, as in chap, i.), yet God hath in store reserved, and in design laid up, for them, great and glorious accesses of grace to per fect them, which they all afterwards attain, in their resistance and overcomings of temptation, and strict walkings with him. Whereof there is an instance likewise in that decaying church of Sardis (of which by and by), a few elect, choice Christians in God s account were found even there ; who are mentioned in Rev. iii. 4, Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk with me in white ; for they are worthy.

The word um^/zara, in that to the Thessalonians, translated lacking in your faith, is the same that is used by the apostle, Col. i. 24, of our suffer ings for Christ; which, as it is translated, runs thus, To fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. And the filling up of these is the matter of the promise here in Peter; as if he had said, The God of all grace, that hath called us, will fill up what is behind in his ordination ; and lacking to what we received at first calling, unto an higher perfection. Besides what is wanting in the doctrinals of faith, there are additional to the special faith of Christians. God hath an all-riches of full assurance, to be added unto our faith of recumbency received at first ; and to that rich assurance of understanding, he hath joy unspeakable, and full of glory, to be superadded; and unto making our election sure, he hath an abundant entrance into heaven, begun in this life; for which compare 2 Peter i. 10, 11, Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure : for if you do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting king dom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And as thus in point of faith, so in holiness; as we receive at first the Spirit to regenerate us, so there is the promise of pouring out the Spirit after. As we read in Christ s speeches, and the story of the apostles times, there is an adding of one grace to another, as our apostle in his second epistle exhorts : 2 Peter i.

5, 6, And besides this giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness. And they are degrees of the same grace, as each is to have its perfect work, thereby to make us entire, wanting nothing: James i. 3, 4, Knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. And these accesses are not always wrought anew insensibly, as plants that grow we know not how; but some times sensibly, discernibly in the addition, with a notoriety to themselves and others. There ariseth up a new autumn spring in some, which is as a first conversion, and is by Christ styled a second conversion : Except ye be converted, &c., Mat. xviii. 3, says Christ to his disciples, that were con verted already. There are great windfalls of the Spirit, who blows when and where he lists, after regeneration, that do befall some Christians, and especially such as have kept their garments pure from the first; for to him

CHAP. XII. J OF ELECTION. 331 that hath shall be given. And disciples growing up in such additaments as these are termed a perfection: Luke vi. 40, The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And there fore let such Christians expect eminent fulfillings of these promises, in this manner as hath been spoken, after they have suffered a while.

But yet, lest we should restrain the promise here solely, and only to such Christians as have continued to walk up to their conversion principles, and so exclude all those that after calling have foully fallen into grosser evils against light, or declined and swerved greatly from the first zeal, I shall therefore shew you out of the Scriptures, that,

2. This same word, make perfect, under the import of which the promise here runs, doth in the significancy of it, yea, and the application of it also, reach and extend unto such cases, unto this of lapsed Christians also ; and if to such, then certainly to all, or any other sort, that may be supposed to fall out in God s true called ones. The God of all grace hath in store for such riches laid up, to restore and perfect them again, although it usually costs them very full dear in soul sufferings and sad trials, for and from such extravagancies, ere they attain it. For of such sinnings of his people, God hath said, It is bitter, and reacheth to the heart, Jer. iv. 18 ; and every one doth and will feel them such, sooner or later, whom God hath called, ere they arrive at the performance of this promise, of being made perfect, stablished. But after they have so suffered a while, his grace will perfect and stablish them ; and yet perhaps, when they are restored to that perfection God intends to them afterward, it is but in respect of some greater measure of substantial spiritual faith and holiness than ever they had afore, without those superadditions and overpluses of glorious joys, &c. that themselves once had, or others, Athat have kept their garments pure, have the privi lege of.

I need not stand long in shewing that there fall out such cases of back sliding, that yet are not sinking into a total falling away, or extinction of : as, 1, the case of leaving one s first love, and declining from that grace spiritual fervent zeal of good works, which a Christian had once at his first calling, or afterwards, and therewith a cooling and defervescency in holy actings, inward and outward. This was Christ s charge against the angel and church of Ephesus: Eev. ii. 4, 5, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do thy first works ; and that this is said to them that had true grace still, in an eminent measure, abiding in them, and who continued still to act holily, though in a lower degree, I need not stand to prove ; read the verses afore and after. Again, 2, you read of a far deeper defection in the angel of the church of Sardis, even to the lowest degree, next to a total loss of grace and the state of it: Rev. iii. 2, I have not found, says Christ, thy works perfect afore God. This also is spoken unto them that were true be * Be watch lievers, that had some spiritual life remaining in them ; ver. 2, ful, strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die. And they were not those principles you are wont to call the remainders of pure nature in Adam, as natural conscience, &c., but of that life they had received by regeneration from Christ ; for we may not think that all conscience was a-dying in these professors, for Christ writes to them as a church that had many good works, which they still exercised, though comparatively dead to what they had been. But their condition was fallen to this, that their spiritual life was ready to die, and like a snuff or wick sunk into the socket (which Christ s comparison reaches) was ready utterly to go out, and expire its last with the next attempt which it made to shine. And this befell them through

882 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. a drowsiness which their wills had entertained, by degrees come on them ; so as they were greatly declined through that negligence, which a willing and indulged sleepiness brought upon them ; although the second verse, Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die ; for I have not found thy works perfect before God ; this insinuates that they had life, but were next degree to death ; in a dead-hearted frame as to spiritual actings, especially inward ; so the words, be watchful, and strengthen, do import. Now when it is said of them, that their works were not found perfect afore God, or not full, it notes that they omitted some duties which they afore practised, or were declined so far, as not to perform them ; or if they did, it was formally, customarily, deadly, without much agitation of spiritual life in the exercise of them. Not from out of renewed, inward principles stirred up and exerted, and put forth in them, (though habitually they remained in them) of love to God, zeal for God, faith unfeigned, continually exercising itself upon Christ afresh every day, both for justification and for deriving new strength for the acting of them, < without whom we can do nothing, accompanied with holy aims at the glory of God, and that proceeding out of a pure conscience, without the pre dominancy of by-ends, prevailingly influencing the good works they did, and carrying them on to those duties, more than the energy and provoca tion of God s glory in their hearts thereto ; and this lifeless, dead frame of heart had not been for a spurt or a short paroxysm or fit, but by the re proof Christ gives it appears it had been for some long space and continu ance of time.

Yea, 3, we further find that not only such a privative cessation and de praved omission and obstrnctiveness in the motion, and circulation of good works, but convulsion fits of falling into the commission of grosser acts of sinning, do sometimes befall true believers that have been called, whereof there are many instances in Scripture. But we need no further than the case of our apostle Peter, and which was the occasion of Christ s command to him, in obedience whereunto he wrote this confortatory or consolatory of our text. You know how he did with oaths and curses thrice deny our Lord after he had true faith ; and yet that principle of faith was not utterly extinct by his so grievous a transgression. His heart, poor man, throbbed within, and beat some inward, though faint, resistances to the contrary, even when his will gave consent to perpetrate that high wickedness. And both these things of him our Saviour s words insinuate, Luke xxii. 32, But I have prayed that thy faith fail not ; therefore he had faith afore, and that faith not extinct, but smothered as in a smoke, which a look of Christ s blew up into a flame of the deepest and most vehement repentance ; and Christ fully recovered and restored him again, and made him perfect, and strengthened him more than ever; and it was a new conversion to him, as Christ there terms it. But my business is to inquire, for the support and comfort of such Chris tians, whether none of these four words in the text be not in their signification applicable to these cases, and so the promises thereof to reach them ; and although many other promising scriptures may be intended to that purpose, yet my design is, and undertaking hath been, all along my handling this text, to keep myself to the words thereof, and take only such supports as they give a ground for ; and I look upon this scripture as an abundary and magazine, as to perseverance-comforts, to make a Christian complete therein, and I shall therefore invite them but to drink and taste the waters out of this one cistern, and draw them forth out of this well of consolation ; and if this pro mise of perfecting reaches the cases of these Christians, then any other, the

CHAP. XII.] OF ELECTION. 3g3 worst snpposable, that of total apostasy excepted, which God never suffers his called ones to fall into, but setting that aside, these fore -mentioned cases are the worst that do befall any of the true saints after calling, in the course of their lives, between their calling and their deaths.

Now for the whole or total of these cases, and as touching them all at once, it is certain that the word xaragr/w, imports a making whole, or per fect again of what is anyway rent, torn, tattered, maimed, broken, disjointed, or the like, and signifies an instauration, a restitution, or restauration of anything despoiled ; and in the proper and original use of it, signifies the making whole of anything that is endamaged or spoiled.* And from hence this its proper signification, fitly in a way of metaphor, comes to be trans lated here to men s souls, and the sinful impairments thereof, that sense be ing used in the text; and so it doth most aptly include the foresaid cases, and imports the setting up again and restoring of a soul or person once truly called (for of one after calling he only speaks), that yet after calling hath been both greatly wanting, decayed, and deficient in good works, and also fallen into great and enormous crimes, or both (for both these do ofttimes accompany one the other), as well as of the carrying of the soul on in an unblameable course of uninterrupted strictness. And for this the proper signification of it, interpreters (and it is a famous instance among them) do, for expounding of this word in the text, allege and apply out of two evangelists what is more properly spoken of the apostles mending their nets, whilst fishermen, when broken, Mat. iv. 21, Mark i. 19 ; from which they take occasion by way of metaphor or similitude (which is the form of language used in all these four words f) to explain this particular word, it being one and the same word that is used by the evangelists that is here. And the subjects of this promise of making perfect by God being our souls, in respect of sins, the sense of it comes to this, that in some likeness and analogy, God s promise is to mend and make our broken souls whole again, after they have been rent and tattered, in the impairment of their graces begun in them, either by decay or more grievous sinnings, so far as to be fitted again for their wonted use and service, as we say, or meet for the Master s use, as the apostle speaks, 2 Tim. ii 21, and to that end to make them as tight and as strong as ever, that first of their mending nets being the proper signification of the word, and this, in our apostle, the metaphorical ; and it is the law of the use of metaphors or borrowed speeches, by way of likeness thus to apply them according to their several kinds, and therefore must be admitted in this. And here I need not tell you, how much more obnoxious our sinful souls are to miscarriages in their kind, than fishermen s nets are to ruptures and breaches in their kind, which yet is as great as of any other thing a man makes use of, as from falling upon anchors or through wrecks in the sea ; yea, by multitudes and bigness of fishes when drawn up, Luke v. 6. It is use enough to make of this similitude, and to my present purpose, that whatsoever the breaches be on our parts, God s promise here is to them that are called, to make them perfect again, and not to suffer them to run into such, as shall utterly destroy them.

I shall further but cast in this, agreeable to my general scope I have all along prosecuted, that if art and nature in empty man (as in Job xi. 12 man is styled) have skill, and are able to repair the works of their hands, surely the God of all power, and the God of all grace, knows how, and is * Tygurina vertit, instauret, ut si quid vitio impatientiae, et pusillanimitatis sit luxatum, laesum, divisum, fractum, hiulcum, distortum, debilitatum ; Deus instauret, conformet, uniat. A Lapide in verlmm ibidem. f Verba hsec quatuor, sunt omnia metaphorica. JEstius in verba.

884 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. able much more, yea, and by grace and the engagements thereof, most willing to restore the workmanship of his own hands (which he cannot but love), which he hath on purpose created unto good works, Eph. ii. 10. And this then, when his and our adversary Satan (whose work and endeavour it is to spoil that new workmanship, which God by regenerating of us hath begun in us) attempts to ruin us, by stirring up our lusts in us ; and with whose temptations those corruptions being irritated do join ; whereupon yet, God is so far from being provoked to destroy us or forsake us (which is Satan s aim), that he is provoked, through his grace that he bears in his heart towards us, to repair what Satan in malice, through our weakness, had attempted to undo. And accordingly, in full opposition to Satan and the strength of lusts in us, he sets himself, with a but God, &c., as here, to undo this ruining work of the devil, notwithstanding all our sinfulness ; and further, hath been most graciously pleased thus aforehand to relieve us by such a promise, made under the significancy of this most elegant metaphor, to mend us, and restore us, and make us perfect again, and our souls as strong and fit for his service as ever.* Oh how often doth the devil in our lives break in upon us, and upon what we have wrought, and in a manner undoes what we have done ; yea, when for a long while together we have walked more strictly, and our hearts have been kept up in a holy frame and close communion with God, and gone on in a constancy, performing spiritual duties with much spiritual life ; how doth a wretched lust rise in us, stirred up by some occasion, and then strongly withal enforced and impregnated by Satan s temptations and infusions (as in David, Satan is said to have done, when he numbered the people, 1 Chron. xxi. 1) ; and so in a great measure mars what we have been so long aworking, insomuch that we are apt to think ourselves utterly undone, and in reality are wonderfully cast behind hand thereby. Ay, but this God of all grace here in the text, sends then his Holy Spirit into our hearts, who provokes us to, and renews unfeigned repentance in us (as there he did in David), lifts us up when we are fallen, and restores us to our former, yea, and often to a much far better and holier constitution and disposure of spirit than ever. And oh, how often is it that God visits us and renews such gracious dispensations upon our sinnings, verifying that blessed manifesto of his gracious heart in the prophet, Thy destruction is of thyself; but in me is thy help. This from the proper use of the word, as it is appliable, by way of meta phor, unto God s perfecting our souls in the cases afore specified ; but as yet only in the general.

But let us further see, if that the word be not in its metaphorical use, in particular applied by the Holy Ghost himself, unto a restoring us in and out of those very particular cases, concerning grosser sins and neglect of known duties.

I begin first with that of falling into grosser sins, which are the worst ; according to that rule, that sins of commission are greater evils, and have more of peccancy in them than sins of omission in good works ; of which sort the two first cases afore mentioned were.

In Gal. vi. 1, If a man (or although a man, who is supposed by the ( be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; consider apostle to be a brother and true Christian) ing thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Which last words shew he supposeth the most spiritual may fall into the like. The word restore such an * Significat ergo apostolus, telam bonorum operum et justitise quam texiinus, cito, et facile in hac vita rumpi ; nisi accedet Dei /.arag Tiff/tbg, says Gerard in applying that of mending their nets unto this word here.

one, is our very word in the text here, and in a way of metaphor, applied to the case afore us, although under another metaphor than the former (yet having the like general import of making perfect what is impaired, &c.) ; applied, I say, to the making whole again a sinner fallen into a gross sin. And it is expressly so applied to this very case by the Holy Ghost himself. The metaphor there (as generally interpreters agree, and needs no distinct proof, for the scriptures I shall allege in the prosecution of this, and in the margin,* will clear it so to be) is a metaphor taken from surgeons that set a bone, a limb or limbs, which by some grievous dangerous fall is become loosened from its joint, or perhaps (which is worse) broken or bruised ; and the word -TrasccTrrw/Aa there also suits too, and complies also with this other metaphor of a broken joint. It is translated indeed a fault, but signifies properly & fall, and but metaphorically a sin ; yea, and sometimes is 6vw,aa-

GTIXOJS, and by way of eminency, put to signify some singular great sin, as when we say Adam s fall, as it was to the ruin of himself and us all ; and accordingly his sin and disobedience is in that singular sense termed by the apostle vaourt Ttafltt,, Rom. v. 14, which is the word here, and sounds some noticed sin fallen into. And this is a worse matter than the case of that spiritual drowsiness to good works we spake of, out of Rev. iii. Now his exhortation is to such as were more grown and able Christians, whom he terms, you that are spiritual, that is, comparatively to others ; and these he exhorts with meekness and all tenderness of spirit (such as we use to say surgeons hands ought to be), to set him into joint again ; or if it were broken by the fall, to set it again. A member thus dislocated, and out of joint, or a limb and bone broken, are not yet thereby quite severed or cut off from the body it is in, or the head it [is] joined to, but its union still with the body continued ; but it is loosened or misplaced, or not in its right socket. So it is with such a man in respect of his union with Christ, and with his mystical body. And it cannot be that he should mean sins of ordinary infirmity (of which the apostle James says, In many things we offend all ) ; these have not so dangerous an effect as to bring a dislocation upon a mem ber ; no, nor do ordinary strains and wrenches, though violent, produce such an effect as this fall here spoken of is said to do. And from which falls also the apostle supposeth these that are spiritual to be free in their ordi nary Christian course ; for he says, Lest ye also be tempted. It is there fore an heinous sinning he means (however some interpreters would lessen it). And from hence I infer that, * The allusion which this word hath to the setting right a member dislocated, is further confirmed, in that it is used in the case of a church fallen into divisions, whereby the members are disjointed one from another, and by consequence from Christ their head. Thus 1 Cor. i. 10, 11, Now, I beseech you, brethren, that there be no divisions among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together. For it hath been declared to me that there are contentions among you. It is the same, both word and metaphor there, that is used in this Gal. vi. 1, taken from the members of a body that are out of joint among themselves, and their reducement to their right order again ; it is termed a being perfectly joined together, or compacted together again. Now what is there spoken of the members of Christ s hody, considered as a body, is in the Galatian text applied to the soul of a particular Christian, a member of that body, that sets loose unto Christ the head. And divisions in a church as a church, the body of Christ, among themselves, are in their kind as great disjunctions as gross sins in a particular soul, as a soul, in its setting loose unto Christ. The same use of this word to this sense and purpose also, you have 2 Cor. xin. 9, in ver. 11, be pei feet ; in ver. 9, I wish your perfection, xardgnffiv fyfcwr, spoken in relation to their disunions ; as also other sins which particular members were fallen into, chap, xn., as appears by the words following.

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386 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

If the word of my text be thus there applied unto such a state of falling into sin (as it is), in the way of a command from God, given unto men, who have but a little mercy in them, that yet with meekness and tenderness they should restore such an one, then surely the God of all grace, who hath picked and chosen out this same word, and put it into a promise here, against all temptations of them whom he hath called (as the current of the text runs) ; surely he himself will perform it, through Jesus Christ their head, to whom they remain united still, though out of joint, and unto whom God hath engaged himself to do this, as well as promised it to us ; to whose heart (name y, Christ) it goes, even the fall of every member of his, more than their persecutions ; who is sensible to the quick of these infirmities of ours, as well as of other miseries, and pities us under them, as Heb. iv. 15, 16, For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. And if to that purpose the Holy Ghost hath in that place, Gal. vi. 1, made use of this word to signify a restoring one from such gross lapses, when it is spoken by way of exhortation to what men should do one to another, shall we not take and receive it in the same sense from God, and apply it unto such cases wherein it is spoken of him, by way of promise from himself? Of God, I say, who hath all grace, and power, and faithfulness within himself, to effect and perform what he promiseth ? Certainly yes. There cannot be a greater case of sinning that befalls a regenerate man than what God himself says he did, de facto, find in nn obstinate sinner against himself, who yet was his child : Isa. Ivii. 17, For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth. And thereupon, God expressing his dis pleasure by some eminent correction, and by the context in the verses immediately afore, it seems (as I have elsewhere opened the words in a discourse long since printed) it was an impressing his wrath immediately upon his spirit

I was wroth, and smote him : but he went on (notwith standing) frowardly in the way of his heart ; that is, he added a perverse obstinacy after that, and against that severe correction. His first course of sinning, which occasioned that chastisement, and was committed afore it, the Lord terms an iniquity; that is, a sin of an high kind, in itself alone con sidered. And further, this his sinning was not a transient act, that passed from him, out of which he presently was recovered, but a way of his heart, says that text, which notes that it had been continued in, yea, and still con tinued after that great rebuke, and therefore for some long time ; yet in this case God doth, upon a most deliberate full notice, view, and cognisance taken thereof, utter himself thus : Isa. Ivii. 18, I have seen his ways, and will heal him ; I will restore comforts to him. And this God, the God of all grace, promiseth and peremptorily declares he will do ; he is resolved to do. I say he peremptorily resolves it, for it is set in opposition against the obstinacy of this sinner ; as if God had said, I am as resolute in grace and mercy for him as he is in sinning against me ; and God will overcome when he will be merciful, as well as when he judgeth, Ps. li. And do we find God thus resolute in the Old Testament ? Certainly he is not become less gracious in the New, unto those he hath out of grace called, now, when his Christ, our Saviour Jesus, is come, and God hath called them through him. Therefore, even in such cases (and these are the worst), when through his permission man s wilfulness throws him into such direful miscarriages as these, he proclaims it, I will be merciful unto those I will be merciful unto; those whom first grace by calling hath took hold of, and maintained a

CHAP. XI L] OF ELECTION. 8f7 principle of life not extinguished, though ready to die. We may warrantably conclude with applying this as a promise here, that God will make perfect, restore (instaumre, as the text) such a soul unto that perfection again as shall fit him, or make him meet, for the actual possession of his inheritance in light, into which he had called him.

And the reason which the text gives is powerfully convincing of this. For having said that his calling us at first was from out of the whole graciousness of God, it was of such who, before calling, were wholly dead in sins and trespasses: Eph. ii. 1, 5 compared, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ ; (by grace ye are saved. ) And then that aurog, this same God (which word I put a mighty weight upon, though not taken notice of by our translators, as bringing down the full of that fore gone description of God, the God of all grace, &c., upon these following words of promise), this same God will restore and perfect from under these dangerous falls, that would prove fatal indeed, if grace undertook not this restauration of them ; and yet they bring not the person into a dead condi

ready to tion, utterly dead as before, but as that Eev. iii. 2 represents it, die, a spirit of some life yet remaining in them (as there). And the force of the reason lies in these two things: 1, that he being not fallen into so desperate a state by sinning as he was in afore calling, the principle of life yet remains unexcussed by his fall ; 2, and that yet all the grace, out of which God at first called him, is avowedly declared engaged to restore and perfect him again ; insomuch as if it could be supposed (as our apostle speaks in another case) so that if need were of as much grace to renew him again as he had laid out upon him in calling and converting him at first, God doth engage himself to spend it upon him again ; yea, further, if all the grace that is in the heart of God were requisite to be drawn out, he would set the whole stock thereof upon it to effect no less than the whole work of calling entirely anew, and rear it from the very foundations afresh, rather than fail (as we say) ; and the whole of that grace which first called us would move him to make perfect again such an one.

And in such cases of foul lapses, God often is wont to make such perfect again, by a new conversion ; for by that name they are in that case termed, and really are ; as to the substance of the work, they are such, although in deed they be but the revivals of fresh acts of faith and repentance, such as at the first. And so in our apostle s case of denying his Master (which I alone afore have instanced in), his restauration is termed by Christ his con version, when thou art converted, &c. And that the same things are acted over again in us that were at first, David s repentance for his so heinous trans gressions, in Ps. li. shews. And you that know what it is to be converted may trace the prints of a new conversion in all the parts of conversion, to have been supplicated for by him, to be wrought in him, as humiliation for sin, ver. 3, 5, 14 ; a seeking out for pardon of sin, and righteousness of justification, ver. 2, 7, 9, 14 ; and as vehement petitions for holiness and sanctification to be renewed, and that in the very terms which are used of its being wrought at first : ver. 10, Create in me a clean heart, God ; and renew a right spirit within me. And he imploreth grace in the same manner and terms also, as any new converts use to seek the favour of God in, and to express themselves by ; yea, and that therewith God would restore to him the former joy of his salvation, ver. 12, and stablish him with his free spirit (which last word stablish is the same with the second word here in the text, and so translated by the Septuagint, and used by Christ to our apostle) ; yea, and lastly, if you will admit it, he utters himself in the

388 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. very allusion, which, in the way of metaphor, the first word in my text did prompt us to, towards the exposition of the word itself, namely, of setting right a broken or disjointed bone or member; and truly David s language runs thus, That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice ; only David, by his broken bones, in that verse, means those dolors (and therefore opposed to joy in the text) and heart-breakings for sin set upon his con science, together with impressions of the finger of God, which were to his soul as affective as the breaking of the bones to the body, and which God himself had done, and brought upon him, which thouhasi broken ; where as the metaphor in the Galatian text connotates our having broken our own bones, or put our souls out of joint, by willingly falling into sins, wherein God hath no hand ; and so we bring upon ourselves another manner of breaking, God s breaking our bones, by way of correction, in taking away our former peace, and following us with the saddest tortures. But this word in my text takes in and comprehends all, and imports a making all whole again ; whether in respect of restoring former peace and joy again, in stead of pain, or of making all sound again of those bruises, disjunctures, or brokenness of bones, made by sinnings in our souls, unto a new perfec tion of peace and holiness, that is, which is comparatively such. This for the import and application of this word xarar/>, unto God s restorings after great lapses into sin, which is one of the cases fore-mentioned.

CHAPTER XIII.

That this promise of perfecting extends to another case of decayed Christians, who decline from their first love and good icorks. That even in them God will restore and revive the principles of spiritual life, which languishes and is dying. This proved by comparing Heb. xiii. 20, 21, mth 1 Peter v. 10.

I proceed now to the other two cases of Christians, concerning declinings in good works, such as a falling from their first love and slacking to do their first works ; and further, for some time to omit and cease the doing of some good duties, which they once had strictly been frequent in, through a drow siness and negligence of spirit that was come uon them ( Awake thou that sleepest, Eph. v. 14, which is spoken, as I conceive, to a decayed Christian), from out of which, if they be not recovered, their salvation is in hazard, as * Be watch those exhortations to the church of Sardis imply: Rev. iii. 2, 3, ful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die : for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent, i. c. or they will die.

Now this same first word here in my text is made use of to that case also, as appears by what the apostle prays for the Hebrews, and in them for all

The God of peace make you per fect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellother Christians : Heb. xiii. ver. 20, 21, pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Hence I conclude, that for God to make his called ones perfect, is * perfect in every good work, to do his will ; and a supply of to make them these words should therefore in this text be understood, as if our apostle Peter had in like manner, and in so many words, also said, The God of all grace (as there of peace ) will make you perfect in every good work, to do his will ; and it is certain that it is good works, and the doing of God s

CHAP. XIII.] OF ELECTION

will thereby, is that wherein that perfection (so far as in this life) doth in one principal manner consist. And therefore, although this be not here expressed, yet it is justly to be _supposed, as if our apostle had explicitly uttered it in words at length, so that Paul is but explicative of Peter ; and the Holy Ghost, who guided the pens of both these holy apostles, doth but instruct us out of that to the Hebrews, how, and of what, to understand his mind in making us perfect to be here ; for though he says no more but God will perfect, yet he leaves it to us to search other Scriptures to seek what that should be in the full latitude of it, and to extend it unto all those things whatever, wherein God is said, and useth to make his children perfect, as to his workings of grace in us after calling, for of that kind of perfection it is that Peter speaks ; and for evidence of this to be his intent in this parti cular word, look as he leaves this first word, without saying wherein, so he hath done the other three words, indefinitely referring us to such scriptures, to find out the particulars, wherein it is he is said to stablish, strengthen, and settle us. And this is a received just law of interpreting such like pas sages of Scriptures, and therefore also this, and will hold in every one of these four words.

And certainly if you would attempt to make a supplement of any other particular matter or thing, wherein it must be supposed God should make us perfect (and it must be some particular thing or other that is intended God should make us perfect in, and by ; and it must be such things also as are spiritual too, and belonging to salvation after calling) ; then if you will join any such thing to explain it by, it must be such as is in some other scrip ture instanced in, and is adjoined to this same word of perfecting us by God, as a thing wherein God is said so to make us perfect ; and what occurs more plain and suitably than what this unto the Hebrews is so express and punc tual in ? and therefore was so precisely mentioned in that prayer by the apostle for the Hebrews and for all Christians. And it being a perfecting in point of grace, and the working thereof in us, which is evidently intended in Peter, and an evangelical perfection in good works, with that allowance of imperfections cleaving to the best, being that which throughout the Scrip tures is reckoned our perfection ; and without which we are not accounted perfect in God s sight ; therefore, surely, when God says he will make us perfect, as by Peter he doth, he intends the very same.

But it may be said, that there is not the least mention of any of these cases in either of the passages of these two apostles ; and on what ground, then, will you apply these Scriptures to them ? The apostle to the Hebrews prays indeed for perfecting them he wrote to, in every good work ; but speaks not of this, that after a remissness, or discontinuance of good works, he would again perfect them.

My answer is, 1. Who shall limit the intention of the words, to say, that in the Hebrews he prays only for those that had continued in all and every good work, without faltering, or making halts in their progress; or that in my text, the promise should only be unto such, and so to exclude those who have not in thai constancy walked in such strictness ? These scriptures, each of them, are a comprehension, or a general, apphable unto all persons that are truly called, and involving all cases they shall by God s permiss fall into. ., . And as for my text, if you observe the ground of the promise there, it is not founded upon men s having continued in an exact walking, m every good work, all along from their calling, without any falterings or interruption" (which yet was their duty to have done) ; to be sure there is no mention of that, but it is founded upon this, that the God of all grace having efiectually

OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. called them, he will see to it to perfect that work in them in the end, and to the end, and so to bring them back from their wanderings, and strayings aside, if they fall out, and to take care not to suffer them so far to stray as not to be reducible ; so as prove the case, what it may fall out to be in some of these called, and there is not a greater variation and deviation from the north point in the compass, in the several latitudes those that sail run through, than there falls out in variety of cases to these, that yet are {.-carrying on to heaven, and will certainly be brought thither, over and besides their driving up and down through several winds of temptations, that hke gusts come upon them ; whilst yet, take the general steerage of their course, and it is to their desired haven. And the ground of that founda tion, namely, that they have been called, lies yet deeper, even in the heart of God that calleth (as Rom. ix., the apostle states it), even in this, The God of all grace, who hath called ; and the strength of that lies in this, that the same grace that God put forth in calling them, when they were utterly void of all good works at first, and destitute of the principles thereof, dead in sins and trespasses, hath engaged itself to perfect it (and will do < Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it ) he retaining the same grace in his heart towards them ; and withal can more easily do it, although there fall out such casual remissnesses m good works, &c., seeing the principle of life, the seed of God, still remameth in them, though ready to die, as in that Rev. iii. 2 ; which prin ciple shews itself more or less in the worst of cases that God suffers to befall them, by still exerting some acts or other, inward or outward : in inward , as in lustings against that sin that outwardly prevails, and so a serving in the mind the law of God is kept up, whilst in the mean time, it, as the promise is, 1 Thes. v. 24, < with the flesh they serve the law of sin; and, outwardly, though he do withal fall into an outward ^neglect of some good works and duties also, and to an inward remissness in all, yet he continues still in the outward exercise of other good duties, and that not wholly in hypocrisy, that is, such as in unregeneracy ; and not wholly for self ends, but out of a principle of life remaining, though so faint and low in activity as that he hath not strength enough to perform all and every good work ; which is the case of a man become weak in bodily life, he can, and doth exert some acts of life, when yet he is not enabled to do some other, much less every act of life with vigour. And those which such a Christian doth may be called actions of life, though that life is not vigorous enough to exercise all, and therefore must not be "accounted wholly or altogether hypocrisy. For though that life in him prevails not to do all, through decay of strength or lameness, or weakness in one s members, as that word in Rev. iii. 2 imports, strengthen that which remains. And it insinuates withal the want of stirring up that strength was the cause why their works were not full* (as the word in the Greek there is), not full in the sight of God ; and shews that they cease not to do any good works ; but as there was a principle of life remaining, though ready to die, so there were some actions of life exercised by them, but they were not full or exten sive enough. And what such a Christian doth hath some life shewn in it, and so far also it is acceptable to God, though with a blame-worthiness that be neglects any. This was Solomon s case during the time of his declina tion and variation of the compass ; he continued in the worship and ordinances of God notwithstanding, and he grew not into an utter profaneness of spirit to cast off all ; nor did David his father, whilst yet his mouth was shut up to holy discourse, and his wonted fervent desires"to turn others to God gre\v flaccid, and were cooled in him, which caused him to pray: Ps. H. 15, Lord, open thou my lips ; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise; and

again, ver. 12, 13, Kestore unto me the joy of thy salvation ; and uphold me with thy free Spirit: then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. And God s promise here is to revive, and restore such unto every good work again, and unto a life and wonted spiritual vigour unto, and in, the practice of them.

2. As for that other scripture, to the Hebrews xiii. 21, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

(1.) This is certain, that the matter of that prayer or thing prayed for, and the materials of the cases in Rev. iii., do fully answer one the other; the matter prayed for answers by way of supply unto that defect specified in the cases. The matter of those cases is a blameworthy imperfection or falling short in good works, of what they ought, and formerly had done. And the matter or thing prayed for the Hebrews is to perfect those that had been * in every good work. I have not found thy works perfect, says Christ, speaking it even to many of them that had been truly called in that church. And the words of the prayer here oppositely are, that God would called, perfect them in every good work ; that is, in what those in the Revelation were wanting ; that is, fill up in all sorts of good works and known duties, that which any of them were wanting in. Moreover, in that case, Rev. iii. 2, there is this clause added by Christ, that he had not found their works perfect afore God, which aggravation, afore God, imports not only that God saw and took notice of their failures, neglects, and wilful omissions in the strict holiness of good works, but therewith had conceived a high dis pleasure against them for it, until they should repent, as it is there, that is, until they should fill up again (as the word implies), and make the circle of their former exact walking, according to their knowledge, complete, orbicular, and entirely round, and perfect again, without such gaps and vacancies. And oppositely answering hereunto in Heb. xiii. 21, there is this addition, that God would work in them what is pleasing in his sight, which two opposites, set one against the other, shew that in those saints which walk exactly, there is such a full, gracious acceptation of their holy walking in their whole course, even when they are worst, as hath an acceptation and a well-pleasedness in the eyes of God, although accompanied with the ordinary defects of sinful infirmities, imperfections, though common, cleaving thereunto, which God testified of Job and others. Whereas in others that are more loose, and wilfully, or at least indulgently, negligent in good works, there is a blame-worthy guilt lies on them, that provokes God to a partial sore displeasure against them for so walking. Only let me add this, that so far us such negligent ones that are called do perform during that while any good works and holy duties, and that so far as there is any good in what they do in sincerity, that so far they are accepted of God ; whilst yet a partial temporary displeasure from God lies against them, in that their whole course is not filled up with every kind of good work incumbent on them ; which was the case of Jehoshaphat, as appears by the prophet Jehu, in his message to him from God : 2 Chron. xix. 2, 3, And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.

Thus oppositely parallel is the matter of these two texts that are afore us, and in the very words in either a corresponding one with the other. There

392 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. never was a plaster so perfectly suited to a sore, and extensively adequate in compass and breadth to overspread it, and in virtue and efficacy to heal it, as the matter of this prayer is unto that lapsed case ; as if it had been made and penned for this very case in a more especial manner, so as if God in and at his good pleasure will but apply it, and lay it on, the malady will be healed.

Thus in the matter of them, they being one and the same, and therefore this prayer fitly appliable to those cases. So, (2.) There were such persons truly called among those very Hebrews the apostle wrote to, who were in such a condition, whom therefore the apostle prayed thus for, and who must have been in an especial manner in his eye ; and that if he prayed for any, then surely for them, for (as by and by) they had most need so to be prayed for. We read of such in that epistle, who after their effectual calling had made little or no proficiency in many years pro fession, either in knowledge or good works, and if not in knowledge, when they might, as he tells them they might, then not in good works. This appears by his complaint of them, Heb. v. 12-14, For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God ; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness : for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And yet he verily judged of these he speaks thus of, that they were truly called, and con tinued still in the main true Christians, as chap. vi. 9-11, But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love, which ye have shewed towards his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope unto the end. And to the like purpose it is he revives in them the remembrance of what a glorious work of grace and zeal they had in them at the first : chap. x. 32, But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions. Moreover, you find another mention of a sort of sunk declined professors (or perhaps the same) amongst these Hebrews, so far gone in a spiritual consumption that they were almost a-turning out of that good way of a Christian profession, and even a-giving up Christ (one great scope of that epistle, both in the doctrinals, but espe cially in the exhortatory part all along interweaved with those doctrines, was to keep them to hold fast that profession). His words in Heb. xii. 12-14, concerning such, are these : Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees ; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way ; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. And it is certain that if his exhortation were directed in so special a manner unto such, that this his prayer must be supposed to comprehend the cases of such, in like proportionable manner.

And further there is one word inserted in that prayer, which doth prompt no less ; it is in the forepart, among what he makes the ground or argu ment of his prayer, which always hath the force and influence upon the matter prayed for, as upon consideration of which God grants it, as the pre face to a statute law hath upon the body and matter of the act commanded. The passage is, The God that brought back again Jesus Christ from the dead, he make you perfect in every good work ; which is, in the effect, as in

the text, that God who at first called you out of an estate of death and dead works, the same God perfect you, if at any time you wander and are gone astray, dead-hearted in good works, he will bring you back again to the Bishop of your souls, by virtue of Christ s resurrection from the dead, till he hath fully perfected you in every good work ; the virtue of which bringing back of his, extending not only unto his first begetting of life in you, but in a lower and lesser comparative, it takes in all the after revivals of spiritual life in us. For all: such remissnesses, which are those we are speaking of, are but as fits of convulsions, falling-sicknesses, apoplexies, lesser deaths, and wider steps of reeling towards death, as of that angel and church of Sardis it is said that they were * dead, Rev. iii. 1, and yet that there was * ready to die, shew. Which two speeches compared, can have no other meaning than that they were not utterly dead, as they had been in their unregenerate estate, but retained still in them a true principle of life continued from their regeneration ; only in respect of life in them, as those words, but energy and operation it was but as a dying life, and such are all swooning, fainting fits that befall Christians. Such is spiritual sleepiness (sister to death), which was the case of that church. Therefore it is said there, Be watchful ; that is, * Awake thou that sleepest. And it was not a mere drowsiness out of weakness of spirits, but a lethargical disease contracted, which if not cured would prove a sleeping in death (as the psalmist s phrase is, Ps. xiii. 3), and in which these were even ready to expire. And answerably, every recovery from forth of these is a fetching us again. And much ado God hath to keep many saints souls in life, as the psalmist s word is. And further, the word itself, make perfect, signifying withal a restoration, which respects decays, &c., it must needs be supposed to comprehend and reach to a making perfect in every good work after a decay, as well as a keeping from declining. That our first calling is a bringing us back from death to life, bearing the image of Christ s resurrection, and wrought in us by the virtue thereof, none may deny. The apostle Peter doth express both : the former, chap. i. 3, Blessed be the God and Father in his first epistle of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath be gotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ; the latter, chap. ii. 25, For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. And the apostle to the Hebrews had in that clause inserted in his prayer a respect to signify that their calling. As if he had pleaded thus : God ! thou that hast brought these sheep of Christ back again from the dead, in calling them by virtue of him that is their Shepherd, and in him, of his being brought back again ; so at the first ; and now that Christ hath taken the charge of them, and that the virtue of his being brought back continues after their being called in the same vigour, and with the same efficacy to all like purposes as this ; and that these his sheep, thy children, are, after calling, subject to such disasters and decays as are spices* of spiritual death ; Lord, perfect therefore those whom thou hast called in every good work ; the work that thou hast begun, perfect to the end all along ; if thou seest them de part and go astray, restore them (as the word signifies), bring them back again into the right way, by virtue of that bringing back thy Son Jesus from the dead, the same virtue continuing in it for all events after calling as well as for afore. Yea, and the aim of his prayer being directed for them that were called already (as hath been shewn, and the word perfecting argues, which is an adding to what is begun), he must be supposed to have an eye in his urging Christ s being brought back, that in resemblance thereof there will * Qu. species ? ED.

394 OF ELECTION. ^BoOK IV. be need of bringing back again some of those, yea, many of those, that, after calling will have need thereof, and therefore in a special manner to have aimed at the case of such as are backsliding or turned out of the way, to reduce them again. And thus the apostle s argument unto God in his prayer looks both forward and backward : forward* unto their first calling, making an argument of it, that God who had already called those whom he prays for, that he, as he had done, so would continue much more to work the like after, even because he at first began it, through the virtue and ac cording to the example of Christ his being brought back from the dead, which yet continues for them in as much force as ever. And therefore if any such occasion or need falls out amongst them that are called (as there doth too often), yet the same virtue, and the same pattern, similitude, example of Christ s being perpetually in God s eye, would move him much

TYiore to fetch such languishing and almost dying souls back again to life. So as this his argument is most pertinent arid proper unto this case of all other, although it reacheth unto all other also, whose lot it may fall out never to be, but to be kept and preserved by the same virtue in every good work unto the end.

This consideration of such a decayed sunk soul that hath been called, hath the most need of any other after calling to have this restoration made good to it, and wrought by God (who works all our works in us and for us) in him and for him. Now we have in the text God that is to work it, the God of all grace, to his called. And in the same epistle to the Hebrews, chap. iv. 16, it is said his grace and mercy is to help in time of need, and that against sinful infirmities as well as other ; and to be sure that case of professors we have recited had most need to be prayed for.

This to shew the warrantable applying these texts to the fore-mentioned cases of lapses into sin, and remiss neglects in good works.

But it may perhaps be still queried that this in the Hebrews is but merely a prayer that God would be pleased to perfect them, not a promise that he will.

To answer this, and confirm what I assert. Am. 1. If both, or either, should only be a prayer, yet that must be founded on a promise, as was afore observed. And there are to be found promises of the covenant of grace that do expressly utter what here the apostle to the Hebrews prays for.

Ans. 2. That this of Peter should be intended as a direct promise that God will perform it, rather than simply a prayer that he would, I have at large before given an account of. The matter of the prayer in the one is the same with the matter of the promise in the other, only put into a seve ral mode. The one prays God would perfect by working what was pleasing to him ; the other promiseth from God that he will work it. Peter in his promise says but in one general word, God will perfect, but names not wherein ; but Paul to the Hebrews tells us wherein it is God will perfect us, whilst he prays for his Hebrews that God would perfect them. And so it is but supplying those words of Paul s prayer, * in every good work, &c., unto this promise of Peter s, that God will make perfect, and we have what I assert, namely, that he will bring back again, and restore, and perfect every decayed, lapsed, truly called Christian, after they have suffered a while, in every good work, and to do his will, &c.

Ans. 3. But further, in the third place, consider, that if there be a pro mise at the bottom of either, as none may deny but there must be, this promise must be a promise of the covenant of grace ; a branch growing out * Qu. backward ? E o.

of the main body of that covenant. And the reason general to both those scriptures is, because the matter promised or spoken of in either is wholly a matter of eternal salvation ; and for the earning us on thereunto, there fore, it must necessarily be referred to that head of free grace, and the cove nant thereof, as well as calling at first is, which springs from the same. But particularly, (] .) in my text in Peter, the matter of it is clearly resolved into grace, &c., for it flows from God, as a God of grace, yea, arid as a God of all grace. If, therefore, there be a promise included in it, it must be a promise of grace ; and a promise of the same kind and tenor with any of the rest of those promises we use to call promises of grace, and of the cove nant of it. Yea, I say further, that take we the covenant of grace in the whole thereof, or any other single part or branch of it whatever, as that, to write the law in our hearts, to teach us to know him, &c. ; and this one here may not only take upon it the high-born title of a promise of grace, as any of them do, but may lay as full a claim of interest in the heart of God for a performance of itself by him, as not only any other part or branch may, but as the whole covenant itself may any way put in a plea for the same. And the reason is as clear, for the whole covenant itself, or any part of it, can have but all and the whole of God s grace by promise bound over to make it good ; and this, this one promise hath to plead, even all, The God of .all grace who hath called us. Which God having once done, the promise is, that avrbg, the same God of all grace will perfect us ; for that whole covenant of grace can but have all the grace that is in the heart of God To put it in execution ; and surely that is a sufficient engagement ; and look what there is for the whole, this here hath for its part alone ; arid though the performance of it hath our calling to precede it, yet God having called us out of that grace, it is as sure for the future that he will perfect us, as that he hath called us.

And (2.) as for that text in the Hebrews, though formally it be only a prayer, yet materially it contains and refers to a promise of the covenant. There is mention made of the everlasting covenant which Christ shed his blood to ratify the promise of; it is a superaddition unto that other clause even now insisted on, which was, That God, who brought again from the dead, would perfect them; and then there is this added, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. The great covenant, which we call of grace, you see, is mentioned. But you may demand, unto what purpose it is it comes in here in a prayer? There are two parts of this piayer, as generally almost in other of the apostle s : 1, the prefatory part, which con tains the arguments or motives to move God to grant what is petitioned ; 2, then follows the petitionary part, the thing petitioned ; and these two are always suitable to one another : the first expressing the proper grounds of granting the thing supplicated for ; and so it must be found, and applied here ; every sentence in the argumentative part, verse 20, * Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, is in a special manner influential unto the following petitionary part, in verse 21, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will ; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. The main petition is, that God would perfect them in every good work. Now, upon what proper and pertinent account this clause in the first, the blood of the everlasting covenant, should be an argument to move God to perfect them that are called, &c., that is our inquiry. How proper unto this very thing all the foregoing sentences are, is, or

396 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. may be, obvious unto any. As, 1, how God s being the God of peace, should move him to do this for us, who are the persons for whom this peti tion is framed. That God being at peace with us, through Christ our peace, should move him to go on to perfect his work begun in us, we may readily conceive, and find it particularly so applied unto the like petition, in 1 Thes. v. 23 being compared with Eph. ii. 13, 14, 16. Then the second, Who brought back again Jesus Christ from the dead ; that this is a most proper ground why God should bring us back from the dead, by conversion at first, and then reducing us from wandering after, and securing us to perfection, the account of that hath been even now given. And I may add this to what was then said, that although Christ in his person is alone made mention of, yet it is Christ as relative to, and representative of us ; for in his resurrec tion he is said to be the first born from the dead, Col. i. 18, importing unto us, that were dead, to be born, or brought back from the dead after him, and by virtue of him ; as also in 1 Cor. xv. 45-47 the apostle argues ; and that third clause in the text itself argues it : The great Shepherd of the sheep, what doth that mean but that Christ, in his bringing back, was viewed by God in his relation to us as the shepherd, and we in him as his sheep, who must be brought into the fold to him, and none lost ; from this argument, because he as the shepherd was brought back first, and so we included in him therein, and not as considered singly in his own person, or personal respects alone ? And then he, after his resurrection, was perfected in the other world : Luke xiii. 32, And he said unto them, Go ye and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. So must we his sheep be carried on to our designed perfection in this life, and then perfected complete in the other. Now, if we, in this our concern, be thus still involved in all these former passages, then certainly the latter clause, * Through the blood of the eternal covenant, doth take in us, and our concerns likewise. And that as to this sense, that Christ s bringing back after his bloodshed, being by that covenant made with him by God, that if he could* die, he would raise him again, &c., so that according to the same covenant struck with him for us, God s promise to him also was that he would bring us back, and especially bring us to perfection also ; and therefore he prays, Perfect them, accord ing to that covenant made for them, through the merit of his blood, and in the virtue of his resurrection.

And the reason of this is, because God s covenant with Christ was not singly, or only for himself, and as to his person only ; for if so, singly con sidered, he should not have needed to have died, or shed his blood ; and so not to have needed a being brought back again, for he needed never have died. But it was of him as of a shepherd, as the text in Heb. xiii. 20 shews, and to the end to bring back again by the merit of his death, &c., his sheep that were gone astray. And therefore the covenant here with him, must necessarily include the covenant made with him for us ; that is, that God covenanted with him, at the same time, to do the same for us ; wherefore this of perfecting us in every good work, is here specified in the main branch, and requisite to our salvation ; and therefore it is a part of that covenant made with Christ for us, and so a main promise of that covenant. And indeed, the Scriptures do elsewhere represent the whole covenant for us, and the promises thereof, to be a covenant with Christ as our head ; and the whole of it, both with him and us, to be but as one entire covenant. And even that part of it for us, his covenant rather than ours ; and all the mercies of it Christ s mercies: Isa. Iv. 1-4, Ho, every one that thirsteth, * Qu. would ? ED.

