-- CHAPTER I: That God had a respect unto man considered as unfallen, in his election of him unto th
Again I found διὰ ὕδατος is rendered in this very epistle, 'in the water,' or the midst of the water, by this very apostle, that kept to his own dialect: 2 Epist. 3:5,* 'The earth that now stands in the water,' or, 'in the midst of the water.' Just thus here, they were saved in the ark, floating in or through the midst of the waters.
4. So as those words, the like figure whereunto‚ refer not, 1, to the word water‚ but unto the word ark‚ as 'wherein' it is said, 'they were saved;' 2, or else, unto the matter of that whole foregoing sentence; and so the coherence runs thus, that the substance of our salvation by baptism, or Christian baptism, answereth in similitude unto that salvation of those eight persons in the ark then, and is a like figure thereunto.
So then the summary result of all is, that Christ our ark, and our salvation in him, now signified in baptism, was the thing lively forefigured in that salvation of theirs in the ark, bearing them up in and through the waters.
BOOK II Of the order of God's decrees about man's election and reprobation.
—Of the end to which we are ordained; a supernatural union with God and communication of himself.—The infinity of grace discovered therein.
CHAPTER I
That God had a respect unto man considered as unfallen, in his election of him unto the end, and also unto man as fallen into sin in his decrees to the means.
This distinction to the end and to the means, in the decrees of God, is so generally acknowledged, that I need not insist on it.
But concerning what is the end, and what are the means, as in my sense I intend it, needs some explication.
1. The end is either (1.) God's glory, and that I call the supreme end of all. Of this my assertion proceedeth not. (2.) There is that fulness of glory God designed to bring his elect into, and this I call the ultimate end or issue of all (as the other the supreme). And this end
(which the apostle terms 'the end,' 1 Cor. 15:24, and Rom. 6:22, and Christ the 'perfection' of his members, John 17:22, 23 compared) is that I mean, when I affirm that the decree to this end was not after, or upon the consideration of, the fall first had. But, indeed, that all those means to accomplish or bring us through unto the attaining of this end, they all suppose man fallen as the object of them.
2. And then, secondly, I distinguish again of what are termed means to this end among several divines. The pure superlapsarian he takes into the means to this end, the creation, and the permission of the fall, and calls them means to bring about that intention or decree to that ultimate end or glory specified.* But I do limit myself that those only are means, either which on Christ's part he, as a redeemer, hath performed thereunto, or which on our part are wrought in us or by us; such as are calling, justifying faith, and repentance, which are termed preparations unto glory: Rom. 9:23, 'Whom he hath afore prepared unto glory.' Also good works, and an holy life: Eph. 2:10,
'Which God had afore prepared' (so in the margin and Greek), 'that we should walk in them.' He will give grace as the means then, glory as the end. These I am sure are such means as do, ex se‚ prepare for glory, by way of direct and proper influence. And all such do presuppose a fall, and are a restoration of us out of it. And it is of these I now speak, and unto these I do limit my discourse.
And as for that other of creation, &c., sure I am that that holiness in Adam by creation, whilst he stood, and in which he was created, was
not a means at all of that glory, that is, of that election glory, which we are now speaking of. But therefore it must be cast upon some other consideration, notion, or account, than of a means which election should have prepared for that glory. Also the sin of Adam, no man must say that it was a means, but at the utmost of it, but an occasion, or rather indeed but a mere outlet or passage through which election wrought itself into a new enlargement or amplification and magnifying of the grace of itself towards the elect, in a new way, considered as sinners, and as now become miserable, which by creation they were not; in which new way and course the grace of election would further expiate, and as with a fetching a compass about, 'bring us to' that ultimate 'glory' it had designed (as in Heb. 2:10 the phrase is); thereby the more illustriously to glorify itself by making thereby a new edition of grace, which should give all anew after sinning, and desert of the contrary, foreseen.
Whereas the former grace, considering us unfallen, and designing us unto that end, was a mere supercreation and supernatural grace through Christ as a mediator of union; but this last was by him as by a Saviour purchasing all anew, and restoring us unto such graces, now utterly lost, as were requisite for man fallen to have ere he should be brought unto glory.
