A Christian and Plain Treatise of the Manner and Order of Predestination

by William Perkins

Table of Contents

To the Right Worshipful Sir Peter Buck, Knight

To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major

Master Perkin's Epistle to the Reader

The Order of Predestination As It Is Collected Out of the Scriptures by the Author

First Objection

Second Objection

Third Objection

Fourth Objection

11 Errors

God Has Not Revealed Christ to all and every man

To the Right Worshipful Sir Peter Buck, Knight

To the Right Worshipful Sir Peter Buck, Knight; and to the virtuous lady his wife, Grace and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Right Worshipful, among the manifold points of Christian religion, the truth of the doctrine concerning predestination is worthy serious and sober study for the sound understanding thereof. For first, it is something difficult and obscure. Secondly, because it is by some eagerly impugned as a frivolous and forged invention of man's brain. Thirdly, divers opinions have passed from divers men diversely about this one point, whereas notwithstanding there is but one truth and one definite and constant sentence to be found in holy writ concerning it. Fourthly, this one doctrine does give very good evidence and an ample demonstration of God's infinite mercy and exact justice. Fifthly, it affords some taste of His profound and impenetrable counsel. Sixthly, it does notably manifest His admirable wisdom and policy and the incorruptible purity of His nature who wisely disposes all things and uses even evils without injustice and the least receipt of infusion of corruption—and all for the manifestation of the glory of His name and of the splendor of His renowned properties. Seventhly, it confounds the common cavil of many desperate and infatuated atheists who would make God's predestination the pillar of their sensual security and secure sensuality. Lastly, it ministers exceeding comfort to those who renouncing the kingdom of sin do live like saints in the kingdom of grace. First, because it is not possible for any such to sin with full consent of heart. Secondly, because no personal merits are required of them. Thirdly, because the Spirit of God abides in them, who is busy within the hive of their hearts as a bee and works them like wax. Fourthly, because God has eternally predestinated them to eternal joys, and those also incomprehensible and ineffable. Fifthly, because God has in abundance vouchsafed that to them being but a handful, which He has denied to whole heaps besides. Sixthly, for that they being elected can in no wise perish, for the counsel of the Lord shall stand forever (Ps. 33:11). And He loves them with an everlasting love (Jer. 3:4). Though a mother should forget her child, yet He will not forget them, for He has graven them upon the palm of His hand (Isa. 49:15–16) Therefore, He will confirm them to the end (1 Cor. 1:8) and by His power keep them to salvation (1 Peter 1:5). He will love them constantly, though He visit their transgressions with rods (Ps. 89:32–33). He will never turn away from them (Jer. 32:40), though He take them by the neck (as Job speaks, Job 16:12) and beat them, though He cut their reins and break them, and though He pours their gall upon the ground and runs upon them like a giant. Joseph did affect his brethren entirely, though he spake roughly to them. He may also sometimes let them fall as a loving nurse may her child, but He will lift them up again. Therefore, however they may fall, yet they shall not fall away. Indeed, they may leave their first love, as the church of Ephesus did (Rev. 2:4), but they shall never leave to love at all, if ever they loved truly. For (as Paul says) "love does never fall away" (1 Cor. 13:8). It may be lessened, but it cannot be lost. In like manner, their faith may be covered as the sun with a dusky cloud in a gloomy day, or as the trees are with snow sometimes in winter. But yet it continues firmly fixed (though now and then eclipsed) in the sphere of the heart and keeps sap in the root. For the righteous man is as a tree planted by the rivers of waters (Ps. 1:3) and is built by that great builder of heaven and earth upon a rock (Matt. 16:18). These comforts will this one doctrine afford, being thoroughly pondered and understood. And no doubt these and the like considerations moved that holy and learned man of blessed memory to publish this present treatise for the benefit of the church; and the same have also incited us to turn it out of the tongue wherein he wrote it into the English for their profit who are ignorant in the other, and the rather because it is contrived and penned very plainly, soundly, and succinctly, as the subject will permit. The which, Right Worshipful, assuring ourselves of your unfeigned love to the truth, we do present and dedicate to you in token of deserved gratitude for undeserved kindness, not doubting of your courteous and kind acceptance. And thus we humbly take our leave, recommending you and all yours to the protection of Jehovah.

Rochester, this 19th of February, 1605.

Your Worships in all duty,

Francis Cacott and

Thomas Tuke

To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major

To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major, and the worshipful Jurates, his brethren, and the whole communality of the town and liberty of Fanersham.

Right Worshipful, as many other wholesome and heavenly doctrines grounded upon the Word of God have been and are to this day contradicted and impugned, even so it fares which the divine and deep doctrine of God's predestination, a doctrine not more heavenly than wholesome nor more commodious than comfortable, and yet as heavenly and as commodious as any doctrine whatever which the Scriptures do afford. The Pelagians held that God predestinated men to life or death as He did foresee that they would by their natural free will receive or reject grace offered. They taught that it was in man's power to believe or not to believe. They placed the causes of salvation in men themselves out of God, and held that the elect might fall from grace and perish.

Others hold that albeit the Lord elects some of His mere mercy without respect of anything in them, that yet He rejects those which are rejected because He did foresee that they would reject His grace offered to them in the gospel. Some ubiquitaries hold that Adam's fall came to pass without God's decree or any ordination of His; secondly, that no decree of God depends upon His simple will concerning the salvation of the godly or the rejection of the reprobate; thirdly, that God does utterly nill the reprobation of any; fourthly, that the reprobate may be converted and saved; fifthly, that Christ died for the reprobates, and that it is the purpose and will of God simply that all men without exception should be saved. Some do subject election to God's eternal decree, but not reprobation. Others, putting no difference between reprobation and damnation, do think as God does pass by some men of His mere pleasure, that He does in like sort damn them of His mere will and pleasure, whereas indeed sin is the cause why men are damned. Many of the Romish synagogue do teach that men are elected for their foreseen faith and meritorious works. And it is the common opinion of all papists that the elect cannot be certain and sure of their election unless it be extraordinarily by some special revelation and singular privilege. Many also there are which would not have this doctrine publicly taught by the minister, but without good reason. For first, as the minister must not search the secrets of God which are not revealed, so he must not suppress or hide that which is revealed. For things "revealed, belong to us and to our children forever" (Deut. 29:29), as Moses teaches. Therefore, as we may not search into those things which God will have kept secret, so we may in no wise be wholly ignorant of those things which He has revealed to us. But this doctrine of predestination is very plentifully and perspicuously revealed and delivered to us in the Scriptures. Secondly, as the Word of God omits nothing which is needful to be known touching the salvation of our souls, so we must know that it teaches nothing but that which is profitable and worthy to be learned of all. For that speech of Paul to the Romans is true of all the writings of the prophets and apostles also: "Whatsoever things were written, were written for our learning" (Rom. 15:4). But the Word of God does teach this doctrine of election and rejection, as is evident by many places therein. Therefore, it is necessary and fit to be taught of the minister and to be learned of the people. Thirdly, it is the duty of all faithful ministers to teach all the counsel of God, as Paul says he did (Acts 20:37). But predestination is a part of God's counsel. Therefore, it ought to be delivered of us to the people of God, always remembering that we apply ourselves to your capacities and teach it orderly (as occasion serves), keeping ourselves in all sobriety within the limits of the Word. Fourthly, Christ commands the gospel to be preached to every creature (Mark 16:15); but this doctrine belongs to the gospel and therefore is to be preached to the unlearned as to the learned. Lastly, all ministers are bound to keep back nothing which is profitable, but to show it as Paul did (Acts 20:20). But the doctrine of predestination is very profitable. For first, it lets us see the omniscience, the omnipotence, the sovereignty, and immutable nature of God. Secondly, it serves to increase and confirm our faith and hope concerning the eternal felicity of our souls and bodies, seeing it is not founded upon ourselves or upon any sandy foundation, but upon the constant and unchangeable good pleasure of God. Thirdly, it teaches us not to wonder at the small number of believers and at the hardness and blindness of many men's hearts and minds. For it shows that God has elected but a few (Matt. 20:16) and has passed by many, leaving them to themselves and delivering them up into the hands of the devil. Fourthly, it serves to strengthen and comfort us in all afflictions and to arm us against all the fiery darts of the devil and the fury of his limbs. For it shows that nothing can separate us from the love of God and that all things work for the best to them that love God (Rom. 8:28, 39), even to them that are called of His purpose. All storms and waves of woe shall pass over, and in the end we shall rest in the quiet haven of everlasting happiness. Fifthly, this doctrine stays us from taking offence at the apostasy of many professors; for it shows us that all is not gold which glitters, and that some stand for a time and some stand fast forever. "If they had been of us," says John, "they should have continued with us" (1 John 2:19). Sixthly, it teaches us to acknowledge God's singular goodness toward us, who of His mere good will toward us has elected us to eternal life and the fruition of immortal glory in the heavens. Seventhly, it serves to teach us humility and to beat down the pride of our hearts. For it shows that God's grace and not our goodness is the original cause of our welfare and salvation. The cause which moved God to choose us rather than many others was not our foreseen preparations or meritorious works, but His own love and free good will toward us. Lastly (to omit sundry uses which might be made of this one doctrine), it teaches us to ascribe the glory of our salvation to God alone and to walk thankfully before Him, manifesting the gratitude of our hearts by our religious, righteous, and sober lives. To conclude, some are so far out of love with this doctrine that they can scarce with patience endure to hear it spoken of. And many licentious and profane persons do very wickedly abuse it, to take to themselves liberty of licentious and loose living—"for," say they, "if I be ordained to be saved, I cannot be damned; and if damnation be my destiny, I can never be saved. And therefore it skilleth not how I live; for if God have appointed me to be saved, I shall be saved, though I do just nothing. And if He have determined that I shall be damned, I shall never escape it, though I live never so well. For God's decree is constant; His appointment shall stand, whoever says nay to it." But these men forget that God does predestinate men as well to use the means as to attain to the end. As He has appointed a man to live, so He has appointed the same man to use those means which preserve life, as meat, drink, rest, recreation, labor, physic. Even so, as He has appointed a man to be saved, He has appointed him to use the means and to walk in the way of salvation, as to believe. And therefore the Scripture says, "So many as were ordained to everlasting life believed" (Acts 13:48). And Paul shows that those God does call whom He has predestinated and justifies those whom He does effectually call before He glorifies them (Rom. 8:29). And in his epistle to the Ephesians, he teaches that as God has chosen us to life eternal, so He has also chosen us in Christ, "that we should be holy, and without blame before Him in love" (1:4); and that as He has ordained us to salvation, so He has "created us in Christ Jesus to good works, which He has ordained that we should walk in them" (2:10). As the Scripture teaches us that God has elected us to salvation, so it does also teach us that He sent His Son to save us. As God had determined that Christ should not die in His infancy (as the event declared), so He did appoint His father-in-law Joseph to take Him and His mother and to fly into Egypt (Matt. 2:13), when Herod sought to destroy Him. By which we see that as God has predestinated the end, so He has also predestinated the way and means thereto. He therefore that desires to be saved must use the means which God has appointed. His damnation may not without cause be feared, who following the sway of his carnal affections contemns or neglects the means of grace (1 Sam. 2:25) and will not walk in the way which leads to glory. But we (beloved), rejecting all the fancies and fantastic inventions of man, must rectify our judgments by the rule of God's Word; and with discreet diligence and sobriety we ought to labor for the true knowledge and right understanding of this celestial and solacious doctrine of God's eternal predestination, a doctrine not so profound as profitable, and not so abstruse and intricate, as many do imagine. A notable furtherance hereto this treatise following will afford, penned pithily, concisely, and perspicuously by a very learned and judicious divine. Now (my brethren) among many other things which belong to this doctrine, there be two things which I do commend to your Christian consideration. First, the privileges of God's elect and adopted children. Secondly, the notes of election to salvation and the practice of those things whereby a man may come to be in his conscience soundly persuaded that he is a chosen vessel predestinated to eternal life. For the first, many and excellent are the prerogatives and immunities wherewith the elect are privileged and adorned. Therefore, the psalmist says, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O thou City of God" (Ps. 87:3). And yet as glorious and numerous as they be, they are not easily discerned and acknowledged of the world, first, because their disgrace is common and public by reason of the spiteful and inveterate malice of the serpent and his seed, whereby it comes to pass that the faithful in all ages have acted a part longer or shorter in a doleful tragedy upon the stage of the world, so as that of all men they have always for the most part seemed most miserable and least respected of man and privileged of God. Secondly, because sundry slips and sins have been observed in them. Thirdly, the upright man is such an abomination to the wicked (Prov. 29:27), as that through his cankered spite, his spiteful and rancorous hatred, he cannot behold and fancy his sweet and lovely condition. Fourthly, the principal ornaments of the godly are dark and spiritual, as the psalmist says, "The king's daughter is all glorious within" (Ps. 45:13); and their outward estate is usually obscure, coarse, and ragged, not much unlike to the curtains of the tabernacle, whose outward coverings were of goats' hair, rams' skins, and badgers', but the inward were of fine twined linen, blue silk, purple and scarlet, with the most exquisite embroidering of the cherubim upon them (Exodus 26).

The world, to God's children is as a stepmother, and may be termed God's school house, in which He trains up His children as scholars under the cross, often correcting them with His rod of affliction. Whence it is that the world accounts them unfortunate; and being unable to judge of colors through the dimness of her sight, she considers and commands none but such as are light, though they weary and lose their brightness while she is poring on them. But although the world be bleary eyed and dim-sighted, yet those which are elected out of the world do feel and see and can say much. And the Word of God contains in it many royal and notable privileges and dignities properly belonging to those whom God has elected and adopted, some whereof I will briefly and plainly here set down.

Privilege 1. The first dignity is their glorious and honorable styles and titles. They are called in the Scriptures the people, the redeemed, the sons, the building, the husbandry and household servants of God, the brethren, the spouse, the members, the seed and the sheep of Christ, the temples of the Holy Ghost, the seed, the sons and the daughters of Abraham. They are called lively stones, a spiritual house, heirs of the promise, saints, faithful, kings, priests, yea a holy and princely priesthood, a peculiar people challenged of God, a chosen generation, and a holy nation.

Privilege 2. The faithful and chosen children of God alone have true title to all the outward blessings of God; for they only believe, and they are only God's obedientaries (Isa. 1:19; 1 Tim. 4:3). Reprobates are but indeed usurpers of them in His sight. We lost them in Adam, and we receive right neither in them nor to them, but by Christ. His passions have purchased our possessions.

Privilege 3. The elect only can use God's blessings to a right end and in a right manner. For they only are pure (being purged in the blood of Christ), and they only can pray with a true faith. The wicked make their riches their own ruin and God's benefits their own bane, and either abuse them or use them not as He commands them and causes His own children by His grace to use them.

Privilege 4. God has appointed His holy angels, which for their strength and fortitude are called gods (Ps. 8:5), to guard and protect His people. "The angel of the Lord," says David, "pitcheth round about them that fear Him" (Ps. 34:7). And the apostle says that they "are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for their sakes which shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14).

Privilege 5. The Lord has honored His elect and no doubt yet does and will (when it pleases Him) by preserving them and providing for them very effectually, and sometimes also very wonderfully (Jer. 36:26). He saved Noah from drowning, Lot from burning, Elijah from famishing, Mordecai from murder, and Paul from those bloody votaries, by providing for them very kindly. He saved Samson miraculously from perishing by thirst, and Daniel from the teeth of the lions. David says, "The Lord drew him out of many waters, and delivered him from the cruel man, and gave him great deliverances" (Ps. 18:16, 48, 50). He did often and strangely also preserve our late queen of holy and happy memory from the desperate and malicious attempts of popish traitors, set a-work by the devil to murder her. He prolonged her days; He held the crown on her head and kept the scepter in her hand with peace and prosperity, the time and tyranny of nine or ten monsters her mortal enemies, though their slaves continually plotted and practiced against her, and though the prince of the air thundered against her in his lieutenants (as it were from the clouds) with curses and cursed excommunications. Lately also He has vouchsafed an admirable deliverance to His anointed our gracious king, and to us all from a most barbarous and horrible confusion. And of this kind of favor and favorable dealing used of the Lord, we may read plentifully in divine and ecclesiastical stories. And no doubt the wicked have sometimes fared the better for the elect's sake, as Laban did for Jacob (Gen. 30:27) and Potiphar for Joseph (39:5), and those which sailed in that dangerous voyage to Rome for Paul, who was in their company (Acts 27:24). God told Abraham that if there were but ten righteous persons in Sodom, He would not destroy it for their sakes (Gen. 18:32). Eliphaz says that the innocent shall deliver the island (Job 22:30), meaning that God does often deliver a whole country from peril for the just man's sake.

Privilege 6. For His elect God has altered the course of nature. He divided the waters of the Red Sea, that His people might pass dry-shod through it (Ex. 14:22). He caused the sun to stay and the moon to stand still till His people had avenged themselves upon their enemies (Josh. 10:12). For Gideon's sake, He caused the dew to fall only upon a fleece of wool and kept it from falling upon the ground (Judg. 6:38, 40), and afterward at his request He let it fall on the earth and kept the fleece dry. For Hezekiah's sake, He brought the shadow to the dial of Ahaz ten degrees backward (Isa. 38:8) by the which degrees the sun was gone down.

Privilege 7. God does often preserve His chosen children from perils then when He does persecute the wicked. "Many sorrows," says David, "shall befall the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, shall be compassed of mercy" (Ps. 32:10). Noah was delivered when the wicked were drowned. The Israelites passed when the Egyptians perished. When Sodom was burned, Lot was brought forth (Gen. 19:16). When Jericho was sacked, Rahab was saved. When Ahab was slain, Jehoshaphat escaped. When Jerusalem was to be destroyed, the Lord commanded the godly to be branded that they might be preserved (Ezek. 9:4). Moreover, when the Lord delivers His own people, then He does sometimes thrust the wicked into their dangers. "The righteous," says Solomon, "escapeth out of trouble, and the wicked shall come in his stead" (Prov. 11:8). And as He does usually cross their cursed counsels, so He does oftentimes curse their malicious and bloody enterprises and cracks them upon their own crowns and breaks them upon their own backs. Haman was hanged on that gallows (Esth. 7:9) which he himself had prepared for Mordecai, whom the king did greatly advance. Daniel was brought from the lions (Dan. 6:23–24), and his accusers being cast into the den among them were devoured of them. God preserved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the hot fiery furnace (3:22), and slew the men with the flame of the fire that brought them forth to be burned. The Lord delivered good Jehoshaphat and caused his enemies that came against him to help forward their own destruction (2 Chron. 20:23). The Lord has delivered us from these barbarous and blood-thirsty Catholics and has for the honor of His mercy pulled the rotten house of their devilish inventions upon their own heads. His name be praised forever and ever, amen.

Privilege 8. Christ has altered the nature of afflictions to His elect and faithful members. For whereas they are cast upon the wicked as punishments due to them for their sins wherein they live, they are inflicted upon the godly by God as a merciful father that desires the amendment of His children (Ps. 78:31–32; Heb. 12:6). Because our hearts are drowsy, the Lord as our most skillful founder casts us into the furnace of afflictions, that He might refine us. Because we are subject to transgress and go astray, the Lord imparts us within the pales of adversity and hedges us about with the thorny quick-set7 of the cross, that we might be kept in some compass. David says, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Thy Word" (Ps. 119:67). Because we are by nature toward that which is good, the Lord uses the cross as a schoolmaster to instruct us. Therefore, David says, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes" (v. 71). Because we are by nature inclined to the love of the world, the Lord as our nurse does wean us from the love thereof by affliction, as the mother or nurse drives her child from the breast by rubbing it with some bitter thing. To be brief, the Lord by afflictions executes our faith and patience, learns us humility, and teaches us how to esteem prosperity. By affliction, He makes us to take experience of His love and of those graces which He has given us. By afflictions, He learns us to be merciful to the miserable, for the sense of sickness and the feeling of poverty through God's blessing is a notable means to make us pity the poor and the sick. The apostle says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh to us a far more excellent, and an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17), though not as a cause procuring it (for we are saved by grace, and everlasting life is the free gift of God in Christ) (Eph. 2:8). Yet as a way and means directing and leading us thereto (Rom. 6:23), Christ has two crowns: the one of thorns; the other of glory. He that will be honored with the last must be humbled and tried with the first. Thus, it is evident that God shows Himself a father in afflicting His children. But as for the reprobate, His crosses are curses, and His afflictions are forerunners of further judgments inflicted and sent of God as a severe and dreadful judge.

Privilege 9. God has altered the nature of death to all the elect. For Christ by His death has been the death of death and the death of sin, which is the sting and strength of death. First of all, God by death teaches us to detest sin and to acknowledge the severity and sharpness of His anger against it. Secondly, by death He delivers us utterly from the body of sin. Till death we attain not to perfection, and at death sin is wholly consumed. When we die, sin dies. For sin is something like ivy, which falls down and dies when the tree on which it hanged is cut down. Thirdly, the Lord does sometimes take away His children by death, that they should not see those evils which He has purposed to plague His enemies withal. "Merciful men are taken away," says Isaiah, "and no man understandeth that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come" (57:1). So the Lord took away good Josiah (2 Chron. 34:28), that his eyes might not see all the evil which He purposed to bring upon that place. Yea, such is His love to His saints that He cannot do that to the wicked which He would, so long as they live among them. As the angel told Lot (Gen. 19:32) that He could do nothing till he was gone out of Sodom, even so it may be truly said that God's love is so fervent toward His chosen as that it sometimes keeps Him from scattering His judgments in those places wherein they live. Therefore, He does often remove them by death that He may more freely pour out the vials of His wrath upon the ungodly. Fourthly, by death God learns us to seek a place of rest and to alienate our affections from the world, which being like to bird lime,8 would otherwise more easily belime our affections, that they could not soar up to the heavens, the place of our home. Fifthly, by death the Lord humbles us and teaches us not to prank and plume up our bodies like peacocks, as if we meant to live forever. Sixthly, the Lord by their deaths occasions their experience and feeling of the virtue of Christ's resurrection. Lastly, as death is the complement of mortification and ends the battle between the flesh and the spirit, so it fully finishes all earthly calamities; and as a ferry it transports us over the tempestuous and broad ocean of tribulations and afflictions into the calm and quiet haven of endless happiness. But as for the reprobate, it is to them as a boat to carry them out of a river of earthly miseries into a restless and bottomless sea of infinite and ineffable torments. And because their felicity (if any) consists in the finite fruition of worldly prosperity, God in His appointed time by death as by a knife cuts asunder the thread of life and so casts them out of their paradise and sends their souls to the place of the damned, where they shall continue terribly tormented till that doleful and dismal day of vengeance.

Privilege 10. God has ordained the writing of His Word, the preaching of it, the administration of the sacraments, and His dispensers of them principally and properly for the benefit of the elect. Saint Paul says, "Whatsoever things are written aforetime, are written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope" (Rom. 15:4). John says he wrote that we might believe in the name of Christ (1 John 5:13). Therefore, his writings properly belong to the children of God. And the apostle, writing to the Ephesians, says that Christ gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and doctors—but to what end? "For the reparation of the saints, and for the edification of Christ's body" (Eph. 4:12). And this is no small prerogative. For the sacraments are signs and seals of God's grace. The preaching of the gospel is the power of God to salvation to all that do believe. In His Word, He has recorded His will. And His ministers are as it were His trumpeters which do sound in our ears and trumpets of His law and gospel and instruct us when to stand still, when to retire, and when and how to march forward. They are through His assistance our spiritual fathers by whom He does procreate and beget us to Himself for our good and His own glory. Now all these things profit the reprobate nothing at all, but do indeed through the rebellious corruption of their hearts harden and stiffen them, as the sun does clay.

Privilege 11. The Lord has united all His elect and dear children to Christ by His Spirit and by a true and lively faith. And by reason of this union, they are after a sort united to the whole Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Yea, hence it is that we are partakers of Christ's benefits. For as the members of the body have neither sense nor motion unless they be united to the head, and as the giraffe receives no nourishment except it be set in the flock and grow up with it, even so, unless we be united to Christ our stock and spiritual head, we have no spiritual life and motion, neither are we actually partakers of His benefits. But being once united and knit to Him, we receive sense and sap, life and motion.

Privilege 12. All the elect and faithful people of God are partakers of the prayers of all the godly throughout the world. The children of God have fellowship one with another, as with Christ, their head. Whereas on the contrary, they pray for the confusion and final destruction of His and their impenitent, pestilent, and irreconcilable enemies, and cannot but hate and abandon those whom they see to walk perversely in wicked and reprobate courses without remorse of conscience and all show of repentance. For God has put a secret antipathy and mortal enmity between His seed and the seed of the serpent. Therefore, Solomon says, "A wicked man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in his way, is an abomination to the wicked" (Prov. 29:27). And as David says, "The wicked practiseth against the just, and gnasheth his teeth against him" (Ps. 37:12). So he also says thus of himself, "I have hated them that give themselves to deceitful vanities" (31:6). And again, "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? I hate them with the perfection of hatred, as if they were mine utter enemies" (139:21). And in the fifteenth psalm, contemning of a vile person—that is, of a wicked wretch—and the honoring of the godly are made an infallible note of a faithful member of the church (v. 4). By which it appears that there is no sincere and solid communion between God's children and the slaves of the devil. And therefore it is one of our privileges and peculiar dignities to enjoy the love and lovely communion of the saints.

Privilege 13. Faith, by which we walk and live, by which we are justified and adopted, without which it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6)—this faith, which is a supernatural gift of God above corrupt and created nature, this faith (I say) is peculiar and proper to the elect (Acts 13:48). Therefore, St. Paul calls it "the faith of the elect" (Titus 1:1) and teaches the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 3:2) that it is not common to all men. Secondly, hope is an excellent gift of God (Rom. 5:5), for it makes not ashamed; and by it the apostle says we are saved—that is, by hope we expect and wait for that salvation (8:24) which by faith we apprehend and assure ourselves of for the invaluable merits of Christ. Now, this grace is not given to any besides the elect. For how can the reprobate hope to be saved, seeing they are appointed for the day of evil (Prov. 16:4) and are reserved to the day of destruction (Job 21:30) and shall be brought forth to the day of wrath? Thirdly, love, which springs out of a pure heart (1 Tim. 1:5) and flows from a good conscience and faith unfeigned is given only to God's elect. For it is not possible for the reprobate to love God to that end and in that manner which God requires, seeing He has cast them off from all eternity and purposed not to give them any saving grace, considering also that they are by nature void of purity and do live and die in sin. Now this privilege is the greater, because this grace is very rare and excellent. Love is (as it were) a knife wherewith faith shares and cuts out the duties which we do owe to God and man in some good and acceptable manner. Love is the cock9 which lets out the water of God's graces out of the cistern of our hearts. Love is the nurse of humanity, the mother of equity, the maintainer of virtue, the daughter of faith, the preserver of piety, the mistress of modesty, the badge of Christianity, the bane of discord, the staff of concord (Col. 3:14), the keeper of the crown (Job 13:25), the bond of perfection, and the note of a true disciple. Saint Paul in some sort prefers it to faith and hope when he says, "Now abideth faith, hope and love: but the choicest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13). By which we see that the Lord has highly honored us in that He confers this glorious grace to none but us. Lastly, that filial fear, which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10) and the well spring of life (14:27), to avoid the snares of death, and which makes a man to keep the golden rule of mediocrity, is given only to God's elect. For how can the reprobate, who do love sin and do not love God—how (I say) can they fear to displease Him, because they hate sin and love Him? Or how can the reprobate, who are all ordained to inevitable and eternal perdition, be said to fear God as a son fears his loving father, seeing they be slaves, and considering that the Word of God pronounces him happy and blessed (Ps. 112:4) who stands in awe of God and fears to offend Him? If the reprobate be blessed, then of all men the elect are most accursed. But we shall say that those are blessed whom the Lord has accursed, if we shall say that the reprobate do fear God with that fear whereof I now speak.

