The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32…

I Conceive this advertisement to be of great necessity. But I must first tell you the meaning and then the reasons of it. Only I am sorry that I know not how to express it fully, but in School terms which are not so familiar to you. 1. That which shall certainly come to pass, we call a thing [Future]. That which May and ⟨p. 212⟩Can be Done, we call [Possible.] All things are not Future which are Possible: God can do more then he hath done or will do. He could have made more worlds, and so more were Possible then were Future. Moreover a thing is said to be Possible, in reference to some Power which can accomplish it: whether it be Gods Power, or Angels, or mans. God hath Decreed that none of his Elect shall finally or totally fall away and perish: and therefore their so falling and perishing is not-future, that is, It is a thing that shall never come to pass: But God never Decreed that it should be utterly Impossible, and therefore it still remaineth Possible, though it shall never come to pass. Obj. But it is said, They shall deceive if it were Possible the very Elect. A most comfortable place, which many opposers of Election and Free-grace, do in vain seek to obscure. But let me tell you for the right understanding of it, 1. That as I said, [Possible] and [Impossible] are Relative terms, and have Relation to the Power of some Agent, as proportioned to the thing to be Done: Now this Text speaks only of the power of false Christs and false Prophets (and the devil by them) Their power of Deceiving is exceeding ⟨p. 213⟩great, but not great enough to Deceive the Elect: which is true in two Respects, 1. Because the Elect are guided and fortified by Gods Spirit. 2. Because seducers work not efficiently, but finally, by propounding objects; or by a Moral improper efficiency only. All their seducements cannot force or necessitate us to be Deceived by them. But though it be impossible to them to do it; yet it is Possible to God to permit (which yet he never will) and so Possible for our selves to be our own Deceivers, or to give Deceivers strength against us, by a wilful receiving of their poisoned baits. 2. Besides Christ spoke not in Aristotle's School, but among the Vulgar, where words must be used in the common sense, or else they will not be understood: And the Vulgar use to call that Impossible which shall never come to pass.

I Conceive this advertisement to be of great necessity. But I must first tell you the meaning and then the reasons of it. Only I am sorry that I know not how to express it fully, but in School terms which are not so familiar to you. 1. That which shall certainly come to pass, we call a thing [Future]. That which May and