But what aspect or subserviency any way, creation or permission of the fall have unto the decrees of election or reprobation, I have a more proper place to shew it in. But it is certain they serve but in common unto each of those decrees, and are but such matters as common providence. That which at present I would say is only that I rank them not among proper and direct means unto that ultimate end spoken, but I limit the proper notion of means unto such as do suppose the fall; for that Christ considered as a redeemer; as also that we should be called and believe; these are all such means as have an immediate influence into that glory, as all do and must acknowledge; and they suppose the fall first, and therefore I limit the decree of the means unto such. This for the stating of it.
Now as touching my assertion, as thus stated, viz., his making this apartment, that in the decree to the end God had an eye unto man considered as not fallen, I am not alone in it. Polanus speaks adequately unto this my sense, whom I the more willingly cite, because he also makes Christ as he is Christ the head and foundation of election, considered afore the fall; as also, suitable unto this my present argument in hand, I profess myself to do. He speaking how man is the subject or object of election, and how considered by God therein, hath these words:* 'God in his decree of election did behold
(or look upon) his elect as to the end he predestinated them unto, so as men absolutely in common, without all consideration of qualities in them. But if we consider the means leading to the end, so he looked upon men, not as in their upright condition (afore the fall), but as they would be corrupt of and in themselves by the fall, and fallen headlong by their own default into eternal death.' Than which nothing is more full unto that division or distinction of means and end which I have made.
I know there is a controversy among divines,—not at all whether election be not as well to the means as to the end, and so unto both,— none that I know deny that,—but the controversy is, whether the whole act of God's decreeings unto both should not have been pitched, either wholly upon man considered in the mass of creability afore the fall, or wholly upon the mass of mankind considered and viewed first as fallen into sin. And many do judge it incompatible that both should stand.
I profess not to enter upon the merits of so great a question here, but only that both conditions were at once viewed by God, so that one was neither first nor second to the other in time, but that God having all afore him in his immense understanding, had in his purpose of election to the end a respect unto man considered as unfallen, but in that to these means, unto man considered as fallen; and decreed both, and all in one and the same determination of his divine will.
That there have been some eminent divines that have gone about to reconcile those different opinions, whether men fallen or unfallen were the object of predestination, may be well known among them that are versed in this controversy.
That judicious and good divine Keckermanus, he first states the controversy:* 'The whole question (says he) about the object of God's decree of election is, whether men were absolutely considered (as creatures) or under the consideration of the fall;' and then determines it by the application of this very distinction in the sense I have given it. Thus: 'The decree of election falls under a double consideration: the first, in respect of the end, namely, life eternal; and so the consideration of the fall was not necessary, because the fall was not a means thereof, but rather an impediment; secondly, this decree may be considered as in respect unto man's frail condition, which God foresaw, as also of the means, such as in respect unto man's (frail) condition were to come, namely, of redemption and regeneration; and so the decree of election necessarily includes a respect and consideration of the fall.'
And interpreting that to the Romans, chap. 8:29, 'Whom he hath foreknown, those he hath predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Son,' he further draws out of these words the state and decision of this controversy. The apostle (says he) distinguisheth the decree of God into two acts: 1, foreknowledge of such as are his; 2, of predestination. Which when I weigh (saith he) I understand by the foreknowledge, his decree simply considered of giving to men eternal life, as man is considered without the consideration of the fall. But by predestination I understand God's decree concerning man fallen, as he was to be raised up again, and to be brought to eternal life. And indeed election, in the import of it, is very ordinarily distinguished by divines from predestination: the first to be unto the end simply; the second to import the decree unto the means, as including the end.
I shall here omit what Junius and Piscator have attempted to the reconciling of this controversy.
But I add this: 1. That God's decree unto these means specified, they must certainly presuppose the consideration of the fall; for to believe on Christ a redeemer, &c., necessarily presupposeth it; and although these concern the execution of God's decree, whereby to bring men unto that end, yet certainly God decreed the means from everlasting as well as the end.
2. That for God to have decreed unto glory without any respect or consideration of the fall, thus far, even those that are of that other opinion, that is, for election after the fall considered, do yet freely and frankly acknowledge.
That most learned, perspicuous, and candid author, Bishop Davenant, doth acknowledge,* 'that if by predestination any do understand the designation unto the end, viz. of glory, as many (says he) of the ancient schoolmen did; and by reprobation, only the negation of that act (namely, a non-election unto glory), though I think (says he) it is not necessary to suppose sin to have been first in the person or subject, either elected or reprobated.' And his answer is, 'Because sin (as first foreseen) is altogether impertinent unto either of these acts; for it is not the ground or reason of electing or not electing (as all confess), nor is it a qualification of the subject, without which these acts could not befall these persons, as appears evidently in the case of angels.' Thus he, although for his own opinion, he rather inclined to think that the Scripture (as Austin had done) seemed rather to place the decrees of the end and that to the means, both of them upon man presupposed as fallen, and yet speaks tenderly in it.
Now, I readily grant that the decree of end and that of means were both in God's mind at once, and in it neither had a priority or a posteriority. But still the question will be, whether both these estates of man unfallen and fallen (though in execution they succeed one after the other), yet lying alike level unto the prospect of the divine mind and will of God, he might not have, yea, had not in the decree of the end‚ or to glory simply, a respect unto man, considered by him
as unfallen, as the terminus à quo‚ or rise in his choosing of him, as also in his denying that glory to other. And then again, in his decree of the means or way to that glory, he had not a respect unto that fallen condition of man; and both thus, the one and the other, and all lying at once afore him, whether he did not place and pitch his decree to the end upon their unfallen and creable condition, and make that estate or condition the terminus à quo of it, and his decree to the means upon his fallen condition; and this is it that I affirm.
Obj. 1. The learned bishop urgeth that predestination in Scripture is not only to the end, glory, but also to the means, as faith, &c. which means (says he) are such as suppose man fallen, and therefore election to the end doth also.
Ans. 1. For answer, 1, I grant that election to glory as the end, doth not take up the whole of the act of election, as the object of it; but takes in election to the means that makes up the whole of it; nor do I find those schoolmen he speaks of, that they do not acknowledge election to be also unto grace as the means. But it no way follows that because election to those means do suppose man fallen, that therefore election unto glory also should necessarily do the same; for the grace of God in his electing us unto glory, first of man considered as unfallen, might and did design an ampletion or magnifying of itself, the more by permitting them to fall into sin, whom he had ordained to glory, and so redeem them and save them through such means as are requisite to save man fallen, and through them to bring them unto glory.
Ans. 2. And, 2dly, we find that the Scriptures, when speaking of election, do pitch the ordination of it upon no other than eternal life and glory, as the object of it; and faith, which is that consequent of that ordination to life: Acts 13:48, 'As many as were ordained to eternal life,' as the end, 'believed,' as the means through which God brought them to that end; yea, and through which I acknowledge they also, by an act of election, were ordained to be brought; yet still the ordination unto life is there only and precisely mentioned. He
says not; those that were ordained to believe, believed; but those that were ordained to eternal life, believed, as that through which they arrived at it. But as this election to the end was one thing, and that to faith as the means another, so they may respect these two several conditions of man chosen mentioned. Again, elsewhere, though it be true that faith is said to be given by an act of election, as well as eternal life, and therefore is styled 'the faith of God's elect,' Titus 1:1, yet eternal life is there also, not distinctly alone and apart spoken of, in ver. 2, but as that which being originally promised by God, 'who cannot lie,' afore the world began, viz., as that which being promised and decreed, had drawn on the believing, and the ordination thereof by election; so as although these two are conjunct, yet still they may and are to be abstractly considered, not only as distinct decrees, but as those that may be determinated upon the elect under distinct considerations or notions of fallen and unfallen.
Obj. 2. And again, that it is said, 2 Thes. 2:13, 'He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.' Where our election to the means and to the end are joined, and that end itself is termed 'salvation,' which respects the fall; for out of that it is that we are said to be saved.
Ans. 1. I grant that that ultimate grand story of God's being all in all, hath upon the fall the title of salvation anew put upon it; and Christ's purchase of it anew for us did deserve that title. And so I grant also; yet when we were ordained unto these means of faith, &c., we were withal ordained unto this end, as it is salvation; yea, and as that which was to be purchased anew by Christ as a Redeemer, by reason of the fall foreseen; yet this hinders not another gift of it by God, and title of us thereby to it, by an act of election in Christ as an head, without respect unto the fall, and as it considered primely and simply glory, the glory which God gave Christ himself as an head first, and he and his Father by that title, unto us as so considered by him: John
17:22, 'And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them: that they may be one, even as we are one.' Things being fallen, he was fain to purchase it anew for them; but as in that respect it is termed
salvation, ver. 13 of that 2 Thes. 2, so it is also styled the glory of Christ in the next words, ver. 14, to the 'obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ;' that is, that which Christ had given him by an election 'before the foundation of the world,' John 17:24, which, as an head to us, he says he had given us, ver. 22, and is therefore, in 2
Thes. 2, styled 'the glory of Christ,' as elsewhere 'the glory and kingdom of God,' which Christ is said to receive us unto, Rom. 15:7.
Ans. 2. So as in truth the allegation of this or other Scriptures to the same purpose, is but to insist and to urge one truth to include another, as falls out almost in all controversies; for as it is a truth that there is an election to the end, without consideration of the fall, and these means to that end upon the fall, so also it is as great a truth that an election to the end is specified in Scripture, when it no way relates unto the fall, but is considered apart from it. Thus those benefits we are chosen unto, Eph. 1:3, where election is handled, tanquam in propriâ sede‚ are such as no way depend upon the consideration of the fall, but hold upon our election unto Christ, and are given by election upon grounds higher and distinct from that of his being a Redeemer: ver. 5, 'Having predestinated us unto adoption of children, by Christ unto himself;' which, if relating to God the Father, speaks this great truth, that God ordained us into immediate communion with himself, as elsewhere it is said; or if that word doth refer unto Christ himself (as some), yet farther still, a predestination to adoption is all one in effect, as to say, predestinated unto glory; for adoption and a sonship in election unto Christ, speaks withal a title unto glory, as that place, Romans 8th, shews: 'If children, then heirs and coheirs with Christ,' &c.; and, it is added, 'heirs with* God himself,' as Christ also is. And so those words, Eph. 1:3,
'Predestinating us to adoption to himself,' as referring to the act of God the Father as predestinating, it is all one as to say, we were predestinated to inherit God himself, and to immediate communion with himself; and so it refers us to that ultimate glory, when God shall be all in all. Now this title of adoption holds clearly by another right besides that of redemption; for Christ, as the natural Son, being by election one head and husband, a relation unto him upon that
account bestowed, doth convey adoption and sonship to us, and so a right to that inheritance; which agrees with what I have elsewhere said. In like manner, by our choice unto complete and immutable holiness, in the 4th verse, is not meant that imperfect holiness in this life, which is ordained as such to be means of glory (as our sublapsarian divines allege it); for it is that holiness which is without blame before God, and so such an holiness which will never be subject to change or mutation; yea, and so perfect an holiness in God's own view, for time to come as well as time present, as God shall find no defect in to blame. Whereas even the most perfect holiness the angels had by creation, whilst made mutable, was
'charged with folly' and imperfection in that respect, Job 4:18; but this is that unchangeable holiness, the holiness which is the end itself, as well as glory, and the concomitant of it, or the ground-work of it; and this also might and doth flow from a relation unto Christ, as an head given by election, and an influence from him considered as such, and not only from him, as supposed as a Redeemer first, although to man when fallen, he is an head also; and these benefits are accordingly there distinguished from those that Christ, supposed as a Redeemer, doth convey; and severed from those other by the apostle in the same place, ver. 7, 'In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.' And so on in calling us by the gospel, ver. 8, 9, 'Wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence: having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he had purposed in himself;' which are manifestly the benefits or blessings (as here are called, ver. 3), of the means which suppose us sinners, and being sinners, we are carried through them unto glory; but those former are benefits of the end, which in that their fulness there spoken of take place in the other world, and which we were capable of, being designed unto, without the consideration of being sinners, or Christ his being a Redeemer, as might at large be shewn, and as Bishop Davenant acknowledgeth; and are accordingly distinguished from what we have by redemption.
