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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	ground_n	seed_n	sow_v	3,097	5	9.7817	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26832	Vulgar errors in divinity removed	Battell, Ralph, 1649-1713.	1683 (1683)	Wing B1150; ESTC R10796	49,392	154

Apostle says God is not willing that any should perish 2 Pet 3.9 But now if a man come a Vessel of wrath out of his hands 't is senseless to say he would not have that man perish If he would have had him sav'd he would have made him a Vessel of mercy and not of wrath But the Apostle saith he would have no man perish therefore he doth not make any Vessels of wrath in their sense God made man upright but he found out many inventions Eccl. 7.29 Now as God says in another place What iniquity have you found in me that you depart from me So say I What hard dealing have you ever found from God that you should ever entertain such hard thoughts of him That you should embrace their opinions that make him a hater of his Creatures before they were born or considered them as doing either good or evil and be angry with those that represent him as a mild and merciful Creator unto you he is so far from making a Vessel of wrath that he doth what can be done in a rational way to keep men from making themselves so and doth promise that if any that hath made himself such a one shall purge himself from his defilements he shall receive him as a Vessel of mercy and so use him 2 Tim. 2.20 Shew me that Creature that hath more goodness in him than the Creator says St. Ambrose but if God should ruine an innocent Creature he should have less goodness in him in this particular than a good man For a good man would not do such a thing for him not to have made his Creature had been no injustice but to forsake his Creature before his Creature forsake him is such a piece of unmercifulness as the Father of mercies cannot be guilty of Every breach betwixt God and man is still begun on the Creatures part God can hate no man as his Creature before he consider him as a sinner We read in Gen. 1.31 when God created the world he beheld all that he had made and it was very good now what is not only good but very good could not be the object of his hatred for it hath some small resemblance of himself who is good and the chiefest good Man above all Creatures here below was made after his own image now as God cannot love those that resemble the Devil no more can he hate those that resemble himself whence it irrefragably follows that until man had defac'd the Image of God in him there was nothing but mercy and goodness intended towards him St. Peter calls him a faithful Creator 1 Pet. 4. ult intimating that there is an engagement on him the Author of being to have a due care for the thing created as a Father by nature is bound to provide for the Child which those that do not are below the brute beast Isa 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them c. Intimating if they had nor strangely wax'd out of kind they had not been forsaken of him But thirdly it is objected from Acts 13.48 when Paul and Barnabas preached unto the Gentiles as many as were ordained to eternal life believed whence it follows that they that did not believe were not ordained to eternal life and consequently were ordained to condemnation I answer the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate ordained relates to the marshalling of an Army in rank and sile or setting any thing in order and might as well have been translated disposed In 1 Cor. 16.15 there it is translated addicted the house of Stephanas addicted themselves to the Ministry of the Saints and so it might have been translated there as many as were addicted to eternal life believed Our Saviour compares the preaching of the Word to the sowing of the Seed Now that the Seed may prosper it is requisite that the ground be prepared beforehand for the receiving of it even so it is necessary that the hearers of the Word be disposed and addicted to receive it that they come with honest and good hearts to hear it Now the Gentiles and some of the Jews came with such hearts and believed but the most part of the Jews coming with envy in their hearts St. Pauls Sermon to them was like the seed on the untilled soil their unpreparedness made them uncapable to be wrought upon by such a measure of grace which wrought upon the Gentiles Fourthly it is objected the Apostle treating of Gods absolute and eternal Decrees of saving some and of damning others cries out Rom 11.33 Oh the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out But if God damn men only upon foresight of their sin and final impenitency you have search'd out his ways and found out that which the Apostle says is past finding out therefore no cause is to be assigned why they are Vessels of wrath but only the good pleasure of his Will I answer if this part of the Chapter treated of Gods eternal Decrees not to be search'd into why men are sav'd or lost to all eternity their Argument were unanswerable But they wrest this Scripture I dare not say to their own destruction but I dare say to establish a false opinion of the destruction of others Read from v. 17. to this exclamation in v. 33. and you will find he treats only of the breaking off the Jews the natural branches and grafting in the Gentiles in their stead or to speak without Allegory of the casting off the Jews because of unbelief and of bringing in the Gentiles into the visible Church of God and admires his just judgments upon the Jews and his wisdom upon taking this their unbelief as an occasion of shewing mercy to the Gentiles and thereby provoking the Jews to emulation Fifthly they argue thus Although it seem unreasonable to us that God should thus damn men by Prerogative yet indeed it is not for although mans Will be ruled by Reason yet Gods is not but his very willing a thing makes it reasonable and just for a thing is not first reasonable and just and then willed by God but upon his willing it it s become both As for the Will of God I grant it is never separated from justice and it ought to bind us at all times to due obedience but herein lies their mistake to think there is not an intrinsical good and an intrinsical evil in the nature of things themselves but only that Gods willing it makes it good and his nilling a thing makes it evil one says most blasphemously God out of the absolute soveraignty of his Will may command all the wickedness he hath forbid and forbid all the holiness he hath commanded But as there are eternal verities as that equals added to equals still make equals and the cause is in order of nature before the effect So things eternally just as

