nion," saith Paræus, "of our doctors, That God did inevitably decree the temptation and fall of man. The creature sinneth indeed necessarily, by the most just judgment of God. Our men do

most rightly affirm, that the fall of man was necessary and inevitable, by accident, because of God's decree." a" God," saith Martyr, "doth incline and force the wills of wicked men into great sins." b" God," saith Zuinglius, "moveth the robber to kill. He killeth, God forcing him thereunto. But thou wilt say, he is forced to sin; I admit truly that he is forced." Reprobate persons," are absolutely ordained to this two fold end, to undergo everlasting punishment, and necessarily to sin; and therefore to sin, that they may be justly punished."

saith Piscator,

66

C46

If these sayings do not plainly and evidently important that God is the author of sin,we must not then seek these mens' opinions from their words, but some way else. It seems as if they had assumed to themselves that monstrous and two fold will they feign of God; one by which they declare their minds openly, and another more secret and hidden, which is quite contrary to the other. Nor doth it at all help them, to say that man sins willingly, since that willingness, proclivity, and propensity to evil is, according to their judgment,

a Martyr in Rom. b Zuing. lib. de Prov c. 5, c Resp. ad Vorst. pa. 1. p. 120.

so necessarily imposed upon him, that he cannot but be willing, because God hath willed and decreed him to be so.

Secondly, This doctrine is injurious to God, because it makes him delight in the death of sinners, yea, and to will many to die in their sins, contrary to these scriptures, Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 1 Tim. ii. 4. 2 Pet. iii. 9. For if he hath created men only for this very end, that he might shew forth his justice and power in them, as these men affirm, and for effecting thereof hath not only withheld from them the means of doing good, but also predestinated the evil, that they might fall into it; and that he inclines and forces them into great sins; certainly he must necessarily delight in their death, and will them to die; seeing against his own will he neither doth, nor can do any thing.

Thirdly, It is highly injurious to Christ our mediator, and to the efficacy and excellency of his gospel; for it renders his mediation ineffectual, as if he had not by his sufferings thoroughly broken down the middle wall, nor yet removed the wrath of God, or purchased the love of God towards all mankind, if it was afore-decreed that it should be of no service to the far greater part of mankind. It is to no purpose to allege, that the death of Christ, was of efficacy enough to have saved all mankind, if in effect its virtue be not so far extended as to put all mankind into a capacity of salvation.

Fourthly, It makes the preaching of the gospel a mere illusion, if many of these, to whom it is preached, be by any irrevocable decree excluded from being benefitted by it; it wholly makes useless the preaching of faith and repentance, and the whole tenor of the gospel promises and threatenings, as being all relative to a former decree and means before appointed to such; which, because they cannot fail, man needs do nothing but wait for that irresistible juncture, which will come, though it be but at the last hour of his life, if he be in the decree of election; and be his diligence and waiting what it can, he shall never attain it, if he belong to the decree of reprobation.

Fifthly, It makes the coming of Christ, and his propitiatory sacrifice, which the scripture affirms to have been the fruit of God's love to the world, and transacted for the sins and salvation of all men, to have been rather a testimony of God's wrath to the world, and one of the greatest judgments, and severest acts of God's indignation towards mankind, it being only ordained to save a very few, and for the hardening, and augmenting the condemnation of the far greater number of men, because they believe not truly in it; the cause of which unbelief again, as the divines [so called] above assert, is the hidden counsel of God: certainly the coming of Christ was never to them a testimony of God's love, but rather of his implacable wrath and if the world may be taken for the far greater number of such

as live in it, God never loved the world according to this doctrine, but rather hated it greatly, in sending his Son to be crucified in it.

Sixthly, This doctrine is highly injurious to mankind; for it renders them in a far worse condition than the devils in hell. For these were sometime in a capacity to have stood, and do suffer only for their own guilt; whereas many millions of men are for ever tormented, according to them, for Adam's sin, which they neither knew of, nor ever were accessary to. It renders them worse than the beasts of the field, of whom the master requires no more than they are able to perform; and if they be killed, death to them is the end of sorrow; whereas man is for ever tormented for not doing that which he never was able to do. It puts him into a far worse condition than Pharaoh put the Israelites; for though he withheld straw from them, yet by much labour and pains they could have gotten it: but from men they make God to withhold all means of salvation, so that they can by no means attain it; yea, they place mankind in that condition which the poets feign of Tantalus, who, oppressed with thirst, stands in water up to the chin, yet can by no means reach it with his tongue; and being tormented with hunger, hath fruits hanging at his very lips, yet so as he can never lay hold on them with his teeth; and these things are so near him, not to nourish him, but to torment him. So do these

men: they make the outward creation of the works of Providence, the smitings of conscience, sufficient to convince the heathens of sin, and so to condemn and judge them: but not at all to help them to salvation. They make the preaching of the gospel, the offer of salvation by Christ, the use of the sacraments, of prayer, and good works, sufficient to condemn those they account reprobates within the church, serving only to inform them to beget a seeming faith and vain hope; yet because of a secret impotency, which they had from their infancy, all these are wholly ineffectual to bring them the least step towards salvation; and do only contribute to render their condemnation the greater, and their torments the more violent and intolerable.

Now if this coming of Christ had not brought a possibility of salvation to all, it should rather have been accounted bad tidings of great sorrow to most people; neither should the angel have had reason to have sung, "Peace on earth, and good will towards men," if the greatest part of mankind had been necessarily shut out from receiving any benefit by it. How should Christ have sent out his servants to preach the gospel to every creature, Mark xvi. 15. (a very comprehensive commission) that is, to every son and daughter of mankind, without exception? He commands them to preach salvation to all, repentance and remission of sins to all; warning every one, and exhorting every