To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major
is as a tree planted by the rivers of waters (Ps. 1:3) and is built by that great builder of heaven and earth upon a rock (Matt. 16:18). These comforts will this one doctrine afford, being thoroughly pondered and understood. And no doubt these and the like considerations moved that holy and learned man of blessed memory to publish this present treatise for the benefit of the church; and the same have also incited us to turn it out of the tongue wherein he wrote it into the English for their profit who are ignorant in the other, and the rather because it is contrived and penned very plainly, soundly, and succinctly, as the subject will permit. The which, Right Worshipful, assuring ourselves of your unfeigned love to the truth, we do present and dedicate to you in token of deserved gratitude for undeserved kindness, not doubting of your courteous and kind acceptance. And thus we humbly take our leave, recommending you and all yours to the protection of Jehovah.
Rochester, this 19th of February, 1605.
Your Worships in all duty, Francis Cacott and Thomas Tuke
To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major To the Right Worshipful Master John Hayward Major, and the worshipful Jurates, his brethren, and the whole communality of the town and liberty of Fanersham.
Right Worshipful, as many other wholesome and heavenly doctrines grounded upon the Word of God have been and are to this day contradicted and impugned, even so it fares which the divine and deep doctrine of God's predestination, a doctrine not more heavenly than wholesome nor more commodious than comfortable, and yet as heavenly and as commodious as any doctrine whatever which the Scriptures do afford. The Pelagians held that God predestinated men to life or death as He did foresee that they would by their natural free will receive or reject grace offered. They taught that it was in man's power to believe or not to believe. They placed the causes of salvation in men themselves out of God, and held that the elect might fall from grace and perish.
Others hold that albeit the Lord elects some of His mere mercy without respect of anything in them, that yet He rejects those which are rejected because He did foresee that they would reject His grace offered to them in the gospel. Some ubiquitaries hold that Adam's fall came to pass without God's decree or any ordination of His; secondly, that no decree of God depends upon His simple will concerning the salvation of the godly or the rejection of the reprobate; thirdly, that God does utterly nill the reprobation of any; fourthly, that the reprobate may be converted and saved; fifthly, that Christ died for the reprobates, and that it is the purpose and will of God simply that all men without exception should be saved. Some do subject election to God's eternal decree, but not reprobation. Others, putting no difference between reprobation and damnation, do think as God does pass by some men of His mere pleasure, that He does in like sort damn them of His mere will and pleasure, whereas indeed sin is the cause why men are damned. Many of the Romish synagogue do teach that men are elected for their foreseen faith and meritorious works. And it is the common opinion of all papists that the elect cannot be certain and sure of their election unless it be
extraordinarily by some special revelation and singular privilege.
Many also there are which would not have this doctrine publicly taught by the minister, but without good reason. For first, as the minister must not search the secrets of God which are not revealed, so he must not suppress or hide that which is revealed. For things
"revealed, belong to us and to our children forever" (Deut. 29:29), as Moses teaches. Therefore, as we may not search into those things which God will have kept secret, so we may in no wise be wholly ignorant of those things which He has revealed to us. But this doctrine of predestination is very plentifully and perspicuously revealed and delivered to us in the Scriptures. Secondly, as the Word of God omits nothing which is needful to be known touching the salvation of our souls, so we must know that it teaches nothing but that which is profitable and worthy to be learned of all. For that speech of Paul to the Romans is true of all the writings of the prophets and apostles also: "Whatsoever things were written, were written for our learning" (Rom. 15:4). But the Word of God does teach this doctrine of election and rejection, as is evident by many places therein. Therefore, it is necessary and fit to be taught of the minister and to be learned of the people. Thirdly, it is the duty of all faithful ministers to teach all the counsel of God, as Paul says he did
(Acts 20:37). But predestination is a part of God's counsel.
Therefore, it ought to be delivered of us to the people of God, always remembering that we apply ourselves to your capacities and teach it orderly (as occasion serves), keeping ourselves in all sobriety within the limits of the Word. Fourthly, Christ commands the gospel to be preached to every creature (Mark 16:15); but this doctrine belongs to the gospel and therefore is to be preached to the unlearned as to the learned. Lastly, all ministers are bound to keep back nothing which is profitable, but to show it as Paul did (Acts 20:20). But the doctrine of predestination is very profitable. For first, it lets us see the omniscience, the omnipotence, the sovereignty, and immutable
nature of God. Secondly, it serves to increase and confirm our faith and hope concerning the eternal felicity of our souls and bodies, seeing it is not founded upon ourselves or upon any sandy foundation, but upon the constant and unchangeable good pleasure of God. Thirdly, it teaches us not to wonder at the small number of believers and at the hardness and blindness of many men's hearts and minds. For it shows that God has elected but a few (Matt. 20:16) and has passed by many, leaving them to themselves and delivering them up into the hands of the devil. Fourthly, it serves to strengthen and comfort us in all afflictions and to arm us against all the fiery darts of the devil and the fury of his limbs. For it shows that nothing can separate us from the love of God and that all things work for the best to them that love God (Rom. 8:28, 39), even to them that are called of His purpose. All storms and waves of woe shall pass over, and in the end we shall rest in the quiet haven of everlasting happiness. Fifthly, this doctrine stays us from taking offence at the apostasy of many professors; for it shows us that all is not gold which glitters, and that some stand for a time and some stand fast forever.
"If they had been of us," says John, "they should have continued with us" (1 John 2:19). Sixthly, it teaches us to acknowledge God's singular goodness toward us, who of His mere good will toward us has elected us to eternal life and the fruition of immortal glory in the heavens. Seventhly, it serves to teach us humility and to beat down the pride of our hearts. For it shows that God's grace and not our goodness is the original cause of our welfare and salvation. The cause which moved God to choose us rather than many others was not our foreseen preparations or meritorious works, but His own love and free good will toward us. Lastly (to omit sundry uses which might be made of this one doctrine), it teaches us to ascribe the glory of our salvation to God alone and to walk thankfully before Him, manifesting the gratitude of our hearts by our religious, righteous, and sober lives. To conclude, some are so far out of love with this
doctrine that they can scarce with patience endure to hear it spoken of. And many licentious and profane persons do very wickedly abuse it, to take to themselves liberty of licentious and loose living—"for," say they, "if I be ordained to be saved, I cannot be damned; and if damnation be my destiny, I can never be saved. And therefore it skilleth not how I live; for if God have appointed me to be saved, I shall be saved, though I do just nothing. And if He have determined that I shall be damned, I shall never escape it, though I live never so well. For God's decree is constant; His appointment shall stand, whoever says nay to it." But these men forget that God does predestinate men as well to use the means as to attain to the end. As He has appointed a man to live, so He has appointed the same man to use those means which preserve life, as meat, drink, rest, recreation, labor, physic. Even so, as He has appointed a man to be saved, He has appointed him to use the means and to walk in the way of salvation, as to believe. And therefore the Scripture says, "So many as were ordained to everlasting life believed" (Acts 13:48). And Paul shows that those God does call whom He has predestinated and justifies those whom He does effectually call before He glorifies them
(Rom. 8:29). And in his epistle to the Ephesians, he teaches that as God has chosen us to life eternal, so He has also chosen us in Christ,
"that we should be holy, and without blame before Him in love"
(1:4); and that as He has ordained us to salvation, so He has "created us in Christ Jesus to good works, which He has ordained that we should walk in them" (2:10). As the Scripture teaches us that God has elected us to salvation, so it does also teach us that He sent His Son to save us. As God had determined that Christ should not die in His infancy (as the event declared), so He did appoint His father-in-law
Joseph to take Him and His mother and to fly into Egypt (Matt.
