Chapter IV
Of the common condition of the elect, and rejected, in the fallen estate of man
kind. The infinity of grace toward the elect, magnified by the consideration
of their being segregated out of that general corrupt mass, wherein they lay
equally with others. God s infinite grace in choosing us also discovered by the vast disproportion of number between the elect and the rest.
We have seen what that act of election without and afore the consideration of the fall doth afford.
Let us now descend unto what the prospect of man s condition, as it lay also afore God, and was disposed of by him, considered as fallen, will in
the like comparative way contribute to this argument. And this the
Scriptures do more enlarge upon, as that which doth far above the former
magnify the glory of electing grace, and by so much more as the evil of sin man is fallen into, and the misery thereby, doth exceed a state of mere no
thing, or of no being at all, or but mere possibility of being. And here also
that query of the apostle hath its most eminent lustre, Who made thee to
differ? 1 Cor. iv. 7. God. And what in God ? Election : The election obtained it, and the rest were blinded. And it is this comparison between elect and the rest after the fall, it is the
condition wherein the one or other are found in after the fall, which is the
chief and principal to enhance this discriminating or differencing grace, al
though the comparison of number will follow us in this too.
Now the view of the conditions of men after the fall, are reduced to two heads.
1. The common alike universal condition, by and through the fall of
168 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.
Adam, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, as the apostle
declares. Or, 2. The several and more particular conditions amongst mankind upon the
: as, for instance, several sizes and degrees of actual sin
fall, in their variety
and other circumstances, which men elect, with the rest, stand in, and were
thereto foreseen and disposed of by God, so to fall out, when he then chose
us through the means of salvation,"all and each of which do tend to magnify
this election grace.
1. The common, universal, and alike condition of man fallen. And to set
forth the greatness of this grace and mercy, is the full and set scope of the
apostle in Eph. ii. 1, 2 r where, speaking of their calling (which is the look
ing-glass of election), he presents them alike dead in sins and trespasses,
as the whole bulk and body of mankind were in, and these elect ones, chap,
i., together with them : We, says he, even as others, that is his compara
tive, as it is mine here, and those others were of such as God eternally left
in that condition, passing by them, and leaving them even as he found them :
and by this he heightens the grace, love, and mercy God had borne to them
as the cause of all this: ver. 4, According as he hath chosen us in him be
fore the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and wiihout blame
before him in love : and he concludes thereupon, by grace you are saved,
ver. 5, an infinite grace, manifested by this common condition of us with
others. And although these things are spoken of them, of what they were
at and afore the time of their calling, and in their unregenerate condition,
yet this act of election we are now upon, that had man fallen for its object, and the common condition thereof, did take men, and viewed as at and afore
calling them, they are found to be in. And of this act the rule certainly
holds, that look what a calling God found us to be, in that election viewed
us, which that passage, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27, For ye see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called ; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty, evidently shews. Those words
but God hath chosen, &c. come in as an explanation or confirmation of the
former words, You see your calling ; as if he had said, Look what those
were whom calling singles out, and what they are after calling in paucity ; the same they were, therefore, for their conditions, whom God chose, and in
his view such to be.
2. And here let us now add to the consideration of this common condition
the infinite number of those others whom God hath laid aside in this fallen
condition, in comparison of so very a few, who, together with thyself, were
elected out of them, which the event doth manifestly declare the multitude
of those left, and the paucity, or fewness, of those whom God sets his heart
upon ; and unto what a stupendous infinity will this enhance the grace of
that election towards those few. Though the number of the children of
Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved, and that rem nant is that of election : Eom. xi. 5, A remnant according to the election of grace. A remnant signifies a small number in comparison to the whole. As also his comparison, ver. 29, shews, Unless God had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. That notes their
fewness, being but as when the most of a man s crop is sold and eaten, there
is but a very small part reserved for seed against the next harvest. The like unto this doth that comparison of the first fruits in James and in the type import.
Now the paucity of men enjoying any privilege magnifies it the more ; as
CHAP. IV.] OF ELECTION. 169
in the case of Noah s preservation and salvation fore-mentioned in the third
chapter of the first of Peter. It is expressly noted, that few with him were
saved, that is, but eight persons, saith he, unto the whole world, ver. 20.
Likewise, Luke the 12th, says Christ,
* the.se things do the nations seek, ver. 80; viz., the things of this world; and God gives them to them, but
in opposition thereto : ver. 32, Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom ; q. d. he hath reserved that of the kingdom for you. And his scope is withal to shew that hereby it is rendered the greater mercy, and that so few of you should be preserved unto such
favours, whilst the rest are left to seek other things as their best and only portion. The old law in dividing the lands by inheritance to the people of
* Thou shalt give the more inheritance unto many, and unto few thou shalt dimmish or give the less inheritance, Num.
Israel, had this rule given them,
xxvi. 54. But this inheritance of heaven and of himself, God took a few of mankind, and gave the whole of that inheritance to all and each of them.