CHAP. XIY.J OF ELECTION. 397 come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? and your labour for that which satisfieth not ? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me : hear, and your soul shall live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. And mercy to him, whilst yet ours, is spoken of Ps. Ixxxiv. 28, &c, My mercy will 1 keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him, &c. So then, the resolution of all this issues in this, that God should perfect Christ s sheep whom he hath called into his fold, is one direct and express promise of that covenant which God made with Christ when he undertook to die for us, and one article of that great treaty, and one condition thereof with him, that if he would shed his blood and save them, God would do this for his sheep, and is as if he had in plain words said, Lord, here is one branch and promise of thy covenant made with Christ for us, which Christ sealed and ratified with his blood, and thou hast performed the other part, thou hast brought Christ himself back from death, and raised him as our Shepherd to the height of glory ; and thou hast also performed already, as to these his sheep I pray for, one main and the first part of thy covenant with them too ; thou hast called them. Lord, perform the rest by virtue of the same covenant and the blood thereof, and cease not until thou hast perfected them in every good work to do thy will, working in them what is pleasing in thy sight, and for which Christ hath shed his blood as well as he hath done for his own being raised up and perfected, and as effectually for this branch and part of it that yet remains to be accomplished. So that the apostle urgeth this, that God would perfect them, &c., as a promise of the covenant of grace made with Christ, ratified with his blood. And to this purpose further observe, that it is that covenant here he means, that is, the eternal covenant (so in the words) made with Christ from eternity, and those promises and that covenant which*were made and given to Christ, and in Christ to us, afore the world was, as Titus i. 2, In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began, and 2 Tim. i. 4, and in that sense here styled, the blood of the everlasting covenant, as well as a covenant to everlasting. And accordingly this, which is a part of that covenant of God s perfecting us, was from everlasting pro mised with the rest, and is a promise to everlasting, and hath this seal annexed to it, which God promised, who cannot lie or fail in the perform ance of it. And thus understand the true and genuine end and reason of the apostle s bringing in in this place the mention of the eternal covenant ; nor can any other be supposed a more prevalent argument unto God, as thus stated and interpreted.

CHAPTER XIV.

What sufferings we must necessarily undergo before that God settles and strengthens us in any eminent manner. The reasons why we must pass through such sufferings before we are perfected. The example of our Saviour

The wise appointment of God, who has so appointed it to be for the trial of our grace, and to glorify his own grace the more in strengthening, recovering,

398 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. recovering, and delivering us. What encouragements we may draw even from this necessity of our suffering.

After you have suffered a while. 1 PET. V. 10.

I come now to the limitation annexed, or the necessary prerequisite for us to undergo before that God strengthens, settles us, in any eminent man ner in this life. And therein,

1. That God hath set down with himself a necessity of our suffering, and undergoing out-ward sufferings and also inward temptations to sin, and from sin, I shall afterwards treat. It is strange that the apostle should not make an absolute promise of it, and roundly to have said, * he will strengthen, &c., but he must clog the promise with a proviso (for such it is), After ye have suffered a while ; nor that Peter (if it be a prayer) should not have the heart to pray for any one of his brethren, the saints, absolutely and directly, that God would perfect them, settle them, &c., but his prayer in the course of it must be interrupted, and checked, as it were, with this interposition, which his wish could not step over; not as for any one saint, but that he must first put in, after ye hare suffered. It must be because he knew il was the will of God (which he had told us was the sole arbiter of our sufferings), and that not as to some few, but to the brotherhood, or fraternity of saints in the world, that live any while after calling ; for that restriction also the words do suppose, who hath called you, and then suffered a while after. The necessity of this must be wholly resolved into the will and determina tion of God. He will have it so. There needs no other proof for it than the instance of our Lord himself, Christ, that was set up, as our pattern in all things else ; and so in this : Heb. ii. 10, It became him, for whom are all necessity of suffering things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. That God who ordained Christ, the chieftain, the general, the leader of all his children, whom he bringeth unto glory, was himself led this way ; both they and he are, and was to pass the pikes. The captain, Christ himself, broke through, and then carries us through an opposite army of sufferings, under which temptations are included, as verse 18 of that chapter shews, For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. Yea, and Christ himself is made perfect by it, consummate in glory.

When one would train up a person of worth, and fit him for great affairs, he gives him all sorts of breeding to make him complete every way, and (as you use to speak) a complete man, a perfect man, as the apostle speaks. But when the great God would give his own Son an education worthy of such and so great a person, and fit him to rule, and be over all things, he chooseth to train him up through sufferings, so to make him perfect through sufferings a strange education, and way of bringing up the King of all the world, as in that chapter the apostle had afore proclaimed him to be. Bat look, as there it is said, he was made perfect through sufferings, so we here, after ye have suffered a while, he will perfect you. And truly the grounds and bottom reason why God so ordained for his Son is resolved by the apostle into two things.

(1.) God s sovereignty and will. He would have obedience from him in the way of suffering at his command.

(2.) And, secondly, though he might have saved us by him another way,

CHAP. XIV.] or ELECTION. gqg yet he would have our salvation carried on and accomplished that way, even through sufferings and temptations.

(1.) For the first, God s will was to teach even him, his so great a S-n, obedience, submission. And to know he was a Sou unto so great a God you have it express, Heb. v. 8, Though he were a Son, yet learned lie obedience by the things which he suffered. Though he were a Son ; that is, though he were so great a Son (and how great a Son he was, and is, you may see in verse 5, * Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ; which chap. i. verse 5, he says, was never said to any mere creature). At d his Father had a will to this, that he should shew this obedience in suffer ing, which therefore was in the highest obedience and submission.

And truly, in that very place cited, chap. ii. 18, you see how that God resolves his will in this matter into his own greatness, as the reason why he did so will and order it : It became him from whom are all things, and by whom are all things ; that is, he being so great a God that was Ins Father, he would be thus regarded, and respected, reverenced, and in this way obeyed by his Son ; and it became God to enjoin this on him.

(2.) For the second, that however, God would have our salvation so carried on, is evident, so as if Christ would undertake to be the leader of us to glory, he must do it by sufferings, and be himself our leader and chieftain therein! I will not say this was absolutely necessary for God to order it so, though the word here comes near to this elsewhere : as Heb. vii. 29, Such \\n high priest became us ; that is, was necessarily requisite for us. Bat it is certain it was comely, and above all things else a glory to God to have it HO. Says God, I that am the end of all things, and the author of all things, Ih.ive one design my heart is in above all, concerns me more than all, and that is, the bringing of many sons to glory ; and I will have it done by Bufferings, and though I might accomplish it otherwise, yet I think it meet to have" it so. And both he that is to undertake to be their captain, to bring them to glory ( termed the Captain of their salvation ), he in conducting and lead ing them on to that glory must and shall suffer, and they also that are con ducted must march and go the same way, and that of suffering.

To confirm this, we find a mmt is put upon Christ s sufferings. So Christ says of himself, The Son of man must suffer, Mat. xvi. 21 ; and Luke xvii. 25, He must suffer; and John iii. 14, The Son of man must be lifted up ; and an ought is put upon it : Luke xxiv. 26, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ? And wherein lay the necessity, the strength of that must, or ought ? Merely in God s so ordaining it : Acts iv. 28, To do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

You would think with yourselves, Sure if Christ were ever tempted by the devil, it would merely and only arise from the devil s malice ; but the evan gelist expressly tells us, Mat. iv. 1, Jesus was led by the Spirit, to be tempted, &c. Christ was our leader, and so suffered being tempted. So the Spirit of God was his leader, the leader of him into temptation. Now look, as there was this necessity laid on him to be made this way perfect, so also the like* necessity laid upon us by the same will and hand : Rom. viii. 29, 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 amongst many brethren. And this is particularly spoken in relation to sufferings. And as Christ had his ought and must, so have we : Acts xiv. 22, Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. A strange way of comforting, strengthening, and confirming the

400 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. brethren, but it was the common principle the primitive Christians were trained up unto.

The reasons for this, which in the Scriptures are more usually rendered, are drawn a consequenti, or d parte post ; that is, from the good consequence and fruit of them, as from the usefulness and profitableness, Heb. xii. 10; and that he delights to try our graces: Prov. iii. 12, For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth ; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth ; and he trieth the righteous, Ps. cv. ; and 1 Peter i. 7, * That the trial of your faith may be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appear ing of Jesus Christ ; which Job also hath, chap, xxiii. 10. God therefore boasted of his servant Job, chap. i. 8, as a general useth to boast of a great and noble champion. There are these, and many the like, which the Scrip tures hold forth.

But these are not those I am in the inquest after at this time, but the great query is, d parte ante, that is, what should move God, who might have brought us into salvation another way ; yet so as no way would or did please him but this, they must be very great ends. I shall take those that hold correspondency with the text.

1. He is set forth in this, as a God of all grace (you will wonder, per haps, at this reason of all other), and therefore ordained it to choose to bring us and Christ through sufferings and temptations to glory. Grace had the first choice of us, and therewith of the way of bringing us to salvation ; and where grace sets itself most to love, there it ordains the most of afflic tions and temptations. So of Paul (the next man in heaven to Christ), Acts xix. 15, 16, * He is a chosen vessel to me ; some strange preferment sure befell this man, whom Christ doth so set out; but;in ver. 16, For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name s sake. You have in this God s everlasting design upon him in bringing him to glory, as contrived in his first choice of him ; and you see a must falls upon him too, and it is free grace s passing it upon him when it chose him to salvation. But still you will say, Why is it that grace should do this ? to expose those whom it loves thus to sufferings and temptations ? Truly, (1.) Because grace is seen and discovered most in helping us and reliev ing us. Heb. iv. 16, you read of a throne erected, and it is a throne of grace. But what is it that doth establish and exalt that throne ? Truly, helping us in time of need. In the execution thereof is exercised much of the dominion and sovereignty of grace, seen even in sending seasonable succour and relief unto men suffering and distressed, in giving forth grace and mercy suitable to their needs in sufferings.

(2.) And together herewith, God affected to confound his enemies that would be opposite to us. This of grace is a monarchy, as you see in that text. And great monarchies use to shew their greatness by victories over and subduing rebels and enemies that are incurable. Says God, I have set up Pharaoh, to shew whether he or I be the greater king, and leaves him to do his worst. And so in the text, you have the devil your enemy, and God lets him range up and down as if he were loose, and he is at one end of every temptation or other. Our lusts are the sea that trouble and toss within us, but the devil is the wind that stirs up those waves. Christ by curbing, restraining, rebuking him, defeating him by us weak creatures, shews his power. And God, to shew his grace towards us, affects not barely to save us, and that effectually, to shew himself a God of grace to us, but in the doing of it to still and foil the enemies and avengers, he put this very thing into that first gospel which he preached, * He shall bruise thy heel, but thou shalt break his head.

CHAP. XIV.] OF ELECTION

2. A second reason the text holds a correspondency with is, that we are called into eternal glory ; so great a glory, as that God thought it meet we should know evil first, ere we arrived at that height of happiness. I have often considered concerning the man Jesus,, that whereas the prophet David, prophesying of his exaltation, had only expressed what was matter of glory, Ps. Ixviii. 18, Thou hast ascended on high, &c., what it should be from which the apostle should infer ; as Eph. iv. 9, Now in that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. And my best resolve of it was chiefly from this, that God s ordination was, that ere he would have the man Jesus (whose right yet it was upon his per sonal union to have been in heaven the first moment of his being man) to ascend to that height of glory, not only in the heavens, but far above all heavens, as the apostle there, that ere he did it, he would have him descend first into the lowest parts of the earth, the lowest condition ; and this was so strange and wonderful a dealing of God with him, that in the next verse he proclaimed, it as a spectacle for God, angels, and men to view and behold ; that he, one and the same person, so abased and lowered first, should be after so exalted. Thus ver. 10, He that descended is the same also that ascended. And he seems to point to him that he, the same individual man, should be the subject of both; and as if he had said, was ever the like seen? The apostle doth the like,. 1 Tim. iiL 16, first, God manifest in theflesh, in an humble, frail condition, so he begins ; then received up into glory, so he ends ; and seen of angels, placed in the middle, as spectators and admirers of this so vastly differing a contrariety of condition.

As for us men, it is the law of sons, Heb. xii. 6, 2 Sam. vii. 14; it is the law for an heir to the crown of life,, the common law for the obtainment of : JamS i. 12, Blessed is the man that endureth temptations : for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life,, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. And this notwithstanding God s love to them, which is the fundamental law of that law ; yea, and this became of God s love to them, so it follows, glory

Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

And the further reason of this is,, that heaven is not simply joy and happi ness, but a glory ;. a glory won by conquest, * to him that overcometh, as in every one of the seven epistles of the Revelation ; it is a crown won by mastery, 2 Tirn. ii. 5 ; and so by striving, according to certain laws set to be observed by those that win ; as it follows, And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. Whereof this * It is a faithful saying is the most eminent and chief, ver. 11, 12, : for if we be dead with him, we shall live with him : if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. This is as true and as faithful a saying as the gospel of salvation itself is, even the same he had spoken in his first epistle, chap. i. 15* And look what glory it is that by conquest and masteries is won is more valuable ; as Jacob said, The portion I won with rny sword and my bow, this he gave to Joseph above his brethren, Gen. xlviii. 22, which he therefore esteemed above any other. And thus saith Christ of us, and that glory he hath purchased for us ; and so shall we of * we are more than conquerors through him that loved us, Rom. viii. You have seen the necessity of the apostle s putting in this clause, After you have suffered, which our flesh would perhaps have had left out; but he could not pass over and omit it, because God had not. Let us now, not that glory to be revealed, withstanding, see what comforts and encouragements this very addition will afford us.

VOL. IX. C C

402 OF ELECTION, [BOOK IV.

As I fetched arguments of support and encouragement from each word in the text, so I shall add some from these words (as they have now been opened) of this limitation, after ye have suffered a while. You will find that out of the strong and sour carcase of this dreadful lion (and to a lion, the chief instrument of our sufferings is compared, ver. 9) will come sweet ness.

To which purpose, my first observation is, that God, the God of all

1 temptations of all sorts ; not persecutions only from without, but temptations from sin or unto sin by Satan, and conflicts with Satan our adversary; and they are considered by him under the notion of our sufferings, which is a great matter unto us, and a part of deep grace, looks at believers

<consolation.

Our apostle, to put an observaney upon this, chooseth to give that very name and denomination of sufferings unto our temptations. He hath put it up twice : first in ver. 9, Knowing that the same affliction ; and again, ver. 10, After ye have suffered a while, namely, under Satan s temptations (it is all one and the same word in both verses). So then, if your souls have been brought to look at the temptations you have to sins, as your greatest afflictions, the God of all grace is pleased to reckon them such also. Many interpreters, because the word sufferings and afflictions is used of out ward miseries, would limit it unto outward persecutions for the profession of the faith, which the devil stirreth up against all the saints throughout the world. But Gerard, with Calvin and others, are full in it, that all sorts of temptations, even unto sins, as well as persecutions for the faith, are in tended, and that principally. Now unto the reasons at the first entrance of that first part of my dis course on this text, which shewed that it was a common engagement against Satan in point of sin, I shall add, as further strengthening to those then given, some other out of the text, by drawing a line or kind of coherence through the whole paragraph, from ver. 8 to ver. 12 ; and the series of a text affords the strongest arguments. Here is, 1, an exhortation; 2, a danger ; 3, the encouragement against this ; and these three are all com mensurable.

1. An exhortation, Be sober and watchful, and, 2. A danger proposed, Because the devil goes up and down seeking whom he may devour, namely, if this watchfulness be neglected ; and the danger must be understood in respect of that which we are to watch against, and as largely. Neither indeed can Satan indeed truly devour us any other way, than by drawing us unto satisfying those lusts, which we are to watch against, to be sure not by persecutions, and then only by our yielding unto sin.

Then, 3, look how far sobriety and watchfulness do reach, and the danger set before them to back that, extendeth ; so far must also that other exhor tation that follows thereupon, namely, that resist stedfast in the faith, also reach. And what is that resistance, but to oppose him in all assaults, which shall be contrary unto that former sobriety ; and indeed, wherein is the devil resisted by us, but in resisting his temptations to sin ? Yea, says Calvin, be sober and watch, attenti ad resistendum, heedful to resist, so as he brings down that former exhortation unto this of resisting ; and interpreteth also these words, stedfast in the faith, not of the doctrine of faith, but of the grace and exercise of faith, by which it is that temptations to sin are most resisted, called therefore the shield of faith; and this the parallel. of James and Peter do further manifestly confirm. God resisteth the proud, saith Peter, 1 Epist. v. 5, < and giveth grace to the humble ; that humble

CHAP. XIV.] OP ELECTION. 403 themselves therefore under the mighty, or sovereign, supreme hand, or government of God. Ver. 6, . Be sober and watch, because of your adver sary ; ver. 8, whom resist stedfast in the faith, ver. 9 ; thus Peter. To confirm this by parallel scripture, Compare we James, chap. iv. 6, 7, God resists the proud, says he, but gives grace to the humble ; submit yourselves therefore to God : resist the devil, &c. Now, it is evident that the scope of James his exhortation, is to resist the devil in his assaults in point of lusts ; read ver. 1-4, and particularly that lust of envy and pride, ver. 5, 6, which were the special lusts of those he wrote unto. Now Peter s exhortation is the same in this par ticular.

Add to this, that we find that sobriety, which is the head of the exhortation, respecteth abstinence from lusts everywhere. Yea, in our apostle Peter also, 1 Pet. i. 13, Wherefore gird up the loins of your minds (that is, your loose affections), be sober, &c. Sober, in respect unto what ? It follows, Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts, ver. 4. Watch fulness also, which is the next, is to be understood as chiefly intended against all sorts of lust ; so Luke xxi. 34, 36, And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man; 1 Thes. v. 6, 7, Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night. Hence, therefore, this exhortation that * whom resist, reacheth unto his stirring up of lusts, and tempting us to sin thereby. follows.

* knowing, that is,

4. Here follows this encouragement unto all these : * that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that considering, are in the world ; that is, to be tempted by him as you are, is the common lot of all the saints. Now if the encouragement were limited only to persecu tions (as those interpreters would have us understand it), and that yet the exhortations foregoing, which occasioned this, should be meant of resist ing Satan in all his temptations unto sin and lusts (as hath been shewn), then this encouragement were too short, if not altogether clean besides, and no way affording any such matter, that should hearten them to resist

Satan in point of sinning, and about lusts it had been utterly foreign ; it afforded, to be sure, not a correspondent and adequate ground thereunto.

Lastly, Here is a promise, as I shall shew, or prayer (call it which you will for the present) superadded, to back the whole and every whit of these things foregone, But the God of all grace, after ye have suffered a while, shall make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. And the extent of this promise coming in to back them, shews the extent of these ex hortations, and mutually the extent of those exhortations do likewise argue the extent of this promise, specially of that latter exhortation afore it, which this promise doth immediately follow and succeed, and hath respect to it. And from this last, the promise, it being added to the former, and making the series of the whole paragraph complete, I shall argue, 1, in the gene ral, from the completeness of that series ; 2, in particular.

1. In general. Here are three things found in the whole : (1.) the exhorta tion ; (2.) the encouragement ; (3.) this promise. And these evidently are all commensurable, of one length and breadth in their extent ; and so large as the matter and drift of the exhortations do enlarge, is the scope and matter of the encouragement, and so large as both or each of these are, so

404 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. large is the scope and drift of the promise. For the scope of the promise is, to hearten unto sobriety, watchfulness, resistance to Satan, and these are specially to be understood, as in point of lusts and temptation from Satan unto sin.

But this will further appear if we consider the particulars in the pro mise, and how the words of it do suit, and answer to the matter of the ex hortation.

1. In his styling God the God of all grace, which is the foundation of the promise, and that, as he had said, ver. 5, he giveth grace to the humble. And what is the grace there meant, but grace contrary to the lust of pride (which is there also mentioned), and by like reason every lust else ? And the opposite grace is intended therein, so as the God of all grace is that God, who is ready, and will give all sorts of grace and assistance against all sorts of lusts and temptations thereunto, God having a variety of all grace suited as a remedy to every lust and assault, as I have at large ex pounded ; and therefore temptations of all sorts of sins must be meant, commensurably to all grace. Now observe how these are styled sufferings: After ye have suffered a while ; namely, by and through these temptations, of what kind soever, and specially in sins, for those are the temptations his grace is the succour unto. And what, shall we, after all this, limit this clause, after ye have suffered, which is in the very midst of all, unto sufferings by persecution only ? Nay, surely, in all assaults from Satan, wherein it is God shews himself to be a God of (grace most, and of all grace, and promiseth so to be, yea, and in our being foiled by him, therein we are reckoned by this God of grace to suffer most, and we ourselves look on them so to be as also hath been said.

Finally, to .conclude this, the things promised, or the particulars of the matter of the promise, in the next words (which are so many heaped up to include all), do evidently argue the same; which are, that after you have suffered a whfle, he will make you perfect, strengthen, stablish, settle you ; you may discern one contrary from and by another. These all speak supplies #f grace from the God of grace, opposite to what those sufferings were,, or to what was in those sufferings, for they contain the remedies against them. To make us perfect, is certainly by giving us more grace ; as in many places of the New Testament : Heb, xiii. 21, 1 Make you perfect in every good work, to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. To name no more, it is mostly seen in working opposite graces unto our sins, causing us to grow up to perfect holiness, as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. vii. 1, which in Scripture sense is brought to pass by further advances thereunto. And such are styled perfect ; that is, comparatively to what they were, or others are ; and so by helping us to overcome those lusts which did formerly so mutiny and war in our members. The other, of strengthening, is spoken in relation to our weak hands and feeble knees, that make us apt to turn out of the way, and be prevailed upon by Satan. Also

settling, stabljshing our hearts, in confidence and assurance of his love, against doubts and fears of our acceptation in grace ; as also waverings of spirit, and tossings with winds of doctrines and opinions ; all these are temptations to sinning and prevailings of sin, which the saints are incident unto, and as reliefs against all which, these words of the promise are directed and intended.

So then, we have gained this high and great point of consolation out of the text, That our God, the God of all grace, who is the looker on in all our conflicts, that as he doth look upon Satan as our adversary, so upon us

his poor children who are the brotherhood that are said to have that one Father, Mat. xxiii. 8, 9, as sufferers under all his temptations ; yea, and as such, and under all our weaknesses, to resist him ; or being exposed, and apt to be prevailed against by Satan, it is that God thus considers, I say, our weaknesses, for thereunto settle, strengthen, stablish, must needs refer ; even so it pleaseth him to do, than which nothing can be of greater consolation or encouragement.

See, but elsewhere, how the Scripture speaks as concerning this matter. Is Peter tempted and prevailed upon as to deny his master ? Christ in his love terms it a winnowing, as by Satan, so out of infinite tenderness to him he expresseth it, he might have given it a fouler word a being tossed and tumbled by Satan as a sufferer, rather than of a foul and scan dalous dishonouring of himself. Hath Paul a messenger to deal with him, whether with horrid and blasphemous injections, or puffings up of spiritual pride, or both ? See how the Holy Ghost calls it a buffeting, and that of Satan ; makes him a sufferer, a patient in it : 2 Cor. xii. 7, * And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure ; he being as truly a sufferer therein, as a father reckons his child to be, when he is beaten in the streets by his child s adversary and his own ; and so is provoked to pity and relieve him. The like you have, 1 Cor. x. 13, no temptation hath taken you. They had fallen into gross sins, yet he calls them by the name of temptations.

And the reason is, as because he is the God of all grace, and loves our persons, which makes him to account sin, which is our greatest real misery, so it causeth him to look upon it as it is a misery to us whom he loves, shall I say, more than he hates sin ? I may say rather than as it is a sin against himself, especially when he considers how much, and how it is occasioned by Satan, that hurries on to it. As also, because his grace that is wrought in our hearts, which is but a drop to what is in him, causeth ourselves to look upon our sins, and cor ruptions, and temptations, as our greatest miseries. Do you know the * miserable man that I am, who heart of him that cried out, and said, shall deliver me ? And why, and whereupon said he it ? Even for having been held captive. Why should I enlarge upon a point, which all the saints with one consent will give their verdict in upon experience, who use to look upon every temptation, the next which they fear to fall into or be cast into, with as dreadful an eye, as a man that is apt to fevers and agues doth upon the next fit that is like to come upon him.

And this affords to us great and high consolation, for then it follows that our sins and infirmities under temptations and Satan s hand, do move God to pity us, and help, in point of proneness to, or falling into sin, more than under any other misery that can befall us. Why? For they are the greatest miseries which his children have, even in his eye, who is their Father. Well might Paul say, Who shall be against us, if God be for us ? for if sins, as they are temptations and miseries, do move God for us, what is it else can be against us ?

Of envy it is said, that it is more fierce than wrath or anger xxvii. 4, Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous ; but who is able to stand afore envy ? Wrath hath crimes and injuries usually for its object to incense it, which yet the consideration of some goodness or worth in the person may allay and turn away the fierceness of. But envy, having for its object other men s worth and excellencies, the greater they are, and the

406 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. higher their plea is for a man, the more doth envy swell. But the con trary is in God, by reason of his love and grace to us. If his love is pleased to account our sins through temptations, our greatsst misery, so as he is afflicted in all much more than we, a poor, battered, humbled, bruised sinner, a child of God s whom he hath so loved, and so long, coming and crying out to God against his sins, and shewing him his wounds, and sores that fester, this moves all that is in God, who is a God of all grace, to * I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. I ask, how shall anything be able to stand up against such a soul ? What will become of Satan s accusations against such an one ? Or his renewed this kind resolution, assaults, though again and again they prevail ? The grace of God towards him will break his heart again, and bring him in again ; and Christ, he will strike in and intercede for his restoring when fallen, and then for his par don when restored ; and in the end, God will give more grace to overcome, as is promised in the text : After you have suffered a while, the God of all gracG, by Jesus Christ, shall strengthen, make you perfect: and where is Satan then, and what is become of all his temptations ?

Another encouragement concerning these sufferings is, that they are said ( accomplished, or to be * perfected, ET/rgXs/^a/, in all the brotherhood in the world. There must be some great thing in this, importing this to be a matter wherein God drives on a glorious and mighty design, which he hath to accomplish and perfect ; and that it is a general and an universal one, wherein every saint in the world hath a share and lot.

There are no passages fall out in the world that have more confusion in them than Satan s temptations, in the varieties of them, exercised on the spirits of holy men, believers. A poor believer s heart in temptation hath the face of the chaos, and darkness and deformity covers and overspreads it; the devil sits a-brooding upon the surface of it; and yet there are no passages out of which God brings forth a greater light and glory in the issue; even as he then did light, yea, and this whole world, out of that darkness.

To break open this small box of ointment, I have afore opened the significancy of this word here used, but doctrinally then. What I shall now add is in application, by way of comfort.

1. The word here used hath respect to God s eternal decree and appoint ment, as laying forth and setting out all and every one of them, sufferings in particular, which each shall suffer, as likewise as having ordered them all in a glorious wisdom to the greatest good. Thus Gerard on the place, quoting Rom. viii. 28, 29, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his pur pose. 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 amongst many brethren. The coherence whereof with the former speaks this, that there fore all things, and so temptations, work, and work together, for good; it is the common task and work of all, and that because they are so aforehand appointed and designed by God so to do; by that God that chose us, and foreknew us, as there; The God of all grace, as here. So that the apostle s scope herein is, Quiet yourselves by faith as concerning them; let temptations, or rather let God, have the perfect work of them upon you, by them in you, and the end will be glorious ; Satan is in all your trials, but working out God s great ends, to his own greater confusion, and your good. Know (says he) that it is God s work which is a-carrying on in all these; and his work is always perfect, Deut. xxxii. 4. And if ever he shewed his skill, his artifice, in any work, it is in this ; for there is nothing he ever

aimed at more than the devil s confusion and your salvation, and that as they are both carried on together in and by every temptation of yours. And there is not one of them, no, not the least, but tend to make perfect the whole of God s design upon the whole body of his elect, and no one can be wanting to the completing of them. And at the latter day thyself wouldst riot have wanted one of them, how grievous soever they are at present, when thou shalt see how each of thine conduce to the finishing an whole, perfect, and exact story of the body and spouse of Christ, to be joined as a supple ment to that great history of Christ s ; and < blessed therefore is the man that endureth temptation. It is strange that the sending of Satan should be termed a gift, yet so it is: There was given me the messenger of Satan, or the angel and messenger, Satan; the words bear both, 2 Cor. xii. 7. 2. For thy comfort in thy sufferings, this word gV/rsXsM*/, as I have shewed before, hath a respect unto the perishing and finishing Christ s sufferings. It is Calvin s observation on thewords,* Perfici infiddibus quotidie, qua desunt passionibus Christi ; that is, that hereby are perfected in the saints, I rather say with the apostle, which are behind to the sufferings of Christ ; and do rather understand them to be a new addition to Christ sufferings, in a conformity unto him, which yet he is pleased to reckon his. And here, of our temptations, there is an s<xl added, so making it a compound, which may and here doth import a making perfect a thing that had gone afore ; and so an adding a new perfection unto another former finishing, thereby to render the former yet more perfect.

The only difficulty in this point is, that whereas I include Satan s temp tations to sin, and the fallings of the saints into sin, upon his temptations, to be a part (arid if a part, the greatest part) of the sufferings here intended ; how these can be accounted the perfecting, or an addition to the sufferings, of Christ as our head.

My solution is,

1. That look what is simply matter of temptation in it, as from Satan, on his part, that also was Christ s lot to bear as well as ours, and in like manner to be tempted by him. The place is express, Heb. iv. 15, Who was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. His exception, without sin, is to be understood that the temptations, whatever they were, were without sinning on his part as to the issue of the temptation in himself. But as for the temptation itself, as on Satan s part, he was tempted in all things, that * like as we. And therefore for us to be followed with the same temptations, by the same devil (that apart and alone considered), is but a conformity unto Christ as our head, and so to accomplish, or make is, all sorts of ways, perfect, the after-temptations of Christ.

2. But, secondly, consider them as sins which do accompany them in us ; yet such is the grace of our God, that although, as now we are creatures, and persons in ourselves considered, he looks upon all our sins as great guiles and defilements in us, and abominations loathsome to himself, yet he, considering us as members of his Son though not as members of him in our sinning: God forbid, for that is the devil s work he looks upon us who do so sin, and whilst we sin, as members appertaining unto Christ; and in this respect he accounts our sinnings our sufferings (such is his goodness), yea, and the divine nature in the saints too, which in its kind, though with im perfection, is affected in things as God is, doth cause them to look upon their own sinnings as their sufferings, and of all the greatest. And each cries out, miserable man that I am ! and they do cast them into that account and head of sufferings endured in their lives. And thou that * See Calvin in locum.

408 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. reckonest them not among thy pleasures, but thy greatest afflictions, thou shalt have in the end a victory from the God of all grace, and he will sup port, and in the end perfect, thee. And Christ, that was himself tempted, and who overcame Satan for thee, will overcome Satan in thee ; he will cause thee to triumph in the end, and to be * more than a conqueror. 8. Unto both which I may add further, for our comfort and relief, as touching this particular, that not Christ, whilst on earth only, hath suffered from Satan as well as we in the manner specified, but to accomplish this his Father s great design in us and upon us, it is that he suffers himself now in heaven to be, though not tempted, yet I may say troubled, with this devil (pardon the word, till you hear how I mean it). But it is wholly for us, and on our behalf, and for our sakes, for whom he there appears an ad vocate ; that is, that although Christ hath already de jure despoiled Satan of all his power against us, further than as God gives new, fresh, and occa sional leave; and himself, now in heaven, is no way exposed to he tempted by him, as whilst he was on earth, nor in any such respect may be said so to be in his own person; yet he hath left so much power to him against us, as doth occasion much work to himself, which after the day of judgment he shall be eased of. Himself is still greatly exercised upon occasions from him in behalf of us. That very office of advocuteship of his, which he hath undertaken for us, was in a great measure set up, and on purpose occasioned by God to oppose Satan, and to take our parts, and maintain our lot against him at the throne of God, He obtains leave of God to tempt and winnow us, and then goes and accuseth us unto God ; and upon all such accusations Christ is put to pray full hard for us now, as well as whilst he was on earth for Peter. And in John xvii. for all the apostles, that our faith fail not ; because Satan thus both winnows and thus accuseth us to God. I may say as Paul of himself to the Galatians,* Gal. vi. 17, in another case, Christ is put to business, yea, unto much business, by reason of Satan, and that by means of our sinnings and corruptions. And he hath also greatly to do with Satan about the ruling of this world, a great deal of work to overthrow Satan s designs therein ; and both in that too, and which is for our sakes, in this other of his assaults upon us, &c., Christ exposeth him self to a kind of trial with him upon multitudes of occasions, that is, tries it out with him; because Satan will still be meddling, and opposing bim, and putting it to the vie, who shall carry it and prevail: Satan, the prince of the air, the God of this world ; or he the King of saints, the Lord of lords. Christ disputes every inch of ground he wins from him, in our hearts and in the world. I have spoken this to the end that if Christ, not only when he was on earth, but now he is in heaven, hath, and hath had, so much to do with him, then may you comfort and quiet yourselves, though you con tinue to be exercised with him in sore vexations whilst on earth ; for now it is that your turn is come of sufferings to bear your part on earth, after Christ had first gone through his upon earth, as a fulfilling the aftersufferings of Christ ; and since now, whilst in heaven, he is still exercised thus, and is fain to wait till this his enemy be actually and de facto per fectly subdued, and made his footstool, we should then be heartened under them and against them, expecting that happy issue which Christ himself doth.

* So the word signifies, Gal. vi. 17. translated trouble me.

CHAP. XV.] OF ELECTION

CHAPTER XV.

The actual performance of those promises of perfecting, stablishing, strengthen ing, settling us. The manner and means whereby God preserves us, and carries us on to persevere unto the end. His particular care over us, how expressed in the Scripture by the vigilancy of his eye in all our ways, by ac companying us continually with his presence, by his guarding us in safety, by his having us always in remembrance. What it is concerning us that his care is m.ost exercised about. His principal care is of our souls. How it is that he preserves them in life.

Casting all gour care upon him, for he careth for you. But the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

1 PETER V., verses 7 and 10 compared.

When I handled those words, The God of all grace, I shewed how the purposing grace of God (which takes up the principal part of the meaning of that clause) had before all worlds ordered and contrived all things about us, both temptations and sins that should befall us after calling, and the issues out of them by repentances and returnings back again unto God ; and that all these were so fore-laid and disposed, as all was thereby made sure, as David expresseth it in his own person for us all, A covenant ordered in all things, and sure, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. Now, then (as the counterpane unto this), I am to shew how after calling, executive grace (the other was the legis lative or dispositive grace), or as the seventh verse, God s caring grace doth, according to his former purposes laid, perform this all along. And unto the fuller carrying on of this, I shall call in the suffrage of the seventh verse, Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you, as being in the general most fitly expressive of this point in hand ; for to a steady eye, that exactly observeth the series of one speech after the other, the words in the seventh verse do pour forth their stream into the channel of the tenth verse, and both streams there meet in this one scope, namely, to comfort believers against all temptations of sin, or from Satan, &c., the apostle first sending out that promise there in the seventh verse, as in the fore-front ; and then follows this other in the tenth verse, as in the rear and conclusion.

1 Cast all your care upon him ; that is, your cares of all sorts, your burden, says the psalmist, Ps. Iv. 22, whence the words are taken, for he that is the mighty God (says Peter, ver. 6) careth for you, ver. 7 ; which words are at no hand to be limited unto outward afflictions only, but do more specially concern our cares and burdens about temptations ; for what doth immediately follow, namely, Be sober : for your adversary the devil walks up and down, &c. It is his temptations, and the insobriety of our own hearts, and inordiuancy of our own lusts, that afford the sorest burdens, and most hearteating cares of any other sufferings ; but our hearts being supported by these two strong pillars of consolation, may have full stedfastness of faith, to which he exhorts them, ver. 9. And whilst thus you view the words in this coherence, you may behold

Satan, and all your spiritual adversaries, as in a toil, surrounded and every way encompassed with a God that careth for you in all your cares, that on the one part he is before Satan ; and a God of all grace, that will perfect you on the other part, behind him. What then should we fear ? The general observation I single out of all is,

410 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

That as you have a God of all grace that called you, and engaged to pre serve you, so you have, after your calling, the same God of all grace, a mighty God, that careth for you, to perform it, and to make it good. God s care in the execution is the point in hand. In prosecuting of which my chief design shall be to draw forth into view the particulars of God s care herein ; and therein not barely relating to ex periences, but as we find scriptures withal confirming them. All which particulars put together will arise to as effectual and comfortable a satisfac tion in the point of the perseverance of the saints as any other way of argu ing it that is used.

First, let us consider how the Scriptures represent the strictness of his care over us ; as, 1. By the vigilancy of his eye in all our ways. Our Peter, out of many places in the Old Testament, where that saying is found, hath inserted it once for all in the New, in this epistle, chap. iii. ver. 12, * The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous. It is spoken in respect of an eminent care had to them ; for otherwise we find elsewhere, that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good ; so Prov. xxv. 3. But yet so, and in so special a manner over the righteous, as if he minded none else : Isa. Ixvi. 2, All these things have my hands made : but to him will I look, who is of a contrite spirit. He professeth (as it were) to overlook all the other works of his hand, fixing the acies of his eye on such a man ; that is, so to look on him, as to look to him ; and as if he had none else to look to in the world. In Jeremiah, chap. xxiv. 6, 7, you have it thus, I will set mine eyes upon them for good, to take care of them, and bring them back again: to build them, and to give them an heart to know me ; and to return to me with their whole heart. Yea, whereas we here in the text, ver. 8, are exhorted to watch, who, poor creatures, fall asleep often, the very same is said of God, always to watch over us. So in the same Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. 28, And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict ; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord ; as a nurse-keeper, whose eye and wakeful attention is upon a child. There is a whole psalm on purpose made to express this : Ps. cxxi., * The Lord is my keeper, ver. 5; that is the burden of it. It is three times repeated, to infix the security of it on our souls ; and with a behold the second time, to awaken our drowsiness to the observation of it : ver. 3, He that keepeth thee will not slumber; ver. 4, Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep; ver. 5, The Lord is my keeper. Poor wandering soul, thou hast a keeper takes care of thee, and that, keeper of thine is the Lord, who also takes this as a peculiar style and office to him self, in a special manner, to be the keeper of all the Israel of God ; and if that be too indefinite, he particularly brings it home unto every saint for their comfort twice, The Lord is thy keeper ; that is, of the whole Israel of God in general, and of every soul of that number, and so their keeper, as of none else in the world; a keeper so vigilant continually that he never so much as slumbers, or shuts an eye, much less sleepeth. The strength of which attention is spent on this, to keep thy soul from evil; so ver. 7, The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul; that is, from such evils as would be destructive thereof, and of that state of grace thou art in, that is his chiefest charge. And with this attention thus to preserve thee, he hath an eye upon thy goings out and thy comings in. So, ver. 8, go whither thou wilt, yea, and he adds, from this time

1 forth, for evermore; that is, either from the first of that time, when he took

charge of thee, and thou didst begin to give thyself up to his care, ever after, even for ever; or rather, do thou begin to reckon at any time since thy call ing, even from this now, this present time ; and so for ever. Now when thou art so old, and he hath kept thee so long, and thou hast (as to thy thoughts) so often forfeited his protection of thee, yet he renews the guard over thee; his care sets his watch continually as strict as ever, even from this time, &c., and that for ever. If indeed, as it is said in the Gospel, Whilst the husbandman slept, &c., so that there were but one moment, the twinkling of an eye, in which his eye might be off from thee, or careless of thee, there might be supposition that this our adversary the devil might have an advantage to devour thee, to chop thy soul up in a moment ; but God never slumbers : < I the Lord keep it day and night, Isa. xxvii. 3; and if that be not enough, he adds, every moment.

Nor, 2, is it his eye only that is intent upon them, as at a distance, but his presence continually accompanies them ; yea, it is further expressed, as by a continual attendance on us : Ps. xxiii. 4, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Sheep wandering in dark places, to which that whole psalm alludes, are obnoxious to be preys unto wild beasts ; but if the shepherd be with them, there is no danger to be sure. If God, my shepherd, ver. 1, that is greater than all, be with us, none need be feared. Yea, so watchful is he, as wherever we go, he is said to follow us, even as one whose place, or duty, it is to attend a person committed to him, Thus verse the last of that psalm, Surely mercy and goodness shall follow me all the days of my life, to see to me, and look after me. And if mercy and goodness itself undertake this task and charge, we shall be as surely kept. Thus Paul also : Not I, but the grace of God that is with me. He so speaks of it, as his guardian assistant that accompanied him. The phrase is first used of the patriarchs ; and indeed, next to that fundamental of the covenant, I will be your God, the usual promise to the patriarchs was, that God was and would be with them. An heathen observed it of Abraham, Gen. xxi. 22, And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, spake unto Abra ham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest. After that, he was the same to Isaac ; I will be with thee, and bless thee, Gen. xxvi. 3, 24.

After that, to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 15, Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest ; and I will not leave thee. To men tion no more.

3. Not by his presence only, but taking us unto sure and safe custody, which Peter mentions here also ; speaking of the mighty hand, ver. 6, of that God that cares for us, ver. 7.

: see Ps. Ixxiii. 28, I am continually with thee ; thou hast holden me by my right hand ; nay, and it is his right hand too, that holds thee by thy right hand : so Ps.

(1.) Holding us by the hand, and that continually cxxxix. 10, Ps. xviii. 35, and that to save thee, Ps. cxxxviii. 7.

(2.) And to be yet more sure ; he is said to take us into his hand, grasp ing us therewith : Deut. xxxiii. 3, He loved the people (or, is the lover of the peoples, the great lover*), all his saints are in thy hand ; as Christ also, John x. 28.

(3.) And not in one, but in both. This speech in Deuteronomy is not of a shepherd holding his sheep, but of a loving husband embracing his spouse, holding her not in one arm only, but in both. So twice in the Canticles, * Ainsworth.

412 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Cant. ii. 6, and chap. viii. 3, His left hand under my head, his right hand doth embrace me.

(8.) The Scripture expresseth this his care by the attentiveness of his memory

Therefore is ever mindful of his covenant, His : Ps. cxi. 5, covenant, that of grace, which he had from everlasting ordered in all things concerning us, that whereas it might be thought or feared, though he took sure order for all things aforehand, yet in process of time may he not forget something or other of necessary concernment to us ? No ; he hath all those things continually afore him punctually ; forgets not one tittle ; but performs all in that manner as he did forelay them. He is ever mindful of his cove nant. The Lord will perfect (says David), or make complete, that concern ing me, Ps. cxxxviii. 8, which he speaks in relation to that covenant ordered in all things as to his peculiar, which he now believed would be all punctually performed, as hitherto it had been, as when he had finished his course, and was to die, he professeth.

If it be objected, Do not the saints run into evils, and go astray? how then is God s eye and care, &c., so continually over them, every moment, as you have spoken of?

The answer is, 1, During all such times even of going astray, his eye and care is over them, yea, and over them most then, to moderate the temp tations, and to take care that they themselves exceed not the bounds of the state of grace in sinning, and be swallowed up and devoured of them. Our Peter himself, Christ s care was most about him then, when he was to be foiled by Satan : I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, Luke xxii. 32. So aforehand ; and in the temptation his heart ached for him ; and at last his eye was upon him to purpose. He looked back, and you know what followed. In Isa. Ivii. 17, 18, when he went on frowardly, says God, in the way of his heart, I have seen his ways. He saw him all the timeof it, and took care not to let things go on eo long as they should be past cure arid remedy according to his rules : * I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. There is another clear scripture for this : Ps. Ixxiii. 2, But as for me (says he, and you may wonder at me for it, who might be judged to have been better instructed), my feet were almost gone, and my steps had well nigh slipped ; ver. 3, For I was envious at the foolish ; that is, at the pros perity of the wicked : I even wished myself one of them ; yea, and was greatly tempted to throw off all religion upon it, and turn atheist ; yea, and the temptation therein rose up to a verily, to a conclusion in his own heart : ver. 13, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain ; and again, he fretted and had boiling thoughts, and angry litigations with God himself, as Calvin comments on the words, ver. 21, Thus my heart was leavened, as the ori ginal, totus in fermento, filled with an angry sourness ; and I was pricked in my reins ! Such motions and affections of heart impetuously rose up and inflamed me : ver. 22, So foolish was I and ignorant, and as a beast, with thee, or afore thee, in my carriage towards thee. But where was God, in respect of the eye and presence you speak of, all this while ? In view, he seemed to have as little eye to or care of this good man this while ; even as in governing the world, whilst he suffered the wicked to prosper, which was his temptation.

Well, but when the prophet was come to himself, and the enchantment was dissolved, he now clearly saw that God had as strict and waking an eye over him all along as ever ; yea, and the care which God shewed him, even during this temptation, as in the issue appeared, became the greatest pawn and pledge to him, assuring him, that God would preserve him for ever. Read from the 23d verse (where the stream begins to turn into

CHAP. XV. J OF ELECTION. 413 another channel) unto the end of the psalm: ver. 28, Nevertheless, thon art continually with me, thou hast holden me by my right hand. That nevertheless comes in upon the narration of, and in relation unto all that mis carriage of his mentioned, so foolish was I, &c., nevertheless (which is the wonder of it, says he), or notwithstanding this, yet I am continually with thee. What ! as to his own sense and apprehension, as if that he had held and kept up entire communion with God all that while ? No ; for what he had said afore of the evil frame of his heart is a contradiction thereunto. It is spoken, then, in respect of the eye and presence on God s part, that*God had towards him, which is evident by what follows : Thou hast holden me by my right hand ; and so thereby had pulled him forth of that horrible temptation. And the experience he had learned of God s care and preser vation, out of these passages towards him, assured him that God would pre serve him for ever ; ver. 24, Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel alfmv life long ; and afterwards receive me to glory. This is an inference as to the future from that experiment.

Yea, farther, this place shews that at such times and seasons wherein our hearts seem most loose and left to themselves, God hath then the more stedfast eye ; as the mother of the child when sick, or as a manner hath most care and solicitude of his ship in a storm ; a father the most wary re gard to a little child he hath let go, to see what way of itself it will take. And therefore, this acknowledgment is brought in by way of thankfulness and blessing God, as Calvin observes, for his presence with him and support of him then ; that he was not wholly overturned or fallen headlong, as off from a precipice, as those words, ver. 2, My steps well nigh were poured out, import.

The second branch I make of handling this his care in the general is, What is the principal subject of his care ? What it is taken up about.

1. First, His principal care is over our souls : Ps. cxxi. 7, The Lord shall preserve thee from evil ; the Lord shall preserve thy soul. The latter is by way of emphasis and notoriety added, so that he that keeps thy bones, thy body the sheath, will be sure to look to thy soul. And therefore God regards not so much to what he gives thy name, thy body, thy estate up unto, what detriments and diminutions in thy outward man befall thee there in, if they subserve to renew thy inward man. Our Peter here, 1 Pet. ii.

25, telleth us for our comfort, that when we are converted to God, we are * returned to the shepherd and bishop (or overseer) of our souls. His eye is specially upon them, they are his charge and flock.

2. His care is principally exercised about preserving you, that no sin have dominion over you. When grace first takes hold of us and calls us, it sets up a dominion over us. Grace reigns to eternal life, Rom. v. 21, even till then, and then we begin first to give up ourselves to the government of it, which Peter here exhorts them to renew and continue to do. Humbling ourselves under his sovereign hand or power, which we no sooner begin to do, but from thenceforward the sovereignty of grace takes us into its protec tion and conduct. And the fundamental principle by which that dominion of grace stands and is continued over us is, that sin never comes again to have that dominion which once it had. So Rom vi. 14, Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are under grace. And the reason of it is clear and plain ; for sin and grace have and seek two opposite dominions, and the dominions of each are destructive of the dominion of the other (and what an interest dominion is, we all have seen and know), so as if ever sin should come to have its ancient dominion and rule, as once the grace of God, that now hath taken the dominion, were dethroned, or to use Paul s word, Gal. ii. 21,

414 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. frustrated. But this the interest of grace itself, as it is contrary to sin, but specially in that it is an interest of dominion, will never suffer or endure ; and in this sense are the promises of keeping us from all evil, and preserv ing us blameless, and the like, to be understood (that is, blameless according to the rules and principles of the state of grace) and so as in the end, to bring forth judgment unto victory.

