A49258:590
A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10.…
A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10. Wherein a Christian may discern, whether yet he be effectually called and elected. And what course he ought to take that he may attain the assurance thereof. Preached by that faithful servant of Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence Jury, London.A treatise of effectual calling and election In XVI. sermons, on 2 Peter 1.10. Wherein a Christian may discern, whether yet he be effectually called and elected. And what course he ought to take that he may attain the assurance thereof. Preached by that faithfull servant of Christ, Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence Jury, London.
London: printed for John Rothwell, 1655
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Another Scripture they abuse is, Exod. 32.32. it was Moses prayer, If thou wilt not (saith Moses to God) forgive their sins, then blot my name out of the book of life. Now, say they, the book of life is Gods election: and here Moses prayed, that God would blot his name out of the book of life. Intimating, say they, a man may be elected and written in that book, and yet afterward blotted out and perish.
To which I answer. That this prayer of Moses is only a wish or supposition, as Pauls was, when he wished he were accursed from Christ, for his kindred in the flesh. Now a man may suppose mountains of Gold, and suppose things that never were, nor never shall be in being: bare suppositions put nothing in being; so here, that Moses makes a supposition in a pathetical prayer, this doth no way argue, as if his name could be blotted out of the book of life.
To which I answer. That this prayer of Moses is onely a wish or supposition, as Pauls was, when he wisht he were accursed from Christ, for his kindred in the flesh. Now a man may suppose mountains of Gold, and suppose things that never were, nor never shall be in being: bare suppositions put nothing in being; so here, that Moses makes a supposition in a pathetical prayer, this doth no way argue, as if his name could be blotted out of the book of life.
Secondly, Rivet he expounds it thus, that there is a double book of life. The book of life being sometimes taken for the eternal council and decree of God, as Phil. 4.3. sometimes for the special providence of God over men, in preserving them amongst the living. So we read