John Owen · 31 of 73

Chapter VI. Particular promises illustrated. · Part 2

“But this,” say some, “is a very desperate persuasion. If thou art sure that goodness and mercy shall follow thee all the days of thy life, then live as thou pleasest, as loosely as flesh can desire, as wickedly as Satan can prompt thee to. Certainly this persuasion is fit only to ingenerate in thee a high contempt of humble and close walking with God. What other conclusion canst thou possibly make of that presumption but only this, ‘ I may, then, do what I please, what I will; let the flesh take its swing in all abominations, it matters not, goodness and mercy shall follow me.’ Alas!” saith the psalmist, “these thoughts never come into my heart. I find this persuasion, through the grace of Him in whom it is effectual, to in-generate contrary resolutions, This is that which I am, upon the account hereof, determined on, ‘I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ Seeing ‘goodness and mercy shall follow me,’ I will dwell in his house; and seeing they shall follow me ‘all the days of my life,’ I will dwell in his house for ever.”

There are, then, these two things in this last verse pregnant to the purpose in hand:—

1. The psalmist’s assurance of the presence of God with him “for ever,” and that in kindness and pardoning mercy, upon the account of his promise unto him. “Goodness or benignity,” saith he, “shall follow me into every condition, to assist me and extricate my soul, even out of the valley of the shadow of death.” A conclusion like that of Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 18, “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.” Having, verse 17, given testimony of the presence of God with him in his great trial, when he was brought before that devouring monster Nero, giving him deliverance, he manifesteth in verse 18 that the presence of God with him was not only effectual for one or another deliverance, but that it will keep him “from every evil work,” not only from the rashness, cruelty, and oppression of others, but also from any such way or work of his own which should lay a bar against his enjoyment of and complete preservation unto that heavenly kingdom whereunto he was appointed.

What reason, now, can be imagined why other saints of God, who have the same promises with David and Paul, established unto them in the hand of the same Mediator, being equally taken into the same covenant of mercy and peace with them, may not make the same conclusion of mercy with them, — namely, “That the mercy and goodness of God will follow them all the days of their lives; that they shall be delivered from every evil work, and preserved to God’s heavenly kingdom?” 2 Cor. i. 20. To fly here to immediate revelation, as though God had particularly and immediately assured some persons of their perseverance, which begat in them a confidence wherein others may not share with them, besides that it is destructive of all the vigour and strength of sundry, if not all the arguments produced against the saints’ perseverance, it is not in this place of any weight, or at all relative to the business in hand; for evident it is that one of them, even David, is thus confident upon the common account of God’s relation unto all his saints, as he is their shepherd, one that takes care of them, and will see, not only whilst they abide with him, that they shall have pasture and refreshment, but also will find them out in their wanderings, and will not suffer any of them to be utterly lost. And he is a shepherd equally in care and love to every one of his saints as he was to David. He gives them all “the sure mercies of David,” even the mercy contained and wrapped up in the promise that was given to them, and what by virtue thereof he did enjoy, with what he received from God in that covenant relation wherein he stood, Isa. lv. 3. And for Paul, it is most evident that he grounded his confidence and consolation merely upon the general promise of the presence of God with his, that he will “never leave them nor forsake them,” but be their God and “guide even unto death;” neither is there the least intimation of any other bottom of his consolation herein. Now, these being things wherein every believer, even the weakest in the world, hath an equal share and interest with Paul, David, or any of the saints in their generations, what should lie in their way but that they also may grow up to this assurance, being called thereunto? I say, they may grow up unto it. I do not say that every believer can with equal assurance of mind thus make his boast in the Lord and in the continuance of his kindness to him, — the Lord knows we are oftentimes weak and dark, and at no small loss even as to the main of our interest in the promises of God; — but there being an equal certainty in the things themselves of which we speak, it being as certain that the goodness and mercy of God shall follow them all their days as it did David, and as certain that God will deliver them from every evil work and preserve them to his heavenly kingdom as he did Paul, they also may grow up unto, and ought to press after, the like assurance and consolation with them. Whom goodness and mercy shall follow all their days, and who shall be of God preserved from every evil work, they can never fall totally and finally out of the favour of God. That this is the state and condition of believers is manifested from the instances given of David and Paul, testifying their full persuasion and assurance concerning that condition on grounds common to them with all believers.

