THE DOCTRINE OF

PARTICULAR ELECTION,
BEFORE TIME.
Asserted and Proved by God’s Word, against
the Quakers, Papists and Arminians.

In Answer to a Challenge given the Author to

make good {by the Scriptures of Truth} the
above-said Doctrine. Wherein is Evidently
Discovered.

I. That the above-said doctrine, rightly understood and

believed, {with application to one’s self,} is the great
enemy of sin, both in the heart and life of a true
Believer; and that which keeps the Believer from
despair, in the deepest desertion and temptation.

II. That the doctrine of free-will and general redemption,

&c., is an inlet to, and an encourager of sin; and which
leads in the end to horrid despair, under powerful
awakenings in the natural consciences of an
unregenerate man.

“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and
shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were
possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Matt. 24:24.

By JAMES BARRY
An Unworthy Minister of the Gospel

ORIGINALLY PRINTED – 1700.

COMPLETE & UNABRIDGED

Supralapsarian Press
2018 EDITION
Brief Introduction by William Huntington.

I will not say of this author as Claudius Lysias said

of Paul, that he was taken of the Jews, and would
have been killed of them, if he had not come with an
army and rescued him; but this I will say, that he
has left behind him so good a report through faith,
that many in our days would have judged it their
wisdom to have left it in the ruins of the house, or
confined it to the moles and to the bats, rather than
revise a testimony that discovers their foundation
even to the neck. Hab.3:13.
The author of this narrative was the son of a
Protestant Bishop, the nephew of a Noble Lord, and
was training up for the ministry, and expected to cut
no mean figure in the same Establishment of which
his father was a prelate; but God came with an army
of terrors, and, with a few arrows from his quiver,
bent him to his bow, and made him a son of
consolation, to the chosen fraternity of Christ Jesus.
By the prejudices of education, he was {as
well as myself} a most zealous bigot to the church
of England; and, when his conscience was
awakened, as he informs us, he tried her prelates,
her cathedral walls, her liturgy, service book,
ceremonies, and clergy, to the uttermost; and
concluded, with an honest confession, that the whole
of it was vanity, and, to a sinner wounded of God,
vexation of spirit.
He made full proof of those celebrated
treatises, {which in the general meet with a more
cordial reception than the Bible,} viz., the Practice
of Piety, by the advice of a Bishop; he went through
stitch with the Whole Duty of Man, and made
Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted his bosom friend,
and worked himself into such a conversion as that
author describes. But when God laid judgment to the

2
line, and righteousness to the plummet, the hail
swept away these refuges of lies. Isa.28:17. The
Practice of Piety left him in possession of all his
impiety; the Whole Duty of Man gave him up to
stand or fall by his dead works; and Baxter’s Call left
him a stranger to the heavenly calling; and no
wonder, for Baxter’s Call and the calls of God widely
differ.
I have read what is called the life and
conversion of many, but very few of them went so
far, in what they call a work of grace, as this author
went in a state of nature. They went not in their
profession far enough to know whether there was
any such thing as a spirit of bondage or no; much
less to a saving conversion from bondage to liberty.
But this author, when he was awakened, went such
lengths in a reformation, and {as he thought}
conversion also, and grew into such a confidence in
it, that his excellency mounted to heaven, and his
head touched the clouds. Job 20:6. But when the
commandment came, all confidence was rooted out
of his tabernacle, and he was brought to the king of
terrors. Job 18:14. As soon as the Law came, not
the letter only, but the whole of the Law, the letter
of it, the spirit of it, the bondage of it, the wrath of
it, with the extensive demands of it, and the
thundering curse of it {for that is the Law,} then sin
revived, and he saw and felt the necessity of a
perfect conformity to the thereunto.
Accordingly, he made it his only rule of life,
not in word, but indeed and in truth; he fasted, he
prayed, he worshipped, he watched, he worked, he
abstained from all appearance of evil, gave all that
he received to feed the poor, denied himself, and
paid a strict attention to all the negative and positive
parts of the Law, to see what could be done by that
rule; and, upon proof, found that it discovered his

3
sin to such a dreadful degree, that the devil himself
invaded him, the wrath of God pursued him, despair
sunk him, the indignation of the Almighty drank up
his spirits, a violent inflammation seized his body,
his eyes waxed dim, his taste and smelling failed
him, his very hearing was affected, his bodily frame
made crooked by the intolerable burden of his sins,
and his ghastly countenance frightful to behold,
insomuch, that carnal persons said that evil spirits
haunted him. This, he confessed, was all that the
Law could do for him, and declares this to be the
folly of those men who set the letter against the
spirit of the Law, which must never be divided,
seeing truth declares, that the Law genders to
bondage; therefore let no man strip the letter of the
Law from its gendering spirit. Such men as this
author understand the Law, and handled it lawfully.
But as to such who get into a pulpit, and tell people
they “would as soon hear a person curse and swear
as to hear them say, the Law is not a rule of life,”
know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
Besides, persons who belie and ridicule poor
penitent sinners received to mercy, and advance a
notion that they never can prove, show but very
little signs of any regard paid to the rule they
contend for. Opposing the truth, bellying and
slandering the just, and injuring them in their
reputation, and in the work of the Lord, cannot be
called loving one’s neighbour as one’s self.
Everybody knows that those that hate the just shall
be desolate; anger or hatred being in God’s account
murder; and we know that no murderer hath eternal
life abiding in him; therefore, such persons talking
about the Law, as their rule of life, is nothing but a
noise, just to blind the ignorant.
When the gentleman, at whose house the
Gospel is preached at Peckham, brought this tract to

4
me, desiring I would print it, saying it was one after
my own heart, I could not help crying out, while I
perused it, with Naomi, saying, this is a near
kinsman of mine; it is one of my next kinsmen. Thou
shalt be the Coalheaver’s cousin; thou art a fellow
student, brought up at the same college, under the
same tutor, fitted in the same furnace, and ordained
by the same bishop; thou shalt not lay among the
pots, nor be a spoil for the bats; thou shalt have the
wings of a dove, covered with silver, and thy
feathers with yellow gold, and fly about as in ancient
times, telling the daughters of Zion what God did in
thy days, and in the old times before us.
In a word, we have in this narrative the
repeated cries of a chosen vessel when in infancy,
childhood, and youth, and the providence of God
perpetually answering them. Secondly, we have the
Pharisee of the Pharisees, or what is called the true
churchman. Thirdly, we have the true disciple of
Moses in all his performances; the sensible sinner in
all the agonies of the damned; and the rich displays
of divine grace without the use of means. Fourthly,
the noble lord his uncle, the bishop his father, and
all friends, disowning him, and for ever casting him
off, for turning, as they termed it, a fanatic and a
schismatic, and for becoming a dissenter of God’s
own making, and for worshipping God according to
the spirit he received, and the truth that God applied
to his soul. And lastly, we have the happy man, the
real convert, and the sound Christian, taking his final
leave of parents, relations, and the world, and
offering to die on a dunghill rather than defile his
conscience, by returning to a religion that is taught
by the precepts of men. If this be the work of the
Lord, if this be real conversion, if this be the
testimony of faith by which the deceased author yet
speaketh, and if this good report be echoed from the