2:13), when Herod sought to destroy Him. By which we see that as God has predestinated the end, so He has also predestinated the way and means thereto. He therefore that desires to be saved must use
the means which God has appointed. His damnation may not without cause be feared, who following the sway of his carnal affections contemns or neglects the means of grace (1 Sam. 2:25) and will not walk in the way which leads to glory. But we (beloved), rejecting all the fancies and fantastic inventions of man, must rectify our judgments by the rule of God's Word; and with discreet diligence and sobriety we ought to labor for the true knowledge and right understanding of this celestial and solacious doctrine of God's eternal predestination, a doctrine not so profound as profitable, and not so abstruse and intricate, as many do imagine. A notable furtherance hereto this treatise following will afford, penned pithily, concisely, and perspicuously by a very learned and judicious divine.
Now (my brethren) among many other things which belong to this doctrine, there be two things which I do commend to your Christian consideration. First, the privileges of God's elect and adopted children. Secondly, the notes of election to salvation and the practice of those things whereby a man may come to be in his conscience soundly persuaded that he is a chosen vessel predestinated to eternal life. For the first, many and excellent are the prerogatives and immunities wherewith the elect are privileged and adorned.
Therefore, the psalmist says, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O thou City of God" (Ps. 87:3). And yet as glorious and numerous as they be, they are not easily discerned and acknowledged of the world, first, because their disgrace is common and public by reason of the spiteful and inveterate malice of the serpent and his seed, whereby it comes to pass that the faithful in all ages have acted a part longer or shorter in a doleful tragedy upon the stage of the world, so as that of all men they have always for the most part seemed most miserable and least respected of man and privileged of God. Secondly, because sundry slips and sins have been observed in them. Thirdly, the upright man is such an abomination to the wicked (Prov. 29:27), as that through his cankered spite, his spiteful and rancorous hatred, he
cannot behold and fancy his sweet and lovely condition. Fourthly, the principal ornaments of the godly are dark and spiritual, as the psalmist says, "The king's daughter is all glorious within" (Ps. 45:13); and their outward estate is usually obscure, coarse, and ragged, not much unlike to the curtains of the tabernacle, whose outward coverings were of goats' hair, rams' skins, and badgers', but the inward were of fine twined linen, blue silk, purple and scarlet, with the most exquisite embroidering of the cherubim upon them (Exodus
26).
The world, to God's children is as a stepmother, and may be termed God's school house, in which He trains up His children as scholars under the cross, often correcting them with His rod of affliction.
Whence it is that the world accounts them unfortunate; and being unable to judge of colors through the dimness of her sight, she considers and commands none but such as are light, though they weary and lose their brightness while she is poring on them. But although the world be bleary eyed and dim-sighted, yet those which are elected out of the world do feel and see and can say much. And the Word of God contains in it many royal and notable privileges and dignities properly belonging to those whom God has elected and adopted, some whereof I will briefly and plainly here set down.
Privilege 1. The first dignity is their glorious and honorable styles and titles. They are called in the Scriptures the people, the redeemed, the sons, the building, the husbandry and household servants of God, the brethren, the spouse, the members, the seed and the sheep of Christ, the temples of the Holy Ghost, the seed, the sons and the daughters of Abraham. They are called lively stones, a spiritual house, heirs of the promise, saints, faithful, kings, priests, yea a holy and princely priesthood, a peculiar people challenged of God, a chosen generation, and a holy nation.
Privilege 2. The faithful and chosen children of God alone have true title to all the outward blessings of God; for they only believe, and they are only God's obedientaries (Isa. 1:19; 1 Tim. 4:3). Reprobates are but indeed usurpers of them in His sight. We lost them in Adam, and we receive right neither in them nor to them, but by Christ. His passions have purchased our possessions.
Privilege 3. The elect only can use God's blessings to a right end and in a right manner. For they only are pure (being purged in the blood of Christ), and they only can pray with a true faith. The wicked make their riches their own ruin and God's benefits their own bane, and either abuse them or use them not as He commands them and causes
His own children by His grace to use them.
Privilege 4. God has appointed His holy angels, which for their strength and fortitude are called gods (Ps. 8:5), to guard and protect
His people. "The angel of the Lord," says David, "pitcheth round about them that fear Him" (Ps. 34:7). And the apostle says that they
"are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for their sakes which shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14).
Privilege 5. The Lord has honored His elect and no doubt yet does and will (when it pleases Him) by preserving them and providing for them very effectually, and sometimes also very wonderfully (Jer.
36:26). He saved Noah from drowning, Lot from burning, Elijah from famishing, Mordecai from murder, and Paul from those bloody votaries, by providing for them very kindly. He saved Samson miraculously from perishing by thirst, and Daniel from the teeth of the lions. David says, "The Lord drew him out of many waters, and delivered him from the cruel man, and gave him great deliverances"
(Ps. 18:16, 48, 50). He did often and strangely also preserve our late queen of holy and happy memory from the desperate and malicious
attempts of popish traitors, set a-work by the devil to murder her. He prolonged her days; He held the crown on her head and kept the scepter in her hand with peace and prosperity, the time and tyranny of nine or ten monsters her mortal enemies, though their slaves continually plotted and practiced against her, and though the prince of the air thundered against her in his lieutenants (as it were from the clouds) with curses and cursed excommunications. Lately also
He has vouchsafed an admirable deliverance to His anointed our gracious king, and to us all from a most barbarous and horrible confusion. And of this kind of favor and favorable dealing used of the Lord, we may read plentifully in divine and ecclesiastical stories. And no doubt the wicked have sometimes fared the better for the elect's sake, as Laban did for Jacob (Gen. 30:27) and Potiphar for Joseph
(39:5), and those which sailed in that dangerous voyage to Rome for Paul, who was in their company (Acts 27:24). God told Abraham that if there were but ten righteous persons in Sodom, He would not destroy it for their sakes (Gen. 18:32). Eliphaz says that the innocent shall deliver the island (Job 22:30), meaning that God does often deliver a whole country from peril for the just man's sake.
Privilege 6. For His elect God has altered the course of nature. He divided the waters of the Red Sea, that His people might pass dryshod through it (Ex. 14:22). He caused the sun to stay and the moon to stand still till His people had avenged themselves upon their enemies (Josh. 10:12). For Gideon's sake, He caused the dew to fall only upon a fleece of wool and kept it from falling upon the ground
(Judg. 6:38, 40), and afterward at his request He let it fall on the earth and kept the fleece dry. For Hezekiah's sake, He brought the shadow to the dial of Ahaz ten degrees backward (Isa. 38:8) by the which degrees the sun was gone down.
Privilege 7. God does often preserve His chosen children from perils then when He does persecute the wicked. "Many sorrows," says
David, "shall befall the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, shall be compassed of mercy" (Ps. 32:10). Noah was delivered when the wicked were drowned. The Israelites passed when the Egyptians perished. When Sodom was burned, Lot was brought forth (Gen.
19:16). When Jericho was sacked, Rahab was saved. When Ahab was slain, Jehoshaphat escaped. When Jerusalem was to be destroyed, the Lord commanded the godly to be branded that they might be preserved (Ezek. 9:4). Moreover, when the Lord delivers His own people, then He does sometimes thrust the wicked into their dangers. "The righteous," says Solomon, "escapeth out of trouble, and the wicked shall come in his stead" (Prov. 11:8). And as He does usually cross their cursed counsels, so He does oftentimes curse their malicious and bloody enterprises and cracks them upon their own crowns and breaks them upon their own backs. Haman was hanged on that gallows (Esth. 7:9) which he himself had prepared for Mordecai, whom the king did greatly advance. Daniel was brought from the lions (Dan. 6:23–24), and his accusers being cast into the den among them were devoured of them. God preserved Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego in the hot fiery furnace (3:22), and slew the men with the flame of the fire that brought them forth to be burned.
