A64003:43
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…
A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certain doubts concerning predestination together with an examination thereof / written by William Twice ...A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certaine doubts concerning predestination together with an examination thereof / written by William Twisse ...
London: printed by J.D. for Andrew Crook, 1646
AN EXAMINATION of a Treatise written by Master Cotton, for the clea… › Question 1: QUESTION. 1.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. The preeminence the Apostle speaks of is the preeminence of Christs person, not of the priority of predestination. Now the preeminence of a person always presupposeth the being of a person; for, to say a thing had a preeminence before it had any being, is a strange phrase, and contradictions. Therefore preeminence of any person is not to be looked for in predestination, which is rather in ordaining to preeminence, then containing preeminence: for we commonly say, that Praedestinatio nihil ponit in praedestinato, Predestination puts nothing in the person predestinated.
2. The preheminence the Apostle speaks of is the preheminence of Christs person, not of the priority of predestination. Now the preheminence of a person alwaies presupposeth the being of a person; for, to say a thing had a preheminence before it had any being, is a strange phrase, and contradictions. Therefore preheminence of any person is not to be looked for in predestination, which is rather in ordaining to preheminence, then containing preheminence: for we commonly say, that Praedestinatio nihil ponit in praedestinato, Predestination puts nothing in the person predestinated.
3. But come we nearer to the Apostle, Col. 1. 18. that he might have the preeminence [Greek or Hebrew] this [Greek or Hebrew] is indefinite, and may be applied two ways, as Calvin observs; vel in, omnes creaturas, vel in omni re, either over all creatures, or in every thing. You take it as in omni re, in every thing, and indeed so the English translation renders it; but if we find in scripture it self this indefinite [Greek or Hebrew], or that which is equivalent thereunto defined, and that in speaking of the preeminence of Christ, why should we not comply with scripture in the accommodation of it in this place? Now, in the other place alleged, Rom. 8. 29. its defined not to things but to persons, ⟨p. 13⟩