5
blood of sprinkling, which in his conscience spoke
better things than that of Abel; then where are
legions of our preachers got, who would deny their
birth, parentage, and mimic an education, in order
to bring in the service book, and obtain the vestment
and dignity of an established divine which this
author was purged from, by near four years
discipline with the horrors of the damned.
His books were printed by Mr. Marshall in
Newgate Street; but none of his works have fallen
into my hands but the last mentioned. When he had
finished the book which he entitled, The Spirit of
Prayer, he sold the copy to the Printer, and strictly
charged him not to alter the title, or the work; but
the publisher sent it out with this title, A Help to
Prayer. I cannot learn that Dr. Calamy, or any other
writer of the History of the Puritans, took any notice
of him, which is easily accounted for, God having
stripped him of all confidence in the flesh, and wiped
him out of the cathedral, his testimony could never
gain him any credit among the Tories, Papists or
rotten Arminians, whose craft is always in danger
from such witnesses; therefore, when they become
historians, they are sure to bury the names of such
men, and their testimonies, in silence, lest the
devil’s interest should fall to the ground. Should any
of the other books fall into my hands, they shall
appear in the world again, if God permit.
Reader, I have sent the testimony out, title
page, and the date of the year in which it was first
printed, nearly as I found it; I have only altered here
and there a mistake, which I think was the printer’s.
I have only added a title, and this preface to the
work - pray forgive me this wrong - and have put
here and there a little note, with the initials of W.H.,
S.S., which are the tokens in every epistle, so I
write. That thou mayest read it to profit, and profit

6
by reading, is the prayer and desire of this author’s
cousin, and thy servant to command, William
Huntington. Tower Hill, Nov.24, 1788. {As attached
to Barry’s Testimonial Treatise, entitled, A Reviving
Cordial for a Sin-Despairing Soul.}

TO THE IMPARTIAL READER.

Courteous Reader,

I am to inform thee, that in the time of the Popish

government, when Popery and Quakerism smiled so
amicably on each other, as the two religions, if I
might so call them, which are nearest of kin of all
the religions visibly professed in these kingdoms,
the people called Quakers sent me a thrasonical
challenge in writing, {which was afterwards
published in print,} to prove, from the Scriptures of
truth, the four doctrines here following: 1. The
doctrine of the resurrection of this fleshly body,
which dies and turns to dust. 2. The doctrine of
justification, by the alone righteousness of Jesus
Christ, freely imputed. 3. The doctrine of
imperfection in sanctification in the most mortified
believer, while in this world. 4. The doctrine of
particular unconditional election before time. All
which the Quakers do stiffly and peremptorily deny,
as by their printed book against me doth evidently
appear. Their challenge I was resolved to answer in
print, to let the world see what heterodox and
heretical principles that deluded and seduced people
do hold and teach for true religion. Besides my
resolution herein, I oblige myself, by promise to my
congregation, that I would, in the strength of Christ,
prick the bladder of their blasphemous pride, by
proving and making good, by the Scriptures of truth,

7
the above said doctrines. For my encouragement
wherein, my congregation did unanimously stand by
me, resolving that I should be at no other charge
hereabout but the studying part. Paper was bought,
the printer agreed with; and just as the press was
ready to begin, the storm came suddenly on the
Protestants in Dublin, that we were soon scattered
asunder; the providence of God calling on us to
secure our lives instead of printing books. The
reason why I have been so long silent in this cause,
is the want of that help which I had from my flock in
Dublin. If any generous noble-spirited Christians,
who love Christ’s cause better than they do the
mammon of this world, will step in to my
encouragement, in supplying the room of my absent
friends, they shall, in a very short time, see the four
doctrines above mentioned cleared up and made
good from God’s word, notwithstanding all the
Jesuitical craft and subtilty whereof that people
seem to be masters. The reason why I have singled
out the last of the four doctrines rather than any of
the other three, is to discover and confute the
Quakers’ pernicious heterodoxy in the foundation
principles of true Christianity is twofold.
First, because that in denying and opposing
the doctrine of particular, unconditional election,
before time, they do manifestly rob God of his
sovereignty and praise.
Secondly, because of the natural tendency,
which the denial of this doctrine of a particular,
unconditional election, before time, and the holding
and propagating its contrary, viz., the doctrine of
free will to good in every man, of general
redemption, and a temporary conditional election
with falling from grace, hath to encourage men in
living a licentious, loose life; and to necessitate
men’s final despair of salvation, when the natural

8
conscience in unregenerate men comes to be under
powerful awakenings, for sin committed against the
Law of God.
That I do the Quakers no wrong, in charging
them with robbing God and encouraging men to live
in sin; as also their laying a foundation for men’s
despair of ever being saved in their way of
conditional and temporary election, will evidently
appear to him who reads and compares with God’s
revealed will, what is discovered in this small tract;
and in case any noble-spirited Christians will but
encourage the work, as already hinted, I do not so
much as doubt, but that the Spirit of God will enable
me to demonstrate from God’s own word that the
Quakers, in denying the resurrection of the body,
and the justification of a sinner by the alone
righteousness of the Son of God freely imputed,
without any regard had to any qualifications,
inhering in the person of the sinner justified, do deny
all sound and saving religion; and as touching their
sinless perfection attainable in this life, whereof they
make such brags, it shall be made plain that herein
they both belie the Spirit of God, and contradict the
experience of all saved believers, both in heaven and
earth.

9
 THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.

Chapter 1 – Election before Time.

God did, before all time, by his unchangeable

counsel, most freely, unchangeably, and from all
eternity, elect and choose unto himself, out of
lapsed Adam’s fallen posterity, a certain number of
persons, which can neither be lessened nor
increased, to partake of his special saving grace to
salvation, by Jesus Christ his Son, to the praise of
the glory of his own grace. What I have now asserted
for truth, if God enables me to demonstrate and
make good by Scripture, as I doubt not he will, then
will it unavoidably follow {all the wit and malice of
men and devils cannot overthrow it} that God had
passed by and reprobated others. In the proposition
now laid down there are three things to be
considered, in order to a clearing up and making
good the point in dispute. First, the act of God and
the objects thereof, which are both held forth and
intended in the Scriptures following. “According as
he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love.” Eph.1:4. “If ye were of the
world, the world would love his own; but because ye
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Jn.15:19. “But we are bound to give thanks alway to
God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth.” II Thes.2:13. In the Scriptures now quoted
we have God electing or choosing, and then the
objects of his election or choice, viz., particular
persons on whom that election of God fixeth, viz.,
some particular persons. That God’s act of election

10
hath fixed on some particular persons, not on all in
general, as the enemies of election would fain have
it, the following arguments will evince.
Argument 1. If God hath made a promise of
life and salvation to some particular persons only,
then hath he elected and chosen to himself a certain
number of persons, to whom alone, excluding all
others, that promise of grace and salvation shall be
made good. But God hath made a promise of life and
salvation to some particular persons only, excluding
all others; therefore God hath elected and chosen to
himself a certain number of persons, to whom,
excluding all others, the promise of life and salvation
shall be made good. That God hath made a promise
of life and salvation to some particular persons only,
excluding all others, is evident and plain to such as
acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament to be of Divine Authority. “And I will
establish my covenant between me and thee and thy
seed after thee in their generations for an
everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to
thy seed after thee.” Gen.17:7.
Here the judicious and unprejudiced reader
may plainly see that Abraham and his seed were
particular persons, distinct from all other nations
and people which were round about him; and these
it pleased God, of his mere sovereign grace, to single
out for his own peculiar use, that they may be a holy
people, to bear his name, and to give him a pure and
spiritual worship and service, which should be
according to his own holy institution and divine
appointment; and that they may be made partakers
of the promised inheritance, which was the sure
possession of the kingdom of heaven, of which the
promised land of Canaan was but a type and
shadow.

