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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29125	A compendious answer to a book called A brief survay of the judgement of Mr. John Goodvvin, and the Church of God walking with him, touching their reasons of dissenting from many of their brethren, in these imprtant heads of doctrine; 1. Election and reprobation. 2. The death of Christ. 3. The grace of God in and about conversion. 4. The liberty or power of the will, or of the creature man. 5. The perseverance of the saints. VVherein the absurdities of all their dissenting doctrines are clearly exhibited, by a loving friend to the truth it self, Ellis Bradshaw.	Bradshaw, Ellis.	1652 (1652)	Wing B4139A; ESTC R212996	33,087	46

and work us up through faith and love to faithfull obedience and submission to his will and to make us perfect in every good word and work Which the Lord grant both to you and me in his due time Amen Amen Your loving Brother and Friend in the Truth ELLIS BRADSHAW those who are Gods Elect cannot possibly perish whether they come to years of discretion ye or no considering these scriptures viz. 1. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifies who shall condemn Rom. 8.31 32 33 34. c. 2. If it were possible they should deceive even the very Elect Implying clearly that it is unpossible 3. Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his sonne that he might be the first born of many brethren Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Now give me leave I beseech you in love to intreat you but to consider the difference betwixt the Apostles ends perswasion and judgement and this your judgement which you propose to us You confidently affirm you hold and teach That God hath not decreed from eternity to elect any person of mankind upon any terms but that in case he liveth to years of discretion he may very possibly perish notwithstanding any such decree Ob. 1. In which expression I first observe that your end is contradictious to the Apostles drift Rea. For whereas the Apostles expressions tend for incouragement of all that have made their election sure and are ascertained of it to be exceeding confident that nothing can separate them from the love of Christ verse 35.39 and that seeing God is for them none can be against them bringing in a strong argument to back his assertion to wit He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all observe this for us all implies and includes all Gods Elect as the following verse clears Now the Apostles argument lyeth thus to wit If God spared not his only son but delivered him up for us all that are Gods elect verse 32. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things Implying an impossibility but that he should with him give us all things needfull both for our souls and bodies and make all things work together for our good as verse 28. so that God himself being for us nothing can be against us verse 31. So that the very reading of the text will satisfy any rational apprehension that the drift of the Apostle is to build them up to a strong confidence that so they might have strong consolation and full assurance of faith and without wavering as He. 10.22 23 and c. 6.18 Whereas the very end of your assertion tendeth to no other but to put if possible even Gods very Elect and such who know they are so into doubts and fears who ought not to cast away their strong confidence which hath great recompence of Reward see Heb. 10.35 for in so doing they cast away even their spiritual life For the just live by faith as verse 38. Obj. 2. Secondly I observe your judgement is contradictious to the Apostles judgement Rea. For the Apostle was perswaded that neither height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.38 39. Us I say if we be his Elect. And the Apostle was perswaded that if God be for us none can be against us nor pluck us out of his hands nor lay anything to our charge but we shall be more than conquerors through him that loved us as verse 31 32 33 37. And that without all peradventure whom God hath foreknown he also hath predestinate to be conformed to the image of his sonne And whom he hath predestinate them he also calleth and whom he calleth them he also justifieth and whom he justifieth them he also glorifieth as v. 28 29 30. And the Apostle is of opinion and doth affirm Heb. 6.17.18 That God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutabilitie of his counsel confirmed it by an oath that so they might have strong consolation But you hold and teach that notwithstanding any such decree or immutable counsel or foreknowledge or predestination or election of God yet if they come to years of discretion they may possibly perish which to me seemeth very strange Now you put in an ingredient so quite contradictory to what you assented to before that I hope your own assentings when you see them unveiled will clearly convince you that your own dissentings are not only contradictious to your own assentings but to the truth it self Rea. For you hold and teach that God hath not decreed from eternity to elect any person of mankind upon any terms but that in case he liveth to years of discretion he may very possibly perish 1. Wherein first you affirm as much as if you should say That God had not decreed from eternity to elect Christ himself upon any terms but in case he lived as that he did to years of discretion he might possibly have perished The which I hope you will not affirm And therefore thus far I hope you will grant conviction 2. Secondly In that your generall terms do exclude all and every person of mankind as that in your apprehensions notwithstanding the decree of God to have some elect and that a certain number as that you acknowledge and that he hath unchangably decreed what that number shall be Yet you affirm as much as if you should say that all Gods elect may very possibly perish notwithstanding Gods decree to save some Thus far I hope also you will deny even you own assertions Now in regard I hope you will grant that the Election of Christ standeth sure and that he could not possibly perish I shall assume a little further that you will also grant that such who are elected in time by the same hand that elected Christ in the fulness of time from the loines of the Virgin such I say whom God electeth from the very loines of their natural parents by means of propagation as he did Christ you cannot for shame deny but their Election also standeth sure so that they cannot possibly perish Ar. But Christ which sanctifieth and they which are sanctified are all of one that is the are all of God as Christ himself was of God for which cause he was not ashamed to call them brethren for it behoved Christ in all things to be made like unto his brethren c. See Heb. 2.11.17 They are not of the world as he was not of the world John 17.14.16 If they were of the world the world would love his own but Christ hath chosen them out of the world and therfore the world hateth them Joh. 15.19 Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and

