saved, but shall infallibly be damned;" and therefore God in it speaks to Peter thus, Except thou repent, thou shalt perish; pass 'therefore the time of thy sojourning here in fear; work out thy ́ salvation with fear and trembling; continue in the faith,—for if "thou drawest back, my soul shall have no pleasure in thee; yea, 'give all diligence to make thy calling and election sure?'

2. Absolute reprobation is "an absolute, infallible decree, that (for instance) Judas shall unavoidably fail of obtaining life eternal;" that this event shall be so certain, that "he shall never fail to run himself wilfully upon his damnation."

The evangelical conditional decree is this, that "if Judas will repent, believe, and persevere, he shall be saved;" and in pursuance of this decree, God lovingly invites and calls upon him to believe and repent, exhorts, and even intreats him by his ambassadors, 'to be reconciled to him, to turn from his evil ways, and live;' alluring him to do so by the hopes of pardon and salvation, if he will hearken to God's calls; and persuading him by the miseries which he will then incur, not to neglect so great salvation;' expostulating the case with him, why after all these methods to prevent his ruin, he will die and not live; why he will not be purged and made clean, and how long it will be ere he will hearken to his invitations;' declaring that he doth all this, because he hath compassion on him,' and is long-suffering to him,' because he is not willing he should perish, but should come unto repentance;' though his decree of reprobation hath rendered his damnation a "certain and infallible event."

II. Observe, that though the greatest part of them who assert an absolute election and reprobation, or preterition, make the object of them not man as man, but as fallen and therefore sinful man; yet is the difference betwixt them and those who are called Supralapsarians, very little; for the Sublapsarians say, 'God de' creed that Adam should be the head of all mankind, and there'fore to impute his first sin, and that only, to his posterity, and 'not to impute to them his repentance for it, though there was ' equal reason to do both, or neither; and foreseeing that he would fall, and render his posterity obnoxious to his eternal displeasure, 'he designed to glorify his free grace and mercy in saving some ' of them, and so in bestowing on them infallibly that grace which

'shall unfrustrably bring them to salvation: others he absolutely ' decrees to pass by, and not bestow that grace upon them without which they cannot obtain salvation, or avoid eternal misery.' Now

First. Seeing it is certain from the event, that God absolutely decreed to bring all men out of the loins of Adam, and that they therefore become the posterity of fallen Adam, and so are born sinners and children of wrath, purely by being born, and so by absolute necessity proceeding from this decree of God, who could have made them otherwise, and brought them into the world from another head: Again,

Secondly. Seeing nothing makes the connexion betwixt the personal sin of Adam and the fall of all men in him, or their guilt by reason of his fall, but God's arbitrary imputation of it to them; (their being then in his loins, or his posterity, making them no more guilty of his first, than of all the other sins committed by him before they had a being, and of which, it is confessed, they are not guilty;) nothing can make this connexion betwixt their being born men and sinners, children of Adam and children of wrath,' but these arbitrary and inevitable decrees. And

Thirdly. Adam being as much in nature our common head and root, and we being as much in his loins when he repented to salvation, as when he sinned to condemnation, there is no other reason, besides God's arbitrary will, can be assigned, why God should impute his sin to us to condemnation, and not impute unto us his repentance to salvation, or for the pardon of it. For if his person was our person, his will our will in sinning, why were they not so also in repenting? If then, according to this hypothesis, there is no possible difference betwixt being a man and a sinner, and God's decrees alone have made this necessary connexion, why might he not as equitably have passed these decrees upon men as men, as upon men made sinners by his mere arbitrary decrees? Especially if we consider that the sins of all men, besides Adam, are as inevitable, and as much decreed, by this hypothesis, as by the other.

CHAP. I

Concerning the decree of reprobation.

I SHALL endeavour to make it appear,

FIRST. That it hath no foundation in the holy scriptures. SECONDLY. That it is contrary to the plain declarations of the scripture.