11
The people of the Jews was but a small people when
God fixed his love on them, and called them. “For
thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God; the
LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special
people unto himself, above all people that are upon
the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in
number than any people; for ye were the fewest of
all people. But because the LORD loved you, and
because he would keep the oath which he had sworn
unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the
house of bondmen.” Deut.7:6-8. The same promise
which was made to Abraham and his seed under the
Old Testament dispensation is confirmed by the New
Testament.
And evident it is, that as God chose and called
Abraham under that dark dispensation, with whom
he entered into a covenant of grace; the benefit of
which was to be of equal extent to himself and his
children, even so many of them as were the children
of the promise. So under the Gospel dispensation,
God, who is a free agent, acting all he doth in a way
of sovereignty, saw fit to make known, by the
Gospel, that among the Gentiles also he had a select
and chosen people, on whom he had decreed to
confer the riches of his free grace, through the
plenteous redemption that is in his Son Jesus Christ;
and that pursuant to his own immutable decree and
purpose, electing and choosing them before time
began. “For the promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many
as the Lord our God shall call.” Acts 2:39.
Here is that promise formerly mentioned,
which looks at Abraham and his children, and also
discovers the gracious design of God to make a

12
certain number of the Gentiles actual partakers of
the self-same grace and blessing.
The manner of the apostle’s expressing
himself is full of clearness and perspicuity, proving
that the promise of that grace and salvation is not
designed for all and singular the Gentile sinners that
then were, or in after times should be in the world;
but he limits and restrains the promise to a certain
peculiar number, lest sinners should mistake the
apostle, and conclude, that because he had laid
down an universal term, saying, “and to all that are
afar off,” he, by way of explanation shows what the
Spirit means by that universal term, adding, “even
as many as the Lord our God shall call,” in which he
plainly shows, and invincibly proves, that none of
the Gentile sinners shall ever partake of God’s
special grace, but such as are {in time} effectually
called out of a state of nature to a state of
justification and sanctification; the which is never
granted to any but in the right of a covenant-
promise, which covenant-promise respects that
gracious act of God, electing and choosing in Christ
his Son, as many of Adam’s posterity both of Jews
and Gentiles, as his own sovereignty pleased;
according to that of the apostle, “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.” Rom.8:30. And our
Saviour himself, in John designs the Gentiles, whom
God had in his electing love given in charge to him,
in those expressions, “and other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they
shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and
one shepherd.” Jn.10:16.
Argument 2. If among the many thousands of
people who hear the Gospel preached, but some,
and that very few comparatively, are savingly

13
converted, receive mercy, are justified and
sanctified, and are made to persevere in a course of
faith and holy life; then God hath elected and chosen
only a certain peculiar number of men to life and
salvation. But among the many thousands of people
who hear the Gospel preached, but some only are
savingly converted, receive mercy, are justified, are
sanctified, and do finally persevere in a course of
faith and holy life. Therefore God hath elected and
chosen only a certain peculiar number of men to life
and salvation. There is nothing more evident than
that the greatest number, even of those people who
are outwardly called by the Gospel, do slight and
contemn the Gospel and the grace set forth therein;
witness that of our Saviour, “for many are called,
but few are chosen.” Matt.20:16. That parable of the
king who made a great supper, to which the king by
his servants invited the guests, notwithstanding
which, many of them made blind excuses and shifted
it off. By which practice in the guests we are to
understand, that great slight and contempt which
worldly minded sinners put on the Lord Jesus and
his great salvation, wrought for the elect, which God
proclaims in the Gospel, the which they undervalue,
preferring the accommodations of this perishing
world before that great and precious salvation. Luke
14:16-19. “Esaias also crieth concerning Israel,
though the number of the children of Israel be as the
sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.”
Rom.9:27.
Now then, if among those many who are
externally called, and the very many who make a
profession, there are but very few who savingly
believe, repent, and finally persevere in a course of
faith and holy life; then it is beyond all controversy
that those few who so believe, repent, &c., are
particular persons whom free grace elected to that

14
state of believing and persevering; and the rest, who
were by far the greater number, were left to inward
blindness and hardness of heart, according to
Romans 11:7-8, “what then? Israel hath not
obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election
hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded,
according as it is written, God hath given them the
spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and
ears that they should not hear unto this day.”
Argument 3. If God hath chosen persons by
name, to be partakers of life and salvation by Christ
his Son, then hath he chosen particular persons. But
God hath chosen persons by name to be partakers
of life and salvation by Christ his Son. Therefore God
hath chosen particular persons, &c. The major
proposition is not questioned; the minor or
assumption is secured by the express testimony of
the Spirit. “And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world.” Rev.13:8. “Notwithstanding in this
rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but
rather rejoice, because your names are written in
heaven.” Lk.10:20. “And I entreat thee also, true
yokefellow, help those women which laboured with
me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other
my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book
of life.” Phil.4:3.
Argument 4. If Jeremiah and Jacob, &c., were
particular persons chosen and loved of God before
they were born, then God did elect and choose
particular persons to life and salvation; but Jeremiah
and Jacob, &c., were particular persons, chosen and
loved of God before they were born. Therefore, God
did elect and choose particular persons to life and
salvation. That Jeremiah and Jacob, &c., were
particular persons, no man of sense will deny; that

15
they were beloved of God before the natural birth,
the word of God is full and express. “Before I formed
thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou
camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and
I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Jer.1:5.
“At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God
of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my
people.” Jer.31:1. “For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of him that calleth.” Rom.9:11.
Argument 5. If God knows his elect from all
others, before he calls them in conversion, then hath
God elected particular persons to Life and Salvation.
But God knows his elect from all others, before he
calls them in conversion. Therefore God hath elected
and chosen particular persons to life and salvation.
That God’s precognition or foreknowledge, joined
with his purpose of grace to save his elect, goes
before his actually calling them in effectual
conversion, is beyond dispute. “For whom he did
foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among 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.” Rom.8:29-30. “Nevertheless
the foundation of God standeth sure, having this
seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let
everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart
from iniquity.” II Tim.2:19.
Argument 6. If they who believe in time,
were, before their believing, ordained to eternal life,
then did God elect and choose particular persons
unto life and salvation. But they who believe in time,
were, before their believing, ordained to eternal life.
Therefore God hath elected and chosen particular

16
persons unto life and salvation. That God’s pre-
ordination of persons to life and salvation doth
precede or go before believing and repentance, is
plain. “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were
glad, and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many
as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Acts
13:48. “What then? Israel hath not obtained that
which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained
it, and the rest were blinded.” Rom.11:7. “But ye
believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I
said unto you.” Jn.10:26. From which Scriptures it is
most plain, that none do or can, in time, believe and
repent to salvation, but such persons as are
theretofore appointed by God’s gracious purpose.
Argument 7. If the term, elect, doth signify
and pre-suppose a calling or choosing some
particular persons or things, out from among other
persons or things, then hath God out of so many
elected some particular persons unto eternal
salvation. But the term, elect, doth signify and
presuppose a calling or choosing some particular
persons or things out from among other persons or
things. Therefore God hath, out of many, called and
chosen some particular persons unto eternal life.
Argument 8. If the Lord Jesus did lay down
his life but for a certain particular number of sinners,
then did God elect and choose a particular number
to life and salvation. But the Lord Jesus did lay down
his life for a certain particular number of sinners.
Therefore God did elect and choose a particular
number to life and salvation. That the Lord Jesus did
lay down his life for a certain particular number, is
obvious and plain to him that can but read. “As the
Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and
I lay down my life for the sheep.” Jn.10:15. With this
accords that of Paul to Titus, “who gave himself for
us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and