sent unto another and bid to speak boldly c. because he had much people in that City For you might know if such Scriptures could down with you That whom he foreknew them he also predestinated to be conform'd to the image of his Son and whom he predestinated them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified 5. In your fifth Argument you take upon you to argue directly and bring a false slander upon the Wisdome Holiness Mercy and Justice of God For your Argument were good if rightly grounded But your ground-work which without all question you take for granted is manifestly untrue For though all have sinned and are therefore deprived of the glory of God and are only saved through Jesus Christ yea Jews by nature being Children of wrath as well as others Yet it doth not follow that all by nature are in their child-hood and minority alike sinful alike wrathful or alike unclean but in the sight of God and sometimes of men likewise there is great difference though I must confess if any ask me who maketh thee to differ and what hast thou that thou hast not received I must acknowledge God himself hath done it But this I affirm and can make it manifest that there was a difference even betwixt Jacob and Esau in their Mothers Womb Else it had never been said I have loved Jacob and have hated Esau And so the holy Ghost telleth us the wicked are estranged from the Womb they go astray as soon as they be born speaking lies c. and as Moses hath testified the efficient cause is not in God but telleth us plainly They have corrupted themselves their spot is not the spot of his Children they are a crooked and perverse generation they are perversly generated some generations of Vipers some children of wickedness because spiritual wickedness was the productive cause of their generation some sonnes of Belial for Satan was the cause of their generation and therefore though they were Abrahams children after the flesh yet our Saviour telleth them They were of their father the Devil and would do his works And some also are called Children of the flesh in opposition to him that was born by promise to wit At such a time will I come unto thee and Sarah shall have a Son The Lord himself was the chief cause of his generation it was he that separated him from the loines of his Parents of free accord whereas the devill the world or sinfull flesh was the cause of the begetting of some others as hath been clearly shewed but of this more fully in another place But you may hereby see and be more cautious for ever after of blaming the wisdome and holiness of God because you see not how your selves forsooth can clear it up You might as well have said If he have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth he is doubtless unjust unmerciful unholy unwife which I for my part if I should have said it it had been blasphemous in me but I hope you did it ignorantly and therefore upon repentance may find mercy 6. To your sixth I answer That no man that ever I heard spake of any more decrees of Election but one yet there are so many particular actual elections as there are particular persons Elected from the loins of their parents as the chief cause of their generation and this is their election when they are thus separated to be vessels of mercy prepared unto glory But God is not the cause of the generation as chiefly predominant but only permissive of the propagation of any children but his own Elect 7. Your seventh I answer by way of Retortion or countercharge That we do conceive that all the passages and texts of Scriptures which you produce and argue for the establishment of your errours are meerly irrelative to such a purpose all them forced against their native and proper imports respectively to serve in this warfare being all very capable of a more orthodox fair and Christian interpretation than that which you make subservient to your opinions 8. To the eighth in like manner I retort we can find no competent indeed no tolerable satisfaction in any of those arguments which you our brethren are wont to levie and insist upon for the maintenance and Defence of your erronious doctrine to wit that there is no election or decree of election of particular persons as such but only of an intire species of men from eternity see your Arg. 9. But do judge in our souls and consciences that through the grace of God we shall be enabled to give a Rational fair and Christian account of their insufficiency and weakness 9. To the ninth I answer that it hath more confirmed us in the truth because we find both from your pens and mouths and that very frequently such very expressions as are palpable inconsistencies and that your doctrine cumbreth and thwarteth plain texts of Scripture and wholesome necessary truths in Christian Religion and that many orthodox and worthy doctrines cannot be pertinently nor effectually mannaged if we receive the influence and seek the aid of this your principle to wit that there is no election or decree of election of particular persons as such but only of an intire species of men from eternity For we affirm there is both whereas your position denyeth the truth of these Scriptures Ephes 1.4.11 1 Pet. 1.2 Rom. 9.6.7.8 to 19. Acts 13.48 To the first argument for your dissent in the second particular I answer that we believe these Scriptures to be really true and that God doth intend as he here expresseth we do believe that however wicked men are by nature and by generation if God give them repentance unto life so as that he doth save them this is nothing else but what he had decreed before the foundation of the world and that such very persons were chosen in Christ and predestinated to the adoption of Sons And that he never intended to reprobate those persons and therefore gave them repentance and did not suffer them to obdurate and remain impenitent nor doth any decree of his necessitate them or any other impulsively to continue in such impenitency but permissively it doth For he suffereth with long patience the vessels of warth fitted to destruction Rom. 9. and that purposely to shew his wrath against and hatred of sin and to make his power known And who are you that reply against God as if his justice and mercy should impell and necessitate the salvation of all or else you will contest and quarrel against him as you do herein especially in your second Reason accounting it as a bowelless and mercyless Reprobation of the far greater part of mankind which yet you cannot deny but the words of Christ himself import so much if we may believe him Wide is the Gate c. and many go in thereat But in your apprehensins