The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance

There are many devices in a mans heart, nevertheless the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand, ¹Herein is the difference between the Devices of men, and the Counsel of God; men have many Devices to try what they can do: If one way take not,² they will attempt an other (hâc non successit, aliâ aggrediemur viâ) and are always disappointed,³ but only in that, wherein they fall in with the Will of God.⁴ The Shallowness of their Understanding, the Shortness of their Foresight, the Weakness of their Power, the Changeableness of their Minds, the Uncertainty ⟨p. 52⟩of all the means they use, puts them upon many Devices, and often to no purpose. But for him, who is Infinite in Wisdom and Power, to whom all things are present, and to whom nothing can fall out Unexpected, yea what he hath not himself Determined; unto whom all Emergencies are but the Issue of his own good Pleasure, who proportions out what efficacy he pleaseth unto the means he useth, his Counsels, his Purposes, his Decrees shall stand, being (as Job tells us) as Mountains of Brass. By this he differenceth himself from all others,⁵ Idols and men, as also by his certain foreknowledge of what shall come to pass, and be accomplished upon those Purposes of his. Hence the Apostle Heb. 6. 17, 18. acquaints us, that his Promise and his Oath, those two Immutable things, do but declare ([Greek or Hebrew]) the Unchangeableness of his Counsel, which God is abundantly willing to manifest, though men are abundantly unwilling to receive it. Job determines this business in the 23. Ch. v. 13, 14. He is of one mind, and who can turn him? What his soul desireth, even that he doth; for he performeth the thing, that is appointed for me. Desires are the least and faintest kind of Purposes, in Mr Goodwin's Distinctions. Yet the certain accomplishment of them, as they are ascribed unto God, is here asserted by the Holy Ghost.