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…

Still you proceed to prove that which no man denies: namely, ¹that God purposed life to the world, upon condition of obedience and repentance: provided, that you understand it aright: namely, that obedience and repentance is ordained of God, as a condition of life; not of Gods purpose. Otherwise it were a very wild expression to say, that, God ordained that obedience and repentance should be the condition of Gods ordination: Or, that God purposed that obedience and repentance should be the condition ⟨p. 75⟩of Gods purpose. Yet, by the way, I desire to know whether you exclude faith? If you do, what ground have you to prove that God ever purposed that any of Adams posterity, coming to ripeness of age, should be saved upon the condition of obedience and repentance without faith? Last of all, on the other side, it is as undoubtedly true, that God ordained, that whosoever, coming to ripe years, should not believe and repent, should be damned; the very elect not excepted: Not that any such conditionate decrees are agreeable unto God; but upon such decrees as were absolute in God, such Propositions as these are naturally inferred; Whosoever believeth and repenteth, shall be saved; Whosoever believeth not and repenteth not, shall be damned. One thing I had almost forgotten: In the former Section you spake of a Purpose of God to save the world upon condition of obedience or repentance, in a disjunctive manner: now you are come off from that, and turn your former disjunctive into a copulative, saying, that God purposed to save the world upon condition of their obedience and repentance: This argueth that you are not well grounded in your own opinion. Howsoever, your third reason is drawn from the end which God aimed at in offering means of salvation to the world, which is not (say you) in the first place to harden, or leave them without excuse; but to bring them to the knowledge of God and of themselves, to repentance, to the seeking after God, to the purging of themselves from sin, and to peace. I am content, first, to consider what you say; secondly, how you prove, who ever said, that God offered means of salvation to any to this end, that he might harden them? Means of grace were never (that I know of) called means of obduration. Hardening followeth hereupon by accident; but means of grace harden not.

Still you proceed to prove that which no man denyes: namely,