The Lord delivered good Jehoshaphat and caused his enemies that came against him to help forward their own destruction (2 Chron.
20:23). The Lord has delivered us from these barbarous and bloodthirsty Catholics and has for the honor of His mercy pulled the rotten house of their devilish inventions upon their own heads. His name be praised forever and ever, amen.
Privilege 8. Christ has altered the nature of afflictions to His elect and faithful members. For whereas they are cast upon the wicked as punishments due to them for their sins wherein they live, they are
inflicted upon the godly by God as a merciful father that desires the amendment of His children (Ps. 78:31–32; Heb. 12:6). Because our hearts are drowsy, the Lord as our most skillful founder casts us into the furnace of afflictions, that He might refine us. Because we are subject to transgress and go astray, the Lord imparts us within the pales of adversity and hedges us about with the thorny quick-set7 of the cross, that we might be kept in some compass. David says,
"Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Thy Word" (Ps.
119:67). Because we are by nature toward that which is good, the Lord uses the cross as a schoolmaster to instruct us. Therefore, David says, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn
Thy statutes" (v. 71). Because we are by nature inclined to the love of the world, the Lord as our nurse does wean us from the love thereof by affliction, as the mother or nurse drives her child from the breast by rubbing it with some bitter thing. To be brief, the Lord by afflictions executes our faith and patience, learns us humility, and teaches us how to esteem prosperity. By affliction, He makes us to take experience of His love and of those graces which He has given us. By afflictions, He learns us to be merciful to the miserable, for the sense of sickness and the feeling of poverty through God's blessing is a notable means to make us pity the poor and the sick. The apostle says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh to us a far more excellent, and an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17), though not as a cause procuring it (for we are saved by grace, and everlasting life is the free gift of God in Christ) (Eph. 2:8). Yet as a way and means directing and leading us thereto (Rom. 6:23), Christ has two crowns: the one of thorns; the other of glory. He that will be honored with the last must be humbled and tried with the first. Thus, it is evident that God shows Himself a father in afflicting His children. But as for the reprobate, His crosses are curses, and His afflictions are forerunners of further judgments inflicted and sent of God as a severe and dreadful judge.
Privilege 9. God has altered the nature of death to all the elect. For Christ by His death has been the death of death and the death of sin, which is the sting and strength of death. First of all, God by death teaches us to detest sin and to acknowledge the severity and sharpness of His anger against it. Secondly, by death He delivers us utterly from the body of sin. Till death we attain not to perfection, and at death sin is wholly consumed. When we die, sin dies. For sin is something like ivy, which falls down and dies when the tree on which it hanged is cut down. Thirdly, the Lord does sometimes take away His children by death, that they should not see those evils which He has purposed to plague His enemies withal. "Merciful men are taken away," says Isaiah, "and no man understandeth that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come" (57:1). So the Lord took away good Josiah (2 Chron. 34:28), that his eyes might not see all the evil which He purposed to bring upon that place. Yea, such is
His love to His saints that He cannot do that to the wicked which He would, so long as they live among them. As the angel told Lot (Gen.
19:32) that He could do nothing till he was gone out of Sodom, even so it may be truly said that God's love is so fervent toward His chosen as that it sometimes keeps Him from scattering His judgments in those places wherein they live. Therefore, He does often remove them by death that He may more freely pour out the vials of His wrath upon the ungodly. Fourthly, by death God learns us to seek a place of rest and to alienate our affections from the world, which being like to bird lime,8 would otherwise more easily belime our affections, that they could not soar up to the heavens, the place of our home. Fifthly, by death the Lord humbles us and teaches us not to prank and plume up our bodies like peacocks, as if we meant to live forever. Sixthly, the Lord by their deaths occasions their experience and feeling of the virtue of Christ's resurrection. Lastly, as death is the complement of mortification and ends the battle between the flesh and the spirit, so it fully finishes all earthly
calamities; and as a ferry it transports us over the tempestuous and broad ocean of tribulations and afflictions into the calm and quiet haven of endless happiness. But as for the reprobate, it is to them as a boat to carry them out of a river of earthly miseries into a restless and bottomless sea of infinite and ineffable torments. And because their felicity (if any) consists in the finite fruition of worldly prosperity, God in His appointed time by death as by a knife cuts asunder the thread of life and so casts them out of their paradise and sends their souls to the place of the damned, where they shall continue terribly tormented till that doleful and dismal day of vengeance.
Privilege 10. God has ordained the writing of His Word, the preaching of it, the administration of the sacraments, and His dispensers of them principally and properly for the benefit of the elect. Saint Paul says, "Whatsoever things are written aforetime, are written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope" (Rom. 15:4). John says he wrote that we might believe in the name of Christ (1 John 5:13). Therefore, his writings properly belong to the children of God. And the apostle, writing to the Ephesians, says that Christ gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and doctors—but to what end? "For the reparation of the saints, and for the edification of Christ's body" (Eph. 4:12). And this is no small prerogative. For the sacraments are signs and seals of God's grace.
The preaching of the gospel is the power of God to salvation to all that do believe. In His Word, He has recorded His will. And His ministers are as it were His trumpeters which do sound in our ears and trumpets of His law and gospel and instruct us when to stand still, when to retire, and when and how to march forward. They are through His assistance our spiritual fathers by whom He does procreate and beget us to Himself for our good and His own glory.
Now all these things profit the reprobate nothing at all, but do indeed through the rebellious corruption of their hearts harden and stiffen them, as the sun does clay.
Privilege 11. The Lord has united all His elect and dear children to Christ by His Spirit and by a true and lively faith. And by reason of this union, they are after a sort united to the whole Trinity: Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. Yea, hence it is that we are partakers of Christ's benefits. For as the members of the body have neither sense nor motion unless they be united to the head, and as the giraffe receives no nourishment except it be set in the flock and grow up with it, even so, unless we be united to Christ our stock and spiritual head, we have no spiritual life and motion, neither are we actually partakers of His benefits. But being once united and knit to Him, we receive sense and sap, life and motion.
Privilege 12. All the elect and faithful people of God are partakers of the prayers of all the godly throughout the world. The children of God have fellowship one with another, as with Christ, their head.
Whereas on the contrary, they pray for the confusion and final destruction of His and their impenitent, pestilent, and irreconcilable enemies, and cannot but hate and abandon those whom they see to walk perversely in wicked and reprobate courses without remorse of conscience and all show of repentance. For God has put a secret antipathy and mortal enmity between His seed and the seed of the serpent. Therefore, Solomon says, "A wicked man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in his way, is an abomination to the wicked" (Prov. 29:27). And as David says, "The wicked practiseth against the just, and gnasheth his teeth against him" (Ps. 37:12). So he also says thus of himself, "I have hated them that give themselves to deceitful vanities" (31:6). And again, "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? I hate them with the perfection of hatred, as if they
were mine utter enemies" (139:21). And in the fifteenth psalm, contemning of a vile person—that is, of a wicked wretch—and the honoring of the godly are made an infallible note of a faithful member of the church (v. 4). By which it appears that there is no sincere and solid communion between God's children and the slaves of the devil. And therefore it is one of our privileges and peculiar dignities to enjoy the love and lovely communion of the saints.
Privilege 13. Faith, by which we walk and live, by which we are justified and adopted, without which it is impossible to please God
(Heb. 11:6)—this faith, which is a supernatural gift of God above corrupt and created nature, this faith (I say) is peculiar and proper to the elect (Acts 13:48). Therefore, St. Paul calls it "the faith of the elect" (Titus 1:1) and teaches the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 3:2) that it is not common to all men. Secondly, hope is an excellent gift of God
(Rom. 5:5), for it makes not ashamed; and by it the apostle says we are saved—that is, by hope we expect and wait for that salvation
(8:24) which by faith we apprehend and assure ourselves of for the invaluable merits of Christ. Now, this grace is not given to any besides the elect. For how can the reprobate hope to be saved, seeing they are appointed for the day of evil (Prov. 16:4) and are reserved to the day of destruction (Job 21:30) and shall be brought forth to the day of wrath? Thirdly, love, which springs out of a pure heart (1 Tim.
