An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 12. But there are other Acts of God's justice which are comprised in Reprobation or Rejection as the word is commonly understood: As, 1▪ Cutting off a sinner untimely in his Impenitency. 2. Denying him some inward helps of Grace which once he had, or was fair for (so far as that is quid positivum) and depriving him positively of some Means of Grace; for his sinful refusal or abuse, or for abuse of other Means and Mercies. And all these punishments God so far decreeth as he Executeth; which is upon none but such as by sin against the Law of Grace deserve them.

§. 12. But there are other Acts of God's justice which are comprized in Reprobation or Rejection as the word is commonly understood: As, 1▪ Cutting off a sinner untimely in his Impenitency. 2. Denying him some inward helps of Grace which once he had, or was fair for (so far as that is quid positivum) and depriving him positively of some Means of Grace; for his sinful refusal or abuse, or for abuse of other Means and Mercies. And all these punishments God so far decreeth as he Executeth; which is upon none but such as by sin against the Law of Grace deserve them.

§. 13. But where Negations are no Punishments nor Privations, they fall not under the notion of Positive Effects or Objects, and so are not fit to denominate a Positive Decree or Will. Therefore when it is not a Punishment, (Not to give Faith, Repentance, Preaching, &c.) is no act of Reprobation: ⟨p. 44⟩As not to give that Faith, Repentance and Pardon which he needed not to Adam in Innocency; not to give them in act to Infants, &c.

§. 14. Yea, when a Penal Privation is only the consequent of God's not Acting, and not of any Positive Act, there the Ratio Poenae is of God, and is quid positivum, and God causeth it by that Law which did make the debitum poenae: But yet the Negation or Privation in which it consisteth is Nothing, or nothing of God's causing, and therefore not fit to denominate a distinct Decree: e. g. Not to give special Grace, Pardon, Justification, Glory, to Judas, is nothing, and so as nothing not the object of a positive Decree: But both the positive acts by which any Mercy is withdrawn, and also the relation of Punishment which is in these Nothings or Privations is caused by God, and therefore Decreed by him. As if God say, This shall be his punishment that will not Eat, that he shall die of Famine: Here not eating is nothing, but the penal reason which is in Famine, which is but the privation of Meats, resulteth from the Law of Nature and will of God.