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…

The ninth is Luk. 19. 41, 42. Which is of the same nature, and of no greater force then the former, Oh that thou hadst even known at the least in this thy day those things which belong unto thy peace; but now are they hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee when thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and make thee even with the ground, because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation. To know, in Scripture phrase is of a complicate notion and signifieth knowledge joined with congruous affections: and thus to know the things that belong unto our peace, is so to know, as therewithal to embrace them; and to know the time of our visitation, is so to know, as to accommodate our selves thereto in agreeable conversation, as Jer. 8. 7. The Stork in the air is said to know her appointed times, and the Turtle, and the Crane, and the Swallow (are said) to observe the time of their coming. That is, so to know it, as accordingly to come: so to know the time of our visitation, is so to know it, as accordingly to come unto God when he visits us, and according as his Visitation requires of us. Now will you herehence infer, that they were enabled to perform all this, and so to seek the Lord? I appeal to your own conscience, whether it might not be as justly said of them, as Moses said of the children of Israel in the wilderness, Deut. 29. 4. The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. Nay, doth not our Saviour himself say as much of these Jews, Joh. 12. 39. Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah saith again. 40. He hath blinded their ⟨p. 219⟩eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Neither will it follow hereupon that they are excusable so much the more, although this is a very plausible inference, for our Saviour professeth (notwithstanding this) that they had no cloak for their sins, Joh. 15. 22. And indeed only such an inability doth excuse, as hereby a man is unable to do that which he fain would do As for the doing of that they did in resisting the Gospel, they had rather too much will therein then too little, and that through the want of grace.