1:5) and flows from a good conscience and faith unfeigned is given only to God's elect. For it is not possible for the reprobate to love God to that end and in that manner which God requires, seeing He has cast them off from all eternity and purposed not to give them any saving grace, considering also that they are by nature void of purity and do live and die in sin. Now this privilege is the greater, because this grace is very rare and excellent. Love is (as it were) a knife wherewith faith shares and cuts out the duties which we do owe to God and man in some good and acceptable manner. Love is the
cock9 which lets out the water of God's graces out of the cistern of our hearts. Love is the nurse of humanity, the mother of equity, the maintainer of virtue, the daughter of faith, the preserver of piety, the mistress of modesty, the badge of Christianity, the bane of discord, the staff of concord (Col. 3:14), the keeper of the crown (Job 13:25), the bond of perfection, and the note of a true disciple. Saint Paul in some sort prefers it to faith and hope when he says, "Now abideth faith, hope and love: but the choicest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).
By which we see that the Lord has highly honored us in that He confers this glorious grace to none but us. Lastly, that filial fear, which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10) and the well spring of life (14:27), to avoid the snares of death, and which makes a man to keep the golden rule of mediocrity, is given only to God's elect. For how can the reprobate, who do love sin and do not love God—how (I say) can they fear to displease Him, because they hate sin and love
Him? Or how can the reprobate, who are all ordained to inevitable and eternal perdition, be said to fear God as a son fears his loving father, seeing they be slaves, and considering that the Word of God pronounces him happy and blessed (Ps. 112:4) who stands in awe of God and fears to offend Him? If the reprobate be blessed, then of all men the elect are most accursed. But we shall say that those are blessed whom the Lord has accursed, if we shall say that the reprobate do fear God with that fear whereof I now speak.
Privilege 14. God accounts those injuries as done to Himself which the wicked offer to His faithful servants (2 Chron. 14:11; Nah. 1:9).
Saul persecuted the true professors of Christ, yet Christ told him from heaven that he persecuted Him (Acts 9:4). The afflictions of God's children are called in the Scriptures "Christ's afflictions" (Col.
1:24). For such is the union and communion between the head and the members, that if any of them smart, the head is partaker of the grief (Rev. 11:8). If any part be crazed or annoyed, the heart is ready
to mourn, the head to consult, the tongue to bewail and utter it, the foot to run to the surgeon, and the hand is ready to do her duty. Even so it is between Christ and His members. If any of them be injuriously vexed and troubled, He takes the wrong as done to Himself. And so Christ may be said to be crucified in that great city which is mystically called Sodom and Babylon—that is, Rome— because He is there put to death in His members and is in them (as it were) slain continually by Romish authority, as He was by it (if we speak properly) crucified and put to death.10 So in like manner the Lord says, "He which toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye"
(Zech. 1:8). And as Christ esteems of those good deeds which men do to them as done to Himself (Matthew 25), even so He accounts the bare neglecting and the not relieving of them in their wants as if the wicked had been in this kind of duty faulty to Himself.
Privilege 15. God will shorten the world and hasten the coming of His Son for the elect. And so that speech of Christ may be understood,
"For the elect's sake those evil days shall be shortened" (24:22).
Moreover, such is the patience and good will of God to His elect, as that He stays His coming for a time because He would (as Peter affirms, 2 Peter 3:9) have none of them to perish, but come to repentance, that when He comes they may be welcome to Him, and He to them.
Privilege 16. God does effectually call the elect, and none besides them; and they alone are justified in His sight (Rom. 8:30). For He does pardon them alone, and they only are clothed with the spotless robes of Christ's perfect righteousness. Therefore, the prophet says,
"The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. The Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. For the transgression of My people was He plagued. By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many. He bare the sins of many" (Isa. 53:5–7, 11–12). He does not
say "all." For He came to save His own people only from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He did not so much as pray for the reprobate (John
17:9). Now this is a very great and admirable privilege and honor, that God should send His only Son to die for us few despicable wretches, and that Christ should lose His life and shed His heart blood for us only, whereas it was in itself (being the blood of God) sufficient to have redeemed a thousand thousand worlds of sinners
(Acts 20:28). If a man had a medicine able to cure all diseases and would not give it any saving some few, they were wonderfully indebted to him. The blood of Christ is able to heal all our soulsicknesses and to deliver us from all our sins. And it has pleased Him to wash us alone in it and to withhold it from the far greater part of mankind. By which we see how highly He has honored us, and how deep we are in His debt. If three men were in danger of drowning or burning, and a man should come and deliver one of them and leave the other two to the danger, all men might well say that he favored him more than the other. By our sins we were all in danger to be drowned in that sulphury lake and to be consumed with the fire of God's wrath, as well as the reprobates. Our sins deserve it. But Christ has set Himself between His Father and us. He has taken no notice
(as it were) of them; and us only, who are elected, He has redeemed.
As the Lord drowned the Egyptians only in the sea, so Christ has overwhelmed our sins only in His blood. And as the propitiatory covered the ark and the Decalogue, so Christ covers His elect with His blood and hides them, yea them alone, from the wrath of God.
And therefore Paul calls Him the Savior of His body (Eph. 5:23). By which we see His grace and good will is far greater to us than to them.
Privilege 17. It is impossible through the virtue of God's decree and Christ's merits that any of the elect should fall into the sin against the Holy Ghost, into which some reprobates have rushed.
Privilege 18. The elect being once actually redeemed have liberty to serve and worship God without fear of any evil (Luke 1:74). They serve Him chiefly for His love and for conscience of His commandments. The wicked seem to serve Him oftentimes, but it is for some sinister respect, as for fear of damnation (as the slave obeys his master for fear of the whip) or for fear of imprisonment or an ill name, or else for the love of lucre or the desire of glory or credit with men.
Privilege 19. The elect alone do merit at God's hands, for they being alone partakers of Christ's meritorious righteousness do also alone, it being accounted as their own, merit everlasting life of God. Now is not this an exceeding great favor, that we being but worms (Job 25:6) should deserve everlasting happiness of so high a majesty? It does greatly commend the love of God to us, and the rather because He has graced us only with the inestimable merits of His Son, refusing to impart them to many millions of men as noble, as wise, as learned, as beautiful, as mighty, and as wealthy as ourselves.
Privilege 20. The elect being once effectually called do sin thenceforward only of infirmity. Therefore, St. John says that "whosoever is born of God, sinneth not" (1 John 3:9)—that is, with full consent of will. For so far forth as he is regenerate, he does not sin. Wherefore, Paul in the person of all true believers says, "If I do that I would not"—meaning evil—"it is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7:20). But on the contrary, wickedness (as Job shows, Job 20:12) is sweet in the wicked man's mouth. He hides it under his tongue; he savors it; he will not forsake it, but keeps it close in his mouth. His sin is as his soul. And therefore Solomon says he cannot sleep except he have done evil
(Prov. 4:16). And the prophet Isaiah shows that the wicked is so soldered to his sin as that he will not learn righteousness, though
mercy be showed to him (Isa. 26:10). In the land of uprightness, where true religion is commanded, countenanced, and professed, he will do wickedly, neither respecting God's merciful dealing nor the good examples of the godly. Whereas the faithful detest and abhor their corruptions and struggle against them, striving and desiring to be delivered of them, as a prisoner of his bolts or as those which are troubled with the disease incubus, called the nightmare, desire or struggle to be rid thereof.
