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…

By the way, I observe a vain supposition to be the ground of all this perturbation, and conflictation of contrary opinions, in this Argument: And the presupposition is this, That the decree of Christs incarnation and of our predestination, as also of creation, and of the permission of sin, cannot be coordinate and simultanea, but must needs be subordinate and one before another. And so he carrieth himself in the confirmation of the priority of those decrees which he fancieth to be before the other, as chiefly to oppose the priority of the others. And this I account a very vain supposition, (though, I confess, for many years I was carried away with the common error, and therewithal still found my self in a brake or labyrinth, without hope of extricating my self) as I have here proved in part, but elsewhere more at large. But as for the solution of the doubt proposed, his answer is this, Prius Deum voluisse unionem hypostaticam & incarnationem Verbi, quam vellet permittere peccatum, & quam vellet condere naturam hominis & totius universi. But I have already demonstrated the falsity of this. But hee proceeds, Quia tamen non est volita incarnatio sine peccato, imo dependenter est volita à permission peccati, & à natura rerum tanquam à mediis; idcirco non sequitur, futurum esse Christum si peccatum non esset, aut si universum non esset. Two things he constitutes media tendentia ad incarnationem Christi; and indeed, if the incarnation of Christ were first in intention, as the end, all other things intended after, must be intended as ⟨p. 31⟩means: But I have already showed how absurdly the creation of mankind is constituted as a means of Christs incarnation: and is it not strange, that the making of every worm, or a gnat, should be a means tending to the incarnation of Christ? In like sort, I have showed the absurdity of conceiving the permission of sin to be a means of Christs glorification, much more of his incarnation.

By the way, I observe a vaine supposition to bee the ground of all this perturbation, and conflictation of contrary opinions, in this Argument: And the presupposition is this, That the decree of Christs incarnation and of our predestination, as also of creation, and of the permission of sinne, cannot bee coordinate and simultanea, but must needs bee subordinate and one before another. And so hee carrieth himselfe in the confirmation of the priority of those decrees which hee fancieth to be before the other, as chiefly to oppose the priority of the others. And this I account a very vain supposition, (though, I confesse, for many years I was carried away with the common error, and therewithall still found my selfe in a brake or labyrinth, without hope of extricating my selfe) as I have here proved in part, but elsewhere more at large. But as for the solution of the doubt proposed, his answer is this, Prius Deum voluisse unionem hypostaticam & incarnationem Verbi, quam vellet permittere peccatum, & quam vellet condere naturam hominis & totius universi. But I have already demonstrated the falsity of this. But hee proceeds, Quia tamen non est volita incarnatio sine peccato, imo dependenter est volita à permissione peccati, & à natura rerum tanquam à mediis; idcirco non sequitur, futurum esse Christum si peccatum non esset, aut si universum non esset. Two things he constitutes media tendentia ad incarnationem Christi; and indeed, if the incarnation of Christ were first in intention, as the end, all other things intended after, must bee intended as