CONTENTS. Page 5 EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM A LEARNED DIVINE.... THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISE AND PUB- TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. THIS excellent treatise, containing divers prime points of our religion which believers' souls do live upon every day, and in the lively sense whereof, with application to themselves, they enjoy and exercise sweet communion with God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, upon those better hopes and surer promises of the doctrines here treated of, doth sufficiently commend itself to such as are thoroughly acquainted with, and experimentally exercised in, these things. I have known the author long (full twenty-eight years) to have had a spirit greatly addicted to and affected with the savoury knowledge of the truths here delivered. And though he hath not had the use and help of foreign languages, wherein these points have been mostly written, yet I may say of him, as, 1 Tim. iv. 6: "He hath been long nourished up in the words of faith and good doctrine; and thereunto he hath "so far "attained," as to be able to cut the strongest sinews of the principal objections which the adversaries have invaded these truths with: And, further, to establish the positive truth, hath backed and confirmed the same by solid arguments and pertinent Scriptures, genuinely explained and opened: And, which to me is yet more, he hath extracted the most spiritful, quickening cordials, which the doctrine of grace and election affords plenty of, whereby to comfort all sorts of believers; exhorting and directing the whole company and body of them, how to manage their faith between God and their own souls, in point of election; persuading them all to commit and betake themselves wholly to God's carrying on their salvation in the way of election: And all along hath strewed his discourse with useful exhortations and applications of the doctrines he does deliver; mixing uses for practice with the rational discussions, and the ruggeder controversals, which hath been a defect complained of in others, to the reproach of the doctrine itself; B and made an argument, that the doctrine is not true, seeing omne verum est bonum, and both are inseparable affections of being. Upon these and the like considerations, I do heartily commend this treatise to the judicious reader, nothing doubting but that it will satisfy the weakest Christians, as it hath approved itself to several divines; hoping, also, that this edition will do as much good to men's souls, as the former editions have done. The blessing of Heaven go with it. April 12th, 1678. THOMAS GOODWIN. THE doctrines in this treatise declared and vindicated have exercised the thoughts and best abilities of many learned men. The opposition made against them by the Pelagians of old excited divers of the ancients to their just defence; whereby they received that light and establishment, as, for many ages, the church remained in the quiet possession and belief of them; until, of late, the Jesuits, and Socinians, and some others, conspired again to supplant them; and therein had, probably, prevailed ere now, had not the Lord stirred up the spirits of many and great persons to stand on his side, and help to maintain that quarrel of his covenant. It is not unworthy our notice and deepest resentment, how zealously affected some men are in behalf of such tenets as stand in direct opposition to the grace of God, and their own eternal happiness; how they spare neither arts nor calumnies to disgrace the assertors of those very truths that make up the mystery of godliness; yea, to scandalize and suppress the truths themselves; as if reason and learning were given to no better ends than to vilify religion. And further: How pronely addicted men are (having imbibed the Arminian points) to take in those that are of most fatal consequence; so far are those principles from yielding any effectual influence towards holiness, or well-grounded peace, notwithstanding their pretended adaptedness to promote them, which might be largely insisted on, but Moses is excluded Canaan for a hasty word, though smartly provoked, Deut. xxxii. 51, 52; when Jonah is but mildly reproved for passionately expostulating, Jonah iv. Uzziah dies for but touching the ark, 1 Chron. xiii. 9, 10; when the Philistines bore it away in triumph, 1 Sam. v. i. Hezekiah but shows the ambassadors from Babylon his house and treasures, and for this his sons and all must go into captivity, 2 Kings xx. 13, 17. Not that any sin is little in itself, or punished beyond its demerit; but the Lord is pleased thus to do, partly to show his displeasure against sin, and that he will not bear with it even in those that are dearest to him; but partly also, if not chiefly, in such like cases, to set forth his sovereign greatness, and the uncontrollableness of his matters, Job xxxiii. 13. The seventy-third Psalm is full to the same purpose. That also of Job, and the manner of God's dealings with him, is much to be remarked: He had lived a very strict and holy life; "not a man like Job in all the earth;" the Lord himself seems to glory in him; unto which all outward blessings were promised, and freedom from such sufferings; and when bereft of all, "held fast his integrity," Job i. 8; ii. 3; yet the Lord goes on to afflict him, and leaves him wholly (saving his life) in satan's power. Had he been a wicked man, as his friends objected, those sufferings had evidenced the justice of God, but now, his sovereignty, which also seems to be intended by that speech of God to satan, "Thou movest me against him, to destroy him without a cause. Seventhly. There are yet other footsteps of sovereignty, by which that high and holy attribute is farther illustrated to us; as, namely, the Lord's over-ruling the designs and actions of men to bring his own counsels to pass; albeit improper in their own nature, yea, disservient thereto, and sometimes by men contrived on purpose to prevent them. The project of building Babel's tower, to keep that rebellious rout together, it turned to their utter dispersion, Genesis xi. 4, 8. Jacob's dissimulation and palpable abuse of his father's infirmity, it proved a means to obtain his blessing, and that contrary to his settled intendment, Gen. xxvii. 18–29. Laban dealt hardly with Jacob to keep him low, and to serve himself of him; but God takes occasion thence to give him Laban's substance, and that by Laban's consent and agreement, Gen. xxix. To obviate Joseph's dreams, his brethren sell him into Egypt; and, by this means, the Lord keeps them all alive, and accomplisheth that honour to Joseph which they setly intended to prevent, Gen. xxxvii. 9, 20, 28; xli. 40; xlii. 6; 1. 18, 20. Pharaoh lays insuperable burdens on the people to diminish them, and the Lord multiplies them under it: "The more they were oppressed, the faster they grew," Exodus i. 12. Moses, a keeper of sheep, a man slow of speech, and one that had no mind to the work, Exod. iv. 10, 13, yet he shall be God's ambassador to Pharaoh, the proudest and most inflexible monarch upon earth, and bring Israel out of bondage. And who shall be his commander-in-chief, to deliver his people from their potent oppressors, but Deborah, a woman? Judges iv. 9; at another time, Gideon, "whose family was poor in Manasseh, and he the least in his father's house," Judges vi. 15. And though he had a numerous and powerful enemy to deal with, and, one would think, had need of all the hands he could make to fight them, yet his army of two and thirty thousand must be reduced to three hundred men, and they to have no other arms but trumpets and lamps in their pitchers; and by these he delivers them from that huge host, Judges vii. 3, 6, 7. And much like unto this was Shamgar's killing six hundred men with an oxgoad, Judges iii. 31; and Samson, a thousand with a jaw-bone of an ass, Judges xv. 15. It may farther be traced, in his producing contrary effects by the same cause; and then, again, the same effects by causes contrary, Exod. iv. 6, 7. So Daniel and his fellows, they had a fairer countenance with pulse and water, than those who ate of the king's own provision, Dan. i. 15. It is further evidenced, by his causing the wrath of man to turn to his praise; which, in the nature and tendency of it, is to destroy them that praise Him, Psalm lxxvi. 10; by his catching the wise in their own craftiness, and causing them |