And to that end, 3, he takes special care of our feet, our steps, and go: 1 Sam. ii. 9, He will keep the feet of his saints ; and whoever will undertake to keep himself (as it follows) by his own strength, he shall not ings prevail.

Our Saviour Christ, when he was to go out of this world, John xiii. 1 (and then at death we shew what our cares towards those we love are most upon), he shewed his greatest care to be of this. He would needs make that one of his last deeds, to wash his disciples feet, ver 5. The mystery whereof he gives, ver. 10, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, for being justified by the blood of Christ (which is termed a washing, 1 Cor. vi.

11, and is total and at once), all the need and care that now remains is to preserve and keep a man s steps and walkings, to keep him holy.

And again, Christ in his last prayer, John xvii. 15, shews this was his * keep them from the evil of the care. It is one of his great requests, to world, namely (as the words afore shew), from sinning as they of the world do sin.

Likewise Ps. xxxvii. 23, it is said (which shews God s eminent care here l the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord ; and the Lord in) that delighteth in his way. The latter is a reason of the former, that because God loves their persons, and so desires to please himself in their ways (and one we love, we desire should please us), therefore God doth studiously and with avisement order all his steps.

Which ordering of our steps is in a special manner so to be understood as to see to us and our steps, so as at least sin may not have dominion over us. For which you may observe that joining together of these two, Ps. cxix. 133, Order my steps in thy word, and let not sin have dominion over me.

Or if you will take another expression of David, which since I met with it hath much pleased me as to the point in hand, and therefore I will somewhat enlarge upon it : Ps. Ixvi. 9, 10, 16, Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved. For thou, God, hast proved us ; thou has tried us, as silver is tried. Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.

There are two eminent benefits or blessings spiritual, and but two, that comprehend all other that take and fill up the whole space of a Christian s life, from his first conversion to his death : 1, the work of conversion, or estating him into life at first ; 2, the preservation of that life and conduct of him unto glory, through all the passages of his pilgrimage ; and each of these in their kinds wonderful and great. And if a controversy and debate were admitted, which of them should be the greatest, it would be found that no jury of mankind could determine on either side, but must return, and leave it to God s free grace itself, which is * the author and finisher of our faith, to decide. And perhaps both will be found alike redounding unto the glory of that grace. For look as the works of creation at first, and up holding all by his power and providence, are yoked together as works of a like wonder, vouchsafed the creation in common, Heb. i. 2, 3, so just in the like manner we find regeneration and perseverance joined, as the sum of all other works in this life. Thus, begotten again, and kept by the

power of God to salvation, are joined by the apostle, 1 Pet. i. 8 and 5, called and preserved in Christ Jesus ; so in Jude, ver. 1. And Paul the same, 1 Thes. v. 23, 24, And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. And in the Old Testament, I have made, or formed: Isa. xlvi. 4, and I have made, and you, and I will bear and support you stablished you, [Dent, xxxii. 6, by both of which he shews himself a Father, as in the words afore. And accordingly the saints are called upon to bless God more eminently for these two grand and comprehensive benefits.

* who, according to his abundant

Blessed be God, says Peter, 1 Pet. i. 3, * Oh, bless our God, ye people, which holdeth our souls in life ; so the psalmist here. Yea, if we do nar mercy, hath begotten us again unto life. And rowly eye the words in either, both Peter and the psalmist do bless God for both at once. Blessed be God for begetting us ; who are also kept by the power of God ; so it follows in Peter. In the psalmist, both are com prehended in this one word : 1, which putteth our souls in life (so the margin, out of the Hebrew), that is, who puts life into your souls at the first, as he did into Adam when he made him a living soul ; 2, and then which holdeth, that is, continueth our souls in that life. So the trans lators render it also, according to the psalmist s scope, and Oh, bless the Lord, saith the psalmist there, for these and both these.

This psalm is supposed to have been penned by some holy prophet, upon occasion of God s preservation of his people under the great trials they under went from the Babylonians, and under that captivity.

And this holding their souls in life may be understood in two respects

1. As respecting bodily life and the concernments of it, continued all along from great .dangers that might have come upon them from so cruel an enemy.

2. In relation unto the spiritual life of grace in their souls, which is, and was to them, the infinitely far greater mercy of the two, and this life, as preserved in the want of ordinances, and living in the midst of an heathen idolatrous nation, and a wicked generation ruling over them.

And the hazard of the extinction of either, and their trials and temptations in both respects, is represented here to have been very great. For (1.) he compares them unto the trial whereby silver is tried, which phrase is used

As silver is melted m the to express the sorest of trials : Ezek. xxii. 22, midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you. Yea, when our trials are of a lesser sort and degree, and more tolerable, they are said to be, not as silver or with silver, Isa. xlviii. 10. (2.) They are/urther set out in ver. 11, Thou hast brought us into the net, thou hast laid affliction upon our loins ; that is, the affliction God laid on their loins, was as a net, that encompassed them round, wherein they had lain tossing and tumbling, like bulls in a net, as the prophet s phrase is, Isa. li. 20, and found no way out whereby to escape. (3.) He caused men to ride over their heads, ver

12, that is, they were in a manner perfect slaves, at the will and pleasure ot wicked and cruel men, their enemies ; for by that very phrase is slavery ex pressed. For the manner was to use slaves thus, to carry them on thennecks and backs as riders on them, resting themselves.meanwhile over their heads : Isa. li. 23, But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee ; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over ; and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over (4.) There was a great variety of such penis, and not only of

416 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. several, but of contrary sorts : ver. 12, we went through fire and water, either of which single and alone, when but one of these befall men, note out

Save me, God, for the waters are come upon my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there extremity of evils. Thus through water : Ps. Ixix. 1, 2, is no standing ; I am come into the deep waters, where the floods overflow me. Or through fire : Ezek. xv. 7, * And I will set my face against them, that they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them, and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them. But when through both successively, one after the other, this notes out an accu mulation of miseries or trials indeed ; as we read Isa. xliii. 2, with God s

When thou passest through the promise to his people in such conditions, water, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not over flow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. Which promise is here, you see, acknowledged by the psalmist to have been performed. God was with the three children when they walked through the fire, in the very letter of Isaiah s speech ; and with the children of Israel when they went through the water of the Red Sea : and now they were delivered and were returned

brought into a wealthy into their own land ; they were, as it is expressed, place, out of those straits and pressures ; that is, into a roomy, open, and enlarged condition, in outward respects. And in the view and sense of all these various dealings of God with them, he blesseth God, that God had as yet kept them alive, which was the promise made the church, as in itself alone mercy sufficient in such a sense, and restored to them the com forts of life.

But the second mercy I mentioned is, of holding the souls of his saints in spiritual life. This, as it was the mercy of mercies, so I take it, is the mercy chiefly and above all intended, for which he thus blesseth God ; and my reasons are,

1. The dangers they had run through, are not here simply considered as perils to the outward man alone, but further as trials and probations of their faith. This the words shew, For thou, Lord, hast proved us, and tried us, as silver is tried, Ps. Ixvi. 10. Now take them as trials from God, and so they must be understood to relate to the inner man, as temptations arid probations thereof, even as when they are called chastenings of the Lord they likewise do. Now look what life it was which these dangers, considered as trials, did respect and endanger. That life, and the preservation of it, was it which he chiefly aims at to bless God for. And it is our spiritual life, the life of our souls, which trials and such probations, considered as such, do wholly respect, and the enduring of which it is makes the mercy so great, to have that life which God and the saints do most respect maintained in the midst of them, for in themselves they do endanger that life. The * Blessed, rich carnal professor fadeth and withereth when the sun is up therefore, is the man that endureth temptation, James i. 12. And it is our faith, which is the principle of spiritual life, which is said to be the sub ject of such trials and temptations, considered as such : so Peter, 1st

The trial of your faith is much more precious than of Epist. chap, i, 7, gold, says he there ; even as here the trial of silver. And again, in the Old Testament, the spiritual profit that accrueth thereby in spiritual refmings, is that which the trial of the soul as silver is compared unto : Zech. xiii. 9, I will bring the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried : they shall call on my name, and I will hear them : I will say, It is my people ; and they,-shall say, The Lord is my God. The issue of their trial is made not a

refinement only, in respect of corruptions purged out, which Peter also speaks of, ver. 21, but a rising up to an assurance, through experience in those trials that God was their God, even as here he calls upon them as they were saints, and tried saints : Bless our God, says he, ye people, Ps. Ixvi. 8. The like you have in Malachi iii. 3, And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver : and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. So that this scripture of the psalmist is for substance parallel, though under other allusions, unto that you read the profession of those saints to be in their acknowledgments of God therein, in the like case: Ps. xliv. 17, 18, All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant : our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way ; which is in effect and sub stance the same with the preserving of their souls in life, and of their feet kept from being moved from out of the ways of God, as you find here in the text.

2. The life here intended, is eminently the life of the soul; in his saying, Oh, bless God that holdeth our soul in life, which Peter also in the same chap i. ver. 9, in like manner expresseth. And though I know the word soul is taken for the person sometimes, yet comparing this with the use of the word, ver. 16 of this psalm (of which in the next following reason), and observing the parallel and correspondency these words of blessing God have with the special care of God, as it is set out in keeping our souls, in Ps. cxxi., The Lord is thy keeper, ver. 5 ; and ver. 7, The Lord shall pre serve thy soul, as the subject of his care : and then taking in ver. 8, He will not suffer thy foot to be moved ; and all this there being spoken in rela tion to their souls, and how withal the very same individual phrases are here used, Holds our souls in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved ; this induceth me to judge that the aim, as to the spiritual life of the soul, is in this passage intended, as well as in that Psalm cxxi.

3. He that penned this psalm, having blessed God thus in the behalf of all other saints, and invited them thereby to do the same, at last offers to cast in the experiments of God s dealings with his own soul as a provoca tion and a pattern unto other saints, to recollect with themselves the like dealings of God with them to the same end and purpose: thus, ver. 16, * Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. Where the words, for my soul, do certainly respect the spirit ual dealings of God with his soul, in distinction from such outward mercies as concerned his bodily life ; and so doth clearly expound what he had meant by keeping our souls in life, in this verse 8. Now this passage of his, being the conclusion of the psalm, and as it were the summary of it, I therefore take to look backward to these foregone passages, and to be as his setting his seal to the truth of them in his own experience: having this coherence with the former, as if he had said, Come and hear, I will declare what God hath done for my soul, namely, in keeping, and holding my soul in life, during all this long tract of trials I have passed over and gone through together with you, all the rest of my fellowsufferers ; for which I in my particular do bless God, and for which you in your particulars have cause to praise God also. And thus, that which follows to the end of the psalm, I understand to respect what exercises, and gracious issues of spirit by prayer, and selfexamination of spirit, had befallen him, under those common trials forementioned that he had found ; the chief whereof were, I cried to him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue ; and so to the end of the psalm ; and so his scope in ver. 16 issues in this, as if he had said, Lo,

VOL. IX. D "

418 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV. here I, who am but one among you all that fear God in the world (and per haps in his own eye he was the least), come, and behold the course I have run through, from the time of God his first putting life into my soul unto this day ; and if I did but tell you, or could rehearse all the experiments which my life since affords, and give so large and ample a declaration, as his own word is, as I could from experience make, interwoven with so many varieties of rich dispensations, of God s having preserved me still in grace, and kept life in use in me, especially by prayer, ver. 17, and not having regarded iniquity in my heart, ver. 18, from time to time, in the midst of all the temptations and changes that have passed, you would stand aghast at them, as I myself do. And I would do this to the end that you would all be provoked thereby, to view and remind the several courses of dealings which God hath taken with each of you, to the upholding and carrying each of your souls through with spiritual life still continued in them. And that you would set down, and tell the like stories too, at which we shall all be astonished one at another, and fall down afore God in all, and ever and anon adore him, and cry out, Oh, bless our God, all ye people of God, which hath thus wonder fully and miraculously held our souls in life for these ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ; and if my own single experience would, yea, and doth afford so much (and oh how little of God s grace am I able to declare !), what would all and each of yours, when fully told, rise up unto, as at the day of judgment it will?

This, I take it, is the prophet s intimate scope, whoever he was that wrote it, from the experience of what himself had found, and observation of other saints, his companions, all along that captivity out of Babylon, which, when come forth of it, he writes.

My brethren, you have often heard, perhaps with much delight and sym pathy, the strange relations of one another s conversions ; strange in the variety of dealings God taketh with each soul, and in some unto a wonder ment ; and which enhanceth the wonder of it, that in all it ariseth to the same substantial work of humiliation, faith, and godliness. Well, but let me again tell you, that if you could but recall and dilate upon the whole or principal passages of your perseverance in grace, and the dangerous rocks, the strange meanders and labyrinths, the tossings and tempests you have run through in the courses of your lives, your dangers of falling off from God thereby ; together with God s dissolving the charms and machinations of Satan laid therein against you, shewn in his recoverings of you after fall ings long continued, backslidings, and revivings from dead frames of heart, and so strange preventings of you from fallings ; what by providences, what by his grace inwardly working, and thereby preserving of you ; and then his gracious supports and comforts vouchsafed your souls, and renewals of your inward man day by day ; his mighty breakings in upon you in communion with himself and his Son ; his chastisements and sore afflictings of you, to the issue of them ; the changes of condition, and emptyings from vessel to vessel he hath made, still sanctifying them, to leave none of your dregs behind ; his leading you through great and terrible wildernesses, and then again though variety of green pastures ; and further, discoveries by all, of your own hearts to him, and of his to you, when you make such reflections on the several passages and experiences of your lives ; you will find that it is matter and cause of the saints their greatest blessing of God, the keeping or preserving their soul in spiritual life.

I shall set the unspeakableness thereof out in no other consideration than this, by which Austin so magnifies this grace, above what Adam s in his best and perfect estate was, that considering the infinite variety and number

CHAP. XVI.] OF ELECTION

of trials, temptations, the body, and strength of corruptions still remaining, damping, opposing the power and life of grace by corruption and the law of the members, it is a wonder of wonders that grace should be continued and not driven out ; as great a wonder as to see a small cock-boat kept alive, as mariners speak, in the midst of so many seas, and storms, and waves of corruption that overwhelm it ; or to carry a small candle lighted, yea in itself but as yet a smoking wick, as Christ calls it, ready of itself to die and expire, when snuffed every minute, in a rainy and stormy night, through Newmarket heath. But Christ and his power is the lantern it is preserved in : * Preserved in Christ, as Jude 1.

CHAPTER XVI.

That the decrees of God in election are of such sure efficacy that we may be ascertained of their infallible performance. That nothing can hinder or frustrate their success in working, because God works all things according to the counsel of his own will. What assurances we have that his good pur pose concerning us shall be invincibly accomplished, both from the nature of election decrees, and the interest which the attributes of God have in the performance of them.

As the decree of election, or predestination, is the efficacious will of God, which for his own good pleasure intends our salvation, and has prepared such means by which and through which he brings his elect unto that end efficaciously and infallibly.

1. This efficacious will of God in this matter is to be distinguished from other decrees. We call this the efficacious will of God, because it does not leave a man in the hands of his own free will, as Adam was left, and because it also respects and decrees the very event; for it is such a will of God as is joined with his power to effect it. As, for instance, Eph. i. 11, In whom, in Christ namely, we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. And this is backed with two other scriptures out of the Old

Testament ; Isa. xiv. 27, For the Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who < But our God is in the heavens, he hath shall disannul it ? Ps. cxv. 3, done whatsoever he pleased. And this distinction might be cleared by many instances, as by Saul s being chosen king, whom he did cast out; and that of Jeroboam, to whom God made the same promise of establishing his kingdom, as he had done to David, but left it in the hands of his own will, 1 Kings xi. 37, 38, as the event shewed how it succeeded. And thus before he had done as to Adam s state, which is perfectly the state the Arminians put God s election and promises into, which the event also shewed how fatal it proved. And this was the case of the Israelites present in the wilderness, whom God promised Canaan to, but left the issue to the counsel of their own wills, and thereupon God destroyed them in the wilderness, and then twits them with it : Num. xiv. 34, After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days (each day for a year), shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years ; and ye shall know my breach of promise. But God s decrees of election and predestination, as expressed m that place of Eph. i. 11, are not such; they are absolute and infallible, and all along so described to be ; they have their effect, which if it be proved to be the genuine scope of the place, there is no more to be said, there is an end of the controversy for our side.

420 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

I shall prosecute for the present, first, but this one argument, the spirit of which lies in this, out of that llth verse, that the decree concerning God s election is the decree of God, as he is an effecting God of what he does determine in the counsel of his own will ; which words, and the sense thereof, is plain, that it is of God ; not a contemplating only what he desires to be done, but of a God that actually works and effects according to what his counsel was to do, not leaving it to the counsel of our will, but working according to the counsel of his own will, and therefore considered as infal libly working what he had decreed ; working and effecting his counsels of election according to the measure of his working all things else, which he hath peremptorily resolved to do ; and as such a God, a working God, and effecting what he will, he is described here to be, and therefore is to be looked upon as a God so effectually working. I shall take up a more com prehensive discourse, inferred from the general scope, and argued from divers particulars of the words, which will evince almost from every word that God s decrees of election and predestination are efficacious decrees, that do attain infallibly their event.

First, for the general scope, the fabric of the Arminian doctrine, with its enlargements since, does not so much as necessarily suppose the foundations the apostle goes upon, yea, lies cross and thwart unto the main design the apostle has in his discourse.

As, first, the doctrine of election itself, which the apostle makes to be but one grand fundamental act at once passed in the counsels of God and Christ themselves between them, upon which the particular blessings that follow spring and have their course, and that act to have been before the world was ; this grand act they nullify and make nothing of, whereas the apostle says that he has chosen and predestinated us before the foundation of the world, they place instead thereof their foundation to be that which is no election, no predestination ; for election, as nature teaches us, is a choice of some persons segregated from others passed by. Instead of this funda mental and total act of God, completed and finished at first, and determinately pitched upon particular persons, they substitute in the room of this act another upon condition, which they make their foundation, which is so far from being an election, that it is a general choosing of all, which is a manifest contradiction. And it is but upon condition neither of what may never fall out in any -one person, the whole depending upon man s will, which they say God doth not, cannot rule, and so at best is but an incom plete act, held in suspense, and left utterly uncertain, and intermitted with its contrary ; that in one and the same day a man is elected, if his free-will has consented, and then becomes non-elect if his free-will falls off; and this happens a thousand times in the course of a man s life !

Secondly, The apostle supposes, in asserting an election, a church unto

Christ under the New Testament, at least a church designed out by election, and formed out to Christ by the following blessings with which he blesses them. He necessarily supposes such a church to be elected under the New

Testament, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, as Christ has promised. But this their doctrine supposes may not be ; and so not only the Scriptures, which were on purpose writ for their sake, that they might have comfort and hope, may not only be frustrated, but that Christ himself may be said to have died in vain, and so to frustrate the whole of the grace of God toward his church, and of glory to Christ, whose glory it is to have at latter day his full church about him : The children which thou hast given me, says he in John xvii.,* who are said to be the glory of Christ ; * Rather Heb. ii. 13. ED.

CHAP. XYI.J OF ELECTION . 421

2 Cor viii. 23, Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow-helper concerning you ; or our brethren be inquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ; and Christ to be glorified m his saints. And if we find Paul triumphing so much in the thoughts of them he had converted, that they should be his joy and his crown m the latter day, then how much more will Christ s joy and crown depend upon the same event, how much will Christ s joy be augmented or lessened according to the success ! This in general as to what is their whole doctrine. But this paragraph m Eph. i., from ver. 3 to 15, may easily be discerned to be divided into two parts : the one a discourse of election and predestination, and the eflects of it, as it is common to all saints ; and secondly, the execution itself, which we have asserted infallibly to follow the said act of election in the doctrine describing it. And the reader may as readily observe, with a cast of his eye, that he handles the point of election twice ; first in the doctrine of it, as was said ; secondly, in the execution and application of it unto the two sorts of persons that are elected. 1. The performance of it upon the Jews, ver. 11, 12, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things alter the counsel of his own will : that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom also the Ephesians and the jentiles, unto whom he speaks, trusted, ver. 13, In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. He contents not himself to have delivered election in the doctrine only, and to apply it there in particular, but he goes over the two sorts that were elected, like two great arms of the great body of a tree ; yea, and which is most to be observed home to my purpose, this second applying of it is to shew the accomplishment, the effect upon either. So as you have the per formance infallibly following the general doctrine, and that both upon Jew and Gentile, which divide the whole breadth of the sorts of mankind between them. So as nothing can be plainer than that the apostle should conjoin these two together as cause and effect, and that the apostle would have the saints to take notice of this universal conjunction. In the forepart, the doctrinal part, he puts in the word us, and he has it up again, * we who first trusted in Christ, we Jews ; and so carries it all along, as including himself, his own person, as the eminent instance, pur posely to include himself as one that in common was elected with the rest, and a chief pattern of the election of the rest, to them that should after believe. The grace of Paul s election was the same substantially with the grace vouchsafed in election to every ordinary saint ; they may differ in degrees of favour, and extraordinary circumstances accompanying their election, as the election of the first fathers in Bom. xi. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though for the special honour of their persons they are called the fathers and patriarchs, yet the grace of their election for substance is the same one uniform grace. So the election of Paul and of all the saints is one common grace and uniform thing for the substance of it. The same power works, and the same graces wrought, let the adversaries plead what circumstances they may or can out of Paul s example, it will prove but cir cumstantial, as that Christ himself should call him from heaven, and he should hear him by the way, and hear himself speak. But yet Paul s election and conversion, and the effects thereof, were but one and the same with ours, for the example of his conversion is made a pattern to them that should after believe. And Christ himself, giving an account of it, tells

422 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Ananias, he was a chosen vessel to bear his name, and in him the event and the doctrine of election were infallibly and inseparably conjoined.

Besides this general, there are sundry particulars almost in every word of this paragraph, in Eph. i., from ver. 3 to 15, that are found to confirm that God s decrees of election, and of the whole fabric of our salvation, are efficacious in the sense that has been given, and shall infallibly have their event.

First, Take the word election. God is not at ifs and ands with us in it, but if it be according to election, it stands firm, fixed. This the apostle asserts, Rom. ix. 11, That the purpose of God according to election might stand. Whatever stands, that does, and has its effect in due time, by calling, which is the necessary consequent of it : That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.

Secondly, As in this place of the Romans it is said that the purpose of God according to election might stand, you have it varied elsewhere. Predestinated according to his purpose, Eph. i. 11, and it is made a sufficient distinction of elect from reprobates, that they are called accord: Rom. viii. 29, All things work together for good to them that love God, the called according to his purpose. And so Austin makes use of the word vocati secundum proposition, as a note of distinction. His purpose is said to have its effect in an efficacious calling. ing to his purpose

Thirdly, Especially when the purpose of grace is said to have been before the world : 2 Tim. i. 9, Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Divines have observed that the works of creation, that were made at first out of nothing, are never resolved into nothing again ; as the third heavens, created the first day, from the foundation of the world, as Christ says, were not nor ever shall be annihilated. And the same we may say of God s first thoughts and purposes, such as those of election were, for the perfection of them, and are therefore termed counsels, they shall never suffer an alteration.

And therefore, fourthly, they are called the immutability of his counsel, confirmed by an oath: Heb. vi. 17, * Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.

And fifthly, add to this, they are the counsel of his own will. It would be a dishonour to God s wisdom to alter what he professes to have done by counsel. And it is of his own will, and which he purposed in himself; he did not look out of himself for the reasons of that his counsel : Eph. i. 9, Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself. God did not look out of himself upon anything in the creature, as the motives why he chose, but his own innate thoughts were his sole measure.

And then, sixthly, their election, and all the benefits that succeed and flow from it, are said to be in Christ ; he has chosen us in Christ, pre destinated us by Christ to the adoption of sons, graciously accepted us in Christ, and all to the glory of his grace. Now I lay this for a sure founda tion, as Christ himself, that there is nothing God hath promised or spoken of, that he will do in Christ, but he efficaciously performs it. If he makes

they are yea and amen. 2 Cor. i. 19, 20, For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us. promises, as all his promises concerning our salvation are, in Christ, If they all be yea, then they must be effectual. Paul s scope there is to

shew the faithfulness of God in his performances, that though Paul himself, being but a creature, he might and did fail, they were yea and they were nay, speaking of his coming to them ; but God s promises in Christ are yea, and not nay, and you may set amen in every one of them infallibly to be performed.

You have the same thing asserted of the covenant of grace, which God made to Abraham, which was but a bundle of absolute promises ; and yet the apostle says further of it, Gal. iii. 16, 17, And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise ; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. The covenant of the gospel is but a collection of a many promises simply and freely given as an inheritance, and election is the donor, and declarer, and confirmer of them : and doth God say in Christ, I do this for that end, you may set amen to it, it shall certainly be performed.

Lastly, Extract we but the many attributes which are engaged by God for the effectual performance. The three persons in the Godhead, they are the joint efficients and contrivers of God s decrees ; but the attributes in God, it is they that afford the matter of the performance of God s promises, or God s declarations, when they are set together with God s decrees to back them. They are the springs in God of whatever he doth efficaciously decree to do. The synodists of Great Britain, they therefore say, they are effectual decrees, because they are decrees conjuncta cum potentid, because he, though a mean man, who came with a commission efficacious enough to effect the business for which he came, being commanded to shew where his commission was, he pointed to a regiment of horse, There is my commission, says he : it was decretum cum potentid conjunctum. But you shall see not one attribute only, but that many of the attributes of God, which are most proper to effect the thing, are discovered, and made to appear to back and command, and not demand only ; as, for example, the divine love, and wisdom, and counsel, and will that is in God, do all stand out, and appear to accompany and maintain these decrees, and that must needs be judged effectual which is so armed, and completely furnished.

The attributes are these, to rehearse them more largely.

First, An inexhaustible fund of divine love in the bottom of God s heart laid up, and provided to maintain all the expense, and heartily, and willingly to perform it all along, in the doing of it. This he speaks first of election, * According as he has chosen us in him, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love, Eph. i. 4. This passage, before him in love, Dickson, Glasgow, professor, interprets of the love of God borne tons, when he chose us to make us every way perfect in holiness all along, to the highest degree of perfection we are capable of : ut gradatim vere sanctificaremur, et tandem plene, perfecteqiie sancti in ccelo sisteremur : as by that love which by degrees truly sanctifies us, and at last fully and perfectly presents us holy in heaven, without blame. And so interprets those words by those that follow in the fifth chapter, where, speaking of the same love in the heart of God and Christ, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Which words in the fifth chapter are apparently spoken of the love that is in the heart of Christ ; for it is, love your wives, as Christ his church, with a special love, whereas the

424 OF ELECTION. [BOOK IV.

Arminians would have God s love equal, and alike to all ; and likewise he speaks of the love in the heart of God the Father, and so of Christ in his other text, verse 4 of the first of the Ephesians : for the apostle speaks of it, as the worker of all that holiness, which is not only in us at the first, but which is perfected to the last and utmost degree, which we are ordained to have in heaven. To be unblameable, says that first chapter, before him, whom God can find no fault with, not having spot, nor wrinkle, or any such thing, says the fifth chapter; that is, that we should appear before him, not only without all sin, but without any imperfection or misery, or any such thing, that has the appearance of imperfection, but be rendered blessed and glorious at last before him, and this out of pure love, which the apostle makes the cause of our election, and of all that happiness and holi ness which follows upon it. And love being here presented as the cause of all, this must therefore necessarily be taken of what we shall be, when per fect in heaven ; thus he. And it is not barely said, out of love, or with love, or by love, but in the following chapter to the Ephesians, it is said to be with his great love, wherewith he loved us ; which love is there men tioned as the foundation of all, as of God s rich mercy to us, to which is added, for the great love wherewith he loved us, as the bottom of all that great mercy; the latter being spoken of as respecting man s election, in his pure condition of holiness as it was in Adam ; but the riches of mercy, which is the first mentioned, respects man as fallen into sin and misery, whereof he treats in that chapter. But that great love, which was in the heart of God as the foundation, that continued in man, though fallen, and wrought in mercy, was that which had begun toward his elect, I do not say to all men in Adam, nor to them in that holiness which was in Adam, but to bring them to that perfect holiness of another kind, which he meant to give us in heaven, whereunto he had elected us.

2. And seeing we are upon it, if the next be mercy, which properly respects the misery we were fallen into ; and that doth not pass the apostle without an exaggeration of it in the 7th verse of the second chapter to the Ephesians, 1 The exceeding richness of his grace in his kindness towards us. Here is love, and mercy, and all the interest that they have to move the heart of God with, that conduce to make our salvation effectual.

3. The will of God is set upon it in the fifth verse, Having predestinated us according to the good pleasure of his will. There it is once mentioned, and it is not purely will, which were enough ; for where love s power and will meet, as you shall see here they do, what is there will not be done that God can do ? It is his own will, it is emphatically said so, who works all these things (as was interpreted) that go to make the work perfect, cording to the counsel of his own will, ver. 11. Kegeneration is the first product of election, and the same expression is used of it, * Of his own will he begat us, by the word of truth, James i. 18. Observe it, how diametri cally opposite it is to the language and estate the Arminians would put it into. Is it man s will ? No ; it is God s own will which is the state of the question : John i. 13, Who were born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It is the good pleasure of his will, Jer. xxxii. 41, Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, with my whole heart, and with my whole soul. When God intends to do his people good, he rejoices to do it, yea, to think of doing it, with his whole heart, and with his whole soul. Now, election is omne bonum, as God said to Moses, is the intention of the highest good, and to effect it his joy must be answerable. And what a man does with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, the whole of him is in it. It is not so in his other works, of throwing men to

hell, Jer. ix. 24, Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth me and knowledgeth me, that I am the Lord which exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth ; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord. Which words the apostle applies to the benefits we have by Christ in our salvation, which are the fruits of election, 1 Cor. i. 30, 31, * But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption : that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

But there is no act of will but an understanding goes before it, and leads on to it. And so it is with man ; and thus far it is with God. The depth of his wisdom and knowledge proceeds and concurs with this act of his will : Rom. xi. 33, * Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! spoken of election. And observe, the counsel of God expresses his deepest wisdom. And although in man it is upon deliberation for time which perfects a man s thoughts, and the after second thoughts are best, yet these first thoughts of God (who must not be said to deliberate, that notes imperfection), his first thoughts that he fell upon before the world was, are said to have the solidity of counsel in them, and to be as perfect as to eternity they could have been made, and so perfect that they are not capable of alteration unto any other. Hence in Heb. vi. 7, Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heir of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath. He deliberately ventures to swear, as being privy he had considered all things that concerned their salvation ; pauca respiciens cito pronunciat, but he that considers all, as he that deli berates is supposed to do, is bold to swear. Observe only this at last, that it is said the counsel of his will, as if his will had been of the two the most forward, and had set his understanding a-work about all those counsels.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

The children of godly parents called the inheritance of the Lord, because he is the owner of them, as his elect and chosen, among whom, his possessions and his peculiar people lie. The derivation of the covenant of grace from their fathers unto them proved by the covenant made to Abraham, as it was a family covenant. The difference between his privilege herein, and ours under the gospel.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord : and the fruit of the womb is a reward, says the psalmist, Ps. cxxvii. 3. He speaks of what children are unto godly and holy parents, for unto such only is any blessing given by God as a reward, namely, of their holiness and righteousness (therefore merces bonorum openim, a reward of their good works, says the Chaldee paraphrast), and the psalmist expressly speaks of blessings which God gives his beloved ones, as the words immediately foregoing do tell us, of which this blessing of children he makes the last and greatest. And it is also as cer tain that he speaks of children as supposed holy and godly (Jilii recti, says the same paraphrast) ; for otherwise they are not a reward, but as Solomon full often speaks of a foolish or ungodly child, he is a curse, a shame, and sorrow to him that begat him, and to her that brought him forth. The psalm was made, as appears by the title of it, of or for Solomon, and therefore, as it is more than probable, was penned, as that other psalm, the 72d, which bears the same title, by David the father, of and for Solomon his son, who was, for his father s sake, the beloved of God, 2 Sam. xii. 24, 25, and upon whom the sure covenant and mercies of David were entailed, together with his kingdom. And what is said in this psalm, in the verses before, fitly agrees to him, for he it was who was to build God s house, to keep and preserve Jerusalem the city, and the kingdom, in peace, and to have rest, or as the psalmist calls it, ver 3, quiet sleep given him by God, from all his enemies round about him. And for this, compare the prophecy of him, 1 Chron. xxii. 9, 10, with the instructions here given him in the three first verses of this psalm, and ye will see how fitly this psalm concerns him.

Now, this Solomon, thus owned and beloved of God, David himself looked at as a child given for a reward of all his piety and. uprightness, and there fore upon his rejoicing in so great a blessing, he takes occasion indefinitely to pronounce of other holy men s children, beloved of God also ; so to raise

up their hearts, that which to his comfort he had found true of his beloved Solomon. And this upon a just ground, for as the covenant made with David is set forth unto us, as the exemplar or draught of God s like covenant with his elect, so Solomon, David s son, is here by David con sidered as the pattern or prototype of all the like children of godly parents, on them bestowed by virtue of that same covenant by which Solomon was on him. So as indeed this is the true scope of the royal prophet here : Lo, such children as Solomon was (holy and beloved of God), ihey are an heritage of the Lord, a rich and great reward ; and blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

Now such children may be understood to be an inheritance, &c., in a double respect: 1, unto their parents, an inheritance and a great reward to them from the Lord ; or, 2, the inheritance of the Lord himself, through and for their parents sake. The words here will bear that latter reading also, and so by boti the sense will be made more full ; and then the meaning is, that as they are a choice and peculiar gift given by God unto their parents, as his rewards use to be, so withal a choice and peculiar people unto God himself, as his inheritance is said to be ; and so not only an heritage (as our translation carries it) from the Lord as the donor (as Isa. liv. 17, and in some other places the word heritage is taken), but further, they are the inheritance of the Lord as the owner and possessor of them ; that is, such children, they are his elect, his beloved, his chosen, among whom his possessions and his peculiar people lie. Thus everywhere in Scripture, to * chosen people of God, and to be his inheritance, are all one; for be the instance, Ps. xxviii. 12, Save thy people and thine inheritance; and Ps. xxxiii. 12, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance. Thus in the New Testament likewise, as well as in the Old, 1 Peter v. 3, the apostle calls the church the Lord s heritage ; and through they being thus God s chosen for his propriety and choice inheritance, it is that they become (what follows) the highest reward unto their fathers of their uprightness ; and so by being first the inheritance of the Lord, they become an inheritance from the Lord unto their parents, even the richest they can possess. And thus this read ing of the words is so far from excluding the other, namely of their being their fathers inheritance, that it is improved and raised thereby, and the due value put upon this blessing given ; for what greater favour can there be than this, that God should first take their children to be an inheritance to himself, and so make them heir of all things, and when they are thus ennobled and enriched, then to put them into their parents arms as a rich inheritance to them ? And then as Christ said, John xvii. 6, of the children which God had given him, so may they, They were thine, and thou gavest them me ; and as it is in Ps. xvi. 6, * Lo, I have a goodly heritage. There is nothing that is or can so truly be accounted our own as our chil dren ; other things are but external appurtenances, but these are as branches to the root, yea, they are ourselves multiplied ; therefore God, who is in covenant with us, doth (as our children do inherit our goods) become heir of them himself, and owns them for his inheritance, to protect and dwell upon, and with, for ever.

And surely the elect children of godly parents in covenant with him may in this respect more peculiarly be called God s inheritance than others of his children chosen by him ; for their parents being servants to him, and he their God, their children therefore do by a natural right of inheritance fall unto him, as the children of servants born in the house did unto their masters by the law, Exod. xxi. 4.

OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.

But, however, whether this were the meaning of these words or no, this we may rest confident to have been the psalmist s drift, that children, when they are holy, and so God s elect and chosen inheritance, are to be looked upon by their parents as the choicest and freest gift (as inheritances use to be), the richest reward and blessing that on earth can be bestowed upon them. And this we see confirmed to us, from what esteem both Abraham our father, then when his heart had been newly enlarged from the highest communion with God, did put upon such a blessing; as also from what esteem God did put upon it to him, by promising of this blessing then, when his heart was drawn out to the largest expressions of his love. Gen. xv. 1, God came to Abraham in a vision, and said unto him, * I am thy exceeding great reward ; here was the deepest and most comprehensive expression of love that God ever made unto any man, and Abraham takes the advantage of this, and improves it (for how could he now out-ask what God had pro mised ?), and says to God, What wilt thou give me, seeing I am childless? so that a child, next to his own salvation, was the gift and blessing in Abra ham s desires and thoughts. Upon this hint of Abraham, God promiseth him a Son, even Isaac, and that his * seed should be as the stars of heaven, and this son to be an heir, not of his goods only, as verse 4, but of his God also ; and indeed when God renews the covenant, he so expressly enlargeth it, chap. xvii. ver. 7, and so God promiseth to take his seed to be his own in heritance as well as to be heirs of Abraham; lo, from this instance also, such children, as the psalmist here speaks, are at once both the inheritance of the Lord and a very great reward ; even the greatest of all rewards, next to God himself becoming a reward to us.

Now, this great blessing and inheritance, in which God hath thus mutually estated both these parents and their children, is to be the main subject of the ensuing discourse, even to confirm and establish the faith both of chil dren and parents on both sides ; to the end that godly parents hearts may be raised up to the expectation of the highest comfort and reward in their children, that they, next assurance of their own salvation, can be filled with (which notwithstanding they too much neglect and undervalue) ; and that their children also, who are the most of God s elect, may be provoked to make search, and diligently to look out for that inheritance, here of the Lord himself, which by a gracious entail God hath settled on many of them long ere they were born, and of which they are often ignorant.

That my scope may by all be fully understood, I have shut up the full sum and argument of the whole into this one proposition, that The children of believing parents, at least their next and immediate seed, even of us Gentiles now under the gospel, are included by God within the covenant of grace, as well as Abraham s or David s seed within that covenant of theirs. Both the proof and explication of which great point will run along together.

I will begin first to search out this right by that magna charta, that great and faithful charter which was made to Abraham, the father of the faithful, in the name of all his seed ; for that is made the primary and fundamental ground of this great privilege by our divines, that we being Abraham s seed (as Gal. iii. 29) as well as the Jews, and having the same covenant, are therefore

heirs of the promise, and so of that promise which was made to Abraham and the Jews : I will be the God of thee and of thy seed. But against this ground, as thus barely alleged, this exception hath often come thwart my mind, that this was Abraham s peculiar privilege, and an honour to him vouchsafed; as likewise was that to be styled the father of all the faithful, which, as we all know, is to us incommunicable; and that there-

CHAP. I.J OF ELECTION. 429 as fore, although we may for our own persons indeed come into his promise

- his seed, and so into that part of the promise, I will be the God of thy seed and so have the promise of God s being our God, and of the blessin by Christ for ourselves, as we are Abraham s seed, yet take the whole promise as collectively made to him and us, I will be the God of thee and of thy seed, and it should seem to be peculiar to him alone, as to be the father of the faithful also is, by which title we are no way called, but only the sons of Abraham, and Abraham s seed. It might have well sufficed us for our own persons to have come into his promise singly, and to be heirs according to the promise, as the phrase is, Gal. iii. 26, although we were not fathers also to convey the promise, as Abraham was ; nor although the promise, as collectively taken, had belonged to us, as to Abraham it did, nor that part of the promise, < I will be the God of thy seed, had been extended to us. And although the Jews, who were Abraham s seed after the flesh as well as after the Spirit, had that privilege also, that God in their generations pro mised to be the God of them and their seed ; yet that also may seem to be a special

privilege proper to them, which we Gentiles cannot plead; for as in Rom. iii. 1, What advantage or prerogative had the Jews but this, Rom. ix. 4, that to them pertaineth the adoption, and the covenant, and the promises, as being those whose are the fathers after the flesh, verse 5, and so they had this privilege, that the covenant was propagated by the flesh.

Now, in satisfaction to these two exceptions, although there must neces sarily be granted a transcendent special honour and privilege vouchsafed to Abraham, and to the Jewish nation his seed, which we have not; yet withal a further inquiry would be made, whether notwithstanding we Gentiles have not some correspondent sprinkling of this privilege of his and theirs, though of a lesser extent, and how far ours extendeth, in difference to that of theirs, and what further warrants there are for any such privilege to us Gentiles, who must have a charter and grant to shew for it if we would prove our seeds to be born heirs within the covenant, even as nobles and gentlemen have in a civil way for theirs ; otherwise it will be the highest presumption in us to claim it, or to expect it at the hands of God.

First, then, to Abraham we grant this transcendent privilege, that he had the peculiar honour to be the * father of all the faithful, as Eve had the honour to be the mother of all living, Gen. iii. 20, which being spoken by Adam after the promise to her seed made, ver. 15, may be interpreted in the same sense that Abraham s was; she was the mother of all living, that is, that live spiritually and by faith, as Abraham was father of all the faith ful, the covenant running in her name at the first, as in Abraham s after ward; and so Adam, in that his speech to Eve, uttered his faith in the promise made to her of her seed, and so in that respect Adam himself came in under her covenant.

Secondly, It was both Abraham s and the Jews privilege also that they should have this promise to all generations, as Gen. xvii. For two thou sand years the covenant to belong thus unto them, and to be entailed on them, and also that after the flesh Christ should come of them, as Rom. ix. 5, and that they should be the root of our covenant, and we but engraffed on them as the * natural branches, Rom. xi. ; and further, that after their eminent breaking off by unbelief, for well nigh two thousand years since, their covenant should be remembered, and for their fathers sakes all Israel should yet be saved, as in the same chapter. And as the place which he there quotes out of Isaiah also promiseth that their seed s seed should be converted in a successive way from their second call to the world s end; and

430 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. perhaps of every one, at least the most of that nation. And indeed it hath seemed to me to be one reason why all that nation were outwardly holy (which no nation ever was) before Christ s time, that this might be a pro phetic type that all should one day be inwardly and really holy. How transcendent a privilege is this, then, that they should have something peculiarly promised to them, which is evident even by this also, that Abra ham and his seed had the peculiar promise of Canaan, which we Gentiles have not.

But yet let us search into the records of Holy Writ, if out of this their great charter, there be not a seal grant of a lesser, though like privilege, and this by virtue of Christ, in that we have the honour to be accounted Abraham s seed as truly as they ; and likewise in that, to have the covenant entailed unto children is so great and spiritual a privilege, as would tend infinitely to the comfort of godly parents now, as then it did to theirs, to have our seed within the covenant, as theirs were. Wherefore, though this was peculiar unto Abraham and them, to have an entail to them and to their seed for ever, yet that we should have our eyes and ears blessed with the hopes of our next seed (how far further I will not now dispute), as involved in this covenant, was a meet mercy for God s free grace to vouch safe to us Gentiles also. And seeing Abraham and they did partake of so great a privilege otherwise, it may well be hoped and expected, that so small an one correspondent to theirs, God should vouchsafe to us Gentiles, upon whom the blessing of Abraham through Christ is come, in a conformity unto his blessing upon him and his.

And searching this, first, I find that this very privilege is given unto a Gentile convert by Christ himself, and founded upon this very ground, that he was a * son of Abraham, being become a believer. This we have, Luke xix., declared by Christ of Zaccheus when he was converted, who by all circumstances was a Gentile, and so the ancients carry it, for he was a pub lican ; and though some, yet but few Jews were such, because of the hatred of their own nation ; yet he being a chief publican, was surely therefore a Gentile. It being an office of trust to be chief custom-gatherer for the em perors, they would be sure to put none into that office but a Gentile ; and so I find out of antiquity, Cyprian and others quoted for it, that in those chief places of custom, none but equites Romani, Koman knights, were placed.* And whereas some object, that if Zaccheus had been a Gentile, that then the Jews would have clamoured against Christ for going in unto a Gentile, and that so professedly as under that notion, because a Gentile. The answer is not far off, for, ver. 7, we read that they did quarrel him for it, they all murmured, saying, that he was gone to be a guest to a sinner, that is, a Gentile ; for the Jews usually called the Gentiles by the name of sinners, as Paul s phrase is, Gal. ii. 15, sinners of the Gentiles. But then, further, that answer which Christ there gives unto their murmuring doth strengthen this, for he says of him, Inasmuch as he also is the son of Abraham, ver. 9. The meaning of which words evidently is this, that he who is not by birth a son of Abraham, but a sinner, a Gentile, yet is made one now by grace ; and when Zaccheus was thus converted, Christ enlargeth his covenant to Zaccheus his family also, This day is salvation come to this house, inasmuch as he is also the son of Abraham, ver. 9. This was spoken of him as now believing in Christ. Now if Christ s intent had been in this his answer given, to shew that he was a Jew, and so though a great sinner, yet was converted as being a son of Abraham (as some expound it), he would have made it the reason but of this only, why Zaccheus was saved himself

* See Cont Zen upon the place.

personally ; but he makes it the reason why his house should be saved also, and so the covenant stuck with them of his family likewise, because he the father of the family was now a believer ; whereas had his children and family, being Jews by birth, and himself likewise, then salvation had come unto him and them all, because they all were sons of Abraham by birth (if Jews) as well as he. So as it is evident, that as he was a Gentile by birth, so now being converted, is therefore called a son of Abraham and withal had this privilege of Abraham, as being his son (which is the point I allege this for), to have his house brought into the covenant, even of that of salvation, in conformity to his father Abraham, whose house at the first giving of that covenant, even children and all, were circumcised and saved upon that ground, Christ intending now he should go in to eat with him, to convert his household also. And let me add this, that as Christ once before, in the conversion of the centurion, the first fruits of the Gentiles, Mat. viii., did first break open the treasury of the Gentile s conversion, so upon occasion of this man s conversion afterwards, he shews the privilege of the Gentiles, when converted, and their covenant to be the same with Abraham s in a conformity therewith ; and so here first broacheth the doctrine of it, this man being the next first-fruits of the Gentiles, shewing how their covenant was to run by households, in a conformity to Abraham s family at first.

And, 2, Thus in like manner, when the apostles came to preach the gos pel to a Gentile householder, master or father of a family, they carried the offer of it in this tenor, and in the way of this privilege, as a motive to con version. So when Paul preached to the jailor, Acts xvi., he asking, What * Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved ; and then addeth, thou and thine house. As shall I do to be saved ? ver. 30, Paul answers, Christ published the covenant with these promises annexed to a Gentile converted already, to comfort him, so the apostles promulge the offer of it to one to be converted, and being a master of a family, do declare his pri vilege by this, that he should be a means to convey it to his house ; and accordingly it fell out there, ver. 34, that he believed in God with all his house, as Zaccheus and his household did here.

And, 3, in the New Testament we find in the event (which still answers to promises) that the gospel spread itself through whole households, this being the tenure of our covenant. So it is said of the centurion, a Gentile, Acts x. 2, that he was a devout man, fearing God, he and all his house ; so Lydia was converted, and all her house, Acts xvi. 15, 16 ; so 1 Cor.