Privilege 21. The Scriptures do teach that God has made peace between the creatures and His children. The stones of the field are in league with them (Job 5:23), and the beasts of the field are at peace with them. The Lord by His prophet Hosea says that He will make a covenant for them with the wild beasts (Hos. 2:18) and with the fowls of the heaven and with that which creeps upon the earth (Ex.
11:7). Do we not read that the sea made way to the Israelites and overwhelmed their enemies which pursued them (14:22, 28)? Do we not read that ravens fed the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:6)? Do we not read that the hungry lions favored Daniel, and that the fire spared the three children? Did not a star conduct the wise men to the place where our Lord lay (Matt. 2:9)? Did not the Lord make a covenant for His servant Jonah with the whale, whose teeth (as the Scripture says) are terrible, and by His might He makes the depth to boil like a pot (Job 14:5, 22)? And did He not make a bond of peace for Paul with the venomous viper (Acts 28:5), when he being upon his hand he received no hurt, though the barbarians waited when he should have swollen or fallen down suddenly dead? On the contrary, we read that He drowned the wicked world with water and burned the filthy
Sodomites with fire. He met with ambitious Absalom with12 a tree and slew those wicked children which mocked the prophet Elisha with bears (2 Kings 2:24). He made the dogs to eat the flesh of wicked Jezebel (9:36) and destroyed Herod, that cruel and
vainglorious king, with worms (Acts 12:23). He plagued the Egyptians with frogs, flies, and lice (Exodus 8). Yea, the Lord has all creatures in heaven and earth ready (when it pleases Him) to run upon the wicked and reprobate, as a greyhound upon his game when the leash is taken off, which He manifests when He says by Jeremiah,
"I will," etc. (Jer. 15:3).
Privilege 22. The elect, being once forgiven of God and accepted to everlasting life for the merits of Christ, have joy unspeakable and that peace which passes all understanding. "The kingdom of God," says the apostle, "standeth in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom.
14:17). If the health of body be such a thing as is rather with comfort enjoyed than in words to be expressed, how great shall we think is the peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost? It may be tasted, but it cannot be expressed. The malefactor has great peace and quietness with himself when the king has granted him his pardon; even so the elect should have great peace and tranquility of mind, when as God, the great King of heaven and earth, has pardoned their sins (Rom. 5:7) and received them to favor. But on the contrary, the reprobate and irreconcilable sinners, that sell themselves to work wickedness and drink iniquity like water, have either no peace at all but are like the raging sea that cannot rest (Isa. 57:20), whose wasters call up mire and dirt, or else are senseless like stocks, laboring of a spiritual apoplexy and a devilish, dead palsy, being sunk into the gulf of security and having made a league with death and a covenant with hell.
Privilege 23. The elect have an altar whereupon if they lay all their prescribed sacrifices, they shall be accepted of God, as smelling sweetly in His nostrils. But the reprobate and all their sacrifices are odious and abominable in His sight. They want our altar Christ
Jesus, who should purge and sanctify their offerings and by whom
they should offer them to the Father—and therefore their goodly sacrifices are but goodly sins.
Privilege 24. God gives His Holy Spirit to His elect only, who in God's appointed time makes His habitation in them, who does also sweep the floors of their spirits with the hand of His grace and the beesome of His word and trims up the houses of their hearts with the sweet and pleasant flowers of His Spirit and adorns them with the costly tapestry and precious ornaments of His orient and excellent graces.
He perfumed them (as it were) with frankincense and coals of juniper. He builds windows within them, that they may receive the bright and beautiful beams and lovely light, which do shine from the Sun of Righteousness. He constitutes a kingdom within them. He rules them with the strength of His arm and the scepter of His word.
He stablishes His throne with justice and mercy. He softens the part regenerate; He bridles and tames the rebel, even the rebellious corruption of the heart, and by little and little consumes it. As for the reprobate, their hearts are the dens of the devil and the cabins of sin, stinking loathsomely like a dead carrion. There is indeed a kingdom within them; but the devil is the king, sin is the queen. His throne is wickedness; his scepter is iniquity; his laws are the liberty of the flesh; his rewards are death; and they are his slaves and vassals.
Privilege 25. As the elect may have grace, so it is possible for them to grow in grace. Therefore, Peter exhortes us "to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ" (2 Peter 3:18) and shows also how we may grow (1 Peter 2:2). But for the reprobate, as they are void of all true saving grace, so they grow not therein; for they cannot increase in that which they want. A man cannot grow in bigness, unless he have a body. A man cannot grow rich, unless he have riches. They may increase in sin and grow in wickedness, as clay does in hardness when the weather is dry, or as the rivers do in depth and breadth
when the tide comes. Again, whereas the Lord does very often give the reins to the reprobate and suffers them to rush headlong into horrible enormities, as the Gadarenes' swine did into the sea, He does mercifully preserve His own people and graciously keeps them oftentimes from declining and falling. And whenever they either stumble or fall, they may recover themselves by serious and sound repentance. But God has not vouchsafed the gift of godly sorrow and true repentance to the reprobate. It belongs only to God's elect. We may read of David's repentance, of Peter's falling and rising, of Paul's conversion; but we never read of any true turning (to turn truly is to return from all sin to God) that ever any reprobate made. If any of them repent, it is but for fashion's sake or for fear of punishment. It is not for love to God, or for the hatred of sin for sin, or for the consideration of God's love to them. As lead being cast into the water cannot but sink, so the reprobate cannot but sin. And as a millstone lying in the bottom of the sea cannot come up, so the reprobate being overwhelmed in the bottomless pit of iniquity cannot repent. Though it were possible to remove a mountain out of his place, yet it were more impossible to remove a reprobate from his corruptions. He may move, but he will not remove. He may turn, but he cannot return. As it is impossible for him to revive who is ordained to perpetual death, so it is impossible for him to revive from sin whom the fountain of all life has righteously forsaken and delivered forever to Satan to hold captive in the grave of sin and in the dark and deadly dungeon of iniquity.
Privilege 26. The children of God have the spirit of prayer and with boldness may approach to the throne of His grace and put up their suits to Him. The king will permit a true subject to come into his presence and speak to him, when a rebel or traitor shall find no such favor. A king's son may speak to his father, when others are not permitted so to do. We are the sons of God and the servants of His
Son. Therefore, we may boldly in the name of our elder brother present ourselves before Him and put up our supplications to Him, and the rather because He knows and approves us. For as the apostle says, "The foundation of God remaineth sure, and has this seal, The Lord knoweth who are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). But the reprobate and their prayers are abominable in His sight. They want the spirit of prayer and either cannot pray at all, or not in the right manner.
Neither can they approach with boldness to God, seeing they have no part in Christ, nor Christ in them. They cannot pray with confidence to be heard, seeing they are destitute as well of faith as of the favor of God.
Privilege 27. God accepts the sincere will and fervent desires of His faithful and elect children to believe, repent, and obey for faith, repentance, and obedience. For "as a father has compassion on his children, so has the Lord compassion on them that fear Him" (Ps.
103:13). "He will spare them, as a man spareth his own son" (Mal.
