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…

And if the permission of final impenitency be in Gods intention before condemnation, then, by your own rules, it must be after it in execution; and so men shall be condemned for their impenitency before they have committed it. It is true, the Jews are pronounced reprobate silver, Jerem. 6. 30. after the Prophets labour was found in vain; but you do not well to extend this unto Reprobation in that sense we speak of it: For, in your own opinion, nothing but final obstinacy doth make men reprobate; but such was not as yet the obstinacy of those Jews, who are there called reprobate silver. And how uncharitable a thing were it for you, or any man, to think that none of those obstinate Jews were afterwards converted unto God by the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Yet, admit it were final, such I confess precedes condemnation which is temporal: But will you herence infer it precedes also Reprobation, or the decree of condemnation, which is eternal? But there is no tolerable good consequence in this; and you might as well infer, that good works are precedent to election, as I have already showed. And withal, hereby you should constitute a very wild order of things in execution: Yet, I grant, every obstinacy, so long as men continue in it, making a show of godliness, is sufficient to constitute them reprobate silver, and such as are given over into a reprobate mind. Were it so, that after God hath used means to purge the people, and they would not be purged, then he rejects all further care of purging them from their filthiness any more: will you infer thence, that the consideration of this contempt of the means of grace goes before Reprobation, as it signifies the decree of condemnation? And consider you not, that thus the permission of this obstinacy in Gods intention, must go before condemnation, and consequently must follow after it in execution? That is, men shall first be condemned, and afterwards suffered to despise the means of grace. Again, doth not faith, and repentance, and good works, in like manner precede salvation? And must not the consideration of all these by like reason go before Election? Besides all this, it is an untruth which you ⟨p. 124⟩deliver; that after men have refused to be purged when God would have purged them, forthwith he gives off all further care of purging them from their filthiness.

And if the permission of finall impenitency be in Gods intention before condemnation, then, by your owne rules, it must be after it in execution; and so men shall be condemned for their impenitency before they have committed it. It is true, the Jewes are pronounced reprobate silver,