The household of Stephanas, and perhaps intimated, at least some i. 16,

* the church in thy house.

times, in that usual phrase,

Now, then, when the covenant thus runs with the heads of houses for the families themselves, I argue thus from thence for their children, that they must needs be included and intended in a more special manner ; for they are the natural branches, and servants but engrafted, as was said of the Jews and Gentiles in the like case. And the servant abides not always in the house, but the son ever abides in it, John viii. 35. The house of Aaron and his children are put for one and the same, Ps. cxv. 12, 15. In like phrase of speech, Leah and Rachel, in bringing forth children, are said to build up the house of Israel, Ruth iv. 11 ; and so the word house is used for posterity in all languages.

And for the further confirmation of this, namely, that this tenure oi the Gentiles covenant in a conformity to Abraham s, should run thus by fami lies from the heads thereof, this doth fully suit with the original promise made to Abraham himself, when the Scripture foresaw, as Paul s phrase is, that the Gentiles should be justified, and so conveyed a blessing through

432 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.

Abraham unto them, as his seed. The promise (Gen. xiL 8) runs in these terms, In thee shall all the families of the earthbe blessed ; as elsewhere, Gen. xviii. 18, and xxii. 18, it runs in these terms, All the nations of the earth shall be blessed. These expressions are both used ; the one to shew, the seed should be of all nations and people, yet so as withal the covenant was to run by families in those nations. Therefore the New Testament quotes it in both senses : Gal. iii. 8 says, /ravra ra I0w}, all nations, or heat Jiens, because some of all nations shall be converted ; but Peter, when he makes mention of the covenant, Acts iii. 25, though chiefly for the end to shew the Jews were the first children of the covenant, yet he expounds these words spoken to Abraham, In thy seed shall the families of the earth be blessed, thus : In thy seed, namely Christ (as ver. 26 he interprets it), 1 all the fatherhoods or kindreds of the earth shall be blessed. The word, fatherhoods of the earth ; so he styleth families because of the father s covenant, through which Christ, the seed of Abraham, in the original is a/ crarg/a; conveys his blessing. And the psalmist, Ps. xxii. 27, speaking of the calling of the Gentiles by Christ, as the fruit of his death, when he says, All the ends of the earth shall turn unto him ; and all the kindreds, &c. The Septuagint also renders it, as Peter here, narya), fatherhoods, and because it shall be derived sometimes by succession of birth, as a means of convey ing the blessing, therefore, in the following 30th verse, he saith, a seed shall serve him ; that is, the posterity of those godly, who (as ver. 31) shall be born of them.

Further, we see that in the calling of the Jews to come, God respects their fathers and their covenant though it be under the gospel ; so Rom. xi.

Yea, and the apostle quoteth for it that place of the prophet, Isa. lix. 20, The Redeemer shall come to Zion. Now if we look into the words of the prophet prophesying of their call, how doth the promise of the new covenant made to them in that their call to come run ? More infallibly upon their seed than that former to Abraham s did.

This is my covenant, my Spirit shall not depart out of the mouth of thy seed, and out of thy seed s seed, from hence forth and for ever. There will be in the new Jerusalem a continued suc cession of sanctified ones, a seed s seed for ever ; and not only of men con verted when of ripe years, but when infants. Therefore in Deut. xxx. (where God gives the covenant of the gospel, as appears by Rom. x., and that in opposition to the law given before, and expresseth it by way of prophesying what should fall out after their dispersion, as ver. 1), he says, * I will cir cumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, ver. 6. You know whither the phrase circumcise leads, namely, to the sign and seal of it, which under the New Testament is baptism answering unto it. Their children s hearts he will circumcise, which is the fruit of baptism, as Col. ii. 12. And further, that our covenant, as Abraham s seed, should run thus with us and our families, was most correspondent to that first example of the covenant then given to Abraham ; for then the church was only in a family, and so the first giving of this covenant and the seal to confirm it, was estab lished with a family through Abraham the father of it. And this was (as all knew) the primitive and natural church way, under the law of nature afore

Moses, unto which therefore for ever God hath suited this family covenant, and in Abraham ratified and sanctified it to the end of world, he being con stituted the father of all the faithful, both Jews and Gentiles ; and accordingly he and his family were made the prototype of this covenant, God then blessing all families of believers, and the fathers thereof, in blessing that of his through him the father of it, even as God blessed all mankind in Adam and Eve, Gen. i., for increase and multiplying, as being the root and first sampler.

And the reason why God chose this of a family to convey the covenant by was, that this society was the only natural society of all others, and therelore (rod did always choose it throughout all states of the church. Thus when the church was national among the Jews, then was this way in force I and my house will serve the Lord, said Joshua ; so David, Ps. ci. And when, under the New, the institution was to consist of many believers meet ing in one place for public worship, yet this still remains, a church in the house also. God herein engrafting (as he uses to do grace on nature, in our spirits, when he converts us), so his covenant of grace upon this cove nant of nature to run in the channel of it.

And let me add this further observation, that in Abraham s family his ser vants that were Gentiles, if they had] children, those children were circum cised, as fore -running pledges and types that both we and our children, who are Gentiles and strangers, were engrafted into this covenant, it held forth this our privilege to come, that in Abraham the Gentiles seed (as well as Abraham s own) should be blessed in him.

CHAPTER II.

That this covenant is derived unto the churches of the Gentiles, in a conformity to the Jews privilege as they were a church.

And as thus we have seen the derivation of the covenant to the children of believing parents, founded on a conformity to Abraham s privilege, and so propagated in a family way, in a correspondency unto him and his family, so you shall also see it founded on a conformity to the Jews privilege, as they were a church, and so derived in a church way, as a privilege made to believers as members of churches. This (I take it) will arise out of the scope of that admonition given the Gentiles, Rom. xi., from the example of the Jews being broken off, and our being engrafted in their stead. The caveat or warning which the apostle there gives is this, that the Gentiles be ing engrafted on the Jews root, they would look well to their standing in that grace, ver. 20, and continue in God s goodness vouchsafed, ver. 22, and not boast against the Jews who were broke off, ver. 18.

Now, that you may clearly see that which I seek to prove to arise out of it, I give these observations upon that discourse of the apostle in the chapter, which put together will rise up to a demonstration of it.

1. The first is, that which Calvin also and Beza have observed, though to another purpose, that although the apostle gives this admonition in the singular number, thou and thee, almost in every verse, yet he speaks not so much to particular persons singly considered, but to the Gentiles collec tively in a bulk or body, as distinct here from the body of the Jews. Which is evident, 1, because he opposeth these unto whom he gives the admo nition unto the Jews as so considered. 2. Because that boasting (which he forewarns them of, ver. 18, 19) that the Jews were broken off, that these Gentiles might be engrafted in, cannot be supposed it should be so gross a way of boasting, as that each particular Roman or Gentile should for themselves apart, personally and singly considered, glory against the whole nation of the Jews. And therefore, thirdly, though ver. 17, he speaks in the singular number, thou, yet he expresseth it thus, Thou having been a wild olive tree, which evidently implies that he speaks of the bulk and body

VOL. ix. E e

434 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. of the Gentiles, not to particular persons, for then he would have said, being a branch of the wild olive.

2. Observe, that though it be to be extended to the whole body of the Gentiles, in opposition to the whole nation of the Jews, yet it is in the ad monition more particularly intended, directed, and brought home to these Romans to whom this epistle was written ; and these considered as cast into a body of a church or churches, in opposition to the Jews, as they were considered as once a church unto God ; and therefore this admonition being given thus to them, is withal directed under them to all Christian churches of the Gentiles. And therefore (1.) he speaks to them as to one man, thou and thee, because he speaks to them as to a collective body ; and (2.) he speaks of their engrafting, not into the Jews church, as proselytes were of old, that they should be members of that church as if it still stood ; but instead of the Jews church, considered as broken off, and these grow ing up of themselves on the Jews stock, to be a church of themselves unto God, entire and distinct from that of the Jews, in the room thereof. (3.) Therefore, from occasion of these mercies of God in engrafting them into this * by the mercies of God vouchsafed them herein (with the admiration of which body or tree, spoken of in this chapter, he exhorts them, chap, xii., mercies, both to Jew and Gentile, he had concluded this discourse, ver. 30, 31 of this llth chapter), to behave themselves answerably as they were a church to God. And so indeed all that first use and application he makes unto them of that his foregoing doctrine, chap, xi., is how to walk as a church, both officers and members. Thus, chap, xii., an use answering to this his former doctrine, chap, xi., and as that special mercy vouchsafed them, even to be planted as a church to Christ, distinct from the Jewish church and in their stead. Now, therefore, as his application and use of the doctrine is spoken to them as to a church, chap, xii., so the doctrine itself, which is the thing in hand, chap, xi., that speaks of their engrafting in, is to be understood. And (4.) I may add this, that all epistles written by apostles, are written to the Gentile saints considered as churches. So to the Corinths and to the Galatians, and so this, with all the rest.

* stand and

Wherefore, 3, observe this his exhortation or covenant, to continue in God s goodness, that as it was not spoken so much to the par ticular persons of these Romans singly considered, so answerably it is not intended of their falling personally away, and in that respect to be cut off singly and apart, though that I exclude not, but it is spoken in relation to succession, and so of their continuance as a church before God in after ages, and in their posterity. As if he had said, Let every one look to it (and upon that consideration look to it) to continue in the stock into which they were engrafted, and to propagate this privilege to posterity; for (1.) This continuing thus, and taking heed of being cut off, must answer to the example of the Jews, whom he sets before them as broke off, for them to take heed lest they came so to be broken off as they were. Now the Jews breaking off, and the severity of it, mentioned ver. 22, is to be understood principally to consist in this, that not only the persons of the present Jews were broken off, but likewise a stop put to the nation to be a church in respect to succession of posterity, and so their children broken off with them from being any longer a church unto Christ ; God had cast them off, and their posterity after them. And if the goodness or privilege vouch safed the Gentiles had not been like to that of the Jews even in this respect, what ground or appearance had there been of their boasting, or equalling themselves to the Jews (who for two thousand years had enjoyed this privi lege of continuance), if the promise to these Romans were to have it but in

their own persons, and reached but to an age, if they might not by standin m the faith have continued it to others after them. There had neither been such cause to compare this goodness or favour vouchsafed them with that to the Jews, nor had it been any way answerable to the severity towards the Jews with which he threateneth them, ver. 22, if this goodness were not meant of a continuance of this grace to them and theirs, as the severity was a breaking off of the Jews and theirs also.

And (2.) herein how proper was this admonition to this church of Rome ; which the apostle knew would in after ages become the greatest apostate church in the world, and the mother of all apostatising churches, as John hath it, which yet makes this very boast (not against Jews only, but against other churches of the Gentiles also), of her standing more firm and sure than the Jews ever did whom God rejected, that against her the gates of hell shall not prevail. Yea, and in distinct terms she boasts of this very thing, namely, her continuance and succession in all ages. And so the caveat about boasting here is thus peculiarly directed to these Romans, and that as a church in Rome, for as so considered she boasteth of herself.

And whereas it may be objected that though a continuance of succession is here to be understood, yet that it follows not it should be meant of their children in a way of propagation, seeing there is another way of continuing this privilege of grace among the Gentiles, and may be understood to be intended in this Roman church, namely, by a new addition of converts daily added to the church, who should stand up after them. This I exclude not. 4. Yet further, in the fourth place, observe, that a promise of succession to their children as the continuers of this church is here meant.

For, first, it is this way of succession by children which he maketh ex press mention of here in this discourse, neither doth he mention any other. So, ver. 16, * If the root be holy, so are the branches, speaking of the fathers and children of the Jewish nation, ver. 27.

And, secondly, the law of opposition argues it, for the breaking off the Jews mentioned, is to be understood of a putting a stop unto, and the not continuing it to them and to their children ; for otherwise their children are not more broken off to this day than the children of us Gentiles are. And then the cutting off with which he threatens the Romans in the same 22d

shalt be cut off, must answerably be so meant. And then, accordingly, their engrafting also must be so in verse, Thou also (or, in like manner) tended, for none are capable of being cut off but those who are engrafted on the stock.

And, thirdly, the engrafting in again of the Jews (which he promiseth under the gospel as to come) is promised to be not in respect of a succession in others, as succedanean proselytes to them, but of their own children. For the place which he quotes, ver. 26, out of Isa. lix. 21, hath it thus, This is my covenant, that my Spirit and word shall not depart out of the mouth of thy seed, and of thy seed s seed, henceforth for ever. Which words of Isaiah Paul here briefly shuts up in this interpretation, All Israel shall be saved, that is, they and their posterity after them. So as this kind of succession and continuing a church is the goodness or favour which he hath in his eye throughout this discourse.

5. And then withal observe, that he attributes to the Gentile churches the very same privilege by their grafting in which the Jews once had, and which shall one day take hold again upon them. Which covenant, ver. 16, he declares to consist in this, If the root be holy, then so are the branches, and thereupon immediately in the next verses subjoins concerning the

Gentiles,

436 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y.

(1.) That they were grafted in among them, that is, the Jews, or for them, ver. 17, ev aiiro/&, for OLVT! avruv, which (as the Syriac also expounds it) is in loco eorum, in the Jews stead and room, that is, to continue a church unto God, by virtue of the same covenant in this respect which the Jews before had done. And as he had before planted the Jews to continue, so now that he had planted the Gentile churches, and particularly that of the Romans. And so in our margin you have it varied for them, that is, in their stead.

(2.) He says that they are made partakers with them, namely, with the < both of the root and of Jews, cuyxo/vuvoi, communicating of a like interest the fatness of the olive tree. By the root it is plain he means their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for so he had called them, ver. 16. And to be partaker of the root must necessarily be interpreted by what went afore, namely, to partake of this covenant made with the Jews for their fathers sakes, that if the root be holy, so are the branches. For that speech is spoken of the fathers deriving of this covenant to their children ; hence, therefore, this is argued to be the privilege of this Roman church, to have the same covenant that the Jews had in these their roots, the same that these the natural branches once had. And therefore, as the covenant of the Jews was for them and their children, because Abraham s covenant descended to them (he being their root), so Abraham becoming the root of us Gentiles also, the same covenant descends to us. And so thou partakest, saith he, from this root the same fatness, that is, the same spiritual privileges and promises made to the Jews, whereof this is the main, which the similitude of fatness imports, that branch would spread out of branch, as the Jewish root and branches had done, so conveying juice or fatness to others, age after age ; for of a fatness, to this very end, to spread itself into branches, he chiefly and evidently speaks, for this was that fatness which, when he speaks of the Jewish church, he intended ; this, therefore, must needs be meant of the fatness the church of the Gentiles did partake in, if they con tinued to believe.

Then (3.) our engrafting in, and the Jews their cutting off, are made answerable one to the other ; and the goodness shewn to the Gentile churches must be suitable to the severity shewn against the Jewish. Now then, if God s severity to them (for their unbelief) lay in this chiefly, to cut them off from continuing a church in their posterity, then God s goodness in our engrafting in, must accordingly lie in this, to derive the covenant down to our children and posterity, or else the apostle had not spoke ad idem, which, ver. 17, he professeth to do. Yea, if it be but granted, that our cutting off, threatened ver. 22, should be, if executed, such a cutting off as was theirs

Thou also shalt be cut off ), then it must neces (as it is plain it is, for he says, sarily include the cutting off our children. And then if the threatening be to cut off our children, as he had done theirs, then our children must be supposed to be by God s promise engrafted in, for none are capable of be ing cut off, but such as are engrafted in.

And (4.) the metaphor he expresseth this privilege to the Gentile churches by, implies it to be by propagation, and so of their children chiefly, as members, to continue it. This church privilege is compared to an olive tree, spreading into branches, ver. 17, only with this difference from that of the Jews (which difference is found in the growing up of other trees), that some trees grow up of branches, but engrafted upon a root such are the Gentile churches ; others consist of branches naturally growing out of a root such were the Jews. But when they that are engrafted on the stock or root do once take, they then partake of the same natural privilege, to spread into

new branches, branch after branch, in the same natural way that the branches of those trees do which grow naturally out of their root ; so as, though indeed the first engrafting or implanting of a wild olive branch, as he calls the Gentiles, ver. 24, be not by natural succession, yet after it is implanted it is continued, as a tree, by as natural spreading as was at first in the natural tree, the branches whereof are cut off. For otherwise, if the privilege of the Gentiles church to continue were but only by the addition ofwild branches, such as at the first the new converted Gentiles themselves were, newly converted to the faith, and so not by their children chiefly in a natural succession, then the continuance of all Gentile churches in the next suc cession were still by a new engrafting only such as at first, whereas when once grafted in, the apostle makes it to be continued in a natural way, from the root, which Abraham is become to be to us as well as to them , to shew that if believers continue in faith, that God will continue his name on their children, who are (according to the psalmist s comparison also) the olive branches about their table.

Neither (5.) had the arguments or motives which he useth to the Eomans, to stand in the faith, and thereby to continue a church, had that force in them to prevail with them, if not meant of their children succeeding them, but only of other Gentiles vagd, and at large, that should rise up as converts of the same nation. Or, how would this threatening of cutting them off have so much concerned them, or have been so pungent to move them, as if sup posed to be meant of their own children so dear to them ? This must needs have a far stronger efficacy in it to engage them to stand, seeing their chil dren s hopes depended so much upon their father s faith, which surely is his meaning, because he sharpens this admonition with the example of the cut ting off the Jews and their children.

Yea, (6.) how would this have provoked the Jews to emulation (as, ver. 14, he says he intended to do), if the same favour had not been vouchsafed to the Gentiles now that had been formerly unto the Jews in this respect ; for emulation is always about the same kind of excellency, which we properly affect, or once had, and are now competitors for.

And whereas the objection may be, that the Jews only are called the * natural branches, ver. 24, as if that way were only proper to them, the answer is, that that title is given them in respect that they were the first primitive branches, and that Abraham, the first root out of which they had their spiritual covenant derived, was also their natural father, which to us he was not, but we are engrafted after their cutting off ; yet so as it hinders not, that when we are once engrafted in, that then branches should grow out of us in the same way, even by a propagated succession, that they did among them ; for so, as was afore observed, engrafted branches use to do. For we partake of the root and of the same fatness, only still with this difference (as I said at first, which the apostle here acknowlegeth), which maketh this their privilege to be more eminent than ours in these particulars

[l.J In that Abraham, our common root, was their root originally; ver. 24, it is called their own. They were natural branches, we after many hun dred years engrafted.

[2.J That we being but engrafted branches, and having once been wild branches, both we and our posterity are in a greater danger (intimated ver.

21) more speedily to be cut off, not continuing in faith. A few generations may make a stop, a breaking off in our prosperity, whereas they had con tinued many hundreds of years. Theirs was a covenant sure, as David says, though his house was not so, that is, not such to God, as God s

438 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. covenant required of them, but had many unbelievers in his line ; yet God re vived it in the virgin Mary and others, to the last. And [3.] that our danger is, never to be engrafted in again, if once our succession fail to continue in his goodness, and so to be broken off for ever, or at least not to continue in that strength and firmness as theirs, as that after sixteen hundred years interruption, they should be engrafted in again, ver. 25-27, and this * for their father s sake, ver. 28, and all Israel shall be saved, ver. 26. All which agrees with that limitation which I gave at first. And thus out of this place you see, that this covenant to our children is not only derived to us Gentiles as a family privilege only, in conformity to Abraham s family (as I shewed before), but also by virtue of a church privi lege in a conformity to the Jews as grown a church, as grown up into a tree, which consists of many arms, having lesser branches or families thereon, God promising to the Gentiles, till they cut themselves off by unbelief, to continue and keep up the succession of churches out of their loins. There fore further, Eph. ii. 12, &c., we are said to partake of their commonwealth or city privilege, we are of the commonwealth of Israel, and have the cove nant of the promise, the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 19th verses compared, and are of the same body with them, chap. iii. 6, which are spoken because God hath estated us into these their privileges, as all those expressions carry it ; for if we have their commonwealth or city estate or privilege, then those societies or churches, under the gospel (which therefore inherit the name and title of the city of God, &c.) are admitted to the same spiritual rights that be longed to their nation, city, or commonwealth ; and a church is now called a city, because as a city consists of many families, so a church. Now this in all nations is one privilege of a city, and the common privilege to all

I was born a Roman, says Paul. citizens, that their children are free burghers

Yea, he further adds, that we have the testaments of promise. Mark how he useth the same expression which he had used of the Jews, when he yet set out the eminent privilege of their nation, in respect of their birth, Rom. ix. 4, that to them pertained the testaments, or covenants, * and the promise. He useth the word testaments in the plural nnmber, because all the sorts of blessings in things spiritual belong unto them, and of promises, are, or may be, esteemed privileges, whereof we are made partakers as well as they, though they more eminently, as Rom. ix. 4 he shews, yet we in a conformity to them. Now was not this one covenant with them, and one great promise, that God would be a God of them and of their seed ? And, are we debarred of it ? If so, then are we still strangers from this particu lar covenant, and from this promise. Yea further, yet to strengthen this, as we are the sons of Abraham, so children of the Jews also, 1 Cor. x. 1. They are called our fathers. The apostle speaks to the Corinthian Gen tiles, and yet calls the Jews their fathers, and we come in as their children, as truly as those of their nation did. I now urge not much that more noticed place in Peter s sermon to the Jews (because I shall do it in a sub sequent treatise of baptism, if God enable me), Acts ii. 38, 39, where, ex horting the Jews to come into the embracement of the new covenant of the gospel then first delivered, and to receive baptism, the seal of it, for the for giveness of sins, he speaks thus, For the promise is to you and your children ; and then extends the same promise to the Gentiles also, * and to all that are afar off, and to as many as God shall call, namely, of the Gen tiles, who, in that Eph. ii. 17, are said to have been afar off. Now if the Jews covenant, still under the gospel, continues to be to them and their seed, and the same promise belongeth to the Gentiles when called, then to

their children also. And the reason is strong, for else the Jews should once have had promises, yea, and this under the gospel too, which we have not. Whereas you have heard it proved, that we are of their commonwealth, yea, we are their children, they our fathers, and the same promises and testaments given to us that were given to them ; so as this privilege comes by a double right to us, by God s covenant a Christian family in conformity unto Abraham, and by his covenant also a church in conformity to the Jews.

This Paul shews to have been the ancient promise to the church of Rome ; and they possessed this privilege more eminently than any other churches for four hundred years, till she began to spread herself too" far into unnatu ral branches, to enlarge herself and to overshadow other trees, and usurping over other churches, like to Nebuchadnezzar s tree, not keeping within those bounds of extent wherein God had planted her.

CHAPTER III.

A comparing the 1 Cor. VII. 14, with the fore-cited Rom. XI. 16.

Now, for a more full confirmation of this point, I shall proceed to com pare this place, Rom. xi., with that other, 1 Cor. vii. 14, and by both set together we shall find this point in hand yet more clear, namely, that our seed now is included in the covenant of grace, as the Jews seed was in that of their fathers. For look what we have heard said of the Jews, Rom. xi.

16, in respect of their fathers and their covenant ; the very same we find spoken of our children, in that place of the Corinths, in their relation unto us their parents, being believers. The apostle, in that place to the Romans, * If the first fruits be arguing for the Jews converson in future times, says, holy, the lump is also holy; if the root be holy, so are the branches. And in like manner, in that 14th verse of the 7th to the Corinthians, speaking of the children of believing Gentiles, he says, they are holy ; and that in respect of their relation to their parents, as believers, as will anon appear. And so these two places serve most fitly to interpret one the other, and I allege this latter, not only as a new confirmation of the point itself, but further also of that interpretation of Rom. xi., which in the former chapter I have given. Now, in that speech of his, Rom. xi., he speaks not of outward, but of true, inward, real holiness ; not of their ancient, Jewish, legal, and typical holi ness, which was in all the nation, but of their evangelical holiness. For it is given as a reason of their future conversion, as ver. 15, which we one day look for ; which will be an evangelical holiness, not typical. Neither speaks he this in a promiscuous sense of the whole nation, that they were holy from the better part, as namely, because some elect should be found among them, but the speech properly refers to those very elect, and to them only who shall then be called; for if compared with ver. 15, imme diately foregoing, it appears his scope to be to shew what manner of per sons, at their receiving and grafting in again (as ver. 15 and 24), they shall * For if the first then be. And that by reason of their father s covenant : fruits be holy, says he, so is the lump; and ver. 27, he explains it out of Isa. lix., This is my covenant, when I shall take away their sins, both by a real justifying and sanctifying of them, as by comparing Heb. x. is evident. And he speaking this of that great and true conversion and sanctification of the elect of that nation to come, as that particle When I shall, &c., imports, no other than real and gospel holiness can be meant or

440 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. intended ; for then, if ever any in any age were holy, they shall eminently be such. Yea, and therefore he must needs prophesy this with an aim to those individual persons in that nation who shall then be holy and con verted, that are elect and beloved for their Father s sakes. And yet because the generality or the most of that nation shall be then converted, for, ver. 26, he says, All Israel shall be saved, therefore he useth the word lump. And I have thought, that that outward typical holiness of the whole nation before under the law, might be intended as a type of the great and large extent of real holiness of that whole nation under the gospel, in com parison of all nations else, which is one day yet to come. And with this * When it shall turn unto the suits also the apostle s phrase of speech, Lord, 2 Cor. iii. 16, speaking there also of the conversion of this nation, as in this Rom. xi.

Now, then, if true real holiness be promised and intended in that Rom. xi. 16 to Abraham s seed, to come almost four thousand years after Abra ham, by reason of their father s covenant, and we be there said in the mean time to succeed them in their covenant, or rather come in as surro gates, why should we not think that the promise and declaration of God about our next children (which in this other place of the New Testament we meet with, 1 Cor. vii., where it is as expressly said that they are holy), should there also be meant in the very same sense, especially seeing the same ground or reason is given in both, namely, the parents their being believers is given as the reason why the children are holy ; so 1 Cor. vii., even as here in Rom. xi. This is the reason given why Abraham s seed shall be converted, for if the root be holy, so are the branches, especially seeing that we Gentiles are here said to partake of the same covenant and privilege of that root of roots, as I may call him, Abraham, as ver. 17, which cer tainly is this, that as his, so our children should be holy ; which is the same thing that in this other place in the Corinths the Holy Ghost is pleased to speak of them. And although the catalogue and number of Abraham s children to be converted may exceed ours, yet the holiness of the one and the other is the same, and therein these two speeches do sweetly agree and accord.

CHAPTER IV.

* For the unbelieving husband is sanc

A larger explication of 1 COE. VII. 14, tified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean ; but now are they

But because this place is so much controverted, and some may not rest satisfied with the comparing these two places together, I will therefore more largely insist on this place of 1 Cor. vii. to prove this to be the true mean ing of it, and intention of the Holy Ghost in it ; and that it accords with that other, Rom. xi., in respect of the holiness spoken of in both, which, if it be the more insisted upon, let it be considered that posteritatis causam ago, as he said in a far differing sense, I plead the cause of our poor children and posterity ; than which, next pleading of your own salvation, nothing can be more comfortable unto you.

Other senses are, and have been, put upon the place by Anabaptists, to make void this privilege of believers children; as also by papists, who, to make baptism to work holiness, ex opere operato, in every one baptized, they therefore deny any of the children of believers to be holy until baptism ;

and so all others, even infidels children, may be made holy by being baptized, if that opinion of theirs were true. It is also otherwise expounded by some of our divines, though not to serve their opinions. But I will first give what I conceive to be the true meaning of it ; and then you shall see all false ones vanish before the genuine sense of it.

My method in discoursing upon these words shall be, first, to open and explain the words and phrases in it ; and, second, to frame reasons out of those explications of the phrases, for the confirmation of the point in hand, namely, that this is true holiness here intended ; and then, thirdly, to remove such false interpretations as are affixed by others.

And for the first, what may be said for the explication of the words, I reduce to these few heads and considerations.

First, Let us consider the occasion upon which these words do come in. Now, in this chapter, the apostle s scope is to resolve some cases of con science about marriage, which the Corinthians had written to him about, verse 1. As, 1. Whether it were best to marry at all, from verse 1 to 10. 2. In what cases divorces after marriage were lawful. As, First, Whether so arbitrary, as that upon any occasion of offence they might leave their wives or husbands, as the Jews were wont to do. To this he answers, ver. 10, 11, and says, he gives but the same rule that Christ did once, who pronounced the marriage knot inseparable. But then, second, whether yet in one case that party were an unbeliever, the believing party were not then bound to put away or leave the other. This was a case did frequently fall out in those times, and doth to this day, that two persons being married together in their unregenerate estate, one of them is converted, the other still remaining in unbelief. Now in this case (two in shew) exceeding great scruples did arise then in believers minds, and are apt to arise still, and we see do ordinarily arise in believing parties minds : as first, concerning marriage communion with such an husband or wife, whether though the marriage be legal by man s law, yet in such communion one should not contract a defilement before God, in that one becomes one flesh with an unbeliever and member of Satan, considering that before Moses s time such unequal marriages were forbidden, and under Moses s law they were to put away strange wives as defiled by them.

The second scruple in it, and which ariseth to this day, was about the state and condition of the children begotten by such a communion, lest they should be accursed by reason of the unbelieving parent, seeing the threatening so much run against the children for their parents, as in the second command ment ; and lest such children might not lose the privilege of those promises made to the seed of the godly, through the one parents unbelief, yea, and lest they should in the church s account, and that warrant from God, be accounted unclean, as the children of strange wives were accounted of old, although the father was a Jew, and so to be separated from the other, Nehemiah ix. 2.

Now to this case the apostle answers roundly and fully, and as punctually to both these scruples as could be desired, by affirming the clean contrary, namely, that for the act of communion with such a husband, the husband is sanctified in the believing wife ; that is (1.), both in conjugal acts, quoad usum, to her, so as she may as holily have communion with him, as it her husband were a believer as well as she ; and (2.) also, he is sanctified in her, or through her, to all the ends of marriage, that so by her the blessing of the covenant should be derived to children begotten by him, as fully as if he were a believer. And that they need not fear that their children were

442 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. unclean, as when both parents are unbelievers, the apostle intimates that they are to be so esteemed, which I take to be the meaning of those words, * Else they were unclean, that is, if that God had not thus sanctified an nnbelieving husband in the wife, she being a believer, they would indeed have been such, but now, that is, in this case, one of them being a believer, their children are holy, as well as if both parents were believers ; they receive no prejudice from the unbelieving parent, God s covenant with the believing parent and his ordinance prevailing more to sanctify both that act to the believer, and also to convey the blessing of the promise, holiness to their children, than the unbelief of the husband is able, either to defile the act, or to convey the curse threatened to unbelievers children. This is the sum of his answer in general.

The second particular to be considered for the explication of these words, is the preface which he makes to his resolution of the case, or that which he premiseth for the warrant or authority by which he is to solve it ; and therein he tells us, (1.) that there is this difference between this latter case and that former, about arbitrary divorces, that that case the Lord Christ himself had decided already (as Mat. xix. 3), and so therein he should but command what Christ had said in that point already, that divorces at plea sure ought not to be, as among the Jews and Gentiles they were frequent, so, ver. 10, To the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, &c. But to this latter case, and those that follow, he prefaceth thus : To the rest speak I, not the Lord, ver. 12 ; that is, I find not an express word already, either uttered by Christ himself when on earth, nor in the New Testament to solve it by ; neither doth the rule about this case given in the Old Testament to the Jews hold now, to bind the Gentiles under the gospel, this being a new case of a clean different nature from theirs. And there being under the gospel an alteration made of the Jews ceremonial and typical laws, and the judicial that were founded thereon, so as this remained entirely to be decided by his apostolic spirit, therefore he says, To this speak I ; that is, I as an apostle, guided by the Spirit of Christ, do give this following solution of it. For that he resolved this, and the rest that follow, as infallibly guided by the Spirit, he tells us in the closure of them, ver. 40, In my judgment, and I think I have the Spirit of God, so that your consciences may rest in these resolutions as from God. (2.) In solving this case, he gives a caution and limitation to what he saith about it, that he intended only to speak this for the comfort of such persons who are already married (perhaps when unbelievers, but since called), and not at all to those who are as yet to marry, lest these words of his should be any encourage ment, or be understood to give liberty to any, to marry an unbeliever, because an unbeliever is sanctified in the believer, &c. No ; he would have them know, that though it be true, factam valet, the marriage being made (which was the case as they had put it) holds good and valid, and that they need not to scruple either a defiling themselves in conjugal acts, or a defilement traduced to their children ; yet, fieri non debuit, it ought not to have been made ; and so this, he says, would not warrant those who were to marry, to take liberty so to marry, by reason thereof. That this is his meaning thus to caution and state it, appears by his words, ver. 12, * If a brother hath a wife, that is, already hath, which he puts in, as it were, on purpose to prevent and exclude this corollary or conclusion that any might make out of it, that if he were to marry a wife, he might marry one that believeth not. It appears also to have been his meaning by that in ver. 17, where the ground upon which he resolves it thus (concerning persons already married) is this, that God, by converting and calling men to the faith, would

have no civil, natural bonds broken or dissolved ; he intends not to make such alterations in the world as to break the bonds of wedlock, or of sub jection already entered into, but lets all things stand as they did, and ordains the courses of things to run on their own wheels. Thus in those words, 1 As the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk ; that is, look in what station God hath set any, whether of a servant or wife, let them continue still therein ; and this he doth for peace sake, ver. 15, for what a disturbance and confusion would this make in the world, if conversion should dissolve such bonds ! Only God sanctifies all these stations and conditions unto believers when converted, which before conversion they are not unto them ; and hence his scope is to shew that a believer being already indeed married to an unbeliever, and that knot knit, and he or she converted after such marriage, or else repenting afterwards of such a marriage, then God sanctifies the unbelieving husband or wife in and to that believer, to all the holy ends of marriage, as truly as if both parties were believers. God takes all such like conditions and stations, and sanctifies the course of things in this world, even as he takes our spirits, and the several constitutions natural in them, and sanctifies them, without altering the course thereof. And further, that this is his meaning appears by the conclusion of all, ver. 39, where, speaking of one that is at liberty to marry where she please, he yet limits her thus, only in the Lord, if there be choice of such. And when it falls out that a believer is married to an unbeliever, it is by a gracious dispensation that the unbe liever

sanctified, for it is not for their sakes, or from them at all, simply considered as husbands (though lawful ones) but in, and to, and for the sake of the believer ; and so also for the believers sake it is that their children are holy, which else were unclean.

These things being premised concerning the occasion, and the apostle s stating of the case, let us, secondly, consider the solution itself he here gives. For the clearing of which, and the apostle s meaning herein, let us take notice of two things.

1. That his intention is to declare some privilege properly and pecu liarly belonging to a believer s marriage, and which is not common to all other marriages, nor belonging to unbelievers of themselves. This is evident, (1.) By those words in the first part of the verse, The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. In which it is manifest he attributes this sanctification spoken of (let it be understood how it will), of the unbelieving person in marriage to be in and for the sake of the believing party. Now if it had been but some common privilege of marriage, common to all sorts, both unbelievers as well as to believers in their marriages, which he had intended, then the unbelieving husband had been as much sanctified in his marriage of himself as in and by his wife that was a believer. Or (2.) if his meaning had been that both had been sanctified in one another mutually, and each equally in and from each other, without the special privilege of the one party, then he would have said, in the second sentence, that the believing wife had been sanctified by the husband, as in the former it was said the unbelieving husband was sanctified by the wife ; but in both sentences, though he turns and alters the speech from husband to wife, and wife to husband, affirming it first of the wife, then of the husband, yet still he keeps to this in both, that the unbelieving party is sanctified in the other, whether wife or husband.

It must needs therefore be, that he means to attribute this privilege of the unbeliever unto the believer, vouchsafed only for his or her sake. And (3.) the particle ev, which we translate by, implies this ; for it is all one with

444 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. p ropier ; in, or for their sakes ; or (as our translation hath rendered the force of it) by the wife ; that is, for and through her, or by reason of her. And if it be said, that yet he adds not the word believing, and says not is sanctified in the believing wife, I answer, that this must necessarily be understood ; for, [1.] According to the law of opposition, and the manner of the Scripture s expression (such as in the Proverbs and elsewhere you shall often meet with), but one of two contraries are expressed, and the other understood thereby ; and in that here in both the sentences the unbeliever is mentioned, the other part, believer, is necessarily implied. Yea, [2.] therein lies the emphasis, that even an unbeliever is sanctified (which else is a seeming contradiction, for to them all things are impure), yet though an unbeliever, yet he is notwithstanding sanctified in the wife, as believing.

And yet [3.J it is further noted out as emphatically in the Greek article sv rfj ywcuxi, and ev r& avdgi. He is sanctified in that wife, namely, in that brother or sister believing, as in putting the case, he had called him, ver. 12, and calleth her, ver. 15.

And therefore [4.] in some Greek copies, as Beza says he found it, unto ev rfj yvvaixi, the word Knsry is expressly added, that is, in the believing wife ; and to sv r<Z avfy), the word KKSTU is added, in the believing husband. The like is said of their children, that they have a differing privilege (which the word sirs!, else, notes out, as I shall shew anon) from that which those of unbelievers have.

So much for the first, that some special privilege to a believer is intended.

2. Let us therefore consider, what this privilege itself of a believer in marriage is, which is double, as here: (1.) of the husband, or party married, that he is sanctified in the wife ; (2.) of the children, that they are not unclean, but holy. Let us consider, first, how the unbelieving husband is said to be sanctified.

(1.) You see it is not meant of inherent sanctification in his person ; for he is said to be sanctified, not as in himself, but ev rfi yvvauxi, in the wife ; that is, in another ; therefore it is not meant that he is holy personally. But (2.) it is a sanctification instrumenti respectu Jinis aut usus, of an instrument in respect to an end, or for a holy use or purpose, as things which we use holily, or which do serve God s providence to an holy use, are said to be sanctified. Thus in Scripture we find things are called holy, or vain, as that use or end is to which the users put them. The creatures used by men to lust are said to be subjected to vanity, Rom. viii. The bells and bridles of horses are said to be holiness to the Lord, being used holily by believers under the gospel, Zech. xiii. Yea, thus the armies of the Babylonians serving to God s holy ends of vengeance on Jerusalem, and of goodness to his elect, are called sanctified ones, Jer. xiii. 13. And thus here the husband is sanctified in the wife. Now this is to be under stood in a double sense or respect

[l.J As to her use ; that is, so as she may have a sanctified and holy communion with him : in the same sense that, to believers, the creatures are said not only to be good in themselves, but to be sanctified, 1 Tim. iv. 5, that is, in their use ; so as believers may have not only a lawful but a holy use of them, according to the word ; which fully answers the scruples that the believing party might have of defilement in that communion. His reso lution is, that this marriage stands not only good, but sanctfied also. But [2.] that is not all, that he is sanctified to her and her use, so as that communion of her with him is holy before God, and in God s account. But

further, look what holy end and sanctified purpose there is of marriage either of the act itself, or that which God hath ordained it for unto other believers, as namely, when both parties are believers, that same holy end shall be accomplished and brought about as fully as if her husband were a believer. He is holy to her, not only quoad usum operantis, but ad omnes fines opens, to all ends and purposes. Now, the main and principal end of believers marriage, and of generation thereby, was, in God s ordination and institution, to bring forth an holy seed. As at the first creation, one of the ends for which God made man and wife was to beget an holy seed, so this was the end of the marriages of the Jews too, that they might have a holy seed, as they are called, Ezra ix. 2. ; and it is likewise the end ordained by God of the marriages of believers, which, I take it, you have clearly expressed, Mai. ii. 15 ; where, whatever the reading of the words may be, yet by the connection this much is evident, that he goes about to convince the Jews of their sin of marrying strange wives, and putting away their own, ver. 11, and he useth one kind of general argument to convince them of both : first, from the primitive institution, shewing them from thence how herein they perverted the ends of marriages as they were at first ordained by God, whose end in marriage was to seek an holy seed, a seed of God ; and he at first made but one woman, and made the man and her one flesh. Whence it is evident that the prophet shews God s institution of marriage to the Jews in covenant with him as his people, was to the same holy end, that at first to Adam in paradise, and so to us upon the same ground. For that primitive institution is moral, which was, that a holy seed might be brought forth to God ; for he allegeth God s end at first, so as, since the fall, as God hath ordained marriage to mankind to bring forth men, so to holy men to seek a seed of God. Now, says the apostle here, the marriage com munion of a believer with an unbelieving husband or wife is thus sanctified, to attain this end as fully as if they were both believers. And this sense he aims at in the word sanctified, as here he useth it ; for if you mark the lati tude of the phrase, he doth not only say, that he is sanctified to her, but in her, so in the original sv rfi yvvaixt, as not only to her use, that her act with him should be holy, but by her, and in her, to a further holy end besides, even that which God hath ordained the marriage of believers unto, or that the marriage of two that are both believers useth to be sanctified unto. And what that end is follows in the next words, even the same you heard out of Malachi, that the children begotten on her should be holy and not unclean, and so partake of the privileges that children begotten by parents, being both believers, can be supposed to have.

And therefore, 2, I pass to that other privilege, which is couched in this, which descendeth to their children as peculiar to them, namely, that they are holy, to the conveying of which unto their children, that other former privilege tends ; for his meaning is, that the husband is sanctified in her to this end, that the children begotten by him on her should be holy. i And for the clearing of this let us consider :

1. In general, that he, in those words, Your children are holy, doth intend some personal privilege which the children inherit from the parent, by virtue of some like privilege vouchsafed the parents, which is to be reckoned as a badge of honour or cognisance, that personally they enjoy and inherit ; such as children use to have from noble parents as a cog nisance of nobleness or gentry, and so here of holiness, mentioned as a personal royalty which they inherit, by which they are truly in themselves denominated holy, as the child of a nobleman is termed noble.

2. And then, secondly, more particularly for the further inquiring into what

446 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. this holiness is, you may, first, observe the apostle varying the phrase when he comes to speak of the children, from what he had used when he spake of the unbelieving parent himself : he is said but to be sanctified in his wife, but the children are said to be holt/. The former notes out a passive kind of subserving to the holy use of another, or to a holy end, but this latter notes out an holiness in themselves ; that but an instrumental holiness, this a personal. He is sanctified but as an instrument is to an holy end, yea, even to this very end, to help to bring forth holy children ; but they are simply and absolutely termed holy. He cannot be said to be personally holy, for he is supposed to be an unbeliever, in the style the apostle speaks of him, and so to say he were holy were a contradiction, yet is he sanctified, as the creatures are, to an holy end. But the children here are said to be holy, as personally and in themselves, not in the parent only, although by means of their believing mother as a believer, even as they are men of them selves, though by means of their parents ; and this he did on purpose to shew that theirs is a further holiness than the father s ; his use is holy, but their state is holy.

In the second place, let us observe the expressions themselves whereby he sets out the holiness of their state, and likewise his doubling of expres sions to set this forth. He contents not himself to have said positively, they are holy, but he useth a negative expression also, not unclean, which he doth, 1, to settle and fix their faith more fully in it, that his meaning was real, and full, and express, and that it was a true holiness which he meant, and therefore doubled his expression of it ; and 2, thereby to express it with a difference from the children of others that are both unbe lievers. And thus to magnify the privilege of a believer the more, and to put emphasis upon it, he thinks it not sufficient singly to say, that they are holy, but adds, not unclean, namely, as others children are ; and to do it thus with difference from others, sets it forth the more.

And, 3 (which is that most of all I would have you to observe), he chooseth to express the holiness of their state, thus with difference, in the same terms that the Old Testament useth of the children of the Jews in difference from the heathen. Yea, and whereas in propriety of speech, according to the Greek, xadaga, pure or clean, answers to axa&xgra, unclean, and so in a right way of opposition to unclean, he should rather have said, But now they are pure or undefiled, we see that he varies it, and goes out of the road (as it were) of the Greek idiom and analogy, and says, But now they are holy, on purpose, because ayia and axa Qagra are used by the Septuagint, for things or persons that were holy and unclean among the Jews. And the apostle here on purpose useth these very same expressions of difference of their children from others, by which the Jews expressed the difference between their children and the children of the nations, and all to shew that our privilege for our children holds, and continues now as then, yea, that theirs was but the type of what is real now. The old law in a typical sense called things that were unholy unclean; and persons prohibited to come into the temple, and to partake of holy things, were called unclean. But the seed of the Jews then admitted into the church were called the holy seed, and that in distinction from the Gentiles; yea, the children of Jews, when one parent was a Jew, the other a heathen (which is the very case here), were counted unclean, Ezra ix. 2. It is said, the holy seed mingled themselves with the people of the land ; which words are spoken not of the mingling of Jews and heathens in marriage, so much as of the ill fruit and consequent of their marriages with them (of which the prophet had spoke in the foregoing sentence), namely, that the children begot by or upon the

people of the land by the Jews in those marriages were mingled and accounted as the children begot by or upon Jews only ; for, says he, they have taken of their daughters to themselves, so that the holy seed mingled themselves, &c. He speaks it therefore as the ill effect thereof, that the children begotten of such marriages were by reason thereof promiscuously mingled with and accounted of as purely Jewish children, were without any distinction, which that law utterly forbade. And the heathen, Isa. lii. 1, are likewise called uncircumcised and unclean. Now, then, in this place, under this common language of the Jews concerning their children, and those of others, he expresseth the like different state of believers children and others now under the gospel ; and so, then, the meaning is this, that whereas un believers children are in the account of the gospel, and of God himself under the gospel, pronounced unclean (that is, as remaining in the state in which they were born, namely, of sin and uncleanness so original sin is called, Zech. xiii. 1 and so was typified out by the uncleanness of infants for seven days), and therefore are to be kept out of the church, as unclean persons were then among the Jews, and to be made partakers of no sacra mental ordinances, as uncircumcised persons were not, Isa. lii. 1, and so not to be baptized, as being to be judged and pronounced unclean. On the contrary (says he), your children, although born in sin as others, are yet, by God s true sentence of them in his word and revealed will, proclaimed holy, and so are to be judged of by us as truly regenerate and born again. And how to reconcile this with God s secret will and the event, I shall after shew in a whole subsequent chapter in this discourse.

And these terms he useth of holy and unclean, not as if that our children were now typically, or only outwardly, to be esteemed holy. The reality is now expressed, as in the New Testament it useth to be, by the name of the type thereof in the Old ; for that general holiness of the Jews and their seed, in a distinction from heathen and their children, was then a type of that real holiness which true believers children now have under the gospel, and therefore he expresseth this here by the same phrases used there. And the reason hereof, namely, that he intends an evangelical, and not an outward, legal holiness, such as was under the old in the type, is evident; for if it were legal holiness, it must be either ceremonial, or that moral holiness which was in Adam, which was a vacuity of original sin. Now, it is neither of these ; it is not ceremonial, though he useth the terms of it, for the cere monies being abolished, concerned them not. And moral holiness, in oppo sition to having original sin in them, he cannot mean ; for the children of the godly are conceived in sin as well as others, though afterwards sanctified in the womb, which was typified out by the uncleanness of all children among the Jews for seven days. He means therefore evangelical holiness, that though they be born in sin as others are, yet they are in part sanctified, or regenerate and made holy in state, and so are not in a state of sin, but of evangelical holiness in God s sight. I will not say that the particle Now they are holy, the vuv ds to have relation to the times of the gospel, because it may have another sense, yet I do not exclude that. Thus you have seen the solution of the case.