We must not therefore allege the one of either to exclude the other,
but take both in their differing respects to either condition of the elect specified; to unfallen the one, and of fallen the other.
Obj. 3. And a like unto this objection taken from 2 Thes. 2:13, are those other, as that election is said to be joined with giving us to Christ, and that runs as he is a Redeemer and Saviour, to bring us to glory; and therefore the whole of election, both to means and end, must have proceeded only upon foresight of the fall. But,
The answer is, That Christ himself beareth (as was even now said) two relations and respects to us: first, simply of an head‚ and that in the first place; and then, secondly, of a Saviour: Eph. 5:23, 'Even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Saviour of the body.'
His being an head there, is his being an husband to us; and so the foundation of that relation to God, of being his adopted children as by marriage with his Son; and that latter of our Saviour necessarily respecteth sin, but not the other; and accordingly election may and doth respect those several conditions of the elect. And a double giving to Christ in both respects will well fall in, and agrees with Christ's pleas made to his Father on our behalf, in the 17th of John.
Obj. 4. Another argument against my assertion, urged by others, is, that election being an immanent act within God himself, must therefore be unicus‚ but one single, complete, and perfect act at once, and not divided into two, nor incomplete; whereas to suppose that there is an election to the end, and then unto the means, and one to respect man unfallen, but the other man fallen, seems to render it imperfect, incomplete, not at once, but distracted, &c.
Ans. For answer, I must tell those that will urge this argument, that take all the decrees in God (which are immanent acts in him), both the decrees of election and reprobation, and those of common providence, and there is but one individual act in all of them, and yet themselves will acknowledge that the Scriptures do set them forth to us as distinct acts; and that distinguished by election to diversities of objects they are terminated upon, and as proceeding from several
properties in God, some from justice, some from mercy. As likewise, in respect of their dependence in, and of one thing upon another, the reason whereof is in this, that the series of things are set out to us ad nostrum intelligendi modum‚ and as the things do suit, and sort, and correspond each with other. And thus they were made distinct acts, election from reprobation, and both from his decrees of common providence. Now, bring this general notion of all acts thus made distinct, though all one in God, and the distinction may be accounted to have been in election itself, and the like in reprobation itself. This matter is clear. Bishop Davenant, although he professeth to be against those instants or several moments (take them as the school affirmeth of them) to have been in God's decrees, yet in the point of reprobation, himself holds not only a distinction of acts, negative or a non-election, and positive‚ a pre-ordination to damnation (which two acts all generally do confess); but furthermore, he doth positively express himself in this manner, 'It is a far differing thing,' says he,*
'to will to punish one, which is reprobation positive‚ and not to will or decree to give him glory or the chiefest good, which is the negative act.' 'The first,' says he, cannot be in God, but with a respect unto sin first considered as preceding; but the other act of non-electing to glory may be considered without any respect unto the sin of the person.' His reason I omit, because the thing is clear. And he adds,
'Concerning those divines, that, under that one word of reprobation, do jointly include both those acts of pre-election (the negative act), and predamnation (the positive), that they could never as yet judge anything certainly about reprobation.'* Nay, he goes on further, that 'God did not will or decree to punish, nor put forth a positive act, in the first or same instant (as in reason we are to apprehend of God's counsels) in which his will was not to glorify such as he passed by, but in the other instant, in which he considered them as sinners.'†
And again, 'God's deputation or ordaining men to death is not to be conceived as that which was performed in the same signo rationis (or instant according to reason) in which God's non-electing them was appointed, but in another, after which such a non-elected person, finally persevering in a state of sin, was foreseen.'
Now if in the two sorts of this sort of decrees in reprobation, the one was and might be passed without the consideration of sin, and so of the fall, the other, but upon the foresight of it; yea, and performed, as he says, in several instants, according to reason, and the manner of our conception (according unto which the Scriptures have set forth these things to us); then why should it be uncouth to any that the two acts of election, viz., to the end and to the means, which those other two acts of reprobation do accompany and answer to (as the dark shadows to light bodies), should be considered not distinct only in themselves, but distinguished also by this, that the one is transacted in the divine will and understanding, without respect had unto sin or the fall, and that the other should respect the foresight of the fall.