Privilege 14. God accounts those injuries as done to Himself which the wicked offer to His faithful servants (2 Chron. 14:11; Nah. 1:9). Saul persecuted the true professors of Christ, yet Christ told him from heaven that he persecuted Him (Acts 9:4). The afflictions of God's children are called in the Scriptures "Christ's afflictions" (Col. 1:24). For such is the union and communion between the head and the members, that if any of them smart, the head is partaker of the grief (Rev. 11:8). If any part be crazed or annoyed, the heart is ready to mourn, the head to consult, the tongue to bewail and utter it, the foot to run to the surgeon, and the hand is ready to do her duty. Even so it is between Christ and His members. If any of them be injuriously vexed and troubled, He takes the wrong as done to Himself. And so Christ may be said to be crucified in that great city which is mystically called Sodom and Babylon—that is, Rome—because He is there put to death in His members and is in them (as it were) slain continually by Romish authority, as He was by it (if we speak properly) crucified and put to death.10 So in like manner the Lord says, "He which toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye" (Zech. 1:8). And as Christ esteems of those good deeds which men do to them as done to Himself (Matthew 25), even so He accounts the bare neglecting and the not relieving of them in their wants as if the wicked had been in this kind of duty faulty to Himself.

Privilege 15. God will shorten the world and hasten the coming of His Son for the elect. And so that speech of Christ may be understood, "For the elect's sake those evil days shall be shortened" (24:22). Moreover, such is the patience and good will of God to His elect, as that He stays His coming for a time because He would (as Peter affirms, 2 Peter 3:9) have none of them to perish, but come to repentance, that when He comes they may be welcome to Him, and He to them.

Privilege 16. God does effectually call the elect, and none besides them; and they alone are justified in His sight (Rom. 8:30). For He does pardon them alone, and they only are clothed with the spotless robes of Christ's perfect righteousness. Therefore, the prophet says, "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. The Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. For the transgression of My people was He plagued. By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many. He bare the sins of many" (Isa. 53:5–7, 11–12). He does not say "all." For He came to save His own people only from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He did not so much as pray for the reprobate (John 17:9). Now this is a very great and admirable privilege and honor, that God should send His only Son to die for us few despicable wretches, and that Christ should lose His life and shed His heart blood for us only, whereas it was in itself (being the blood of God) sufficient to have redeemed a thousand thousand worlds of sinners (Acts 20:28). If a man had a medicine able to cure all diseases and would not give it any saving some few, they were wonderfully indebted to him. The blood of Christ is able to heal all our soul-sicknesses and to deliver us from all our sins. And it has pleased Him to wash us alone in it and to withhold it from the far greater part of mankind. By which we see how highly He has honored us, and how deep we are in His debt. If three men were in danger of drowning or burning, and a man should come and deliver one of them and leave the other two to the danger, all men might well say that he favored him more than the other. By our sins we were all in danger to be drowned in that sulphury lake and to be consumed with the fire of God's wrath, as well as the reprobates. Our sins deserve it. But Christ has set Himself between His Father and us. He has taken no notice (as it were) of them; and us only, who are elected, He has redeemed. As the Lord drowned the Egyptians only in the sea, so Christ has overwhelmed our sins only in His blood. And as the propitiatory covered the ark and the Decalogue, so Christ covers His elect with His blood and hides them, yea them alone, from the wrath of God. And therefore Paul calls Him the Savior of His body (Eph. 5:23). By which we see His grace and good will is far greater to us than to them.

Privilege 17. It is impossible through the virtue of God's decree and Christ's merits that any of the elect should fall into the sin against the Holy Ghost, into which some reprobates have rushed.

Privilege 18. The elect being once actually redeemed have liberty to serve and worship God without fear of any evil (Luke 1:74). They serve Him chiefly for His love and for conscience of His commandments. The wicked seem to serve Him oftentimes, but it is for some sinister respect, as for fear of damnation (as the slave obeys his master for fear of the whip) or for fear of imprisonment or an ill name, or else for the love of lucre or the desire of glory or credit with men.

Privilege 19. The elect alone do merit at God's hands, for they being alone partakers of Christ's meritorious righteousness do also alone, it being accounted as their own, merit everlasting life of God. Now is not this an exceeding great favor, that we being but worms (Job 25:6) should deserve everlasting happiness of so high a majesty? It does greatly commend the love of God to us, and the rather because He has graced us only with the inestimable merits of His Son, refusing to impart them to many millions of men as noble, as wise, as learned, as beautiful, as mighty, and as wealthy as ourselves.

Privilege 20. The elect being once effectually called do sin thenceforward only of infirmity. Therefore, St. John says that "whosoever is born of God, sinneth not" (1 John 3:9)—that is, with full consent of will. For so far forth as he is regenerate, he does not sin. Wherefore, Paul in the person of all true believers says, "If I do that I would not"—meaning evil—"it is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7:20). But on the contrary, wickedness (as Job shows, Job 20:12) is sweet in the wicked man's mouth. He hides it under his tongue; he savors it; he will not forsake it, but keeps it close in his mouth. His sin is as his soul. And therefore Solomon says he cannot sleep except he have done evil (Prov. 4:16). And the prophet Isaiah shows that the wicked is so soldered to his sin as that he will not learn righteousness, though mercy be showed to him (Isa. 26:10). In the land of uprightness, where true religion is commanded, countenanced, and professed, he will do wickedly, neither respecting God's merciful dealing nor the good examples of the godly. Whereas the faithful detest and abhor their corruptions and struggle against them, striving and desiring to be delivered of them, as a prisoner of his bolts or as those which are troubled with the disease incubus, called the nightmare, desire or struggle to be rid thereof.

Privilege 21. The Scriptures do teach that God has made peace between the creatures and His children. The stones of the field are in league with them (Job 5:23), and the beasts of the field are at peace with them. The Lord by His prophet Hosea says that He will make a covenant for them with the wild beasts (Hos. 2:18) and with the fowls of the heaven and with that which creeps upon the earth (Ex. 11:7). Do we not read that the sea made way to the Israelites and overwhelmed their enemies which pursued them (14:22, 28)? Do we not read that ravens fed the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:6)? Do we not read that the hungry lions favored Daniel, and that the fire spared the three children? Did not a star conduct the wise men to the place where our Lord lay (Matt. 2:9)? Did not the Lord make a covenant for His servant Jonah with the whale, whose teeth (as the Scripture says) are terrible, and by His might He makes the depth to boil like a pot (Job 14:5, 22)? And did He not make a bond of peace for Paul with the venomous viper (Acts 28:5), when he being upon his hand he received no hurt, though the barbarians waited when he should have swollen or fallen down suddenly dead? On the contrary, we read that He drowned the wicked world with water and burned the filthy Sodomites with fire. He met with ambitious Absalom with12 a tree and slew those wicked children which mocked the prophet Elisha with bears (2 Kings 2:24). He made the dogs to eat the flesh of wicked Jezebel (9:36) and destroyed Herod, that cruel and vainglorious king, with worms (Acts 12:23). He plagued the Egyptians with frogs, flies, and lice (Exodus 8). Yea, the Lord has all creatures in heaven and earth ready (when it pleases Him) to run upon the wicked and reprobate, as a greyhound upon his game when the leash is taken off, which He manifests when He says by Jeremiah, "I will," etc. (Jer. 15:3).

Privilege 22. The elect, being once forgiven of God and accepted to everlasting life for the merits of Christ, have joy unspeakable and that peace which passes all understanding. "The kingdom of God," says the apostle, "standeth in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). If the health of body be such a thing as is rather with comfort enjoyed than in words to be expressed, how great shall we think is the peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost? It may be tasted, but it cannot be expressed. The malefactor has great peace and quietness with himself when the king has granted him his pardon; even so the elect should have great peace and tranquility of mind, when as God, the great King of heaven and earth, has pardoned their sins (Rom. 5:7) and received them to favor. But on the contrary, the reprobate and irreconcilable sinners, that sell themselves to work wickedness and drink iniquity like water, have either no peace at all but are like the raging sea that cannot rest (Isa. 57:20), whose wasters call up mire and dirt, or else are senseless like stocks, laboring of a spiritual apoplexy and a devilish, dead palsy, being sunk into the gulf of security and having made a league with death and a covenant with hell.

Privilege 23. The elect have an altar whereupon if they lay all their prescribed sacrifices, they shall be accepted of God, as smelling sweetly in His nostrils. But the reprobate and all their sacrifices are odious and abominable in His sight. They want our altar Christ Jesus, who should purge and sanctify their offerings and by whom they should offer them to the Father—and therefore their goodly sacrifices are but goodly sins.

Privilege 24. God gives His Holy Spirit to His elect only, who in God's appointed time makes His habitation in them, who does also sweep the floors of their spirits with the hand of His grace and the beesome of His word and trims up the houses of their hearts with the sweet and pleasant flowers of His Spirit and adorns them with the costly tapestry and precious ornaments of His orient and excellent graces. He perfumed them (as it were) with frankincense and coals of juniper. He builds windows within them, that they may receive the bright and beautiful beams and lovely light, which do shine from the Sun of Righteousness. He constitutes a kingdom within them. He rules them with the strength of His arm and the scepter of His word. He stablishes His throne with justice and mercy. He softens the part regenerate; He bridles and tames the rebel, even the rebellious corruption of the heart, and by little and little consumes it. As for the reprobate, their hearts are the dens of the devil and the cabins of sin, stinking loathsomely like a dead carrion. There is indeed a kingdom within them; but the devil is the king, sin is the queen. His throne is wickedness; his scepter is iniquity; his laws are the liberty of the flesh; his rewards are death; and they are his slaves and vassals.

Privilege 25. As the elect may have grace, so it is possible for them to grow in grace. Therefore, Peter exhortes us "to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ" (2 Peter 3:18) and shows also how we may grow (1 Peter 2:2). But for the reprobate, as they are void of all true saving grace, so they grow not therein; for they cannot increase in that which they want. A man cannot grow in bigness, unless he have a body. A man cannot grow rich, unless he have riches. They may increase in sin and grow in wickedness, as clay does in hardness when the weather is dry, or as the rivers do in depth and breadth when the tide comes. Again, whereas the Lord does very often give the reins to the reprobate and suffers them to rush headlong into horrible enormities, as the Gadarenes' swine did into the sea, He does mercifully preserve His own people and graciously keeps them oftentimes from declining and falling. And whenever they either stumble or fall, they may recover themselves by serious and sound repentance. But God has not vouchsafed the gift of godly sorrow and true repentance to the reprobate. It belongs only to God's elect. We may read of David's repentance, of Peter's falling and rising, of Paul's conversion; but we never read of any true turning (to turn truly is to return from all sin to God) that ever any reprobate made. If any of them repent, it is but for fashion's sake or for fear of punishment. It is not for love to God, or for the hatred of sin for sin, or for the consideration of God's love to them. As lead being cast into the water cannot but sink, so the reprobate cannot but sin. And as a millstone lying in the bottom of the sea cannot come up, so the reprobate being overwhelmed in the bottomless pit of iniquity cannot repent. Though it were possible to remove a mountain out of his place, yet it were more impossible to remove a reprobate from his corruptions. He may move, but he will not remove. He may turn, but he cannot return. As it is impossible for him to revive who is ordained to perpetual death, so it is impossible for him to revive from sin whom the fountain of all life has righteously forsaken and delivered forever to Satan to hold captive in the grave of sin and in the dark and deadly dungeon of iniquity.

Privilege 26. The children of God have the spirit of prayer and with boldness may approach to the throne of His grace and put up their suits to Him. The king will permit a true subject to come into his presence and speak to him, when a rebel or traitor shall find no such favor. A king's son may speak to his father, when others are not permitted so to do. We are the sons of God and the servants of His Son. Therefore, we may boldly in the name of our elder brother present ourselves before Him and put up our supplications to Him, and the rather because He knows and approves us. For as the apostle says, "The foundation of God remaineth sure, and has this seal, The Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). But the reprobate and their prayers are abominable in His sight. They want the spirit of prayer and either cannot pray at all, or not in the right manner. Neither can they approach with boldness to God, seeing they have no part in Christ, nor Christ in them. They cannot pray with confidence to be heard, seeing they are destitute as well of faith as of the favor of God.

Privilege 27. God accepts the sincere will and fervent desires of His faithful and elect children to believe, repent, and obey for faith, repentance, and obedience. For "as a father has compassion on his children, so has the Lord compassion on them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). "He will spare them, as a man spareth his own son" (Mal. 3:17). But fathers use to take in good part their children's works, so they do them with care and diligence, though not so perfectly and exactly as indeed were meet. In like manner, if we will and with an honest heart desire to do well, though we do it very weakly, God does notwithstanding take all in good part and regards not the imperfection of the work. A desire of grace is one degree of grace, and a will to do well is with God accounted doing well. Therefore, Paul says, "If there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man has, and not according to that he has not" (2 Cor. 8:12). That which he says of giving alms is true in the performance of all other duties. If there be in a man a ready and willing mind to believe, repent, and obey, though he do not these things perfectly or so well as many of his brethren do, yet God for the merits and intercession of His Son accepts both of him and his imperfect works and in mercy rewards him. David, besides his daily infirmities, did thrice grievously offend God; and yet He told Solomon that if he would walk before Him as David, his father, He would establish the throne of his kingdom (2 Chron. 7:17), so as that he should not want a man to be a ruler in Israel. And albeit in that place He requires that he should do according to all His commandments, whereby He may seem to exact perfect (and therefore impossible) obedience, yet if we consider all things well, it will plainly appear that He means no other thing than that he should labor and seek to please Him in all things—because He sits his father David before his eyes as a pattern to follow, and because elsewhere we read that He makes the same promise to him, only requiring of him "to endeavor himself to do His commandments" (28:7) as he had begun. Now this is a very comfortable doctrine. For when a man considers that God respects his weak obedience and honest heart and accounts the will to do for the deed done, his heart is eased, his conscience is appeased, his mind is settled; and beholding the infinite love of God he is ravished with joy and provoked to magnify His mercy and to struggle against the corruption of his heart to please Him in doing all things which are pleasing in His sight. Now, lest we should beguile ourselves (for man's heart is a mine of subtlety) in thinking we desire and will to believe, repent, and obey, when as we either do not at all or do but as a reprobate may do, I will set down some rules which as the touchstone tries gold and as Solomon's sword found out the right mother, so these may serve to discover the truth of our desires and to desert the goodness of our wills. First of all, if we be grieved that we can desire and will no better than we do. Secondly, if we do desire and will to do these things for the glory of God, and because we are persuaded that both these things and the willing of them are pleasing to God. Thirdly, if we strive to increase in willing and desiring, and if we feed them with the diligent hearing of God's word, with holy meditations, with often prayers, and with setting before us the ensamples of excellent men, as the priests kept the fire upon the altar and fed it continually and suffered it not to go out (Lev. 6:12). Fourthly, if to our wills and desires we join reformation of our lives and in our several callings labor accordingly to serve God. Fifthly, if in our hearts we prefer eternal serving of God in heaven before all momentary profits and pleasures whatever. Sixthly, if we had rather live in a continual cross all our life long, but yet pleasing God and being in His favor, than spend the same in sinful pleasures, continually displeasing His majesty. Seventhly, if we desire and will to serve Him and to return home to Him from all our sins, though we were verily persuaded that there were no hell. Lastly, if we had rather please God, His rod of correction being always exercised upon us, than live without remorse of conscience against our knowledge, in profitable and pleasant sins, continually vexing and displeasing God our gracious Father, though we were certainly (as it were by oracle from heaven) assured that we should at the last gasp repent and be saved, notwithstanding our former rebellion and horrible disloyalty. If we desire and will to believe, repent, and obey, and find these things in us, then our desires will go for currant, God will accept of them and approve them.

Privilege 28. The Lord indeed suffers His children to fall, but it is to let them see that their standing is by His grace and to show them that He is not obliged with any bond of their merits (which are just none) to sustain and uphold them. He does it also to make them cling the closer about Him and to seek more earnestly for His assistance, as the little child screeches out for help when it is fallen and lies flat sprawling upon the ground. He does it to humble them and to abate their natural pride; and as He lets them fall in love, so by their falls He manifests His wisdom and integrity and shows His admirable compassion and humanity in forgiving and in raising them up again. But the falls of the reprobate kindle the coals of God's wrath against them. And further their full and final perdition, they serve to increase their sin and consequently their pains. They serve for punishments sometimes of former offences. And by committing one sin in the neck of another, they put out the light of nature. They harden their hearts and fit themselves for further wickedness, even as the stithy becomes the harder by striking. I grant indeed that oftentimes they are grievously galled and perplexed with their sins. But it is not a sorrow that causes repentance to salvation never to be repented of. And usually it fares with them as it does with young hat makers or such as use to play at stool ball.15 In the beginning, their fingers may blister, and their hand may ache; but after a while, their hands become hard and brawny and are well armed for such works. And the more they practice, the less pain they feel. So the custom of sinning takes away the sense of the sin. And as the dropsy man, the more he drinks, the drier he is; so the reprobate—the more he falls, the more he fancies falling.

Privilege 29. It is not possible that any of the elect should be damned or that any of them being soundly converted should wholly for a time (much less forever) fall away from God and perish. For God's decree of election (2 Tim. 2:19) is constant, and His counsel (Isa. 46:10) shall stand. "Him that cometh to Me," says Christ, "I cast not away" (John 6:37)—that is, "I do not cast off or eject him that embraces Me with the hand and arms of a lively faith and testifies the same with the fruits thereof." And whom God has predestined, called, and justified, them He will also glorify (Rom. 8:30). For His covenant with them is an everlasting covenant (Jer. 32:40), and His gifts are without repentance (Rom. 11:29). "Love is strong as death: much water cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it" (Song 8:6). Piety, which perishes, was never pretty. And true faith (though as small as a grain of mustard seed) cannot altogether vanish and be extinguished, for God will relieve it. He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax (Isa. 42:3). Indeed, faith may be shaken, but it cannot be shivered in pieces. It may be moved, but it cannot be removed. It may wither and wax dry, but it cannot wear away quite and die. Satan may sift and towze16 it, he may lay siege against it; but he cannot sack it. He shall never destroy it. The sun may set and for a time lie hid, but it remains in the heaven. And faith may be covered (as fire with ashes), but yet it continues in the heart. The fish may be in the water, though she float not always aloft. There is sap in the root when the leaves are fallen off and the top naked and in appearance withered. So faith lives though it have lost some signs of life. The sun and the moon may be indeed eclipsed; even so the eye of faith may be dimmed. But as the sun and moon do not perish in their eclipses nor lose their light forever, even so faith does not perish when it is eclipsed. It may indeed receive a buffet, whereby it may (as it were) reel and stagger and fall to the ground and there for a time lie like a man in a swoon or fit of the falling sickness. But it cannot die, because God, the wellspring as well of spiritual life as of natural, will never forsake it. The Thames may suffer an ebb, but it is not stark dry at any time. So faith may come to a very low ebb, but yet it will have water always in the bottom. As a great river may be frozen over with hard ice for a time and so covered with snow, as that it seems rather a rock than a river or like to other ground, even so faith may be (as it were) frozen over with thick ice and so held with the snow of sin, as that it may not be seen at all for a time. But as there is water in the river which is deep, notwithstanding the frost, though it be not seen, even so there is life in faith, though for a time it do not appear. But when the weather is broken, when the Holy Ghost begins to make a thaw with the fresh fire of His grace when the south wind blows hard and when the Sun of Righteousness has melted the ice—then faith will appear and flow again as a river after rain and as the waters do after a thaw. Then grace, which was covered before, will shine bright and clear, as the sun does after a shower, as is evident by the repentance of David and Peter. Moreover, our Savior says that His sheep shall "never perish" (John 10:28). The Lord, says Isaiah, shall feed His flock like a shepherd (Isa. 40:11). He shall gather the lambs with His arms and carry them in His bosom. He makes them to rest in green pastures (Ps. 23:2) and leads them by the still waters. He upholds them in their integrity (41:12) and does set them before His face forever. As Zerubbabel laid the foundation of the temple (Zech. 4:9) and did finish it, so God, that has begun His good work in the temple of our hearts, will finish it to the end (Phil. 1:6). They cannot be taken from Him by strong hand. For He is greater than all (John 10:29–30), and His will to save them is answerable to His power. Therefore, He says He gives to them everlasting life (v. 28), adding also that none shall pluck them out of His hands. Master Tyndale says well, "Christ is thine, and all His deeds are thy deeds; neither canst thou be damned, except He be damned with thee." They cannot perish by seduction, for the elect cannot be seduced (Matt. 24:24). Neither can they of themselves fall away. For God has put His fear in their hearts (Jer. 32:40), that they shall not depart from Him. A man may for a time cease to laugh, but he cannot lose the faculty of laughing. The drunkard loses sometimes the use of reason, but the faculty never. So the graces of God may be crazed, but yet they are not utterly abolished. Finally, God forsakes not them. For His love is everlasting (31:3). Those whom He loves once, He loves to the end (John 13:1). Nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:39). It is like the Israelites' shoes (Deut. 29:5), which waxed not old. It is like the tree of life—he that once truly tastes of it shall not die eternally. As a father does not reject his child when he has broken his face by falling, but rather seeks a plaster—he will (it may be) lash him, but he will not leave to love him.17 Even so our heavenly Father deals with His children. For He has said that He will never depart from them to do them good (Jer. 32:40). He will not fail them nor forsake them (Heb. 13:6), but will sanctify them throughout (1 Thess. 5:23–24) and keep them safe to the coming of Christ. Indeed, our enemies may wound us, but they shall not win. They may vex us, but they shall not vanquish. They may perhaps press us, but they shall not oppress us. They may cut us, but they cannot kill us. For God, who is greater than all, will not suffer us to be tempted above our power and is very vigilant for us (1 Cor. 13:13). For He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (Ps. 121:4).

Privilege 30. The elect may assuredly be persuaded in this life that they shall be saved in the life to come. For a special and certain persuasion of God's mercy is the very heart and marrow, the life and soul of true faith (Matt. John 1:12; Rom. 4:20). Therefore, Paul says, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be destroyed, we have a building of God"—that is, "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). Furthermore, if it be not possible for men to know that they shall be saved, how could St. John say, "These things have I written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (John 20:31). To conclude, if it were impossible for a man to be in his conscience assured that he is the elect and faithful servant of God, effectually called in time and ordained to glory before time, to what end should David inquire who of all professors are the true members of the church militant on earth and shall be of the church triumphant in the heavens (Psalm 15)? And to what end should he set down the marks whereby they may be discerned? And to what purpose should Paul exhort us to prove ourselves whether we are in the faith? Or why should he speak after this manner to us, "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2 Cor. 13:5)? And wherefore should Peter bid us be diligent to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10)? It remains therefore as an undoubted truth that the elect may be truly assured of their election and may assuredly know (without special revelation) that they shall be saved. Now this is a very great prerogative, and the greater, first, because it may be enjoyed to the end; secondly, because the longer it is enjoyed, the better we are assured; thirdly, it brings with it wonderful joy. For what greater joy can a man here enjoy than to be assured of eternal joy? Fourthly, this assurance makes a man more wary and more unwilling to displease God by sin, whereby nothing is deserved but damnation. Fifthly, this privilege is the more excellent, because they which want this knowledge altogether can have no solid consolation. And as for the reprobate, they have no more to do with this certainty than they have with salvation. As it is impossible for them to be saved, so it is impossible for them to be truly assured of their salvation. He that dreams may think he walks, eats, talks, sees, when he does not; and he may think he is awake, when he is not. So these dreamers may think that they shall be saved and may soothe themselves as if they were cocksure,18 but they are deceived. He that is in a swoon does sometimes persuade himself that he sees many strange sights, but his persuasion is false. So the reprobates may think all things run round, they may persuade themselves they are in God's favor and shall be saved; but as the things are false whereof they do persuade themselves, so their persuading must needs also be as false. It is but a spiritual swoon or devilish dreaming or dizziness that does to blind their eyes and beguile them.

Privilege 31. The elect only shall be raised up of Christ as a savior and redeemer. And when all people shall be gathered before Him, He will separate His elect from the reprobate (Matthew 25). The elect shall be placed on His right hand, and upon them He will pronounce the white and comfortable sentence of absolution. On the contrary, He will raise up the reprobate as He is a terrible and dreadful judge. He will set them on His left hand like goats and pronounce against them the doleful and black sentence of condemnation. And more also, which may increase their grief, He will use the elect for the approbation of His judgment upon them and upon the wicked angels also. They shall attend upon Him as justices do upon the judge at the assizes and shall approve His sentence. And this St. Paul teaches (1 Cor. 6:2–3), when as he says that the saints shall judge the world and the wicked angels. Now as this is a great honor to the elect to sit as judges upon the wicked, so it must needs minister no small grief to them to be (as it were) judged of those whom they before have derided, condemned, nicknamed, and persecuted. Thus, we have seen many notable privileges of God's elect and faithful children. If Balaam prophesied of the Israelites when he looked upon them dwelling according to their tribes, saying, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy habitations, O Israel" (Num. 24:5), we may well conjecture that God will exceedingly manifest His love to us hereafter in the heavens, seeing He has honored us so highly in this vale of misery and will grace us so much after the resurrection in our entrance into heaven, as that we shall judge the world and the angels.