In the third place, by his determining the case thus, in the terms of the old law, you may easily see what the scruple was (which he had in his eye) which troubled these Corinthians, together with the true bottom ground of their scruple or doubt, to the removal of which he intended this solution, as purposing to speak directly unto it ; for the truth is, that these two cases, both about putting away unbelieving wives and husbands, as also concerning the children of parents whereof one was an unbeliever, were such, and so in

448 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. view stated, as the letter of the Old Testament would seem to warrant, yea, commanded, the leaving or putting away the unbelieving party, and also the pronouncing their children so begotten unclean, although one party were a believer. For thus indeed it was among the Jews ; for when in and after the captivity they had married strange heathen wives, and begotten children on them, you shall find, Ezra x. 3, that after a solemn fast they did cove nant to put away all the wives, and the children begotten of them. The like you have also Nehem. ix.; and so the place in Malachi ii., where the prophet says that God sought a holy seed ; it is spoken upon this very occasion of marrying strange wives, ver. 11 ; and so it was that they pro faned the holiness of that people by that mixture, as verse 11, both defiling themselves thereby and their seed also. And it is no wonder to imagine that, by occasion of and from those instances in the Old Testament, it was that these Corinthians should take up these their scruples and fears, which occasioned this resolution of the apostle ; for they had read the old law, and received and embraced the canon of it as scripture. Therefore in this epistle he often referreth them to the rules and instances of it, as 1 Cor. x. 1; so 1 Cor. ix. 9, 13, and chap. x. 18, he argues from something that was moral in the rules of the ceremonial law as still binding. And therefore the cases being in view the same, and they making these questions about them, which occasioned his writing about them, it seems clear to me that they were thereby stumbled, as knowing this to have been the law and manner among the Jews. And this is strengthened further by this, that in that case of divorces, in the words before this, their scruple about that did arise from the practice of the Jews, and what they usually did under the Old Testament, who ordinarily put away their wives; and so the Corinthians might think that they therefore in like manner might. And therefore he refers to what the Lord Christ had said unto the Jews themselves in that case, when he interpreted the law to them, that it was not so, ab initio, from the beginning. And indeed no other ground can be imagined to have occasioned this scruple.

Some would have the scruple arise from the chapter afore, in that the apostle had there said, that in fornication one becomes one flesh with an harlot, and so that they from thence might imagine, that in their marriage communion, they being one flesh with an idolater, were defiled therein. But it is plain that these cases here about marriage were propounded to him by them before this epistle was written to them, as the first verse of this chapter tells us, and therefore could not be anything which should arise from what he had said, chap, vi., of this epistle which was now a-writing of. And further, that these Jewish cases were the ground of their scruple appears also by this, that he professeth his resolution was such as he had no former ruled case, instance, or warrant for from the word ; that is, it was a case to which neither Christ had spoken nor the old law, yea, the instances therein were rather against it. And therefore, whereas for the determination of that other case about divorces, he refers them to what Christ had said to the Jews, on the contrary for this, whereof Christ had not spoken, nor had occasion to speak, the apostle by his apostolic spirit declares to these Gentiles, whom the ceremonial Jewish law did not concern, that this Jewish law about un believing wives was not in force to them, that no believing husbands should or might put away their unbelieving wives, as the Jews were commanded to do. nor account the children unclean.

And to put the more observation upon it, he useth the Jewish phrases to express himself by, even then when he speaks point blank against the deter mination of their law, yea, aflirms that the gospel afforded a privilege to a

believer which that ceremonial strictness allowed not; even this, that by the believer, and for his sake, the unbeliever is sanctified to all ends of marriage ; and that the covenant with the believer is so strong and full of grace, that it prevails to convey the covenant of grace to the children, even in this case, wherein the law pronounced them unclean. Now the reason of this differ ence is evident, and lies in this, that marriages among the Jews came under a peculiar law, both judicial and ceremonial, proper to that state. Their church and commonwealth being of one and the same extent, the laws of their commonwealth were accommodated to the rules of church state, and so the laws of marriage and the children begotten by them were accordingly suited thereunto ; so as children, and persons, who according to the church law were in a type, or otherwise unclean and unholy, even the marriages with them were also made unlawful marriages by the law of the state, and the children illegitimate, as being unclean in their church state, wherein they were to be pure, or not members. But this polity of the Jews reached not to the Gentiles to bind them at all, as the ceremonial law likewise did not. And therefore the rules about their marriage state and their children must run upon other grounds than did those of the Jews, and so the apostle intimates they did.

And to this purpose, in the fourth place, let us consider what might be the apostle s grounds, and the reason that he goes upon in the determina tion of this case. And how consonant this his decision is unto right reason, he took in all the several considerations about it, and so gave to marriage the things that are due unto marriage essentially, and yet to a believer the privileges due to a believer in a married estate.

1. He considers what is essential unto all marriage by the law of nature and God s institution at first, according to Christ s own interpretation, Mat. x. 3, that they are joined by an inviolable knot, two becoming one flesh, so ver. 10, 11 ; and therefore a marriage once made between two, whereof the one is a believer, the other not, must needs hold, and oblige, from this general ground, which is common to all marriages ; for they marry not as believers or unbelievers, but as men and women. So as the consideration of being a believer is not of the essence of marriage, but superinduced, and so is not of force to cause a departure from an unbeliever. For as this apostle argues in another case, the law of Moses, which came after Abraham s gospel covenant, could not disannul that covenant, which was established four hundred years before, so conversion, and the entering into covenant with God for a man s own soul s salvation, hath nothing to do to dissolve the bonds and covenants of nature. Grace dissolves not the bonds of nature, but strengthens and sanctifies them, and the duties of them, which further stood with all the reason in the world, especially considering the state and condition of these Gentiles, which stood thus : The gospel came among the Gentiles as already settled in commonwealths, and did call men aforehand set in several stations according to the laws and orders of commonwealths, by which marriages, as other conditions, were ratified and established, and so men s outward conditions were accordingly cast and settled. Now, com ing thus upon men, and here and there singling out but a few by calling them and converting them, it was suitable to the glorious wisdom of God, not at all to make alterations in states or commonwealths by this their em bracing of the gospel, but to let all obligations, civil and natural, stand in full force as before. And indeed, ver. 17, he shews this to be the ground of this his resolution of this case : As God hath called any, so let him walk ; and so ordain I in all churches ; and ver. 20, Let every man abide in the same

VOL. IX. F

450 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. calling, civil or natural, in which he was called by grace. If a servant, so abide, care not for it ; if a wife to an unbeliever, so abide. Christ may be thy husband notwithstanding, even as he says of servants, they are the * God hath

Lords freemen. And among other reasons he suggesteth this, called us to peace, ver. 15;; and therefore his calling us by the gospel it was to breed no disturbance in societies and commonwealths, nor such a confusion as the -casting off such relations would have produced, and such as indeed would hasve turned the world upside down.

These rules you see the gospel proposeth concerning marriages., which how differing were they from those rules of marriage that God gave the Jews upon peculiar respects, and such as in their state could not meet with these inconveniences ! For God found a people in bondage, kept distinct from those they lived with, and called them forth to make a distinct common wealth of themselves, to the end they might live apart from all nations, and * dwell alone, as the expression concerning them is in Deuteronomy, and to that end gave this as a fundamental law, which necessarily tended to keep them still distinct, namely, not to marry with strangers, for fear of a mingled seed. And this not only upon national considerations, but in a type reli

a holy nation, singled out and separated from all nations, and their seed to be holy also in a type. And this typical holiness was to be held forth in a separation from all gious, because they were to be a holy people, strange wives as unclean, and in keeping their seed unmixed. And there fore, Mai. ii. 11, they are said to profane the holiness of the Lord by marrying of strange wives. If any, therefore, amongst them had married a strange wife, this had bred an irreparable confusion in his posterity to ail ages, by mingling a holy seed with an unclean. And therefore even as for the peace sake of that their state and commonwealth, these Jews were bidden to put away such wives, and the children so begotten on them, as unclean. Even upon the s-ame ground were these Corinthians and other

Gentile Christians, for the preservation of the peace of Gentile states aoad commonwealths, to keep them, and not to put them away.

Then, secondly, the apostle withal takes into con-sideration the privilege of believers marriages ; and therein we may consider three things. 1. The royal -privilege God had endowed believers marriages with, having sanctified them, and sanctified them to this end, to convey the covenant to their children., that -so he might continue to himself a holy seed out of them, whieh privileges continue to them under the gospel, as founded not only upon a correspondency to the Jews Covenant, but even to the same pri mitive law concerning marriage from the beginning, even under the law of nature, when God, as he ordained marriage to men, to propagate men, so to holy men, to propagate a holy seed. Therefore Malachi argues it from the institution of marriage at first, only with this difference, that in iunocency it was by nature, or by a natural covenant, but now by a free covenant of grace, drawing his elect through their loin s, yet with a like covenant there unto. God resolved to keep to the law given at first ; only now, out of grace, that as holy Adam should have a holy -seed, o holy men should propagate a seed to God ; and this, I take it, is the reason why Malachi oargeth the sin of it upon the Jews (ver. 11), from the example of the first mar riage. Thus, immediately after the fall, God calls out Beth to propagate a holy seed, Gen. v. 1 ; and therefore Seth his seed are called sons of God, as the seed of Cain were called sons of men ; for marriage to them was ordained to propagate sons to God, as to the other to propagate mankind, or sons to men ; but how this is to be understood I shall shew anon.

2. And, secondly, he declares withal, that this privilege is so prevailing

in the behalf of the elect, and for the believing parents sake, that it tases place against the curse and defilement, which else would come upon the mar riage and the children, from the unbelieving party. The goodness of God herein he declareth to be such, and his grace and love so prevailing, that this his covenant towards believers holds not only when both parties are such ; but prevails against, and countervails the unbeliever s unsanctifiedness and curse (in this case proposed) and carries it from him, so as he is sanctified in her, and she not defiled by him ; and the children are holy through her covenant, rather than unclean by his defilement ; partus sequitur meliorem partem, the issue takes after the better part, through grace, which prevails in this against sin, even as in other things it doth, in and towards the elect. So in the works or actions that come from us, which are the fruit of our souls, it prevails to make the action accounted holy, notwithstanding the defilement of the unregenerate part. And thus in like manner in these, the fruit of our bodies, it prevails to convey the covenant, and to make the child accepted, notwitstanding the father s curse ; and such is the law of privi leges among men, favores sunt ampliandi, favours granted are always to be interpreted as extended to the utmost, especially God s privileges of grace, which then shew themselves to be most of grace, when they hold and prevail against sin and the curse most, for then grace abounds most.

Especially, 3, in such a case as this was, for when one being married before, is afterward converted (for that was the case of these Corinthians), if then God, by the law of nature, holds them still to the marriage, which through their ignorance they entered into, and by his providence were found in when called, then by the law of grace (and yet of free grace) he will not withhold the privilege of believers marriages, but will sanctify it unto them as if both were believers ; for none shall ever lose by any inconvenient neces sity they are cast into, in obedience to his command. And thus to bind and hold believers to continue in such unequal yokes, and not to take the liberty of divorce, which the Roman laws did give them, must needs be to them full of manifold inconveniences. God, therefore, graciously resolves to recom pense this ; and seeing that primitive law of marriage should bind them to abide with their husbands, the primitive privilege of marriage shall by a new covenant of grace be continued to them. And, therefore, though this will no way warrant entering into such marriages (for when out of choice the sons of God did so, God cursed their marriages, Gen. vi., in their issue, and all flesh became corrupt ; yet when so married before conversion, or repenting after such a marriage, they may notwithstanding expect this pri vilege still to continue unto them and theirs. And unto this case only he speaks here, namely, when one already hath an unbelieving wife, not that is to have, or is as yet to choose and marry one, ver. 11, 12, and deter mines, verse last of this chapter, that when they are fully free, they should * marry in the Lord. One thing yet remains to be spoken unto, and will make up a fifth head, and that is, what is the force, scope, or purport of these two particles, 1, < else were JOT/, else, as it stands in the first sentence concerning children, your children unclean, and how it knits this sentence with the former, or what reference it hath to those words, the unbelieving husband is sancti fied in the wife ; and, 2, of that other, vurfe, but now, in that latter clause about them, but now they are holy ; and what connection or aspect these two particles have on with or towards each other, or the i going words. . , , For the first : there are two scopes or meanings which that particle else

452 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. will bear, whereof each may rationally stand and serve either of them for the point in hand.

First, Some do take the word sxei, else (as here it comes in), logically, that is, as a particle or note of an evident reason, argument, or a causal conjunction, importing an evident proof, or logical demonstration, brought to confirm and convince them of the truth of that foregoing assertion, that * your children were unclean, but now they are holy ; as if the apostle meant to argue, ab the husband is sanctified by the wife ; for else, says he, absurdo, from an apparent absurdity that would follow upon the contrary, and which would cross and contradict a common received principle among them, and in all the churches, which he knew that therefore they would not deny, namely, that their children were holy ; and thus his argument stands from the greater to the less, even from that which was a greater fruit and privi lege of their marriage, that their children should be accounted personally holy, which truth was already known and acknowledged by them. And, therefore, much more the communion with an unbeliever s person in mar riage must needs be sanctified to them, and undenled to their use ; it being more that their children, through the ordination of grace, should be truly sanctified, than that an unbeliever should be sanctified to their use only ; yea, if those very children, begotten by such a communion, be holy, not withstanding their natural defilement and curse they inherit by birth as sons of Adam, then the marriage communion itself must needs be holy unto them, for if the issue and the fruit be such, then the act of generation, the means of deriving this, must needs be thought to be lawful and sanctified. And thus the particle sirs}, or else, is used and taken in this epistle, chap, v., where our apostle, shewing the lawfulness of conversing with idolaters in civil ways, as here with unbelievers in marriage, he in like manner argues, ab absurdo, else, says he, you must go out of the world. He mentions it as that which to reason and common principles was an apparent absurdity ; and this sense and connection of this particle doth make a strong convincing demonstration of the point we have in hand ; for it imports that it was a commonly received maxim in those times, and which these Corinthians had not at all questioned, but took for granted, namely, that their children were holy ; and that, therefore, the apostle argues from it, as a thing taken for granted, in that according to the settled practice of those times they had seen, and had been themselves eye-witnesses of their receiving into commu nion with the church by baptism, in their own and all other churches, and that by warrant from the apostles. And we find by experience, that such principles in religion are as commonly received, and generally acknow ledged and practised, that we believe them without hesitation, and do usually take for granted ; and so it might fall out, that these Corinthians might have a peculiar scruple about their communion with their husbands, when not of their children s uncleanness, who had hitherto been begotten by them ; and it is also very likely, that the apostle might thus argue from the com mon received practice and opinion of that and other churches about their children, and so make use of it as a reason to settle their consciences in that other part of communion with idolatrous husbands ; for so in like manner he argueth, chap, xi., We have no such custom, nor the churches of God, ver. 16. For the churches receiving all their customs or practices from the apostles, what was a general custom of churches in those times, might safely be taken for a rule and warrant ; for else the apostles would not generally and universally have established it. We find the apostle in like manner taking advantage of the like received principles and practices, to argue for the resurrection : 1 Cor. xv. 14, If there be no resurrection, then is your

faith in vain ; he argues from what he knew they would not call in ques tion, and from the experience and evidence of their own former faith and believing. And further, saith he, ver. 29, Else what shall they do that are baptized for the dead ; if the dead rise not, why are they then baptized for the dead ? You see he therein argues from a known principle about bap tism (whatever the meaning of the place be) received amongst them. I therefore will not exclude this scope of the connection here in the word else; and, indeed, if it hath this connection and meaning, it were the more express for the point in hand.

Notwithstanding, I have thought that if their consciences fell into doubts about the defilement of their communion with such husbands, they then were like to scruple as much the state of those children begotten by them. It being also, as we see, a scruple apt to rise in believers hearts unto this day, whether the curse of their unbelieving husbands or wives should not rather come upon their children, than a blessing from themselves. And this of the two is usually the greater scruple, And it is very likely that among those queries they sent to the apostle they had mentioned this of their children s uncleanness, as an argument against their abiding with such husbands ; in that this inconvenience would also follow, that all their children would be unclean. But that which especially moves me is, that there was the same ground for the scruple about their children s unclean state that was for their husband s defilement to them ; seeing in that case of the Jews, which these scruples were founded upon, both wives and children were alike accounted unclean, and so to be put away. Hence, therefore, I incline to take these words, Else your children were unclean, but now are they holy, to be intended as those former words are in the first part of the verse, even both together and alike to be a direct and immediate answer unto two several scruples, both about their children s estate, as likewise about their commu nion with their husbands, about both which the Corinthians had written alike unto him ; and so to be rather a distinct part of the resolution of the case, than only a reason of that former sentence, The unbelieving husband is sanctified, &c., and to be as positive and as plain and direct an explica tion and declaration of his judgment concerning the state of their children, upon occasion of their scruple therein, as in that other part in the words afore there is a declaration of his judgment about the sanctified use of the husband ; even that the children are holy, as well as that the husband is sanctified, thereby alike to take away the scruple about both, and the more to set forth the privilege of believers, which his scope was to advance and illustrate. Only these particles, Ehe your children were unclean, and, But now they are holy, are put in farther, to shew that it was a singular privilege, and that it was an exception to some other rules which generally indeed hold true, and which otherwise would have held true, as they imagined. And unto such a sense or purpose as this will these two particles, else and but now, as fitly serve in the common use and acception of them as to any other. For in special cases that fall out, and are as exceptions to general rules, and wherein there is but some one peculiar special consideration that causeth the varying from those rules, we use such particles as these are to express those exceptions by. And so we clear those cases the better when we thereby grant what otherwise useth to fall out, and by expressing their swerving "from such rules, do shew the special ground upon which the exception is founded ; and then we use to say, as the ^ apostle here, else it would be thus, but now, upon this special consideration, it is otherwise. So that the particle else notes out and implies tacitly, that it is indeed generally true of all other children, that they are unclean, by reason of their parents

454 OF ELECTION. [BoOK V. state, being heathens, and thus much he implicitly granteth to them. And so this other particle, but now, refers unto some special consideration upon which their children, contrary unto the ordinary rule, became holy.

I say, 1, he secretly grants, that all children of two parents who are un believers are unclean ; and it is as if he should have said, that if the case had not been such, that one of the parents were a believer, then indeed the children had certainly been unclean, as others ; but one of them being a believer, which is the case proposed, now they are holy ; else, that is, if one parent were not a believer, and God had not sanctified the unbeliever to them, they had been unclean, but now, this case is thus stated, they are holy. He shews that generally indeed it is true that children are unclean ; but yet notwithstanding in this case their children are holy. And thus he not only clears the case the more distinctly, while he thus grants something, but further illustrates their privilege by way of distinction from the children of others, idolaters and unbelievers, when both parents are such, in that it is not simply related that their children were holy, but with a note of diffe rence and separation comparatively to others children. And this is the reason he useth two words and expressions, one negative, not unclean, and positive, they are holy ; whereas otherwise one of these expressions would have been sufficient.

And 2, ens), else, pointeth unto some consideration, which in that case maketh the exception, and which makes the difference, that their children should be holy, which else they should not be ; and is as if he had said, It is not of and for yourselves that a believer comes to have this privilege, but from hence, that God hath sanctified the unbelieving parent, through grace, to this end. So as this same else implies a hazard which they narrowly escaped ; and that if God had considered the unbeliever only in it, their children would have been unclean ; but God looks at his own ordination and purpose of free grace unto believers, having out of that his grace ordained to convey the covenant to their children ; whereas otherwise, had God looked at the unbelievers in it, or their own desert, and had not graciously ordained this favour and privilege to believing parents, they then would have been unclean, because, according to the tenor of the legal curse by nature, the curse would have fallen upon them. But now they are holy, the husband being a believer, sanctified even to this end. And so the word else notes net out so much a logical consequence, by shewing what absurdity in reason would follow upon it, but rather what otherwise would be the real consequent following upon the thing itself : that the curse of the unbeliever would indeed otherwise have prevailed to make the children unclean, did not God in special favour sanctify him to this end, by reason of the believing party. And so I judge the former sentence, The husband is sanctified, &c., to be the reason of this latter, * Your children are holy, rather than this latter of that. And I take this to be the sense rather than the former, because the word aga is added to evil, the force of which word is not rendered in our English translation. But Beza hath done it thus : else certainly, or indeed, your children were unclean. He adds certainly or indeed unto else, so that these words were a tacit concession or grant of children s uncleanness in other cases, and so came in as a further amplification or enlargement of a believer s privilege, not only shewing what privilege they have in opposition to unbelievers, whose children are unclean, but believers holy ; but further, even in such a case as this, wherein an unbeliever being joined in marriage with a believer, and so would according to the curse of the law bring a curse on the children, yet even therein God had vouchsafed a further favour, and sanctified the husband, and pronounced the children holy, who else for the

unbeliever s sake would be unclean ; than whichnothing could be said more to enhance this favour, and the privilege of a believer in this respect. His scope being to put the easting of the balance for their children s estate, which the unbeliever s curse would render unclean, upon the favour of God to a believer, even to sanctify an unbeliever, their privilege swayeth it and prevailed. And so else indeed comes in here, just as it would in this follow ing instance parallel to it, as if one speaking of the actions of a regenerate man, in all which the flesh bears the half share, as having an influence into all he doth y and in respect of whose concurrency, according to the law and covenant of works, the better part, and the good that is in them, would be so polluted, that God would reckon them as a menstruous cloth, filthy and defiled, should yet notwithstanding say of them, that by the grace of the gospel, the regenerate man hath this privilege, that the sin shall be pardoned, and the good accepted in and through Christ. Now, I say, as one in declaring this ease might say, the regenerate man is so fax accepted in Christ, that not withstanding the influence of the unregenerate part, his actions are sancti fied in Christ, which else would be unclean, but now they are holy, in such a sense doth it in like manner come in here, concerning their children, else were they unclean, but now they are holy*

CHAPTER V.. drawn out of that foregoing exposition of 1 Cor. VIL 14. That the holiness there attributed to believers children, is true, and real, evangelical holiness. Other interpretations refuted.

Now out of these explanations of the words laid together, I come in the next place to form up some reasons (which was the second head I propounded for the discussing this point) out of this place, such as this place affords, namely, to prove that a true holiness of these children of believers is here intended. The reasons have been couched, I confess, in the former con siderations, yet for the help of the weak I will draw them out more plainly, and lay them together.

1. You heard before that this holiness is in a further sense attributed to these children, than the being sanctified, which is here spoken of the un is_ but an instru believing parent, is attributed to them ; and that the one mental holiness,, for an use passively subserving, but that this attributed to the children is a personal privilege belonging to them, in that they are called holy in themselves. Now, then, let this attribute of holiness, which is given to the persons of the children, be allowed them, but in as true and genuine a sense as that sanctification of the unbeliever s use to the believer is taken in, and then this I contend for will necessarily follow. Let, I say, both holinesses be but weighed in the same balance of the sanctuary, and estimated but by the same rule of proportion, in their several kinds, and let this holi ness of the children be acknowledged to be but as true and as good a holi ness for personal holiness (and sueh as the word usually accounteth unto persons), as that being sanctified which is spoken of the unbe ieying party is said to be, in respect of some use or end ; that is, let the one in its kind be answering to that which the other is in its kind, and so to be of as true a kind of personal holiness as that other is a true instrumental holiness ; and ^ For when the then it will necessarily follow that it is the holiness we seek. unbeliever is said to be sanctified in the wife, the true meaning is, that the use of such an husband in and to the wife the word doth account to be holy,

456 OP ELECTION. [BOOK Y. and God looks at it accordingly as holy, and accepts it, that is, with such an holiness as is proper to actions, or such an acceptation as is of things used holily, or tending to an holy end. Why then, when the children are said to be holy personally, should not the meaning be that their persons are accounted holy by God with such an holiness as is proper to persons, and so that they are accepted by him as personally holy, even as truly as the other s use was so accounted by him ? Why should not both be measured by the same mete-wand ?

2. Add to this, secondly, that this holiness is a personal privilege, attri buted with a difference from an unbeliever s child (as you have heard) by virtue of their parent s privilege. Now, let all the world find me out any other sense or respect wherein the gospel should call their children holy as a privilege vouchsafed them, and in opposition to which the children of un believers, though lawfully begotten, are called unclean, than this of true and evangelical holiness. Surely the difference between two unbelievers married, and this believer married to an unbeliever here, must necessarily run thus, that (1.) In the use of her husband she hath a privilege which unbelievers have not, that he is sanctified to her ; but two unbelievers, though lawfully married, are not thus sanctified each to other : their communion is lawful, indeed, in itself, and *o is their marriage, as being approved by the word, but yet their marriage communion is defiled with sin, as other their lawful actions are, and so they are unsanctified each to other. But it is not thus with the communion of a believer married to an unbeliever, which is not only lawful in itself, but sanctified, and on her part accounted a holy com munion by the word, and so reckoned to her by God, and by her subserving an holy end God hath ordained it for.

(2.) Now then, secondly, let but the like parallel difference proportionably run in the children of the one and the other (which is the apostle s scope), namely, that unbelievers children, though not bastards or unlawfully be gotten, are yet unclean in a further respect, which the gospel counts an uncleanness, but the children are not only legitimate, or lawfully begotten, but further also they are holy, and that in the language of the Holy Ghost. Now search the Scriptures, and find me out a holiness that should personally be attributed thus to believers -children, as their peculiar honour, and as a personal privilege different from unbeliever s children (who yet are not bastards, and yet unclean) ; I say, find out any other holiness that can be given besides this which I aim to establish, that their persons are sanctified, and so to be reckoned by us, and I have done. True it is that the cere monial law did in a type call all the seed of the Jews holy, and the whole seed of the heathen unclean, and in the type did put the very same differ ence in terms used here by the apostle.

(3.) But that will afford a third reason that the apostle intends to shew that our children are to be accounted really holy, and unbelievers children really unclean ; for that outward ceremonial holiness and uncleanness of the law did typify out true evangelical holiness and uncleanness under the gospel, else he would never have expressed himself in those very terms ; yea, the apostle doth here call believers children holy, and the children of others unclean, in flat opposition to a Jewish case, and contradicts their law in it, in terminis. Neither can we find that the apostle under the gospel did use or apply the terms of the types except to the very things typified by them ; as when Christ was called our passover, the meaning was, that Christ was that true passover which that of theirs signified. So when our evangelical worship was called sacrifice, the meaning was that that was the true sacrifice.

So, in like manner, when the gospel speaks of our children in the same terms that the law used of the difference of their children then from others, and with the same difference that the law in the type puts between children of the Jewsand others, it must necessarily intend the reality of what was thereby typified ; and so that our children are to be esteemed truly holy, and unbelievers truly unclean. For he could not use the same very terms of the same kind of persons (in the same case then and now), and intend them in the same typical sense and meaning that the letter of the ceremonial law intended, for that in respect of the letter of it was abolished under the gospel, especially to the Gentiles ; and therefore he would not have used them to the same kind of persons in any other sense than was intended as the thing typified in that law, which can be no other than this, that our children are really holy, and others unclean, as theirs once were ceremonially.

(4.) Add to this, fourthly, the help of that other scripture, Rom. xi. 16, where the apostle, speaking of the fathers conveying the covenant to the children, says, If the root be holy, so are the branches. And this is spoken of children to be converted under the gospel. When, therefore, we find the very same thing said of the Jews seed to come under the gospel, that for the believing parents sake, who is the root, the children (the branches) are holy, why, then, should any other sense be put upon the like that is said of the believing Corinthians here ?

I add but this as the conclusion of all. Observe how for the declaring and publishing this eminent privilege of believers and their children, the Holy Ghost watcheth the most full, fit, and advantageous occasion to make the most of it, and set it off, that could be taken ; that not only when two believers are joined, but even then when an unbeliever with a believer, does this privilege hold good, so abounding is the grace of God, and so prevailing against his curse.

This meaning will yet further be established by the taking away and con futing those false interpretations that have been put upon these words, which is the third head to be spoken to.

1. Many of our own orthodox divines have thought the apostle s scope in this his resolution of the case to be, to shew that the marriage of two such continues lawful by the word, and so that their conjugal communion is sanctified, that is, lawful too, and their children legitimate, not a spurious bastardy or unclean issue ; and that this is all that is meant by those expressions, the husband is sanctified in the wife, that it is a lawful mar riage, and the children are holy, that is, legitimate, not bastards or unclean ; and so these expressions to be but an allusion to that which in the cere monial law was said of such, viz., to express the like, yea, this very difference to be holden now under the gospel between bastards and children to be esteemed legitimate, that was then put between base-begotten and the rest of the Jews children, Deut. xxiii. 2. A bastard was then forbidden to enter into the congregation, even unto the tenth generation ; and to be prohibited their temple communion, and to be reckoned unclean, were both for tl thing itself, and also in phrase of speech with them, all one. And these divines would have the holiness of children here, to be put to express their legitimation, and the opposite unto it here, namely, uncleanness, to be put for bastardy.

Now, as touching this interpretation, I shall endeavour,

1. To confute it, and shew that this was not the main scope apostle.

2. Remove that appearance which seems to make lor it.

8. Yield how far the sense may be taken in.

458 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.

1. For the first, That the apostle s scope should be by holiness to mean more than legitimation, and more than bastardy by uncleanness.

(1.) He had otherwise attributed no more privilege to a believer here, in his marriage and children, than to an unbeliever ; whereas (as hath been abundantly shewn) a different privilege of believers is here for their com fort held forth, and not only a bare lawfulness granted them in their marriage, which is common to others ; a different privilege they have in the use of marriage, and in their issue by marriage. In the use of marriage it is sanc tified in and by them, which of unbelievers (though their marriage be law ful) cannot be said, their persons being defiled. In speaking likewise of the issue of marriage, children, he must needs mean more than simply their being lawfully begotten, which unbelievers children are, and not bastards. And this, as a peculiar privilege of their children, is expressed (as some have observed) in this word your, yours who are believers.

(2.) And secondly, by attributing this as a privilege to a believer, he im proves the case, not to settle their consciences only, that both that act and children begotten were legitimate, but further to comfort them, they are sanctified and holy. Yea, and to answer the uttermost ground of their scruple, which was about their children s uncleanness, in respect to their estates and the ordinances, since the ground of it was from that of the strange children among the Jews, who were put forth from the congregation as an unclean seed.

(3.) Thirdly, Otherwise he had in this said no more than the civil laws then in force did, for they pronounced the marriage lawful, and the children no bastards. Now his answer surely is more than law, it is gospel ; and this privilege here of holiness, more than the civil law afforded children ; for it is a gospel privilege, as the very terms imply.

(4.) Fourthly, The terms he useth are to critics very observable to this purpose, that to axadaera, unclean, he opposeth not xaaga, pure or clean, as in propriety of speech they are opposed ; but, according to the language of the Jews, he opposeth holiness to it. Fornication and adultery are called uncleanness, axa0ap<r/a, Eph. v. 3. Now if an unclean issue by fornication or adultery had been meant, he would have opposed purity, or cleanness, or some such word unto it ; but in that he opposeth holy to it, which was a word out of the road as it were, because so the Jews opposed in their cere monial law ciyia and axatfagra, it evidently implies that he meant something more than legitimation, as by the holiness of children the Jews also did.

2. And secondly, for the instance of bastards, uncleanness in the cere monial law, which seems to countenance this interpretation, that can no way be brought to expound the uncleanness or holiness here, nor in any fit sense be applied to express this difference between children merely as law fully or unlawfully begotten.

(1.) Not in the literal sense of the ceremonial law ; for that uncleanness of bastards therein mentioned imported more than an uncleanness of children s legitimation ; it was a ceremonial, religious, and typical uncleanness ; and, on the contrary, the holiness of the Jews legitimate children was also religious and typical, and so imported more than a mere legitimation of children, in that they were called holy, as they were to be admitted to ordi nances as an holy seed. Therefore, for the apostle to take up these terms to express the mere legitimation or illegitimation of children under the gospel, had been short of the sense of that law, which should then speak it in one sense, and he in another. The holiness of the Jews children, which was opposed to the uncleanness of bastards, was more than a mere legitimateness, or a being lawfully begotten, as is evident ; for they had it

as they were Abraham s seed, and so within the covenant. Had it had not been thus, then likewise the heathen s children, if lawfully begotten, had been holy ; whereas an Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever ; they were to be kept out, as well as bastards ; so that a being lawfully begotten was not all that went to make children accounted holy; for then all legitimate children had been holy, and therefore it must needs be too much to call all children holy, simply in that respect, or with any eye unto that law. Besides, by that law a bastard s seed, though he himself were married, should be unclean to the tenth generation.

(2.) It, secondly, cannot be spoken according to the mystical meaning, that they should be thus called, or in respect to what under those types are intended. That were to say, that all bastards only are now to be counted unclean, and unregenerated, and, on the contrary, all children lawfully begotten to be holy and regenerate ; for the uncleanness and holiness then did typify real holiness and uncleanness now ; neither of which any of any side, either for baptism or against it, durst ever affirm. But to retort this ; is it not therefore more likely his meaning should be, that as all heathen children as well as bastards were to be reckoned unclean, with a religious uncleanness in respect to partaking of ordinances, which they were debarred from ; and, on the contrary, the lawfully begotten chil dren of Jews were alone counted holy, yet not simply in respect of being lawfully begotten, but because they were withal the legitimate issue of Jews, who were the sons of Abraham, and were therefore to be then admitted unto ordinances (and all this in a typical respect) ; so now that under the gospel should be typified out that all unbelievers children, and perhaps unlawful issues of believers, should be accounted unregenerate, and so not admitted to ordinances ; but the children of believers lawfully begotten should be counted not only legitimate before God and men, but also holy with real holiness, and so admitted to the ordinances of regeneration ? Sure I am, that holiness then imported a privilege which Jews children had above all other children, though the issue of lawful marriage. And therefore to me it seems as certain that the holiness here must also as necessarily import a privilege which believers children have (besides that of legitimation), which others the children of unbelievers have not, though lawfully begotten ; and what this should be other than this, to be esteemed truly holy indeed, through their parents covenant, let all the world shew me.

(3.) In the third place, I willingly grant both, [1.] That when he calls the children of a believing parent holy here, he

Not as the sole intends to shew that they were lawful children. But how ? adequate meaning of that expression, but as included under it, as the lesser useth to be under the greater, or as the foundation of a house is included in the term house. And as if we should say an heir, the prince, it imports a child lawfully begotten, and includes and supposes the son of a king, so when he here says they are holy, his meaning is not only that they are legitimate children, as any others born in wedlock are, but further, for their comfort, they are to be esteemed holy children, and therefore he would have them think much more that they were lawful ; for legitimation ot children by an estate of wedlock is under the gospel as necessary a requisite to this dignity of being accounted holy, as the ground-colour is to varnish, and is such a prarequisitum in subjecto. Even as to be lawfully begotten is a neces sary supposition in law before a child can inherit, and in a prince s son is the fundamental requisite of his dignity, so by the ordinance of Crod also ;

460 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. for to be lawfully begotten is the foundation of this privilege of being accounted holy, and so must necessarily be supposed.

[2.] And, secondly, I grant that bastards are unclean in the sense here meant, though not mainly intended to be spoken of. For I conceive that marriage is God s ordinance, sanctified by him to believers alone, for to derive this blessing ; as was said out of Malachi ii. 15, He appointed it for a holy seed. And therefore I grant that base children, though of believers, come not to be partakers of this privilege, but are to be reckoned as unbe lievers are, namely, unclean, and that that was the meaning of the type. Not but that God may turn them, and make them holy, as he often does unbelievers seed, as having his elect among them, which when he doth, they are to be received and accounted holy ; as Deodatus Augustinus, base begotten, was converted and baptized ; but yet they inherit not this pri vilege by birth, neither because they are children of such parents are they so to be accounted ; but we are to reckon them unclean until actually con verted, which they may be, as Jephtha was ; which may turn to this use to us, to be a motive against fornication. Therefore, secondly, some late

Anabaptists do say, that his meaning is, that as the husband is sanctified to the believing wife (that is, to her use), though he be in his person sinful, so these children are in like manner sanctified to their parents for their use and service. But how fond is this opinion also ! For what a wide differ ence is there between these two phrases. To say, one is sanctified in and to another (that is, for such an use, which is the thing spoken of the unbe lieving husband, even as 1 Tim. iv. 5, every creature is said to be sanctified to a believer ; that is, to his use ; so as his using them is holy in him, and to him), and to say of the children afterwards, not as they are sanctified in or to their parents, as being so only in their relation, but that they are holy, who else would be unclean ? Which being said simply of them, they are holy, and being spoken of persons, and that in a way of variation of the phrase from the former, cannot but imply that they are in their own persons to be accounted holy, not in or to their parents sanctified, but in themselves simply holy through the conveyance of God s covenant from the parent to the child.

2. If we compare this with the parallel case in Nehemiah and Ezra, which the apostle had in his eyes (as hath been shewn), this cannot be all the meaning of it. For when he would have them put away the seed of strange wives, as unclean, the meaning could not only be, they were unclean or unsanctified in their use to them ; but further, as persons in their own state unclean, in respect of God s ordinance and law, and in a religious respect in themselves.

3. We must never put a sense upon the Holy Ghost s meaning, which falls short of what may be supposed was aimed at. Now in what rational sense can it be supposed, that these parents, or any Christians, should con ceive these children unclean in their use and service, and obedience per formed to them ? How an unbelieving husband might be unsanctified to them in marriage communion, and they defiled thereby, might easily be con ceived, in that they became one flesh with them, and so a member of Christ is made one with a limb of Satan ; but the use of, and converse with, the children being but in a way of outward service and obedience, such as these Corinthians had with all heathen servants, neighbours, &c., the children could not upon any ground be supposed unclean in their uses as to them, the parents of them, or in the performance of mutual duty each to other, no more than their neighbours and servants were in all civil offices that passed between them. Their scruple therefore must needs be understood

of the state and condition of the children begotten upon such parents in a religious respect, whether they were not to be esteemed unclean, and in that state to God -ward in respect of the covenants that the children of strange wives were among the Jews.

Therefore, thirdly, the papists have invented another interpretation. The husband is sanctified, that is, say they, in hope of his conversion, and there fore the apostle exhorts her to abide with him ; and so the children also may, by her staying with her husband, and so educating them, become holy, and so are holy in hope, who else would be unclean, and are in danger to prove idolaters, if the wife depart from their father, and leave them to him.

But first, to say they are holy; that is, by the stay of their parents together they may be such, otherwise they are unclean, ihat is, there is danger that they may be unclean. How wide is this ? And, secondly, to say they may be converted, and so in that sense to be holy, is true of unbelievers children, as well as of these.

Yea, thirdly, so by being unclean should be meant by the rule of opposi tion, that otherwise there were no hope of their conversion if she depart, which is false.

Fourthly, The case must be altered if this be the meaning ; for it must then always be withal supposed, that the children are left to be educated by the unbelieving party; for simply by her leaving an unbeliever, if she have the children with her, there were no danger of their unconversion, but the more hope. So as this sense will not hold unless withal the case be put, that the children are left with the unbelieving party, which that a believing husband should do, and not take his children with him, is not always likely. But the apostle supposeth not, nor mentions any such case, but simply the mar riage act, that they need not fear defilement to themselves in it from an unbeliever, or to their children begotten by it.

Fifthly, Of the hopes of the unbelievers conversion he speaks afterwards, and makes a new and further argument for it, ver. 16, and propounds it but uncertainly, What knowest thou ? &c., but here he says, They are holy.

CHAPTER VI.

That two things are intended in that text of I Cor. VII. 14. What God s thoughts are of believers children, and the ride by which he would have us to judge of them. What is the judgment we are to have of the children of godly parents upon this declaration of God concerning them, that they are holy. To what extent this proposition is to be amplified: that it is not meant universally of all, but indefinitely of some only, though the greater number. What agreement and harmony there is between our judgment of the holiness of believers children, and what in reality of the event proves true concerning them.

This being thus gained, that evangelical holiness of election and regenera tion is here meant and intended ; now it may be further considered as a ground for a further inquiry, that these words, their/ children are holy, may fall under a double distinct notion or consideration. Either,

1. They may be taken as looking upwards, as wherein God expresseth to us his own thoughts about such children, who are or shall be really made holy by him, and whom the Holy Ghost, when he speaks it, hath only in his eye and intent, though he points to the whole lump. And so taken, the words respect wholly and only the reality of the thing in the event; that is,

462 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. only the true holiness of those children who are so indeed, or those children only of such parents who shall surely be made holy.

Or else, 2, the words may look downward, as importing a duty on our parts, and declaring what God s will is that we should think of such children ; both in our judgments to account them holy, as a thing meet for us to think of them ; and upon that esteem to carry ourselves towards them as towards saints, and to perform such duties to them as they are capable of, and as are due to such saints. In a word, in the one sense they may be supposed to declare God s mind and thoughts concerning these children themselves and their estates ; in the other, they declare his mind about us, and what our duty is to think of them. In the one, they are a mere simple expres sion of God s unto us ; in the other, they become a rule to guide our thoughts concerning them.

Now these are two distinct things, and will much vary the case ; for whilst God speaks the one, he hath in his eye only those very children whom he makes holy, if the words be taken as a declaration of his thoughts. But in the other, as he lays this duty on us, he hath every child of a believer in his eye, so far as to enjoin us this duty, to think any one in particular, though not all in general, to be holy ; even, therefore, because that God expresseth his own thoughts so indefinitely and reservedly, as that we know not whom he means, our duty is, to think so of any of them. Now, that both these are here intended is evident.

1. That the apostle should speak these words in relation to our judg ment, and intend them as a rule for it, this seems very manifest ; for unto the judgment or sentence which the word pronounceth of things, are we to conform our judgments. For revealed things belong to us and to our chil dren : Deut. xxix. 29, The secret things belong unto the Lord our God : but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Wherefore, seeing God in his revealed will hath declared thus concerning them, the least that can be judged to be the meaning of it, must needs be, what God would have us to think and judge ; as the apostle says of the Philippians when he had called them saints : Philip, i. ver. 1, Even as it is meet, says he, for me to think of you all, ver. 7. I may allude to what was said to Peter : Acts x.

15, What God calls holy, call not thou common or unclean. God often speaks of things in Scripture as we do, or as we are to judge of them : De stroy not him for whom Christ died, Rom. xiv. 15. It is not meant of a destruction really, for none of those can be destroyed, but we are to judge it such, and look on it as such, according to what our action tends to, and to forbear such and such actions which look as if they would destroy him.

It is evident also in this, that the apostle s scope is to give such a like title or badge of difference between believers and unbelievers children, according to the different state of the parents in spiritual respects, as useth to be given to all sorts of children, according to the different ranks of their parents in worldly respects ; which badges, we know, lie in esteem, and it is the intent of them, though withal they carry a reality of honour and posses sions with them. And therefore, as men, or as we, when we speak of men by the world s book or rule, do call and account the children of noblemen noble, for they are to be reckoned such in their sphere; as Paul calls

Festus, most noble, Acts xxv. 26 ; so spiritual men and a church are here spoken to by Paul, to call and esteem the children of believers holy, and to account of them in their sphere according to God s book. He writes here to the Corinthians as a church, thus to think of them, and so to own them.

CHAP. VI.] OF ELECTION. 4G3

2. And then, secondly, that these words do carry withal in them an expression of God s real thoughts and purposes about the state of believers children, so as it is not a mere reputation holiness which we are to attribute to them, but a real holiness which God scatters among them, and that the apostle hath in his eye. This is evident ; for God would not otherwise have declared or pronounced thus indefinitely of them that they are holy, nor given us such a rule to regulate our judgments of them by, nor called on us to believe and think so of them, if there were not something really peculiar in it ; if true and real holiness were not found more commonly and ordinarily amongst them by virtue of their parents covenant, than amon any other sort of people in the world.

For, first, God useth to call things as they are.

Secondly, His revealed will is not wholly wide from his secret will, nor from the truth of things in the event. In his revealed, he always declares only that which is ; he never gave promise but it had a reality answering it. Never any special promise, as this is, but something more special was in it. His secret will and his revealed will, do one come near the other ; there is a ground of truth in the one, for the revelation made in the other.

Thirdly, For us to give the title of holy unto any, is to give the name of the Lord to them, which he would not have his church led into the error of taking in vain.

Fourthly, Nor would God give a title wholly without the real thing ; he would not have given a peculiar title of holiness to these children, if he had not bestowed the thing itself more ordinarily upon them, than upon any or upon all sorts of people else in the world. He would not speak of them, and in title set them up as great princes, if they had not amongst them an inheritance and possession answerable ; this were to ex pose his name to scorn.

Fifthly, Much less would he carry it as a special favour done, and privi lege vouchsafed, peculiar to the parents because believers, if it holds not really true of their children in some eminent manner ; it were otherwise a disprivilege rather, for it would expose them to a greater mockery and misery.

Now this double consideration and aspect of these words does afford a just ground for these inquiries yet to be answered, both for the full clearing this place, and also of the point in hand.

The first query is concerning the judgment which we are to give. The second is concerning the extent of the reality itself, how far this pro position reacheth, that children are holy ; whether it be indefinite or universal. The third is about the reconciling of these two together, and making an harmony between them ; and this, for that the judgment that we are called to give, namely, that they are holy, will be found larger in extent than the reality.

1. For the first, namely, our judgments. Three things are to be inquired into about it.

(1.) The terminus or object of our thoughts, or thing that we are to think of them, and attribute unto them ; whether we are to think every infant really holy, or outwardly only.

(2.) The subject that this our judgment is to be termined upon, why in fant children should be intended rather than those of riper years.

(3.) The manner of it ; what kind of judgment or esteem it is, for the act itself ; whether in charity only to be exercised, or in assurance.

(1.) For the terminus or object of our thoughts, it is real holiness ; that is, which we are to think real and true. Some divines have said, that be cause the church was to judge any such child holy, though all were not so that therefore it is but a reputative holiness, and an outward sacramental

464 OF ELECTION. (BOOK V. holiness, that we in our judgments are to give them. But they are mis taken ; for though in the event indeed it proves in many of them but a reputative holiness, and only in esteem, yet still so as the terminus of the church s judg ment, or that holiness which they are in their judgments to attribute to them is true, real holiness ; but it is called reputative only in respect to the event, in that we should attribute true holiness to those who prove not so ; yet still the holiness we are to think in them is no other than real to our thoughts ; even as it is in our judging those of riper years to be saints, when ad mitted into churches, it follows not that it is a mere outward holiness that is to be the terminus of our thoughts, or that which we are to content our selves to find in them, but that they are truly and really holy. Though in the event it proves no other in many than an outward titular holiness, yet the holiness we pitch upon, and aim at, and judge of, and embrace men for, is a holiness to our judgments real. Outward ceremonial holiness, such as was among the Jews, and by them professed only nomine tenus, was a type, and is now vanished. But the holiness here (whether you take it as it is the terminus of God s thoughts declared, or of our thoughts enjoined us) is still real, namely to our thinking, though we be often mistaken.

(2.) Secondly, For the persons whom we judge thus. That infant children of believing parents are rather here meant, than those of riper years promiscuously, as the subject of our judgment, is evident.

[1.] Because the only ground of pronouncing them holy is, that they are their children. It is (you see) not put upon any qualifications, or signs, or effects of grace manifested ; and though they be their children, we cannot say they are holy, if come to riper years, unless they hold forth a work of grace, as Timothy did, concerning whom the remembrance of his faith was the ground of Paul s persuasion, though the same in his mother and grand mother added a confirmation thereunto, 2 Tim. i. 5. If he had said upon this ground, they are elect, then those of riper years, though uncalled, might have been included ; but he says, they are holy, for their present state, which is more.

[2.J And secondly, this is consonant to reason, for there is, nor could be any other rule to judge of infants holiness than this of their parents cove nant ; but for those of riper years there is another rule, so as either they are altogether excluded from this judgment, or else principally meant. Others stand upon their own bottom and testimonial for our approbation of them ; but these poor lambs have nothing to shew for it, but that they are their children ; neither could there any other rule have been given about them.

("3.J And thirdly, add this moreover to it, that it was as meet there should be some ground, or rule, or warrant for us to judge and esteem them to be holy (so far as to perform all such dues to them, as belong to saints of their age), as well as a rule for those of riper years.

seeing God hath such a number of elect among them, who make it may be the greatest part of his church (I mean those of them that die, who are as many as those who live), it was meet that they should be so judged, that so God might have the glory of his election among them acknowledged.

Secondly, Seeing he on purpose drew them through their parents loins, as a respect unto their parents, it was meet that they should have a ground of faith for them, that so they might not lose the comfort of it, nor God the thanks from them.

