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…

First, when we speak of the reprobate with comparison of the elect, they are both alike sinners: And therefore if the question be, why God hardeneth the reprobate, and doth not harden, but show mercy on the Elect? Here no cause can be rendered of this different dealing, but only the will and good pleasure of God; sin is alike common to both, and cannot be alleged as the cause of this diversity. Idem qua idem semper facit idem. But when we speak of the Reprobates alone considered in themselves: If the question be, why God is pleased to harden them; The answer is alway truly, and safely given; It pleased God to harden them for their sins. And which is yet more, when God is said to harden a wicked man for his sin, it is not sin that moved God primarily to harden him; but his absolute will it was to harden him for his sin; for what sin could God see in the creature to provoke him to harden it, but what he might have prevented by his providence, or healed by the blood of Christ, if it had so seemed good to his good pleasure? When therefore God doth harden a creature for his sin, it is because it is his good pleasure, even his absolute will so to harden him. To will a thing absolutely, and yet to will it on this or that condition, may well stand together in many a voluntary agent, when the condition is such, as that the will might easily help, if it so pleased. As if a man should cast off a servant for some disease he hath, which he might easily heal if it pleased ⟨p. 196⟩him: or break his vessel for some such uncleanness which he could easily rinse out; Both these may well be said of him at once, that he cast off his servant for his disease, and brake his vessel for its uncleanness, and yet might he cast out his servant and break his vessel, and both out of his good pleasure, and out of his absolute, and his free will.

First, when wee speak of the reprobate with comparison of the elect, they are both alike sinners: And therefore if the question bee, why God hardneth the reprobate, and doth not harden, but shew mercy on the Elect? Here no cause can bee rendred of this different dealing, but onely the will and good pleasure of God; sin is alike common to both, and cannot bee alledged as the cause of this diversity. Idem qua idem semper facit idem. But when wee speak of the Reprobates alone considered in themselves: If the question bee, why God is pleased to harden them; The answer is alway truely, and safely given; It pleased God to harden them for their sins. And which is yet more, when God is said to harden a wicked man for his sin, it is not sin that moved God primarily to harden him; but his absolute will it was to harden him for his sin; for what sin could God see in the creature to provoke him to harden it, but what hee might have prevented by his providence, or healed by the blood of Christ, if it had so seemed good to his good pleasure? When therefore God doth harden a creature for his sin, it is because it is his good pleasure, even his absolute will so to harden him. To will a thing absolutely, and yet to will it on this or that condition, may well stand together in many a voluntary agent, when the condition is such, as that the will might easily help, if it so pleased. As if a man should cast off a servant for some disease hee hath, which hee might easily heale if it pleased