" they who are elected to obtain falvation; and fo all to whom the gofpel is vouchfafed may be faved. Suppole a man hath broken his leg by a fall, hath he therefore fufficient means to walk, because he might have done fo, had not his leg been broken by that fall? If then the will of man by his fall be as much difabled to walk in the ways of God, as this man's body is to walk at all, can it be truly faid he hath fufficient means to walk in those ways, becaufe he would have had them, had not his will been thus difabled? (e) Adam indeed, as the Bishop faith, though not predeftinated to stand in the ftate of innocency, had yet fufficient means of standing, because he had no defectivenefs or difability in his will to do fo; but what is this to the cafe of those who are fuppofed to be fo disabled; that, if they be left to their own wills as Adam was, are fo disabled that they cannot ftand ? " When therefore this good (f) Bishop proceeds to fay," that they who are paffed by in the Eternal Decree of God, are not by "any force of that Decree left without the benefit which the Scrip"ture promifes upon condition of repentance, but the Evangelical "Decrees ftand in full force; if Judas believe and repent, he shall be faved; if Peter do not believe and repent, he shall not be fav. "ed; and by this thin piece of fophiftry the good man attempts to fhew that God is serious and in good earnest in all the offers he makes to Reprobates of mercy and falvation upon their repentance, and all the threats he hath recorded in the Holy Scrip ture against all, and therefore against the Elect, if they do not repent and perfevere to the end; and all the other motives and inducements to engage both of them to do fo: How unfuccefffully he hath performed this, will in the fequel be demonftrated; at present therefore I fhall only put these two Decrees one under the other, that they may blufh at one another. 1. Abfolute Election contains an eternal, abfolute, infallible Decree, that Peter fhall believe, repent, perfevere unto the end, and be faved. The Evangelical Conditional Decree is this, That if Peter do not believe, repent, and perfevere unto the end, he shall not be faved, but fhall infallibly be damned; and therefore God in it fpeaks to Peter thus, Except thou repent thou shalt perish; pass therefore the time of thy fojourning here in fear; work out thy falvation with fear and trembling, continue in the Faith, for if (c) P. 30. (f) Corol. 2. p. 29, 30, thou draweft back, my foul fhall have no pleafure in thee; yea, give all diligence to makethy Calling and Election fure. 2. Abfolute Reprobation is an abfolute, infallible Decree, That v. g. Judas fhall unavoidably fail of obtaining life eternal; that this event fhall be fo certain, that he fhall never fail to run himself wilfully upon his damnation. The Evangelical Conditional Decree is this, That if Judas will repent, believe and perfevere, he shall be saved; and in purfuance of this Decree, God lovingly invites and calls upon him to believe and repent, exhorts, and even entreats him by his amballadors, to be reconciled to him, to turn from his evil ways and live, alluring him to do fo by the hopes of pardon and falvation, if he will hearken to God's calls, and perfuading him. by the miferies which he will then incur, not to neglect fo great falvation, expoftulating the cafe 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 compaffion on him, and is long fuffering 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. 2dly. Obferve, That though the greatest part of them who affert an abfolute Election and Reprobation, or Preterition, make the object of them not man as man, but as fallen, and therefore finful man; yet is the difference betwixt them, and those who are called Supralapfarians, very little; for the Sablapfarians, fay, God decreed that Adam fhould be the head of all mankind, and thereføre to impute his firft fin, and that only to his pofterity, and not to impute to them his repentanee 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 defigned to glorify his free grace and mercy in faving fome of them, and fo in beflowing on them infallibly that grace which fhall unfruftrably bring them to falvation: Others he abfolutely decrees to pass by, and not bestow that grace upon them without which they cannot obtain falvation, or avoid eternal mifery. Now 1ft. Seeing it is certain from the event, That God abfolutely 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 finners and children of wrath, purely by being born, and fo by abfolute neceffity proceeding from this Decree of God, who could have made them otherwife, and brought them into the world from another head. Again, edly. Seeing nothing makes the connexion betwixt the perfonal fin of Adam and the fall of all men in him, or their guilt by reafon of his fall, but God's arbitrary imputation of it to them; their being then in his loins, or his pofterity, making them no more guilty of his firft than of all the other fins committed by him before they had a being, and of which it is confeffed they are not guilty; nothing can make this connexion. betwixt their being born men and finners, children of Adam, and children of wrath, but thele arbitrary and inevitable De crees. And 3dly. Adam being as much in nature our common head and root, and we being as much in his loins when he repented to falvation, as when he finned to condemnation, there is no other reafon, besides God's arbitrary will, can