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…

But of what nature your opinion is, how inconsistent in it self; on how little reason it is grounded; what consequences it draws after it, as also what causeless fears you raise unto ⟨p. 200⟩yourself; and above all, and which is worst of all, how you deal with Scripture in this argument, to serve your turn, I leave it to your conscience to judge, not to mention how this Discourse of yours is found to harden many in the way of error, and to offend others in the way of truth.

But of what nature your opinion is, how inconsistent in it self; on how little reason it is grounded; what consequences it draws after it, as also what causelesse fears you raise unto ⟨p. 200⟩yourself; and above all, and which is worst of all, how you deal with Scripture in this argument, to serve your turn, I leave it to your conscience to judge, not to mention how this Discourse of yours is found to harden many in the way of error, and to offend others in the way of truth.

Indeed there were no cause of any such objection as that, Rom. 9. 29. if so be God hardens no man but for sin, and withal it is just with God to harden men in their sine, and less cause of such an answer, Rom. 9. 20, 21, 22. No man, I think, makes any doubt but that the objection, Why doth he complain? for who hath resisted his will? ariseth from the 18 ver. where it is said, that God as he hath mercy on whom he will, so he hardeneth whom he will, even as he hardened Pharaoh; but yet you do not shape the objection right, when you shape it thus; What fault is there in me to be hardened? which is in effect as if you would shape it thus; Wherein then have I deserved to be hardened? For the negative to this, namely, that God doth not harden upon desert, is that which the Apostle avoucheth; Like as neither doth he show mercy upon desert. But like as upon the mere pleasure of his will, he shows mercy on some: So, according to the good pleasure of his will, he hardeneth others. But well might he say, why then doth he complain of the hardness of my heart, and my impenitency; or rather the Apostle proposeth it, in reference to the fruits of mans hardness of heart and impenitency, such as God complains of,