such as shall repent and believe, and to save them persevering unto the end; as also, to leave the impenitent and unfaithfull under God's wrath, and to condemn them as men out of Christ.

3. A third decree, Effectually to afford and administer unto all men sufficient and necessary means of breeding faith and repentance.

4. The fourth and last, a decree, To save or condemn certain singular persons, grounded upon the divine foresight who will repent, believe, and persevere, and who will not.

To this platform in generall we say, that the marshalling of the eternall, immanent acts of the divine understanding or will into first, second, third, fourth, is a weak imagination of man's brain, and so uncertain, that amongst twenty who give us such delineations of God's eternall decrees, you shall not finde two who agree between themselves in numbering them and ordering them ; but where one maketh foure, another maketh five, six, or seven, &c., and that which one man setteth in the first place, another setteth in the last: and in brief, every man ordereth them secundùm suum modum imaginandi. To build therefore any doctrines of faith upon the priority or posteriority of such decrees, is to build castles in the aire. For as Hilarius speaketh, omnia penès Deum æquabili æternitatis infinitate consistunt. Now, to come more particularly to Arminius his deWhereas the true decree of election or predestination is an operative practicall decree, preparing from all eternity, and in time certainly causing, grace and glory, in singular persons elected; Arminius hath given us enunciative doctrinall decrees concerning the generall

crees.

causes and means of salvation, appertaining promiscuously unto all men, whether elected or not elected, conjoyned with an act of divine prescience, which causeth not Peter's faith, repentance, perseverance, salvation, but rather Peter's faith, repentance, and perseverance, cause, or draw after them, his predestination. So that, in the whole series of Arminius his predestination, there is not one decree to be found, which causeth infallibly, in any singular man, justification, sanctification, or glo

rification.

1. His first decree is very defective, because it giveth us a predestinated Mediator and Redeemer in separato signo rationis from the persons predestinated infallibly to participate the benefit of this Mediator and Redeemer, which is, reconciliation and effectuall grace in this world, and eternall glory hereafter. For, as it were an absurd imagination to conceive that God first decreed to make Adam's head, and then by another decree, to make him members subordinate to his head; so is it, to frame a particular decree for the predestination of Christ, and then to devise another for the predestination of his subordinate members.

2. His second decree is a decree revealed about the manner how many in time must be brought unto heaven, and not the secret decree wherein God, from all eternity, predestinated those whom he pleased unto the infallible obtaining of the kingdom of heaven. So that this eternall decree, Quicunque crediderit et perseveraverit, salvus erit, might stand true, though no man in the world would either believe or be saved. But the decree of election or predestination doth imply, per modum causæ infallibiliter operantis, the faith, perseverance, and sal

vation, of a number of singular persons known unto God, and cannot be verified otherwise.

3. His third decree hath the same fault: for God may (in his sense) sufficiently and effectually administer the means of grace and salvation unto millions of men who, notwithstanding, will never attain salvation. But that administration of grace which floweth from the decree of predestination never failed to bring those particular persons unto whom it is mercifully vouchsafed, unto the state of glorification. These decrees hitherto conceru Cain, as well as Abel; and Judas as well as Peter; and therefore, as yet, we see in them no decree of election.

4. His last decree is it wherein onely the divine predestination is formally and essentially placed by Arminius : and yet this hath as little in it of real predestination or election as the former. For, first, it is a decree for the temporal and actual introduction of certain singular persons into the kingdom of glory; whereas predestination is a decree fore-appointing and preparing that effectuall grace, whereby those persons were infallibly brought unto glory. Secondly, this decree is founded upon the prescience of man's right use of God's grace: but the decree of predestination causeth the right use of grace. Hoc ipsum,-velle accipere gratiam,—est ex predestinatione divină.

NOTE 12-p. 203.

"Tunc cœperunt homines de nomine Jovæ vocari." Dathè. Hæc verba (he observes, in a note) respiciunt discrimen quod cap. vi. 2, clarius indicatur, inter filios Dei et filios hominum. Filii Dei vocabantur qui Deum Adami colebant. Adamus fuit filius Dei, Luc. iii. 38, et omnes qui hunc Deum profitebantur annumerabantur his filiis Dei. Inter Caini posteros cognitio Dei, probabiliter, maturè est extincta. Ipse enim remotus a patris sui consuetudine, et reliquorum ex familiâ ejus, homo naturâ suâ pessimus, habuit sine dubio progeniem ipso vitiosiorem, qui proptereà ab illis Dei filiis filii hominum vocabantur. Phrasis hoc sensu extat etiam, Es. xliv. 5; xlviii. 1.” "These words regard the distinction which in chap. vi. 2, is yet more clearly marked, between sons of God and sons of men. They who worshipped Adam's God were called Sons of God. Adam was the son of God; (Luke iii. 38;) and all who acknowledged this God were numbered among these sons of God. Among the posterity of Cain the knowledge of God was, probably, soon lost. For being himself out of the way of intercourse with his Father and the rest of his family, and a man of the worst character, he had, doubtless, descendants still more given to wickedness than himself; who, on that account, were, by the aforementioned sons of God, called sons of men.

occurs again קרא בשם The phrase

in this sense, Isa. xliv. 5, xlviii. 1." Compare Ps. iv. 2; and lxii. 10; (Hebr.)

66

NOTE 13-p. 230.

An over anxiety exactly to reconcile the declarations of God's word to our scheme of divine truth, has a tendency to lead us into such a partial and qualified admission of many, as almost amounts to a denial of them. This is the case as well with those who admit, as with those who deny, this doctrine of final perseverance. Nothing, certainly, can be more gratuitous than Whitby's addition to that clear testimony of our Lord on the point, "They shall never perish:" that is, says Whitby, through any defect on my part; or Christ may speak here of sheep continuing such to the death!" On the other hand, passages like this in Ezekiel are often so treated, by those who confess that blessed truth of the perseverance of the saints, that they might well cease to operate as warnings on the minds of such as deem themselves subjects of divine grace. But our wisest course is fully to embrace both, so as to keep alive holy fear by the one, as well as enjoy godly comfort by the other. This may expose us to the charge of being inconsistent, but it is the inconsistency of the word of God. Truth, indeed, is always in perfect agreement with itself, but man's feeble intellect cannot always trace the agreement; and then there is danger of sacrificing one part to the other. Thus many will not speak of election, although an election is every where assumed in Scripture. Be it national, or individual-be it to temporal or eternal blessings, an election is revealed in