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…

Another confusion I find abuseth your fancy in this very Section, and that is spread all over it like a Leprosy. For whereas the objection arising naturally from the former discourse, is grounded upon a seeming contradiction, in professing a natural man to be impotent to perform faith and repentance; and yet giving power to a man to attain those ends, whereunto the means given tend, namely, to his conversion and salvation: instead of comparing the sufficiency you give to man with the sufficiency you deny to man, and there with all showing how the one doth not contradict the other; I say instead of comparing these, you compare the sufficiency of the means with the impotency of man, to convert and be saved; which you express by coming to Christ. Varying your phrases at every turn, which is good for nothing but to trouble disputation. Whereas indeed there is no question to be made of the sufficiency of the means, (if by means you understand the word of the Gospel) in that kind, wherein means are capable of sufficiency, to wit, in the way of instruction, exhortation, reprehension, beyond which kind of operations their sufficiency doth not extend.

Another confusion I finde abuseth your fancy in this very Section, and that is spread all over it like a Leprosie. For whereas the objection arising naturally from the former discourse, is grounded upon a seeming contradiction, in professing a naturall man to bee impotent to perform faith and repentance; and yet giving power to a man to attaine those ends, whereunto the means given tend, namely, to his conversion and salvation: instead of comparing the sufficiency you give to man with the sufficiency you deny to man, and there with all shewing how the one doth not contradict the other; I say instead of comparing these, you compare the sufficiency of the means with the impotency of man, to convert and bee saved; which you expresse by comming to Christ. Varying your phrases at every turn, which is good for nothing but to trouble disputation. Whereas indeed there is no question to bee made of the sufficiency of the means, (if by means you understand the word of the Gospel) in that kinde, wherin means are capable of sufficiency, to wit, in the way of instruction, exhortation, reprehension, beyond which kinde of operations their sufficiency doth not extend.