17
purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works.” Tit.2:14. “Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it.” Eph.5:25. The sheep of whom Christ
speaks can be understood to be no other but
believers, even such as died in the faith before his
incarnation, with the believers of that present day,
and all who in time to come were to believe in him,
and these are the souls, who were by the Father
committed to the pastoral care and charge of Christ
the great Shepherd of the sheep, as sheep are
committed to the care and charge of an under
shepherd. For these Christ lays down his life; to
these he, by his Spirit, actually applies the virtue of
his death, over these he watches, and to these only,
excluding all others, he gives eternal life.
That these were given to Christ by the Father
to be redeemed and brought to glory, appears from
John, “and this is the Father’s will which hath sent
me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
Jn.6:39. “I have manifested thy name unto the men
which thou gavest me out of the world, thine they
were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept
thy word.” Jn.17:6. And verse 2, “as thou hast given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given him.” Mark this,
Reader! “To as many as thou hast given him.” This
plainly proves that God did commit to the care and
faithfulness of Christ his Shepherd, a certain
particular number to be justified and saved by him;
and therefore not all the race of fallen mankind, as
Papists, Arminians, Quakers, Free-willers, &c.,
vainly teach and hold.
Another consideration, which is full of
clearness, to convince and satisfy any right in their
minds, that not Adam’s posterity in general, as the

18
heretics above named would fain have it, but a
certain particular and definite number were elected
and chosen by God, and by him given to Christ his
Son, to be redeemed and saved; Christ’s refusing to
concern himself for any others, in the discharge of
his office of intercessor, as appears from John 17:9,
“I pray for them,” that is, for the elect, for whom he
had undertaken as guarantor and surety, “I pray not
for the world,” that is, those of the world who were
by God left in a reprobate state and condition, as is
evident from John 17:14. “I have given them thy
word, and the world hath hated them, because they
are not of the world; even as I am not of the world.”
Here are two distinct parties described by Christ, the
one is prayed for, the other is not; the one is hated,
the other hates; the very practice of the latter
denotes the persons to be children of another father,
distinct from those they hate. There is nothing more
discovers men to be the children of the devil, than
their hating righteousness, and not loving those who
appear to be godly. “In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he
that loveth not his brother.” I Jn.3:10. As love to
God, his truth, and such as bear his image, is an
infallible character of an elect child of God. John
13:35. I John 3:14; 4:7. So to hate God, his truth,
and such as bear his holy image, is the indelible
character of a reprobate designed for eternal
destruction. I John 3:10.
The second thing in the proposition to be
considered, is the end and design of God in that act
of his in electing and choosing, which is twofold.
First, as it respects the creatures elected, viz., that
they might partake of the special grace of God here
on earth, and of eternal glory in the kingdom of
heaven, through Christ his Son, according to that of

19
Paul, Eph.1:4, “according as he hath chosen us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before him in
love.” “But we are bound to give thanks alway to
God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the
obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” II
Thes.2:13-14. “For God hath not appointed us to
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus
Christ.” I Thes.5:9.
Secondly, with respect to God, electing, viz.,
that the glory of his sovereign, free, and rich grace,
might be extolled and praised forever, according as
the apostle expresses it in Ephesians 1:6, “to the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath
made us accepted in the beloved.” “In whom also we
have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will, that we
should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted
in Christ.” Eph.1:11-12.
The third thing in the proposition to be
considered, is to take notice of the properties in that
act of God, electing. Those properties are in number
three. First, God in electing and choosing some
sinners to himself out of the corrupted mass of fallen
mankind, on whom he purposed to show mercy; he
did elect and choose them most freely; there was
nothing at all in the objects elected and chosen, that
could move God wherefore he should elect one
sinner more, or sooner than another; for as fallen
into sin, and equally obnoxious to the curse of the
Law and the wrath to come, were all the sons and
daughters of Adam looked on by God, when he fixed
his electing love on some, and actually rejected and

20
passed others by, on whom the most High God, as
an Uncontrollable Sovereign, purposed to execute
the fierceness of his wrath for sin. The reason or
impulsive cause of this difference, which the
tremendous God saw fit to make between sinners,
equally guilty and obnoxious to the curse and wrath
of God, is not to be sought out of God himself. An
example and lively instance hereof we have in
Romans 9:11, which the wise God hath seen fit
should be recorded, on purpose to stop the mouth
of carnal reason, which is so wretchedly prone to
question and dispute against his sovereignty over
his creatures. “For the children being not yet born,
neither having done any 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 I hated.”
The wise God foreseeing the pure blind
reasonings and cavillings of carnal men’s
unsanctified brains, against the doctrine of God’s
absolute sovereignty, in disposing of the eternal
concerns of his rational creatures, fallen by sin into
a state and condition of misery, through their own
default; hath seen good, for the vindication of his
own prerogative, to make known to the sons of men,
and that by the unerring wisdom and unquestionable
authority of so great a man as Paul, the great
apostle of the Gentiles, the reason of God’s method
in proceeding to elect some of fallen mankind, to a
state of life and salvation, through a Redeemer, and
reprobating others, leaving them forever to perish in
that sin and misery, into which they did, without any
constraint, wilfully plunge themselves, to be no
other than his own most free and holy will, seeing
that he alone is the undoubted Sovereign of the
world, who hath an indisputable right to determine

21
what to do with, or how to dispose of sinning rebels,
without being any way liable to the controlment of
any of his creatures, especially such of them as, by
sin, have forfeited their very being to the Divine
Justice; and who, while in an unreconciled state, are
not capable of knowing him, or of being subject to
his Divine Law.
The good will and pleasure then of the blessed
God, is the source and fountain whence the great
disparity between the elect and the reprobate world
doth spring, not anything in the creatures
themselves, as Arminian cavillers dream and conceit
it doth. This will evidently appear, if the reader will
but, with a becoming modesty and unprejudiced
judgment, read the whole chapter at length, and,
with fervent prayer to God for the wisdom of his
Spirit, look narrowly into, and with sobriety consider
the 11th and the 16th verses, where it plainly
appears, that the two conceited qualifications, of
which the enemies of election are usually proud, and
which they hold and teach, are the procuring cause
of the difference between the good and the evil men
on earth, viz., the free will in man, and the good
works which unregenerate men do but conceit they
do; they are both met with, and equally discarded
by God, from having any room or place among the
causes which put God either upon choosing the
elect, or rejecting the reprobate. Mark the 11th
verse, “that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.”
With this agrees Ephesians 2:8,9, “for by grace are
ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man
should boast.” And Titus 3:5, “not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he hath saved us,” &c. Vain unregenerate
man would fain persuade himself that his worse than

22
threadbare rags of polluted morality, negative and
positive, is a covering sufficient not only to hide his
ulcerous and plague-sores of guilt and vileness, from
the pure and all-seeing eyes of an infinite Majesty,
but also to deck and adorn his soul, so as to bespeak
him an object fit for a Holy God to behold with
delight. O horrid delusion! Worse than frenzy, or
madness itself, this being but a temporary malady,
which may, by the use of ordinary means, be holpen,
but that, the bane and destruction of the immortal
soul, which nothing but the despised grace of God in
Christ can cure; such miserably deluded souls will
not find it easy to believe, that to think so highly of
their own qualifications is the greatest bar or
hindrance which keeps them from salvation. Read
also, with care, verse 16, “so then, it is not of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth; but of God that
sheweth mercy.”
Let the adversaries of the doctrine I am now
vindicating, but consider that man has fallen into sin
and misery of his own accord, is the object of
election and reprobation; and let them, if they can,
tell or show me how a natural man, in his lapsed,
guilty state, can possibly either will or act anything
but what is, both for matter and manner, most vile
and abominable in the sight of that God who is purity
and holiness itself in the abstract. And if so,
wherefore then should the most just and holy God
be conceived to elect men for that which he can do
no other than hate and loath, as the best duties of
an unregenerate person are both contrary to the
nature of God, and also repugnant to his just and
holy Law?
When unregenerate men talk and brag of
their duties and qualifications, as that which must
recommend them to God, and purchase for them a
right to the crown that fades not away, they think