3:17). But fathers use to take in good part their children's works, so they do them with care and diligence, though not so perfectly and exactly as indeed were meet. In like manner, if we will and with an honest heart desire to do well, though we do it very weakly, God does notwithstanding take all in good part and regards not the imperfection of the work. A desire of grace is one degree of grace, and a will to do well is with God accounted doing well. Therefore,
Paul says, "If there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man has, and not according to that he has not" (2 Cor. 8:12). That which he says of giving alms is true in the performance of all other duties. If there be in a man a ready and willing mind to believe, repent, and obey, though he do not these things perfectly or so well as many of his brethren do, yet God for the merits and intercession of His Son accepts both of him and his imperfect works and in mercy rewards him. David, besides his daily infirmities, did thrice
grievously offend God; and yet He told Solomon that if he would walk before Him as David, his father, He would establish the throne of his kingdom (2 Chron. 7:17), so as that he should not want a man to be a ruler in Israel. And albeit in that place He requires that he should do according to all His commandments, whereby He may seem to exact perfect (and therefore impossible) obedience, yet if we consider all things well, it will plainly appear that He means no other thing than that he should labor and seek to please Him in all things— because He sits his father David before his eyes as a pattern to follow, and because elsewhere we read that He makes the same promise to him, only requiring of him "to endeavor himself to do His commandments" (28:7) as he had begun. Now this is a very comfortable doctrine. For when a man considers that God respects his weak obedience and honest heart and accounts the will to do for the deed done, his heart is eased, his conscience is appeased, his mind is settled; and beholding the infinite love of God he is ravished with joy and provoked to magnify His mercy and to struggle against the corruption of his heart to please Him in doing all things which are pleasing in His sight. Now, lest we should beguile ourselves (for man's heart is a mine of subtlety) in thinking we desire and will to believe, repent, and obey, when as we either do not at all or do but as a reprobate may do, I will set down some rules which as the touchstone tries gold and as Solomon's sword found out the right mother, so these may serve to discover the truth of our desires and to desert the goodness of our wills. First of all, if we be grieved that we can desire and will no better than we do. Secondly, if we do desire and will to do these things for the glory of God, and because we are persuaded that both these things and the willing of them are pleasing to God. Thirdly, if we strive to increase in willing and desiring, and if we feed them with the diligent hearing of God's word, with holy meditations, with often prayers, and with setting before us the ensamples of excellent men, as the priests kept the fire upon the altar
and fed it continually and suffered it not to go out (Lev. 6:12).
Fourthly, if to our wills and desires we join reformation of our lives and in our several callings labor accordingly to serve God. Fifthly, if in our hearts we prefer eternal serving of God in heaven before all momentary profits and pleasures whatever. Sixthly, if we had rather live in a continual cross all our life long, but yet pleasing God and being in His favor, than spend the same in sinful pleasures, continually displeasing His majesty. Seventhly, if we desire and will to serve Him and to return home to Him from all our sins, though we were verily persuaded that there were no hell. Lastly, if we had rather please God, His rod of correction being always exercised upon us, than live without remorse of conscience against our knowledge, in profitable and pleasant sins, continually vexing and displeasing God our gracious Father, though we were certainly (as it were by oracle from heaven) assured that we should at the last gasp repent and be saved, notwithstanding our former rebellion and horrible disloyalty.
If we desire and will to believe, repent, and obey, and find these things in us, then our desires will go for currant, God will accept of them and approve them.
Privilege 28. The Lord indeed suffers His children to fall, but it is to let them see that their standing is by His grace and to show them that He is not obliged with any bond of their merits (which are just none) to sustain and uphold them. He does it also to make them cling the closer about Him and to seek more earnestly for His assistance, as the little child screeches out for help when it is fallen and lies flat sprawling upon the ground. He does it to humble them and to abate their natural pride; and as He lets them fall in love, so by their falls
He manifests His wisdom and integrity and shows His admirable compassion and humanity in forgiving and in raising them up again.
But the falls of the reprobate kindle the coals of God's wrath against them. And further their full and final perdition, they serve to
increase their sin and consequently their pains. They serve for punishments sometimes of former offences. And by committing one sin in the neck of another, they put out the light of nature. They harden their hearts and fit themselves for further wickedness, even as the stithy becomes the harder by striking. I grant indeed that oftentimes they are grievously galled and perplexed with their sins.
But it is not a sorrow that causes repentance to salvation never to be repented of. And usually it fares with them as it does with young hat makers or such as use to play at stool ball.15 In the beginning, their fingers may blister, and their hand may ache; but after a while, their hands become hard and brawny and are well armed for such works.
And the more they practice, the less pain they feel. So the custom of sinning takes away the sense of the sin. And as the dropsy man, the more he drinks, the drier he is; so the reprobate—the more he falls, the more he fancies falling.
Privilege 29. It is not possible that any of the elect should be damned or that any of them being soundly converted should wholly for a time
(much less forever) fall away from God and perish. For God's decree of election (2 Tim. 2:19) is constant, and His counsel (Isa. 46:10) shall stand. "Him that cometh to Me," says Christ, "I cast not away"
(John 6:37)—that is, "I do not cast off or eject him that embraces Me with the hand and arms of a lively faith and testifies the same with the fruits thereof." And whom God has predestined, called, and justified, them He will also glorify (Rom. 8:30). For His covenant with them is an everlasting covenant (Jer. 32:40), and His gifts are without repentance (Rom. 11:29). "Love is strong as death: much water cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it" (Song
8:6). Piety, which perishes, was never pretty. And true faith (though as small as a grain of mustard seed) cannot altogether vanish and be extinguished, for God will relieve it. He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax (Isa. 42:3). Indeed, faith may be
shaken, but it cannot be shivered in pieces. It may be moved, but it cannot be removed. It may wither and wax dry, but it cannot wear away quite and die. Satan may sift and towze16 it, he may lay siege against it; but he cannot sack it. He shall never destroy it. The sun may set and for a time lie hid, but it remains in the heaven. And faith may be covered (as fire with ashes), but yet it continues in the heart.
The fish may be in the water, though she float not always aloft. There is sap in the root when the leaves are fallen off and the top naked and in appearance withered. So faith lives though it have lost some signs of life. The sun and the moon may be indeed eclipsed; even so the eye of faith may be dimmed. But as the sun and moon do not perish in their eclipses nor lose their light forever, even so faith does not perish when it is eclipsed. It may indeed receive a buffet, whereby it may (as it were) reel and stagger and fall to the ground and there for a time lie like a man in a swoon or fit of the falling sickness. But it cannot die, because God, the wellspring as well of spiritual life as of natural, will never forsake it. The Thames may suffer an ebb, but it is not stark dry at any time. So faith may come to a very low ebb, but yet it will have water always in the bottom. As a great river may be frozen over with hard ice for a time and so covered with snow, as that it seems rather a rock than a river or like to other ground, even so faith may be (as it were) frozen over with thick ice and so held with the snow of sin, as that it may not be seen at all for a time. But as there is water in the river which is deep, notwithstanding the frost, though it be not seen, even so there is life in faith, though for a time it do not appear. But when the weather is broken, when the Holy
Ghost begins to make a thaw with the fresh fire of His grace when the south wind blows hard and when the Sun of Righteousness has melted the ice—then faith will appear and flow again as a river after rain and as the waters do after a thaw. Then grace, which was covered before, will shine bright and clear, as the sun does after a shower, as is evident by the repentance of David and Peter.
