Secondly. That this whole proof refers not to any thing yet to come relating to the persons called according to his purpose,' but to the time past, and what hath been done for them already; for the words are, whom he hath fore-known he hath predestinated, he hath called, he hath glorified.' Note,

Thirdly. That, es πрośуvw, whom he hath fore-known,' doth not relate to God's knowledge of these persons from all eternity, but to his affectionate knowledge of christians as his church, 'his chosen generation, his peculiar people,' 1 Peter ii, 9, as the Jews are styled, xi, 2. See the ANSWER to the foregoing objection. These who are thus converted, and become his peculiar people before and above other nations, are said to be known of God in a peculiar manner, and with an affectionate knowledge; as in these words, if any man love God, he is known of God. 1 Cor. viii, 3. But now that ye know God,'or rather are known of God. Gal. iv, 9. The Lord knoweth who are his.' 2 Tim. ii, 19. These things being. thus noted, I conceive the sense of the whole to be this,-" all these afflicting things shall work together for good to them that àre called according to his purpose;" for those whom he hath so foreknown, as to make them, yvos exλEXTOV, HIS ELECT, and ἔκλεκτον, his peculiar people' before others, for them he hath designed the choicest blessings, even the adoption of sons, and their being coheirs with Christ; and in order to this it is that he hath chosen them out of the world to be his church, "a holy nation, and a peculiar people to himself," and hath justified them, or given them a full remission of their sins, and hath already made them glorious by causing the Spirit of glory and of God to rest upon them;' he hath made them all glorious within, by adorning them with the fruits of the Holy Spirit; he hath made them glorious in the sight of the world, by giving them those gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost which cause men highly to esteem of them, and to glorify God in their behalf; he hath thereby conformed them already in a great measure to the image of his Son; for "they with open face as in a glass, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image with him, from his glory to glory derived upon them by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. iii, 18.

To proceed to answer the second part of the objection from those words, 'who shall separate us from the love of Christ, or the love of God in Christ Jesus?"

Note (First,) that this enquiry is not "Who shall separate us from the love with which we love God or Christ? but "Who shall separate us who love God, and testify that love by keeping his commandments, John xv, 14, from his affection towards us?" The apostle therefore only intimates that such persons continuing in the love of God, shall be preserved by him from the temptations here mentioned, and so supported by his grace and Spirit, as to be able to bear them. But he doth not say "the love of no christian shall wax cold,' Mat. xxiv, 12; that none of them shall 'lose his first love'." Rev. ii, 4. Were there no cause to fear this, why doth Christ exhort his disciples to abide in his love,' John xv, 9, and his apostles exhort others' to keep themselves in the love of God, Jude 21, to look diligently to it that they fall not from the grace and favour of God, Heb. xii, 15, and to continue in the grace of God? Acts xiii, 43.

Secondly. I answer that the apostle doth not say that "nothing can separate true believers from the love of God or Christ;" but only declares his persuasion that nothing would do it, or that they had no cause to fear these things, or to be shaken from their stedfastness in expectation of those inestimable blessings God had promised to, and Christ had purchased for them, by any of these tribulations, these light afflictions being not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.”. Verse 18. And they having good ground to hope that all the evils they shall bear shall conduce to their good, that Christ will still be ready to support them under them by his power, and to help their infirmities by his Spirit, and at last give them the glory prepared for the sons of God; he might well persuade himself they should not separate them from the love of God. The apostle therefore doth not by these words intend to teach believers that they could not be shaken by any of these things; for that would have contradicted the drift of all his epistles, in which he doth so oft express his fears lest they should be shaken with them, and so far tempted by them as to "be moved away from the hope of the gospel, and render all his labour vain," and offers so many arguments and motives to prevent this effect of these temptations; but only doth intend to say, that from these considerations, they had so great inducements to persevere and continue stedfast in the love of God, as gave him a strong ground of persuasion that they would do so.

V. OBJECTION FIFTH. "If true believers have that Spirit of God who seals them up to the day of redemption,' (Eph. iv, 30,) and is the earnest in their hearts of the inheritance of life;' (2 Cor. i, 21, 22. Eph. i, 13;) then all who are once the sons of God, and therefore have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, must be assured that they shall enjoy this inheritance; but true believers have this Spirit of God; for because they are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into their hearts'." Gal. iv, 6.

ANSWER FIRST. That these metaphors neither do nor can signify that they who have once the Spirit can never lose him, or cause him to depart from them, is evident from these considerations :

First. That they who have been the temples of God,' by virtue of his Spirit dwelling in them, may so corrupt this temple as to be themselves destroyed; as is demonstrable from these words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy; for the temple of the Lord is holy, which temple ye are. See the note there. He adds, that they whose bodies are the members of Christ, and who are one spirit with him," may make these bodies "the members of an harlot," and may defile that body with fornication, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and so may deprive themselves of their interest in Christ's kingdom; for "no fornicator shall inherit the kingdom of God." So certain is that of Hilary, that membra adhærentia meretrici, desinunt esse membra Christi, ‘they who are guilty of fornication, cease to be the members of Christ,' and so agreeable to all antiquity," who generally teach that God

a 1 Corinthians iii, 16, 17.