2. The conclusion and inference that the psalmist makes, from the assurance which he had of the continuance of the goodness and kindness of God unto him, followeth in the words insisted on: “All the days of his life he would dwell in the Lord’s house.” He would for ever give up himself unto his worship and service. “Seeing this is the case of my soul, that God will never forsake me, let me answer this love of God in my constant obedience.” Now, this conclusion follows from the former principle upon a twofold account:—

(1.) As it is a motive unto it. The continuance of the goodness and kindness of God unto a soul is a constraining motive unto that soul to continue with him in love, service, and obedience; it works powerfully upon a heart any way ennobled with the ingenuity of grace to make a suitable return, as far as possibly it can, to such eminent mercy and goodness. I profess I know not what those men think the saints of God to be, who suppose them apt to make conclusions of wantonness and rebellion upon the account of the steadfastness of the love and kindness of God to them. I shall not judge any as to their state and condition; yet I cannot but think that such men’s prejudices and fullness of their own persuasions do exceedingly interpose in their spirits from receiving that impression of this grace of God which in its own nature it is apt to give, or it would be impossible they should once imagine that of itself it is apt to draw the spirits of men into a neglect and contempt of God.

(2.) As the end of God, intended in giving that assurance, to the effecting whereof it is exceedingly operative and effectual. So you have it, Luke i. 74, 75. This is the intendment of God in confirming his oath and promise unto us, “That he may grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives.”

Now, though these forementioned, with many other texts of Scripture, are plain, evident, and full to the business we have in hand, yet the adversaries of this truth having their hands so full with them that are commonly urged that they cannot attend unto them, I shall not need to spend time in their vindication from exceptions which none that I know have as yet brought in against them (though, upon their principles, they might possibly be invented), but shall leave them to be mixed with faith, according as God by his Spirit shall set them home upon the souls of them who do consider them.

The whole of Ps. cxxv. might, in the next place, be brought in to give testimony to the truth in hand. I shall only take a proof from the first two verses of it: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for even -as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.” Whereunto answereth that of Ps. xxxvii. 28, “The Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever;” as also Deut. xxxiii. 3, “Yea, he loveth his people; all his saints are in thy hand.” In the verses named, I shall a little fix upon two things conducing to our purpose, which are evidently contained in them:—

1. A promise of God’s everlasting presence with his saints, believers, them that trust in him, and their steadfastness thereupon: “They shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed;” and that because “the Lord is round about them,” and that “for ever.”

2. An allusive comparison of both these, both their stability and God’s presence with them, given for the encouragement of weak believers, with special regard to the days wherein the promise was first made, which actually also belongs to them on whom the ends of the world are fallen. The psalmist bids them, as it were, lift up their eyes, and look upon mount Zion and the hills that were round about Jerusalem, and tells them that God will as certainly and assuredly continue with them and give them establishment as those hills and mountains which they beheld round about abide in their places; so that it shall be as impossible for all the powers of hell to remove them out of the favour of God as for a man to pluck up mount Zion by the roots, or to overturn the foundations of the mountains that stand round about Jerusalem. It is true, the Holy Ghost hath special regard to the oppositions and temptations that they were to undergo from men, but bears also an equal regard to all other means of separating them from their God. It would be a matter of small consolation unto them that men should not prevail over them for ever, if in the meantime there be other more close and powerful adversaries, who may cast them down with a perpetual destruction. Some few considerations of the intendment of the place will serve for the enforcing of our argument from this portion of Scripture:—

1. That which is here promised the saints is a perpetual preservation of them in that condition wherein they are; both on the part of God, “he is round about them from henceforth even for ever;” and on their parts, “they shall not be removed,” — that is, from the state and condition of acceptation with him wherein they are supposed to be, — but abide for ever, and continue therein immovable into the end. It is, I say, a plain promise of their continuance in that condition wherein they are, with their safety from thence, and not a promise of some other good thing provided that they continue in that condition. Their being compared to mountains and their stability, which consists in their being and continuing so, will admit no other sense. As mount Zion abides in its condition, so shall they; and as the mountains about Jerusalem continue, so doth the Lord his presence unto them.

2. That expression which is used, verse 2, is weighty and fall to this purpose, “The Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.” What can be spoken more fully, more pathetically? Can any expression of men so set forth the truth which we have in hand? The Lord is round about them, not to save them from this or that incursion, but from all; not from one or two evils, but from every one whereby they are or may be assaulted. He is with them, and round about them on every side, that no evil shall come nigh them. It is a most full expression of universal preservation, or of God’s keeping his saints in his love and favour, upon all accounts whatsoever; and that not for a season only, but it is “henceforth,” from his giving this promise unto their souls in particular, stud their receiving of it in all generations, according to their appointed times, “even for ever.”

Some few exceptions, with a great surplusage of words and phrases, to make them seem other things than what have been formerly insisted on again and again, are advanced by Mr Goodwin, to overturn this Zion and to cast down the mountains that are about Jerusalem, chap. xi. sect. 9, pp. 230–232. The sum of our argument from hence, as of the intendment of this place, is this: Those whom the Lord will certainly preserve for ever in the state and condition of trusting in him, they shall never be forsaken of him nor separated from him. The latter clause of this proposition is that which we contend for, the whole of that whose proof is incumbent on us. Of this the former part is a sufficient basis and foundation, being comprehensive of all that is or can be required to the unquestionable establishment thereof, [which] from the letter of the text we assume. But God will certainly preserve for ever all his saints that put their trust in him, in their so doing, that they shall not be altered or cast down from that state and condition. Change but the figurative expressions in the text, and the allusions used for the accommodation of their faith in particular to whom this promise was first given, into other terms of a direct and proper significancy, and the text and the assumption of our argument will appear to be the same; whence the conclusion intended will undeniably follow. Unto this clear deduction of the truth contended for from this place of Scripture, the discourse ensuing, in the place mentioned, is opposed:—

1. “The promise only assures them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved, but not at all that they that trust in him shall be necessitated to do so still, or that so they shall do. So Paul saith, ‘It was in my heart to live and die with the Corinthians;’ but doubtless with this proviso, that they always continued such as they then were, or as he apprehended them to be, when he so wrote to them.”

Ans. I must be forced to smite this evasion once and again before we arrive at the close of this contest, it being so frequently made use of by our adversary, who without it knows himself not able to stand against the evidence of any one promise usually insisted on. This is the substance of all that which, with exceeding delightful variety of expressions, is a hundred times made use of: “The promise is conditional, and made to those that trust in the Lord, and is to be made good only upon the account of their continuing so to do; but that they shall so do, that they shall continue to trust in the Lord, that is wholly left to themselves, and not in the least undertaken in the promise.” And this is called a “discharging or dismissing of places of Scripture from the service whereunto, contrary to their proper sense and meaning, they are pressed,” a “delivering them from the bearing the cross of this warfare,” with such like imperial terms and expressions. To speak in the singleness of our spirit, we cannot see any one of the discharged soldiers returning from the camp, wherein they have long served for the safety and consolation of them that do believe. Particularly, this Scripture detests the gloss with violence imposed on it, and tells you that the end for which the God of truth sent it into this service., wherein it abides, is to assure them that trust in the Lord that they shall be preserved in that condition to the end; that in the condition of trusting and depending on God, they shall be as Zion, and the favour of God unto them as the immovable mountains, — he will for ever be with them and about them; and that all this shall certainly come to pass. Christ [David?] does not say that they shall be as established mountains if they continue to trust in the Lord, but they shall be so in their trusting, abiding for ever therein, through the safeguarding presence of God. For their being necessitated to continue trusting in the Lord, there is not any thing in [the] text, or in our argument from thence, or in the doctrine we maintain, that requires or will admit of any such proceeding of God as by that expression is properly signified. Indeed, there is a contradiction in terms, if they are used to the same purpose. To trust in the Lord is the voluntary, free act of the creature. To be necessitated unto this act and in the performance of it, so that it should be done necessarily as to the manner of its doing, is wholly destructive to the nature and being of it. That God can effectually and infallibly as to the event cause his saints to continue trusting in him without the least abridgment of their liberty, yea, that he doth so eminently by heightening and advancing their spiritual liberty, shall be afterward declared. If by “Necessitated to continue trusting,” not the manner of God’s operation with and in them for the compassing of the end proposed, and the efficacy of his grace, whereby he doth it (commonly decried under these terms), be intended, but only the certainty of the issue, rejecting the impropriety of the expression, the thing itself we affirm to be here promised of God. But it is urged, —

2. “That this promise is not made unto the persons of any, but merely unto their qualifications; like that, ‘He that believeth shall be saved;’ it is made to the grace of trusting, obedience, and walking with God: for threatenings are made to the evil qualifications of men.”

Ans. This it seems, then, we are come unto (and what farther progress may be made the Lord knows): The gracious promises of God, made to his church, his people, in the blood of Jesus, on which they have rolled themselves with safety and security in their several generations, are nothing but bare declarations of the will of God, what he allows and what he rejects, with the firm concatenation that is between faith and salvation, obedience and reward. And this, it seems, is the only use of them: which if it be so, I dare boldly say that all the saints of God from the foundation of the world have most horribly abused his promises, and forced them to other ends than ever God intended them for. Doubtless all those blessed souls who are fallen asleep in the faith of Jesus Christ, having drawn refreshment from these breasts of consolation, could they be summoned to give in their experience of what they have found in this kind, would with one mouth profess that they found far more in them than mere conditional declarations of the will of God; yea, that they received them in faith as the engagement of his heart and good-will towards them, and that he never failed in the accomplishment and performance of all the good mentioned in them. Neither will that emphatical expression in the close of the second verse (which being somewhat too rough for our author to handle, he left it quite out) bear any such sense. That the promises of the covenant are made originally to persons, and not to qualifications, hath been in part already proved, and shall be farther evinced, God assisting, as occasion shall be offered, in the ensuing discourse. The promises are to Abraham and his seed; and some of them, as hath been declared, are the springs of all qualifications whatever that are acceptable unto God. What be the qualifications of promises of opening blind eyes, taking away stony hearts, etc., hath not as yet been declared. But it is farther argued, —

3. “That this and the like promises are to be interpreted according to the rule which God hath given for the interpretation and understanding of his threatenings unto nations about temporal things, and his promises that are of the same import, which we have, Jer. xviii. 7, 8, plainly affirming that all their accomplishment dependeth on some conditions in the persons or nations against whom they are denounced.”

Ans. God forbid! Shall those promises which are branches of the everlasting covenant of grace, called “better promises” than those of the old covenant, upon the account of their infallible accomplishment, ratified in the blood of Christ, made “yea and amen” in him, the witness of the faithfulness of God to his church and grand supporter of our faith, “exceeding great and precious,” — shall they be thought to be of no other sense and interpretation, to make no other revelation of the Father unto us, but in that kind which is common to threatenings of judgments (expressly conditional) for the deterring men from their impious and destructive courses? I say, God forbid! To put it, then, to an issue: God here promiseth that they who have trust in him shall never be removed. What, I pray, is the condition on which this promise doth depend? “It is,” say they who oppose us in this, “if they continue trusting in him.” That is, if they be not removed; for to trust in him is not to be removed: if, then, they be not removed, they shall not be removed! And is this the mind of the Holy Ghost? Notwithstanding all the rhetoric in the world, this promise will stand, for the consolation of them that believe, as the mountains about Jerusalem, that shall never be removed.

In some it is said to be “a promise of abiding in happiness, not in faith.” But it plainly appears to be a promise of abiding in trusting the Lord, which comprehends both our faith and happiness.

Obj. “It is not promised that they who once trust in the Lord shall abide happy though they cease to trust in him.”

Ans. It is a promise that they shall not cease to trust in him.

Obj. “It is not said that they shall be necessitated to abide trusting in him.”

Ans. No; but it is that they shall be so far assisted and effectually wrought upon as certainly to do it.

Obj. “It is no more than the apostle says to the Corinthians, 2 Cor. ii. 3; which frame towards them he would not continue should they be changed and turned into idolaters and blasphemers.”

Ans. 1. The promises of God and the affections of men are but ill compared. 2. Paul loved the Corinthians whilst they were such as he mentioned. God promiseth his grace to believers, that they may continue such as he loves.

Obj. “All the promises are made to qualifications, not to persons.”

Ans. Prove that, and, 1. Take the case in hand; and, 2. Cast down the church to the ground, it having no one promise, on that account, made unto it, as consisting of Abraham’s seed.

And so this witness also is freed from all exceptions put in against it, and appears with confidence to give in its testimony to the unchangeableness of God unto believers.