Privilege 32. The last privilege of the elect whereof I will entreat is that God will give them the kingdom of heaven and everlasting life. "Fear not, little flock," says our Shepherd, "for it is your Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). And Paul says that God does glorify those whom He has predestinated, called, and justified (Rom. 8:30). Our Savior says that He gives eternal life to all His sheep (John 10:28). As Joshua brought the children of Israel into earthly Canaan, so Christ Jesus, our Joshua, will one day bring all true Israelites into celestial Canaan and will crown them with immortal glory. To describe this blessed estate perfectly surpasses man's capacity, whose knowledge is as yet imperfect. For Paul out of Isaiah says that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, neither came it into man's heart to think of those things which God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. 2:9; Isa. 64:4). Nevertheless, it may in part be described according as God has revealed it in His Word to us. In this estate, the elect shall be delivered and set free from all wants and miseries, from sin, and from all the temptations of Satan (Rev. 21:4). They shall have perpetual fellowship with the blessed Trinity and the holy angels. They shall have perfect knowledge, and they shall perfectly love God, who will be all in all to them (1 Cor. 13:12). Their hearts shall be full fraught with endless and unutterable joys. Their tongues shall continually sound out the praises of God. They shall celebrate an everlasting sabbath, serving God most purely forever and ever (Isa. 66:23). Their bodies shall be like to the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21), bright and beautiful, mobile and full of agility, preserved and sustained by the immediate power of God, without meat, drink, sleep, labor, physic; and therefore Paul calls them spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44). Lastly, to make up their happiness, the place of their abode shall be in the highest heavens, where there are no pains but pleasures (2 Cor. 5:1); no woe but weal; no sin but serving of God; no grief but glory; no want but wealth; no sickness but health; no death but life; no jars but joys; no wars but peace; no treachery but truth; no fighting but triumphing; and no change but everlasting continuance. When a man has lived so many thousand thousand years in all the pleasures of paradise as there are hours in a million millions of years, he shall not attain to the end; for the end is endless, and the time is without time. But on the other side, the reprobate are severed from the solacious sight and comfortable presence of God. Their fellowship is with the devil and his angels in hellfire, where they are unspeakably tormented in soul and body with endless, easeless, and remediless torments. Their life is death, and their death is life—a dying life, and a living death. When they have spent so many years in pains as there be stars in the sky, motes in the sun, sands on the shore, and fishes in the seas, they shall be as far from the end as they were the first day; for the time is infinite, their damnation is everlasting, and their death shall never be put to death. Their worm shall not die, their fire shall never be put out, neither shall they be put out with it (Isa. 66:24). But as the salamander is always in the fire and never wastes, so the wicked shall be continually scorched in hellfire, and yet shall never be consumed. Lo then, beloved, you see the charter of the saints in part. No earthly monarch can grant such a one to his subjects as God has given freely to His elect. All the countries, kingdoms, and cities that have been, are, and shall be cannot show such dignities, such royalties, and such immunities given them by man as I have showed to belong to God's elect and obedient children. The consideration of these benefits and privileges should move us first to acknowledge and laud God's infinite love. Secondly, in [a] way of thankfulness to dedicate our souls and bodies and all that we have to God. Thirdly, to admire the condition of God's children. Fourthly, to be afraid to disgrace them whom the Lord does so grace and countenance. Fifthly, to undergo courageously all adverse blasts and all the crosses of this life. Sixthly, to alienate our hearts from the world. Seventhly, to roll our care upon God and to rely upon His providence. Eighthly, to desire the coming of Christ and not to fear death too much. The sooner we die, the sooner we come to our crowns. Lastly, the consideration of these benefits and privileges should stir us up to seek by all means to be enrolled among them and never to rest till we be in some measure certain and certainly persuaded that we are elected and preordained to salvation. When Ahasuerus had honored Mordecai (Esth. 8:7) and showed favor to the Jews, the Scripture says that much people of the land became Jews. So, seeing the Lord has thus dignified the elect, let us behave ourselves like them and labor to be accounted of their company. Claudius Lysias gave a great sum of money for the freedom of the Romans (Acts 22:28); how much more ought we to seek for these freedoms and royalties which do more surpass the other than the heaven does the earth and the precious pearl does the poorest pebble. They are not indeed to be named or compared together, and yet these may be had without money, though they cannot be had by money. And thus much for the privileges.

I come now briefly to set down the note of election to life and to show how a man may come to be truly persuaded in his conscience that he shall be saved. Let a man that would attain to the knowledge of his election to salvation (1) hear the word of God often and attentively. For faith, whereby we are persuaded of God's special grace to us, is ordinarily wrought by hearing of the word preached (Rom. 10:17). (2) Let him wage war with his infidelity, and let him not listen to Satan tempting him to doubting or desperation. (3) Let him beware of pride and presumption, neither trusting to his own goodness nor oblivious of God's infinite justice. (4) Let him often and earnestly pray for this benefit and desire that God would give him His Spirit, which may witness with him that he is the chosen child of God. (5) Let him reverently receive the sacrament and meditate often of his baptism. For the sacraments are pledges of God's love and serve to increase our faith. He that receives them with an honest and humble heart may assure himself of the remission of his sins and of the salvation of his soul. (6) Consider diligently God's fatherly dealing with you. Lastly, let him expand and dutifully consider the notes of election to eternal life, by the which a man may know that he is ordained to be saved. Note, the jailor demanding of Paul and Silas what he should do to be saved, they made him answer, saying, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). Secondly, love of our brethren for their piety. "We know," says John, "that we are translated from death to life, because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). Thirdly, the fear of God, wherein we are loath to offend Him, chiefly because we love Him and hate sin. "Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord" (Ps. 12:1); is blessed, then elected. [Unreadable] hearty confession, and loathing of our sins. "He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall find mercy" (Prov. 28:13). But God vouchsafes His special mercy only to His own people. Fifthly, confidence and affiance in God. "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee" (Ps. 84:12). The condition of reprobates is cured. The apostle says our confidence has great recompense of reward (Heb. 10:35). Sixthly, sincere and true calling upon the name of God. For Paul says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13). Seventhly, careful and constant endeavoring to keep all the commandments of God. For "blessed are they that do His commandments, that their right may be in the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city" (Rev. 22:14). As the Lord promised to establish the kingdom of Solomom (1 Chron. 28:7), if he did constantly endeavor to keep His commandments, so the same Lord will establish us forever in the kingdom of heaven, if we will endeavor constantly to serve and obey Him. Eighthly, patient bearing of affliction for the truth's sake. "Blessed are they," says Christ, "which suffer persecution for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10). Ninthly, an earnest and hearty desire to be washed in the blood of Christ and to be invested in the white robes of His righteousness. "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6). "To him that is athirst, I will give of the well of the water of life freely" (Rev. 21:6). Tenthly, Christian humility and poverty of spirit, when a man seems naked and base in his own sight and ascribes all to God's grace. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). Eleventhly, a lusting and longing after the coming of Christ. Paul says that the righteous Judge will give a crown of righteousness to all those that love His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8). Twelfthly, David in the fifteenth Psalm asks the Lord who shall dwell in His tabernacle and rest on His holy mountain, and received answer as it were by oracle from God that he shall who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the truth from his heart. And Peter having commanded us to make our election and calling sure adds saying that if we do "these things, we shall never fall" (2 Peter 1:10), but shall be sure and certain. Now what these things are, he shows—to wit, that we adorn our hearts and lives with virtue, knowledge, temperance, godliness, and love (vv. 5–7). To conclude, he that is sure of his adoption may be also certain of his election; for none are adopted, but such as are elected. Now a man may know his adoption if he find in himself the properties of an obedient and loving son. I will set down some. (1) Property. As a little child, whether in learning good or leaving evil, is either won by a fair word or awed by a check or feared by a frowning look or allured by a trifling gift or stilled by seeing another beaten before him or else quieted by a rod, even so God's children are either affected by His promises or allured by His mercies or awed by His threats or scared by His frowning countenance or humbled by His correcting of others or by His rod which is upon their own backs. (2) A good and wise child is very desirous to know his father's mind or will, that so he may best know how to please and humor him; and such is the disposition of God's child. Job makes it the note of a wicked man to affect the ignorance of God's ways (21:14). (3) A good child, knowing that he has unjustly grieved his father, will not be quiet till they be good friends again. (4) He labors to resemble his father in his rare and excellent virtues. (5) He will bear a blow at his father's hands (though he scorn to put it up at another man's); and when his father has chided or corrected him, he will not run for comfort to his father's desperate and sworn enemies. (6) He envies not a servant or brother that is more laborious and circumspect in his father's business than himself is. (7) He carries a thankful heart toward his father for his fatherly gifts. (8) He is glad to know his father's prerogatives, his lands and leases (if there be any), specially if he be an heir. (9) He longs to see his father and to hear often of him in his absence. (10) He makes much of those love tokens which his father has given him to keep for a remembrance of him or for a sign of his love. (11) He cannot without grief endure to see his father injured or abused by any. (12) He has a special regard of his father's credit. (13) He rejoices at his father's prosperity. (14) He likes his father's company. He listens to his words and loves to talk to him. (15) He loves his mother entirely; he affects his brethren and sisters, though it be but for his father's sake. (16) He hates the fellowship of his father's injurious and unjust enemies. He is a friend to all his father's faithful friends; he contemns not their companies. (17) He cleaves to his father in the time of trouble and does not cast him off. These are properties of gracious, wise, and godly children; and being applied to the purpose in hand, they are so many infallible notes of God's dutiful and loving child. Those which find them in their hearts and lives may truly and infallibly assure themselves and know that they are the sons and daughters of God, elected before the foundation of the world to everlasting life and happiness. Those which after diligent search find them not to be in them must not despair, though they may justly indeed suspect and bewail their estates. But let them fly to the throne of grace with hungry hearts and incessantly desire favor, remembering also to use all means whereby all these foresaid graces and gracious conditions may be generated, nourished, and augmented in them.

These things (right worshipful and beloved) I have here set down as a preface to the treatise following for your furtherance and encouragement; and being the first fruits of my labors in this kind I do present and give them to you in testimony of my hearty love and earnest desire of your Christian progress in knowledge and in godliness. "The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in all good works to do His will, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise forever and ever. Amen" [Heb. 13:20–21].

Faversham, June 20, 1606.

Your Worship's in Christ Jesus,

Thomas Tuke

Master Perkin's Epistle to the Reader

The doctrine of predestination and God's grace is to be founded upon the written Word of God and not upon the judgments of men. For as Hilary says well, "God cannot be understood, but by God." And again, "We must learn of God what we are to understand of God, because He is the only author of our knowledge of Him." It is also requisite that this doctrine agree with the grounds of common reason and of that knowledge of God which may be obtained by the light of nature. And such are these which follow.

1. God is always just, albeit men do not understand how He is just.

2. God is not governed of, much less does He depend upon second causes, but does justly order them, even then when they work unjustly.

3. God works wisely—to wit, propounding to Himself a certain end. He is ignorant of nothing. He does not will or decree that which He cannot effect. He does not idly behold what shall be or what may be done, but He disposes all things to His glory, and therefore He has decreed to do so.

4. God is not changed. And those things which are changed are not changed without His unchangeable decree, all circumstances being certain and sure.

5. The secret and unsearchable judgments of God are to be honored and acknowledged. Augustine: "It moves me (you say) that he perishes, and another is baptized; it moves me, it moves me as a man. If you will hear the truth, it also moves me, because I am a man. But if you are a man, I am also a man. Let us both hear him that says, O man! Verily, if we be therefore moved because we are men, the apostle speaks to human nature itself being weak and feeble, saying, 'O man! Who art thou which pleadest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?' (Rom. 9:20). If a beast could speak and did say to God, Why hast Thou made him a man, and me a beast? Might you not justly be angry and say, O beast, who are you? And you are a man, but in comparison of God, you are a beast."

6. No good thing can be done unless God does absolutely will and work it; and we do that which is good so far forth as God does work in us more or less.

7. No evil can be avoided unless God do hinder it. And we avoid evil so far forth as God does more or less hinder it.

8. The will of God is known not only by the written word or by revelation, but also by the event. For that which comes to pass does therefore come to pass because God has willed that it should come to pass.

9. A man does not that good thing which by grace he is able to do unless God make him do it, as He has made him able to do it if He will.

10. Not a part only, but the whole government of the world and the execution of justice is to be ascribed to God as to the author.

I do not exhibit to you a view and picture of this doctrine composed of these principles and do publish the same, that I might to my power help out those that stick in the difficulties of this doctrine of predestination; and that I might clear the truth that is (as they call it) the Calvinists' doctrine of those reproaches which are cast upon it; and that I might mitigate and appease the minds of some of our brethren which have been more offended at it than was fit. For I do willingly acknowledge and teach universal redemption and grace, so far as it is possible by the Word. My mind is to pursue after peace, which is departing from us; and I would have all men so interpret my fact.

I allege the testimonies of the ancient everywhere, not but that even one evident and perspicuous sentence of sacred Scripture concerning any point of doctrine and faith is of more value and force than all the testimonies of the doctors and schoolmen, but because I hold it necessary that there should be had an example of consent and concord in that doctrine which is expounded in holy books and is propagated to all posterity. And I hope I shall sufficiently persuade an indifferent judge that these things have not been lately hatched at home which we deliver in our congregations and schools, but that we have also defined and fetched them from the fathers themselves.

William Perkins

The Order of Predestination As It Is Collected Out of the Scriptures by the Author

Predestination is the counsel of God touching the last end or estate of man out of this temporal or natural life (1 Cor. 15:46). For as touching natural life, we are all alike; and this kind of life is in the counsel of God only a preparation and step to the spiritual and heavenly life. The supreme end of predestination is the manifestation of God's glory, partly in His mercy and partly in His justice. And this has been the doctrine of the fathers. Saint Augustine says that "one of those two societies of men, which we mystically call two cities, is that which is predestinated to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil."1 Fulgentius says also "that in God's predestination there is prepared either a merciful remission of sins, or a just punishing." And Gregory says "that God being a just creator to all after an admirable manner has fore-elected some and forsaken others in their corruptions."3 And the more learned schoolmen used to say that God for the more full manifestation of His perfection has predestinated some in manifesting His goodness by the rule of mercy and damned others in representing His perfection by the rule of justice.

The common means of accomplishing this counsel is twofold: the creation and the permission of the fall. Creation is that by which God made the whole man of nothing according to His own image, but yet changeable and endued with a natural life. The permission of the fall is whereby God did justly suffer Adam and his posterity to fall away in that He did not hinder them when He was able, as being indeed bound to none to hinder. And God is said not to hinder evil when He ceases after a sort from His operation, not illuminating the mind and not inclining the will to obey His voice. This permission of the evil of fault is by God's foreknowledge and will, but yet only for the greater good of all, which would be hindered if God did not suffer evil. For if there were not sin, there should be no place for the patience of martyrs and for the sacrifice of Christ offered upon the cross, which does infinitely exceed all the sin of the whole world. Augustine says well, "God has judged it better to do good with evils than to permit no evil to be." In like manner, Gregory says, "In His severe judgment He suffers evil to be done, but withal He does in mercy forecast what good things He may bring to pass by these evils which He does ordain by His judgment. For what greater sin is there than that by which we do all die? And what greater goodness than that by which we are delivered from death? And doubtless but that Adam sinned, our Redeemer should not have taken our flesh upon Him. While God was to be born man, the Almighty did foresee that He would make of that evil for which they were to die a good which should be greater than that evil. The greatness of which good what faithful man is there who does not see how wonderfully it does excel? Surely great are the evils which we suffer by the desert of the first fault, but what faithful man would not rather endure worse than to be without so great a Redeemer?"5 And in this respect elsewhere he calls the fall of Adam foclicem culpam, a happy fault. That which I have said of the permission of the fall I do also say of the fall permitted, saving that the permission is a means of the decree by itself, but the fall is a means (of accomplishing the decree) only by the ordination of God, who draws good out of evil.

This fall permitted comes not to pass but God being willing, neither does it come to pass contrariwise or otherwise than God permits, neither can it any further be that He does permit. Yet the will of God is not the cause of the fall, but the will of man left to itself by God and moved by the suggestion of Satan, which will appear by this similitude: I build a house subject to change and falling, which notwithstanding would continue many years if it might be free from the annoyance of winds. Yea, if I would but underprop it, when the storm comes, it would continue stable. But as soon as the winds begin to rage, I do not underprop it; and it is my will not to underprop it because it is my pleasure so to do. Thereupon the house, being weather-beaten, falls down. I see the fall, and in part I will it, because now when I could very easily have hindered the fall, yet I would not. And although thus far I do will the fall, insomuch as it is my will not to hinder it, yet the cause of the fall is not to be imputed to me that did not underprop it, but to the winds which cast it down. So God leaving Adam to himself, that he might be proved by temptation, and that it might appear what the creature is able to do, the Creator ceasing for a time to help and guide is not to be accounted the cause of this fall. For He did not incline the mind to sin. He did not infuse any corruption, neither did He withdraw any gift which He did bestow in the creation. Only it pleased Him to deny or not to confer confirming grace. The proper cause of the fall was the devil attempting our overthrow and Adam's will, which when it began to be proved by temptations did not desire God's assistance, but voluntarily bent itself to fall away.

Predestination has two parts: the decree of election and the decree of reprobation. So Isidore says, "There is a double predestination: either of the elect to rest, or of the reprobate to death. And both are done by God that He might make the elect always to follow after heavenly and spiritual things, and that He might suffer the reprobate by forsaking them to be delighted always with earthly and outward things." And Angelome says, "Christ by His secret dispensation has out of an unfaithful people predestinated some to everlasting liberty, quickening them of His free mercy, and damned others in everlasting death in leaving them by His hidden judgment in their wickedness."8

The decree of election is that whereby God has ordained certain men to His glorious grace in the obtaining of their salvation and heavenly life by Christ (Eph. 1:5).

In the decree of election according to God's determination, there is (as we conceive) a double act. The former concerns the end; the latter concerns the means tending to the end. (These acts are usually called the decree and the execution of the decree.) This the Holy Ghost seems to me to have taught very evidently, "that the purpose which is according to election might remain" (Rom. 9:11). Here, we see that Paul distinguishes God's eternal purpose and election and places in His decree a certain election in the first place before the purpose of damning or saving. And in Romans 8:29–30, "Those which He knew before, He also predestinated to be made like to the image of His Son. Whom He predestinated, them also He called." In which words, Paul distinguishes between the decree and the execution thereof, which he makes to be in these three: vocation, justification, and glorification. Moreover, He distinguishes the decree into two acts: foreknowledge, whereby He does acknowledge some men for His own before the rest; and predestination, whereby He has determined from eternity to make them like to Christ. In like manner, Peter teaches (1 Peter 1:2), where he says "that the faithful are elected according to the foreknowledge of God the Father to sanctification of the spirit." If any man shall say that by foreknowledge in these places we must understand (as many would) the foreknowledge or foreseeing of future faith, he is manifestly deceived. For whom God foreknew, them He did predestinate that they should be like to Christ—that is, that they should be made just and the sons of God. For Paul adds, "That He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). But those which are predestinated to be just and to be the sons of God are also predestinated to believe, because adoption and righteousness are received by faith. Now we cannot rightly say that God does first foreknow that men will believe and afterward predestinate them to believe, because that God has therefore foreknown that those shall believe whom He did foreknow would believe, because He did decree that they should believe. So Justin Martyr calls those elect "who were foreknown that they should believe."9 And Lombard: "Whom He has foreknown, them He has predestinated"—that is, "by grace conferred He has prepared that they should believe the word preached." Moreover the word "know," when it is given to God speaking of the creature, does very often signify to embrace or approve. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish" (Ps. 1:6). "Depart from Me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you" (Matt. 7:23). Furthermore, the prescience and purpose of God are by the Holy Ghost put for one and the same thing. "The foundation of God remaineth sure—the Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). "Those whom God foreknew are said to be elected according to the election of grace" (Rom. 11:2–3). And therefore, the foreknowledge mentioned by Paul does not signify the foreknowledge of faith or of any other virtue in those which were to be elected. It is also the judgment of Augustine that predestination is sometimes understood by prescience, even in the foresaid place.11 "Has God cast away His people which He knew before?" (Rom. 11:1–2). And he says that "those are sons in God's foreknowledge, whose names are written in their Father's register, so as they shall never be erased out."12 Cyril says also that "Christ knows His sheep, electing and foreseeing them to everlasting life." As the apostle says, "God has not cast away His people which He knew before" (Rom. 11:12). For as the Lord is said not to know those whom He does reject, as when He answered the foolish virgins, saying, "Verily I say to you, I know you not" (Matt. 25:12), so He is said to know those whom He does predestinate and fore-appoint to salvation. And Thomas expounds that place in the eighth [chapter] to the Romans after this sort, "Whom He foreknew in His knowledge of approbation, these He has also predestinated. And He will also have an effectual will of conferring grace to be included in the knowledge of approbation."

In the decree of election, the first act is a purpose or rather a part and beginning of the divine purpose whereby God does take certain men which are to be created to His everlasting love and favor, passing by the rest, and by taking makes them vessels of mercy and honor. And this act is of the sole will of God without any respect either of good or evil in the creature. And God does wrong none, although He choose not all, because He is tied to none, and because He has absolute sovereignty and authority over all creatures. We that are but men give leave to men, especially to our friends, to do at their pleasure in many things as they themselves list and to use their own discretions. The rich man is kind to which poor person he pleases, and of beggars he does adopt one and will not adopt another, and that without offering any injury. Now that liberty which we yield to man must much more be granted to God.

The second act is the purpose of saving or conferring glory whereby He does ordain or set apart the very same men which were to fall in Adam to salvation and celestial glory. This act is in no wise to be severed from the former, but to be distinguished in the mind (for orders' sake and for the better unfolding of it); for as by the former men were ordained to grace, so by this latter the means are subordained whereby grace may be conferred and manifested. And therefore this latter makes a way for the execution and accomplishing of the former. Moreover, this act has no impulsive cause over and beside the good pleasure of God, and it is with regard to Christ the Mediator, in whom all are elected to grace and salvation, and to dream of any election out of Him is against all sense, because He is the foundation of election to be executed in regard of the beginning, the means, and the end. Lastly, this act is not of men to be created as was the former, but of men fallen away. Therefore, in this act God respects the corrupted mass of mankind.

Furthermore, in this second act there are five degrees: the ordaining of a mediator, the promising of him being ordained, the exhibiting of him being promised, the applying of him being exhibited or to be exhibited, and the accomplishment of the application. It is not unlike which Bernard says, "The kingdom of God is granted, promised, manifested, perceived. It is granted in predestination, promised in vocation, manifested in justification, perceived or received in glorification."

The exhibiting of a mediator is that whereby the second person, being the Son of God, is appointed from all eternity to be a mediator between God Himself and men. And hence it is that Peter says that "Christ was foreknown (προεγνωσμενου) before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20). And well says Augustine that "Christ was predestinated to be our Head." For howsoever as He is, the substantial Word (λογος) of the Father, or the Son, He does predestinate with the Father and the Holy Ghost; yet as He is the Mediator, He is predestinated Himself.

The promising is that whereby Christ, being from eternity ordained for the salvation and spiritual life of men, is revealed and offered to them together with grace to be obtained by Him. This promise is universal in respect of all and everyone that do believe. "God so loved the world, that He has given His only begotten Son, that every one that believeth in Him should not perish" (John 3:16). "He that believeth in Me has life everlasting" (John 6:47). "Come to Me all ye that are weary and laden, and I will ease you" (Matt. 11:28). "He that shall believe and be baptized, shall be saved: but he that will not believe shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). "That through His name all that believe in Him, shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10:43). "By Him every one that believeth, is justified" (Acts 13:39). "The Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1:16). "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:4). "The Scripture has concluded all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ should be given to them that believe" (Gal. 3:22).

With the promise, there is joined an exhortation or commandment to believe, which is more general than the promise because the promise is made only to believers, but the commandment is given to believers and unbelievers also. For the elect are mingled with the wicked in the same assemblies, and therefore the ministers of the gospel ought indifferently to exhort all and everyone to repent, considering that they are altogether ignorant who and how many be elected and to be converted. Moreover, God by exhortations to repentance means to leave those without excuse whom He does see will never repent. So Abbot Joachim says, "It behooves them to preach for the elects' sake and to declare to men the words of life, that their light may shine before men and that they may fatten the hearts of the elect by anointing them with the oil of spiritual doctrine; but for the reprobate, ligare aquam coelo, to tie the water in the clouds." And again, "Lest the reprobate should have excuse and for the elect which are among them, the messenger himself shall be sent who does not only preach this in secret as it were for fear, but cries also with a loud voice, which may be heard far off and of all men also."19 Some are wont to say that God's commandment by this means does overthwart His decree, because He commands that which He wills not to effect. But I answer, first, that God in His commandments and promises does not utter whatever He has decreed, but does in part only so far forth propound His will as He knows it expedient for the salvation of the elect and the governing of all. By His commandments therefore, He shows what He likes and what He wills that we should do to Him, not what He will do to us or in us. And God who wills not all things alike in all does will conversion in some only in respect of approbation, exhortation, and means. In others, He wills it also as touching the decree of working it. Here is no disagreement in the wills, but sundry degrees of willing in regard of us, according to which God is said both to will and to nill.

Secondly, I answer that the revealed will (εὐδοκία) is never contrary to the will of His good pleasure or to the decree of God (with the which it does always agree both for the beginning as also in the end and scope), but that it is notwithstanding often diverse, and that in show it seems sometimes contrary if we consider the manner wherein it is propounded. God commanded Isaiah to declare to Hezekiah his death (Isaiah 38), and He did also denounce destruction to the Ninevites within forty days (Jonah 3:4)—and yet He had decreed to put neither of them in execution. The human will of Christ did (Matt. 26:3) with a holy dissension in some sort will deliverance from the agony of death, which notwithstanding the divine willed not. Abraham prayed without doubt by divine inspiration (Genesis 28), and therefore with faith that the Sodomites might be spared; and yet he knew that in God's decree they were appointed to destruction. Neither must this seem strange, for one good thing as it is and remains good may be different from another thing that is good. Thirdly, you bid your debtor pay his debt, though in the meantime you do not make him able. Why may not God therefore for just causes command that which He Himself will not do?

The exhibiting of the Mediator is that whereby the Son of God, being born man in the fullness of time, does pay the price of redemption (λύτρον) to God for the sins of men. The virtue and efficacy of this price being paid in respect of merit and operation is infinite; but yet it must be distinguished, for it is either potential or actual. The potential efficacy is whereby the price is in itself sufficient to redeem everyone without exception from his sins, albeit there were a thousand worlds of men. But if we consider that actual efficacy, the price is paid in the counsel of God and as touching the event only for those which are elected and predestinated. For the Son does not sacrifice for those for whom He does not pray, because to make intercession and to sacrifice are conjoined. But He prays only for the elect and for believers (John 17:9), and by praying He offers Himself to His Father (v. 19). For (as Illyricus has well observed) this whole prayer in the seventeenth chapter is indeed (as he speaks) an oblatory and expiatory prayer, or (as the papists call that blasphemous form) a canon or rule of sacrifice by which Christ has offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father for the sins of the world. Therefore, the price is appointed and limited to the elect alone by the Father's decree and the Son's intercession and oblation. Secondly, Christ bare their person and stood in their room upon the cross for whom He is a mediator (Eph. 1:6); and consequently, whatever Christ did as a redeemer, the same did all those in Him and with Him which He redeemed (Col. 3:1). Christ dying, rising again, ascending, and sitting at the right hand of the Father, they also die with Him, rise again, ascend and sit at the right hand of God. Now that all these things can be truly said of the elect only, and of such as believe, I prove it thus. To say that anyone of the wicked, which are to perish forever, is raised up in Christ rising again is flat against the truth, because the raising up of Christ is (that I may so speak) His actual absolution from their sins for whom He died. For even as the Father by delivering Christ to death did in very deed condemn their sins imputed to Christ for whom He died, so by raising Him up from death, even ipso facto He did absolve Christ from their sins and did withal absolve them in Christ. But being absolved from their sins, they shall not perish, but be saved. Therefore, that wicked man which perishes for his sin cannot be said to have risen again with Christ, and therefore Christ did not bear his person upon the cross. Thirdly, the expiatory sacrifice sanctifies those for whom it is a sacrifice, as the Holy Ghost plainly and absolutely avouches (Heb. 9:13–14). The sacrifice and sanctification appertain to the same persons, and Christ is their perfect Savior whom He saves not only by meriting their salvation, but also by working it effectually. But Christ does sanctify only the elect and such as believe. Therefore, He was a sacrifice only for them.

And this was the judgment of the ancient church in this point. Augustine says, "He which spared not His own Son but gave Him for us all, how has He not also with Him given us all good things? But for what use? For us which are foreknown, predestinated, justified, and glorified." Again, "Those whom He pleased to make His brethren He has released and made fellow heirs." Cyril says, "If God who is most worthy was in the flesh, He was of right sufficient to redeem the whole world."22 Again, "The Lord Jesus, separating His own from those which were not His, says, I pray only for those which keep My word and carry My yoke. For He does make them alone, and that justly, partakers of the benefit of His meditation, whose Mediator and high priest He is." Gregory says, "The Author of life gave Himself to death for the life of the elect."24 Again, "The Lord will redeem the souls of His servants, in Psalm 33, to wit, with His precious blood, because He which believes rightly in Him is redeemed from the due thralldom of his sins." Sedulius: "All things are restored which are in the death, seeing (or when) that the men themselves who are predestinated to eternal life are renewed from the corruption of the old man."26 Bede: "The flesh of the Lord is furnished with spiritual virtue, that it might be a sweet savor sufficient for the salvation of the whole world." Again, "Our Lord and redeemer to the elect—whom He knew to be placed in His flesh; yea and to us also whom He foresaw should believe in the last times, He has procured the remedy of salvation by His death and resurrection."28 Joachim the Abbot: "The word all, which for the most part is universal, does not always signify so much as it seems, as in that place, 'When I shall be lift up I will draw all things to Myself. And by Him He has pleased that all things should be reconciled in Him' (Col. 1:19–20). It seems that in these places 'elect things' only are understood."29 Angelomus: "What other nation is there in the earth besides the elect people for which God the Son of God vouchsafed to come into this world, as it were into Egypt, that taking upon Him the form of a servant He might with the merchandise of His blood redeem to Himself an acceptable people zealous of good works." Rupertus: "In that hour He washed those only from sin; whom His death finds faithful, whether dead or living." Again, "The passion of Christ is the judgment of the world—that is, salvation severing the whole number of the elect, which were from the beginning of the world to the hour of the same passion, from the reprobate. And the casting out of the prince of this world is the reconciliation of the nations of the elect." Again, "I will draw all things to Myself. What all things? Namely, all elect things, as all the members follow their head."32 Haimo of Auxerre: "Christ has taken away in the elect not only original but all actual sins also, and has over and besides given them eternal life." Radulphus: "The blood of the High Priest Christ was the purgation of all believers."34 Innocentius: "Christ's blood was shed effectually for those only who are predestinated, but for all men in regard of sufficiency; for the shedding of the blood of that just one for the unjust was so rich in price, that if everyone had believed in the Redeemer, none at all had been held captive of the devil." Arnoldus Carnotensis: "He redeems none but those whom He calleth and washes by grace; neither does the Spirit sanctify any but those who are cleansed and dead to sin. Redemption, washing away, and sanctification are partakers together."36

The application is when as Christ is given to us of God the Father by the Spirit in the lawful use of the word and sacraments, and is received of us by the instrument of a true faith. And Christ being given is made to us of God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).

The accomplishment of the application is glorification, whereby God shall be all in all by Christ in all the elect.

By this which has been said it is apparent that the decree of election is the cause and foundation of all good gifts and works in men. From hence is true faith: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48). And calling: "Whom He predestinated, them He called" (Rom. 8:30). And, "who are called of His purpose." Hence adoption: "Predestinated to adoption" (Ephesians 1). And sanctification: "He has chosen us that we should be holy and blameless" (Ephesians 1). Hence good works: "Which He has prepared, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2). And perseverance: "All that the Father giveth Me, shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I cast not away" (John 6:37). Again, "And this is the Father's will, that of all which He has given Me, I should lose nothing" (v. 39). "The foundation of God remaineth sure, and has this seal, the Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). Excellent is that saying of Augustine: "He did choose no man worthy, but by choosing He made him worthy."37 Again, "It is the grace of God whereby He does elect me, not because any worthiness is in me, but because it does vouchsafe to make me worthy." Again, "And did not they also afterward choose him and prefer him before all the good things of this life? But they did choose him because they were chosen; they were not chosen because they chose Him." And thus much of the decree of election.

The decree of reprobation is a work of God's providence whereby He has decreed to pass by certain men in regard of supernatural grace for the manifestation of His justice and wrath in their due destruction; or, it is His will whereby He suffers some men to fall into sin and inflicts the punishment of condemnation for sin.

It has in like manner two acts. The first is the purpose to forsake some men and to make known His justice in them. This act has a small cause, but no impulsive cause out of God. For it arises of God's mere good pleasure, no respect had of good or evil in the creature. For the will of God is the cause of causes. Therefore, we must make our stand in it, and out of or beyond it no reason must be sought for. Yea, indeed there is nothing beyond it. Moreover, [secondly,] every man (as Paul avers, Rom. 9:21) is to God as a lump of clay in the potter's hand. And therefore God according to His supreme authority does make vessels of wrath; He does not find them made. But He should not make them but find them made if we say that God willed in His eternal counsel to pass by men only as they are sinners and not as they are men for cause most just, though unknown to us. Thirdly, if God did reject men because He foresaw that they would reject Him, reprobation should not depend upon God, but upon men themselves. And this is all one as if a man should say that God foresaw that some would choose Him and others refuse Him. And the contempt of the gospel does not befall infants which die out of the covenant of the gospel. Fourthly, Paul, who was a most skillful defender of God's justice, does exclude all works in the first place, out of this wonderful election of one from another made in the counsel of God: "Not by works," says He (v. 11), and therefore excludes all respect of sin. Then afterward being ravished with admiration, he quiets himself in the alone will of God: "Who has resisted His will? But, O man, who art thou which pleadest against God?" (vv. 19–20). Again, "O the deepness of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God: how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (11:33). To conclude, if it be demanded why God created this world and no more, we must have recourse to the mere will of God. And why must we not do so, if it be demanded why God elects this man and forsakes that man or another? "A part of mankind is redeemed, a part perisheth. But who can tell why God does not pity them, and pities these? The reason of the distinction is unknown, but the distinction or separation itself is not unknown."38

The second act is the ordaining of them to punishment or due destruction. This ordination in respect of the diverse consideration thereof may be distinguished, and so it is either simple or comparative. The simple ordination is that whereby this man—suppose Peter or John—is ordained to punishment. And this ordination is of the most just will of God, yet not without respect of original and actual sins. For as men are actually damned for sin, so God has decreed to damn them for the same sin. Yet notwithstanding sin is not the cause of the decree of reprobation, but in regard of order it goes before in God's foreknowledge, not that former, but this latter act. The ordination which stands in comparison is that whereby one man and not another, and this man rather than that being in the like condition, is ordained to punishment. This serves to show the liberty of God's will in the dispensation of supernatural benefits. For in that God chooses this man and not that, it declares the liberty and very great perfection of God. And therefore under the name of a householder, he challenges the same to Himself, when He says: "May I not do with My own what I list?" (Matt. 20:15). And verily though God destroy and condemn all those whom He does forsake, yet should He not be unjust. For we ourselves in the daily killing and slaughtering of beasts will not be counted unjust, neither indeed are we; and yet in comparison of God we are not so much worth as a fly is in respect of us. If it be lawful for you to receive in or to thrust out any out of your house, because you will, it were a point of desperate boldness to take the same right from God in His house.

The cause of this comparative ordination is the sole will of God, yea, even without respect of any sin at all. So Augustine: "God delivers no man but of His free mercy, and condemns no man but most righteously. Now why He delivers this man rather than that, let Him search; who can dive into the great depth of His judgments?" Again, "Why is it thus to this man, and otherwise to this? O man, who are you that you dare dispute with God?" And Gregory: "Let no man desire to search wherefore one should be elected when another is rejected—because His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out." In this second act of reprobation, there be two degrees: a just desertion or forsaking, and damnation for sin. So Fulgentius: "In such," says he, "God begins His judgment by forsaking and ends it in tormenting."41 Divine desertion is twofold. The first is that whereby God does forsake man only in regard of His assistance and strengthening, by omitting the confirmation of the creature and by not conferring the second grace whereby the first might be made effectual to resist temptations and to persevere in goodness. This is the desertion of trial (desertion exploraticnis) and may happen to them who have not themselves as yet forsaken God. For it was in the first man, Adam, who received of God power to do that which he would, but not will to do that which he could. So Augustine: "He received," says he, "power if he willed; but he had not will answerable to his power, for if he had, he should have persevered." Again, "He was able also to persevere, if he would; and in that he would not it proceeded of free will which then was so free that he was able to will well and ill." The cause of this desertion was that Adam and his posterity might know that they could fall by themselves, but that they could not stand much less rise again, and therefore that they should wholly depend on God's mercy. Here also it must be remembered that between this desertion and Adam's sin, there came also Adam's will, whereby he being left to his own strength did by and by perceive the very same, his conscience telling. And yet for all that he willed his own fall by the free motion of his will.

The second desertion is a privation and losing of the gifts, wherewith the mind is adorned, and a delivering into the power of Satan, that he may seduce men and more and more lead them into sin. This is a desertion of punishment (defatio paenae), and therefore it follows sin. And of this desertion and not of the former is the rule to be understood: a Deo desertis Deum priores deservunt; those which are forsaken of God do themselves first forsake God.

And this is our doctrine of predestination, which favors neither of the errors of the Manicheans, Stoics, Pelagians, nor of Epicurism, but is (as I am persuaded) agreeable to the truth and orthodoxal. But yet it is oppugned by sundry criminations or false accusations, which I will strive with all my strength to overthrow, and that briefly.

First Objection

The first crimination is that we teach that certain men, and those but few, are elected. Answer. "Certain men," we say. For all the elect are known to God, and their number can neither be increased nor diminished. "Few," we do not say, but after a prescript and certain manner. For (to omit the angels) if you consider the elect by themselves, they are many. "I say to you, that many shall come from the East, and West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 8:11). "I beheld and lo a great multitude, which no man could number of all nations, kindreds, people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with long white robes, and palms in their hands" (Rev. 7:9). Yea, there is as it were a world of elect. Augustine: "The church which is without spot and wrinkle and gathered together out of all nations and which shall reign with Christ forever, even she is the land of the blessed and the land of the living."43 Again, the reconciling world "shall be delivered out of the maligning world." Eusebius: "Christ suffered for the salvation of the world, of those which are to be saved."45 The author of the book de vocations gentium book 1: "In those which are elected, foreknown, and severed from the multitude of men, there is a certain special universality counted, that the whole world may seem to be delivered out of the whole world, and that all men may seem to be taken out of all men." Bede calls those "a world to be enlightened and healed who were predestinated to eternal life." Thomas: "The true light enlightens those who come into the world of virtues, not those which come into the world of vices."47

Nevertheless, if those same elect be compared with them that are justly damned, we say according to the Scriptures that they are few. "The gate is narrow and the way straight which leadeth to life, and few there be which find it" (Matt. 7:13–14). Again, "Many are called, but few are chosen" (22:14).

Second Objection

The second crimination is that we teach that God ordained men to hellfire and created them to the end that He might destroy them. Answer. Here the distinction of the double act in reprobation must be repeated and retained. First therefore, I answer that reprobation in regard of the former act is absolute—that is, in regard of the purpose to forsake the creature and to manifest justice in it. So we teach and believe. For we cannot so much as imagine a cause in the creature why it was God's will to pass by it and to suffer some to fall finally from their blessed estate. Yea, sin is itself after the desertion and just permission of God; and therefore it can by no means be the cause of the permission and desertion. Whence it is that Lombard, the master of all the schoolmen, says that "God has rejected whom He would not for any future merits which He did foresee, but yet most righteously, though we cannot conceive the reason thereof." And Jerome long before him does thus expound the place of Paul: "Ere the children were born, and when they had neither done good nor evil" (Rom. 9:11). "If Esau," says he, "and Jacob were not yet born neither had done good or evil whereby they might win to God's favor or offend Him, and if their election and rejection does not show their several deserts, but the will of the elector and rejecter, what shall we say?"49 Afterward: "If we grant this, that God does whatever He will, and that He either chooses or condemns a man without desert and works, it is not therefore in him that wills nor in him that runs, but in God that shows mercy." Again: "Therefore it is in vain asked, seeing that it is in His power and will either to choose or to refuse a man without good and evil works." Anselm: "It is not ours to know why God denies grace to them which would gladly receive" and consent to grace, "and neglects another that would so well consent to it. This is only known to God." Again: "No creature is able to search out why He is merciful to this man rather than to another."51 The same do other schoolmen affirm in the midst of papacy. Gregorius Armineus lays down six conclusions concerning predestination. First, that there is nobody predestinated for the willing of free will which God foreknew that he should have. Secondly, that no man is predestinated because he was foreknown to continue to the end without any let of habitual grace. Third, that whomever God predestinated, "him He did predestinate freely, purposely and of His pure mercy." Fourthly, that no man is rejected for the evil using of free will which God foresaw he would be tainted with. Fifthly, that there is not any rejected because he was foreknown to have finally an impediment of divine grace. Sixthly, that whomever God rejected, him He did reject without any cause in him. The very same conclusions has Petrus de Alliaco and Marsilius of Inghen, some of whose words I will set down: "He is predestinated," says he, "to whom God has purposed to give everlasting life. And he is rejected on whom God has determined not to bestow the same, as the apostle teaches (Romans 9)." Again: "No man that is predestinated is predestinated for anything which should be in him in time to come, so also there is no reprobate rejected for any cause which was to be in him in time to come. And everyone that is predestinate is predestinated only by grace and by God's merciful disposition, not for any cause either actual or privative to be found in him while he lives." Again: "To reject is to nill to show mercy, and this is not for the evil works of any creature, for however holy the works were, God would show mercy as He listed."52 So also Francis of Mayrone says that there are four signs necessary for the understanding of the proceeding of predestination and reprobation. First, in which Peter and Judas are offered to the divine will, as to neither of them both. And then the divine will did preordain Peter to glory, but it had no positive act about Judas, according to Augustine.54 The second sign is in which He preordained Peter to grace, and then He had no positive act as yet about Judas. The third sign is in which they are left to themselves, and both of them do fall into sin. The fourth sign is that in which Peter rises again, for he cannot continue because he is predestinated by the first sign. But Judas rises not again, because he has not God to raise him up; therefore, he is rejected. "The cause and reason of the whole work of reprobation cannot be said to be in the reprobates, for sin itself cannot be the cause of that permission of sin for which a man is damned, whether it be original or actual, as it appears in infants who die only with original sin. Which verily, however it may be the cause why infants are forsaken in it, yet nevertheless it cannot be the cause and reason why the whole nature of man should be suffered to fall in Adam." And Ferrariensis says that "four things are found in a reprobate—to wit, a sufferance to fall into sin, the sin itself, God's forsaking not raising him from sin, and the punishment or damnation. Now reprobation is not alike but diversely affected to all these. For if we consider sin in itself, reprobation is not caused by it. Although nothing on our parts, to wit, no work of ours be the cause of the whole work of reprobation (for of all these together—namely, of the permission, forsaking and punishment—the manifestation of God's justice is the alone cause, considering that no work of ours is the cause of the permission), yet notwithstanding our wicked working or sin is the cause why we are damned and punished." Again: "We deny that God is cruel, for we say that God does not punish and torment the reprobate for the fulfilling (as it were) of his own fancy, but for sin eternally foreknown, which He determined so to dispose of by punishing of it, that His justice might be made manifest."

Thomas: "Why He elects these to glory and rejects those, He has no reason but the divine will." Again: "The difference of those which are to be saved from them that are to be damned proceeds from the principal invention of the first Agent." Again: "We must not inquire why He converted these and not those. For this comes of His own mere will." And Augustine upon John: "Why He draws this man and not that, do not desire to judge, if you would not err."58

Nevertheless, reprobation in regard of the second act—that is, in respect of the purpose to damn—is not absolute but for sin. For no man perishes but through his own default; and no man is absolutely ordained to hell or destruction but for his sin, having also received before in Adam's power whereby he was able to live holily and happily, if so be that he would. And therefore I say that that which they allege is a very calumny.

Secondly, I answer that God did not simply create man to destroy him, but that he might manifest His judgment by the just destruction of the sinner. Now it is one thing to will the destruction of a man as he is man, and another thing to will the deserved destruction of a man as he is a sinner. Here also the judgment of Cameracesis, a judicial schoolman, is to be heard and observed. "According to the Scripture," says he, "although God should punish or afflict some creature eternally or utterly abolish it without any sin in it, yet He should not deal unjustly or cruelly with it. Whence it is, Wisdom 12:12, Who dare accuse Thee, if the nations perish which Thou hast made? God is not bound to laws created, as if anything were just before God did will it, whereas indeed the contrary is true."

Third Objection

The third crimination is that the stoical predestination and fate is brought in by us, because (as they say) we teach that all things come to pass by the necessary and energetical (ἐνέργεματος; powerful in working) decree of God, yea even the fall of Adam, the which (say they) God according to our opinion did decree and will. Answer. We say that Adam's fall came to pass [by] God not only foreknowing but also willing and decreeing it—and that without blasphemy, if you will friendly and courteously give leave to show how far forth and in what manner. The will of God is twofold: general and special. The special will (which the Scripture calls cephets) is that by which God does both approve and effect a thing; or else it is God's good pleasure, whereby taking delight in something He does will it simply, both as touching the doing of it as also in respect of approbation. The object of this will depends on the will and follows it as the effect follows the cause. And by this will our judgment is according to the word of God that God wills that which is good and nills that which is evil as it is evil. "Thou art a God which willest not iniquity" (Ps. 5:4). And of this kind or rather manner of will are these sentences of Augustine to be understood: "God has foreknown, but He did not foreappoint the works of ungodliness."60 And, "He does only foreknow and not preordain evils." And, "It is all one to say God is the author and God wills." The general will is that whereby God wills a thing not to be (for that which is not therefore is not because He wills it shall not be); and for certain causes also He wills not to hinder some things and consequently wills that they shall come to pass, which things notwithstanding He does not simply approve. Or, it is the decree of God whereby He wills something not in respect of approbation and effecting of it by Himself, but only in respect of suffering it to be done by others. And here the thing which is to be done does not depend upon God's will, but only upon the will of the creature which falls away. And with this will we say that God willed the fall of Adam, yet not simply but only that it should come to pass. Now it is one thing to will a thing by itself, and another thing to will it as touching the event. Moreover, He wills the event of sin not by effecting it Himself, but by forsaking or not hindering when He might if He would. And if we enquire of the order of willing, it is this: first and properly God does will not to inhibit and not to hinder sin, and by consequent only He wills the event of sin. For that which God does not hinder does therefore come to pass because He does not hinder it; and as no good thing can either be or come to pass unless God make it, so no evil thing can be avoided except God do hinder. And there is not the least thing which may be done without this will, unless we will say that God's providence is idle, which to say were wicked. The reasons of this our judgment are many. The first reason I will draw out of most evident testimonies of Scripture. "Him I say being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, after you had taken, with wicked hands you have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23). "They gathered themselves together, to do whatsoever Thine hand and Thy counsel had determined before to be done" (4:27–28). Here it is to be observed that not only Christ's passion but also the works which in respect of the Jews were wicked do come under the decree and will of God—to wit, so far forth as God willed that they should come to pass for just ends. This very thing Augustine signifies when he says, "When the Father delivered the Son, and Christ, His body, and Judas, his master—in this delivering wherefore is God just and man guilty, but because in one thing which they did, there is not one cause for which they did it?"61 And there is no reason if it should seem harsh to any if speaking of Adam's fall we follow the Holy Scripture on this manner. "When Adam did eat of the forbidden fruit, he did eat that which the hand and counsel of God had determined before to be done." This is that very thing which we say. This is the language of the apostles and of the church, which therefore we may use without the least suspicion of blasphemy. But to the former testimonies I will add one place out of Peter: "It is better (if the will of God be so) that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil dong" (1 Peter 3:17). But to punish men for well doing in respect of men, it is flatly to transgress the law of God. Furthermore, God is said "to bid Shimei to curse David" (2 Sam. 16:10)—that is, to have ordained and decreed, for God bids and commands a thing two ways. First, by His revealed will; and this He does by His word delivered to men. Secondly, by His secret will, which is His providence or hidden decree by which He does so govern all things that nothing can be done without it or against it, as in these places: "I will command and call back the Assyrians against this city" (Jer. 34:22). "Who is he then that saith, and it cometh to pass, and the Lord commandeth it not?" (Lam. 3:37). "He saith to the snow, be thou upon the earth: likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of His power" (Job 37:6). By which it appears that it may well be said that God decreed that Shimei should curse David, and it is the like kind of speech to say that God did not decree Adam's fall simply, but in some respect (ἀπλῶς κατά τὶ). The second reason follows. It is the common opinion of all men that God does will to suffer sin, but to will to suffer it is to will not to hinder it and to will not to confer grace. Now he which foreknows some future evil and wills not to hinder it when he might and not to confer confirming grace, he does indeed will that the same should come to pass. Therefore, we do not place that will whereby we say that God does will that sin should come to pass and be in nature either without or beyond the divine permission, but we do enwrap and enfold it in it. And this is that which Calvin says, and no other. The same affirms Beza: "If any man hear that some things come to pass which indeed are done against His will—that is, against His liking—not because He cannot, but because He will not hinder them, I answer that it is all one as if a man should say that they come to pass He being willing they should. For those things which He could surely hinder if He would must needs come to pass, because by not hindering of them He wills that they should come to pass."63 And whatever God does not hinder, He does therefore not hinder it either because He wills that it should be done or because He does utterly nill that it should be done or because He does not will it should be done or else because He cares not—that is, He neither wills nor nills that it should come to pass. If you grant the first, I have my desire. The second is absurd—namely that God does not hinder evil, because He does utterly nill that it should be done. For this is to make God inconstant. The third, Lombard and the schoolmen affirm. For they say that God in respect of sin has no positive act neither of willing nor of nilling, but only a negative act of not willing to hinder it.

But by this means a great part of those things which are done in the world should come to pass, God being either ignorant or negligent. The very permission also is a certain will and not a pure negation; for not to will to hinder—that is, to suffer—is indeed to will not to hinder. If you will say the fourth, you do wickedly make an idle and Epicurish god. Therefore, we must needs retire to the first—viz., that God does decree that evil should come to pass in such sort as I have declared. Yet the fault must not be for all that translated to Him, because He does justly and holily decree that which men do wickedly.

Thirdly, we know that Adam's revolting is now past and done. Therefore, we must say that God did will that it should be done—unless we shall say that His providence is not in all and every thing. You will say that an evil work is ordained of God—that is, disposed to God's glory, the salvation of the godly, and the destruction of the wicked. I grant it, but not this only. For the providence of God is over the world and every thing therein—both in respect of the end, as also of the beginning of every action. Satan and the wicked do not only not finish that which they would, but they do not so much as begin it, unless God wills and gives leave. It seems impious to think that anything, though as little as may be, does either exist or come to pass besides that which God being always holy and just has willingly from all eternity decreed.

Fourthly, let us hear the judgment of the ancient church. Augustine: "We must know that all things are either pursued the Lord helping, or permitted the Lord forsaking, that you must know that nothing is at all admitted the Lord being unwilling." Again: "There is nothing done but that which the Almighty wills to be done, either by suffering it to be done or by doing it Himself."65 Again: "Sometimes a man wills a thing with a holy will which God wills not." Again: "It is possible that a man should will this with an evil will which God wills with a good will. So much difference is there 'tween what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God to will, and to what end everyone refers his will, so as that it may be allowed or disapproved." And again, in Psalm 148: "Know that whatever falls out here contrary to our will happens not but by the will of God, His providence, ordinance, appointment and decrees." Tertullian: "God has foreknown all things by disposing them, and disposed them by foreknowing them." Jerome: "Shall I say that anything is done without Thee, and that the wicked can do so much against Thy will? Surely it were blasphemy so to imagine."67 And again: "Whatever good or evil things are in the world, they happen not by casual chance and without the providence of God, but by His pleasure." Hugo says, "Men may well endure the hearing of this, and it may be said without any scruple or trouble of conscience. God wills that which is good. But if it be said, God wills that which is evil, it is a thing very grievous to be heard, and a religious mind does not easily conceit of that which is goodness itself, that it wills evil; for then it seems to be said that the good loves that which is evil and approves that which is bad, and therefore a godly mind rejects this, not because that which is said is not well said, but because that which is well said is not well understood."69 But after what sort it ought to be understood, he himself in the selfsame place explains: "This," says he, "is only said, and yet another thing is meant and understood, because God wills that evil be, and yet wills not the evil." And again: "When He does good and suffers evil, His will appears in this, because He wills that to be which He does or permits." And again: "The will of God is His good pleasure, and His will is His working, and His will is His permission." Catharinus says, "We need not be afraid to confess that God wills sin, as blessed Augustine says also, not because He wills sin as it is sin and evil, but as it is good—to wit, as it is the punishment of sin and vengeance in the reprobate (for that is God's purpose, and it is good and not evil), or as sin itself is an occasion to good in His beloved and elect."71

But they use to object thus: To will that evil be done is proper and belongs to an evil will which is delighted with evils, or would use them to good, contrary to the rule, that no evil should be done that good might come thereof. To this I answer that here are two grounds to be laid. The first is that the object even of man's will is good, and therefore much more of God's will; and the object of the will cannot be evil by itself but by accident. For if the will wills evil, it wills it not as it is evil, but as it is good. The second ground is that there is a certain summum bonum or sovereign good with which there is no evil conjoined, because there is a certain thing infinitely good—namely, God—but there is not any absolute evil, because there is nothing so evil but it has some good joined therewith, and therefore it is good that sin should be and come to pass. So says St. Augustine: "Although therefore those things which are evil so far forth as they are evil are not good, nevertheless it is good that there should be not only good things, but also evil. For unless this were good that there should be also evils, they should by no means be suffered by the Almighty, who is goodness itself." Thus therefore I answer that sin in the causes and circumstances thereof fully and exactly weighed is two ways to be considered. First, we consider sin not as it is sin, but so far forth as it has some respect to good with God, which decrees it. And this way taking sin, although God wills it not simply and by itself, yet He decrees it and wills it as touching the event. Moreover, sin has respect to God two manner of ways. First, because it is in that which is good; secondly, because it tends to that which is good. I say it is in that which is good, because every evil is in that which is good as in the subject. Now in respect of the subject—that is, as sin is a motion, an inclination, or an action—God both wills and effects the same. Moreover, sin tends to that which is good because God ordains it to good and from thence draws the good either of trial, chastisement, or punishment. And we say that God is so far forth willing that sin should come to pass as He is able and will by His wonderful wisdom from thence to draw forth that which is good.