,b

₫ Cum omnes templum simus Dei, illato in nos et consecrato Spiritu Sancto, ejus templi æditua et antistita pudicitia est, quæ nihil immundum, nec profanum inferri sinat, ne Deus ille qui inhabitat. inquinatam sedem offensus derelinquat. Tertul. de cultu fœm. 1. 2, c. 1,

Ἐπειδὴ ἅγισ ἐσιν ὁ ναὸς ἅγιον ἔχων τὸν ἐνοικῦντα, ἐ δύναται είναι ὁ πόρναν ναὸς θεῖ. cum. in locum. Τοιγαρῶν ὁ πόρνῶ ἐ δύναται είναι ἅγια ἐπειδὴ τὸ ναὸς εἶναι ἀπώλεσεν ἐξοικισθέντα τὸ ἁγιάζονται αὐτὸν vεúμalos. Theoph. in locum.

'Since we are the temple of God by his Holy Spirit brought into us and consecrating us, the keeper and priestess of his temple is that chastity which cannot suffer any thing unclean or profane to enter, lest the Holy God, whose habitation it is, being displeased at the pollution of his abode, should enrely desert it." Tertullian.

dwelling in us by his Spirit may be provoked to quit his habitation; and that he whose body is the temple of the Lord by virtue of his Spirit dwelling in him, may defile that temple to his own ruin, and cause the Holy Spirit to depart from it. And,

Secondly. This is farther evident from the apostle's fears that satan might so far have tempted his Thessalonians as to render "all his labour vain among them;" for he acknowledges that these Thessalonians had "received the word with much affliction, and yet with the joy of the Holy Ghost; that they received it not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; that they had shewed the work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in Christ Jesus, and were the elect of God in whom the word wrought effectually." They therefore had assuredly received the Spirit of God, and yet he fears they might so fall away as to render his labour among them vain, and therefore so as to cause his Holy Spirit to depart from them.

And, Thirdly, this is farther evident from the exhortations, in these epistles, directed to those men who are said to have this seal, and earnest of the Holy Spirit; for to the Corinthians thus sealed, the apostle sends this exhortation, 'I beseech you that you do not receive the grace of God in vain,' plainly supposing that this might be done: He adds, that he was jealous over them, lest having espoused them to one husband, Christ, their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ; and doth express his fears lest he should bewail many who had sinned already by uncleanness, fornication and lasciviousness; that is, by sins which did corrupt the temple of God, which made the members of Christ "the members of an harlot," and excluded them from the kingdom of God, and had not repented of those sins.'

Again, in that epistle to the Ephesians, in which the apostle saith they were "sealed with the Spirit of promise, and made an habitation of God through the Spirit;" he exhorts them to avoid "all fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness, as knowing that no

Because the temple is holy and has a holy inhabitant, a fornicator cannot be a temple of God." Ecumenius on the passage.

A fornicator therefore cannot be holy, because he hath destroyed the very existence of a temple by driving out the Spirit that sanctified it.' Theophylact. ED.

e 1 Thessalonians iii, 5.

f Chapter i, 4, 5, 6. i Chapter xi, 3.

g Chapter ii, 13. k Chapter xii, 20, 21.

h Chapter vi, 1.

fornicator, unclean, or covetous person hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and of God;" and therefore no such person can have the Spirit of God abiding in him. Let no man,' saith he, deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Now if this sealing, this earnest of the Spirit, had absolutely secured them from these sins, and from the wrath of God, due to as many as are guilty of them, why is he so concerned to deter them from them, and to exhort them not to be so deceived as to fall under this wrath? Such cautions naturally tending to express the danger men lie under of the judgment threatened. Yea, why doth he desire that they faint not at his tribulations," and exhort them to put on the whole armour of God that they may be able to withstand (the temptations which might befal them) in the evil day, and having done all to stand,'" if he thought them absolutely secure from fainting or falling in that day?

ANSWER SECOND. These expressions therefore cannot be designed to teach us that they who have once received the Holy Spirit cannot quench him, or grieve him so as to cause him to depart from them, that being the natural consequence of grieving him, as hath been shewed in the note there; but only to inform us that the Holy Spirit vouchsafed to Christ's church and members, gave them a just assurance of the truth of christian faith, and consequently of the farther blessings Christ had promised to his faithful persevering servants in the world to come. To give a true account of this, consider that christianity, when it first came into the world, required of all who should embrace it, the duties of self-denial, taking up the cross, and being faithful to the death, and the encouragements it gave them to perform all this was only the promise of the Holy Spirit to be with them, and be their comforter at present, and the promise of eternal life hereafter. Now that Christ made good to them this first promise, and that the primitive christians were plentifully and wonderfully endowed with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, is fully evident from the epistles and acts of the apostles, and hath been fully proved in the preface to them both; and by the vouchsafement of this Spirit they are said to have an earnest of their future inheritance, and

Chapter v, 3, 6,

m Chapter iii, 13.

n Chapter vi, 14.