Moreover, our Savior says that His sheep shall "never perish" (John 10:28). The Lord, says Isaiah, shall feed His flock like a shepherd
(Isa. 40:11). He shall gather the lambs with His arms and carry them in His bosom. He makes them to rest in green pastures (Ps. 23:2) and leads them by the still waters. He upholds them in their integrity
(41:12) and does set them before His face forever. As Zerubbabel laid the foundation of the temple (Zech. 4:9) and did finish it, so God, that has begun His good work in the temple of our hearts, will finish it to the end (Phil. 1:6). They cannot be taken from Him by strong hand. For He is greater than all (John 10:29–30), and His will to save them is answerable to His power. Therefore, He says He gives to them everlasting life (v. 28), adding also that none shall pluck them out of His hands. Master Tyndale says well, "Christ is thine, and all
His deeds are thy deeds; neither canst thou be damned, except He be damned with thee." They cannot perish by seduction, for the elect cannot be seduced (Matt. 24:24). Neither can they of themselves fall away. For God has put His fear in their hearts (Jer. 32:40), that they shall not depart from Him. A man may for a time cease to laugh, but he cannot lose the faculty of laughing. The drunkard loses sometimes the use of reason, but the faculty never. So the graces of God may be crazed, but yet they are not utterly abolished. Finally, God forsakes not them. For His love is everlasting (31:3). Those whom He loves once, He loves to the end (John 13:1). Nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:39). It is like the Israelites' shoes (Deut. 29:5), which waxed not old. It is like the tree of life—he that once truly tastes of it shall not die eternally. As a father does not reject his child when he has broken his face by falling, but rather seeks a plaster—he will (it may be) lash him, but he will not leave to love him.17 Even so our heavenly Father deals with His children. For He has said that He will never depart from them to do them good (Jer. 32:40). He will not fail them nor forsake them (Heb. 13:6), but will sanctify them throughout (1 Thess. 5:23–24) and keep them safe to the coming of
Christ. Indeed, our enemies may wound us, but they shall not win.
They may vex us, but they shall not vanquish. They may perhaps press us, but they shall not oppress us. They may cut us, but they cannot kill us. For God, who is greater than all, will not suffer us to be tempted above our power and is very vigilant for us (1 Cor. 13:13).
For He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (Ps. 121:4).
Privilege 30. The elect may assuredly be persuaded in this life that they shall be saved in the life to come. For a special and certain persuasion of God's mercy is the very heart and marrow, the life and soul of true faith (Matt. John 1:12; Rom. 4:20). Therefore, Paul says,
"We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be destroyed, we have a building of God"—that is, "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). Furthermore, if it be not possible for men to know that they shall be saved, how could St. John say,
"These things have I written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (John 20:31).
To conclude, if it were impossible for a man to be in his conscience assured that he is the elect and faithful servant of God, effectually called in time and ordained to glory before time, to what end should
David inquire who of all professors are the true members of the church militant on earth and shall be of the church triumphant in the heavens (Psalm 15)? And to what end should he set down the marks whereby they may be discerned? And to what purpose should Paul exhort us to prove ourselves whether we are in the faith? Or why should he speak after this manner to us, "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2
Cor. 13:5)? And wherefore should Peter bid us be diligent to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10)? It remains therefore as an undoubted truth that the elect may be truly assured of their election and may assuredly know (without special revelation) that they shall be saved. Now this is a very great prerogative, and the
greater, first, because it may be enjoyed to the end; secondly, because the longer it is enjoyed, the better we are assured; thirdly, it brings with it wonderful joy. For what greater joy can a man here enjoy than to be assured of eternal joy? Fourthly, this assurance makes a man more wary and more unwilling to displease God by sin, whereby nothing is deserved but damnation. Fifthly, this privilege is the more excellent, because they which want this knowledge altogether can have no solid consolation. And as for the reprobate, they have no more to do with this certainty than they have with salvation. As it is impossible for them to be saved, so it is impossible for them to be truly assured of their salvation. He that dreams may think he walks, eats, talks, sees, when he does not; and he may think he is awake, when he is not. So these dreamers may think that they shall be saved and may soothe themselves as if they were cocksure,18 but they are deceived. He that is in a swoon does sometimes persuade himself that he sees many strange sights, but his persuasion is false. So the reprobates may think all things run round, they may persuade themselves they are in God's favor and shall be saved; but as the things are false whereof they do persuade themselves, so their persuading must needs also be as false. It is but a spiritual swoon or devilish dreaming or dizziness that does to blind their eyes and beguile them.
Privilege 31. The elect only shall be raised up of Christ as a savior and redeemer. And when all people shall be gathered before Him, He will separate His elect from the reprobate (Matthew 25). The elect shall be placed on His right hand, and upon them He will pronounce the white and comfortable sentence of absolution. On the contrary, He will raise up the reprobate as He is a terrible and dreadful judge. He will set them on His left hand like goats and pronounce against them the doleful and black sentence of condemnation. And more also, which may increase their grief, He will use the elect for the
approbation of His judgment upon them and upon the wicked angels also. They shall attend upon Him as justices do upon the judge at the assizes and shall approve His sentence. And this St. Paul teaches (1
Cor. 6:2–3), when as he says that the saints shall judge the world and the wicked angels. Now as this is a great honor to the elect to sit as judges upon the wicked, so it must needs minister no small grief to them to be (as it were) judged of those whom they before have derided, condemned, nicknamed, and persecuted. Thus, we have seen many notable privileges of God's elect and faithful children. If Balaam prophesied of the Israelites when he looked upon them dwelling according to their tribes, saying, "How goodly are thy tents,
O Jacob, and thy habitations, O Israel" (Num. 24:5), we may well conjecture that God will exceedingly manifest His love to us hereafter in the heavens, seeing He has honored us so highly in this vale of misery and will grace us so much after the resurrection in our entrance into heaven, as that we shall judge the world and the angels.
Privilege 32. The last privilege of the elect whereof I will entreat is that God will give them the kingdom of heaven and everlasting life.
"Fear not, little flock," says our Shepherd, "for it is your Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). And Paul says that God does glorify those whom He has predestinated, called, and justified (Rom. 8:30). Our Savior says that He gives eternal life to all
His sheep (John 10:28). As Joshua brought the children of Israel into earthly Canaan, so Christ Jesus, our Joshua, will one day bring all true Israelites into celestial Canaan and will crown them with immortal glory. To describe this blessed estate perfectly surpasses man's capacity, whose knowledge is as yet imperfect. For Paul out of Isaiah says that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, neither came it into man's heart to think of those things which God has prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. 2:9; Isa. 64:4).
Nevertheless, it may in part be described according as God has
revealed it in His Word to us. In this estate, the elect shall be delivered and set free from all wants and miseries, from sin, and from all the temptations of Satan (Rev. 21:4). They shall have perpetual fellowship with the blessed Trinity and the holy angels.
They shall have perfect knowledge, and they shall perfectly love God, who will be all in all to them (1 Cor. 13:12). Their hearts shall be full fraught with endless and unutterable joys. Their tongues shall continually sound out the praises of God. They shall celebrate an everlasting sabbath, serving God most purely forever and ever (Isa.
66:23). Their bodies shall be like to the glorious body of Christ (Phil.
3:21), bright and beautiful, mobile and full of agility, preserved and sustained by the immediate power of God, without meat, drink, sleep, labor, physic; and therefore Paul calls them spiritual (1 Cor.
15:44). Lastly, to make up their happiness, the place of their abode shall be in the highest heavens, where there are no pains but pleasures (2 Cor. 5:1); no woe but weal; no sin but serving of God; no grief but glory; no want but wealth; no sickness but health; no death but life; no jars but joys; no wars but peace; no treachery but truth; no fighting but triumphing; and no change but everlasting continuance. When a man has lived so many thousand thousand years in all the pleasures of paradise as there are hours in a million millions of years, he shall not attain to the end; for the end is endless, and the time is without time. But on the other side, the reprobate are severed from the solacious sight and comfortable presence of God.
Their fellowship is with the devil and his angels in hellfire, where they are unspeakably tormented in soul and body with endless, easeless, and remediless torments. Their life is death, and their death is life—a dying life, and a living death. When they have spent so many years in pains as there be stars in the sky, motes in the sun, sands on the shore, and fishes in the seas, they shall be as far from the end as they were the first day; for the time is infinite, their damnation is everlasting, and their death shall never be put to death.