Thirdly, In respect to the children themselves that are elect, that they that are so might not want their due honour and esteem, but be owned

among their brethren for such, neither want a visible means of blessing and testimony of God s favour to them.

(8.) Thirdly, If the question be made, what manner of judgment this ought to be, I answer, [1.] It is not a mere judgment of charity, in that sense that such a judg ment is vulgarly taken in, which is, First, When we cannot absolutely say the contrary, but that such an one is holy ; and therefore men usually think themselves bound to call and account such an one to be a saint, though they know nothing out of which to make up such a judgment. But that is not ground enough to judge one a saint, nor to account children holy ; for in calling one a saint or holy we give a testimony, we do statuere, and affirm, and that must always have a positive ground, not a mere negative. Yea, of all men and of children, we do know enough to the contrary, namely, that by nature they are unholy, and conceived in sin. There is a prejudice laid in, and therefore something must come between that is positive, to take it off, and to give some evidence persuading us that one is holy and sanctified ; our charity otherwise is not to think so. It is true, * charity believeth all things, but then first it must have had a ground to believe well of a man ; the thing must be credible, it must be an object of faith that may draw forth an assent, and then charity is to help faith, and not to be suspicious. But upon a mere knowing no thing to the contrary, for to begin to believe a thing, is not faith but folly.

Secondly, Men take the judgment of charity for a mere it may be ; what may prove so or so in the event, they think in charity they are bound to believe such. But when the apostle here calls us to judge believing parents children holy, it is a further thing than an it may be, and so than such a kind of judgment of charity. The apostle, you see, says of such chil dren, they are holy, which is more than an it may be, and of other chil dren he says they are unclean ; and yet with such a judgment of charity we are to think of all children, that it maybe they may be holy. In the 16th verse, speaking of the conversion of the husband, he saith, What knowest thou but that thou shalt save thy husband ? But here of the children he says more, he says, they are holy ; and not only, what knowest thou but that they may prove holy ? A what knowest thou is the ordinary judgment of charity, but now know I, it is meet forme thus to think, is the judgment that we are called to, Phil. i. 7.

[2.] Therefore, secondly, it is a judgment of faith joined with charity, which believeth all things, where a ground is given so to believe and judge, as here the word doth suggest a ground, so to believe of believers infant children ; it is, I say, a judgment of faith, which conforms itself to the word, which judgeth, and giveth, and terminateth its thoughts on what the word says, not once daring to think the contrary. I call it a judgment of faith, in difference not only from that other, but from a judgment of sense or experience ; for such is the judgment we have of men grown up unto riper years, for which the word gives abstract rules to judge of saints by, and we use spiritual judgment or discerning to apply them ; so that in the applica tion unto the persons it is a judgment of experience. Men shew us their faith by their works, and so we out of experience judge them holy, according to such rules as the word gives to judge of men s works by ; within the com pass of which rules many who are not saints may come, and so pass with us.

Thus Paul s persuasion of Timothy s grace was a judgment of experience

2 Tim. i. 5, And I am persuaded (speaking of his grace) dwells m thee also ; calling to remembrance thy faith and tears, ver. 4, 5, it was upon VOL. IX. G 8

466 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. reviving the experience he had had of him. Now this judgment we cannot have of infants, though this be the more satisfactory judgment, I grant, whenas men grown up do shew themselves to be saints, for experience added to faith in our own selves helps and confirms it. Yet the judgment here called for is in this a judgment of faith, that therein we give up our judg ments to what God promiseth of them, and declares about them, although we see nothing whereby we should be induced to believe so of them. And * thing not seen, resting on the word, confining our thoughts, and terminating them to what God hath declared, till we see so it is of mere faith of a the contrary, and not a mere judgment of charity ; for such we ought to have of others children, of whom we as yet do see nothing to the contrary, and who may be holy for aught we know ; but here God hath put a differ ence, and pronounced the one holy, and the other unclean. God s word comes in to terminate and confine our judgments concerning them to holi ness ; not so of the other.

[8.] And yet, thirdly, when I say of faith, I mean not a faith of assurance ; that is, not such as whereby we believe it so certainly and infallibly of every child in general, or any in particular, so as to say, we know the thing cannot be otherwise ; but such a faith as makes us suspend all thoughts to the contrary, resting in what is revealed for us to think, and waiting till God reveal the contrary, and so far in the mean time to judge them saints, as that it should bind our consciences to perform all duties to them, as unto saints. For it is even so concerning our own estates, when we want faith of assur ance, yet God calls us to have a faith of waiting and expectation, that our estate may be holy, when yet infallibly we cannot affirm it ; and accordingly we are to pray, and to give thanks even as persons holy, and to come to the sacrament of the Lord s Supper upon such a faith ; and answerably hereunto we are to bring these children unto the sacrament of baptism upon such a faith also.

So that, as it is less than a certainty, or an infallibility, so it is more than an it may be, and than a mere hopefulness. It is a faith of waiting and expecting that it will be so, not only that it may fall out so, yet so as is meet for us to think so ; for we have a rule and ground for our so judg ing, though not infallibly, for the thing itself in the event.

Thus we have despatched the inquiries about that judgment which is to be taken up by us.

2. Now then, secondly, let us inquire into the extent of the reality of this holiness, and of the proposition here as it respects the truth of holiness wrought in such children. This proposition here, that their children are holy, if so understood, is but an indefinite proposition, not universal, yet coming near to an universal, and so more distinct and express than any other promises given to any sort of men ; that is, it is not to be understood that God does certainly and infallibly sanctify all and every one of their children, but that he sanctifies some of them, yea, more of them than of any other sort, but how many we know not. An indefinite proposition is less than an universal, for it intends but some, not all, yet not naming or defining those some in particular, we cannot discern them from the rest ; but it confusedly, and in the lump, says it of them all, as when it is said, Christ came into the world to save sinners. It is not an universal proposition, for he died not for all; nor a particular proposition, for he names not, nor defineth ir/iom, but indefinitely speaks it of sinners, in a middle unlimited sense, between both.

I will explain this assertion by these three things.

(1.) You must know that all God s promises given unto men in his

CHAP. VI.] OF ELECTION. 4G7 revealed will are but indefinite expressions of his decrees and purposes. God having in his decree culled out of mankind certain persons whom his love was pitched upon, hath therefore given an indefinite promise or expres sion to mankind, that he will save sinners ; and again, * Peace on earth, good will towards men, Luke, ii. 13, 14. And the difference between those his decrees, and these his indefinite promises, is but modalis ; for whereas in his secret will, and in the book thereof, he hath named the persons who, and who not, he in his revealed will, and the book thereof, hath concealed the names of the persons, and declared his purpose indefinitely only

good will to men; not to all, but to some of mankind, confusedly and in the lump, not distinctly. So as God s secret and revealed will do still coincidere, they come all to one. There is plain dealing in it ; in his indefinite promises he means those, and those only, whom he hath chosen ; only he conceals their names, that all may consider it. Now, further, for a more special direction to find out where God s elec tion runs, look what sort of men it hath pitched upon most, those these indefinite expressions and promises do single out, and point at as the lump wherein election lies ; so that some promises are like the star that led the wise men to the very town where Christ was, so they do direct us to the lump or mines of election, they are the directory stars of election ; as when it is said, God hath chosen the poor of the world. So also, God having elected out of Seth s posterity, and rejected Cain s, his promises were given to Seth, not to Cain. When the Jews were the golden mine of election, theirs were the promises and adoption, yet indefinitely made to them : Rom. ix. 4, Who are Israelites ; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, the promises. But when the Gentiles came in, and of them all nations, then God broke up the mines of election, and declared that he had elect among all nations the whole world over. And when the time came that the shoals of election was to be made up out of all nations, then was that com mission given, Go teach all nations, &c., Mat. xxviii. 19, and not till then.

This James gives as the reason of that promise in the prophets about the calling of the Gentiles : Acts xv. 16, Known unto God are his works from the beginning. It comes in to this sense (his scope being to expound a promise in the prophets to be meant prophetically of the Gentles in those times), God knowing what he had to do, and whom he had chosen, and knowing that in these times his elect were all the world over, hath accord ingly shaped the promise to his decrees, and given the promise of calling the Gentiles unto these times ; whereas before, whilst election was only among the Jews, the promises were confined to them. So that God s promises, like that star, do still point out to election, and do remove as election doth.

And so here is a promise, you see, stands over the lump or mass of believers children ; yea, a special star on purpose, like a hand in a margin, points at them above all mankind beside, because among them election is most and chiefly to be found.

(2.) Secondly, To this purpose consider that these indefinite promises, or expressions of God s decrees, unto men, and to several sorts of men, though they be all indefinite, and not distinctly and particularly naming the persons yet in respect of this their designation, some of them are more express and particular than others. There are several degrees and latitudes ot them: some do more confusedly and widely point out these elect, some more nearly and distinctly; some take a greater compass, some a narrower ;_ some speak more remotely, others with a more special and nearer designation. I may express it under that distinction you read in Eph. n. 17 and Isa. Ivii. 19,

468 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. some are afar off and some are nigh. The promises given the Gentiles were more remote, and far off; for there were such multitudes in all nations, as to make promises to some of that multitude was very remote, it being as if one should speak of gold mines in the West Indies, not defining where ; which how wide an expression were it, and how far off should such an one

! But if he should say there -are abundance of great mines in the speak land of Jewry, even within that little compass of people, how nigh should he speak, and how nigh would every man of them that had fields and pos sessions think himself of the possession of a mine ! This were a near defin ing of them, though with some indefiniteness, a contracting them within a narrower circle; but if a family were designed, as the house of David, like the naming of a particular field where these treasures were hid, this were yet more near, yet not perfectly and distinctly defining, yet within a little. Now, in such several degrees of indefinites, more or less, hath God been pleased to reveal himself and his decrees according to his good pleasure. See it in the first promise given, the promise of the Messiah; how vastly in definite was itl The seed of the woman; it took in all mankind, and pointed out one man amongst all. How far off was this from directing how to find who this was ! The next promise was more definite, and contracted to a narrower compass, even to Abraham s seed, cutting off all nations and families besides, and yet further contracted to Isaac. Isaac had Jacob and Esau; Esau was cut off, and God limited it to Jacob; but he had twelve sons. Now, hqw indefinite is the promise again become! Then it was confined to Judah, but Judah had many families; then it was contracted to David s, and to Bethlehem the city of David ; and then, yet nearer, to a virgin of the house of David, a virgin shall conceive a son; and there the star stands even over that field and womb where the Messiah was laid. So in the choice of David to be king; first he makes an indefinite promise of the sceptre to Judah, which naming of the tribe was remote, even one amongst thousands. Then he names the family: 1 Sam. xvi. 1, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons. This was still indefinite, but very near, for it was one among seven ;* and yet Samuel bids sanctify them all, and that they come to the sacrifice, ver. 5, for he knew not whom it would fall upon. Thus it is in the case in hand in the promises of salvation, in which election is more or less indefinitely pro pounded. That promise, peace on earth, good will towards men, Luke ii. 14, was very remote, and yet was a true expression of God s decree, that he had chosen millions of men, not angels; but then it came to the Jews: I am not sent but to the lost sheep of Israel, says Christ, Mat. x. 6, and * ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant ; unto you first God sent his Son to bless you, Acts iii. 25, 26. This was near ; but when it came to such as were converted Salvation is come to this house, Luke ix. 9; Thou shalt be saved, and thy household, Acts xvi. 31; yea, your children are holy it comes so near, that he indefinitely pronouneeth them truly holy upon it. In that heap or lump of believers children, there is so much wheat of election, and so little chaff comparatively to it, as he ventures to call the heap holy.

(3.) For, thirdly, if you examine it, you shall find that there is no pro mise of salvation to any sort of mankind so near an universal promise as this is; and therefore it is justly the peculiar privilege to this sort of man kind, believers children, to be accounted holy, it is so near, so distinct a designation. For, [l.J That to mankind, and to all nations, reaches one of an hundred thou-

* Qu. eight ? ED.

CHAP. YL] OF ELECTION. sand; and where there is an hundred thousand to one, there is no reason that all should be accounted holy for the sake of those elect ones. l God hath chosen the poor of this world, James ii. 5 is nearer, but not so near as to pronounce them holy upon it : for the poor are the greatest part of mankind, and the elect but as an handful among them, it may be one among a thousand; and though there are not many rich or noble called, 1 Cor. i. 26, and so. more of the poorer sort than of the rich, yet this was still too large or indefinite to design election forth, for the poor are an hundred times the greater part of mankind. And so though there be fewer elect among the rich, yet it is because indeed there are fewer of mankind that are rich, wherefore the account may come near unto one in this respect. As many of the rich, comparing number to number, may be elect as of the poor, only the poor being so much the greater number, there are the more of them elect. But none of the designments are near enough to be cognisances of election, nor to know love or hatred by.

[2.] That the promise to the poor

But this of being children of believers is so near, this lump contains so much of election in it, as that whereas all others are ten thousand to one, this is but as two to one, yea, it may be the most, it may be all in some families. So that God thought good to make this an outward badge of holi ness, for the church to account them holy upon it. It is not here, as among Jesse s sons, one of seven ; but it may be (and sometimes falls out) seven to one of them prove godly (notwithstanding Samuel bade all Jesse s sons sanc tify themselves upon it and come to the sacrifice, 1 Sara. xvi. 5). And God, to whom his decrees, and works, and where his elect lay, were known from the beginning, hath pronounced them to us in an indefinite proposition, to be holy, and bidden us to sanctify them all, and bring them to the sacrament of baptism.

Thus you see how far the reality of the thing itself, it is an indefinite proposition, that their children are holy and elect; and yet not of that vast indefiniteness that other promises are of, but exceeding near to a particular designment, and of all promises the most express.

8. Now, for the third and last head propounded, for the making up an har mony between these two, namely, the reality of such children s holiness in the event; and, secondly, the extent of our judgments about such children s holiness ; as also between God s revealed will and his secret; these things may be said, (1.) That if these two, the extent of the reality itself and our judgments, be singly and alone compared together, they will never be commensurable, as made up even and adequate each to other. At the latter day, when our catalogue of saints, whom we judged such, shall be brought in, it will be found much larger than God s, and that we did set down ciphers for figures ; and so our account, numerically taken, will fall short of God s.* This must be acknowledged, that an arithmetical harmony can never be made between these two.

(2.) Yet, secondly, we must withal consider, that between these two even now mentioned there comes a middle, put by God between both, namely, that same indefinite revelation of God s mind to us, both about these chil dren s holiness and about what is our duty to think of them. And take that in with the other two, and between all these three compared one with an other, there will be found some kind of harmony; for you shall see that this indefinite expression of God s mind differs not on God s part from the reality of what in the event falls out; and also that this his revealed will about them, * Qu. God s account, numerically taken, will fall short of ours ? ED.

470 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. and his secret will towards them, come all to one, and so that they two agree. And you shall see withal that this our judgment of each children s holiness is but rightly conformable to that indefinite expression. And therefore, see ing they agree in this third, they must in the end meet together ; for qua conveniunt in aliquo tertio, inter se conveniunt.

To demonstrate this of each severally. In God s relation there are two parts distinctly to be considered (as hath been said): 1. A declaration what his own thoughts are of such children indefinitely delivered.

2. A rule thereupon given us, what our thoughts should be of each child : we are to think any of them holy.

1. Now for the first, consider it as a declaration to us of God s mind about them, and there is no dissonancy at all between this his declaration and his secret will.

For, first, God speaks but the truth of what he hath purposed, and that truth is adequate to his decree, his speech is no larger than his meaning ; because, according to his secret will, all such children are not holy, there fore he says not that all are holy, but he speaks indefinitely, tlwy are holy ; yea, himself hath in his eye those very children only whom he really intends to make holy. He can truly say at the latter day, when he shall have all about him, I meant these, and no other. Only indeed, for the present, he does not distinctly declare his whole mind to us, by telling us particularly who they were.

Yea, and secondly, it became him so to do. It is meet and fit that the great God should thus reveal his mind unto us ; for he speaks but like himself, even as the only wise and great God, in his distances to us, who are not (nor was it fit that we should be) of his privy council. It is his distance and his glory to conceal a matter, as Solomon says, Prov. xxv. 2 ; even as it is of a wise, great king, who will reveal so much of his mind as shall serve to set his instruments on work, to bring about the design which he hath in his thoughts, but reserves the rest to himself. Just so does God here, not telling us how many, or who these holy ones are, but points to that lump as holy, so to set us a-work to bring them all to the ordinances, that he may bless those unto whom he intends a blessing ; so as this inde finite declaration disagreeth not from his secret will, but withal hath a fitness and a decorum in it, becoming the great and wise God. 2. And for the second, that upon this his indefinite declaration, there should be a command given us, to think any one of them holy, with such a judgment as is before (and shall be afterwards) declared, there is no disso nancy at all in this neither.

For, 1, this ariseth but from a necessary conformity of our judgment to the indefiniteness of God s declaration of his mind ; for when God speaks indefinitely, it becomes us to judge indefinitely, and to do that duty which upon such a judgment is due to them from us. If God think it meet thus to speak of that lump, it is meet for us, without prying into his secrets, so to judge of any one in particular, though not of all in general. It is but righteous for God to require it, and a due from us to be given them ; so that, as I said of the former part of this revelation, that God spake truth, and nothing but the truth, though not the whole truth, in that his indefinite declaration of his mind about them, so I say of this second part, that that respects our duty, that God commands in righteousness, when he requires us to think so of any one of them ; for this to be our duty ariseth naturally from the indefiniteness of God s expression about them. Even as it is God s will, that we on our part should pray for any man that he may

be saved, because God hath indefinitely declared his mind, that he will save some of all sorts : as 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2, 4, I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men ; for kings, and for all that are in authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

And thus, whilst our thoughts conform themselves to that rule, there is no dissonancy neither, from God s mind, as it respecteth our duty, although we in our thoughts should judge some holy, who are not so in his intention ; for the immediate rule unto which our thoughts are to be conformed, is not God s own secret purpose, so as we should think just as God thinks of every one, or else our thoughts would be unrighteous ; but God s revelation of his thoughts being only indefinite, does rather call for this at our hands as a duty, and it becomes meet on our part to think any one of those children holy that are presented to us. Now the truth or righteousness of things lies in a conformity to their immediate rule ; as the rule of speech is not immediately the truth of things themselves, but the truth of the apprehen sion of him that speaks it, that he speaks but as he thinks, and ought to think. So is it here. So that, for the reconciling of all, consider but three things drawn out of what was last spoken ; unto which I shall add a fourth.

First, Where the variation of our judgments herein from God s thoughts does first come in, from whence it is that they prove uneven : that it ariseth merely on our parts, and, as it were, upon a second remove ; and, indeed, from the unmeetness that God should tell us all his mind, and the uncapableness of us to know it. And so, secondly, that the rules whereby we are left to judge of their estates must necessarily be larger than the reality ; so as, if God would require us at all to judge any of them holy, and upon that judgment to per form such and such duties to them as to saints, then the rules given us by God therein must of necessity be larger than the reality in the event will prove to be, seeing we could not know men s hearts, nor was it fit that God should design the persons by name. Thus it is in judging them of riper years. The rules by which God hath commanded us to judge men holy, are larger than what in the event proves true. Foolish virgins are judged wise by us, as well as those who really are so ; and yet on our parts it is the will of God that we should judge them holy. And though, at the latter day, there will be found greater odds between our thoughts arid God s own thoughts concerning men, yet still our thoughts will be found to have had a true conformity unto what God s mind was, we should think ; and why might not as large a rule be given to judge infants by, as to judge those of riper years, that so we might be sure to take in all elect infants, and bring them to God, though we bring many others besides? Even as by the rules whereby we judge saints of riper years, we take in all elect, though many other with them ; which is necessary if God will have it pass our judgment, especially seein that concerning infants no other rule can be given

And so, thinly, consider that therefore there is yet a moral harmony between our thoughts herein and God s mind about what is our duty ; though not an arithmetical harmony between God s thoughts and ours Concerning the children themselves ; which is sufficient, seeing revealed things only to us and our children, and secret things to God alone, whose gloiy * lnd that there will fall yet a nearer harmony than that simply moral one (which notwithstanding were enough to justify this

472 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. our judgment) ; for let our judgment be truly and rightly conformed to God s revelation, and it will not in some respect fall much wide of God s own secret judgment herein, nor from the reality of the thing itself in the event ; for though it be true that the application of this revelation of God s by us, will be to many more persons than God intended, yet still if we do but conform our judgment unto God s revelation, there will arise such con siderations from the manner of it as will rectify this calculation, and make all even again.

For, first, if our judgment of such infants be truly conformed to God s indefinite revelation as its rule, then, though we come to particulars, and count these infants one by one, we do judge of any one, and so (by induc tion) of every one of them, because God hath spoken it indefinitely, yet when we take them again into a general consideration in the lump, we withal judge, that not every one of them are holy, but, on the contrary, that many of them are unholy ; and thus because God hath not universally spoken it of all, but only indefinitely of some, so as, when our minds form up a logi cal proposition of these infants, binding them up in one bundle, and laying them on one heap, we then judge as God doth, that not all and every one are holy, but some only ; but when we come to an arithmetical enumeration of them, by judging as occasion is of this or that infant individually presented to us, then, indeed, we apply this to them, this infant we think holy, and so that other, and the next no less. And so, indeed, though in our judgment given of them by retail, it rises to a larger sum than God intends, yet by that other judgment made by the great, there is an abatement given of an indefinite number out of them ; in the whole mass of them we think many unholy. And so, in the total sum, God s account and ours fall near ; yea, they jump one with the other, in that this judgment of ours being given of them in the gross and in the bulk, so as how many, or how few are such, we suspend, and leave a blank to set them down in as God s account at the latter day shall come in ; so that, indeed, that sum which by parcels comes to exceed, is by the great subtracted from, and in the end all made even ; and we come to be mistaken but about this or that person, not in the total sum, or upon the whole. In a word, the variation is but our several ways of account. Cast them up one way by induction, or particular enu meration, and the number exceeds, but count another way, and it falls even. And secondly, for that mistake in our judgments in having applied it to others more than are holy, there is yet an allowance given in the manner of our judging them, and so an abatement for this from the judgment itself, which also truly ariseth from its very conformity to the indefiniteness of God s revelation. For when it is so conformed, the judgment we pass upon any one infant is not of certain and absolute persuasion or assurance, such as we have about our own estates when sealed by the Spirit, or such as we have of this truth, that every believer shall be saved : but it is an indefinite judgment only of strong inclination, and expectation to see how God will perform his word to this or that infant ; such as we have of ourselves in case of our want of assurance. It is more than a simple it may be, or what knowest tJiou ? as 1 Cor. vii. 16, for that may be said of any unbeliever s child ; but it is with a hopefulness, much weight being put into the balance to sway it that way, though not to down weight, to assurance, yet so far to sway as to become a just ground for us to carry ourselves unto them, as unto actual saints, and so to put a difference between them and other chil dren, as is proper to saints, even to honour them, esteem them, and bring them to the ordinances of baptism as due to saints. For so we are to do to others of ripe years, when yet we have not a persuasion of assurance that

they are holy; and so also to ourselves. Now, for us to give them such a judgment as this, see how conformable and suitable it is to God s revelation, and what an harmony it holds with its indefiniteness, which is the thing in hand.

For, first, because God says not that all are holy, therefore conformably our judgments do not certainly think of any one infant that it is holy. If God had said all, we would have with assurance and a persuasion of cer tainty said it of any one. But God s speech not stretching itself to an universality, our judgment riseth not to an assurance.

Secondly, Because God hath said it but indefinitely of some, therefore our judgment is also but indefinite.

And yet, thirdly, because this indefiniteness is nearer to an universal, than limited to a few of them, therefore our opinions and expectations are raised to a greater hopefulness for any one that he is holy, than that he is not. It is more than an it may be ; for that answers to those large inde finites spoken of sinners in respect of the rest of mankind, which because they are a thousand to one, therefore we have an it may be answerable. But because election here contracts itself so narrowly, as suppose it may take two or three, therefore our hopes are correspondent, and do rise so high as to express a judgment such as inclines rather to their holiness than otherwise ; it casts the balance so far that way, as to bind us to deal with them as with saints. Yea, as I said, that God s revelation came a middle way between our thoughts and his own, so this is a middle kind of faith between assurance and a mere it may be ; and that sufficient enough to quiet the heart against all fears to the contrary, and to raise it up to a special expectation concerning them to see how God performs his word ; there being likewise enough to warrant our applying the ordinance to them as due to saints. So then, this allowance being given to the judg ment itself, it comes to pass, that though arithmetically we give it unto more children for number than the reality proves, yet it is a judgment spread so thin, that for the weight of it, it will be ad pondus, no more than a judgment of certain persuasion towards a few. And so there is a geome trical proportion still kept, though not an arithmetical.

. CHAPTEE VII.

That God orders his election, so as to run in a successive line from godly parents to their children, does not infringe the freedom of election grace. That this his way of acting is consonant to all the principles of right reason, and agreeable"with his other proceeding*. The admirable harmony which appears in all his dispensations towards men. How comely a pro portion there is in this truth, that God should draw his election and series of visible saints out of the loins of those who are such themselves, rather than others of mankind, made apparent by a comparison of it with other dispensa tions offree grace.

Now because all God s gracious dealings and dispensations, though most free and arbitrary, are yet in wisdom so ordered, that they are consonant to right reason, and though not founded upon it, do yet agree with it, we therefore shall further clear these two things, and then we shall have,nmshed this great point.

1. That God should choose the seed of his elect, and order electio to run in a right line, is no prejudice at all to free grace shewn forth

474 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. in electing, neither contraries any other principles of his own which he goes by. 2. It is most consonant unto, and falls in with, all other principles of right reason, and conformable to other of his proceedings.

1. First, It infringes not the freedom of his grace, and the principles he goes by in election.

For, first, election is not founded on it at all, but ex mero Dei beneplacito ; God in election not first considering those persons as children of such parents, as being the motive thereunto, seeing in election men came up before him as creabiles, as yet to be created, to such a glory as in heaven they shall have. That was the notion which they appeared to him in. God looked to the end of his works at the beginning, in which he was wholly and absolutely free, only ordaining they should go through this world as a passage to glory ; he moulded their condition here to many holy ends and respects, wherein his love should appear : as that they should be ordinarily poor, not many wise nor noble ; that they should live in such places, and come of such parents. These respects were not before election, to draw it on, but subserving it as means to manifest that his love the more. And such is this, that his elect should come out of the loins of his elect by his own ordering, which is a respect that manifests his love in electing the more, both unto the fathers and to the children, for which end he ordains it, so as, in the execution and drawing forth his love, these respects come in, but not as grounds and foundations of it. And thus, in a true sense, Rom. xi. 28, the Jews are said to be beloved for their fathers sakes, but not for their sakes elected.

Secondly, As election was free in choosing the Jews, and is free in the choice of those Jews who are to come, and yet God took in this respect too their fathers in it notwithstanding, so it is in ours, and so it goes not by birth as the moving cause, but as the subserving instrument or means to manifest that his love the more, both to the father and the child.

And therefore, thirdly, God oftentimes, if not usually, to shew his grace takes not all the seed : Do you say wherein have I loved you ; was not Esau Jacob s brother, yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau ? Mai. i. 2. Now, secondly, let us consider what harmony in reason there is for this, that God should ordain the children of holy parents to be holy. Something to which purpose I have before hinted sparsim in this discourse, as, (1.) That God hath implanted even in affection, yea the gracious affections of parents, the strongest desire of their children s salvation, next to their own ; and God knows the heart of a father, as having a Son himself whom he loves, and whom also out of love he chose and ordained heir of all things, Heb. i. 2. Therefore to comply with their desire of his own implanting, he hath ordered the corning forth of his elect in this world so as they shall rather issue out of the loins of his elect than of others, who would not have hearts to desire any such privilege for their children, nor would ever acknow ledge it a mercy. It was indifferent in itself, through whose loins his elect should come, for that served but to bring forth men whom he would love ; and seeing it would be a gratification from God unto such parents, and but cast away upon others, he rather chose to bestow it upon his own, rather than others.

(2.) And secondly, this is a blessing and privilege more than merely outwards, or which extends but unto this life ; it is a spiritual blessing, and reacheth to eternity, and of its comfort the inward man is only capable. All spiritual affections of love to others, though drawn forth in, and by, fleshly relations, will continue for ever ; so what spiritual love hath been drawn out between

CiiAP. VII.J OF ELECTION. 475 man and wife will continue in heaven, as it is an honour to Christ for ever : * Lo I, and the children whom thou hast given me ; and to ministers their converts are their crown in the day of Christ, and so likewise are such children to such fathers. It had been a small thing to Abraham to have been counted the father of the faithful, if his comfort from it had been but what he had when he was here, and saw none but Isaac and Ishmael of his seed ; no, it is yet to come, when at the day of judgment he shall see so many of God s beloved ones to have been taken out of his loins.

(3.) On God s part, it became him to do this favour for his children, for it agrees with the exactest rules of friendship (which towards his elect God professeth to walk by, and keep unto) that can be found upon earth, to be a friend unto the family of a friend, a friend unto his house after him ; than this, there is no higher commendation of friendship. David and Jonathan, you know, were the noblest pair of friends and highest patterns of friendship we read of in story, and see what a covenant they make each with other : * Thou shalt not only while yet I live shew me the kind

1 Sam. xx. 14, 15, ness of the Lord ; but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever ; and, verse 42, their oath was between each other s seed for ever, between thy seed and my seed. Now God professeth himself the truest, the completest friend, and therefore no strain of friendship shall men take up which he will be wanting in, yea, wherein he will not exceed. What ! four thousand years after to remember his covenant with Abraham and Isaac, as in the future conversion of the Jews their seed he will ! Rom. xi. 28, the apostle gives this as a reason of that their conversion, they are beloved for their fathers sake. What an unheard of friendship is this ! Can men boast of the like ? You know God professeth of Abraham, that he was his friend : James ii. 23, and he was called the friend of God ; and in this very respect God chose his seed ; and the covenant with them takes in this very consideration (and unto that of his is ours conformed), thus expressly, Isa. xli. 8, Thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. You may see how his choice runs : Israel whom 1 have chosen, the seed of my friend ; you have it also pleaded by them, 2 Chron. xx. 7, Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever ?

But the reasons which I most aim at, may be fetched from that comely and like answerable proportion that this his dispensation holds with his other ways of grace. It is just like the course he holds in other his proceedings of grace toward his elect, which I have long observed conformed to U rules following, which all are found to hold in this also, and so may & as so many reasons of the point. .

(1.) I have long observed it by many instances, that God in his ways oi grace since the fall, useth, as much as possibly may stand with grace, nis old institutions given to man in innocency, and takes them all m lor to suoserve grace, and keeps unto them ; and it is his honour so to do, for thereby he much upholds the glory of his wisdom, and constancy to himself ; he will not be put out of his way by man s sin. Therefore look what end he appointed anything for in innocency, he under grace tefa* it, and so it as it will any way serve to that end, he useth it and retains it, varying fror it as little as may be. The old statutes of the first foundation he takes, and translates them into this new foundation. And thus he having ordained marriage in innocency to derive his covenant of works together with his image unto mankind, therefore he useth it still to tha very end to convey his covenant of grace, so far as may be. But to clear this rule to you, upoi

476 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. which this reason is founded, namely, that God doth indeed observe some such like rule as this in his way of grace.

[1.] First see it in the law, which, if anything, was like to fall most cross to any use under the covenant of grace ; and you shall see that all the ends God intended it for, he brings about under the gospel, in a subserving way unto grace. God gave man a law to give him life, Do this, with promise to reward him for his works, and that with life, and thou shalt live ; even as wages are given to a labourer who is worthy of his hire. This was the pri mitive ordinance of the law at first ; but man s sin perverted and put the law clean by from attaining this its end. The commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death, Eom. vii. 10, which gave a full demonstration of sin s being so above measure sinful, that it should so utterly pervert God s ordinance, as the apostle speaks, verse 13. But will God now be utterly put by from using at all the law under grace to this end ? No ; he will shew that the sin of man cannot wholly make void the ordi nance of God. He will not cast it away, because sin hath spoiled it r but will find out a new way how under grace to make use of it to this end. And although to make that direct use of it, that it had before (namely, to save and justify man by the tenure of its covenant, Do this and live), is as incom patible with grace as sin itself is, as the apostle shews, Rom. iii. 27, 28, and chap. iv. 14, and chap. xi. 6 ; so that indeed, if a man should be justi fied by the law, it were not of grace, seeing they are aauffrara ; yet God loves his own institution so well, that all the indirect use it can serve to, it shall, so far as it may stand with grace. So Rom. iii. 81, Do we make void the law through faith ? No, we establish it, all that may be ; for though the law cannot bring to life, itself being weakened through sin, Rom. viii. 3, yet it shall bring unto Christ, Gal. iii. 24, and he shall give life and justification. And how shall Christ give life ? By the righteousness of the law stilL For though the righteousness of the law performed by us doth not justify us,, yet that righteousness by which we are justified shall not be any other than the righteousness of that law performed by another, even by Christ ; God resolved still to make use of it, as far as will stand with grace. So though it be not the righteousness IK rou vopov, as the phrase is, Philip, iii. 9-, yet it is diKdiufta rot VO/AOV, the righteousness of the law, materially taken, which is fulfilled in our justification, Rom. viii. 4, though not the righteousness of the law formally taken ; that is, which justifies by the tenure of it, and by the force it hath from the law, and the covenant of it ; as the act of a man put out of office is not formally the same act that it wa& when he did it ex officio, yet it is materially the act of the same man ; so it is not of the law in officio, as before, but yet it is the righteousness of the law by which Christ justifies us still ; that is, it is the very same righteousness, for the matter of it, which the law enjoins, and which, if Christ had not performed, he had not justified us.

Then, likewise, when he sanctifies us, he makes all the use of the law that may be. He writes it in the heart as at first, though with new ink indeed, yet with the same letters and holy dispositions, so as it is not a new but an old commandment : 1 John ii. 7, Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning ; the old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Look how it guided man before, so it guides him still, God would make what use he could of it in that work also. Yea, and let me add this, that though he hath utterly excluded works and dispositions of grace conformable to the law from being the ground of justification, or of faith justifying us, or which faith should so look into, yet he hath ordained

CHAP. VII.] OF ELECTION. them to be evidences of justification, and so a support to faith, and hath made what use might be that way without prejudice to grace. So, Rom. J

& ^aS * at then whlch is Sood made death unto me? God forbid. But sm that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good ; that sm by the commandment might become exceeding sin ful. For we know that the law is spiritual ; but I am carnal, sold under sm. For that which I do I allow not : for what I would, that do I not but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me ; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man : but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity of the law of sin which is in my members.

1 The apostle shews that the use of the law is, as to discover the law of sin in inward dispositions of corruption, so to shew the law of the inward man and his grace ; and to what end, but to help assurance, whereof he treats, chap, viii., and that he might see that there is no condemnation to him who walks after the Spirit, Rom. viii. 1. So when God comes to glorify us, he therein makes what use is possibly to be made of the law by free grace. At first in innocency the works of it were ordained to be, not the measure only, but the rule by which, and ground for which, ex debito, by a due debt, the reward was to be given ; so Rom. iv. 4. But so it cannot be now, for then grace were no more grace, Rom. xi. 6. But yet God will retain and make use of it to serve as a rule of proportion, not of debt, even for grace to dispense its reward by. Though it shall not be propter opera, for our works, as then, yet secundum, opera, according to works. Though it shall not serve as the rule of obligation to tie God to us by debt, yet of proportion according to which God will pro ceed ; though it be not the ethical rule of justice, yet it is the arithmetical. As if a father freely promise to give a son a reward according to his service, he may use the same rates of proportion that to a hireling. Thus you see how grace hath recovered that primitive institution which sin had spoiled. And just so hath God ordained and ordered it in the case in hand. In innocency marriage and begetting of children was an holy institution, ap pointed by God to propagate, as mankind, so his own image of holiness, and the covenant of works wherein God promised to be their God, from father to son in a natural way ; as other creatures begat in their kind, so man in his kind. And therefore God makes the first covenant of works with the father of mankind, for all the rest of mankind his children to be propagated to them by generation, and blessed male and female to that end, Gen. v. 1, that holy Adam should beget holy children. Now, sin had per verted and made void this institution, as it had done that of the law (as you have heard), and that which was ordained to convey the image of God was now by sin found to convey the image of sin, Gen. v. 3. Adam begets in his own (namely, sinful) image. Yet so far as this institution may be rescued out of the hands of sin, and be used by grace, God will restore it, and establish it again under grace. What was God s primitive institution grace will keep to, and make it subserve itself for the propagating of its own covenant, so far as it is not derogatory unto grace itself. And therefore God sanctifieth marriage still, and maketh an improvement of it in holy men

478 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. and women to the same end that it was at first ordained to. So as the same institution of God s, which was that of nature, does still hold, that * if the root be holy, so are the branches, Kom. xi. 16, and I will be the God of thee, and of thy seed, Gen. xvii. 7. Now this continuing of the institu tion of marriage to such a holy end in people who are holy, was evidently held forth in the nation of the Jews, who were Abraham s seed (it is an instance which I urged before, and therefore will now only mention it), in that Mai. ii. 16, the prophet to convince the Jews (made

an holy people, or holiness to the Lord, as he tells them, ver. 11) of those two sins, the putting away the lawful wives of their own nation, ver. 13, 14, and their marrying strange wives, the daughters of strange gods, ver. 11, he reduceth them to the primitive institution of marriage in innocency (whereunto God would have his people s marriages conformed), when first he made Adam and Eve one flesh, and so to cleave to each other as not to part ; and secondly, ordained their marriage and their being thus made one, to seek a godly seed, which end he still aimed at and intended in the marriages of his people. And this end had they perverted by their mixtures with the heathens, whose marriages God had said he would not bless to that end, but curse them in an ungodly issue. So that it appears that God instituted marriage to the Jews then for the same end that at first ; so as God ordained it then, and now doth ordain it to the same end, only with such a difference as that grace may appear grace. Which difference is apparent by these particulars ; For, 1, then holiness was thus by generation conveyed by virtue of a natural necessary covenant ; but now, though out of a covenant too, < 1 will be the God of thee and thy seed, yet out of a free covenant with his elect, not as a due to the father, as then by the law of nature, by which it was a due that if he begat he should beget in his kind ; but as a mere grant of grace now, yet so as that whereas God might have marshalled his elect to come out of other men s loins, he freely chooseth rather to draw them out of their loins who are his elect. And to shew that it is not as a due, but of grace, he therefore takes not all his elect thence, or all their children, but only for the most part out of that rank, so at once to shew that he keeps to his old institution, and that grace is still grace notwithstanding, and not nature. So as that remains still true that was said by John, they are * born not of flesh (or blood), but of God, John i. 13, yea, and of his own mere will does God beget us, James i. 18. He begets those children of his elect as freely as any other ; only his will was to take out of that lump and mass of the children of elect (as, Rom. xi. 16, the phrase is) rather than of any other.

And, 2, holiness was then conveyed with and by generation itself, as natural endowments are. It was stamped in and with the very conception. The same mould that shaped them men, stamped God s image also. But not so now.

In sin, says David, my mother conceived me, Ps. li. 5 (whose mother yet was a godly woman, and he a godly man, and this by virtue of her covenant also ; for in Ps. cxvi. 16, he pleads it, Truly I am thy servant, I am thy servant, son of thy handmaid, and so in respect of his propagation from her who had devoted herself to be God s servant, he acknowledgeth himself to be such in a double obligation). So as still, by virtue of their father s and mother s generation, they are conceived in sin, and that which that act conveys is nothing but sin ; for necessarily those * wholly children that are sanctified in the womb must first be flesh, and flesh, ere they be sanctified, else this their sanctification were not a regenera tion, or a second birth, as John iii. 6. And so it is true that they are not

born of the flesh or of blood, John i. 13, for when they are thus wholly con ceived in sin, through the influence generation hath on them, then after God comes and sanctifies many of them, sometimes in the womb, sometimes afterward, yet so as though generation serves not herein as the immediate instrument or means to stamp grace, as then it did, yet still it serves as the channel to direct the course in which grace should run and is dispensed. And observe it, this is carried with the very same (or like) terms of differ ence that we observed in God s making use of the law in the covenant of grace to subserve it ; for look as it was not (as was said) the righteousness, Ix roD vo/aou, that is, by the force, power, and tenor of the law formally taken, that now justifies us, yet the same righteousness of the law materially taken, which before should, still doth. So is it here ; the seed of godly parents , whose God he is by covenant, and so the same subjects materially since the fall as before, are ordained to be sanctified, but not the same way ; not from or through their generation, or being begotten of them, formally considered, as was said of the righteousness of the law. So that it may still be said that the primitive law of generation is still fulfilled. And again, in like sense to that (which was also observed of the law) that God is said to reward, not propter, yet secundum opera, not for works, as then, yet according to our works, so here, though the covenant goes not per or propter, for or through their births, yet it is conveyed secundum, according to birth, even as before.

Now to strengthen this rule further, which is made the foundation of this reason, take another instance to confirm it. God s end and institution in making the world, and all the creatures, was, that they should be used by man to holy and glorious ends, as holy utensils employed for God s glory, and together with it make for man s good, and contribute to him (whilst he serves God) every one their help and comfort, as tenants do provisions to their lords ; and this was their primitive liberty and perfection ; but man be ing fallen, Satan enters upon this world as a possession fallen unto him. The creatures are delivered up and betrayed into the hands of Satan and sin, and so are lost unto God and to themselves, they losing that liberty to which they were created, and being themselves subjected to Satan s tyranny, a;id accordingly they are often mustered up in rebellion against men by God, and conspire by cross accidents and events to work his ruin and misery, as once his happiness, as we see in all the crosses and afflictions with which thjs world is fitted. All this you have Rom. viii. ver. 20, 21, The crea tures, says the apostle, were made subject to vanity, not willingly. Their will is that natural instinct which God hath put into them at the first, to arrive at the end for which he made them, against which they are forced to men s lusts, and ravished, and oppressed by them, which is called a vanity, because it is a frustration of that end for which God at first ordained them. But God resolves not to have his primitive end and purpose in creation to be thus frustrated ; therefore to his elect at present, he sets all these crea tures this task, to work together for their good, ver. 28, though not in so direct a way as at first, yet in a more oblique (but certain) course. To this, as to their common mark, they all tend and take their flight, though about, by the bow, as we say, not by the string, grace will work and wheel them about to their primitive end and institution. And further, God as yet not so fully pleased with so indirect a course, hath appointed a time fully to restore them to this their pristine perfection. He will rescue the poor op pressed creatures out of the hands of sin and Satan ; a day is coming, wherein there shall be holiness to the Lord written upon the bells of horses going to the plough and cart, which shall be as holy in their use to God, as

480 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.

Aaron s bells once were, with which he went into the congregation ; and their pots they drink, or seethe their meat in, shall be holiness to theSLord, as were the bowls before the altar : Zech. xiv. 20, In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord, and the pots in the Lord s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. The prophet speaks of the new Jerusalem, when the saints shall reign. And this you may fur ther see to be God s very aim and end in appointing a time for that new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness dwells, even that he might attain his first institution concerning them. Thus more expressly in Rom. viii. the apostle, speaking of the time of Christ, the second Adam s kingdom, after the resurrection, says that by Adam they were thus indeed subjected, but in hope. For that God s institutions must take place and be restored, although man s sin hath put them out of course, and so they shall be de livered from that bondage of corruption into a glorious liberty.

Just thus had sin spoiled God s first institution of marriage, which was to propagate holiness, and his image, sin clean perverting it to convey Satan s image to all mankind ; but grace towards his elect vindicates it, and sets it a-running in its natural course again. So presently, after the flood, God set grace on work in a line of succession in Seth s posterity, so afterward in the Jews, and so still in the Gentiles. And when the reign of grace shall be fully restored (as in the new Jerusalem it shall), then their seed, and their seed s seed generally and without interruption, shall be for ever holy, as was observed out of Isa. lix. 21 ; for the privileges will be restored which they had in innocency, even as this liberty of the creatures will.

(2.) A second rule which I give, that God hath squared and chalked out his ways and proceedings of grace by, which also falls in with this of his towards the children of elect, and so may further shew the wisdom of God in ordering it thus, is this, that God hath so plotted and contrived his go ings forth of grace, that look by what ways or means sin comes upon man kind for his ruin and destruction, God takes up those very ways to choose, as means to save his elect of mankind by, and effects so to do it. Which holds forth a further thing than the former ; for this shews, that as he makes good his institutions in innocency under grace, so he makes use of the same weapons with which sin was wont to fight against him, and this he chooses to do, as we may observe in many particulars, which we will first view, to make good the rule, and then make use of it in the point in hand.

[1.] Because by a man sin and death came upon man, therefore by a man shall grace come, and the resurrection from the dead. You shall find it given as the reason, 1 Cor. xv. 21, * Since by man came death, by man comes also the resurrection from the dead. God did it on purpose to answer sin in its kind ; it is there brought as the reason of that great counsel of God, of saving us by that man Christ Jesus. Ecrg/Sjj yag, a reason it was, not as the ground of that his counsel, but as concurring with, and fitly falling in with, that his counsel.

[2.] Furthermore, as by one man sin came upon all, so the gift of grace by one man hath abounded unto many, Bom. v. 12, 15.

[3.J Yet further, as Satan used the woman as an instrument to work that one man Adam unto that sin, which by him, not her, is propagated, so God used the woman to bring forth that same one man, Christ, who should re store and save us. This God had in his eye, as appears plainly in that, to confound the devil, he tells him, for if you observe, unto the serpent is that speech directed, that the seed of the woman should break the serpent s head. As if he had said, I will spoil your plot in using the woman ; you had better never have gone that way to work ; the seed of her shall break

thy head. And the apostle himself hints it, for the honour of women, 1 Tim. ii. 15, for having said ver. 14, that the woman was first deceived, and first in the transgression (there speaking of that sin of Eve as a reason of all women s being excluded from all honourable offices in the church, and so laying low and debasing all womankind), he adds notwithstanding that she

for that bear shall be saved (that is, womankind as well as men), by, or ing a child, dia, rqg nxvoyoviaf, namely Christ, in that one of their sex did bring forth Christ to save us, even as one of their sex overthrew us. Thus some of the ancients, and modern divines also, have taken it, that his scope should be, to compare the hand that woman had, and the service she did in saving man, with that ill turn she did man in tempting him to that sin, which brought death upon all ; and so, indeed, the analogy or proportion between these and the former words is more full and direct, and ad idem, for, First, So he compares the eminent act of one woman in sinning, with the most eminent act of a woman in doing good.

Secondly, It is so made the reason why women should be saved notwith standing. The Greek hath it, d.a rqg, &c. for that child-bearing ; there is an article added, and dia is a note of causation, as rendering a reason why womankind (though one of them damned man) should be saved, seeing they made a recompense, as he had alleged the other as a reason of their debase ment.

And thirdly, Thus also it is more general, as reaching to the honour of all women, as the other doth unto the dishonour of all, whereas otherwise that ordinary child-bearing is but of mothers only. I do not exclude that other interpretation, that he speaks of the proper calling of women, in which (as some read it) God hath ordained to save them, as in opposition to what he had said of excluding them from speaking and bearing offices in the church, those high callings ; yet so, as I think, being taken in this sense, rendereth it more for their honour, as more generally reaching all women, even as Eve s fall reacheth universally to their dishonour ; whereas the calling of child-bearing reacheth but some of women only, namely, mothers.

[4.] Fourthly, The way by which Adam s sin was derived, was by imputa tion, he representing us all ; and God, to make us amends, takes the same course to justify us, by imputing or reckoning Christ s righteousness ours, who represented us also in his obedience.