23
and speak as men in a midnight dream, not
understanding what they say, or whereof they
affirm; and the head-spring of this their boasting of
their qualifications, is the profound ignorance and
luciferian pride which sways their unrenewed spirits,
having never passed under the killing severity of the
Law of God, set home on the conscience by the spirit
of bondage, to prepare them for healing by the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Until this work of the Lord pass on the soul,
no child of Adam can possibly prize the Son of God,
or see himself to be utterly undone, till, with the rich
man in the parable, the unquenchable flames of hell
discover his misery to him. Luke 16:23. From what
hath been observed from the Scriptures now
referred to, plain it is, that God, in electing some and
reprobating others of Adam’s posterity, cannot,
without blasphemy, be said to elect or choose any
man to a state of life and glory for anything of good
which he foresaw would be in the sinner, fallen into
a state of sin and misery; and therefore, if there was
nothing of foreseen good in the creature elected, for
which God had respect to him more than to another,
it must unavoidably follow, that in God electing, not
in the sinner elected, is the impulsive or moving
cause, viz., his own sovereign good pleasure.
God, as hath been already observed, in
electing and reprobating men, looks on them as
fallen and guilty creatures, who had wrought their
own misery, by their voluntary breach of his Royal
Law. To none of them was the Most High any way
obliged. He might have sent them all to the same
place and condition of the fallen angels, whose
conduct and example they followed in rebelling
against their holy Sovereign. And which of all the
reprobates now in hell will it avail, to dispute the
point of God’s sovereignty with him, or to inquire

24
why or wherefore he hath left them in that sad and
deplorable state of sin and misery? Pertinent to the
business in hand, is that query which Augustin puts
in his book of the City of God, “who made the
reprobate,” saith he, to which he himself replies,
“who,” saith he, “but God?” Again he queries, “why
did God make the reprobate?” To which he answers,
“because,” saith he, “it was his will.” Again he
queries, “why,” saith he, “was it God’s will to make
the reprobate a reprobate?” He answers the caviling
querist, or saucy and pragmatical inquirer, with that
of Paul, Rom.9:20, “nay but, O man, who art thou
that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say
to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?”
If Augustin were now living on earth should
read the reply which Grevincovius, that blaspheming
proud Arminian, made to the query which Paul put
to the called Corinthian, who excelled in the gifts of
God, I Cor.4:7, “for who maketh thee to differ, and
what hast thou, that thou hast not received.” To
which Grevincovius most arrogantly and
blasphemously replies, “I myself make myself to
differ.” I say, if Augustin were to read this Arminian’s
answer to Paul, it would not be difficult to guess at
what rate Augustin would treat his insolence.
If the abused grace of God changed him not
before death, it is most dreadful to think, and
seriously to consider, how little the free-will and
learning, of which he was greatly proud, do now
avail him at the bar of the great Judge; no doubt but
he finds, in woeful experience, what an unequal
match, he is, for the great Jehovah to dispute
matters with. Oh, that men of his spirit and
pernicious principles were wise, to consider things
aright, before they see and feel their folly in the
unquenchable flames of God’s wrath in hell.

25
 Let it be further considered, how express the
Spirit of God is in charging on Adam and all his
offspring, without exception, the breach of his Law,
and, on that very account, accounting them all guilty
criminals, and unclean polluted sinners, who, by
their voluntary apostasy, have forfeited his favour
and lost his blessed image, wherein the glory and
happiness of the rational creature consisted, as the
apostle witnesseth. “For all have sinned, and come
short of the glory of God,” Rom.3:23, and in verse
19, “now we know, that what things soever the Law
saith, it saith to them who are under the Law, that
every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God.” The conclusion whereof
he sets down in verse 20, “therefore by the deeds of
the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight;
for by the Law is the knowledge of sin.” With Paul
concur all the prophets, and the other penmen of
Holy Scriptures, setting forth the wretched condition
of all mankind by the apostasy of Adam, the natural
and federal head of his children.
The condition then of all Adam’s posterity
being such, as renders every sinner culpable before
God, and not only so, but utterly incapable of willing
or acting the least part of that duty which God’s Law
requires to a helping or recovering himself out of
that his misery; it is most plain and obvious to every
enlightened understanding, that by the tenure of the
first Adam’s covenant, all are born heirs of the curse
and wrath of an offended God; and are, by reason
of that spiritual impotency, which is inflicted on
Adam’s nature as a punishment for breaking God’s
Law, as altogether unable to believe in an atoning
Saviour when set forth by God in the Gospel of his
grace, as they are to perform the condition of that
holy Law of God, the violation and breach whereof

26
hath cast and condemned, at God’s bar, the whole
race of mankind.
Man’s wretchedness and misery then is of
himself; he can truly and justly blame none for it but
himself. Gen.3:17; Eccles.7:29; Hos.13:9. This
granted, it unavoidably and by necessary
consequence follows, that God is most just and
righteous in sealing, to the day of his wrath, with the
black character of reprobation, that part of Adam’s
posterity, on whom he hath fixedly resolved to
glorify that adorable and tremendous attribute of his
incensed justice, for breaking his just and righteous
Law. And where is the man who will undertake to
prove God unjust and unrighteous, in case he had
dealt with the elect themselves as he hath done with
the reprobates, viz., seal them up to the judgment
of the great day of his wrath! God is debtor to none
of Adam’s children, unless to damn and forsake
them forever, for their devil-like apostasy and
rebellion.
In this adorable and tremendous dispensation
of his, in reprobating the greatest part of mankind,
and electing to himself, out of the fallen and
corrupted mass, some few of mankind, on whom he
purposed to glorify the riches of his grace, through
Christ his Son, he acts towards both in way of
absolute sovereignty; so that as the reprobates
cannot say they have not merited that curse and
misery which is like to be their portion forever, so
neither shall the elect be ever able to attribute their
salvation to any other cause besides the sovereign
free and rich grace of God, which, had it pleased
God, might have fixed its hold on the reprobates,
making them the elect, while they themselves were
overlooked and passed by.
For my own part, I must ingenuously confess,
that I am so far from reflecting on God, as any way

27
unjust or partial, for dealing with Adam’s children as
he doth, that I am rather astonished to think that
any of Adam’s apostate offspring should ever escape
that curse and wrath, to which they were all equally
born heirs apparent, Eph.2:3, “and were by nature,
the children of wrath, even as others.” This was the
state and condition of the elect themselves, as they
are the natural offspring of Adam. But the banner of
God’s free grace, and undeserved love and pity, hath
been, by the arm of divine sovereignty, effectually,
displayed over them, when in their blood and
wretchedness, even then when God first laid the
foundation of their salvation in election. According to
Ephesians 1:4-7, and Ephesians two to the 10th
verse, well may every justified believer cry out with
Paul, Rom.11:33, “O the depth of the riches, both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past
finding out!”
In this bottomless profundity, or depth, of
God’s unsearchableness, the wit and corrupt reason
of unregenerate men, with all their acquired parts,
are swallowed up and confounded; by reason
whereof it comes to pass, that many times such as
are admired for their great reason and learning, will
not allow the Creator of the world that privilege
which they readily grant to a man like themselves,
viz., to decree or act anything but what their blind
reason and perverted judgment can see a reason
for. Oh, what an age do we live in, wherein the
immensity and unsearchableness of God is, on every
occasion of men’s disputing principles of religion,
called on to hold up the hand at the bar of those
men’s carnal reason, who indeed have lost the use
of right reason.
Of such men I would gladly know, whether
they can, with all their mother wit, decked and