Obj. 5. Another farther objection may be against the partition of God's decrees, as suited to the end and the means, and so against that decree of our election in Christ as an bead, without consideration of the fall considered; that this is to make two elections, that first to the end to be incomplete without the other to the means to complete it. Whereas it is an error our divines find fault with in the Arminians, to make decrees incomplete, and then afterward complete; yea, whereas God decrees all unico actu.
Ans. 1. The Arminians, indeed, are justly charged with incomplete decrees of election, their sense therein being, that then only when a man first believes God doth elect him in Christ to salvation, and that that act is also suspended, and in that sense it is an incomplete decree; because that man thus believing may fall away, and therefore election with them is not completed until a man doth die, and the man is found to believe at death. Now this kind of incomplete and complete election, and in this sense, we utterly deny.
Ans. 2. These two acts of ordaining unto the end and the means, as I have stated them, are but two gradus or degrees in this decree, as in respect to the things decreed, and that of the decree to the end, velut initium propositi Dei‚ but as the beginning or entrance of God's
purposes, and so both not to be understood as of two acts of decree, though for our understanding we are enforced thus to speak.
Ans. 3. That God, considering and viewing all at once unfallen and fallen, unico intuitu‚ with one act of his divine omniscience, yet consigned, or designed in two differing respects, of what himself comprehended in one act, as unto two several objects which he decreed, as, namely, that decree to the end, or to glory, to respect man simply considered, that state or consideration best suiting, and being more correspondent unto that sort of decree, but that to shew his grace the more, he designed him withal to these means of redemption, &c., specified upon the intuition of the fall, for they only do suppose the fall. Like as in the act of God's justifying of us, he first justified us when we had been afore and until then utterly ungodly; and he withal worketh sanctification and godliness in the heart, which is really a new condition, differing from that state afore. And yet when we are thus made godly, yet still his act of justifying of us is terminated upon us, considered by him as ungodly; so Rom. 4:5, 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' And his proof for this is, the instance of Abraham's being justified many years after he was godly by sanctification; whereupon God, when he justified him, must needs be supposed to have had afore him, and in his eye, both that Abraham was now a godly man, and yet he was, because he had been once, an ungodly person. He terminates or pitches his justifying him in the act thereof upon him considered as ungodly. Thus in like manner, although God had man's pure estate and his corrupt estate both in his view afore him, yet be chose to terminate his election to glory upon the pure estate, as well as upon him considered in his fallen estate, and as to he redeemed out of it.
So as my assertion no ways introduceth any pause to come in between the decrees of the end and the means, to make the first incomplete, no, nor so much as two acts (as in God himself), but only a termination of one and the same act of his will on two several
objects he had at once in his view and understanding, according to his good pleasure.
Ans. 4. I find that, in another case, divines of note and worth do acknowledge such a kind of incomplete act in God as this I here propose in these decrees.* To conclude; that this was the opinion (the tendency at least) of those ancient schoolmen, thus to distinguish these two acts in election with a differing respect unto these two conditions of men, fallen and unfallen, is evident enough. There is this evidence in general, that Suarez should in the name of the rest afore him, pronounce that to have been the more common opinion of his schoolmen, that the election of men was afore the permission of the fall; and that yet themselves, as generally, should acknowledge another decree, viz., to give them faith, &c., which latter doth in the nature of the thing itself necessarily respect man's fallen estate.
Particularly, first, as for Scotus his draught of election runs thus, that in the first instant God decreed glory to a certain number of elect; then in the second, decreed to give grace; then foresaw the fall, &c.; yea, and in his series of decrees of reprobation, makes a respect to have been had to both estates.
Reprobation is considered, says he, 1, negatively, wherein God ordained not to elect them; 2, affirmatively, by which God ordained after the permission of the fall to damn them for sin. The first consideration must be as afore the fall, the latter doth suppose the fall.
And if reprobation did respect both those estates, then much more election; because election hath of the two the more benign and gracious aspects to manifest itself all sorts of ways, to illustrate itself by grace, cast on both states, the highest and most comprehensive.
For Aquinas, he is alleged by those writers for each of the opinions, whether of the pure or corrupted mass. Suarez, who had studied him