Secondly, we consider sin according to the property and natural being thereof—that is, sin as it is sin. And this way also we weigh sin either so far forth as it is sin in itself in regard of men, or as it is sin to God. But God Himself neither wills nor approves nor effects sin as it is sin in itself in regard of the creatures that offend; and yet He wills as touching the event, not simply as those things that are good in themselves, but only by willing to permit that it may be. For there is a threefold action of God's will. The first is that whereby God wills anything by willing it—that is, when He wills it with His whole and absolute will, as Tertullian says; and this way He wills that which is good in itself. The second action is that whereby He wills anything by nilling it, as that which shall never come to pass because God does utterly nill the being thereof. The third and last action is remiss and in the middest between both, whereby He wills some thing by nilling it slackly or remissly—that is, when He partly wills it and partly nills it, or else so far forth wills it as that for just causes He nills it. And after this sort is not absolutely evil, and God draws good out of evil as it is evil in the nature thereof or in itself, as He brought forth light out of darkness even as it was darkness in itself. And if so be that evil were absolutely evil as God is absolutely good, He would in no wise will the event of evil, neither should there be any evil existent at all. For that which God utterly nills has not any being or existence. But sin as it is sin to God (now that is a sin to God which is in itself sin, in His decree whereby all things are ordained as it considers sin), He neither wills it nor approves it nor works it—no in this respect He does not so much as permit it. I do not deny but that God permits and suffers evil as it is evil in itself (otherwise there were not evil properly and naturally), but I deny that He permits it because it is evil. For God never suffers evil for itself, but for the good that is therewith conjoined. And this is the meaning of that saying of Beza: "The Lord never permits sins as they are sins, yea rather He evermore forbids and hinders them." And again: "Sins so far forth as they are permitted by God being thereto willing are not sins but the punishments of sin." And thus using this exposition is the mind and judgment of Master Calvin of blessed memory to be understood, "where as he says that all the sons of Adam did fall away by God's will"; and again, "that it was decreed by God that Adam should perish by his own falling away"; and again, "it was the secret counsel of God in which the fall of man was ordained"; and again, "Adam did not fall away but according to God's knowledge and ordinance."75 In these and such like manner of speeches His purpose was to overthrow the opinion of the schoolmen who would have His permission severed from His will. It were good therefore for them better to consider of the matter who without either charity or humanity do with the blasphemies of the Manichees slander and belie this holy man.

Secondly, they use to object that God wills things contrary, if He will that that should come to pass which He forbids in His law. Answer. It is true indeed, if He should will one and the same thing to come to pass and not to come to pass in one and the same respect and manner; but God forbids evil as it is evil, and wills it to come to pass as it has respect to good. Hereupon Aquinas says, "That evil be and that evil be not are contradictorily opposed; but that God wills evil to be and that God wills evil not to be are not contradictorily opposed, seeing both are affirmative."

Thirdly, they object thus: that thing which being granted another thing necessarily follows is the cause of that selfsame thing that does follow. But this being granted that God willed the fall of Adam to come to pass, the same came to pass necessarily and infallibly. Therefore, the will of God was in this respect the cause of sin. Whereto I answer that the first proposition of this argument is not general, for in admitting the creation of the world, both the place and the time or continuance thereof are infallibly and without doubt also to be admitted, and yet the creation of the world is not the cause of the continuance thereof and of the place where it now consists. And that this proposition may be true, it is thus to be framed: that thing which being granted another thing infallibly follows (no other cause coming between) is the cause of the very same thing that follows. And the second proposition also fitted to this former is untrue. For this being granted that God wills sin to happen, sin shall not come to pass immediately, but by the means of man's free will. And although it come to pass infallibly on God's part which decrees it, yet it comes to pass freely on man's part; for it had been possible for man not to have sinned when he did sin if he had willed—as may appear by this similitude: God forsakes man by not conferring and bestowing on him necessary and sufficient help for the avoiding of sins. Now man being forsaken by Him sins necessarily, and yet the fault is not to be laid on God because that in this His forsaking him the will of man comes between. For God forsakes man being willing to be forsaken, and not against his will and mind.

Secondly, I answer to the aforesaid reproach of our doctrine, that we say not that sin is from the decree or of the decree of God, as from the efficient, material, formal, or final cause. But we do teach and aver that sin comes to pass according to the providence or decree of God as the sole consequent thereof. For we assuredly think and judge that the decree of God does so go before the sin of man as that it has no respect to any cause, unless it be of such a one as is a failing and deficient cause. So says Augustine: "Therefore, truly the great works of the Lord are exquisite in all His wills, so that after a wonderful and unspeakable manner that is not done beside His will, which notwithstanding is done contrary to His will."

Again it is objected, he that says that the decree of God is the energetical operative beginning of all things necessarily makes the decree of God the beginning also of sin. Whereto I answer that the Holy Ghost Himself says that the decree of God is the beginning of all things being and existent: "God worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11). And again in the seventeenth [chapter] of Acts, "In Him we live, we move, and have our being." Augustine says, "The will of God is the very cause of all things which are."78 Hugo de St. Victor says, "There is no cause of the will of God, which is the cause of all things." And this very thing common reason will teach us, because there must first some certain ground be laid from whence everything should have or take the being and existence thereof; and this ground is even the very will of God. For a thing is not first, and then afterward God wills it to come to pass. But, because God has decreed that a thing should come to pass or be done, therefore it is. And yet shall not God therefore be the cause of sin, because sin is not properly a thing, action, or being, but a defect only; and yet nevertheless it is not therefore nothing. For whatever has a being is either really and positively or else in reason only. And under those things which are in reason are contained not only notions and relations, but also privations, because they have not a real matter and form out of the understanding. But sin has not a positive and real being, and yet it has a being in reason (as they term it). For so far forth it is in the nature of things being as it may cause a true composition in the mind, and although it do not exist positively—that is, by matter or form created—yet it is privately80 because that by the remove or taking away or original righteousness, that does immediately and truly follow and exist. Neither does it follow as some other natural habit or as a pure negation, but as a certain thing between both—that is, a want and absence of the contrary good.

Some use to object that we to teach that God does incline to sin and that He does positively harden the heart. Whereto I answer that we allow not a bare permission severed utterly from His will, neither do we attribute a positive or natural action to God, as though He did infuse corruption and sin; and yet we say that He does actively harden the heart. The action of God's providence, as says Suidas, in the works of men is threefold. The first is according to His good pleasure (και εὐδοκίαν), whereby God wills any work, allows it, effects it, and is therewith delighted. This action is only in good works, which have their beginning in us from the Holy Ghost. The second action of God's providence is of sustaining (κατὰ οἰκονομίαν82), whereby God upholds and maintains the being and all the faculties, motions, actions and passions of nature which offend. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

And although God do sustain nature offending and the action of nature, yet is He free from fault, because He upholds the creature only as it is a creature, not as it is evil. For the second cause, as the will of man, can by itself do evily and corruptly; yet it can do nothing by itself unless the effect thereof be reduced to the first cause—as may appear more plainly by this similitude: a man does halt by reason that his leg is out of joint. Now here are two things to be considered: the very walking or motion itself, and his halting. The halting proceeds only from his leg out of joint; the walking, both from his leg and also from the faculty of moving. In like manner, a man sinning, in that he does it is of God; but in that he does evily, it is of himself. We must therefore here know that God does uphold order as it is of nature, but furthers not the will violently breaking out against the order of the moral law. The third action of God's providence is according to concession (κατα συγχωρησιν), whereby God in the evil work of man works some things holily. And this last action is threefold. The first is permission, whereby God forsakes especially the wicked by withdrawing from them His grace and by leaving them according to their deserts to their own wickedness, which He had before restrained, that it might not break forth to so immoderate liberty. And we use commonly to say that he which permits does and effects something—as when the rider gives the reins to his wanton and sporting horse, we say that he does move and encourage him; and we say that the hunter does put his dog on the game when as he lets him slip. The second action (as I may so term it) is occasional, whereby God by proffered occasions, in themselves good or indifferent, outwardly draws forth, stirs up, and brings out sin in those who of themselves openly run into wickedness, to the intent that He may either justly punish their known impiety, or else discover it being closely shrouded. The like have we ordinarily even among ourselves, for the physician by his preservative medicine stirs up, enflames, and draws forth the humors out of the corruption of the body. Admit a house be weakly timbered, which being almost now already fallen will ere long fall, and that I do not with any engines or instruments throw or beat down the same, but only take away the outward hindrances, and on every side as it were open a way for the downfall to the intent that when it falls, it may by the greater fall be broken in pieces. After this sort deals God with the wicked, and hereupon is it that the law is said to stir up and increase sin in Paul (Rom. 7:8). This action is done many manner of ways, as when the hindrances of sin are taken away; when as the way is opened to the committing of one especial sin, and not of another; when as objects are offered, which the ungodly use as instigations to sin. These objects are commandments, threatenings, exhortations, and cogitations either good or indifferent put by God in the minds of ungodly men, from the which the wicked by reason of his wickedness does greedily take an occasion to do ill. And this is the manner and way truly whereby we say that God stirs man to evil without infusing the least drop or jot of evil. For as in the middle region of the air the heat grows stronger by the antiperistalsis84 or repulsion on every part, from whence proceeds the thunder and lightning; and by the heat round encompassed, the clouds are condensated and made thick, even so the wicked and ungodly when they are stirred up by wholesome precepts do grow more ungodly. And evil does so much the more begin to delight them by how much the more they know that it is little lawful for them—according to the saying of the poet: netimur in vetitum semper cupimus que negata. We still endeavor things forbidden, and covet that is denied. The third action is a disposing, whereby God through the evil work of an evil instrument finishes His own work justly and holily. As for example, the sale of Joseph in his brethren was sin. The just action of God in this evil work was the fore-sending of Joseph into Egypt for the common good and benefit of Jacob's family. And from this disposing proceeds it, that God uses the sins of men holily, that He provokes them holily, and orders them as the physician for a medicine orders poison, contrary to the nature thereof; that He orders them holily both according to the causes and beginnings and also according to the ends and issue, as when He disposes the work of the devil infusing corruption, either to the punishment of correction, vengeance, or trial. But concerning these, let us rather give care to ancient writers. Clemens Alexandrinum says, "It belongs to God's wisdom, virtue, and power not only to do good, which is the nature of God, but also especially to bring to some good and profitable end that which has been invented by those which are evil and use profitably those things which do seem evil." Augustine says, "God makes and ordains just men, but He makes not sinners as they are sinners, but orders them only."86 And again: "As God is the most excellent Creator of good natures, so is He the most just disposer of evil wills." Again: "God verily fulfills certain of His good wills by the evil wills of evil men." Again: "God by those men which do those things which He will not, does Himself those things which He will."88 And again: "God using well even those that are evil as being Himself absolutely good, so far forth as in them lay they did that which God would not. In this very thing that they did that which was contrary to God's will, even by them His will is done." And again: "Who would not tremble at these judgments of God, whereby God does in the hearts of evil men whatever He will, giving to them according to their deserts?"90 And again: "It is plain that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He will, either to those things that are good for mercy or else to evil for their deserts, sometimes verily in His open judgment, sometimes in His secret judgment, but evermore in His just judgment." And again: "God makes not evil wills, but uses them as He list, because He cannot will anything that is unjust." Fulgentius says, "Although God be not the author of evil thoughts, yet He is the disposer of evil wills; and out of the evil work of everyone He does not cease to work that which is good."

In respect of these divers actions concerning sin, it comes to pass that we find it said in the Scripture that God does harden, does make blind, does deceive, does command a work that is evil, yea and does the same, and that He delivers over to beastly affections, etc. (2 Sam. 12:12, 16; 10, 24).

Thirdly, I answer to the aforesaid reproach of this our doctrine that we do utterly abhor and detest the stoical fate because it appoints an inherent necessity in things themselves which should bind even God Himself and all other things and make them subject thereto. For however we do believe that the very decree of God is immutable and therefore necessary, yet in God Himself it was most free (for He could either not have decreed that which He did decree, or else otherwise have decreed it); and He adds to the second causes placed out of God a certain necessity, but yet so free a one as that it is rather to be termed a liberty than a necessity. And this shall easily appear to be as I say if I shall first show what sorts of necessity there be and how far forth it is agreeable to things. First therefore, a thing is necessary two ways: absolutely and conditionally. That is absolutely necessary which cannot be otherwise, or else whose contrary is impossible, as that God is omnipotent and just. And that is conditionally necessary which cannot be otherwise, but yet not simply, but by the granting of one or many things. And this kind of necessity is either by nature or the commandment or decree of God. That is necessary by nature which comes to pass constantly and immutably by reason of that order which God has set in the nature of things. After this sort is it of necessity that fire does burn, that the earth is carried downward, and the heaven moved. That is necessary by commandment which is necessarily to be done because God has commanded it. After this sort it is of necessity that one undergo the office of a magistrate (Rom. 13:5). That is necessary by the decree of God which is so because God has foreknown it and willed either to effect it or at the least to permit it. After this sort everything in respect of God is necessary, and "the will of God," as Augustine says, "is the necessity of things."92 Secondly, necessity is either of compulsion or infallibility. Necessity of compulsion is that which infers violence to things by some cause working without and forcibly constrains that they do either this or that. And this indeed is the stoical necessity, that a man should do anything against his will being compelled by force and necessity. There is also such a like kind of necessity of the Manicheans, condemned by the fathers, who taught that there was no violence or necessity offered to the will by God, nor that it was forced by necessity to sin. The necessity of infallibility is that whereby a thing according to the event shall certainly and immutably come to pass, yet so as if we consider the cause of a thing by itself, it may either not come to pass or else come otherwise to pass. Of this manner of necessity we must understand that principle: everything that is, when it is, is of necessity. And thus is necessity distinguished. Now will I show how far forth it is agreeable to several things. The events of all things have reference either to the second causes or to God, who is the first cause. Now some things in respect of the second causes are necessary, othersome contingent. From causes which are necessary must needs proceed that which is necessary; from those that are free, that which is free; from those that are natural, that which is natural; and to be brief, such as are the next causes foregoing, such also is the event of things. But in respect of God, all things whatever are partly changeable and partly necessary. In respect of God's liberty, which does that which it does freely, all things are contingent and mutable; however, according to nature and the order of the next causes, they be necessary and immutable. In respect of God's decree, the second causes and the effects of them are all necessary; however, in themselves they be uncertain and contingent. And yet they are not absolutely necessary, but by the supposition of God's decree; neither are they necessary by the necessity of compulsion, but of infallibility only, because God ordained before that those things which should come to pass should be. And this kind of necessity takes not away the contingency and liberty of second causes, but rather establishes and confirms it. For that which is free works freely, and that which is contingent works contingently by the necessary decree of God. Neither do liberty and necessity mutually overthrow each other, but liberty and compulsion. It is manifest therefore that God's decree causes an immutability to all things, of which notwithstanding some in respect of the next cause are necessary, and othersome contingent, but all of them in respect of God's liberty mutable. And as the mutability which things have from God's power takes not away the necessity which they have from the second causes, so the necessity of immutability by God's decree consequently coming to pass takes not away the contingency which they have from the next causes and God's liberty. Moreover, we say that God's decree ordains the second causes and the very liberty itself also of man's will not by compulsion, as if a man should violently throw a stone, but by inclining and gently bending them by objects outwardly offered to the understanding (even as a sheep is said to be drawn when grass is showed her being hungry), that a man may choose by his own free motion or refuse that which God has justly decreed from all eternity.

These things being granted, it is manifest also what we ought to think concerning the fall of Adam, which truly according to the event is necessary by the necessity of infallibility by reason of the foreknowledge and decree of God, yet so as that God is not guilty of any fault, because the decree of God however it was necessary in itself, yet it planted nothing in Adam whereby he should fall into sin, but left him to his own liberty, not hindering his fall when it might. And the same fall in respect of man's will (which does that freely that it does) came to pass contingently and most freely. But you will say that Adam could not withstand God's will—that is, His decree. Wherefore, I answer that even as he could not, so also he would not. But you will say again he could not will otherwise. Which I confess to be true as touching the act and event, but not as touching the very power of his will, which was not compelled but of the own free motion consented to the suggestion of the devil. But to the intent that these things may more plainly be understood, we must make distinction between three times: the time going before his fall, the present time of his fall, and the time after his fall. In the first moment of time, the fall of Adam was necessary in a double respect. First, by reason of the foreknowledge of God, for that which He foreknew would come to pass must needs of necessity come to pass. Secondly, by reason of the permissive decree of God, that fall was according to the event necessary immutably. Honorius Augustodunensis says, "It cannot otherwise be but that all things must come to pass which God has predestinated and foreknown, seeing that He only either does all things or permits them to be done." Hugo de St. Victore says, "Sin follows of necessity by the withdrawing of grace."96 And the reason hereof is very easy, because evil permitted must come to pass and cannot otherwise come to pass than God permits. For to permit evil is not to stir up the will and not to bestow on him that is tempted the act of resisting, but to leave him as it were to himself; and he whose will is not stirred up by God and to whom the act of resisting is not conferred, however he may have power to withstand, yet can he not actually will to withstand nor persist forever in that uprightness wherein he was created, God denying him strength. I confess truly that this kind of necessity as touching the liberty of man's will was altogether evitable and to be avoided, and yet according to the event of the action it was inevitable. Yet I would not that any man should think that this necessity did any way proceed from the decree of God, which did only follow the decree being granted and admitted; and Adam in his temptation being destitute of the help of God cast himself of his own accord into this same ensuing necessity of sinning. In the second time, his fall being present, there was another necessity thereof, because when it was it was of necessity. In the third time, man drew to himself by his fault, his nature being now corrupted, another necessity of sinning, insomuch that he made himself the servant of sin. Bernard says, "I know not after what evil and strange manner the will itself corrupted or changed to worse makes a necessity to sin; and yet the necessity although it be voluntary is not able to excuse the will, nor the will, although it be enticed, to exclude necessity."

If any man shall say that by this our platform many are tied by an inevitable necessity to be damned, I would have him give care to Augustine, who says, "Hold this most steadfastly and doubt not in any wise that any can perish whom God before the creation of the world has of His free goodness made vessels of mercy—or that any of them whom He has not predestinated to eternal life can by any means be saved." And yet I say that the decree of reprobation does not cause a necessity of damnation in any man. For the first act thereof, which is a purpose not to show mercy, causes not this necessity in men, but goes before it as an antecedent. And man himself verily has brought upon himself this necessity with his own most free yet rebelling will. Now the second act of reprobation, which is a purpose of condemning, causes not any necessity of damnation, but by the sin of man coming between. Moreover, the necessity of damnation follows after the same manner by the foreknowledge of God; and yet this never seemed a thing strange to any one. But some will say that the foreknowledge of God does never cause in men any necessity of damnation, although it do assuredly foresee the same. And I say also that reprobation does either not at all cause damnation in man, or that it does not cause it, but for sin. But it may be objected, they that are predestinated to damnation cannot be freed by repentance, although they would. Whereto I answer with Augustine, "As they did fall by their will, so by their will they are content to lie; and he that turns himself away from God has both deprived himself of will to do that which is good and also of power. It does not therefore follow (as they imagine which object such things) that God has taken repentance from those to whom He gave it not, and has thrown down those whom He has not taken up."98

Moreover, the selfsame necessity follows of their hypothesis who affirm a bare permission. For that which God permits, the selfsame thing will He not hinder; and evil, if God hinder not, cannot be avoided. And that which cannot be avoided shall come to pass infallibly. And therefore evil, permission being once granted, of necessity comes to pass, although most freely on man's part. Whereupon, it is plain that the decree of God is not more inevitable than is the very permission separated from the decree. I do wish that they would well weigh and consider this who object to us either the stoical fate or the dotages of the Manichees. For we differ from them as much in certain judgments and opinion as whoever do differ most. For first, the Stoics do tie God to the second causes, so that He cannot do otherwise than the nature of them will suffer. We on the other side do hold that all second causes do depend upon and are ordered by God. Secondly, the Stoics say that neither God nor second causes can do otherwise by their nature than they do. We say that some second causes are by God's ordinance mutable, othersome immutable; and that God Himself can either not do that which He does or else do it otherwise. But now to come to the Manichees, who make two coeternal gods; we, but one. They of their two gods make one good and another evil. We say that there is one absolutely good and just God. Thirdly, they will have one of their gods to be the cause and worker of good things, and the other of evil. We make one true God the Creator and ruler of all things and working nothing but that which is most good and most just. Fourthly, they say that they which are created by their good God cannot sin. We say that God does most freely convert whom He will; and when they are converted, they can never in this life perfectly be free from sins, but do sometimes run into such sins as do grievously wound the conscience. Fifthly, they say that they that are created by the evil God simply cannot be converted. We say that unclean spirits and men were created both good and holy, but yet they fell by their own will and fault, and not by any fault but the just permission of the Creator, and brought upon themselves a necessity of sinning. And although it be true that man cannot withhold himself from sinning unless God give him that grace, yet does he not sin of necessity—that is, of compulsion—but willingly. And the will has sufficient liberty if by itself or the nature thereof it be inclinable to the contrary of that which it chooses and does of the own accord choose that which it chooses, although the same liberty be governed and one way limited by God. Wherefore, I am of Anselm's opinion, who says, "Although it be of necessity that those things do come to pass which are foreknown and predestinated, yet some things foreknown and predestinated do not come to pass by that necessity which goes before a thing and causes it, but by the same necessity which follows a thing. For God does not cause, although He does predestinate them, by forcing the will as by resisting it, but by leaving them in the power thereof." And I am also of Gaudentius's opinion, who says, "The Jews were willing to do that evil which they did. And verily, if they had been unwilling to do it they had not done it. And it is a gross sin but to think that God, who is not only good and righteous, but also goodness and righteousness itself, does either command or compel anything to be done which He condemns when it is done."100 But that I may in a word fully deliver my opinion, if it be demanded how the will of God carries itself to good or evil, I answer that in a good act God carries Himself positively. For first, He determines the event of good by willing effectually to work it; and secondly, He inwardly inclines the will of the creature to do that good which it does. Thirdly, He sometimes lays a necessity of immutability on him that does well, but yet it is joined with an exceeding freedom. After this sort the elect angels do necessarily obey God, yet not by constraint, but greatly coveting and with all the strength of their will desiring it, not being thereto compelled. In an evil act, I say that God carries Himself privatively, not by a logical, but a natural privation foregoing the habit. For first, He wills that evil come to pass not by doing it Himself, but by willing not to hinder it to be done by others. Secondly, He does not inwardly incline the will to do evil, but He forsakes and outwardly offers objects which are good in themselves. Thirdly, God lays not on us any necessity, but a desertion or want of grace, to which being imposed follows the necessity of sinning, not as the effect does his cause, but as the defect does him that forsakes. And this I am resolved on, that God's decree does altogether order every event partly by inclining and gently bending the will in all things that are good and partly by forsaking it in things that are evil, and yet the will of the creature left to itself is carried headlong of the own accord not of necessity in itself, but contingently that way which the decree of God determined from eternity. We therefore (thanks be given to God) do with all our hearts renounce the doting follies of the Stoics and the Manichees.

Fourth Objection

The fourth crimination is that we do teach, that the greatest part of mankind is deprived of Christ and all saving grace. Answer 1. It might happily seem a rigorous course that some should be deprived of Christ, if so be that they had never at any time nor anywhere received saving grace. But all and every one received holiness and happiness in Adam, together with ability to persevere and remain in the same holy and happy estate, if they had willed. But Adam would not, but did of his own accord cast away that grace which was bestowed on him by his Creator; for which being lost, it is a wonder that all without exception are not damned. And therefore it may seem the less strange to any one if grace by Christ be again bestowed upon one and not upon another.

Secondly, I answer that we do acknowledge with glad minds that Christ died for all (the Scripture averring so much); but we utterly deny that He died for all and every one alike in respect of God, or as well for the damned as elect, and that effectually on God's part. For first, let us weigh well the words of Christ: "I never knew you; depart from Me ye workers of iniquity" (Matt. 7:25). Now to know with God is to acknowledge; and therefore, whom Christ never knew, He never acknowledged for His. And those whom He has not sometime acknowledged, He never bought or redeemed with the price of His blood. And therefore, well says Gregory: "Not to know with God is to reject." Again, if all and every one be effectually redeemed, all and every one are reconciled to God, because that the forgiveness of sins and the satisfaction for the same are inseparably joined together. Yea, and Paul places redemption in the remission of sin, where he says: "By whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14). Very well therefore, says Prosper, "As it is not sufficient for the renewing of men that Christ Jesus was born man, unless they be renewed also in the same Spirit whereof He was born, so it is not sufficient for man's redemption that Christ Jesus was crucified, unless we die together and be buried with Him in baptism."101 Of these premises therefore I frame this assumption: but all are not reconciled to God, neither do all receive remission of sins; for then all men were blessed (Ps. 32:1). And it were not possible for them to perish, which thing to affirm of all and every one is very gross. Thirdly, Christ gave Himself that He might sanctify to Himself a people peculiar (λαος περιούσιον) (Titus 2:14)—that is, as a precious treasure and His own gotten good selected and chosen from among others. Therefore, it was not Christ's purpose to give Himself for a ransom for all and every one alike. Fourthly, for whom redemption is ordained, to them all is given on God's part the making of them sons by Christ. But the making of sons or adoption is not granted to all and every one, even on God's part (John 1:12). For the power of the adoption whereby a man is made of the child of wrath the child of God is only given to those that believe and apprehend Christ. "They are," says Augustine, "the children of God who are not as yet so to us, and yet they are so to God, because that by believing they should afterward be so through the preaching of the gospel; and yet before this was so, they were engraven the children of God by a steadfast and immutable stability in the register of their Father. And again there are some which in respect even of some present or temporal grace which they have received are said by us to be the children of God, and yet are they not so to God."103 Fifthly, none are truly redeemed on God's part, but they who are freed from sin, both according to the power that it has to cause damnation and also according to the power that it has to reign in them. In this do the ancient fathers agree. For Augustine says, "By this Mediator God shows that He does make them of evil men eternally good whom He has redeemed with His blood." And again: "Those whom He would make His brethren, He freed and made them fellow heirs."105 And again: "Christ will have no partaker in that which He has bought, but will possess it wholly to Himself, and to that end gave He so great a price, that He might only possess the same." Tychicus says, "Christ, who suffered for us, has freed us from sin and the bondage thereof." Remigius says, "Thou art the reconciler, Thou art the reconcilement; and blessed shall they be for whom Thou shalt make reconciliation."107 Out of these I thus conclude: all and every one are not redeemed according to both the aforesaid powers of sin. For let us grant that on God's part they are freed from damnation; yet they are not in such measure endued with grace, as that sin shall no more reign in them. Christ therefore is but only the half redeemer of these, and for that cause not a redeemer. Lastly, let us diligently consider the judgment of ancient writers. Ambrose says, "If you believe not, Christ came not down for you. Neither did He suffer for you." Augustine says, "Everyone that is generated is damned, and no one is freed unless he be regenerated."109 And again: "It is well said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. For if the whole world being in thralldom and in the power of sin and most justly ordained to punishment be nevertheless in part by God's mercy freed, who can say to God, Why dost Thou condemn the world?" And again: "He that has bought us at so dear a price will not that we whom He has bought should be destroyed. God has given a great price and bought those who He quickens."111 And again: "Of whose mercy is it but of His who has sent Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners," whom He has both foreknown and predestinated, "and called, and justified, and glorified?" Bernard says, "Christ needed none of those; neither did He any of these things in regard of Himself, but rather in regard of the elect. They were not directly the Jews to whom He was sent, but the elect for whom He was sent."113 Haimo says, "Even as by one man death and sin came generally to our commendation, so by the one justice of man, which is of Christ, to all men elected and predestinated to eternal life came grace to the justification of life." And again: "He took not away in the elect only original, but also actual sins; and therefore grace and the gift through grace did redound to the elect." Aquinas says, "Christ's merit according to the sufficiency carries itself indifferently to all, but not according to the efficacy. Which happens partly by God's election, through which the effect of Christ's merits is mercifully bestowed on some, and partly by the just judgment of God withdrawn from othersome."116

Objection 1. Against this it is thus objected: The Scripture affirms that Christ redeemed the world. Whereto I answer that this word "world" in the writings of the apostles does not signify both all and every man that descended from Adam, but all nations in this last age of the world. "God," says Paul, "was reconciling the world to Him in Christ" (1 Cor. 15:18). What means this word "world" in this place? Surely not all men of all ages, but the Gentiles which were to be called after the ascension of Christ, as Paul plainly explaining his own mind shows. "Wherefore if the fall of them be the riches of the Gentiles, how much more shall their abundance be?" (Rom. 11:12). And again in the fifteenth verse: "If the casting away of them (that is, of the Jews) be the reconciling of the world; what shall the receiving be but life from the dead?" In these very words he plainly shows that the reconciliation of the world is the reconciliation of the Gentiles after the casting away of the Jews. And hereby it is most manifest that all the like places of Scripture which many do think to make for the universal redemption of all and every one are to be understood of some men to be called out of every nation and country after the death of Christ. And hereto also let us join the answer of Augustine, "He calls oftentimes even the church itself by the name of the world according to that, God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ; and again, the Son of Man came not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. And John says in his epistle we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and He is the reconciler of our sins, and not only of ours, but also of the whole world. Therefore, the whole world is the church, and the whole world hates the church. Therefore, the world hates the world, the malignant world the reconciled world, the damned the saved, and the defiled that which is cleansed. But this world which God in Christ reconciles to Himself and which by Christ is saved and to which all sin is through Christ pardoned is elected out of the malignant, damned, and defiled world."117 Rupertus says, "The world surely which God loved we understand to be mankind—that is, the living and the dead: the dead, which in faith looked for His coming; the living, who should believe in Him, whether they were of the Jews or of the Gentiles. For so He says without any distinction either of Jew or Gentile universally, that everyone that believes in Him shall not perish, but have life everlasting." And the common gloss expoundeth the world, "those that be the elect of the world."

Objection 2. Saint Paul says that "God will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). I answer, first, that the place is not to be understood of all the posterity of Adam, but properly of those which live in the last age of the world. This I prove by conferring of the like places wherein Paul does plentifully show his meaning. "And the time of this ignorance God regarded not, but119 now He admonisheth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). "By the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began" (Rom. 16:25). "But now is opened and published—for the obedience of faith among all nations" (Rom. 16:26). "The mystery which was hid since the world began and from all ages is now made manifest to the saints" (Col. 1:26). "To whom God would make known Christ; whom we preach, admonishing every man and teaching every man, that we may present all men perfect in Christ Jesus" (Col. 1:27). And in the second epistle to the Corinthians, the sixth chapter and the second verse, he expounds that place of Isaiah where it is said, "In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee, and I will preserve thee: and will give thee for a covenant of the people that thou mayest raise up the earth—that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth," after this fashion: "Behold, now" says he, "the accepted time"—that is, the time of the New Testament—"behold now the day of salvation." Saint Peter says, "Salvation ordained to be declared in the last times: concerning which the prophets which did prophesy of the grace which should afterward come to you, have searched and inquired" (1 Peter 2:10). And Christ Himself says most plainly of all, "When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Me" (John 12:32). I therefore grant that God wills that all should be saved, but that God both wills and that He has always willed that all men in all ages should be saved I utterly deny, neither has Paul said so much. And among the ancient writers they which seem to affirm so much do notwithstanding in these kind of speeches doubtfully affirm it: "I do imagine that it may with reason and religion be believed. I do not think it irreligion to believe it. It may properly and religiously be believed."120

Secondly, I answer that God will that all men be saved—that is to say, of those that are saved. So says Augustine: "Even as it is said that all shall be quickened in Christ, although very many be punished by eternal death, because all whoever they are that do receive eternal life do not receive it but in Christ. For is it said that God will have all men to be saved, although He will have many not to be saved, because all who are saved are not saved but by Him willing it." And again: "When we read in the holy Scriptures that God will have all men to be saved, although we know assuredly that all men are not saved, yet ought we not therefore so derogate anything from the omnipotent will of God, but thus to understand that which is written: who will have all men to be saved, as if it should be said, that no man was saved but he whom God would have to be saved"122—not that there is no man whom He will not have saved. Hayme says, "God will have all men to be saved. Let us then ask what is the reason why all men are not saved. To which answer must be made that that saying in the psalm is true: He spoke the word, and they were made. In like manner, He will save all men who are saved and who by His mercy desire to be saved." For the apostle put the whole for the part, as it is in the gospel where the Lord says, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to Me. For He has not drawn neither does He draw all men to Him, but all that are elect, and of all sorts, and nations."

Thirdly, I answer that God will not have everyone of every kind, but the kinds of everyone to be saved—that is to say, of every estate and condition some. Augustine says, "This very saying, Who will have all men to be saved, is so said not because there is no man whom He would have damned, who would not do any powerful miracles among them, who He says would have repented if he had; but that we by all men may understand every sort of men, by whatever differences distinguished, whether they be kings or subjects, noble or ignoble, high or low, learned or unlearned, strong or weak, witty, dull spirited or foolish, rich, poor or mean, men or women, infants or children, youths or young men, middle aged men or old men, in all languages, in all trades, in all conditions, in all professions, in the innumerable variety of wills and consciences, and what other differences soever there is among men." These things says he very truly and rightly, for this word "all" is sometime taken distributively, and then it signifies every several and particular person. And Paul, to the intent that he might signify this (2 Thess. 1:3), joins the word "every one" with the word "all" (ἑκάστου πάντων) It is also often taken collectively, and then it signifies any, and not everyone—as when Christ is said to have healed every disease (Matt. 9:35)—that is, any disease. The double signification of this word Aristotle also observed. This word "all," says he, is taken two ways: first for everyone; and secondly, the word "all" is used when it does not signify everyone (ὡς ἑκάστου καί ουκ ὡσ ἑάστου πάντων). It is plain therefore that the word "all" has a doubtful signification. And of this mind also is St. Jerome: "It is like to that, says he, which is in the psalm, Every man is a liar. If every man be a liar, then is he also a liar which speaketh it, and if he be a liar which speaketh it, then is not that true which he speaketh, namely that every man is a liar. But, if this saying be true, these words every man does lie are (as I said before) to be understood after this sort." A great part of men are liars. And the apostle writeth elsewhere, "teaching every man": and again, "Admonishing every man"; not that he taught all men (for how many are there yet at this day which have neither heard of the apostle's doctrine," nor yet so much as his name?) "but that he should teach and admonish all that are in the church." Sedulus also says, "Many and all in Paul are one."127

Fourthly, St. Paul speaks in this place according to the charitable judgment of Christians, and not according to the judgment of secret and infallible certainty. Like to this is that also that he calls the faithful in several churches "men elected," among whom there were many which afterward fell away from the faith. And yet is not the apostle deceived; for it is one thing to speak according to his own affection, and another thing to speak as the matter is according as it is indeed. Augustine says, "We ought so charitably to be affected as to wish that all men be saved, as men that know not who appertain to the number of those that are predestinated and who are not." And again: "We must as much as in us is, being unable to distinguish those that are predestinated from those that are not, desire that all men be saved and use sharp correction to all with an intent to heal them that they perish not."129

Hence it appears what we ought to think of Damascene's opinion, who divides the will of God into His precedent and consequent will. He calls that His precedent will whereby God, as He that is absolutely good, wills to bestow all good things, yea blessedness itself upon the creature. And by this will he affirms that God wills that all men should be saved and attain to His kingdom, because He made us not to punish us, but that He might make us partakers of His goodness as being good Himself. But His consequent will is that whereby for some certain circumstances of the creature He absolutely wills this or that. And by this will he says that God wills that man should be damned for sin, because He is just. And indeed this distinction in itself is to be allowed, but that is not a very fit example which he has set down or alleged concerning His precedent will. For there seems not to be in God such a will or (as they use to term it) such a wishing will, whereby He will indefinitely and upon condition that all and every man of all ages should be saved. For first, it argues a finite power and insufficiency in him that wills. For whatever any one desires and earnestly wills, that will he bring to pass, unless he be hindered. As for example, the merchant desires and earnestly wills to save his ware; but being forced by a tempest, to the intent that himself may escape he does absolutely will to cast them into the sea. Yea indeed, this kind of will seems to argue weakness, because God wills that which shall not come to pass. But you will say that this will is conditional—that is, that God will that they be saved if they shall believe. And I say first that the will of God stands doubtful until the condition be fulfilled, and that the first cause is by this means held in suspense by the second causes. Moreover, there is given to men a free will either to believe or not to believe—that is, flexible and inclinable both ways either by grace or by nature, both which things are false, as I will afterward show. And therefore, this will is rather a human will than a divine. Hear what Anselmus says, "The will of God is taken four manner of ways by the principal doctors: first, for the knowledge of God; then, for the will of the saints, who will in charity that even the unjust should be saved; again, for human reason; and lastly, for God's commandments."131 Secondly, this conditional will seems idle and unnecessary, especially in him whose power is infinite, because if he earnestly willed he would verily do a thing when he might without hindrance. Thirdly, God's will is not such concerning the angels, whereby He wills that all of them should be saved. Therefore, it may well be demanded whether His will be such concerning man. Fourthly, if God will that all men, as they are men, be saved, in like manner He will that all sinners, as they are sinners, be damned—which is absurd. Fifthly, that will which cannot be resisted is absolute; but God's antecedent or first will cannot be resisted (Rom. 9:19). For there Paul speaks of the will that goes before all causes. Therefore, the precedent will is absolute. And this will I make manifest after another manner. The will of God is that some should believe and persevere, and that othersome should be forsaken either not believing or not persevering. You will ask me haply how I know this. I answer, by the event, for as touching the event some believe and some do not believe. But to believe and to persevere is a certain kind of good action, and on the contrary not to believe or not to persevere is an evil action. And everything that is good is through the effectual will of God, and so far forth as there is or exists that which is good, so far forth God wills it and makes it to exist by willing it. And that evil, which comes to pass, comes to pass God not hindering it. And because God will not hinder it, therefore consequently it comes to pass. Hereupon it is certain that God wills that some should believe and persevere to the end, and that othersome do not so, yea, even without any condition. And no reason can be rendered wherefore He wills this. Therefore, this will is both absolute and fast; and therefore that universal precedent will concerning the salvation of all and every one in Christ is counterfeit and feigned. Sixthly, the ground of this opinion is that foresaid place of Paul, which I have already showed to be misunderstood. And yet that place lays not down to us any conditional but an absolute will. For there it is first affirmed that "God will have all men to be saved"; afterward, that "he will have all men to come to the knowledge of the truth"—that is, to faith, because by applying faith to the word of God we acknowledge the truth. Where is now then that condition of faith? Lastly, against Damascene I oppose Augustine, who to the Pelagians urging this place of Scripture, God will that all men be saved, makes a double answer. First, he denies that it is not generally to be understood of the universality of men, and that by this argument: that which God wills, He effects. But He does not generally save all men. Therefore, He wills not. Secondly, he says that the place is to be understood of them which are actually saved, because all men which are saved are saved by the will of God. Again, I oppose against him Prosper also, who says, "If the will of God concerning the universal saving of mankind and the calling them to the knowledge of the truth is to be affirmed so indifferently throughout all ages as that it shall be said to overpass no man in whatever place, God's impenetrable and deep judgments receive a great blow."133 And again: "We cannot say that there is the calling of grace, whereas there is as yet no regeneration of the mother, the church." And again: "He forbad the apostles to preach the gospel to some people; and now as yet He suffers some people to live out of His grace." Also, I oppose Thomas Aquinas against him, who says, "But says some man, God loves all men. Whereto I answer that it is true so far forth as He wills some good to all," and yet He wills not everything that is good to all, that is eternal life. "And therein He is said to hate and reject them." To conclude, I oppose against Hugo de Saint Victor: "Who will," says he, "that all men be saved, according to Ambrose, if they themselves will. But are there not many who would be saved, and yet are not saved?—or thus, He offers grace to all, by which, if they will, they may be saved. But how is this solution true? Are there not and have there not been many which never heard so much as a word of preaching?"

Objection 3. That which everyone is bound to believe is true. But everyone is bound to believe that he is effectually redeemed by Christ. Therefore, it is manifest that everyone, even the reprobate, is effectually redeemed by the death of Christ. Whereto I answer that the termini or parts of the proposition are to be distinguished. That which everyone is bound to believe is true according to the intention of God that binds. But it is not always true according to the event. Jonah preached, and therefore he was bound to believe "yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed." But this was not true according to the event. The assumption also must be distinguished. Everyone in the church who by God's commandment "believes the gospel" is bound to believe that he is redeemed by Christ, yea even the reprobate as well as the elect, but yet notwithstanding in a divers and different respect. The elect is bound to believe that by believing he shall be made partaker of election; the reprobate, that by not believing he may be made inexcusable, even by the intention of God. For God sometimes gives a commandment not that it should be actually done, but that men may be tried, that they perform outward discipline and that they may be convicted of their natural infidelity and be made inexcusable of all their sins before God in the last judgment. For thus I distinguish of God's commandment. There is a certain commandment of obedience, the performance whereof God wills in all. Hither are referred the commandments of the moral law. There is also a certain commandment of trial, as the commandment of sacrificing Isaac (Gen. 22:2), whereas God wills not the act itself, but only the manifestation of obedience. And therefore God must not be said to mock men if by the word preached He do outwardly call those whom He will not have to be saved, for by this means He shows to them the riches of His grace and declares that they perish by their own fault, because they will not receive salvation offered. But you will say they cannot. I confess as much, but that inability whereby they cannot is voluntary and born together with us, not infused into us by God; and therefore it cannot be excused. Very well therefore, says Bernard: "The Master knew well that the weightiness of the commandment exceeded the strength of man. But He thought it expedient even in this, that it put them in remembrance of their own insufficiency. Therefore, by commanding things impossible He makes not men swervers from the truth, but humbles them that every mouth may be stopped," so says Augustine.137 Secondly, I answer that that which everyone is bound to believe is true, unless anyone shall by his own unbelief hinder himself. This does the reprobate by his own in-born infidelity. Thirdly, I answer that the argument does follow twice affirmatively in both propositions. For the termini or parts of the proposition are thus to be turned: that is true that everyone is bound to believe, but everyone is bound to believe that he is redeemed by Christ. Therefore, that is true.

Objection 4. The fathers which believed aright do affirm that Christ redeemed all and the whole world. Answer. Whereas they write that Christ redeemed all men and the world, their meaning is that He did it according to sufficiency and the common cause and common nature of all which Christ did take upon Him, and not effectually on God's part. This very thing does Prosper make plain: "All men," says he, "are rightly said to be redeemed in respect of the one nature of all and the one cause of all which our Lord did truly take upon Him, and yet all are not delivered from captivity." The propriety of redemption "without doubt belongs to them for whom the prince of the world is sent abroad, whose death was not so bestowed for mankind as that it should also pertain to the redemption of them who were not to be regenerated." And again he says, "Our Savior may fitly be said to be crucified for the redemption of all the world both in respect that He truly took upon Him the nature of man and also in respect of the common or general perdition in the first man; and yet He may be said to be crucified only for those to whom His death was available."139 Moreover, the fathers speak of the universality and of the world of believers. So says he that is the author of the calling of the Gentiles: "The people of God," says he, "have their fullness."

And thus much for the efficacy and greatness of Christ's death. Now as concerning grace, I say, that that is diversity distinguished. For first, it is either restraining or renewing. The restraining grace is that whereby the inbred corruption of the heart is not thereby utterly diminished and taken away, but in some is restrained more, in some less, that it break not violently forth into action. And it is given only for a testimony to man and to preserve order among men in a politic society. And this kind of grace is general—that is, belonging to all and every man, among whom some do exceed othersome in the gifts of civil virtue. And there is no man in whom God does not more or less restrain his natural corruption. Now renewing or Christian grace (as ancient writers do usually call it) is that whereby man has power given him to believe and repent, both in respect of will and power. And it is universal in respect of those that believe, but indefinite in respect of all and every man. Thus we teach, thus we believe.

Secondly, grace is either natural or supernatural, as Augustine himself teaches. Natural grace is that which is bestowed on man together with nature. And this is either of nature perfect or corrupt. Perfect, as the image of God or righteousness bestowed on Adam in his creation. This grace belonged generally to all, because we all were in Adam. And whatever he received that was good, he received it both for himself and his posterity. The grace of nature corrupted is a natural enlightening, whereof John speaks, "He enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9), yea and every natural gift. And these gifts truly by that order which God has made in nature are due and belonging to nature. But that grace which is supernatural is not due to nature, especially to nature corrupted; but is bestowed by special grace, and therefore is special. This the ancient writers affirm. Augustine says, "Nature is common to all, but not grace."142 And he only acknowledges a twofold grace—namely, that common grace of nature whereby we are made men, and Christian grace whereby in Christ we are again born new men. And he is of opinion that some that do not believe in Christ do not sin, which is a thing notwithstanding very ungodly and untrue, if grace be as general as nature. Let us well weigh his words: "In that he has," says he, "added, Now they are inexcusable for their sin, it may move men to ask whether those to whom Christ has not come nor spoken may have any excuse for their sin.… To this question according to my understanding I make answer" that "they cannot be inexcusable for every sin which they have committed, but for this sin that they have not believed, to whom Christ did not come, and to whom He did not speak. But they are not in this number to whom He has spoken in His disciples, and by His disciples, which He also now does. For He came to the Gentiles by His church.… It remains for us to demand, whether they can have this excuse, which have been or are prevented by death, before Christ came in His church to the Gentiles, and before they heard His Gospel. I answer that without doubt they may, but they cannot therefore escape damnation: for whosoever have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law." Again, he says, "Only grace distinguishes those that are saved from those that are damned, who were enwrapped in one lump of corruption by one common cause from the beginning."144 Chrysostom says, "The grace of God comes to everyone, but it remains with them who do worthily fulfill those things which are in their power, departing quickly from them which do not well behave themselves. Neither does it at all come to those who do not so much as begin to turn to the Lord." Gregory says, "The Gentiles did not any way worship God, neither showed they any sign or token of any good work, for indeed they were forsaken. Among who because there was no lawgiver, nor no one that did according to reason seek after God, there was not as it were a man, but all lived as it were like beasts." And afterward he says, "When our Redeemer came, He so received the calling of grace as that there was not before in it the life of prophecy." And again: "Teachers holding their tongues, the devils go into their place, because none do perish by the silence of the pastors, but they who are not predestinated to eternal life. For they are places for the devils, because in God's foreknowledge they are not preordained to God's tabernacle. Hereupon is it said that when the pastors did preach, as many as were predestinated to eternal life did believe. And hereupon says Paul, whom He has predestinated, those has He called. Hereupon it is that the apostles, desirous to go into Asia, were forbidden by the Holy Ghost. They therefore which are not predestinated, whether they hear the words of the preachers or whether they do not hear them, cannot be called to God's tabernacle." And again: "Sometimes the preachers are silent by God's dispensation, that they holding their peace, they which are not the Lord's may be received of evil spirits."146 Bede says, "The church in the former state of error being without eyes and blind did neither see from the beginning," neither was it seen at all by God. And again: "All other kinds of faith which are in the world are dead as also the motions of those people and Gentiles which are dead, as they which had not in them Him who said, I am the life. Neither do they regenerate and quicken their people and children by the womb of water and the Spirit, but are fruitless and bereft of the well of life and not enjoying the water which is lively and streams to eternal life. Therefore, that church which is His is only termed the life and mother of all the living." Hugo de Saint Victor says, "Some of those who were before the coming of Christ, if they had not had some other sin, they should not have been damned for that they did not believe in Christ, because they have an excuse for that sin."148 And again: "What if those should enter into consideration how many and how excellent in comparison of you are castaways, which could not attain to this grace which is given to you? Surely you have heard how many generations of men from the beginning even until this day have passed away," who are all without the knowledge of God and the price of His redemption "tumbled down into the gulf of everlasting destruction. Your Redeemer and lover has preferred you before all those, inasmuch as He has given you this grace which none of them was worthy to receive. And what will you say? Wherefore do you think that you are preferred before them all? Have you been more valiant? Have you been more wise? Have you been more noble? Have you been more rich than they all? Because you have obtained this special favor above them all? How many valiant men? How many wise men? How many noble men? How many rich men have there been, and yet they are all forsaken, and have perished like castaways. You only are received before them all, and yet you cannot find out any cause why you should thus be dealt withal, besides the free favor of your Savior."

Hitherto I have opened and defended our opinion of predestination. I will now briefly examine another dissenting with this in many things, having taken it with as much diligence as I could out of the public writings of many men; and to this end, I do this briefly propound it.

First, God created all and every man in Adam to eternal life.

Secondly, He foresaw the fall.

Thirdly, because He is by nature gentle and good, He does seriously will that all men after the fall should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and therefore wills to give all the furtherances both of nature and grace that they may be saved, but yet indefinitely, if they themselves shall believe. This will of God (they say) is predestination, and the same with the written gospel. The rule of this will is "whosoever shall believe shall be saved; he that would not believe, shall be damned."

Lastly, election is according to the foreknowledge of future faith (which notwithstanding may be lost utterly for a time, as some say; or finally and forever, as some other will); and reprobation is according to the foreknowledge of infidelity or the contempt of the gospel.

11 Errors

This platform is in very truth (so far as I can judge of it by the Scriptures) a mere invention of man's wit, which will appear by the manifold errors therein contained.

Error 1. First, by this platform or groundwork there follows a certain universal reprobation, and that a very absurd and strange one. For if there be (as they do affirm) a universal election whereby God wills that all men shall be saved indefinitely, if they do believe, He wills also by the like reason that all and each one should be damned if they do not believe. But this reprobation is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. Yea, hence it follows that God being alike affected to all and seriously willing the conversion and salvation of all does neither choose nor refuse any man.

Error 2. From hence also it follows that God has in vain propounded with Himself the supreme and absolute end of His counsels, which is to communicate His goodness in true felicity even to every man. For if we consider the event, He does not communicate His goodness and eternal life to very many which is otherwise than He purposed—namely, to those that are damned. But we are in no case to say that the supreme end of God's counsels either have an uncertain event or are in vain propounded.

Error 3. Thirdly, this platform attributed to God a certain ordered and fitted will which does wholly depend on man's will. You say that God wills that all men whatever should be saved by Christ. Very well. Tell me therefore why they are not saved. They themselves will not, you say. Yea, but what is this but to set the creature in the throne of almighty God the Creator against the order of nature and of all causes? For the first cause, which indeed is God's will, ought to order and dispose the act of the second cause. And therefore we must not give to God a will that is ordered by the will of the creature, especially considering that all order in heaven and in earth whatever proceeds from Him. That which orders all things is ordered of none. Moreover, men after this sort are elected of themselves by receiving of God's grace being offered by the assistance of common grace and are also rejected of themselves by refusing of grace offered, and men themselves shall be the makers and framers of their own election and reprobation. And God, who chooses, is not so much to be praised as the men that do receive and embrace the blessing offered.

Error 4. Fourthly, this platform lays down a determinate foreknowledge about the evil of fault, without any decree going before concerning the event of the fault, which cannot be. A definite foreknowledge is not the cause of that thing which is to be, but the thing which shall be is the cause of the foreknowledge thereof. For the thing which shall be follows not the foreknowledge of it, but foreknowledge follows the thing which shall be, as Justinus taught. For God does first decree a thing as touching the event. Then afterward He does foreknow by His definite foreknowledge that it shall be. And Anselm: "In that," says he, "a thing is said to be foreknown, it is by that pronounced that it shall be."151 And Augustine before his time affirmed "that God does foreknow that which shall be." Hence it follows that a thing must exist with God before it can be precisely and definitely known before. And everything exists and is, because God did will and decree to do it if it be good or to suffer it to be done if it be evil, have respect always to the good that is joined with it. Unless we shall hold and grant this, it will follow that something has being of itself—that is, that something is a god. Therefore, the existence or being of things does not go before, but out of all doubt follows the decree of God. For first of all, there is a foreknowledge or (as it pleases others) a knowledge of beholding, whereby God beholds and sees what is possible to be and what not. Then follows the decree either of God's operation or of His voluntary permission, and consequently of the event of the thing. And this decree being once laid down, the definite foreknowledge is conceived whereby it is known what shall come to pass infallibly.

Error 5. The fifth defect in this platform is that it teaches that Christ for His part has redeemed and reconciled all and every man to God, and that very many of them for all that as touching the event are damned, which is very absurd. For if this were so, sin, Satan, death, and hell should be more mighty than Christ the Redeemer, and (as Augustine says), vitia humano vincitur Deus—God is overcome by man's sin. If you will say that God is not overcome, yet I say, and that according to this platform, that He is altered; for He has decreed and seriously willed to save all men, and yet notwithstanding another sentence being given He wills to destroy those which will not incline and bend themselves to this counsel.

Error 6. This platform makes saving grace (which indeed is supernatural) to be altogether universal. But this opinion (to speak no harder of it) is a plausible device of man's brain. For first of all, hereby the special covenant made with Abraham and the greatness of God's mercies toward the Gentiles is abolished. And there is no mystery of the vocation of the Gentiles if all and every particular man were by certain means called to Christ from the beginning. For those which shall by the help of common grace, which they shall receive, give assent to God calling them, whether it be by extraordinary instinct or by the ministry of the word preached—they shall be accounted among the members of the church and shall belong to the special covenant of the gospel. Moreover, if the first grace be universal, it is either faith actually or in power. For without faith it is impossible to please God and to attain salvation. But actual faith is not common to all. The power of faith is double. The first is that whereby you have received power to be able to believe if you will. But this is not sufficient to salvation, because now after Adam's fall free will in spiritual things is wanting, especially in the conversion of a sinner. And therefore further grace is required whereby a man may be able to will to believe. "No man can come to Christ, but he which is drawn of the Father" (John 6:44). Now, they are not drawn which have received power to believe if they will, but those who oftentimes willing are made actually willing. The second power is that whereby a man has received power to will to believe, but this is not common to all men. "To you," says Christ to His disciples, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but not so to them, because the Father has hidden them from the wise" (Matt. 11:15). Again: "Therefore could they not believe, because Isaiah foretold this" (John 12:39). Furthermore, if this power were common to all and to each person, faith were common to all. For the will and the deed flows from one and the selfsame grace. "It is God who worketh in you the will and the deed, even of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). "Whosoever has heard and learned of the Father, cometh to Christ" (John 6:45). But whoever has power to will to believe has heard and learned, as being drawn of God. Therefore, whoever has power to will to believe comes to Christ. Well says Augustine, "It follows not that he which can come does come, unless he both will and do it; but everyone that has learned of the Father has not only power to come, but also he does come. Where now there is a passivilitai, profectalus, & voluntatas affectus, & effectus est." So it appears that to will to believe and actually to believe are most nearly conjoined. Yea, seriously to will to believe is in very deed to believe. The publicans and harlots and those which are held captive at the devil's will do repent and are converted; and therefore they do not only receive power if they will, but of nillers155 and stubborn repugners they are made actually willing.

Thirdly, there are and have been many nations which have had no knowledge of the faith or which have not kept it, and without this knowledge there is not any saving grace. Answer is wont to be made that man receiving natural light is not to be excused for the want of supernatural knowledge, because if he would do by God's assistance that which lies in him, God would enlighten him with supernatural grace. For thus the schoolmen do usually speak. "Although no man is able by the ministry of men to know the nature of faith if he never heard anything of it, yet he may by God's help if he live morally according to God's law so much as in him lies to do. For then God will succor him either by Himself or by some other—to wit, either man or angel by propounding of faith to him. For as in nature all things, so in supernatural God does minister grace when man is not wanting to himself." I answer that this is false. For if grace be given to him which does that which lies in him to do by the strength of nature, it is given either by merit or promise. Not by merit, because there is no merit before faith; and we do nothing acceptable to God before we have faith. Augustine: "You bring in a kind of men which can please God without the faith of Christ by the law of nature. This is the cause why the Christian church does especially detest you."157 And it is not given by promise, because there is no promise or divine law to be found in the Scriptures, that grace should by and by be given to him that does that which lies in him to do. It is also false to say that God does minister all things that make for the felicity of nature of this present life. For some are born leprous, blind, foolish, very poor, unmeet for this temporary felicity, neither do they ever attain to it. This opinion also is against experience, because many die in their infancy, and many are foolish and died all their life long, upon whom we cannot say that this universal grace is bestowed. It is also contrary to most plain places of Scripture. "Salvation is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth, but in God that showeth mercy. And, He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth. It is given to the disciples to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them is not given; the wind bloweth not in all, but where it listeth; the Son does not reveal the Father to all, but to whom He will. All do not believe, but those which are drawn and predestined to life; all do not hear, but those to whom ears are given to hear (Matt. 13:14; John 3:8; John 6; Acts 13:49). Furthermore, it is some impairing of effectual and Christian grace so to place it in man's power, that he may, if he will, receive it; and that he may also, if he will not, refuse and despise it; and to say that God has given to men no other grace than that against which the flesh or perverse will may prevail in all men, and against which it does prevail indeed in the greatest part of mankind, because God will not restrain it. To conclude, let us also hear the testimonies of the fathers. The author of the calling of the Gentiles says thus: "If so be that the grace of the Father do pass by some (as we see it does), it is to be referred to the hidden judgments of divine justice." Augustine: "Nothing deliveres us from this wrath whereby we are all under sin, saving the grace of God by Jesus Christ. Why this grace comes to that infant, and not to this, the cause may be unknown, but not unjust." Again: "It was by divine dispensation that Pharaoh did not tractably consent, but obstinately resist, because that there was not only a just punishment, but a just punishment evidently prepared for such a heart. Whereby those which fear God may be corrected."159 Again: "The judgments are unsearchable, wherefore of the wicked men being of years aged one should be called so, as that he should follow the caller, and the other should either not be called at all or not called so as that he should follow him that calls him." And again: "He gives to whom He will, because He is merciful, which though He should not give, yet He is just."161 Again, He does not give to them to whom He will not, "that He might make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy; for by giving to some who deserve not, He will have it to be His free and by this also His true grace and favor." Again: "Whoever are set apart from original damnation through the bounty of God's grace, it is no doubt but that it shall be procured for them to hear the gospel and to believe when they hear it." Again: "We know that God's grace is not given to all men."163 And again: "Why one man is so exhorted that he is persuaded, and why it is not so with another; O the depth of the riches!" Thomas: "As He does not open the eyes of all that are blind nor cure all that are crazy, that in those His power might appear and that in the other the order of nature might be preserved, even so He does not by His help prevent all that hinder grace, but some in whom He wills that His mercy should appear, so also that the order of justice should be manifested in others."165 Isidore: "Spiritual grace is not distributed to all, but is only given to the elect." Again: "It is given to him, because he is evil that would be good; another neither wills, neither is it given him that he might be good." Cameravensis: "Although God be a universal agent over all, so as that He gives to all some gifts of grace, as being, life, knowledge, etc., yet He gives some gifts of special grace to one, which He gives not to another, as namely faith, and the grace which makes us gracious and such like which are the effects of predestination." Finally, Augustine and almost all the schoolmen make two kinds of infidelity: the one negative in those which never heard the gospel; the other privative in those that refuse and contemn the message which they have heard of Christ. And it is to be noted that by this distinction they do confess that God has not vouchsafed so much as an outward calling to every man.

Objection 1. The promise of the seed of the woman is made in Adam to all and to every man. Answer. It is made to Adam's posterity, indefinitely, not universal. "When salvation is promised to all men, all men are named for a part of men." The heads of the nations, Cain, Shem, Esau, etc., knew the promised Messiah; but those which came after knew Him not, neither had they the means how to know Him. So says Isaiah: "Me have they not known, of Me have they not heard" (52:15). The nations also next adjoining to the Jews peradventure heard something and had proselytes, but the nations afar off seated in the uttermost parts of the earth had no affairs with the Jews and no proselytes. And therefore it is false which some affirm—to wit, that the choosing of the people of Israel was only a kind of greater courtesy showed to this nation or a more gentle entreating of it, and no peculiar and divers favor whereby He showed Himself to be their Father and Redeemer only. And to make or maintain a hidden and invisible church among the Gentiles before the coming of Christ is altogether to contend against the word: "God is only known in Judah" (Psalm 76). The Israelites only are called "My people" in Hosea (ch. 1); and they only were "Christ's sheepfold" (John 10:16; Eph. 2:14), because Christ when He came made one sheepfold of the Jews and Gentiles.

Objection 2. There is enfolded in God's providence that care of God touching all those things which concern the blessedness of man. But the Gentiles knew this providence of God, and that His goodness was so great that He would pass by nothing which might make for the happiness and salvation of man. Therefore, the Gentiles did after a sort obscurely and by an enfolded knowledge know the doctrine concerning the redemption of mankind. Answer. This faith of things unknown is a mere fiction. For faith of the own nature is a certain knowledge. Moreover, although the general do include in itself the species or kinds and the whole his members, yet he which knows the general and the whole does not by and by know all the kinds and parts thereof. The mind may so know the general that yet for all that it may in the meantime be ignorant of the special kinds thereof. We must therefore beware of the schoolmen's opinion who say that salvation was given before Christ's coming for the implicit or enfolded faith concerning the Redeemer in general—namely, when men did believe that there is a God, and that He is a rewarder and the giver of all gifts which concern the good either of soul or body, especially the remedy of sin. But this is nothing else than to imagine a certain saving faith and church which has no word of God at all either written or any other way revealed. Furthermore, this is to accuse Paul of falsehood, who teaches the contrary in these words: "Seeing the world by wisdom knew not God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). It is also most certain that we ought to know Christ the Redeemer in special. "This is life eternal that they know Thee to be the only very God and whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). The same affirm the ancient fathers. Irenaeus: "They being ignorant of that Emmanuel, who is born of the virgin, are deprived of His gift, which is life eternal."169 Jerome: "We cannot be His sons before, unless we receive the faith and understanding of His Son Jesus Christ." Augustine says "that those which were just in old time, whatever they were, were delivered only by that faith whereby we are delivered—to wit, by the faith of Christ's incarnation."171 Again: "Whatever truth you say was in those which were just in old time, the faith only of the Mediator saves them, who shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins."

Objection 3. A. (Propositio) The power of God is known to the Gentiles (Romans 1). B. (Assumption) Christ is the power of God. C. (Conclusion) Therefore, Christ is known to the Gentiles. Answer. I distinguish of the proposition. The power of God is either the power of creation or of redemption. The power of God in the creation was known to the Gentiles, but not the power of God in the redemption, which is Christ Himself, the preaching of whom is foolishness to the world.

Objection 4. The fathers say that saving grace is universal. First, I answer that the sayings of the fathers are to be understood of the grace of the last time which is common to all men and nations. Irenaeus: "The Lord has reconciled us in the last times by His incarnation, being made a mediator between God and man, reconciling the Father to all … giving to us that conversion which is to our Creator." Origen says: "God has a greater care to save men than the devil has to destroy them.… The only begotten, the Son of God Himself (I say), is present with us. He defends, keeps, and draws us to Himself … for He says in another place, When I shall be lifted up I will draw all things to Me." Chrysostom: "Grace is shed abroad over all. It passes by and displays neither Jew or Grecian, nor Barbarian nor Scythian. It is alike affected to all. It shows itself gentle to all. It calls all with equal honor. And let those who neglect the help of grace ascribe this their blindness to themselves. For considering that a way to enter in lies open to all and is forbidden to none, some desperately wicked do refuse to enter through their own corruption." Cyril says, "He is the true light and sends forth His brightness to all. But (as Paul says) the God of this world has blinded the minds of unfaithful men that the light of God's knowledge may not shine in them."174 Ambrose: "The earth is full of the mercy of God, because pardon of sins is given to all. The mystical Son of Righteousness is risen to all, is come to all, has suffered for all, and has risen again for all. And if any believe not in Christ, he deprives himself of this general benefit.… He shuts out the grace of common light from himself." Gregory says, "The medicine which is from God meets us in every place, because He hath both given unto man commandments not to sin, and has also given remedies to him that sins, lest he should despair."176 Theodolus Presbyter: "He has said that both Jews and Gentiles should be partakers of grace, yet not all, but those that believe, and because grace is common to all, not without cause."

Answer 2. Secondly, they speak of natural vocation or of the grace of nature consisting in the relics of natural light and understanding in the common gifts of virtues and outward blessings, which are testimonies of God's providence and goodness. The author of The Calling of the Gentiles: "For this cause verily the nations may be excused, which being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, void of hope, and without God in this world have perished under the darkness of ignorance, because this abundance of grace, which does now water the whole world, did not flow so plentifully before. For there is evermore showed to all men a certain measure of doctrine from above, which albeit it proceeds from a more sparing and hidden grace, yet it is sufficient (in the Lord's judgment) for a remedy to some, and a witness to all." Again: "Who may not easily perceive that He never denied His divine goodness to the posterity of this brother slayer, if he consider how profitable so long patience of God, such plentiful store of temporal blessings, and such a universal increase of multiplied fruitfulness might have been to them? Which benefits, although they wrought no cure and amendment in those whose hearts were hardened, yet they prove that their apostasy was not caused by God."179 Again: "In the farthest parts of the world there be some nations to which the light of saving grace has not as yet dawned … to whom that parcel of general assistance is not denied, which is always from above granted to all men. Although the nature of man has received so sharp a wound that it is not possible for any man to come to the knowledge of God by the help of his own voluntary contemplation, unless the true light dispel the darkness of the heart, which the just and good God in His unsearchable judgment has not so shed abroad in times past, as He does in these last days."

Thirdly, the fathers speak of the universal, whereby man's will being by God's ordinary dispensation prevented and helped by the Holy Ghost may believe and be converted, which notwithstanding a stone, stock, or beast cannot. Augustine: "A possibility to have faith is given of nature." Again he says "that man's nature is capable of justification by the grace of the Holy Spirit."182 Again: "Men may keep God's commandments and believe in God if they will, because that light enlightens every man which comes into this world." Prosper: "To be able to have faith is the nature of men, but to have faith is the grace of the faithful." Augustine: "This difference there is between wicked men and the devils, that men though they be exceedingly wicked may be reconciled, if God will show mercy; but there is no conversion reserved for the devils."184

Now as concerning Christian grace whereby a will to be converted and to believe actually in Christ is given to men, the fathers have not so much as dreamed that it is common to all and every one, which notwithstanding some are not now afraid to affirm in their writings.

Error 7. This platform teaches that God's foreknowledge of our faith and infidelity is the rule of predestination, which is utterly false. For first of all, the very will is a rule to itself and the divine counsels. "We were predestinated according to His purpose, who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:5, 11). Secondly, God's election is the rule of faith that is to be given or not given (Rom. 11:5). A reformation is made according to the election of grace. Thirdly, the foreknowledge of faith and infidelity does not extend itself so far as predestination, which belongs to all men whatever, many of whom notwithstanding never so much as heard of Christ.186 Now these cannot have faith nor privative infidelity, but only a negative. The same I say of those which die in their infancy being within the covenant, who we believe are saved by the tenure of the same covenant, who for all that are neither elected for faith nor according to faith, which they as yet had not. But if the foreseeing of faith were the rule or square of election or reprobation, the thing foreseen should belong to all men without exception; for the rule must not be straighter than that which is ruled by it. Fourthly, foreseen faith is the effect of election; therefore, it is not the rule of it. "Who has predestinated us to adoption by Christ" (Eph. 1:5) and therefore also to faith, which receives the benefit of adoption. Augustine: "Let us therefore" says he, "understand188 that calling whereby they are chosen, who are chosen not because they did believe, but that they should believe; for if they were for that cause chosen because they did believe, they themselves verily had chosen Him before by believing in Him, that they might deserve to be chosen." Again: "Lest any man should say, My faith190 or some such like thing does distinguish me from other men, the teacher of the Gentiles meeting with such conceits asks, What have you that you have not received, and of whom but of Him who distinguishes you from him, so whom He has not given that which He has given to you." Lombard: "God has elected those whom it pleased Him to elect of His own free mercy, not because they were to be believers, but that they should be believers." Again: "Grace is the effect of predestination." Fifthly, if God did elect according to foreseen faith, tell me why He did foresee faith in one man rather than in another—tell me, I say? For here whether you will or no, you must have recourse to the mere will of God. For God does foresee nothing which is good in any, besides that which He Himself of His pleasure will first make. And what is the cause why He foresees faith in one man rather than in another? But only because it is His will to give one man faith and not another. Lastly, the rule is uncertain; for faith, as appears by this platform, may be utterly lost. And therefore the thing ruled—to wit, predestination—is made uncertain. This a certain author plainly confesses in his exposition of the epistle to the Romans, where he teaches unadvisedly that God's decree may be changed, and that election and reprobation have recourse one to another, because (as he says) they depend upon the conditions of faith and infidelity.

Error 8. Furthermore, this platform teaches that true and saving faith may perish and be lost either wholly or forever, which notwithstanding is not true.

Reason 1. "Upon this rock will I build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against (κατισχύσουσιν) it" (Matt. 16:18). Here three questions must be asked: what the rock is? What is meant by building on the rock? And what is that which is promised to those which are built upon it? The rock is either faith itself or Christ apprehended by faith. Chrysostom: "Upon this rock—that is," says he, "upon the faith of confession."192 Again: "He sets our feet upon the rock—that is, upon faith; for faith in Christ may well be said to be that which cannot be broken." Again: "Christ being wise has built His house—that is, His church upon a rock, that is, upon the fortitude of faith, or a strong faith." Now if faith be a rock, it remains constant and immovable. To be built upon the rock is to perceive the doctrine of the gospel, to embrace Christ our Savior with a true faith, and to cleave fast to Him with the heart. For the Corinthians are said to be Paul's building, because he brought them to the faith. And the Ephesians are said to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, because Paul came and preached to them the gospel of peace. The certainty and firmness of the doctrine of the gospel may also be called a rock. Epiphanius: "They shall not prevail against the rock, that is to say, against the truth."194 Hillary: "This is your blessed rock of faith, which Peter has confessed with his mouth." Augustine: "Upon this rock which you have confessed, I will build My church." Now no man can be built upon the confession and upon the truth, but by faith. Hence I do conclude thus: those that are built upon the rock cannot fall away utterly. But those which truly believe are built upon the rock. Therefore, those which truly believe do not utterly and wholly fall away. Thirdly, the promise made to them that are built upon the rock is that the gates of hell shall not prevail against them (κατισχύσουθαι. κατισχύσουσιν). From hence it follows necessarily that the devils can but make a flourish and show their strength and power against the faith, and that they shall never be able to overcome and conquer. Let us here also weigh the judgments of the fathers. Cyprian: "Lord, to whom shall we go … signifying that the church, which believes in Christ and which keeps that which it has once known, does at no time altogether depart from Him, and that they are the church who do abide in God's house. But that they are not of God the Father's planting, whom we do see to be void of the steadfastness and mass soundness of corn and like to chaff fanned or blown about with the wind of the winnowing enemy—of whom also John speaks in his first epistle, saying, "They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they had surely remained with us" (1 John 2:19). Augustine: "Love which may be lost was never true."197 Again: "To believe truly is to believe constantly, steadfastly, valiantly, and firmly, so as that you may not now return to yours and forsake Christ." Again: "Those which are truly saints being predestinated to reign with God by His grace have not only given them now a power to persevere if they will, but perseverance itself." Again: He which makes men good, maketh them to persevere in that which is good."199 And again: "The church loses none on the earth but those which are wicked and admits none to heaven but those that are good." Again: "As the ark was built of foursquare timber, so the church is built of saints; for that which is foursquare will stand steady on whichever side you set it; and the saints continue steadfast in every temptation." Chrysostom: "This is the property of faith, that however things may fall out contrary to the promises, yet it never falls away utterly and is never wholly confounded."201 Again: "Let us keep faith, which is a firm and sure rock; for neither the floods, nor the winds can do us any hurt, though they drive hard against us, because we stand steadfast upon a rock. So also if in this life we will choose that true foundation, we shall abide without any detriment or loss (penitius omnine)." Again: "You cannot overcome one faithful man. O devil, you know not what the martyrs have done to you—the flesh often faints in the torments, and the strength of faith fails not. Hence it is that in any same place He speaks after this sort. If you make war with man, you shall, it may be, overcome, or perhaps you shall be overcome; but no might can overcome the church."203 Furthermore: "The church is far stronger than the earth, yea and stronger than heaven." Again: "Faith in God is a certain secure anchor." Gregory: "Because the light of the elect is not extinguished by temptation, we do not say there is a night made but an evening—namely, because temptation does oftentimes hide the light of righteousness in the hearts of the elect, but it does not put it quite out. It makes it as it were twinkle and look wan, but it does not extinguish it."205 Angelome: "The observation of God's commandments, being established in the hearts of the elect by faith, hope, and love of that heavenly recompense, can by no let of temporal things be dissolved." Again: "The hearts of the elect are compared to a foursquare figure, which have learned so to remain in the strength of faith, that they cannot be removed from the certainty of their estate, by any repugnance of those things they meet with, no not by death itself."207 Andreas: "Those are found to be abortive or untimely born children who have departed from the true light, which is Christ." Thomas: "If we by the revelation of our heavenly Father shall then confess—namely, when our conversation is in the heavens—that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and if it shall be said to us, You are Peter, for everyone that follows Christ is a rock; but he against whom the gates of hell prevail is neither to be termed the rock whereon Christ does build His church, neither the church, nor a part of the church which Christ builds upon the rock."209 And again: "Although you must be lifted a little, yet you have the seed of faith hidden in you. Though the leaves be blown down with the tempter's wind, yet the root is fresh."

Second reason: "Lead us not into temptation," etc. (Matt. 6:13)—that is, "Do not utterly forsake us and deliver us up to Satan." Augustine: "God leads a man into temptation when He suffers him to be tempted, that He may try him and not destroy him. And He delivers from evil when He suffers us not to be tempted beyond our power."211 Gregory: "The grace of the Holy Ghost qualifies the temptations of the adversary by dispensation, that those which may be may but search with their heat and not burn up with their fire." Hence I thus reason: whatever we ask according to God's will, it shall be given us. But we ask according to God's will that we may not be utterly forsaken in temptation, for our Advocate taught us so to pray. Therefore, that we be not utterly forsaken in temptation shall be given of God. Now whom God does not utterly forsake, he does not utterly fall away. And this Christ takes for granted in the elect: "So as that, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect" (Matt. 24:24).

Third reason, if there be a total or utter falling away from a true faith, then is there also required a second engrafting into Christ and consequently a seal of the second engrafting, baptizing anew—that is to say, Anabaptism; for so often as we are born again, we are to be baptized. This is Augustine's ground: "As the carnal generation is one, neither can a man enter into the womb again, even so is spiritual regeneration. For we are once born, and we are also once born again. Therefore, also it is requisite that the sacrament of regeneration be once received. If it chance to fall out by sin that some are weakened who are regenerated, they have need of cure by repentance and not by baptism." But those that do utterly or wholly fall away from faith and grace are the second time to be engrafted into Christ; and consequently they are not once regenerated but again, and therefore they are oftener than once to be baptized.

Fourth reason: "whosoever is born of God commiteth not sin, because His seed remaineth in him" (1 John 3:9). We must here mark that he says his seed remains in him—that is to say, that it does not depart nor vanish away. And this seed is the very word of God, which remains in us by faith and does not remain faith being utterly lost. This seed also is immortal, because it will never perish if it be truly sown in our hearts.

A fifth reason is taken out of the sixth [chapter] to the Romans. Propositio, if Christ having once died cannot die any more, then we which are His members being dead together with Him, shall not die any more in sin. Assumptio:

But Christ having once died cannot die any more. Conclusion: Therefore we which are His members shall not die any more in sin. The proposition is in the eighth verse and has a manifest ground. For by the virtue of the mystical communion, which is had with Christ by faith, His spiritual life, which cannot perish, flowing into His members makes them in like manner that they die no more in sin. The assumption is in the ninth and tenth verse; the conclusion, in the eleventh. Moreover, those which are the members of Christ's body shall grow up to a perfect man (Eph. 4:12–13; 1 John 2:29). But all those which have a true faith are members of Christ's body. Therefore, those which have a true saving faith shall grow up to a perfect man, and therefore those which do truly believe shall not perish but obtain salvation.

For the better understanding of this doctrine, two things must be sought for: first, whence it is that faith perishes not? Answer. If we consider faith by itself—that is, in the own nature—it may perish and be lost. But if we consider the confirming grace which God has promised to them that believe, saving faith does not perish. It is by reason of the second grace freely promised that the first grace does not perish. "To you it is given for Christ, that ye should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake" (Phil. 1:29). One of these (says Augustine) belongs to the beginning, the other to the end; but both are God's gift, because both are given. A Christian man's beginning is to believe in Christ, and the best end he can make is to suffer for Christ. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will never depart from them, to do them good"—lo the everlasting forgiveness of sins—"and I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jer. 32:40). Behold the perseverance of faith, and regeneration that shall never be lost. "He that has begun this good work in you will finish it to the end" (Phil. 1:6).

Secondly, it may be demanded how far forth the faithful lose grace and the Holy Spirit? Answer. Distinguish the faithful, and distinguish grace. There be four sorts of believers. The first are they which hear the word and understand it. The second are they which do hear, understand, and for a time approve it. The third are those who do hear, understand, approve, and bring forth some fruits. The fourth are such as do hear, understand, approve, bring forth some fruits, and lay hold upon Christ the Redeemer by the hand of a lively faith to salvation. These are true believers and cannot utterly either fall away from God or perish. However all other besides these, both may and use to fall away and perish. Furthermore, grace is either the first or second. The first is the free favor of God, who embraces those that are His being in Christ to everlasting life. From this grace the faithful are said to fall after this fashion. As soon as they have committed some heinous sin against the law of God, they do grievously offend Him. God being offended changes the effects of grace into the effects of a certain hatred, not against the faithful themselves, but against their sins, and this both within and without. Within, when He makes them to feel an accusing conscience and witnessing that God is displeased and that they are made guilty of death by their sin. Without, when they taste of God's anger against them in the outward chastisements of the body. And thus far they fall from His fatherly love and are become the enemies of God after a sort. I say after a sort, because God does not lay down His fatherly affection and does not alter His purpose of adoption and eternal life. Although the faithful do fall away, so much as lies in them, yet God remains a father in Christ; and they also as touching right to eternal life remain sons. "They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand" (John 10:28). Here some do say that the sheep cannot be plucked out, but yet they may of their own accord slink away, but without reason, for the sheep which revolts is plucked away by the devil when it does revolt. And as he which continues in Christ's word is verily His disciple, so he that does not fall away, but abides a sheep, is verily a sheep. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Rom. 8:35). "The gifts and calling of God are ἀμεταμέλητα without repentance" (11:29). "The foundation of God remaineth sure, and has this seal, The Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19).

Second grace is either imputed or inherent. Imputed is justification, a part whereof is remission of sins. And this remains and shall forever remain sure as touching sins passed. That saying of the schoolmen is most true: sins once forgiven continue so always. But when that any faithful man shall fall grievously, the pardon of that fall is granted in God's decree, notwithstanding no pardon is actually given of God or received of man until he do repent. Yea, if he should never repent (which notwithstanding is impossible) he should be damned as being guilty of eternal death by this offence. For there is no pardon of any new sin without a new act of faith and repentance.

Inherent grace is either faith or the gift which follows faith. In saving faith we must consider the act and the habit. The act of faith is the very action of apprehending or an unfeigned apprehension of Christ. Now this faith may be lost according to some act (αυπόκριτος). The very habit also or power of faith may in itself be lost, but by reason of confirming grace faith does not perish as touching the essence thereof, but it is lessened and abated according to some degree. And hence it follows that our communion with Christ may be diminished, but that our union cannot be dissolved. There remained in David after his fall the seed of true faith and regeneration, as appears by his words, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me" (Ps. 51:11). It is also the judgment of the ancient fathers that the root of faith in Peter's fall "was not taken away and abolished, but only moved; and that it did as it were wax dry, that it was only shaken and trodden on," and that it did not utterly vanish. Here also we are to give ear a while to Gratian, who consents with us and to this purpose has gathered many testimonies together out of the fathers. "Has love," says he, "taken root? Be secure; no evil can proceed."215 Again: "Love does utterly estrange the mind, wherein it has once taken possession from the delights of the world." Again: "Love is joined to God and united inseparably and is always invincible in all." Again: "Love is an invisible unction which stands as it were instead of a root to him in whomever it shall be, which cannot wither though the sun do parch. Whatever is rooted is nourished with the heat of the sun and does not wither." Again: "He looks back after the plow who after that he has begun to do good works returns to evil, which he did forsake. Which in no wise befalls to the elect." Again: "All the elect do so go forward to good things that they do not return to the committing of evil." And again: "The fitting and moving of the Spirit may be thus understood. For as touching some virtues it does always abide in the hearts of the saints, but according to other it comes as that which will return and returns as purposing to come. For as concerning faith, hope, and charity and other graces, without which it is not possible to come to that heavenly country (as namely, humility, chastity, justice, and mercy), it never forsakes their hearts that are upright. But as touching the virtue of prophecy, the eloquence of doctrine, and working of miracles, it is sometimes present with the elect, and sometimes it withdraws itself."

The schoolmen allege Augustine to the contrary opinion, where he says that "doubtless if the man which is renewed and justified do fall back by his own will to an evil life, he cannot say I have not received, because he has by his own free will to evil lost the grace of God which he did receive." And again: "That God does not give the gift of perseverance to some of His children whom He did regenerate in Christ, and to whom He gave faith, hope, and love."217 But he speaks not these things of those which are indeed the sons of the promise, but of those which are so called of us and which bear the name and profession of sons. Furthermore, he speaks of such as have faith and love in opinion and imagination (κατὰδόκησιν), and truly also as touching outward practice. For Augustine in the same place has so expounded his meaning: "We must believe that some of the sons of perdition do begin to live, and for a time faithfully and justly in the faith that works by love, and afterward fall." Thirdly, he speaks of faith and love as they are imperfect virtues and as it were lately sprung up, and not as they are found perfect and true—to wit, as touching the truth of their essence. So Augustine: "Love is sprung up with you, but it is not yet perfected. Do not despair, but nourish it, lest it be stifled." And Gratian: "This love which was an herb in Peter before his denial and which springs up in everyone is lost and repaired before it be strengthened and made perfect."220 And indeed for the manifesting of the truth of faith and love there is required perseverance, by which it might be known that these and such like virtues have taken deep root in the heart and are grounded upon an earnest and constant affection, that they may never be overcome of temptations.