I shall, in the next place, adjoin another portion of Scripture, of the same import with those foregoing, wherein the truth in hand is no less clearly, and somewhat more pathetically and convincingly, expressed than in that last mentioned. It is Isa. liv. 7–10, “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. 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 would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills 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.” This place I have mentioned before, but only as to one special inference from one passage in the words; I shall now use the whole for the confirmation of the general truth we plead for. The words are full, plain, suited to the business in hand. No expressions of our finding out can so fully reach the truth we assert, much less so pathetically work upon the affections of believers, or so effectually prevail on their understandings to receive the truth contained in them, as these words of God himself, given us for these ends, are suited to do. Go to men whose minds are in any measure free from prejudice, not forestalled with a contrary persuasion or furnished with evasions for the defence of their opinions, and ask whether God doth not in these words directly and positively promise to those to whom he speaketh, that he will always continue his kindness to them to the end, and that for the days of eternity his love shall be fixed on them; and I no way doubt but they will readily answer, “It is so indeed; it cannot be denied.” But seeing we have to deal, as with our own unbelieving hearts, so with men who have turned every stone to prejudge this testimony of God, the words must a little more narrowly be considered, and the mind of the Holy Ghost inquired into.

Verse 7, mention is made of the desertion of the church by the eclipsing of the beams of God’s countenance, and the inflicting of some great affliction for a season; in opposition unto which momentary desertion, in that and in the beginning of the 8th verse, he giveth in consolation from the assurance of the great mercies and everlasting kindness wherein he abideth to do them good: “With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee;” — “I will pardon, pity, and heal thee with that mercy which floweth from love, which never had beginning, that never shall have ending, that cannot be cut off, ‘everlasting kindness’ Bear with patience your present desertion, your present trials, whatever they are that befall you; they are but for a season, but ‘ for a moment,’ and these also are consistent with that mercy and kindness which is everlasting and turneth not away.” If this mercy and kindness dependeth on any thing in us, and is solved lastly thereinto, which may alter and change every moment, — as our walking with God in itself considered, not relating to the unchangeableness of his purpose and the efficacy of his promised grace, is apt to do, — what opposition can there be betwixt that desertion wherewith they are exercised and the kindness wherewith they are embraced, as to their continuance? As that is said to be for a little while, for “a moment,” so this also may be of no longer abode. It may possibly be as Jonah’s gourd, that grew up in the morning, and before night was withered. What, then, shall become of the foundation of that consolation wherewith God here refresheth the souls of his people, consisting in the continuance of his kindness in an antithesis to the momentariness of their desertion?

Lest that any should call this into question (as our unbelieving hearts are very apt and skilful in putting in pleas against the truth of the promises of God and their accomplishment towards us), verse 9, the Lord farther confirmeth the assurance formerly given, and removeth those objections to which, through the sophistry of Satan and the sottishness of our own hearts, it may seem to be liable. “This is,” saith he, “as the waters of Noah.” God’s dealing with them in that mercy which floweth from his everlasting kindness is like his dealing with the world in the matter of the waters of Noah, or the flood wherewith it was drowned and destroyed, when he, with his, were saved in the ark. He calleth upon his children to consider his dealings with the world in respect of the flood: “I have sworn,” saith he (that is, “I have entered into a covenant to that end,” which was wont to be confirmed with an oath, and God being absolutely faithful in his covenant is said to swear thereunto, though there be no express mention of any such oath), “that the world should no more be so drowned as then it was. Now,” saith God, “see my faithfulness herein; it hath never been drowned since, nor ever shall be. With equal faithfulness have I engaged, even in covenant, that that kindness which I mentioned to thee shall always be continued, ‘so that I will not be wroth to rebuke thee;’ that is, so as utterly to cast thee off, as the world was when it was drowned.” But some may say, “Before the flood the earth was filled with violence and sin; and should it be so again, would it not bring another flood upon it? Hath he said he will not drown it, notwithstanding any interposal of sin, wickedness, or rebellion whatsoever? Yea,” saith he, “such is my covenant. I took notice in my first engagement therein, that the ‘imagination of man’s heart would be evil from his youth,’ Gen. viii. 21, and yet I entered into that solemn covenant. So that this exemption of the world from a universal deluge is not an appendix to the obedience of the world, which hath been, upon some accounts, more wicked since than before (as in the crucifying of Christ, the Lord of glory, and in rejecting of him being preached unto them), but it solely leaneth upon my faithfulness in keeping covenant, and my truth in the accomplishment of the oath that I have solemnly entered into. So is my kindness to you. I have made express provision for your sins and failings therein; such I will preserve you from as are inconsistent with my kindness to you, and such will I pardon as you are overtaken withal.” When you see a universal deluge covering the face of the earth (that is, God unfaithful to his oath and covenant), then, and not till then, suppose that his kindness can be turned from believers.