be affigned, why God fhould impute his fin to us to condemnation, and not impute unto us his repentance to falvation, or for the pardon of it; for if his person was our perfon, his will our will in finning, why were they not fo alfo in repenting? If then according to this hypothefis, there is no poffible difference betwixt being a man and a finner, and God's Decrees alone have made this neceffary connexion; why might he not as equitably have paffed thefe Decrees upon men as man, as upon men made finners by his mere arbitrary Decrees? efpecially if we confider that the fins of all men, besides Adam, are as inevitable, and as much decreed by this hypothefis, as by the other. Concerning the Decree of Reprobation. I SHALL endeavor to make it appear, 1. That it hath no foundation in the Holy Scriptures. ture. SECTION I.-And if I obferve that the word adóneos, which 'we render Reprobate, but might have as well been rendered difapproved, hath no relation in Scripture, to any Decree, either abfolute concerning the damnation of men as the end, and confequently denying or withholding from them the means by which alone they can escape that damnation, or of doing this on the account of the fin of Adam; but only doth denote fuch actions of men corrupted, as to faith and manners, which being done, will certainly be difapproved by God and man. Thus thofe Jews, who, through the prejudices and corruption of their minds were indifpofed to receive, and therefore did refift the truth of the gofpel, as Jannes and Jambres did of old God's meffage by his fervant Mofes, are ftiled adona şi wùv misw, (a) Reprobates concerning the faith; i. e. men indisposed to receive, or approve it, and therefore difapproved by God. And thofe Gentiles, who, (b) 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 inftead of the Creator, and liked not to retain God in their hearts, are faid to be given up siç vỡ àðóxiμov, to a reprobate mind; i. e. a mind that could not be approved of, but abhorred by God and men, as prompting them to do, rà μǹ xalxerra, things not agreeable to nature, or to reafon. Thus thofe Jews whofe minds and confciences were defiled, are ftiled Reprobates, because (c) though in words they profeffed to know God, yet in works they denied him, being abominable, difobedient, and to every good work, adoxspos, 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 ftiled àðóximos, reprobate, or rejected, which, after all the showers which fall upon it, (d) brings forth only thorns and briars; and that filver, ἀργύριον ἀδόκιμον, (e) reprobate filver, which being falfe ftamped, or coined, will not be received, but rejected. And in this fenfe (f) St. Paul faith, he kept under his body, left, whilst he preached to others, he himself should be, adónimos, difowned, and rejected, by God. Now all these Reprobates being either fo ftiled, not because God was unwilling to have any favor 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 oppofition to his truth revealed to them, and his holy word which he had given them to direct their actions, were rebellious; they cannot poffibly relate to a (b) Rom. i. 20-28. (4) 2 Tim. iii. 8.-(c) Tit. i. 16. (d) Heb, vi, 8.—(e) Prov, xxv. 4. Ifa, i. 22. (f) Cor. ix, 27. Decree of Reprobation, or Preterition, in God, respecting them before all time. SECTION II-2dly. As the word adéus, tranflated Reprobate, cannot at all concern this pretended Decree of Reproba tion, which the School divines have invented, and others from them have embraced; fo, 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 Teftament. From the Old Teftament 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 doubtlefs is blafphemy; much more to fay, He made them wicked for his glory, as if he had (g) need of the finful man for that end; or is it with (h) Dr. Twiffe, That all, befides the elect, God hath ordained to bring forth into the world in their corrupt mass, and to permit them to themfelves to go on in their own ways, and jo finally to persevere in fin; and laftly to damn them for their fin, for the manifeftation of his juftice on them? This for my life I am not able to diftinguish from making them wicked; for to bring them forth into the world, and to make them, is the fame thing; and by the fame act by which they are made, they are made of the corrupt mafs; that only fignifying that they are made of the race of Adam: And therefore, by the very fame act by which God made them, he must make them finners. Moreover, what God ordained to do before all time, he in time did; therefore in time he brought these men forth into the world, in the corrupt mafsi. e. He brought them into the world finners, that is, hateful to himself; for (i) the Moft High hateth finners: Whereas that of the book of (k) Wisdom is as true as Gospel ; Thou (O Lord) loveft all the things that are, and abhorret nothing that thou haft made, for neither wouldeft thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it. See what hath been further faid against this hypothesis in the state of the question, and in the notes on Rom. v. 13, 19. Eph. iii. 2. Or laftly, they only mean that God for the glory of his juftice, had appointed that wicked men perifhing impenitently in fin fhould be obnoxious to his wrath; and then they affert a great truth: But then it is a truth which gives not the leaft advantage to their doctrine, nor is founded on this text. For, (g) Eccluf. xv. 12.(h) Against Hord, p. 50.(i). Eccluf. xii. 6.(k) Ch. xi. 24. |