Objection 1. Sin and the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot stand together. Answer. This is true of the sin that reigns or which is committed with full consent of will, but the regenerate do not sin with a whole or full will. And I lay this foundation of this our judgment. In temptation, we must consider two things: the beginning or ground and the degrees. The ground is our own concupiscence—that is, our inbred corruption. The subject thereof is the whole man, but especially the faculties of man's soul: the mind, will, and affections. And in these it does immediately exist and reign alone before a sinner be converted. And a man being not regenerated, be he what he will be, he is flesh every lot of him. But after that a man is regenerated, the flesh is no more alone or severed by itself, but mixed with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the flesh, although both these qualities remain as touching nature distinct in one subject—as in the twilight the light does not appear alone, but with darkness, and darkness is not alone but with the light. And the man that is regenerated is not only flesh, nor only spirit, nor flesh in one part, and spirit in another, but the whole man is flesh in every part, and the whole man is spirit in every part. And because those things which are contrary cannot consist together in the highest degrees, therefore albeit the whole man be flesh, yet he is not flesh in the highest degree, nor spirit in the highest degree, but in remiss and lower degrees partly flesh and partly spirit—as lukewarm water is remissly and indifferently cold throughout and remissly also hot throughout. Hence, it follows that concupiscence may exist and be with the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that it bear not rule. The degrees of temptation are, as James teaches (1:14–15), in number five.

The first, abstraction or drawing away (τὸ εξέλκείν), when the mind receives a thought cast into it about the committing of evil and by this means suffers herself to be drawn away from her duty to other things.

The second is inescation or enticing (τὸ δελεάζσιν), when the mind conceives a morose thought for the committing of sin together with a certain delectation of the affection—as when fishes delight themselves with the bait hanging upon the hook. Thus far all divines think a regenerate man may come, and it is most certain. For hence it is that Paul complains that he was held captive of sin (Rom. 7:23).

The third degree is conception, (τὸ τυλλαμζαίειν) namely, when there is a will, consent, and a purpose to commit evil. And when corruption does come thus far, there be some that say that all repentance and faith is driven out and gone, but not truly. There is indeed in the unregenerate in whom sin reigns a full consent, but in the regenerate, in whom the flesh and the spirit are two contrary foundations of actions, the consent is more remiss and imperfect; for they do so will, as that they will, and so nill as that they will, as Paul has taught by his own example.

The fourth degree (τὸ τίκτειν) is birth of sin, when after consent an evil is actually committed. And in this act the same man being regenerate does at the same instant both sin and not sin. He sins only according to the flesh; and in that part wherein he is renewed he does not sin, but before and after the fact detests his sin. And as when the Spirit prevails, the action is not free from all pollution of the flesh; so when the flesh prevails, the action is not so corrupt in the regenerate as it is in those in whom sin reigns. Nevertheless, I confess that in every grievous fall the flesh does get the mastery, and that the gift of true faith after the receipt of the wound lies flat and in a swoon for a time, but that it is not for all that abolished and quite put out.

The last degree is perfection (τὸ αποτελεῖν)—namely when sin being persisted and ripened by often iteration and custom groweth as it were to a habit. So says Gregory. "Sin always is finished in a work by those same four ways. For first the sin is committed closely; after that it is discovered in the sight of men without blushing at the fault. Then it is brought into a custom. And at the last either it is nourished with the deceit of vain hope or with the obstinacy of wretched despair." And Isidore: "Action brings forth custom; and custom, necessity. And so a man being fettered with these links lies fast bound as it were with a chain of vices." This last degree befalls not the regenerate, and if it did, faith and the Holy Spirit should be shaken out and banished.

Objection 2. Adam when he was void of corruption fell wholly away. Therefore, much more they who being born and regenerated after Adam shall believe. Answer. The reason is unlike. "For we have," says Augustine, "by this grace of God in the receiving of that which is good and in the constant keeping of the same not only power to do that which we will, but also will to do that which we can, which Adam wanted. For one of these was in him, but the other was not. For to receive good he wanted not grace, because as yet he had not lost it. But to continue in it he wanted the help of grace, without which he was not able at all to do it. And he received power if he would, but he had not will answerable to his power; for if it had been in him he should have persevered."

Objection 3. Propositio: The member of a harlot cannot be the member of Christ. Assumptio: But he which believes truly, who is actually a member of Christ, may be the member of a harlot. Conclusion: Therefore, one that truly believes may come to be no member of Christ. Answer. The member of Christ is diversely distinguished, for there is either a true or an apparent member. An apparent member is that which is not a member according to election, nor in itself, but in show only—that is, judged by means of outward profession to be in the visible church. And it is like a wooden leg fastened to the body by art. A true member is either by destination and appointment, or now actually one. Members by appointment are all those who are elected, although they be not as yet regenerated or born. An actual member is either one that is lively or half dead. A lively member is that which is according to election and in very deed engrafted into Christ and ruled by His Spirit. That is a half-dead member which does indeed belong to God's election and is engrafted into Christ, but yet being hurt by some grievous fall has so much as in it is lost the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now I answer to the proposition. First, a member of Christ in show may be the member of a harlot, as a wooden foot which is indeed the member of some image may be an apparent member of a man's body whereto it is fitted by art. Secondly, a member of Christ by appointment (in God's decree) may be the member of a harlot, as Paul, who was separated from the womb, was for a time a member of Satan persecuting the church (Gal. 1:15). Thirdly, he which is a lively and active member of Christ and so continues cannot be the member of a harlot, but a member that is crazy and half dead may be. For however he remains in Christ in respect of incorporation and the mystical union, yet he is out of Him as touching the force and efficacy of the Spirit, which for a time through his own default he does not perceive, until he do repent. A leg that is troubled with the palsy or receives no nourishment is a true leg, because in respect of union it is incorporated into the body, however it has almost lost all communion and fellowship with the rest of the members (παρά λυσις ἀτρορία). Neither must this which I say seem strange that the members of Christ may in some sort be the member of a harlot, because the conjunction is not of the same kind. The conjunction with Christ is spiritual, but that which is with a harlot is corporal.

Error 9. This platform gives to every man a free will flexible and inclinable to both parts by grace and teaches that it is in man's will to apply himself to grace being given by the help of universal grace or to reject the same through the weakness of corrupt nature. But this is false; for the first, universal grace is not effectual, unless it be confirmed by the second grace following it. As for example, if a man shall receive power to believe if he will, yet he shall never actually and indeed believe, except there be also given the help of the other grace, which brings the former into act. But this second grace is not given to all and every one. Moreover, this opinion is repugnant to very plain places of Scripture. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, and I will put My fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me" (Jer. 32:40). Again: "God shall confirm you to the end blameless: God is faithful by whom ye are called to the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1:8–9). It is also contrary to Christ's speech: "Every man that has heard and has learned of the Father cometh to Me" (John 6:45). "This grace," says Augustine, "which is secretly infused into men's hearts by God's liberality is refused of no hard heart."223 And afterward: "If it had pleased the Father to teach them to come to Christ who accounted the word of the cross foolishness, without all doubt they also would have come. Why does He not teach all? If we shall say, because they will not learn whom He does not teach, it will be answered us; and where is that which is said to Him, Thou O Lord, convertest and quickenest us." Again: "The effect of God's mercy cannot be in man's power so as that He should show mercy to him in vain if man be unwilling, because if He would have mercy on them, He could call them so as they should be fitted to move, understand, and follow."225 And again: "God shows mercy to none in vain, but to whom He shows mercy, him He calls so, as He knows to be fitting for him, that he may not reject Him who calls him." Neither do I here respect the distinction of sufficient and effectual grace; for I acknowledge no grace sufficient for the conversion of a sinner which is not effectual, as I have already said before, because free will is altogether wanting in spiritual things. We are stark dead in sins, and our sufficiency is wholly from God. Therefore, there is in us beside the want of original righteousness a threefold impotency. The first is that whereby we are unable to receive or desire supernatural grace offered by God. The second is that whereby we are unable to use it lawfully. The third is that whereby we are unable to retain and keep it. And therefore there are certain degrees of grace to be bestowed in the true conversion of a sinner, in respect of which Augustine makes a fivefold grace: preventing, preparing, working, coworking, and the gift of perseverance. Preventing grace, praeveniens, is that whereby God inspires into the mind of the sinner that is to be converted good thoughts, a good purpose, and a desire of supernatural grace. The means whereby preventing grace is given is the voice and preaching of the gospel, by the which being heard and thought upon the Holy Ghost does show forth His efficacy and power. For hence it is that the gospel is called the "ministry of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:6). And that, "faith is said to be by hearing" (Rom. 10:17). Therefore, they which are out of the church do want the preventing grace, unless it be extraordinarily conferred, which yet is very seldom done. Preparing grace, praeparans, is that whereby it is given us to consent to God offering grace, or whereby the mind and will are prepared that they may yield assent and obedience to the Holy Spirit. For as all supernatural grace in respect of God's donation is altogether from Him, even so we obtain our consentment and power to receive grace conferred no otherwise than by the gift of God. Working grace, operans, is that whereby we are delivered from the dominion of sin and are renewed in mind, will, and affection, having received power to obey God. Coworking grace, cooperans, is that whereby God confers and persists the grace of renewing being received. And without this grace following, the first is unprofitable. For when grace is given by God and received of us by the second grace, we do not use it lawfully but by this third grace. Augustine says well: "If in so great weakness of this life the will renewed should be so left to the regenerate that they may remain in God's help if they themselves will, and if God should not make them for to will among so many and so mighty temptations the will would faint by reason of the weakness thereof. Man's weakness therefore is relieved, that through the grace of God there should be will inseparably annexed to the power, and therefore the will though it be but weak, yet should not for all that faint and be overcome by adversity." Again: "Therefore, that we may will He works without us; but when we will, and so will that we do also, He coworks with us. Yet notwithstanding without Him working that we may will, or coworking when we do will, we have no power to perform the good works of godliness." The gift of perseverance is that whereby after that we have received the grace of renovation, we do also receive a will to persevere and continue constantly in that good which we can do. Jerome: "That suffices me not which He has once bestowed. I ask that I may receive, and when I shall receive, I ask again."229 These five graces spoken of even now, being taken severally and asunder by themselves, are not sufficient to salvation (for the preventing grace is nothing available without the preparing grace, and the working grace without the coworking grace), yet being joined together they are sufficient. And hence it plainly appears that there is not any grace truly sufficient to the salvation of a sinner that is stark dead in sins, the which is not also effectual. If so much strength were given to one that would lift up a mighty burden as were sufficient, that is, so much as did exceed the weight of the thing that is to be lifted up, out of all doubt motion would follow, it would come up—so if God do give so much grace as is sufficient—that is, as would overcome the hardness of the heart—the corruption thereof could not possibly hinder it from being converted. Moreover, if these five graces do concur in the conversion of a sinner, the regenerate person shall not have free will flexible alike either to good or evil, neither shall it be in our choice to obey or resist the motion of the Spirit. Yea, from hence it follows that it multiplies grace and that the will is so effectually ruled by it in those that are truly converted as that they follow faith and godliness with an inflexible and steadfast affection. The Spirit promised us of God does not enable us to walk if we will, but makes us walk indeed (Ezekiel 36–37). Those which are drawn have not only power to run if so be that they themselves will, but they run indeed after Christ (1 John 3:9). He which is born of God sins not; yea, he cannot sin. Furthermore, perseverance in faith does wholly depend upon God's will, as these words of Paul do show: "I have reserved to Myself seven thousand men, which have not bowed the knee to Baal" (Rom. 11:4). And those which do truly believe have received of God both power to persevere in grace if they will and also will to do that which they have power to do. So Augustine: "There is in us by this grace of God (which is by Christ) in receiving of good and in the constant keeping of the same not only power to do that which we will, but will to do that which we have power to do." Therefore, those that do truly believe cannot but persevere.

Objection 1. "O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard: what could I have done any more to My vineyard that I have not done to it? Why have I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it bringeth forth wild grapes?" (Isa. 5:3). These Jews therefore had the help of God, which was thoroughly sufficient to conversion and the leading of a life acceptable to God. Answer. God speaks in this place of the sufficiency of outward means—that is, of the preaching of His word, of His benefits, and chastisements whereby they were sufficiently invited and led to salvation, but that they were of such peevish and perverse dispositions. God therefore did that to this wicked vineyard which if He had done in a good vineyard, it would have brought forth the fruit of obedience. And here he speaks not of the sufficiency of inward grace whereby an evil vineyard might be changed into a good vineyard. You will say that God then has no just cause to expostulate with the Jews that they brought not forth fruit, because He gave them not grace to repent and bring forth fruit, which could by no means be had if He do not give it. I answer that God could not justly have expostulated with the Jews if He had owed them grace and being bound to give it had not given it, if they had not cast away the grace which they received in their first parents by which they might have brought forth fruit beseeming repentance, if He had denied them being anew desirous to receive the grace which now is lost. But God is bound to no man; and we have cast away that grace which was bestowed in Adam; and we do not desire or care for it being cast away. Therefore, God does most justly expostulate with us, if we bring not forth fruit.

Objection 2. "How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not" (Matt. 23:37). How did Christ will, and so will that He complains of those who would not, if He had not through His help made them able to will whom He knew could not will? Answer. Christ is here said to have willed to gather them together not by the will of His good pleasure, (Voluntate beneplaciti. Voluil. Signi), which may never be refitted but by His signifying or revealed will. For He is said to will to gather all unto Himself, because by the preaching of the word He calls all in common unto salvation and prefixes to Himself this end of preaching, that they should commit themselves to His protection and fidelity. By this will therefore He may will to gather the Jews together, though in the meantime He do not help them, that they themselves may be able to will. And He does also justly complain of those that will not, because men's impotency to that which is good and their bondage under sin whereby they are made to nill and unable to will that which is good comes not from the Creator, but from him who of his own accord fell away from the Creator. Secondly, I say that Christ is here said to have willed not as He is God effectually mollifying and converting the hearts of men, but as He was a minister of the circumcision (Rom. 15:8) while He sought the conversion of the Jews by preaching. A place altogether like is in Acts 7:51, where the Jews are said "to have rushed against" or "resisted the Holy Ghost" (ἀντιπίπτετε). But these words are to be understood not in regard of the inward and effectual operation of the spirit, but in respect of the outward ministry of the prophets. It pleased Lombard also to interpret this place, "How often would I have gathered thy children, and thou wouldst not?" thus: "So many as I have gathered together, I did it by My effectual will, you being unwilling."

Objection 3. "I stand at the door and knock, if any shall open it to Me I will come in to him" (Rev. 3:20). Therefore, all at whose door Christ knocks have sufficient grace whereby they are able to open if they will. He is unwise that knocks at the door, if he know assuredly that there is nobody within that is able to open it. Answer. This place favors not universal grace, for these at whose door Christ knocks are those which believe and are converted; and He knocks at their hearts partly by His word, partly by afflictions, that He might stir up their languishing faith and increase and confirm His fellowship with them. You may read the like in Song 5:1–2: "Open to me my sister, my love, my dove."

Error 10. Tenthly, this platform disagrees with itself. For it says that God does confer to all men all the helps of nature and grace, and that he is not wanting to any so but that he may obtain salvation. But I say, and that out of this platform, that God is wanting to some offenders, because He gives them only a power to persevere in faith if they will—or (if you had rather) a power to will to persevere (posse velle perseverare)—and makes them not to persevere actually and indeed. And unless this grace be given, it is not possible that they should obtain salvation by persevering. For it is a most sure rule: a man does not that good thing which by grace he is able for to do, unless God make him to do it, as He has made him able to do it if he will. Therefore, he to whom the very act of perseverance is not given, being smitten with the violence of some grievous temptation, without delay will fall away from faith and shall be damned.

Error 11. Lastly, this hypothesis or platform is but the varnishing and fresh trimming over of certain opinions which the church in former ages did condemn. The Pelagians taught that all men were redeemed by Christ, but not made free because God distributed His gifts according to the capableness of them which came to receive them. The same did Faustus the Pelagian also affirm: "How has God," says he, "redeemed all the world? Do we not see men to live still in their sins? How shall we think that they are ransomed whom we do see still to continue captives? Let us gather that which is here meant by using a similitude—as, for example, if any ambassador or priest purposing to make intercession for a city taken by war shall bestow a very great ransom and set free from his servitude who is the chief commander of all the multitude which is in captivity, insomuch that they are altogether delivered from all constraint or necessity of bondage. And then if happily either their usual delight or some soothing slave shall so instantly urge some of the captives as that everyone turning servant and slave to his own will shall refuse that freely bestowed benefit—shall we say that the contempt of the unthankful captive has lessened the estimation of the ransom? Or that he which refuses liberty does any way diminish the good will of him that ransoms? Surely no. For even as he which returns may be well accepted with him that does ransom him, so is he guilty of contempt who did not return." Thus we see that the Pelagians did forge or frame a redemption through Christ without deliverance. And what else do they who publish in their pamphlets, that all and every one on God's part are redeemed, but not saved, because they will not believe? And now let us hear the confutation of this opinion. Augustine says, "You say they are redeemed, but they are not delivered. They are washed, but they are not cleansed. These be your monstrous opinions. These are the paradoxes of the Pelagian heretics, etc. But I pray you, tell me how can this redemption be understood, if He do not redeem from evil, which redeemed Israel from all their sins? For wherever we make mention of redemption, there also is understood a ransom; and what is that but the precious blood of the immaculate lamb Christ Jesus? And concerning this ransom, why should we ask any other wherefore it was given? Let him that gave the ransom, let him that paid the price make the answer. This is, says He, My blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Proceed, I pray proceed, and as you say in the sacrament of our Savior, men are baptized, but they are not saved. They are redeemed, but they are not delivered. So say you also. Christ's blood is shed for them for the remission of sins, but they are cleansed by the remission of no sin. They are wonderful, strange, and untrue things which you affirm.234 Concerning the redemption of Christ's blood, by reason of the exceeding errors which have grown in respect thereof, insomuch that some, even as their own writings do witness, do hold that it was shed even for those ungodly ones who from the beginning of the world until the passion of our Lord were dead in their ungodliness and punished with eternal damnation, contrary to that saying of the prophet, O death, I will be your death, and your sting O hell—we do decree that it ought simply and faithfully to be held and taught according to the evangelical and apostolic truth that we judge that this ransom was given for them of whom the Lord Himself says, Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone which believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. So God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone that believed in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. And the apostle says, Christ was once offered for the taking away of the sins of many."

Prosper ascribes this platform of general grace to the Pelagians. "This is," says he, "their very opinion and profession, that Adam sinning, every man sinned, and that no man is saved by his own works but by the grace of God in regeneration. And yet that the reconcilement which is in the sacrament of Christ's blood is without exception offered to all men, so that whoever will come to faith and baptism may be saved, and that God did foreknow before the creation of the world who should believe or who should remain in that faith which must afterward be propped and helped by His grace, and that He predestinated them to His kingdom who being freely called He foresaw that they would be worthy of election and that they would depart out of this life making a good end. And that therefore every man is provoked to believe and do good by godly institutions, that no man may despair of the attainment of eternal life, seeing that there is a reward prepared for a voluntary devotion." The difference I confess consists in this, that the Pelagians do either wholly ascribe to nature the ability to do well, or else partly to nature and partly to grace. But this platform ascribes all things wholly to grace, which indeed is very right. But while they go about to ordain universal grace, they do not free themselves but are rather more entangled. For most true is that saying of Peter Martyr: "While these men make grace so common to all, they turn grace into nature."237 And I would willingly be certified whether they who have received this grace be regenerate or no. If they be regenerate, then all men are regenerate. If they be not regenerate, then have all men power to believe and to attain salvation if they will—yea, even while they remain unregenerate. But this power, if it be in man before his conversion, will not differ much from nature. And if so be that grace extend as far as nature, we must not pray more for grace than for nature, neither need we any more pray for the conversion of unbelievers, because it is in their own power by reason of general grace to be converted if they will. Prosper also ascribes this platform to the Pelagians in these verses:

Thus we determine of that grace that makes

Us God's own people, and to Him full dear:

But ye affirm that no man it forsakes,

But that the world from sin it freeth clear,

And passing none, does proffer mere salvation

To all without exception; yet they come

Guided by their own list to this vocation,

And motions of the mind, directing some,

To the embracing of that offered light

Which to all that will, does clear the sight.

But afterward he condemneth it in this sort:

Let's see how you can prove, that Christ His grace

Proffers God's kingdom and true blessedness

To all men born, letting none overpass,

To whom it granteth not this happiness.

When even at this time through the whole world's frame

And compass of the earth, wherein we live,

Christ's Gospel is not known, nor yet His name;

I cannot say but that He could it give

Even at the first, to all that breathe on earth

Or ever in this world received birth.

And again, he says:

If no man be whom He will not redeem,

No doubt but that His will shall be effected,

But of a great part He makes no esteem,

Who in infernal darkness live rejected.

Now if the divers motions of the mind,

And a peculiar perfect liberty

Do make a different cause, to all mankind

God's will most free from inability

Either receiveth strength, from human pleasure

Or wanteth strength, when will attains that treasure.

And again, he answers the Pelagians, who say that by willing it we are able to attain God's grace, or else to resist it by nilling it, after this manner:

How falls it out that this Almighty grace

Which saveth all, rejects the work it wrought,

When neither cause, condition, time, nor place,

Can for a hindrance thereunto be brought?

And again:

What would you say when you do plainly see

How Christ His grace in twins a difference makes,

And those who at one time conceived be,

And whom the world into her bosom takes

It does distinguish, granting one heaven's bliss;

The other hell, where grief and horror is?

To say the will directs, you speak amiss.

And again:

No man can hold them justly culpable

Or guilty of this sin to whom God's might

Did never show itself so favorable

As to appear, no not in glimmering light.

Faustus, the semi-Pelagian, accused the Catholics in that they said that our Lord Jesus Christ "did not take upon Him man's flesh for all men, nor died generally for all." And on the other side, the Catholics accuse the Pelagians "in that they say that God repels none from eternal life, but is willing indifferently that all men should be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."240 And again, that "they say that our Lord Jesus Christ died for all mankind, and that no man is utterly exempted from the redemption of His blood, although he lead all this his life estranged from Him, because that the sacrament of God's grace appertains to all men, whereby many are not therefore regenerated because they are foreknown that they have not a will to be regenerated, and that therefore on God's part eternal life is prepared for all men, but in respect of the freedom of the will they say that they only attain everlasting life who do of their own accord believe." And again they say that "they will not admit of that exposition of that saying which is alleged out of Augustine, which is that unless He will have all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2)."241 And again: "Not only those which appertain to the number of the saints, but all men altogether, without exception of any."

I wish also that thing were marked—namely that the Catholics are accused by the Pelagians that under the name of predestination they did establish a certain fatal necessity, and that they made a kind of violent preordination, which accusation has also been laid against us. And the like crime shows the like cause.

Lastly, this platform does passing well agree with that doctrine concerning predestination which is generally maintained in the schools and synagogues of the papists—yea verily, to speak the truth, it seems to be borrowed even from thence. For if we well consider of the matter, what else has Pighius taught? What else has Catharinus maintained? And else at this day do the gross fat monks maintain who impart God's actions in the case of predestination within these pales. First, say they, God foresaw the natures and sins of all men. Then prepared He Christ the Redeemer. Afterward, He willed for the merit of Christ foreseen to bestow sufficient helps of grace upon all men whereby they might be saved through Christ; and He would it even in this, so much as in Him was, that all men might be saved, His will preceding. Lastly, He did mercifully predestinate those whom He did see would end their lives in God's favor, and He did justly reject othersome either for original or actual sins in which He foresaw they would end their lives.

A COROLLARY, OR ADDITION A most certain theorem or undoubted truth.

God Has Not Revealed Christ to All and Every Man

The Proofs

This is evident by Scriptures and experience. "That which has not been told them, shall they see, and that which they have not heard, they shall understand" (Isa. 52:14). "Behold Thou shalt call a nation, which Thou hast not known: and nations that knew not Thee shall run to Thee" (55:5). "I have been sought of them, that asked not before, I was found of them, that sought Me not" (65:1). "And in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not My people" (Hos. 1:10). "I will have mercy upon her that was not pitied, and I will say to them which were not My people, thou art My people" (2:23). "God in times past suffered all the Gentiles to walk in their own ways" (Acts 14:16). "And the time of this ignorance God regarded not, but now He admonisheth all men everywhere to repent" (17:30). "To him now that is of power to establish you according to my Gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ, by the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is opened" (Rom. 16:25–26). "Which is the mystery hid since the world began and from all ages, but now is made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of this glorious mystery among the Gentiles" (Col. 1:26–27). "Ye were at that time without Christ, and had no hope, and were atheists or without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). "The mystery of Christ in other ages was not opened to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles" (3:5). "He showeth His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel: He has not dealt so with every nation, neither have they known His judgments" (Ps. 147:19–20).

The most wise philosophers among the Gentiles have indeed smattered many things of God; but in the meantime, what say they of Christ? Why should they be so exceeding silent in this point, if Christ were revealed to all? Socrates, being ready to die, said, "I depart out of this life, and they do live with whom I am thoroughly to plead my cause—whether it be good, the immortal gods do know; and indeed I think no man knows. And we owe," says he, "O Crito a cook to Aesculapius to pay the price of the potion." It is reported that Aristotle, being ready to die, cried out, "O you which are the chiefest thing of all things which are, have mercy upon me."2

The Gentiles knew not God, that great benefactor, and therefore feigned to themselves certain favors, Castor and Pollux, and Hercules, called Alexikakoj, that is, a helper in distress, or repeller of evils, and Aesculapius the physician. Solinus says that there is not as yet any of the Gentiles found who has attained to the height of felicity and may justly be accounted happy. Albinus speaks thus: "When such like questions are propounded why one is judged thus and another after another manner, why this man is blinded, God giving him over, and another enlightened through God's assistance—let not us presume or take upon us to judge of the judgment of so great a judge, but with trembling let us cry out with the apostle, 'O the depth.' "

Consectary 1

The promise concerning the seeds of the woman belongs not to all and to every one. For a promise to whom it is not revealed is not actually a promise.

Consectary 2

However the redemption that is by Christ belongs to all, yet it belongs not to all and to every one. For a benefit to be perceived or received by a supernatural faith, if it be not revealed, is no benefit.

Consectary 3

Vocation and universal saving grace belongs not to all and every particular person, for God calls us by revealing and offering Christ to us.

Consectary 4

The foreknowledge of faith in Christ, and of privative infidelity is not the square and rule according to which God has ordained and disposed His predestination, because there be very many that never so much as heard of Christ, in whom therefore there is neither faith in Christ nor privative infidelity or contempt of the gospel.

Trini-uni Deo Gloria.

FINIS

MONERGISM BOOKS

A Christian and Plain Treatise of the Manner and Order of Predestination by William Perkins, Copyright © 2020

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Table of Contents

To the Right Worshipful Sir Peter Buck, Knight

To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major

Master Perkin's Epistle to the Reader

The Order of Predestination As It Is Collected Out of the Scriptures by the Author

First Objection

Second Objection

Third Objection

Fourth Objection

11 Errors

God Has Not Revealed Christ to all and every man