It is said, Deut. xxxii. 8, that when God divided the inheritance to the
nations, he set their bounds according to the number of the people of Israel.
Seventy nations (as Gen. x.), according to the number but of seventy souls, which was their whole number when they came out of Egypt, Gen. xlvi. 27. A small proportion of seventy men, to seventy whole nations of others, of one man to a whole nation. But then, what did God reserve for these seventy men, and those of their seed which he had chosen? It follows in the same
* The Lord s portion is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance, whom he reserved for himself to be his inheritance, and he
place of Deut., ver. 9,
to be their inheritance, as you often find. And this only because (as in the same Deut., chap. x. 15),
* Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as
it is this day. Although at ver. 14 (and he says it with a behold of infinite
* Behold, the heaven and the heavens is the Lord s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is ; which is as if he had said, Though he had enough before him of angels once in heaven, and of men on earth, yet this is thy privilege above all, that God chose out so few at first when he chose thee, which, ver. 22, he minds them of,
wonderment),
* Thy fathers went down
into Egypt with threescore and ten persons ; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven. And again, though he had the heaven of heavens, large enough for millions of worlds of men to have filled
it, many mansions, as Christ says, yet he took those few of Israel, and of those but a remnant to possess it, and gave the earth only unto all the rest ; with which falls in Ps. cxv. 15, You are the blessed of the Lord, which made heaven and earth. For so it follows, ver. 16, The heaven, even the
heavens, are the Lord s ; but the earth hath he given to the children of men ; that is, he hath culled or singled forth you from out of the rest of the chil dren of men, as whom he would bless with all blessings in heavenly things, but hath given the earth, and the blessings thereof, to the rest of the chil dren of men.
And now, to affect your hearts, begin to cast your eyes first upon that world of mankind which is now extant and in being at this day, and you may even well nigh say of the men of this age and world in all nations at the present, as the apostle did of all nations for the time past until his
times, God suffers them to walk in their own way. Or you may say as the apostle John said of the same age, and the then present evil world (as Paul epithets it, Gal. i. 4), so of this present froward generation of mankind, that the whole world lies in wickedness. And those few of us that are of God are thin sown, a poor small handful of gleaning unto the whole great
170 OF ELECTION. [BOOK III.
crop of mankind ; you have it 1 John v. 19, This we know, saith he there. And by the same anointing we also now may see the same event, and de
facto to be the same. And what falls out thus in the event is but speculum
decretivum Dei, the looking-glass of, and representeth what lay in, God s
decrees from everlasting.
And oh, how deeply should the comparative of this affect our hearts !
For a few to be singled forth and saved, when a multitude, yea, a generality of others are suffered to perish, how doth it heighten the mercy and grace
of a salvation to us, that is but of a lower kind, as if but temporal deliver
ances from bodily death, or the like ; and for God in his providence to order
many outward means to save and deliver a few, which he denies to those
others who perish, how doth this affect the persons that are preserved
! How much more when it falls out thus in
* so great a salvation as this is,
as the apostle says of it ! This you may see in such examples as were but types and mere shadows
in comparison of this very thing, as in the instance of Noah and his family
in the flood appeared, God saved Noah, says the text, bringing in the
flood upon the world of the ungodly, even the whole world of them. And
it is resolved into this by God himself: Gen. vi. 7, 8, But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord ; which grace was as there heightened by this
comparative of his destroying man from off the earth, as in the same verse, who were a world of ungodly, as the apostle says. The same appears in
the example of Lot, pulled out of Sodom by the hand and force of angels, even as we were ordained to be delivered, as by force, as the word s^dcaro
signifies in Col. i. 14 ; Saved out of the fire, says Jude ; and Paul also
< The Lord being merciful, says the text, Gen. xix. 16. And behold with what and how deep a sense and value did Lot entertain
in 1 Cor. iii. 15 ;
this mercy. Lot did greaten it to himself, from this comparative between him and those in Sodom, in the same Gen. xix. 19, Behold now thy ser
vant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life.
But there is this further to be considered in our being thus delivered
forth of this our condition of like sinfulness and wrath, that was different in
the case of Lot or Noah. Noah was righteous in his generation, &c., and
of Lot it is said, his righteous soul was vexed, &c. They were not guilty of the same sins in common with others, for which God brought the flood and fire. And their condition was then, de facto, changed by grace from the
state of sin unto a state of holiness.
But here, when we were ordained unto salvation, we lay afore the great God in a like condition of guilt and reprobability, as to the means, that all
lay in ; and that then the decree concerning us should alter and change that
state of sin into which we were fallen into a state of grace and righteousness, as the means to bring us to glory. How stupendous was the mercy of God towards us ! All had sinned, and
* there was no difference, as Rom. iii. 19. None such as between Noah and the old world there was when God saved him in the ark.