[5.] Fifthly, Satan insinuating a temptation by discourse to the outward ear deceived Eve, and she through unbelief listening to his temptation, fell and ruined us. And God hath ordained in recompense, the preaching of the gospel, and hearing of it, to beget faith, and faith all graces else, and so to be the instrument of saving us.

The like correspondent recompense (to instance in no more) hath Croc made in the thing in hand, by ordaining a succession of his elect in a line, and an engrafting the children into the fathers covenant, thereby ordering that generation should in some respect be the channel and stream for his free grace to run into the vessels of mercy, because that generation is and was the instrument that conveyed sin and the curse to us and ours ; that so blessing might come in at the same door upon us, through which the curse entered. Only, as the apostle says, in that like case which we instanced in, Rom. v., that as by one man sin entered, so by one man grace, yet witl a glorious difference on grace s part ; so as ver. 15 16, he gives a different glory to grace, Not as the offence, so is the free gift ; the one entered upon all men* ver 12, naturally and necessarily, but grace conies upon them and is ^ceived as a free gift, ver. 16-18. So here, propagation is used il H VOL. IX.

482 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. as tlie channel of grace and as the channel of sin ; but so to be understood, as with a servatis semper prarogatims gratia, with a not as by any natural influence generation hath, as it conveys sin, naturally and necessarily ; but this other is freely conveyed, and therefore oftentimes is not derived until the children be come to ripe years, and not at all to some of their children, to shew that grace will be grace in it ; yet so as God hath in a great measure freely entailed it to their seed. And the reason why God delights to use the same ways to convey grace which conveyed sin, is, First, By way of compensation, to make them amends, that they might be able to say, that all things are wrought about for their good.

And, secondly, that the same things that tended most unto their hurt should be means of conveying the greatest good.

Yea, thirdly, hereby he justifies his course in conveying sin, and takes off much of the seeming harshness and inequality that wicked men lay to his charge therein, in that he useth the same way to derive a blessing of grace. If they quarrel the imputation of another s sin, the answer is ready, that God hath provided that we may be saved by the imputation of another s righteousness ; if that seem harsh, that men should convey unto their chil dren sin and death together with their being, and that men s very issuing out of the loins of Adam should render them sinful and corrupt, how doth this lenify it, that if they will turn to God they may be made instruments of conveying a blessing to their children greater than that curse, a grace sur passing that sin (for so the promise runs). Why then, man, shouldst thou quarrel against God ?

Fourthly, God therein shews forth the glory of his wisdom, that in those very things wherein Satan dealt proudly God should go beyond him. Satan knowing the curse denounced by God, that if Adam fell, all his children should fall in him, and should by a just law have in their very generation from him that sin derived, thought he, Man s fall will be such a check and blemish unto God s proceedings that it will quite spoil the game, that it can never be played out, but will hold all mankind, young and old, under an inevitable law of being damned, and that by a law which God hath set, which Satan had put this absurdity now upon, that through that very thing by which they are made men they should at once be made sinful men, at once nati and damnati. But how does God circumvent and go beyond him herein, and not only removes out of check, but gives him a mate ! He lets that law stand in full force, and suffers all mankind by generation to be corrupted, and cares not, he having an elect under hand among them, whom * known unto God from the beginning, Acts xv. 16; whom he hath so ranked and mustered in only he means to save, and who above all his works are their succession and genealogy written in his book, that still it may fall out, that by generation this blessing may be conveyed, and that in that line elec tion may run. Thus did God s wisdom lie in ambushment to retort this absurdity back again on sin and Satan, to their greater confusion, which is the most pure revenge and glorious victory that could be.

And this fourth and last reason of the former rule hints me to another rule, by which I have observed God to have regulated his proceedings of grace, which also holds in the matter in hand, and may be a further reason for it ; and it is, that God hath made his proceedings of grace suitable to, and justifiable by, the like common proceedings and principles of men one towards another, so as he will be able to justify them according to the prin ciples taken up by, and current among, men themselves, and to take in all sorts of reasons to make good his ways ; as for instance, that God should love one man, and ordain him a vessel of honour, and not another. Do not

kings the like ? Dan. v. 19, And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down and you quarrel not them. Does not the potter take the same lump, and make vessels of honour and dishonour ?

Who art thou, man, that disputest against God ? Rom. ix. 21. Again, that for the sin of man the creature should be cursed, and his children fall from their dignity with him ; do not men ordain the like by a law of nations ? namely, that traitors houses be made Jakes, their children accounted tainted, oftentimes their whole families ruined and rooted out. So among the Persians, and Grecians, and others. Yet again, that the death and satisfaction of another (namely, Christ) should be accepted to acquit us, which the Socinians can by no means swallow, is just by the con sent and suffrage of all nations, whenas the party that satisfies for that other shall be willing to it, and freely undertake it, as Christ did. This we see in the law of hostages, which is in force and use among all nations, and when the covenants are broken by those for whom they remain hostages, they are justly slain, though in themselves innocent. Now Christ became our surety and an hostage for us. Thus likewise, that we should be justified by the righteousness of another, and have our sins imputed to him, and his obe dience to us-(which the papists stomach at), is justifiable by all laws of men, which enact that the wife s debt should be laid to the husband. Now to bring this down to the point in hand, that the children of godly parents should be holy in our esteem, and that God s elect should have their fathers privilege, it agrees but with the common dictate of nature in all common wealths, cities, and kingdoms, wherein the children are born free, when the parents are so. The children of noblemen are accounted noble ; of gentle men, gentlemen ; of basely begotten, base. The state of the child follows the state and condition of the parent in civil things, and why might not God ordain that in spiritual privileges they should follow their state also, and the children of holy men be, and be reckoned to be, holy ? Shall not God be as large in his favours as men in theirs ? Yea, shall he not rather exceed them ?

CHAPTER VIII.

The uses of the preceding doctrine. What in general we all may be instructed from it to understand how largely God extends his acts of grace and favour.

The uses which the children of godly parents are to make of this doctrine. What obligation is upon them to be holy indeed. What encouragement they have to believe. The uses which belong to the parents of such children. What their duty is to God, and what their carriage ought to be toward such their children.

The uses of this great doctrine, that hath so largely been insisted on, might be many and diverse, if I should go about to draw consequences from the several particulars that have been handled therein. I will only take such as are proper to the general doctrine itself from the explication of it. first use shall be more general, to all sorts of Christians ; the other more particular, to godly parents and their children.

I. General head of uses. Use 1. See how the privileges of grace are stretched to the utmost ei that can stand with its honour ; God loves so to do. In the civil law, it is

484 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. a rule among men that favores sunt ampliandi. All grants of favour are to be the most candidly, largely, and favourably interpreted that may be. The privilege to inherit was granted the female as well as the male, Num. xxvii. 1-8. This, above all, holds in the law of grace, wherein privileges are extended to the utmost. Yea, though many cases of exception inter vene, which haply may cause a demur for a while, yet grace in the end is prevalent, and will not be made void, but triumphs over all. The experi ment of this, as manifestly appears by this doctrine, as it hath been opened out of this 1 Cor. vii., as in any other privilege whatsoever. Let me pre sent it to you by those steps, beginning at the lowest and fundamental step of grace, whereon God rears his other privileges of grace.

It is much that through grace a sinner and enemy to God should be par doned and graciously accepted, and himself be justified and live. Yea, Who is a God like our God, who pardoneth iniquity and sin ? But that ever the prayers, and praises, and vows of a sinner, flowing from so defiled a heart, should be accepted, and the fruits of his soul well pleasing to God, is yet more wonderful ; namely, that the evil of them should not outweigh the little good that is in them, whenas one sin would forfeit all the obedi ence of the most holy angel performed from his first creation. That God should not set off the good in those actions we have done, to clear the backreckonings of their evil, but that he should thus resolve with himself: If I vouchsafe to accept your persons, I will extend my grace yet further, and accept your actions also, and all that is gcod in them ; yea, I will not only pardon the sin of them, but reward them too, and cut off none of the good that you have done for the evil s sake. Yea, further, God will take a desire or thought of ours, and amidst the great heap of evil, he will search out the least scrap of good, as we search for very line of a dead author of worth among scribblings, that nothing of his might perish. Well, but this is not all that God will do for you ; I will accept, says God, the issues of your bodies (and this though you be fathers of no more but the body, as the apostle speaks, Heb. xii. 9), and those souls, which I joined and put into those bodies, though born in sin, shall notwithstanding, for their fathers sake (who yet communicates the body only, which is but the sheath of tho soul, as Daniel calls it, Dan. vii. 15), be converted and made holy. Seeing I have begun to shew grace to their persons, I will extend it yet further, even to all that belongs to them. Yea, though the case be further such, that these children be begotten by unbelievers, whose seed I hate, and that my children have but an half part in them, yet I will shew mercy to them ; and my grace shall further prevail, not against the child s own sin only, but the other parent s curse also, that so grace may every way be grace. God will shew grace in cases wherein men will not. See Jer. iii. 1, 2, They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man s, shall he return unto her again ? shall not that land be greatly polluted ? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers ; yek return again to me, saith the Lord. Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with : in the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness ; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms, and with thy wickedness.

As there is an outstretched arm of power, so ,of grace also, that extends itself to the utmost reach, of kindness beyond all oppositions, and carries out a mercy to the full extension of it. When we first turn to Ged, all that we then think of is to have our sins pardoned, and we wonder that God should vouchsafe so great a mercy to us. But dost thou wonder at tiiis ? Do but give thyself up to free grace, and thou shalt .see greater works than these.

Thou shalt see even sins turned to thy good, thy person in favour with the great God, and advanced to the height of glory to sit upon Christ s throne It a beggar were to be married to a prince, she would think it a great matter to have good lodging and meat enough, but if he take her to be his wife, she must be a queen, and have all the queen s royalties and attendance. The prodigal thought it a great matter to get but meat enough in his father s house.. and to be but as a hired servant. But doth his father mean to entertain him again ? it shall be as a son ; and if so, he will then run to meet him, and make a feast, and set him at the upper end of the table, and manifest expressions of joy. If he shews love, he will shew it indeed. And as it falls out here in this case in hand, that grace carries it and proves a blessing to a believer s child against the other parent s curse when he is an unbeliever, so doth free grace many times procure many a blessing for us against the many stops, and bars, and exceptions which our sins do put in against the promises of God. Grace, like a mighty river, will break and bear down all before it that interposeth itself to interrupt the current of it, and will in the end work itself out. The sin of man "shall not make the promise of God of none effect, Eom. iii. 3. Jacob was blessed by Isaac, but he got it by a lie, which, one would think, should have forfeited the bless ing ; and had it not been the blessing of the covenant of grace, it had. It is true, says Isaac trembling, he hath deceived me ; but he is blessed, and he shall be blessed, Gen. xxvii. 33. Though men will be men, yet God will be God, and his gifts and grants without repentance. He will not recall them. If the promise be given out of grace, then grace will shew itself grace, and remove sin, the obstacle of its receiving. The very salva tion of the elect is often through their sins put to a great venture. And the apostle Peter says, The righteous are scarcely saved (though certainly), there do such strong oppositions fall out, and such diversions of the stream, and yet grace works it out, and bears all down. It seems indeed ofttimes to carry it hardly and narrowly, but still it carries it. There is an else put upon it, as here upon their children s holiness. The children of but one parent, who is a believer, are surely holy ; indeed they scape narrowly a being unclean, yet grace helps them out, and the reason is, because it is grace, and will shew itself to be so. And therefore when God, out of grace, hath begun to shew favour to a man, and to accept him, he is drawn on by grace to pardon thus far, and then further, and in the end so far that it is to wondernment. No man can say where grace will end ; as they say of some rich man. there is no end of his wealth known, so I may say of grace, you know no end of it. The grants of grace run without ifs, and ands, and buts ; there are no exceptions in them. See Nehem. ix., how many yets of mercies, and buts of sinnings there are, and yet grace carries it through all, from ver. 17 to end. And as Solomon says, that none can stand before envy, Pro. xxvii. 4, wrath, though it be cruel, yet may be mitigated: Soft words pacify wrath. Though it be an inundation (as the word is), yet the swelling of it may be stopped ; but who can stand before envy ? seeing no consideration can slake or assuage it. For even that good which is in the party envied (that doth assuage wrath) doth but provoke envy the more. What then can there be to allay it ? So now may I say of grace. No pre judice, no consideration to the contrary, can stand before it ; but it takes advantages the more to shew itself to be grace even from sin, which should provoke it to turn and avert itself from us. When, therefore, what should provoke is turned into a motive to draw it forth in the more pity to us, to save us in that case the rather, even to shew that grace conquers, then who or what can stand before it?

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II. General head of uses. The second sort of uses concerns the children of parents who are godly. 1. This doctrine lays a great and binding obligation and weighty provoca tion upon them to be godly indeed ; for otherwise (like Reuben), what a dignity do theybfall from ! Even from the estimation once had of them that they were holy (which is the highest excellency in the world), to be accounted sinful and unclean, which is more than for one who hath been esteemed and honoured as a prince, and in hopes was such, to be now cast out as vile, and abject, and as the son of the bondwoman, who shall not inherit with the free. They run also into the greatest unnaturalness and unworthiness of carriage towards God that may be ; I call it so, for it is the expression used, Acts xiii. 46. They cast off God, the God of their fathers, which no people ever did. It is the argument of an whole chapter, wherein God pleads it with the Jews : Jer. ii. 9, I will yet plead with you ; he enters into a law suit with them, and complains that they (the children) should forsake the God of their fathers, whom he had entered into covenant with, ver. 2 ; he first expostulates it with them, What iniquity have you and your fathers found in me, ver. 5, that you should forsake me thus ? For which of all my kindness to you, and to your forefathers, do you leave me ? And he empannels a jury against them, out of all nations. Pass over all the isle of Shittim ; that is, Greece, Cyprus, and the other islands in the Mediter ranean Sea, which were then the most superstitious nations and the most firmly addicted to the worship of their gods of any other, and send to Kedar, which was of all nations the most barbarous ; and yet, they have not changed the gods of their fathers ; but my people have changed me their glory ; be astonished, ye heavens, at this, &c. It is so unnatural a thing, that he calls upon the frame of nature to express his sense of it ; he bids the sun look pale at it, as a man in astonishment doth ; and the spheres to let fall their stars, and become desolate at such an horrid sight as this. And that their practice was degenerating from their forefathers appears, ver. 21, where God says he planted their fathers a noble vine, wholly a right seed, for all the patriarchs were godly. Now then, How art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me, the children, though of so noble a root, becoming wild branches. The root was holy, the branches sinful and poisonous. As nothing adds a greater embellishment to virtue than the continuance of it in a race and succession from father to son (for nobility is but the continuance of virtue, riches, and honour in a family), so nothing more aggravates the vices of children than their degeneration from their parents. And the sins of the fathers will be recompensed upon the children, if they walk in their fathers steps ; so will the holiness of the fathers increase the children s sins and punishments, if they prove not answerably holy. How often comes it in to make up the measure of the sinfulness of each of those wicked kings, * He walked not in the ways of David his father, as well as He walked in the ways of Jeroboam his father, as it was said concerning the kings of Israel. What! prove a rebel, a traitor to thy father s God ? So you have it in Moses s song, Exod. xv. 2, and therefore say as they there, The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation : he is my God, and I will prepare him an habi tation ; my father s God, and I will exalt him. You see he riseth higher upon that double relation, he is my father s God, and I will exalt him. What ! wilt thou prove a traitor to thy father s friend ? This is the highest ingratitude that can be. See what Solomon says in Prov. xxvii. 10, * Thy own friend, and thy father s friend, forsake not. For such a friendship is the highest commendation of friendship, and such a friend hardly to be

found ; and therefore it is the part of a sordid and ungrateful spirit to leave such a friend. God was a friend to thy father, made a covenant with him to be the God of him and his seed, and offers himself to be thy friend; ; and wilt thou forsake him ? Solomon, we see, renewed the league of amity with Hiram, 1 Kings v. 1, 12, merely because friendship had been between him and his father David ; and so do thou with God, who then will love thee for thy own sake, and double his love upon thee for thy father s sake (so thou shalt be beloved for both), as the phrase is, Rom. xL 28. So Solomon is called beloved of God, because of his father David, 2 Sam. xii. 25 ; and so thou shalt have a double portion of love from him, and be his Benjamin in comparison of other saints.

A second use to* such children is, when they are converted, to provoke them unto more holiness. Where there are more encouragements and more helps, there lies a greater obligation unto obedience. God hath provided for your ease in the point of believing. He hath prevented doubts, and temptations, and the turmoil of your spirits that way r that so you might lay it out the more another way. He hath eased you in the work of believ ing, that you might spend the more strength in works of obedience. Again, as your obedience shall be first accepted before others, so you shall be the first and most forward of all others in matters of obedience. Being worthies, you should fight in the fore-front, and though others of your rank do worthily, you should exceed them all. How does the continuation of ancient nobility in a family raise the spirit to more noble actions than others of an inferior birth aspire to ? Their fathers blood boils in their veins, their virtues in their hearts ; so let your father s or mother s graces. And the longer the succession hath held in a right line, the more forcible should your provocation be not to degenerate. There is no disposition in nature but it is found in and heightened by grace. God takes in all natural dispositions, and conforms gracious dispositions suitable and like unto them, as the rules and dispositions of friendship between man and man he takes in to the ways of grace, and expects that we should observe them toward himself, and be as friendly unto him as ever we should be to men. And so he takes in this disposition of nature also. There should therefore be a correspondent proportion found in grace. And look what nobility would work in men sprung from noble parents, to do beyond others in a natural way, that let this royal privilege draw from your spirits in a spiritual way. Be you unto God above others a royal generation or kindred, as Peter speaks, 1 Peter ii. 9, and, like David s worthies, excelling all his other soldiers. Beckon yourselves to be the patricii, the nobles of this kingdom, and behave yourselves accordingly. And consider that your engagements are double to those of other men. Even as eourtiers reckon themselves to be doubly the servants of the king, not as his subjects only, but as belong ing to his family in a more proper way, so are you doubly become the ser vants of God, and therefore should do him double service. Thus David, having a godly mother, reckoned that as a special obligation binding him to < Truly, Lord, I am thy servant ; I am thy serve God. So Ps. cxvi. 16, servant; he speaks it twice, as acknowledging a double obligation. And what those ties were follows: the one personal, -Thou hast loosed my bonds (given me my life) ; the other relating to his parents, I am the son of thy handmaid. It was the law that the sons of bond-women should be servants by birth, so Ishmael being begotten on a handmaid, a bond-woman, was a bondman by birth, Gen. xxi. 10 ; so Exod. xxi. 4 the law is that the children which a bond-woman bears be her master s. So now doth God challenge a special propriety in you. You are doubly his servants : ser-

488 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. vants in that he hath saved you, loosed your bonds ; and servants to him in that you are born to him in his house, and are the children of his servants. You have therefore a double tie to do double work to what others do, and you shall have double wages, and be Benjamins.

Use 3. This doctrine may serve as an encouragement and direction also to the children of godly parents, and be exceeding helpful to them in their believing and coming to Christ, both at their first conversion, and afterwards in temptations. It may serve to ease them of much of the difficulty of the work of believing ; and may make that hard labour and travail more gentle, and prevent many of those throes which others groan under. To clear which, I will first shew what ingrediency it ought not to have, and what furtherance you are to deny to receive from it, which a carnal presumptuous heart may be apt to do ; and secondly, what right and lawful use you may make of this privilege, and in what stead it may stand you in believing. 1. You are not to make it a foundation of your faith, either of coming to Christ, or believing Christ is yours, as the carnal Jews did : We have Abraham to our father, John viii. 39, and therefore have God to our father, as ver. 81. For whilst you have not the faith and works of Abraham, you have the devil to your father, ver. 44. That was the answer to them then, and will be Christ s answer unto them at the latter day. And if there be any privilege it will be this, that thou remaining unregenerate shalt even be damned first : so Rom. ii. 9, Tribulation and anguish, to every soul that doth evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : to the children of godly parents first, and then unto others of mankind. Do you stand with me

Thy birth is upon your birth ? says God to the carnal Jews : Ezek. xvi. 3, of the land of Canaan ; that is, it is all one to me, as if thou hadst been of the inhabitants of the land that were accursed, the seed of Canaan, and as if thy father were an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite. Your spirits, there fore, must be emptied of all such carnal props, as grounds of believing to build your faith upon ; and you must be brought nakedly to close with God s free grace alone, and see God to put forth as free an act of his grace, and to be as much at liberty in saving you, or refusing you, as in saving any one that is an alien from God, never so much a stranger to this common wealth of Israel. In this respect

there is no difference, so the apostle tells us ; but all (both Jew and Gentile, of whom he had before spoken) have sinned. And there is no difference when it comes to the matter of being justified ; they are justified freely by his grace, so Rom. iii. 23, 24. Thou must see thy dependence upon free grace to be as great as any man s, and lay thyself before the throne and sovereignty of it, and submit to the sentence of it, and thyself to be as much beholding to it to save thee as the Turks and heathens. And the ground of this may be fetched from what was before delivered. For that you are the children of godly parents is not the ground of your election, but the consequent of it. God chose you out of the lump of men, not respecting anything in you, only he so ordered it, that his elect should come of parents godly rather than others. Now it is certain that that only which had influence into God s heart as the motive of election, that only is to have influence into our faith at our first believing as the ground of it. What God looked not at to sway his choice by, that faith is not to look at as the foundation of our confidence. God chose thee for nothing in thyself or in thy parents, and thou must look at nothing in thyself or in thy parents for which thou believest and restest on him.

Nor, 2, is it to be looked at as an infallible sign or evidence, that is the proper consequent of election, such as graces of the Spirit are, so as thou shouldst be able to argue thy election from it, as from the qualifications or

dispositions of grace which are wrought by conversion, which are as proprium quarto modo, infallible characters of it. Was not Esau Jacob s brother ? says God, Malachi i. 2, yea, a twin of the same womb ; yea, the elder brother, and yet hated, and Jacob loved ! God hath a reprobation among them as well as an election. All are not Israel, who are of Israel: neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children, Rom. ix. 6, 7. The apostle utters together both these things which I have now spoken. It is, therefore, neither a sign, as ver. 6 implies, nor the reason of election, as ver. 7. But although it cannot, neither ought to be the ground of your faith either of these ways, yet it may still serve you as a great furtherance to your faith other ways and in other respects, both when you come first to believe, and likewise in temptations. The mother of faith it is not, but it may be a midwife to it, and so facilitate that hard labour. Many things serve to the furthering and easing of the work of faith, which yet are not in the least way made the ground of it ; as for instance, the very ex ample of others being saved who were as great sinners, gives great relief and encouragement to the heart of a sinner ; and yet it is no way a ground of confidence for ourselves. So Paul says, he was made a pattern, and hung out as a flag of mercy to them who should believe hereafter, 1 Tim. i. 16, to toll others in ; and, therefore, those who first believed, had an harder pull of it, as Eve at first, and Abraham afterward, because they had no examples before them to lead the way, and therefore, for the erninency of * the mother of all who their faith, they deserved the name ; the one, of live by faith; and the other, of father of them. And as those who made the first voyages to the East and West ladies, found their adventures fuller of hazards and difficulties than those since have, whose voyages, through their directions who went afore them, are made more easy, so it is in the work of faith through the examples of others. In this your passage from death to life, though you are all to go through the same straits, through a work of humiliation, and an apprehension of yourselves as lost, &c., yet you may have both the help of some directions which may keep you from many shelves and sands, wherein others have been grounded and stuck fast, and whereby your souls may be so steadily guided as to be kept from being stranded where many others have been before you ; you may also have the advantage of a wind more fair, a more direct gale ; whereas others have but a small side wind, a little breath to further them, which makes their voyage more long and tedious. In faith there are two things to be brought about, and both of them with much difficulty.

First, To convince the understanding of the truth of the promises, that God is in earnest, and so serious in them as he is, and that is indeed to save sinners, and that Christ died to that end and purpose, and is most hearty and real in it. And to bring the understanding to a full persuasion of this is a great work, and of a trying difficulty, and therefore the more arguments can be brought to confirm this the better.

The second is to bring the will off, to cast itself upon Christ, and per sonally to come in unto him. And for that, the more hopes and personal encouragements you can give the party that God may intend him, the more you further this act of faith, as by the more arguments that other, the more you quicken his endeavours, and the more cheerfully and strongly and with the fuller sail will that soul come in and cast itself upon Christ, and wholly resign up itself unto him. Now it is this latter which most stick so much at through discouragements, by reason of the uncertainties and improba bilities, and utter unlikelihoods, that God may intend them. Wherefore the nearer the promises can be brought unto any, by persuading them that

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God may mean them rather than any other in the world, that act of faith must needs come off the more easily and roundly. You know, that that which at first draws in any one s soul to cast itself upon Christ, is the indefiniteness of the promise, that they are not excluded ; God means somebody, and what know I but that he may intend me as well as another ? As in that 4th of Hebrews, ver. 6 and 11 compared, Seeing some must enter in let us therefore labour to enter into that rest. And look how much more or less indefinite the promise is, and how much more or less express and particular, the more or less hope and encouragements are given ; and the more or less hopes are given, the more or less easy or difficult is the work of faith made in this respect. Now, the promises upon which others of the elect come in, of how vast an indefiniteness and compass are they, how wide doth God speak in them ! As in those, good will to men ; Christ came to save sinners, &c. ; whenas he whom God means is, it may be, one of an hundred thousand. And therefore they yield but far off hopes, and a remote it may be; yet are they such as carry a just ground with them to put any one upon the venture. In a race, says the apostle, though but one obtains, yet all run, 1 Cor. ix. 24. They for a corruptible crown ven ture thus, how much more should we for an incorruptible

! Though it be ten thousand to one, yet it is worth it, and a just ground to move and draw on the soul to it, even to put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope, as Lam. in. 29. If there be never so remote an it may be, if there be but a what knowest thou ? or never so dubious a conjecture, you see it is made a just ground of endeavouring to save another, as 1 Cor. vii. 16 ; therefore, how much more of venturing and casting one s self upon Christ for a man s own salvation 1 But what a slender, still gale, what a small and poor breath of hope doth thus afford to help the soul forward. Such are helped but with a little help, as David says in another case. But the promises which are made to you who are the children of godly parents, although they be but indefinite still, yet they are so express, and limited to so narrow a compass, that they bring the hopes of salvation a thousand times more near to you. It being so near an universal, as you have heard, it is not one of a thousand, but two to one. I say as Christ said, The kingdom of God is come near you, very near you, when God takes the most of his elect out of you, and sometimes a whole family of you. When a king was to be chosen out of all the tribes, it was held ground enough for every tribe, and every man of them, to present themselves before the Lord, though in the end the lot was to fall but upon one man ; and so Samuel bade them do: 1 Sam. x. 19, Now therefore present your selves before the Lord, by your tribes, and by your thousands. For why ?

It gave a hope, though but a slender and remote one, unto every man that he might be king, yet it was all Israel, the thousands of Israel, to one., But then when the tribe of Benjamin was taken, this ga\o a, nearer hope to every family and man of that tribe. This was but a few to one unto what the other had had before, especially seeing there were fewest of them ; this was a contraction to a narrower compass. But when it came tc* the family of Matri, how much nearer came it then to every one of that family ? Though it was to fall but upon one man, yet how great hopes must it needs give, as being thought every man s then; every one then had a fair cast for a kingdom, none of them then knowing that Saul was the man, though Samuel did. Why ? Such hopes, and far larger, do these promises give to your tribe, to your family, comparatively to other men. For here is a greater kingdom, and your tribe, as I may call it, consists of the fewest of any other tribe or sort of mankind, compared with it. And this crown is not to

be set upon the head of one only, but sometimes upon all of a family. Oh, consider what a fair pull here is for heaven ; what would other humbled souls give for your lot ? as heaven is called, Colos. i. 12. What a fair gale of hope have you to fill your sails with ! How many points of the compass hath it on your side ? There are but two sorts of promises that I know of that are indefinite, and do yet bring down salvation so near and to so narrow a compass.

The first sort those make which are of special invitation, as that in Mat. xi. 28, < Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, &c., and that Ho, every one that thirsteth, &c. ; these bring it near. For whereas others are invited but in the crowd, as all were unto the wedding, these have a more special, solemn, and particular intimation by name ; as in funerals, common people and neighbours have but an indefinite and general invita tion, but those of better rank are specially invited, and called forth by name. These promises therefore give a special encouragement to one that is weary and heavy laden ; but still so as you are to understand, that even such pro mises and such qualifications in you are not to give a ground to your faith, nor to serve as infallible evidences that Christ is yours, that you should so take a comfort of ease from them, as many have done, to their ruin. It is but the comfort of a special invitation to come. The promise of ease itself is made to coming, Come unto me; only in the mean time it may much ease the weary and heavy laden, in that they are in an especial manner in vited to come, for it brings the promise of salvation very near to them.

But, secondly, there are promises, as of a special invitation, so of special designation, which design and point out a sort of mankind out of whom God hath his elect; and such are these, made to the children of godly parents. And it is as if God had pointed and said, In that mass or lump do the greatest part of my elect lie. There is not any sort of mankind singled out with so special a designation. It is like the star over the house where Christ was, which designed the place of the Messiah s abode. So these promises set over the houses and families of godly men, do help us to find out where election lies. And as that star helped the wise men to find out the Messiah, so may these promises help such children to come to the Messiah the sooner, and with the less difficulty.

More particularly, if you would know what singular help it may afford you in that act of faith, of coming to Christ, and of casting and adventuring your selves upon Christ ; 1. The consideration of it may alone stand you instead against all carnal reasonings and objections against yourselves whatever, which do exceedingly puzzle and hinder others. This consideration will quite cut off the heads of them all at once, and is a great help, though there were no other, in our way to Christ, in which there are a great many stumbling-blocks laid by carnal reason, that keep men off, and become the greatest hindrance to believing

Cast ye up, cast ye up, take the stumbling-blocks out of the Isa. Ivii. 14, way of my people. He speaks literally of the great obstacles that were in view against their return from Babylon, even a great monarchy lying in their way, which was first to be removed. But he aims, under the type thereof, at the hindrances in the way of broken hearts to Christ, as appeareth by the 16th, 17th, and 19th verses; for he speaks of giving comfort to broken hearts, and creating the fruit of the lips, peace, &c. Now, in the way of such, you know, there lie a thousand objections and carnal reasonings against themselves, which their fleshly reason, ignorant of God s way, and of his freeness in pardoning, suggests, as things seeming to make it utterly improbable that God will save them; and those are the stumbling-blocks he

492 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V. there means. What! me? will such a soul say; so great a sinner as I, whom God hath suffered to live so long in sin ? that have so often refused to come in, after so many enlightenings ; that have had so many false works upon my heart already ; that have lain so long under temptations ; that have had no enlargements these many years ? What ! me ? A likely matter !

No, no ; if God had a mind to save me, he would never have dealt so with me ; his carriage towards me looks not as if he ever meant me any good. Thus the stranger objected, Isa. Ivi. 3, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people; I am a Gentile, a dog, and God means not to save me. Thus the eunuch, * I am a dry tree, &c. There are millions of such carnal reasonings as these, which do mightily hinder the work of faith, being as so many shelves of sand, on which the soul sticks fast aground, and off from which we have much ado to help men. Well, but if thou beest the child of a godly, believing parent, this consideration alone may be put into the balance against a thousand such. For why, that alone is a greater proba bility that thou art elected than all those put together are able to make im probabilities to the contrary ; it may weigh them all down. It brings the promise so near thee, within so little of thee, that I may say, as in that Isa.

Ivii. 19, the phrase is, whereas others are afar off, and have many stumblingblocks in their way, thou art near. The prophet speaks in the language of the state of the Jews then, in the Babylonish captivity, which was the type of the times under the gospel (as appears by the apostle s using of that phrase, Eph. ii. 17), some of the Jews were dispersed far off among the Ammonites and Moabites; and they had greater obstacles and discourage ments to return, but some of them were still in the land. The poorer sort were to till it, yet had not a peaceable condition ; and they were near, now God would settle both in the land with peace. And so Eph. ii. 17 (in the anti-type), some are said to be afar off, and some near. Such were the Jews, and the children of godly parents are such; for I reckon them, in respect to others, to be as the Jews then were to the Gentiles. And these have fewer obstacles in their way ; they are in the land (the church) already, and so are nearer to faith and peace, having their hindrances removed to their hand, and their wav made clear and smooth. This consideration may so lighten thy vessel, as that thou mayest sail over all such shelves, which others, being heavy laden with many sad and weighty improbabilities, are often stranded upon.

2. But, secondly, it moreover gives a special encouragement also, in that there is a special designation of election (as was said), and that in two respects : For (1.) where there is a special designation of election, there is a special invitation included, and more also ; it hath the form of both. There may be supposed an invitation without a designation, but this special designation includes an invitation under it. So as thou art more solemnly and particu larly invited than any other ; even as (you heard) those that are weary and heavy laden are. And if thou beest heavy laden also, then both in that thou art heavy laden, and an elect s child also, thou art doubly invited. Now, that to the children of believers, as such, belongs a special invitation, appears in that they come under the same covenant and privilege that the Jews did by virtue of their being sons of Abraham (till they broke them selves off), to whom therefore (though not holy when infants, nor yet, when grown up to riper years, as yet converted) the gospel was first to be preached. So Christ bade his disciples, and calls the word the children s bread. And so after Christ s ascension they practised, encouraging them to repent and : Acts ii. 38, believe, being pricked in their hearts by a special designation

39, For the promise is to you and your children ; and chap, iii 25 Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant; and unto you first (mark the word), God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, m turning away every one of you from his iniquities. Yea though there was the greatest ground for the greatest objection against them and carnal reason might suggest the strongest arguments against them that ever against any ; for it might arise in their hearts to think, This Christ have we crucified ; a bar that of all others might make them exclude themselves And so Peter tells them, ver. 23, < This Christ have you crucified and slain ; and so verse 36. They likewise were the very men who had a hand in it ; and yet for all this, he puts this into the balance against all and invites them first. Now, I parallel the condition of these Jews in the new moulding up of Christian churches, with that of the children of godly parents under the gospel, though unconverted. Now, they are not to be reckoned holy, and so members of a church, simply because they are chil dren of such ; even as those Jews were not admitted into those new Chris tian churches till actually converted. Therefore, ver. 47, God added of them to the church such as should be saved ; though they were members of the Jewish typical church which then stood, yet not of the Christian ; notwithstanding, whilst they remained in their natural condition, this was due to them, above any other, as a privilege, namely, a special invitation. So Acts xiii. 46, Paul says, It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you, till you break yourselves off (as they) by envious opposition, ver. 45, and * putting it from you, judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Which, I take it, is the unbelief meant, Rom. xi. 20, that breaks you off; which is not simply unbelief, but an envious opposition against it, when yet the promise may belong to you.

You therefore who are young, the breasts of whose virginity the world has not yet pressed, who yet may be presented to Christ spotless and undefiled, do you come in to Christ ; he invites and entreats you in a special manner ; he likewise reserves the first of his love for you ; you shall have the flower of it. In marriage it is held a great matter to be the first love. Such shall you be to Christ if you come in betimes, and so shall you have a choice reward, as Bom. ii. 10, he will give glory, honour, and peace to every man who worketh good ; yet to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile ; so to you first (who have the Jews privilege), those of you who are under a work of bondage, and weary of your natural condition, come to Christ. I may say to you, as the disciple said to that blind man, Mark x. 49, Be of good comfort, he calleth you ; you are doubly invited, both as you are weary and heavy laden, and as the children of believers also ; and therefore you may promise yourselves a double welcome.

(2.) A second encouragement that this affords is, that where there is such a special designation of election, there is a greater certainty that many (yea haply the most) of such shall obtain. Whereby such a special designation hath also thus much more in it than a bare invitation ; that an invitation does not imply a certainty of obtaining, many are called or invited, when few are chosen ; but a designation doth. Now this must needs be a great encouragement, even as it would be to all the children of a noble family, that a people or commonwealth should so oblige themselves to it in par ticular, as certainly to choose their kings and princes out of it (as in Sweden they have done out of the Gustavian family), not being tied to the eldest to choose him, but unto the family, to choose some one out of it; so as there were a certainty of some of them "their being kings and princes. The hopes that every one would have in such a case, how would they raise their spirits,

494 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. and make them observant of their carnage towards all, and to ennoble their education by striving to excel each other in glorious achievements, insinuat ing themselves into the hearts of the people, and in all plausible respects complying with them, as Absalom did ! Now just so it is here ; God hath entailed heaven on your families, though in an indefinite, yet certain way ; so as not one but many of you shall certainly be kings ; you are now heirs of life. How therefore should this quicken you, above all other ranks of mankind, and raise your spirits, and set an edge on your endeavours! The more certain that your hopes are, the more strong let your endeavours be, like merchants, who, where there is certain hopes of gain, will make the greater adventures. We find the like in colleges, where there useth, by the statutes of the house, to be such a special designation as this is, singling out some counties and shires, out of which their fellows and scholars shall be chosen, and that most certainly ; and when there are places vacant, how doth this whet the industry and endeavours of all those students who are of such shires, making them to study harder than others, and (as Paul says of himself) to profit more than many of their equals of their own nation, and outstripping others to be so approved for their learning as to obtain the ! So should this encouragement provoke and stimulate you above all place other men, and also to exceed one another in striving who should first get into Christ ; for know that the endeavours of some of you shall certainly not be in vain, for God assuredly hath an elect among you. Some of you will most infallibly get to heaven.

(3.) The third way whereby it may help your faith is, that when you come to plead for your lives and souls before God (as when you are humbled you will, as much as condemned men ever did for their lives), then this puts into your mouths a plea to use to God before the throne of his grace. I say not that thou mayest plead it as a qualification for which God should respect thee or shew thee favour ; for his election is not swayed by it, or founded on it. Thou must leave the casting thy condition to the arbitrary, sovereign freedom of his grace, as much as any sinner else upon earth ; but yet (state it rightly) thou mayest plead it, and make a strong plea of it too, as, First, Thou mayest make it a good and full occasion, emboldening thee the more to come into God s presence, and rather to do it, because of this.

Secondly, Thou mayest further make a fair tale for thyself out of it, and say to him, Thou, Lord, hast given me this light into, and inkling about, thy decrees ; thy word tells me that this inheritance of heaven is estated and bequeathed by thee to the children of thy children, and that thou hast delighted to draw thine elect through the loins of thine elect, and so thy promises run much to them. Lo, therefore, Lord, thy servant presents himself before thee as one of those, and extracted out of such, and so not knowing but that this estate may belong to me, and do come to thee who keepest these records, so to find out whether such an estate be befallen me.

I pray thee, therefore, that thou wouldst look and search thy book, and the series of thy decrees ; look into thine own heart, and call to mind the unfeigned faith that dwelt in my parents, and which I hope thou hast ordained to be in me also. And do thou consider that thou hast further set my heart awork to seek thee, and more specially invited me, and hast certi fied me that I shall be doubly welcome. Being therefore hereby emboldened, lo, I am come to ask a bold question of thee. Do thou resolve me, Lord ; am not I one whom thou hast set thy heart upon ? Is not my name in the list of thy beloved ones ? Am not I one of thy elect too ? Speak, Lord, answer me plainly and speedily. And whilst thou art urging God thus, and putting him to it with what he knows is true, and speakest his very heart,

he (as one that cannot deny it) plainly grants it, and will tell thee so My brethren, there is an art of getting out God s secrets thus. And thus, though to be child to such a parent is not to be considered as the attractive that draws God s heart to thee ; it was not as the burnin" glass to draw and unite the beams of his love in thee ; yet it may be as the cranny through which those beams may shine into thee, without prejudice to his free grace ; and so the eye of thy faith may have recourse to it, as unto a chink through which his love may spy and meet thee. And do thou lay thy eye to such a promise, and through it look unto God ; and ere thou art aware, the light of his countenance, his free love, will shine in upon thee this way. Thus did the Jews plead the covenant of their fathers, Isa. Ixiii. 15 (whilst they did not bolster themselves by it, and think that there fore God would save them), and it prevailed. So Jacob pleads it : Gen. xxxii. 9, God of my father Abraham, and my father Isaac.

III. General head of uses. The third sort of uses shall be unto godly parents.

Use I. That godly parents should value this blessing, especially when they live to see this promise take hold upon their children before their eyes, as the greatest blessing that can befall them, and for their comfort, next unto their own salvation. It is more than to have thy child a monarch of the whole world ; thou wouldst think that an infinite privilege, as David did when his house was raised up to be as one of the great ones of the earth. This is much more, for it is to such parents, not an outward, but a spiritual blessing, and in some respects an eternal blessing, and the comfort of it may upon some good ground be supposed to last unto eternity. For this is certain, that look what spiritual affections there are in persons between whom there are carnal relations, by reason of those bonds and relations they will last and continue ; whatsoever is spiritual will be eternal. If a man do good to his wife, she shall love him eternally by reason of it ; indeed the fleshly relation between them was the occasion whereby he came to do her good. At the latter day those that ministers do convert unto God, they are their crowns, as Paul saith, 1 Thes. ii. 19 ; it is a spiritual mercy that lasteth and holdeth them. When God made this promise unto Abraham, that he should be the father of the faithful, was the comfort of it only for the pre sent ? For Abraham saw no more but Isaac and Ishmael, and perhaps both were ungodly, though the promise of Christ was set upon Isaac. No ; the comfort was to come, when at latter day he shall say, These are the children God hath given me. We are herein partakers of part of Christ s privilege ; it was his speech, Isa. viii. 18, Lo, I and the children thou hast given me/

Use 2. When you have children born unto you, then renew your covenant with God, and walk more obediently. Hannah dedicated her child to God. That is not in your power ; but dedicate you yourselves more to God. God is to extend his covenant anew to your children for your sakes ; do you therefore renew your covenant with him ; and the more they increase, and the more children thou art in dependence upon God to extend his covenant unto, the larger do thou extend thy covenant obedience, and to more duties.

Search further into the commandments, to find out new ways of obedience to lay thyself forth in ; as God gives thee more lives, give thou more lives to him. Methuselah being born to Enoch, provoked him to walk the more exactly ; so Gen. v. 22, you who have many children should be much in obedience, and ever for your children s sakes walk so as to keep up the repute of being holy. Walk not doubtfully and unstably, so as that there

496 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. should arise any question of your godliness by the saints you live with. Do this even for your children s sakos, for you have seen what a help, what an encouragement it may be to their faith, that you are accounted and known to be godly. When you shall walk so as to leave that doubtful (as Solomon did, who so lived, that it is a question in the church whether he be saved or no), you then waken* all these encouragements of their faith, and all the arguments that should provoke them to a holy life. Use 3. A third use to parents is, that if you have children that are godly and already converted, they should then get their hearts exceedingly affected towards God in love again. There is no outward mercy like this ; it is more than if he had raised up one of thy children to be monarch of the whole world. See how it took David s heart, 1 Chron. xvii. 25, 26, that he had raised himself up to be one of the great ones of the earth, which is not spoken of himself alone, but of his house also. They say, that man and wife love each other the better, when they come to have children by each other. It is a sign of an everlasting love on God s part, for him to have children by thee, and it should be an increase of love on thy part to have children by him.

Use 4. Are you to think your children elect ? Then die in that faith con cerning them, and leave them to God. This comforted David when he was to die, that though his house was not tanta, so great, as some read it, nor ita erga Deum, so exact towards God (as Junius), yet God had made a cove nant with him for his own, and many others salvations, though outwardly it should not prosper. God is thy friend, and thy children s friend ; he will remember thy seed when thou art dead and rotten, even as he ofttimes re membered David s. It is a comfort that thou canst leave them to a church, a mother, but a greater comfort, that to God as to a Father. If thou hadst a grandfather to leave thy children to, who thou wert sure would live, thou then wouldst not die solicitously in respect of thy children. Luther being to make his last will, and having nothing to bequeath to his children, he be queathed them to God. So do thou, and say as Christ did when he made his last testament, as being about to leave the world, Thine, Father, they were, and thou gavest them me, and tell them as he did, I go to my Father, and your Father. Those that are godly are provided for, there is one who hath taken them off thy hand and care already ; in the confidence therefore of that thou mayst die hopefully and quietly.

Use 5. A fifth use may be to take heed of an unequal partiality in your love or care towards any of your children, wherein many parents are ofttimes blameworthy, as disaffecting and neglecting some one, out of an inordi nate leaning to and setting up another. For that child whom thou neglectest or usest hardly, may be he or she whom God pitcheth on as his, and that child which thou cockerest, may be one by God refused. While God reveals himself thus indefinitely, thou art to look upon any one as elect, and art to bear those affections and bowels towards it, that a parent would have to an elect child, though thou canst not absolutely say it is holy ; and as whiles it was an infant, we were to perform all duties unto it, as to a saint, so afterwards, though yet it appears not to be holy, we are to do the like as to one elect. And wilt thou hate or misuse where God may love, and love for thy sake too ? How unworthy of you will such carriages be, and will likewise grieve you, when God shall once manifest his love to be set upon that child, which thou hast set thyself against. God is no respecter of per sons ; neither be thou of thy children, so as to doat on one, and neglect the other. God has often in the event exceedingly checked the sins of parents

* Qu. weaken ? ED.

CHAP. VIII.] OP ELECTION. this way, and chosen cross to what their choice was Thfv h*v* Esau and God hath been for Jacob ; they have bee for SutiTa and God hath been for Solomon; they have looked with fleshly eyes as Samuel did, and thought Eliab the child of election, and for him Sve al heir prayers run because of his countenance and stature; bu God hath taught them not to look on the outward appearance; he hath been for David whom they have set to keep their sheep. Eve had a promise of the Messiah and she thought Cain the man in whom it should b* Sad so some mterpret that speech Gen. iv 1

< I have gotten a man, or

tkeman" the promised seed from the Lord. However it implies some singular hopes she had of him, who yet proved the eldest son of reprobation, and the mur derer of his brother But Abel, he was godly, and after him, Seth, which shews that Godjudgeth not as man judgeth. I may say as God said bv Malachi chap, ii 16, about hating their wives, Take heed therefore to your spirits deal not treacherously, or unequally with any of your children/for they are yours, and may be God s. He carries it thus indefinitely and covertly, on purpose that you should perform your duties alike to all ; not but that out ward appearances may draw out the heart, and have in a proportion their due of love, such love as beauty, wit, good nature, &c. I yield that there is an allowance given to parents to affect children for such respects as bein objects more pleasing and love-attracting ; yet so, as not to sway the heart to a partial carriage towards them, only they may be allowed as a few grains to incline the balance a little more. But that same other child, who pleaseth not thy fancy and nature so well, is thy child too, and so may be God s child, and that because he is thine, and in respect to thee; and that gives the sub stantial weight that should keep the scale of the balance even towards him. God, peradventure, loves him for thy sake, and wilt not thou love him for God s sake ? What crossness and unthankfulness would this prove towards God !

Use 6. To such parents as come not of godly parents, and yet are godly themselves, they may here see their privilege ; they may be the foundation of a noble family. And what an honour is that ? It is a great promise that in Isa. Iviii. 12, < They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt be the foundation of many generations. And it is a great honour to thee to be the first of thy house, as it was to Abraham and to David, and as it is mentioned as an honour to Lois, by Paul, 2 Tim. i. 5, < the faith which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois; who likewise maketh the like honourable mention of some that were < the first fruits of Achaia, and of be ing the root to branches, &c. Amongst men what an honour is it to be the foundation of a house ? They affect and aspire to nothing more ; the first being always always made famous by his successors, as Ottoman by his house, Cosmo di Medicis by his, &c. So did that Eoman esteem of it, who being upbraided with his mean extraction by a debauched patrician, made this his glory, I am, says he, the foundation of my house, and thou the ruin of thine. So may this be thy glory, that thou art the basis, the first stone of a building to God.