a

I. Aud, First, I observe that the word adoxos, which we render 'Reprobate,' but might have as well been rendered disapproved, hath no relation in scripture to any decree, either absolute concerning the damnation of men as the end, (and consequently denying or withholding from them the means by which alone they can escape that damnation,) or of doing this on the account of the sin of Adam; but only doth denote such actions of men corrupted, as to faith and manners, which, being done, will certainly be disapproved by God and man. Thus those Jews, who, through the prejudices and corruption of their minds, were indisposed to receive, and therefore did resist, the truth of the gospel, (as Jannes and Jambres did of old God's message by his servant Moses,) are styled ἀδόκιμοι περὶ τὴν πίςιν, “ reprobates concerning the faith, that is, men indisposed to receive or approve it, and therefore disapproved by God. And those Gentiles, who, when they knew God, did not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but changed the truth of God into a lie,' by worshipping the creature instead of the Creator, and liked not to retain God in their hearts," are said to be given up as ver adonan, to a repro-. bate mind,' that is, a mind that could not be approved of, but abhorred by, God and men, as prompting them to do, rà μǹ nabýxovтa, things not agreeable' to nature or to reason. Thus those Jews whose minds and consciences were defiled, are styled 'reprobates, because though in words they professed to know God, yet in works they denied him, being abominable, disobedient, and to every good work,' adó, reprobate," that is, void not only of judgment to discern what was good, but also of affection to approve of it. And that earth is styled adóxuos reprobate' or rejected, which after all the showers which fall upon it, 'brings forth only thorns and briars;'a and that silver, ágyúgiov ádónimov,

b

◄ 2 Tim. iii. 8.

Rom. i. 20, 28.

e Tit. i. 16.

d Heb. vi&

' reprobate silver," which being falsely stamped or coined, will not be received, but rejected. And in this sense, St Paul saith, The 'kept under his body, lest, whilst he preached to others, he himself should be,' adóximos, 'disowned' and 'rejected' by God. Now all these reprobates being either so styled, not because God was unwilling to have any favour for them or had any antecedent purpose to reject them, but because their prejudices and corruptions caused them to reject him by disapproving of his truth and ways, or because the actions they in time did, in opposition to his truth revealed to them and his holy word which he had given them to direct their actions, were rebellious; they cannot possibly relate to a decree of reprobation or preterition, in God, respecting them before all time.

II. As the word adóximos, translated reprobate,' cannot at all concern this pretended decree of reprobation, which the schooldivines have invented, and others from them have embraced; so, Secondly, is there nothing relating to it, or from which it can reasonably be inferred, in the scriptures either of the Old or the New Testament.

From the Old Testament they urge these words, viz. that 'God made all things for himself; even the wicked for the day of evil?' (Prov. xvi. 4.) Now what is it that they would infer from these words? Is it that God made men wicked? This doubtless is blasphemy; much more to say, "He made them wicked for his "glory," as if he had need of the sinful man'" for that end. Or is it, with Dr. Twiss, that "all, besides the elect, God hath ordained to bring forth into the world in their corrupt mass, and to permit them to themselves to go on in their own ways, and so finally to persevere in sin; and lastly to damn them for their sin, for the manifestation of his justice on them?" This, for my life, I am not able to distinguish from making them wicked; for to bring them forth into the world, and to make them, is the same thing; and by the same act by which they are made, they are made of the corrupt mass; that only signifying that they are made of the race of Adam: and therefore by the very same act by which God made them, he must make them sinners. Moreover, what God ordained to do before all time, he in time did; therefore in

e Prov. XXV. 4. Isa. i. 22. f 1 Cor. ix. 27. g Ecclesiasticus xv. 12. h Against Hord, p. 50.

k

time he brought these men forth into the world, in the corrupt mass, that is, He brought them into the world sinners, that is, hateful to himself; for the Most High hateth_sinners:" whereas that of the Book of Wisdom is as true as gospel, Thou (O Lord) lovest all things that are, and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made; for neither wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated it. See what hath been further said against this hypothesis, in the state of the question, and in the notes on Rom. v. 15, 19. Eph. ii. 2. Or, Lastly, they only mean, that "God, for the glory of his justice, had appointed that wicked men perishing impenitently in sin should be obnoxious to his wrath;" and then they assert a great truth. But then it is a truth which gives not the least advantage to their doctrine, nor is founded on this text. For,

(2.) The text saith 'God made all things,' yps (lamaanehu) from, (anahu) to answer to themselves,' or 'aptly to refer one to another.' 'He hath made the wicked for the evil day,' that is, to be the executioner of evil to others; on which account they are in scripture called God's Rod," and said to be a 'sword of his.'

III. A SECOND text cited to prove this decree of reprobation, or preterition, runneth thus; 'Therefore they could not believe because that Isaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, or understand with their hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them.'" Like to which are those words of St. Mark and St. Luke, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others (who are without the kingdom,) I speak in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.'" From which words the inference they make, contains this strange and uncomfortable doctrine, viz. "That the infidelity even of God's own people is to be resolved, not into the perverseness of their wills or the evil dispositions of their hearts, but into the divine predictions, or into

i Ecclesiasticus xii. 6.

* xi. 24.

7 Isa. x. 5. Psalm xvii. 13. n Mark iv. 11, 12. Luke viii. 9, 10.

m John xii. 59, 10.