28
adorned with all their academical learning, fathom
the depth of the created ocean, or tell the exact
number of the stars, and what influence they have
on human bodies? If they can tell how the soul and
body of man are united? Or how the bones grow in
the womb of the woman with child? With many other
secrets in nature, not only difficult, but even
impossible to be found out by the wit and learning
of Adam’s children; witness the many learned
philosophers, wherewith the world abounded, whose
wit and learning came vastly short in finding out and
tracing the Almighty in his works of Creation and
Providence, from whence I argue, from the lesser to
the greater. If all the mother wit and acquired parts
and learning of the children of Adam could never find
out many secrets in the works of Creation and
Providence, how much more impossible is it for them
to find out the Almighty Creator himself to
perfection?
The query which Zophar the Naamathite put
to Job, will never be answered by any creatures in
earth or heaven any other way than in the negative,
Job 2:7, “canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?” And
from what source or fountain men’s atheistical and
saucy reflections on God, for making such a
difference between Adam’s children, in saving but
few in comparison, and damning the rest, should
spring, I cannot tell, unless from their profound
ignorance of the immense and incomprehensible
perfection of God’s Being, and their not owning and
believing his absolute sovereignty over his
creatures. I appeal to the conscience of every
savingly enlightened man, who reads this, whether
this wilful and affected ignorance of God, and their
denying his absolute sovereignty over his creatures,
be not the very portal or door at which the horrid

29
profaneness and matchless debaucheries of this
worst of ages, which now lays the kingdoms open to
utter ruin, have entered the stage.
This is that which the devil, and his busy
agents the Romish Jesuits, aimed at, when, in the
late reign of King James, they obtained the king’s
royal prohibition, forbidding ministers, both non and
con to meddle, in preaching, with the doctrine of
election and reprobation. They well knew how
subservient the keeping the people ignorant of the
doctrine of election would be to open the floodgates
to profaneness and debauchery, and consequently
prepare England for a ready reception of cursed and
damning popery.
The denying the doctrine of God’s
sovereignty, in electing and reprobating lapsed and
guilty rebels, and teaching and maintaining, both in
pulpit and print, free-will to good in unregenerate
men, as also the doctrine of general redemption, is
a doctrine which is altogether unscriptural; and
because of men’s violence and peremptoriness in
teaching and propagating the same, and their
obstinacy in refusing to receive and submit to the
contrary doctrine, which is according to the
Scriptures, the only doctrine which designs the
destruction of sin in the hearts and lives of true
believers, and the promoter of true holiness, God
most justly punisheth such people with a giving
them up, not only to believe the most nonsensical
lies for true religion, but even to wallow like swine
in the mire of the grossest immoralities, even to an
excelling the very pagan world.
To illustrate the point I am now defending
against the Quakers and Arminians, viz., that God,
in electing some and reprobating others, doth act
therein most freely, as an absolute sovereign; let
them give me leave to put this question to their

30
reason and conscience, such as it is. Suppose that
all the several parties in the city, who differ in their
mode or way of worshipping God, should, in their
respective meetings, instead of worshipping God,
lay all their heads, hearts, and hands together, to
contrive and carry on a plot against the king and the
fundamental laws of the kingdom, with a full intent
to destroy both the one and the other; to which plot
all the several parties do, as one man, harmoniously
and unanimously agree; the law condemns not only
the practice as traitorous and treasonable, but
sentences the very persons, all and singular, who
are proved to have had any hand in such a plot, to
a shameful and cruel death.
The plot comes to be discovered, and upon
discovery, the king, who hath the executive power
of the law in his own hand, considers the matter,
and finding that all these several parties, whom he
took to be loyal subjects, are turned rebels; as most
evidently appears by the unnatural plot lately
engaged in by them all, against both his person and
government; for which both he and they know full
well the law condemns them all alike.
The king, to whom the executive power of the
Law belongs, according to his prerogative,
nominates two select parties out of all the rest, viz.,
Quakers and Arminians, to whom he resolves to
extend his favour, in giving to them his royal
pardon; the other several parties, distinct from
them, he resolves to leave to the sentence of the
Law, to undergo the deserved penalty thereof, for
that horrid and unnatural rebellion. I would fain
know what the Quakers and Arminians could object
against the king of England, for passing an act of
indemnity, or free pardon, on the people called
Quakers and Arminians, and leaving all the other
parties to suffer death?

31
 Seeing that herein the king acts by
prerogative, not according to desert, for the Quakers
and Arminians deserved death as well as the rest
who are excluded out of the pardon; my reason tells
me, that the Quakers and Arminians would be so far
from charging the king with injustice or partiality,
that they would rather sound forth his praise, for
saving them by his favour and mercy, no way
deserved, whom, in strictness of justice, he might
have left to the sentence of the Law.
And in case any of the criminals condemned
to die, should offer to murmur against the king, for
making such a difference between his equally guilty
subjects, would not the Quaker and the Arminian
both plead the king’s prerogative for saving
themselves, when, at the same time, and by the
same sovereignty, he passes by the rest; and shall
the King of kings be disputed against and reflected
on for acting, in matters of the like nature, by his
own undoubted prerogative?
If any should be so saucy and bold, as to
demand a reason why or wherefore the king of
England should leave seven or eight several parties
out of his royal pardon, and extend the benefit
thereof only to two select parties, who were both as
liable to death, by the Law, as the others;, the
answer is ready, it is the king’s sovereign will and
pleasure to make the two select parties, nominated
in his pardon, objects of his pity and mercy, and the
rest to be the objects of his incensed justice, to
undergo that death and misery which they, by
rebellion, brought upon themselves.
Now in all this, “hath not the potter power
over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
to honour, and another to dishonour?” Rom.9:21.
Reader, I pray consider, that the lump in the place
now quoted, intends no other than men and women,

32
whom God, the absolute sovereign of the world,
decreed to create; the making vessels is God’s
creating mankind with a purpose to authorize their
fall. His making one vessel to honour, and the other
to dishonour, is God’s creating one with a fixed
purpose to recover him out of that fallen state into
which he was to fall, and that by sovereign grace;
the other he leaves to die and perish in that
wretched state into which he, of his own default, fell.
In this procedure God is altogether free;
neither can the creature, so left by God, any way
reflect on God, as dealing unjustly or unequally with
him; and the reason is, because God is under no tie
or obligation to give grace to that creature, who, of
his own accord, did abuse and throw away that stock
of grace whereby he was rendered capable of
keeping the Law of his Maker; and who, by the
instinct of his vitiated and corrupted nature, doth
obstinately oppose and resist the message of
salvation propounded in the Gospel.
So that the point in controversy between me
and the adversaries already named, is in this
comparison propounded in the verse last quoted,
lively set forth; from which it is apparent, that the
design of the apostle is to prove that God, as the
undoubted sovereign of the world, who acts what
him pleaseth, and that according to the counsel of
his own most holy will, decreed to make some of the
corrupted mass to be vessels of mercy, and of the
rest vessels of wrath; and that by electing some
unto himself, upon whom he purposed to bestow his
love, with all the means tending to fit and prepare
those persons so elected and chosen, for the actual
enjoyment of that love; such as a Redeemer, to die
for them; faith whereby they should be made
partakers of that Redeemer, with all the saving
graces of the Spirit promised in the Covenant of

33
Grace, with final perseverance in grace to the end;
the rest, as hath been before observed, he left, or
passed over, purposing to leave them in that
wretched and deplorable condition into which they
causelessly plunge themselves.
Neither is God therefore the cause why the
reprobate are sinful and wicked, but his own will,
which, being left to its own natural freedom, did
most freely and readily choose that which was by
God’s Law forbidden, upon pain of God’s displeasure
and curse.
The second property in God’s act of election is
its unchangeableness; and, therefore, most certain
it is, that he or she whom God hath once purposed
to love and save, shall never finally, or totally, fall
away from grace, or miscarry eternally. “The counsel
of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his
heart to all generations.” Psal.33:11.
What is God’s election of some to life eternal,
and the means leading thereto, but the birth or
product of his own counsel? “The purpose of God,
according to election, must stand.” Rom.9:11. And,
oh! What an unspeakable cause of rejoicing is this
very consideration to that man or woman, who find
in themselves the fruits or effects of the new birth,
to think and believe that they in particular are
chosen to life eternal, by him who cannot change
that purpose of his wherewith he hath purposed to
save so poor and miserable a sinner, as the
effectually called sinner looks on himself to be.
Neither is the poor weak believer to doubt but
that those sins and backslidings, both of his heart
and life, for which he will be but too apt to fear, and
conclude God will at length cast him off, were all
perfectly known to God, even then when he elected
him to salvation; notwithstanding which, God fixed
his love, and embraced the poor sinner in the bosom

34
of his irreversible decree, when nothing of
loveliness, but rather the contrary, appeared to the
eye of God’s precognition, or fore-knowledge, in the
soul, so pitched on by his decree.
Whom God once loves with that electing love,
he loves them to the end. Jer.31:8; Mal.3:6; John
13:1; Rom.11:29. And as God’s act in electing is
without change, so, in the third place, it was from
eternity; though the work of effectual calling and
saving conversion be in time, yet God’s decree and
purpose of bestowing that grace and mercy on the
elect sinner was before time. So witnesseth the
apostle, Acts 15:18, “known unto God are all his
works, from the beginning of the world.” Eph.1:4,
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world.” II Thes.2:13, “from the
beginning hath God chosen you.” Rev.17:8, “whose
names are written in the book of life, from the
foundation of the world.”
The electing love of God is from one eternity
to another; as it did commence before time, so when
time shall be swallowed up of endless eternity, this
love of God to his elect and chosen in Christ will be,
and continue, the same forever. And, therefore, let
that believer, who feels himself inwardly and
frequently annoyed with those discouraging fits of
fickleness and inconstancy, in walking with God in
the way of new obedience, take sanctuary here by
faith, applying to himself the sweet benefits of these
properties of God’s electing love, filling both his head
and heart with the thoughts and fixed persuasion
that the blessed God, who is the infinite sovereign
of the world, who acts all things which pleaseth
himself, according to the counsel of his own will,
hath, of his own good pleasure, chosen him a poor,
unworthy, empty, nothing creature, to be a vessel
of mercy, through Jesus Christ, to the praise of the

35
glory of his own grace; and that love, wherewith God
hath loved him, began towards him before he had
an actual being, yea, before the world was; and as
that love of God was set on him before time began,
so when time itself shall be no more, that love of
God to him shall still be endless, like God himself.
Nothing more conduceth, under God, to heart-
settlement, in the ways of God, than to be well
versed in understanding and believing, with
application to one’s self, these fundamental
principles of Gospel religion. And this one thing I
desire the reader to remember, and carefully to
observe, viz., that if there were no other argument
to evince and make good the truth I have now
asserted, than the arduous and elaborate
endeavours of Satan and his busy agents, both in
preaching and printing against the doctrine of
election and reprobation, it were sufficient. The devil
and the pope knew full well how destructive and
pernicious to both their kingdoms, the bringing
sinners to the scriptural knowledge and right
believing this doctrine will be.
And, therefore, for preventing hereof, the
opposing doctrine must be exposed in the blackest
hue, as a doctrine which makes men proud, secure,
and careless of good works, and which leads men to
loose living, and in the end to final desperation, and
as the truth itself is shot at by the Romish and
Arminian archers, so the most zealous and bold
assertors and maintainers of it are set out in the
most odious and black colours, which envy and
malice itself can devise; but notwithstanding all the
craft and envy of the devil and his most subtle and
industrious tools, the doctrine of particular election
before time, is plainly held forth and asserted in the
writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the holy
Apostles, and in case divine providence calls to a

36
suffering condition for a defence of it, I do not doubt
but God hath a sealed number in these kingdoms,
known to himself, who will be enabled to seal the
truth of it with their dearest blood. An objection or
two lies in the way to be answered, before I can
proceed to what remains behind.
Objection 1. The doctrine of particular election
puffs men with pride. Answer. The contrary to this
the devil himself knows to be true. For I doubt not
but Satan hath made his observations, that none of
all God’s called children have more abounded with
humility and self-abasement, than those who have
had the highest assurance of God’s electing love;
none but these can rightly admire and adore the
grace and love of God in Christ Jesus. “To me, who
am less than the least of all saints, is this grace
given,” &c, cries that great apostle of the gentiles.
Eph.3:8. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am the chief.” I Tim.1:15.
“For I am the least of the apostles, that am not
worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted
the church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am.” I Cor.15:9,10. It is to be observed, that
among all the apostles none was more highly
advanced, in respect of extraordinary manifestations
and Gospel revelations, than Paul was; and yet,
among all the apostles, none more abased; no
greater admirer of free grace than he was; and
indeed, not only Paul, but others also, both under
the Old Testament and under the New, whom free
grace singled out to be vessels of mercy; these were
still addicted to go out of themselves in a way of self-
abasement, and crying up the riches of God’s grace
and mercy, every way free and undeserved by them.
And herein I appeal, most freely, to the personal
experience of every regenerate believer now living,

37
whether they do not find in themselves, that the
nearer they come to know and perceive the love of
God to themselves in particular, the more vile they
are in their own esteem; and the more the sight and
sense of their own nothingness grows and abounds,
the more are they inwardly stirred up to adore and
magnify the riches of God’s free grace, who hath
vouchsafed to regard such poor contemptible worms
as they judge themselves to be.
Objection 2. The doctrine of particular election
cuts off the force and strength of all threatenings
and warnings which are recorded in the Scriptures
as a curb and bit, to restrain men from sin. Answer.
The ever-blessed and holy God, who decreed to elect
and choose a particular number to salvation, hath
decreed also the means of bringing them to that
end, whereof those threatenings and warnings,
scattered here and there in God’s Word, are a part;
the which the good Spirit of God makes effectually
useful to work and increase in the elect, {called to
the state of grace,} the filial and reverential fear of
God; as also to caution them against all kind of
declinings in the way of holy walking with God, in
the way of new obedience to his holy
commandments; the which God hath revealed in his
Word to be the only way in which true believers must
go to an actual possessing the purchased
inheritance, according to Psalm 1:1-3. “Blessed is
the man that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor
sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is
in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his
fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

