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…

In the recapitulation of this reason, you help your self with a phrase, and only with a phrase: God retains a will and purpose to restore life to the world upon an equal condition. Obedience is due to God, though man be not able to perform it. And therefore God, in requiring that which is due unto him, carrieth himself in an equal (I had rather say, in a just) course, though man becoming bankrupt, be not able to perform it. But in this case, namely, if God will not restore life, but upon performance of such a condition which he is utterly unable to perform, and withal purposeth to deny him that grace, which should enable him to perform it; is not this a manifest document, that God hath no purpose to restore life unto him? Yet I confess, the phrase used is advantageous unto you; for, at the hearing of an equal condition, most are apt to conceive the condition to be such as lieth ⟨p. 118⟩in a mans power to perform. But you have not hitherunto manifested any such opinion of mans ability: If you have entertained any such (as whereunto pastoral Divines, dealing much upon exhortation, are sometimes over-prone, though I see small cause why the opinion of mans impotency unto good should any whit rebate the edge of their exhortation) you should do well to convince your adversaries by argument, and not circumvent them.

In the recapitulation of this reason, you help your selfe with a phrase, and onely with a phrase: God retaines a will and purpose to restore life to the world upon an equall condition. Obedience is due to God, though man be not able to performe it. And therefore God, in requiring that which is due unto him, carrieth himselfe in an equall (I had rather say, in a just) course, though man becoming banckrupt, be not able to performe it. But in this case, namely, if God will not restore life, but upon performance of such a condition which he is utterly unable to performe, and withall purposeth to deny him that grace, which should inable him to performe it; is not this a manifest document, that God hath no purpose to restore life unto him? Yet I confesse, the phrase used is advantageous unto you; for, at the hearing of an equall condition, most are apt to conceive the condition to be such as lyeth ⟨p. 118⟩in a mans power to performe. But you have not hitherunto manifested any such opinion of mans abilitie: If you have entertained any such (as whereunto pastorall Divines, dealing much upon exhortation, are sometimes over-prone, though I see small cause why the opinion of mans impotency unto good should any whit rebate the edge of their exhortation) you should doe well to convince your adversaries by argument, and not circumvent them.