A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certain doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certaine doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…

which if they neglect and despise, as the Pharisees did, and all impenitent sinners do, God and his Covenant are blameless, in offering them life, and the means of it; their destruction is of themselves. I have read such manner of discourse as this often in Carvinus, that busy Arminian; I am sorry to read it in the writings of good men; especially when I find it not one jot mended in them. Yet all this I see still tends to a gracious end, even to ⟨p. 70⟩the justifying of God; as when you say, Their destruction is of themselves. But so do Arminians also pretend; to wit, the justifying of God in the way of Reprobation: but the issue is, to justify themselves, and glorify themselves in the way of Election. But, I pray you, what think you of Infants that perish in Original sin; how is their destruction of themselves? Is it of themselves that they are borne in sin? Yet I presume you will not say, with Arminians, that all Infants that dye in their infancy, whether they be the Children of Turks and Saracens, yet are saved, as well as the children of believing Parents. Again, was not Pharaohs destruction of himself also, for not letting Israel go? yet, will you deny that God hardened his heart, that he should not let Israel go? Sihon King of Heshbon, was not his destruction of himself, in that he would not suffer Israel to pass by him, though they promised to go by the high-way, and to turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to pay for all that they received of them, both meat and drink? nevertheless it is said, that, The Lord hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, because he would deliver him into the hands of the Israelites. The destruction of Abimelech and of the Shechemites, was it not of themselves? yet surely, God it was that sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, that the cruelty against the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, and their blood, might ¹come and be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which had slain them; and upon the men of Shechem which had aided him to kill his brethren. But to proceed: The face of your discourse seems to tend to the maintenance of a sufficient grace in the Reprobates themselves; whereof there is much question: but yet you express only a sufficient grace without them, whereof there is no question.

which if they neglect and despise, as the Pharisees did, and all impenitent sinners doe, God and his Covenant are blamelesse, in offering them life, and the meanes of it; their destruction is of themselves. I have read such manner of discourse as this often in Carvinus, that busie Arminian; I am sorry to read it in the writings of good men; especially when I find it not one jot mended in them. Yet all this I see still tends to a gracious end, even to