The last use is to churches, that they would receive with a special love and rejoicing, such of members children as prove godly ; they are doubly welcome to God ; let them be so to saints in church fellowship. They are not as strangers but as those born in the house, which renders them doubly amiable and acceptable. As Paul exhorts Philemon to receive Onesimus, not as a servant, but above a servant, ver. 16, so are these to be re ceived as brethren and sisters, and not only so, but above the ordinary VOL. IX. I 1

498 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y. relation of brethren and sisters. It is an honour to a college to have students of its own nurturing fit for fellowships, and such especially they are to take.

The families of church members are our nursery, and what a comfort is it to have the orchard and garden of a church replenished with scions fetched from thence ? To build our houses with stones out of our own quarries

I may speak to every church in the words of God to the church of the Jews : Isa. xlix. 18, Thou shalt clothe thee with them, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doth attire of her own weaving.

A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS WHICH IS DUE TO GOD FOE HIS BENEFITS AND BLESSINGS.

Be thankful to him. Ps. C. 4.

is, I will explain to you by these few

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SPr 7 n ??* ,leper S tha kfulness, saith, None but he ^ to give glory to God, that is, to be thankful to him. I know aanksgiving is a peculiar branch of God s worship, when it is taken iuri to ri is larger, and extends itself to all duties, which, they are done to God as an acknowledgment of his mercies and our love hey may be t d thankfulness. And so, though in the same duties wherein we glorify God, we are thankful also, yet in several considerations, ,* tkfiilness

US Up n Several F ** those duties are sometimes ea &lorily i;ng (jod, and sometimes beinothankful As if a friend a son mirrn collpd a11 the Same thin for a man in the servant ^at act migiit be called doing him service, in the son doing his duty and an act of obedience, and m the friend a kindness. So here we, standing towards God 11 relations, and in regard of all those relations, obedience being due to km as to is a Father, all that we do to him is called honour, Mai. i. 6. As ne is a master and lord, it is called fear in the same place ; as he is a ocl, gracious, that loads us with benefits, it is called thankfulness; as he is a glorious God m himself, to whom glory and power is due, all is called fjlonjymg him. Thus, Ps. 1. 14, 15, 23, thanksgiving is put for his whole orship, and glorifying him so many ways ; and so in many relations we are tied in obedience unto God, as we can never want motives to draw obedience from us, and, therefore, so many aggravations are there of neglect and want of performance of them.

To come, then, to the difference between these two. God being so glori ous a God, we are to do all to him and for him, and obey him in all, and make him the end of all, which is called glorifying him. Suppose we were no way beholden to him, all this were a due to his excellency and glory,

500 A DISCOUESE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. which might challenge it from us, might extort it, Ps. xxix. 2 1 Give nnto the Lord the glory due unto his name ; that alone would challenge all the service, all the praise that you do or could make to him ; but now we all are, upon a further ground, to do all to him and for him, because of all the many mercies we receive from him. Now to return all in this relation is called thankfulness. To do all out of a sense of his excellency and glory that is in himself, this is to glorify him. But to do all out of a sense of his mercies to us, and our obligement unto him, this is thankfulness. So that, Rom. i. 21, it is brought in as a further aggravation, that though the Gentiles did, as it is in the verse before, read many characters of his glorious power and wisdom in the creation and governing the world (the heavens declaring his glory, Ps. xix.), that though they knew this, yet they glorified him not gave not the glory which is due unto his name. But, secondly, not only so, but though they knew they themselves had all from him, and that he loaded them with mercies (so Acts xiv. 17, speaking of the Gentiles, he saith, that notwithstanding their ignorance, yet God left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, all which are witnesses and testi monies of God s love and bounty), yet they, though they knew all this, and that they lived at his cost, were disobedient; and, therefore, their disobedience is aggravated here by this, that they were unthankful.

The second question is, What thankfulness is ? It is a free rendering to God the glory of his goodness, principally to the end we may glorify it, and testify our love to him.

First, It is a rendering, and in that act doth the nature of thankfulness consist, and hereby it is expressed, and this act hath reference and relation to something received. If I give any one any thing never so freely, if it be not in relation to something received from him, it hath not the nature of thankfulness ; it is giving, not thanksgiving ; but when a man begins first to consider with himself what he hath received from God, and upon that ground he returns an acknowledgment of the mercy, that which he doth return to him is thankfulness ; and this you may see in David, Ps. cxvi. 12 : What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? Ye see how he considers the benefits received, thinks what to return again, and upon what ground.

And, therefore, for application, would you know whether you do all you do out of thankfulness ; I ask you whether it is a rendering to God ? That is, do you look upon God as the author of all the good things you do enjoy? And thereupon, do you bring forth all your obedience, and look upon it when you have done, but as a rendering to God again, even as all the rivers come from the sea and return to it again. So do your hearts but as it were return to God all you have first received from him ? Otherwise, if you should do never so much for God, and not look upon it as a rendering to him, it were not thankfulness, if it came not from you upon that ground ; for if you think in your hearts, though never so secretly, that you have added anything to him ; if you think with yourselves thus : Why, have I not prayed ? and I have fasted ; as, Isa. Iviii. 2, they began to murmur. Thus to glory in anything, as if you had not received it (1 Cor. iv. 7), as men are apt to do, and as they at the last day will do, who heap kindness upon Christ : Have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils ? as if he were beholden to them. So men think that God is beholden to them if they repent, and do think everything they do for God to be a great matter ; such popery is in men s hearts. This is not thankfulness ; but your behaviour is as if you had given to him first. Whereas, says God, Job xli. 11 : * Who hath pre-

PS. C. 4.] A DISCOURSE OP THANKFULNESS. 501 is nv w

Wo s are t me in anything he hath done ? There were other thoughts in David when he gave so largely to the building of the temple, 1 Chron. xxix. 13, 14, < We ffl thee saith he, of tome own have we given thee/ we have but rendered what was thine ; given indeed, it was, because willingly, ver. 14, but yet of thine own; so he

looks upon it, and therefore it was thanksgiving" For, says David, All things are of thee, even this my thanksgiving, and all. Secondly, It is a free rendering, and that is an essential property of thanksgiving What is restored must be restored willingly. If it be for slavish fear, though a man render never so much to God, it is service, not thankfulness ; for thankfulness hath relation to bounty, and consists in a keness to it. Now one among many conditions, as I observed, in bounty, was that it should be free and willing ; now, therefore, therein thankfulness must answer to it, as rendering must be done in relation to giving, as I said, bo look how it is given, so it must be rendered ; it is not bounty unless it be freely given ; it is not thanks unless it be freely rendered, Mat. x. 8 : Freely you have received, freely give, as Christ saith in another iase. Yea, willingness is more required and looked at, than the thing rendered, in matter of thanks. So it is also in bounty, and so Paul makes it m the bounty of the saints to their brethren, 1 Cor. viii. 10 : That they began not only to do, but to be willing a year agone. It is brought in as a greater matter than to do : Non tarn, e/ectus astimatur quam affectus. And so m like manner in matter of thanks : Non tarn requiritur aqualitas rerum quam voluntatum, saith the school. The woman that cast in her mite, Christ says, had cast in more than they all ; it was her freeness made it accounted so. Therefore David in the forenamed place, in rendering to God, put the emphasis, not in that he had rendered, but in that he had given so willingly, and after this sort. Wouldst thou know whether thou art truly thankful or no, and desirest to be so, and to have it so taken ? Look not only upon what thou hast rendered again to God, or how much, but how willingly ; as what willing entertainment have all good motions for God and the advancement of his glory in thy heart ? how came they off from thee ? Dost thou follow thy calling not willingly, but by constraint, as Peter speaks of preachers, 1 Pet. v. 2, because thou kuowest not how else to live ? Dost thou pray to God, but yet art haled to it by thy conscience, as a beast to the stake, to avoid a whipping by conscience that night thou omittest it ? Then it is not out of thankfulness. Dost thou keep in upon the sabbath day, and write and note the sermon, and repeat it, but thinkest thy Master s house or thy study a prison all the while, and wouldst gladly be taking other liberties, but that thy tutor or master commands thee otherwise ; and all that while thou lookest at them as thy jailors ? If so, thou art then unthankful, though thou renderest and dost never so much for God.

Thirdly, The third thing to be considered concerning thankfulness to God is the thing which is to be rendered, and that is glory ; that thing thou ren derest must be such, as thou art sure his glory doth arise out of it. So 2 Cor. iv. 15, That through thanksgiving it may redound to the glory of God. So saith the apostle there, and that is it God looks for in thy thanks giving, and the word redounding is to be observed, because all that we can do adds no essential glory to God ; it redounds to it only, and manifests it. The reason is, because nothing else will be accepted at thy hands ; it is an excellent rule Aristotle hath, speaking of the matter of thankfulness : what is it to be rendered ? It is retributio, superexcellenti, honoris ; indigenti, lucri, that is, if he be one who is far superior above thee, and stands in need of nothing thou hast, then thy only and best way is to honour him all thou

502 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. canst for his bounty ; restore honour to him, and he looks for nothing else ; but if he be one that stands in need, then thy best way to shew thy thank fulness, is to recompense him some other way, give him of thy substance and relieve his want. And now to this purpose, see what God himself says in Ps. 1. 12, If I were hungry I would not tell thee (says God to the for malist, who thought to please him with sacrifice, with killing oxen and goats), I have no need of thee ; but instead of these, ver. 14, 15, he says, Offer to me thanksgiving and glorify me. So also, ver. 23, they are put together, * Whoso offers praise glorifies me ; it is the praise of his glory that is to be rendered, if thou wilt shew thyself thankful. He doth not always re quire of thee again the things themselves which he hath given thee for the substance of them, but the glory of them all ; all comforts thou hast, he is content thou shalt enjoy them, and rejoice in them, so thou give him the glory of them all. Men equal to yourselves, you are thankful to, by giving them like for like ; if they invite you, you invite them, but not so to God. Go thy ways, therefore, as Solomon says, * and eat thy meat with a merry heart, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth, only acknowledge thou hast all from him, and that he gave all ; and return the strength of all to do his will, and thou givest glory and thanks to him, when thou usest all to him, and for him ; so Rom. xiv. 6. To eat to the Lord is linked with giving ill O O thanks.

Only I add this, that if the glory of God need thy wealth, and anything thou hast, so as thou must part with them or dishonour him ; if the Lord need thy ass, as Christ bade the messenger tell him so doth God sometimes condescend to do, then let him have all ; let goods, and life, and all go, even the things themselves in such a case ; so if the profession of his truth call for thy life, let him have it ; if his honour calls for thy credit, let him have it

so, if his church need thy estate, or any business whereby his glorv, gospel, may be advanced and enlarged, let him have it freely.

But yet, fourthly, this is to be limited in the point of thankfulness to the glory of his goodness, it must be that which we principally render ; when we give him and reflect upon him the glory of his wisdom, justice, power, &c. we praise him in those relations, but are thankful to him in relation of his goodness only. There may be a rendering of glory in the other, but yet it is simply a due in justice ; but when we do this in relation to the good ness which is in him, it is a further thing, and is due upon a further ground. We honour and reverence many men whom we are no way beholden to, and we are bound to do it ; it is a duty, and a duty of justice, and is called ob servance ; so Rom. xiii. 7, Render to all their dues, honour to whom honour, tribute to whom tribute. There you see, it is a rendering which is not thankfulness, it being otherwise a due in justice ; but when being obliged to men for the kindness and goodness that is received from them, we there fore honour them and serve them, this is thankfulness. And so when upon that ground we honour God, this is thankfulness ; and therefore here it is made a distinct thing from glorifying of God. Only this is to be added, that if at any time his goodness be the ground and motive of giving him glory, then, though we praise any other attribute in him or the effect of it, as set a-work by his goodness, it may be termed thankfulness; then it is thanks giving when we praise the Lord for his goodness (as it is said Ps. cvii. 8), or when his goodness is the ground of it in our hearts, and it spring thence.

Fifthly, The fifth thing to be considered, are the ends of thankfulness, which must necessarily be added to all this, and they are two : 1st, princi pally to acknowledge that his goodness ; and 2dly, to testify our love. Though we strive to render to him the glory of his goodness never so much,

L 4 J A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. 503 never so long, and never so many ways as ample as can be devised, yet if the end be not principally to glorify it and testify our love, it is not thank n

W th an eye to reward Prmcipally, to hook more in, it is not thankfulness, it is buying and selling rather; for thankfulness still hath relation unto, and must resemble his goodness and bounty, and answer 10 it ; now that is true bounty which gives, looking for no recompense, or not principally aiming at it. So Aristotle defines it, 2 Rhet. cap. vii. : Gratia est per 8 i?, ^ quam gratis aliquid quis facit, non ut sibi quicquam subveniat, sed cui Jacit, bounty doing a kindness freely, not to benefit themselves, but the party it is done unto, and so God doth ; for even the thanks he looks for is for your good, Deut. x. 13; therefore now, if you have hearts truly thankful, all you do for the glory of his goodness, will principally be to glorify that good ness ; and this was David s utmost end in that thanksgiving of his, 1 Chron. xxix. 13, 14, Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. And what am I, that I should offer so willingly after this sort ? praising God that he was able willing to thank him, and to testify his love.

See the holy disposition of this thankful man, when he had earnestly and willingly rendered unto God, his thanks are his next thoughts, when he had done. What reward will God give me again ? No ; but he falls a-praising God afresh, that he was able to do what he did, and, therefore, thus to glorify God and thank him; this was in itself his utmost end; therein he rejoiced more than in anything else. So it is said, ver. 17, I have seen it with joy, says he, and thou that knowest the heart knowest I have done it in uprightness willingly ; both are put in, not willingly only. So those that do all for reward, may be very willing and forward, but we must be thankful in uprightness also, that is, principally arguing to glorify God s goodness, for therein lies uprightness of heart principally ; it lies in our ends, which then are upright, when God is principally aimed at. David thought this the greatest mercy, that he was able to be thankful, though he ran most into debt when he went about to pay it. I add, and couple with this, his other end also, namely, that we ought to do all to testify our love ; because love being the spring and root whence true thankfulness springs, therefore his end, that is truly thankful, is to mani fest that his love ; therefore, in Ps. cxvi. (which is a psalm made on purpose, and wherein David s heart is exceedingly enlarged with thankfulness for hear ing his prayer, that he knows not again what to render to him, ver. 12) he begins it thus, I love the Lord because he hath heard my prayer. He makes profession of his love to God, for all the love he had shewn him, as the ground of the ensuing thankfulness, that being the thing that in his thankfulness he would have God especially take notice of, because he that knows what true love is, knows that it desires to be paid in its own coin chiefly ; and therefore receiving all from free love, he endeavours to return all again out of free love ; his obedience therefore comes not from him simply to satisfy a debt of thankfulness he owes (as many men do when they requite kindnesses, who return all but as a debt, only to discharge them selves of a duty and obligation they owe, and so do many men s consciences discharge themselves of duties to God, and are glad they are soon done) ; but he, as a thankful man, hath a further aim than simply to discharge a debt of it, and to have it taken notice of that such a thing is done, further to declare the willingness that was in his heart, when he did it, that especially he desires to shew he hath a design. As he takes notice of God s free love

the things he hath given him, so he desires that God would regard his love in it rather principally to him in all, and thanks him for it more than for all

604 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. than the performance, and rather desires he should take notice of it than reward him again.

Having thus denned what thankfulness is, I will add these few things further to illustrate the definition. If further you will ask (which makes a third question), What ways you are to shew your thankfulness ? I an swer out of the definition given, look how many ways God may come to have the glory of his goodness from you, so many ways are you to shew your selves thankful. As, First, In acknowledging his mere goodness in all, as the ground of all, which hath two things in it.

1st, That all ye are, or have, come from him, as David doth acknowledge, 1 Chron. xxix. 14-16, All (0 Lord, as he confesseth there) is of thine hand, and is thine, not ours. For we in ourselves are strangers here, brought into the world, first made by thee, and therefore possess nothing but thy gift, and therefore all is thine ; and so Deut. viii. 17, 18. If thou hast wealth, say not, My power or the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth ; but remember the Lord thy God, for it is he giveth thee power to get wealth; consider it is he bestows all, which, because we are apt to for get, he gives you a memento, to remember to ascribe nothing to yourselves; to get humble hearts, to glory in nothing, as if we had not received, 1 Cor. iv. 7 ; to look on ourselves, if we have more wit, or wealth, or grace, but as the purse that hath more money in it than another ; but both, [pursej and money and all is God s.

2dly, And, also, we must not only thus acknowledge that all we have is his, and from him, but also that all comes in mere goodness to us, and for nothing in us ; so David doth, 2 Sam vii. 18, where, acknowledging the reason why God gave him so much and not another, he says it was not for any dif ference in him ; but for his word s sake, which he had promised to David, and according to his own heart had he done those great things ; there were no other motives but his goodness, and what is in and comes from himself out of his own heart ; he hath a great heart, and therefore doth great things. But, secondly, we must not only acknowledge his mere goodness, but also our own unworthiness of any. This casts a further shadow upon his good ness, and as a foil further illustrates it. One that hath deserved to be cast out of favour, is more bound to be thankful than one that never offended ; and therefore Jacob lays that as the foundation whereupon he reareth his thankfulness, Gen. xxxii. 10, I am less than the least of thy mercies. Where, 1st, he acknowledgeth that everything he now had was mercy ; it was not simply bounty, as to Adam, but mercy, which adds to bounty ; 2dly, says he, I am less than the least. Take the least bit of bread he did eat, even his staff, he was not only unworthy of it, but unworthier than it. Always an humble heart is a thankful heart ; study your own baseness if you would be thankful.

Thirdly, This his goodness, and thy baseness, must not only be apprehended by thee, and conceived in thy heart, but it must be acknowledged in words, though it is necessary that our hearts should be sensible of both. And, ac cordingly, we are therein to bless God also, 1 Cor. xiv. 16 ; we are to bless with our spirits ; all within me, says David, Ps. ciii. 1, 2. The heart and affection within are the instrument the music is made on. Thanks is called melody, Eph. v. 19, in the heart ; yet when the heart is thus filled with a sense of God s goodness and our unworthiness, it must be acknowledged with the tongue also. And thanks is the fruit of the lips, Heb. xiii. 15 ; and < calves of lips, Hosea xiv. 2. God s praise is too big for the heart; acknowledge all therefore privately in thy prayers to God ; and not only so,

Ps< C. 4.] A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS

but also to others, Exod xviii. 8. When God had delivered the Israelites, Moses tells Jethro what he had done for them. David bids them come to him and he would tell them what he had done for his soul. Christ s re ward of the leper for healing him was, Go and tell what is done for thee Instead of foolish jesting, which our mouths are full of, rather give thanks, -hph. v. 4 ; and if the heart were full, the mouth would be filled with praise. .But yet, fourthly, if we would shew ourselves truly thankful, and give him the true glory of his goodness, we must not think to render it in words only; but if the glory of his goodness may be any other way rendered, we must also endeavour to do it; for all we can do is too little. Therefore, Ps. 1. 23, he speaking of true thankfulness, says, < He that offereth praise, glorifieth me ; and he adds, He that ordereth his conversation aright, he offereth the truest praise, and glorifies his goodness most. The mercies of God call for another sacrifice besides the calves of our lips: Rom. xii. 1,

I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, that is, your whole man, a living, holy, and acceptable sacrifice. Now, because they might mistake him, he shews how they must sacrifice themselves, which is (says he) your reasonable service: 1st, dedicating themselves to the service; and, 2dly, that service squared to the word (for so the words in the original signify). This is better than sacrificing thy thousand rivers of oil, yea, or thy life. Thus David, in that famous psalm of thanksgiving, Ps. cxvi., resolves to walk before the Lord, ver. 8, that is, to order all his course so as God might be glorified and advanced ; and I will pay my vows, ver. 14, that is, all the covenants he had made. 1st, he resolved that the consideration of God s mercies should quicken him to the performance of them, as his vows in sick ness, vows in distress, vows in sacraments. And, ver. 16, I am thy ser vant ; that is, I dedicate myself for ever to thee, as one that owed him all he had or could do. Every man should think with himself as that king concerning Mordecai : These and these mercies I have received from God ; but what has been done for him ? As, first, what sins have I left ? (for therein thankfulness is to be shewn.) Sin no more, says Christ to him that was healed. Shall I be so unthankful, so unkind ? Shall I requite the Lord thus, to be unclean, to be negligent in my calling, dead to holy duties ? Do you thus requite the Lord ? Who hath made you, established you, delivered you, as Moses argues, Deut. xxxii. 6 ? So also when a man quickeneth up his heart to abound with holy duties, and says with himself, I have received more wealth, wit, credit than others, what therefore shall I do for him more than others ? When a man considers the sins God hath pardoned, the prayers God hath heard, the long time in the world God hath given him, and thinks he owes him his life for every mercy; even as long as I live, says David, Ps. cxvi. 21. A thousand lives if he had them, though he should never receive more mercy, yet for those he hath had.

I am thy servant, says David, ver. 16; for thou hast loosed my bonds, and therefore

I will enter into new bonds to serve thee, looking on every mercy as a new indenture betwixt God and him. When a man repeats God s mercies over, and every one of them makes his soul to bleed for his sins, as Nathan did to David, to cause him to mourn : Have I given thee thy master s house, and wife, and wilt thou serve me thus ? this is to be thankful, even in mourn ing for sin.

Fifthly, A fifth way to shew thanks is to honour God with thy substance, Prov. iii. 9 ; to do good with thy gifts, to profit others, 1 Cor. xii. 7 ; to spend thy sweetness and thy fatness for the good of God and man, and to conse crate all thy learning, wit, wealth, to God, to use, and call for, and command, as if they were his own; this is to be thankful. And for this purpose, con-

A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. sider how much of their estates the Jews, under the ceremonial law, bestowed upon God and holy uses ; besides their yearly tithes, they paid first-fruits, brought sacrifices and offerings upon all occasions. These you are freed from ; ^but yet thou art obliged to do good to his saints ; either their souls or bodies, with that thou hast received ; as David did require, if none of Jonathan s seed were alive he might shew kindness unto, 2 Sam. ix. 1. So do thou say, where is a poor saint I may do good unto ; whose bowels of soul or of their bodies I may refresh ? And do it as God hath enabled thee. If thou hast not gold or silver, yet such as thou hast give them, as Peter did, and as Christ bade them, Mat. x. 8. They having received their gifts freely of healing and preaching, freely gave; and do all this to this end, that others may thank God for thee more than thank thee, which is Paul s motive to their bounty, 2 Cor. ix. 11, 12. You being enriched (says he) to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God, and you to rejoice, that others are set a-work to glorify God s goodness in thee, by thine to them ; for that should be the main motive, as appears by his following words : For hereby, says he, not only the want of the saints is supplied (which pity may cause you to do), but furthermore it is abundant, by many thanks givings to God.

The fourth question is, for what you must give thanks and be thankful ? I answer, All things. For look how far his goodness reaches ; so far our thanks should. Now his goodness runs through all things, so we must give thanks for all, Eph. v. 20, 1 Thes. v. 18, <in all, and for all ; that is, in all things, so far as God s goodness is seen in them. And so even for afflic tions, as they come out of love and faithfulness, Ps. cxix., and are appointed and ordered for our good, though in themselves they are not to be thanked for ; so Job blesseth God in the midst of all, for he found God blessing him in them ; for as we love not God, but he loves us first, so neither can we bless him till he blesseth us. Praise him for all his dealings ; for though thou seest not how they are all mercy and truth, yet thou shalt see them to be so in the end.

Praise him for temporal mercies ; every creature is to be received with thanksgiving.

Magnify him for mercies past, as well as those to come. Eaten bread must not be forgotten, but praise him especially for spiritual, Eph. i. 3, for these do sweeten all the other, and his goodness is more seen in these. Bless him for his giving Christ for thee, and thee to him, and him to thee, and all things with him.

For public mercies also, as well as private ; as of all duties, thankfulness becomes you most who are saints, Ps. xxxiii. 1, so to be thankful for public mercies to the state you live in, is especially expected of you ; for godly men have public spirits, and also public mercies are principally intended by God for you ; for all things are yours, the world, all deliverances and peace, which a people have, 1 Cor. iii., last verses ; and public mercies redound more to God s

glory, 2 Cor. iv. 15. And your first petition is, Hallowed be thy name. So also be thankful for mercies to come, as David praiseth God for the great things laid up in store for those that fear him, Ps. xxxi. 19, as well as those he had then wrought for them. So also David praiseth God, 1 Sam. vii. 17-19, for the long time to come that he had promised to his seed the kingdom, as a greater matter than his present enjoying it.

The fifth question you will ask, When we are to be thankful ? I answer, At all times ; for, look what time his goodness is extended, which is at all times, then also must thy thankfulness be returned; therefore that is added, Eph. v. 20, always, and for all things. As he said to the queen, that when

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when God leas giving, then leave thou, shewing thyself thankful to him; but his mercfes are renewed every moment; as the rivers are as continually running to the sea l6t to ttT ""AnT i

18 r S ^ f r 6Ver ; and S0 his works of merc thankS fl W t0 him as hi * merciesdwBTB flow

and every one, is to be thanked for ever. If thou hadst received no more but thy crea tion, if he givesthee being and life, resolve to be thankful whilst thou hast as David p s> civ . 33

. j prase ^ ^ ^ whilst I have any being. As sin is an eternal guilt, so <jverv mercy is an eternal obligation; as they, therefore, are ever punished in "hell, because tney can never pay the utmost farthing; so we in heaven shall be thankful ever, because we can never be thankful enough. He loads us with benefits daily Ps. Ixvm. 19, therefore we should praise him daily, as David, Ps. Ixxi. 15, resolves to do. t ^ ;[

The last thing to be added is, that look in whom God shews and extends liis goodness, m and through him give you thanks, and return the glory of it, and that is Jesus Christ ; so Eph. v. 20, "for thanks are sacrifices, called fruits of the lips, and calves of your lips, Heb. xiii. 15, that is, they are instead of those sacrifices and offerings of fruits under the law ; therefore bring them to the priest to offer (as Heb. xiii. 15); for you must offer nothing without a priest. Again, all is from God, through Christ, and therelore return all to God through him also, and give thanks for him above all, for he is all in all. And so now, in the last place, I will shew you the causes of true thank fulness, which you may take and consider as helps to it; and they are, First, A true consideration of God s benefits received by us, which must of necessity be done, or else there can be no ;true thankfulness, as ignoti cupido nttlla, so gratia nulla pro ir/notis : so then you must labour to know them, and that they are yours: Ps. cxxxix. 14, I will praise thee, saith David, < for thy wonderful works, which my soul knows right well ; that is, makes full consideration of them, which makes me thankful therefor; for want of this, unreasonable creatures are incapable of thankfulness, because of understanding ; and yet wicked men are worse ; for, Isa. i. 3, ( The ox knoweth his owner that feeds him, but my people do not consider; that is, regards not, takes no notice of, and into consideration, the great things I have done for them ; and, therefore, Deut. xxxii. 6, their unthankfulness is ascribed to folly, < a foolish people, and unwise, stultus semper est ingratus : therefore, get a heart that takes notice of every mercy. If thou prayest, watch how God doth answer thy prayers: Col. iv. 2, Watch in prayer with thanksgiving; as if he had said, Still see how many requests God grants. Watch to see how your prayers come in, and it will afford much and plentiful matter of thankfulness : to this end, take notice of small mercies as well as great ; that is a true sign of a thankful heart, and a means to increase mercies. In every passage of the day, in every petition of thy prayers, thou seest mercy, and an answer. God takes this kindly at thy hands, and he sees that none is lost. It is a motive to him to give thee more ; it is a sign thou art little in thine own eyes, when every small mercy is great to thee, as it was to Jacob. Forget not all his benefits, saith

David, Ps. ciii. 1 ; not all, not one if it were possible ; as when we would work our hearts to godly sorrow, we use to go over particular sins ; so if we would work our hearts to thankfulness, go over particular mercies, and labour to take notice of them, and know them; so also remember them, which is but an iteration of consideration ; and, indeed, this is so necessary, that forgetfulness is put for unthankfulness ; and so David, Ps. ciii., lays a solemn

508 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. charge upon his soul : My soul, forget not all his benefits. He doth give himself a charge to remember them ; and we had need have a charge laid on us to do this, for nothing sooner waxeth old than kindnesses. Injuries are written on our hearts with a pen of iron, but mercies are written as in water, Ps. cvi. 13. They soon forgat his works ; as Pharaoh s butler forgat Joseph, so we forget God.

Secondly, A second help and cause of thankfulness, is a true esteem and valuation of God s mercies, which is to be added to the other ; and to this end we are to consider the greatness, and the number, and all the aggrava tions of them ; for some circumstances in mercies make them great. When Paul would express his great thanks, 2 Cor. ix., that thing which he gives thanks for, he calls unspeakable ; and in 1 Thes. iii. 9, What thanks shall I give, saith he, for all the joy we have for your sakes before God ? He thought it so great a mercy, as no thanks were great enough ; the gift so unspeakable, that as his groans in prayer, so in thanks also were unutter able. Now, if you would have such large hearts, get a large esteem, of God s mercies. See how Ezra esteemed the mercy shewed his people, chap. ix. 13, such a mercy as this ; so think thou of the peculiarness of every mercy to thee ; how God hath not dealt so with others of thy brethren ; as he in the psalm, not so with any nation ; to this purpose also cast up the number of them. So David did, Ps. xl. 5, Thy thoughts (speaking of thoughts of mercy) are more than I can reckon up to thee; so Ps. Ixxi. 15, I will praise thee always, for I know not the number of thy mercies ; and add to that a right esteem of thine own vileness, that thou deservest nothing, but art less than the least, and then every mercy will be mercy indeed ; nothing hinders thankfulness more than pride. Hezekiah rendered not, because his heart was lifted up, 2 Chron. xxxii. 25 ; for a proud man thinks every thing is due to him ; but a beggar is thankful for a penny. The people of Israel having proud hearts, thought scorn of the good land, Ps. cvi. 24 ; thought it not good enough for them, who were too bad for hell. We have nothing but this manna, say they ; yet it was angels food, and came from heaven without their labour ; and take heed of contemning these mercies thou enjoyest, which because thou hast not what thou wouldst have, thou art apt to do. There is no mercy almost here, which in this life is a pure mercy, but some thing is wanting still, because indeed in our works unto God, there is still something wanting, and we are wayward creatures ; and because things do not come off adequately to our minds, and so fully as we would have them, we therefore undervalue them. Such peevish things are our lusts, that un less all be pleased, none are pleased.

Thirdly, There must be added to this a sense of God s love to your per sons in every mercy, or at leastwise there must be a heart in thee that seeks after that love in and above all other mercies, and rests not in them without it. And such a heart only is a thankful heart ; for if the heart be jealous of the want of his love in all he gives, it will not be thankful, as the children of Israel were not. They thought God brought them out of Egypt to destroy them, and therefore murmured rather than gave thanks. And if the heart be not sensible of God s love, great mercies are little worth to us ; for love is that which makes them mercies. A dinner of herbs in love is better than a stalled ox without love. As when thou sittest down with a great man, whose heart thou fearest is not with thee, as Prov. xxiii., thou wilt have no great Jieart to thank him for his cheer ; so also, if thou fearest that God s heart is not with thee, therefore, Ps. Ixiii. 3, David makes this the ground of his praise, because he tasted his loving-kindness to be better than life. Neither is it requisite only that the heart should know that the mercies come

A DISCOUESE OF THANKFULNESS. 509

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Ut f -!: ^e Gentile, knew th, so Col 11. 7 Be yon rooted and built up in Christ, and established in t faith, abounding with thanksgiving ; and then every dinner of herbs every cross, is interpreted in love, and made a love-token ; all his ways accounted mercy and truth. a s FTf f Urth ^ t thankfulness is lov* again to God, which is wrought by the sense of his love. This is necessary, for love is the Around! song of this melody, as the apostle calls it. Therefore David makes it the foundation of all his thankfulness, Ps. cxvi. 1, and so Ps. xviii 13 for love enlargeth the heart, and it is the very form and essence of thankfulness, and therefore the chiefest cause of it ; and therefore contrarily self-love is the greatest hindrance of it, and also love to the creature hinders it too for self love keeps all to itself, and improveth all to itself; it contracteth the heart Therefore, in 2 Tim. iii. 3, it is said men shall be lovers of themselves, and because such, therefore unthankful also ; that follows, for that makes them content to take all kindnesses, but to return none; and therefore that good ness in nature (as we call it in men), which makes them thankful, is but so much ingenuity as restraining grace hath gained from self-love. And so like wise love to the creatures, if inordinate, is an hindrance. Nullnm habet malum, cupiditas majus quam quod ingrata est, for like dogs that are greedy, cast one sop to them they swallow it down, and then look you on the face for another, so do men possessed with lusts. y ^

Fifthly, A fifth help is joy in God s goodness, as when Hannah praised God for Samuel, 1 Sam. ii. 1 ; she begins her song thus, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord. When you entertain God s blessings with fulness,* you cannot give thanks for them ; therefore upon days of thanksgiving a liberal use of the creature is allowed us, in the 8th of Nehemiah ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength ; for joy dilateth the heart and opens the mouth ; turns it and winds it up ; and so, Luke i. 46, 47, My soul magnifieth the Lord, and rejoiceth in God my Saviour. And David also, when he gave thanks , 1 Chron. xxix. 17, he rejoiced exceedingly that day. Only you must joy in God s goodness ; for if you carnally rejoice in the creature, spiritual joy is damped, and then thanksgiving is damped also : Deut. viii. 10, 11, Lest thou be full and forget me. They in the 14th of the Acts, ver. 17, had their hearts filled with gladness, but yet walked in their own ways, because it was gladness in the creature, not in God. Preserve spiritual joy there fore, and delight thyself in the Almighty.

Sixthly, We freely render to God the glory of goodness, by acknowledg ing his goodness and our baseness, and by yielding ourselves, and all we have, to his service, and in all things, at all times, principally to this end, to glorify that his goodness, and to testify our love ; and all this to the name rf nUvin* of Christ.

Use. The first use is to exhort you to this duty of thankfulness, unto which, as you have the greatest motive drawn from the object of it, the riches of God s goodness, of all cords the cords of love are the sweetest, so also from the goodness and excellency of the duty itself ; which indeed hath all kinds of goodness met in it ; for all good things the philosopher reduceth to three heads : 1, things honest ; 2, things profitable ; 3, things pleasant, and all these three meet in this duty, a perfect trinity of goodness ; so you * That is, satiety. ED.

510 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. have, Ps. cxlvii., Praise the Lord, for it is good ; that is, it is profitable; so * and it is pleasant, and praise is comely ; and therefore by the rule of v. 7, contraries, all kind of evil is contained and met in uuthankfulness, to which even the very heathen bear witness, ingratum si dixeris, omnia dixeris ; all evil is spoken in this one word, viz., unthankfulness.

First, Thankfulness to God is most profitable: 1. Because it is the way to get more, and unthankfulness is the way to lose all we have ; therefore, Philip, iv. 6, 7, Let your requests be made known with thanksgiving, otherwise requests alone will not move God. It is not earnestness only for what thoti wantest, but withal thanks for what thou hast, must prevail. As you use to put water into the pump to fetch more, so return thanks to fetch more mercies ; whereas the want of thankfulness, and returning all to God again, forfeits all the blessings you have : Deut. xxviii. 47, 48, Because you served not the Lord with gladness of heart in abundance of all things, you shall serve your enemies in want, &c. Enemies are opposed to God, a bountiful master ; abundance, to penury ; and gladness, to grief and sorrow of heart. Great odds you see therein ; yet this unthankfulness brings, Hosea

I will take my corn away, says God, when they were unthankful. ii. 14, Secondly, It is profitable, because even the creature and blessings you have are blessed to you by it, and thereby made good, 1 Tim. iv. 4, The creatures are good if received with thanksgiving ; mark it, he puts in that if, for otherwise God s curse goeth with them, which thankfulness removed.

The second thing is, it is pleasant also both to God and man. 1. Pleasant to God, Eph. v. 18, 20 : Sing psalms, making melody to God in your hearts ; * I will magnify the Lord with thanksgiving. This shall please the Lord better than an ox or giving thanks, for that is the ditty; so, Ps. Ixix. 30, 31, bullock. As it is pleasant to God, so, 2dly, to man, for joy is always the ground of it. We never thank God truly, but our hearts are warmed with his love, and we rejoice in him ; therefore, Luke i. 46, 47, when Mary praised God, she said, My spirit doth magnify the Lord, and rejoice in God my Saviour; and as joy is the ground of it, so the consequent and the issue of it. When you thank God most heartily, then God fills your hearts with peace ; so Philip, iv. 6, 7, Let your requests be made*knovm with thanksgiving, and the peace of God shall rule your hearts. Christians find it so ; and those blessings are sweetest to them, which they are most thankful for; that are won with prayers, and worn with thanks. Lastly, it is also comely, for it is paying a debt, 2 Thes. i. 3, we are bound, and it is meet to give thanks (says Paul there) ; it is all God requires, and all we can do. So in 2 Sam. vii. 19, 20, when he had repeated those great mercies, and * Lord (says he) what can thy servant say more ? It was all he could do ; he could but thank him, and out of thankfulness serve him ; and this is now, : 1 Thes. v., about the 18th ver., This is the will of God all God requires concerning you. Therefore as it is comely, as being the giving but a due, and less than his due, and yet all we can ; so also honourable, yea, more honourable than praying is, prastantius est dare quam accipere ; so to return than beg ; therefore the service of the world to come, and of angels in heaven, is set forth by this.

Secondly, By way of use, then, let me shew you your unthankfulness to God, and let you see what unthankfulness is. I will briefly set it forth to you in three degrees of it, which I will apply to you. The first degree of unthankfulness is : 1, when you want true thankfulness in expressing your thankfulness, as when you want the true grounds and ends of it. Among men there is no greater falsehood and dissemblance than in the matter of

thankfulness one to another, and much more to God. There are often the matter, the duties, the tokens, the expressions of it, both in word and deed, when as yet the life and soul of thankfulness is wanting ; for as you pray amiss (as James says), so also you may be thankful amiss. See you an <I thank God (says the pharisee) I am not like other men. Here is one outwardly thankful, when yet he wanted the power of true thankfulness ; for he gave not God the glory of what he example for this, Luke xviii. 11, was, but in his heart took it himself; he rendered an acknowledgment indeed, as unto God, but yet gloried as if he had not received it from him. Some men will commend their own worth and gifts to others, by way of thankfulness to God, when they aim more at glorifying themselves than glorifying of him.

So also when men are thankful for mercies, which indeed they have not received from God, nor have no assurance and evidence of. It is an ordinary thing for men to give thanks for election, and the work of grace, when inwardly their hearts tell them they have no assurance of neither. To thank God for mercies you have not, is to mock him, as the other gloried in what he had received, as if he had not received it ; so some give thanks for what they have not received, as if they had received it.

So also when men seem to be thankful, and say, We bless God for the means of grace, and blessed preaching we live under, and for the company of God s people, and yet their hearts are affected more with a value and esteem of their corn, and wine, and oil, and of their quails more than manna, all this is unthankfulness. So when men seem to be very stirring for God, forward of duties, and fearful of injuries and wrongs to him, and yet do not this out of thankfulness, this is unthankfulness, when it is not his goodness they fear most in abstaining from sin, as Hosea iii. 5. They for bear not wronging him because he hath been kind to them, not because the love of God and his goodness constrains them to duties, neither is that they do for him in relation to what is passed, and what he hath done for them ; but still they look to things to come only, what dependences they have on him, considering rather how they are in his danger than in his debt, not so much to requite him, who hath done so much for them ; but lest he should reward them for all they have done against him. If in this case, and on these grounds only, you should offer rivers of oil to him, and give your bodies to be burned for him, yet you might be termed unthankful. Thankfulness hath no greater end than itself ; as when a man looks upon God as one who hath saved him from hanging in hell, and one he owes his life unto, and so would be content to do or suffer anything for him upon this ground, and is glad if God will but use him or call him to either, is greedy of opportunities of rendering to him, and glad of an occasion wherein he may show himself to love him ; is thankful for nothing more than that he is able to do any thing that pleaseth him, and may be accepted ; this man is a thankful man.

So much of this as you have in your hearts, so much thankfulness you have.

That man who endeavours to quicken up his heart, and says, I have received these and these mercies more from God than any of my equals, as Paul did, more wit and parts, and learning, and credit, and opportunities, what shall I therefore do for him more than other men ? And so serves him ; this is a thankful man.

The second degree of unthankfulness I would convince you of, is much more than the former, viz., not rendering at all ; not only rendering amiss, but not rendering at all, or not in any proportionable measure to the mercies received. Herod had received much assistance in the making an eloquent oration, and God had made it take, but he gave not glory to God ; that was

512 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. his sin, he rendered not again ; and so Hezekiah, a good man ; he had received a great mercy, he had the lease of his life renewed for fifteen years, and of his kingdom with it, and a deliverance from Sennacherib ; andf this, at that time, when the rest of the tribes were carried away captive, and had a miracle wrought for his sake which made him famous all the world over, namely, the going back of the sun, and which made him to be thought dear to the God of heaven, who, beyond the course of nature, lengthened the day to show he meant to lengthen his life ; yet, 2 Chron. xxii. 25, he is taxed, that he rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him. His heart was not wrought upon to be so much better after so great a mercy, according to that proportion which might be expected ; and so Solomon is taxed for this kind of ungratitude, 1 Kings xi. 9. God had been exceeding merciful unto him, not only in giving him the kingdom, though a younger brother, but in appearing unto him, and assuring him thereby of his love, and acceptation of him that he was his God. Now, says the text, by way of * He turned away from the Lord his God, 1 Kings xi. 9, who had appeared unto him twice. Is there any man here had often aggravation of his sin, appearings from God (for when after any extraordinary manner he draws nigh to you, it may be so called) ? And have not your hearts been turned more to God after ? Then these appearings will be set upon your score of unthankfulness ; so have you had much cost bestowed on you, much means by the Lord of the harvest, and dresser of the ground, and have you not brought forth meet fruits, not only fruits, but meet fruits ? Heb. vi. 7. You may be called unthankful persons, because you render not again according to the benefits.

So it is unthankfulness when Christians are always whining and complain ing, and discontented for what they want, but never praising God for what they have, still a-begging more, not considering what is past ; indeed, in duties, you are to look to what is before, and not to what is behind ; but contrary in mercies, to what is past more than to what is to come, and if so much as you fall short in rendering as you might, so much unthankfulness, much more are they unthankful that render not according to the benefit received, but not at all, as many do not, but do take all they can get from God, but he gets nothing of them again ; they have houses to dwell in of his building, but pay him no rent ; pray not to him, nor worship him in their families, and so as to make a church in their houses ; have credit in the world, and interest in men s hearts, but are loath to spend never so little of it for God and a good cause, and to make use of their interest in men for his advantage, but improve all to their own ends only ; that have power put into their hands (which the apostle says is God s, and from him) and yet do not think with themselves how to employ it best for him, in the suppressing of any sin, or the advancing of his gospel ; have bodies and souls that are of his buying and finding, but yet endeavour not to glorify God with either, as Paul exhorts upon that ground in 1 Cor. vi. 20, do not begin to say in their hearts as God taxeth them : Jer. v. 24, * Let us fear the Lord who giveth rain, both the former and the latter in their season. Nay, pay him not so much as good words for all his mercies, much less study not how to render and to be really thankful ; nay, sacrifice to their own nets, Hab. i.

16, and say in their hearts, their wit, and power, and industry, hath got them ; their wealth and their learning (Deut. viii. 14, 17) they think hath got them their credit ; their friends have got them their preferment, all these are unthankful persons ; the earth rendereth fruit to him that dresseth it ; the clouds return the rain they receive from the earth ; the rivers empty themselves into the sea, from whence they had their streams ; the body of

man returns to the earth, whence it was taken, and the spirit to God that gave it, only in your hearts and in your lives, you return nothing again to the glory of God s goodness.

The third and highest degree of unthankfulness is not only rendering or not rendering at all, but requiting and rendering evil and disobedience for the good received, which is the highest degree of unthankfulness. Such was in the children of Israel, and is in all impenitent persons, who, Luke iii. 35, are called evil and unthankful. So Neh. ix. 25, 26, They took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, &c. ; and did eat, and were filled, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness! Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their back, and killed the prophets, and wrought great provoca tions.

So Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked, Deut. xxxii. 15, like full fed heifers, who, when fat and lusty, kick at the owner when he comes to yoke them for his service.

Thus David s sin is aggravated, though a good man : 2 Sam. xii. 7, 8, Did not I anoint thee king, and deliver thee from Saul ; and gave thee thy master s house, and wives ? and if this had been too little, would have given thee more. For God makes one mercy the foundation of a greater. * And why hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord ? Why hast thou used me thus, and set light by me ? Is this thy requital ? This is the case of all impenitent persons, whom God out of the riches of his patience affords time to live here, as space to repent, Rev. ii. 2 ; yet this his patience puts them from repentance, and in the end repentance so far off from them, that they can never meet : Eccles. viii. 11, Because sentence against an evil work is not presently executed, therefore their hearts are set to do evil. Because God defers punishing and cutting them off, they defer repenting, going on in hardness of heart, despising the riches of his patience, which leadeth them to repentance. Deferrers of repentance are unthankful persons ; therefore in the highest degree they think to spend the best and most precious of their youth, and to live in pleasures, and give God the dregs and the last sands when the glass is run ; neither would they then repent, but that they needs must ; and will it be accepted, thinkest thou ? No. All the blessings God in the mean time vouchsafeth them, they have used them against him, and they increase but the fire of their lusts, as God com plains, Ezek. xvi. from the 15th, and so on, Thou takest my gold and silver (so God calls them) and makest idols of them. So I may say of all your covetous worldlings, God s silver and gold you have made idols of, and fallen down and worshipped them, and sacrificed all unto them ; and * My meat I give thee. Thou art a glutton, thou hast sacrificed ver. 19, to thy lusts, made thy belly thy god ; that strong drink and wine God gave thee, thou hast sacrificed to drunkenness ; that strength to women, consumed all on thy Justs (as James speaks) ; the wealth you have had, which you should serve God with, you have but made use of it to live at a higher rate of sinning, and procuring the sweetest and daintiest of pleasures, and the daintiest and comeliest sins ; that wit thou hast had, thou hast used it not in giving thanks, which the apostle rather commands, Eph. v., but in foolish jests, abusing the Scripture, mocking his saints ; that power and preferment thou hast is made use of by these* perhaps to persecute God s children and ministers. So also thv body, that God hath at a dear rate bought, thou hast dishonoured him with, and made the members of it members of a harlot ; thou hast eyes full of adultery, and thy strength to pour down drink ; nay, * Qu. thoo ? F*r.

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514 A DISCOURSE OF THANKFULNESS. [Ps. C. 4. thou canst not give him so much as a good word, but hast his name up in every company, profaning it by swearing, &c. Art thou not unthankful ? God, by giving these blessings, hath made thee more able to offend him, hath strengthened an enemy, and by sparing thee so long, hath but made thee more bold to do it, and daring in it ; and all his mercies have but fortified thy hard heart to hold out siege against him ; all the creatures he set to woo thee to him, have got thy love away from him themselves. Do you requite the Lord thus, ye foolish and unkind, as Moses expostulates the case, Deut. xxxii. 6 ; as Christ said, For which of these good works do ye stone me ? So I say, for which of all his mercies do you go on thus to sin against him ? What, to fight against him with his own weapons, his own strength, to betray all he gives thee into thy enemies hands, what can be worse ? What iniquity have you ever found in him ? When did he ever do you any hurt ?

God will one day expostulate his cause with you, and heap coals of fire upon your heads if you turn not, because you rendered him evil for good ; all the mercies abused will be so many more coals to make hell fire the hotter, and therefore all of you consider what good things you have received and enjoy from the Lord, and how unthankful you have been ; and humble yourselves and turn to him, for know, that nothing will condemn you more than sinning against light and mercies.

END OF VOL. IX.

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