Their worm shall not die, their fire shall never be put out, neither shall they be put out with it (Isa. 66:24). But as the salamander is always in the fire and never wastes, so the wicked shall be continually scorched in hellfire, and yet shall never be consumed. Lo then, beloved, you see the charter of the saints in part. No earthly monarch can grant such a one to his subjects as God has given freely to His elect. All the countries, kingdoms, and cities that have been, are, and shall be cannot show such dignities, such royalties, and such immunities given them by man as I have showed to belong to God's elect and obedient children. The consideration of these benefits and privileges should move us first to acknowledge and laud God's infinite love. Secondly, in [a] way of thankfulness to dedicate our souls and bodies and all that we have to God. Thirdly, to admire the condition of God's children. Fourthly, to be afraid to disgrace them whom the Lord does so grace and countenance. Fifthly, to undergo courageously all adverse blasts and all the crosses of this life. Sixthly, to alienate our hearts from the world. Seventhly, to roll our care upon God and to rely upon His providence. Eighthly, to desire the coming of Christ and not to fear death too much. The sooner we die, the sooner we come to our crowns. Lastly, the consideration of these benefits and privileges should stir us up to seek by all means to be enrolled among them and never to rest till we be in some measure certain and certainly persuaded that we are elected and preordained to salvation. When Ahasuerus had honored Mordecai (Esth. 8:7) and showed favor to the Jews, the Scripture says that much people of the land became Jews. So, seeing the Lord has thus dignified the elect, let us behave ourselves like them and labor to be accounted of their company. Claudius Lysias gave a great sum of money for the freedom of the Romans (Acts 22:28); how much more ought we to seek for these freedoms and royalties which do more surpass the other than the heaven does the earth and the precious pearl does the poorest pebble. They are not indeed to be named or compared together, and
yet these may be had without money, though they cannot be had by money. And thus much for the privileges.
I come now briefly to set down the note of election to life and to show how a man may come to be truly persuaded in his conscience that he shall be saved. Let a man that would attain to the knowledge of his election to salvation (1) hear the word of God often and attentively.
For faith, whereby we are persuaded of God's special grace to us, is ordinarily wrought by hearing of the word preached (Rom. 10:17). (2)
Let him wage war with his infidelity, and let him not listen to Satan tempting him to doubting or desperation. (3) Let him beware of pride and presumption, neither trusting to his own goodness nor oblivious of God's infinite justice. (4) Let him often and earnestly pray for this benefit and desire that God would give him His Spirit, which may witness with him that he is the chosen child of God. (5)
Let him reverently receive the sacrament and meditate often of his baptism. For the sacraments are pledges of God's love and serve to increase our faith. He that receives them with an honest and humble heart may assure himself of the remission of his sins and of the salvation of his soul. (6) Consider diligently God's fatherly dealing with you. Lastly, let him expand and dutifully consider the notes of election to eternal life, by the which a man may know that he is ordained to be saved. Note, the jailor demanding of Paul and Silas what he should do to be saved, they made him answer, saying,
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). Secondly, love of our brethren for their piety. "We know," says John, "that we are translated from death to life, because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). Thirdly, the fear of God, wherein we are loath to offend Him, chiefly because we love Him and hate sin.
"Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord" (Ps. 12:1); is blessed, then elected. [Unreadable] hearty confession, and loathing of our sins.
"He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall find mercy" (Prov.
28:13). But God vouchsafes His special mercy only to His own people. Fifthly, confidence and affiance in God. "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee" (Ps. 84:12). The condition of reprobates is cured. The apostle says our confidence has great recompense of reward (Heb. 10:35). Sixthly, sincere and true calling upon the name of God. For Paul says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13). Seventhly, careful and constant endeavoring to keep all the commandments of God. For "blessed are they that do His commandments, that their right may be in the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city"
(Rev. 22:14). As the Lord promised to establish the kingdom of Solomom (1 Chron. 28:7), if he did constantly endeavor to keep His commandments, so the same Lord will establish us forever in the kingdom of heaven, if we will endeavor constantly to serve and obey
Him. Eighthly, patient bearing of affliction for the truth's sake.
"Blessed are they," says Christ, "which suffer persecution for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt.
5:10). Ninthly, an earnest and hearty desire to be washed in the blood of Christ and to be invested in the white robes of His righteousness. "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6). "To him that is athirst, I will give of the well of the water of life freely" (Rev. 21:6).
Tenthly, Christian humility and poverty of spirit, when a man seems naked and base in his own sight and ascribes all to God's grace.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
(Matt. 5:3). Eleventhly, a lusting and longing after the coming of Christ. Paul says that the righteous Judge will give a crown of righteousness to all those that love His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8).
Twelfthly, David in the fifteenth Psalm asks the Lord who shall dwell in His tabernacle and rest on His holy mountain, and received answer as it were by oracle from God that he shall who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the truth from his
heart. And Peter having commanded us to make our election and calling sure adds saying that if we do "these things, we shall never fall" (2 Peter 1:10), but shall be sure and certain. Now what these things are, he shows—to wit, that we adorn our hearts and lives with virtue, knowledge, temperance, godliness, and love (vv. 5–7). To conclude, he that is sure of his adoption may be also certain of his election; for none are adopted, but such as are elected. Now a man may know his adoption if he find in himself the properties of an obedient and loving son. I will set down some. (1) Property. As a little child, whether in learning good or leaving evil, is either won by a fair word or awed by a check or feared by a frowning look or allured by a trifling gift or stilled by seeing another beaten before him or else quieted by a rod, even so God's children are either affected by His promises or allured by His mercies or awed by His threats or scared by His frowning countenance or humbled by His correcting of others or by His rod which is upon their own backs. (2) A good and wise child is very desirous to know his father's mind or will, that so he may best know how to please and humor him; and such is the disposition of God's child. Job makes it the note of a wicked man to affect the ignorance of God's ways (21:14). (3) A good child, knowing that he has unjustly grieved his father, will not be quiet till they be good friends again. (4) He labors to resemble his father in his rare and excellent virtues. (5) He will bear a blow at his father's hands
(though he scorn to put it up at another man's); and when his father has chided or corrected him, he will not run for comfort to his father's desperate and sworn enemies. (6) He envies not a servant or brother that is more laborious and circumspect in his father's business than himself is. (7) He carries a thankful heart toward his father for his fatherly gifts. (8) He is glad to know his father's prerogatives, his lands and leases (if there be any), specially if he be an heir. (9) He longs to see his father and to hear often of him in his absence. (10) He makes much of those love tokens which his father
has given him to keep for a remembrance of him or for a sign of his love. (11) He cannot without grief endure to see his father injured or abused by any. (12) He has a special regard of his father's credit. (13)
He rejoices at his father's prosperity. (14) He likes his father's company. He listens to his words and loves to talk to him. (15) He loves his mother entirely; he affects his brethren and sisters, though it be but for his father's sake. (16) He hates the fellowship of his father's injurious and unjust enemies. He is a friend to all his father's faithful friends; he contemns not their companies. (17) He cleaves to his father in the time of trouble and does not cast him off. These are properties of gracious, wise, and godly children; and being applied to the purpose in hand, they are so many infallible notes of God's dutiful and loving child. Those which find them in their hearts and lives may truly and infallibly assure themselves and know that they are the sons and daughters of God, elected before the foundation of the world to everlasting life and happiness. Those which after diligent search find them not to be in them must not despair, though they may justly indeed suspect and bewail their estates. But let them fly to the throne of grace with hungry hearts and incessantly desire favor, remembering also to use all means whereby all these foresaid graces and gracious conditions may be generated, nourished, and augmented in them.
These things (right worshipful and beloved) I have here set down as a preface to the treatise following for your furtherance and encouragement; and being the first fruits of my labors in this kind I do present and give them to you in testimony of my hearty love and earnest desire of your Christian progress in knowledge and in godliness. "The God of peace that brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in all good works to do His will, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight