1. I shall open the nature of it in several propositions. (1.) It is an eternal decree. God's internal acts are the same with his essence, and therefore before all time, as believers are ' elected before all worlds,' Eph. i. 4. So are sinners reprobated ; they are both in time and order before ever the creature was : Eom. ix. 11, ' Before the children had done either good or evil, it was said, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.' Election and reprobation are not a thing of yesterday, and subsequent to the acts of the creature, but from all eternity. (2.) There is a decree and pre-ordination, not only a naked foresight of those that perish. Some Lutherans say that predestination is proper only to the elect ; but as to the reprobate, there is only a prescience or naked foreknowledge : no pre-ordination, lest they should make God the author of the creatures' sin and ruin. But these men fear where no fear is ; the scriptures show that the greatest evil that ever was did not only fall under the foreknowledge, but ' determinate counsel of God,' Acts ii. 23; it was not only foreknown, but unchangeably ordained and determined. (3.) This decree of God is founded in his own good-will and pleasure ; for there being nothing higher and greater than God, it is a great error to suppose a cause of his will, either be- fore it, above it, or without it. God's actions do all begin in himself, and his will is the supreme reason : Mat. xi. 26, ' Even so. Father ; because it seemed good in thy sight.' Jesus Christ would give no other reason why the gospel was 'hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes.' We are often disputing why, of two men that are equal in misery, the one should be taken, the other left ; why the Lord will show mercy to some that are no less unworthy than others ; but when we have all done, we must merely rest in the will and good pleasure of God: 'Even so. Father,' &c.; see Eom. ix. 18, ' He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth ; ' it is not from the foresight of our wills receiving or rejecting grace proposed, for then man's will would be made a superior cause to an act in God. (4.) In this matter of reprobation, preteri- tion and pre-damnation must be carefully distinguished. Look, as in
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election, God hath decreed to bestow first grace and then glory ; to to the decree of giving grace preterition is opposed, to the decree of giving glory, ordination unto judgment. Now God's preterition or passing by is merely and barely from the good pleasure of God. But pre-damnation presupposeth consideration of the creatures' sin ; both these parts of the decree are clearly set down in the word — preterition, or passing by : Rev. xvii. 8. ' Whose names were not written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world ; ' so again Rev. xiii. 8. In other places you have pre-damnation expressed, as 1 Thes. v. 9, ' appointed unto wrath,' and here, ' ordained to this judgment.' (5.) Those who are passed by, or not written in God's book, never attain to saving grace ; it is not given to them : Mat. xiii. 11, 'To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to them it is not given.' Yea, it is said to be ' hidden from them : ' Mat. xi. 25 ; they may have common gifts, or be under such a common work of the Spirit as leaveth them without excuse ; but because the Lord hath passed them by, effectual grace is not given to them, without which they cannot believe and be saved : John x. 26, ' Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep ; ' that is, not elected of my Father, Saving grace runneth in the channel of election ; so Acts xiii. 48, ' As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.' God's special gifts are dis- pensed according to his decrees. (6.) Men being left of God, and destitute of saving grace, freely and of their own accord fall into such sins as render them obnoxious to the just wrath and vengeance of God : Eom. xi. 7 ' The election hath obtained, and the rest were hardened ; ' freely and of their own accord they turned all things to their own judgment and ruin : so Rev. xiii. 8, ' The dwellers on earth did worship the whore, whose names were not written in the book of life ; ' that is, they turned aside to antichristian defilements and pollu- tions. (7.) God's decree concerning such persons is immutable ; it is not rescinded and disannulled, but is fully executed and accom- plished in the damnation of the sinner. The Lord's counsels are all unchangeable, both as to election, 2 Tim. ii. 19 ; Heb. vi. 17, and as to reprobation ; no reprobate can be an elect person, nor an elect person a reprobate : Job xii. 14, ' He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening ; ' and Job xxiii. 13, ' He is in one mind, who can turn him ?' In God's books there is no putting in and crossing out of names ; but as the number of the elect is definite and certain, they cannot be more, and they cannot be less; so also of the reprobate. (8.) This eternal, irrevocable purpose of God of leaving sinners to themselves, that by their sins they may come to judgment, is for God's glory: Rom. ix. 22, ' What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels fitted to destruction?' All God's decrees, works, providences, tend to the further discovery of himself in the eye of the creatures.