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…

You proceed in clearing a difficulty devised and shaped without ¹all ground; as if any sober man would find it strange, that a conditionate will of God should not be accomplished as often as the condition fails. And to this purpose you make use of the nature of a disjunct axiom. All-along I savour others that have grassed here, yet have not rested themselves contented with this, but proceeded further to more erroneous opinions.

You proceed in clearing a difficulty devised and shaped without ¹all ground; as if any sober man would find it strange, that a conditionate will of God should not be accomplished as often as the condition failes. And to this purpose you make use of the nature of a disjunct axiome. All-along I savour others that have grased here, yet have not rested themselves contented with this, but proceeded further to more erroneous opinions.

1. 1Examine.Examin.

A second objection you propose, in the second place, the solution whereof you seem to travel with, much more than of the former: and yet the objection is altogether as causeless, and without all just ground, as the former. I have now been something more than ordinarily conversant in these Controversies, for the space of seventeen years; I never yet met with any of our Divines, or any other, that made any question whether Gods will, being granted to pass on any object, were serious yea or no: I should think, there is no intelligent man living that makes any doubt of this; but puts it rather out of all question, that whatsoever God wills, he wills it seriously. I confess, the Arminians do usually obtrude some such things on our Divines, yet not altogether such; for they do not obtrude upon us, as if we said, God doth not will seriously that which he willeth; but rather, that he doth not seriously exhort and admonish all those whom he doth admonish to believe and repent: as if he made show only of desiring their obedience and salvation, when indeed he doth not. Yet, you seem to sweat not a little in debellating this man of straw. Upon these terms I might easily dispatch my self of all further trouble, in examining your elaborate Answer to so causeless an Objection: but I will not; for it may be you insperse something by the way of opposition to that which you do profess; which is this, That God doth not at all will the obedience and repentance of any but those who are his Elect. And I would not pretermit any evidence you bring to countenance your cause, in opposition to our Tenet, unanswered. That Gods Oath, or Covenant, or the works of any Person in the Trinity tends to the end by you mentioned, namely, to give life to the world; is utterly untrue. Likewise, it is utterly untrue, that you