this unmerciful opinion are such as these First that of St. Paul in the ninth Chapter to the Romans ver 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth it was said unto her the elder shall serve the younger as it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have J hated You see say they before Jacob or Esau had done good or evil one was loved and the other hated My answer is First these words are not spoken of Jacob or Esaus persons but by a figure the person of either is put to represent and shadow out the condition of their Posterities Secondly the Election there mentioned is meant chiefly concerning things Temporal not things Eternal That that saying The elder shall serve the younger was not meant of their persons but of their Posterities may appear from Gen. 25.23 Two Nations are in thy Womb and two manner of People shall be separated from thy bowels and the one People shall be stronger than the other and the elder shall serve the younger Esau in his own person never served Jacob nay Jacob called Esau his Lord and bowed seven times to the ground before him Gen. 33.3 and was glad by a Present to obtain his peace of him If Esau had done so to Jacob how would they have triumphed in their personal sense Secondly that the love and hatred was meant chiefly concerning things temporal see Mal. 1.2 3. from whence the words were taken Was not Esau Jacobs Brother saith the Lord Yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau and laid his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness So that you plainly see the Apostle means not personal Election to eternal life or hatred to eternal death but of choosing Jacobs Posterity to be a greater Nation than the Off-spring of Esau meerly for his good pleasure which no man can justly speak against for he may do what he pleases with his own good blessings If it be said the temporal blessings on Jacob's Posterity did shadow out spiritual 't is not denied but they might and certainly to be brought so nigh unto God as to be his peculiar People in Covenant was a spiritual blessing and if all that were in Covenant were elected the Argument were of force but seeing they are not all Israel which were of Israel it falls to the ground The truth is the words are here used by the Apostle by way of Allegory and all that he accommodates them to is to shew that God might justly cast off the Jews the People of the elder Covenant of Works and take in the Gentiles those minors and youngers into the Covenant of grace in their rooms as may appear from Rom. 9.30 What shall we say then to these things That the Ghntiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness which is of faith But Israel which followed after the Law of righteousness hath not attained unto the Law of rightehusness Wherefore Because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the Works of the Law And this he makes the conclusion and is the chief if not the only thing he doth infer from the whole Allegory And what he says to Moses is most equal I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy that is it belongs to me to appoint upon what terms I will shew mercy and justifie men whether by the Law of Faith or by Works For as he that builds an Hospital hath an equitable right to appoint the qualifications of the persons that shall partake in his gift whether poor Children or Widows Aged persons or the like so it belongs to God to appoint upon what terms he will justifie men whether by the Law of Works or by the Law of Faith and seeing neither Works nor Faith can deserve it at his hands Justification is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy God hath reason enough for all his doings but in distributing mercies which have no foundation in merit he need give no account or reason of it but his Will And so likewise for his judgments upon Pharaoh here used as a Type of the obstinate Jews although God had reason enough to raise him up I suppose out of the former Plague to reserve him for a more famous overthrow because the Hebrew hath it I have made thee stand The Septuagint hath it for this cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast been preserved till now The Chaldee Paraphrase and Junius so likewise explain it And although God had reason enough to find fault with him for hardening of his heart though now judicially hardened and he could not help it yet the Apostle waves these Reasons and says Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God As if he had said it is intolerable presumption to quarrel at the ways of God as unequal when they clearly appear to be his You ought rather with reverence to presume there is wisdom and righteousness in them though you through ignorance cannot comprehend them For as his power in forming man ought not to be found fault withal and none ought to say Why hast thou made me thus So neither his Justice which is as infinite as his Power and renders to men only according to their Works A second Scripture is this Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour Ver. 21. Whence they infer God is the Potter we the Clay the Elect are the Vessels of honour the Reprobates the Vessels of wrath and dishonour and if God make a Vessel of wrath shall the thing framed say to him that framed it Why hast thou made me thus To this I answer We are indeed in Gods Hands as the Clay in the hand of the Potter and when he framed man of the dust of the earth he might have made him the tail and not the head of the Creation he might have moulded us Dogs or Swine or loathsom Serpents and in that sense Vessels of dishonour but to make us Vessels of wrath and in that sense Vessels of dishonour so the good God could not make us no more than he can lie or be cruel or deny himself The nature of God cannot come so nigh the nature of the Devil as to be a Murtherer from the beginning There can be no Vessel of wrath without sin Ephes 5.6 For these things sake having fore-mentioned many sins he saith the wrath of God comes upon the Children of disobedience But we cannot be sinful as we come out of his hands and therefore cannot come out of his hands Vessels of wrath he like the good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit Jer. 2.21 God doth avouch he never made a degenerate Plant Yet I had planted thee a noble Vine wholly a right seed The