38
 These divine threats and warnings are,
through the saving influence of the Spirit of grace,
made a powerful bit and curb, to restrain the
savingly converted from returning, with approbation
and delight, to former and forsaken folly; and not
only so, but to keep them more close to their duty
in a Gospel dependence on Christ, their Mediatorial
Head, for all manner of supplies, till they come to
glory. Those threats and warnings, if they were ten
thousand times more than they are, will never curb
or restrain any reprobate from loving and liking sin.
It is true, that through the common operation of the
Spirit of God, such threats and warnings may, for a
time, influence a hypocrite to a keeping him from
the external gross acts of sin, and a putting him on
doing many things which are morally good in
themselves. But, alas! What will this avail, while the
state of the man is unchanged, and his heart
unrenewed. Sad instances hereof are recorded in
God’s Word. Witness Pharaoh, Exod.7:4, and Judas,
Matt.26:15; Matt.27:5, with many other reprobates,
whose names are left on record in the book of God,
who were neither restrained from sin, nor yet kept
back from running headlong to hell, with this bit in
their mouths. The Spirit of God, by the holy prophet,
gives a full description of the natural disposition of
wicked hypocrites, as touching the incorrigibleness
of their hearts, in going on in sin, not only under
God’s rod, but also under his favourable
dispensation, which, one would think, should win
them to repentance. “O LORD, are not thine eyes
upon the truth? Thou hast stricken them, but they
have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but
they have refused to receive correction; they have
made their faces harder than a rock; they have
refused to return. Therefore I said, surely these are
poor; they are foolish, for they know not the way of

39
the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.” Jer.5:3-
4. “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and
forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But
after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest
up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
Rom.2:4-5; Rev.16:9-11; Isa.26:10-11.
Objection 3. If I be elected to life eternal,
before time, I may live as I list; I need neither to
believe, to repent, or to use the means of obtaining
salvation; and though I live after the flesh, I shall be
saved, being elected. Answer. To this threadbare
objection, which is commonly in the mouths of all
cavillers against the doctrine of election, I answer in
two particulars. First, this objection doth not, in the
least, find any encouragement from the doctrine of
particular election before time, as will evidently
appear by the inseparableness of the end and the
means, asserted and held forth in the Word of God,
and constantly maintained by the orthodox against
Papists, Arminians, &c. He who hath elected to life
eternal, he hath also elected to the means; such as
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, held forth and
proclaimed in the Gospel; repenting for sinning
against God; advancing in practical godliness, and
persevering in the same to the end. From whence it
plainly appears, that he who makes this objection is
either wilfully ignorant, not in the least
understanding the doctrine of election according to
divine revelation, or, which is unspeakably worse, an
affected caviller and a wicked subverter of the
Gospel.
Suppose I should query of the Papist, the
Arminian, the Quaker, and Free-willer, who are all
agreed in opposing and decrying the doctrine of
particular election before time, and perseverance to

40
the end, whether they believe that God hath
decreed, or absolutely determined in himself, how
long he or they shall live or continue in this world?
The answer will undoubtedly be in the affirmative,
viz., that God hath decreed or determined, in
himself, how long he or they are to live or continue
in this world. If then, say I, you believe that God
hath decreed in himself how long you are to live or
continue in this world, what need you to mind any
of the concerns of this world for the support of
human life? Why will you so insatiably covet the
perishing riches and the transitory pleasures of the
present world, seeing God hath decreed how long
you are to live? The answer again will be, the LORD
that hath decreed how long I am to live in this world,
he hath also decreed, and in his revealed will
commanded me, to exercise my reason, and my
other natural faculties, in order to procure and make
use of the ordinary means, such as food, raiment,
physic, and the like; whereby, in an ordinary way,
the life and health of the body are secured and
maintained. Here, in the concerns of the body, they
are sharp and witty enough, even to an outdoing
thousands of the children of God. But in the concerns
of the soul they are as corrupt and heterodox as they
are sound and rational in the other.
If a Papist or an Arminian should fix his
purpose of building a house in such or such a place,
it cannot be rationally supposed that he intends to
build without materials; and therefore my reason
tells me, that in order to accomplish that his
purpose, he hath also purposed to provide all the
several materials necessary for such a purpose. “He
who in good earnest wills the end, he also wills the
means leading to that end,” is a sure rule both in
logic and divinity. And why these Popish Arminian
cavillers should not allow it its proper place in the

41
doctrine of election before time, I can understand no
other reason for, than either because God hath
judicially smitten them with blindness of mind that
they should not be able to understand or believe this
amazing doctrine of election before time, or else
because God hath left them, as he did Pharaoh, to
harden themselves, that they might, with the
greater acuteness and stubbornness, oppose and
withstand his sovereignty in electing some and
reprobating others of the same fallen and corrupted
mass, and that before time.
Secondly, as there can be no argument more
cogent and irrefragable to evince and prove a man
to be either a fool or a madman, than his resolving
to expect the accomplishment of an end, such as
building a house, or living in the world, without the
use of the proportionate means leading to such
ends; so there is no argument which more strongly
proves a man or woman to be of the number of
reprobates, than to expect or hope to go to heaven
in the continued and approved neglect of believing
in the Son of God, repenting of sin, living a holy life,
and persevering in the same to the end of life.
Objection 4. The doctrine of election before
time doth not only encourage to sin, but it leads
people to final desperation; for preventing of which
all imaginable care ought to be taken to suppress
and decry it. Answer. To this horrid and
blasphemous objection, I shall, in Christ’s strength,
answer in four particulars. And, first, I do boldly
affirm, in the name of the ever blessed Trinity, that
this blasphemous objection did originally spring from
that spirit which charged the Son of God with casting
out devils by Beelzebub, which, if I mistake not, is
the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost; and
such as peremptorily, with allowance and
approbation, persist in making and liking the same

42
against the doctrine of election, so plainly revealed
and so positively asserted by the Holy Ghost; I am
not afraid to declare and pronounce the children and
successors of those Pharisees, now in hell, who
vented that unpardonable blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost. Matt.12:24,32. Let all caviling
adversaries, who bring this objection against the
doctrine of God’s absolute and free election before
time, have a care they be not found ranked among
those mighty sinners who, in the height of their
wickedness, run themselves most desperately upon
the thick bosses of the Almighty’s buckler. Job
15:26.
Secondly, if the doctrine of election be such a
dangerous doctrine as leads to licentiousness, and
which, in the end, brings men to desperation, I
would fain know how it comes to pass that the
enemies of this doctrine are such slaves to their
brutish lusts, and why so many of them die in
despair when under powerful awakenings and
common convictions in their guilty consciences?
Thirdly, I do with greatest confidence and
certain assurance, grounded on the word of God,
and backed with my own personal experience,
affirm, that as the right knowledge and believing of
the doctrine of election before time, with a particular
application thereof to one’s self, is the only doctrine
that sets the heart of a true believer against all sin,
and which secures and keeps the believer from
desperation in the time of the deepest desertion and
most violent temptation; so the doctrine of free-will
and general redemption is a doctrine which
encourages to sin, and which necessarily leads to
desperation. Here two things are to be
demonstrated. First, that the doctrine of election
before time rightly understood, and particularly
applied by faith, is the only doctrine which engages

43
the heart of a sound believer against all known sin,
and which fortifies and secures the believer against
desperation in the time of the deepest desertion and
the most violent temptation. Secondly, that the
doctrine of free-will and general redemption, is a
doctrine which encourageth to sin, and which
necessarily leads to desperation. The first of these
will evidently appear to him that rightly considers
and believes the particulars following.
First, the purpose and design of God the
Father in electing, which was, that his elect and
chosen, who were fallen into sin and misery in
Adam, their natural and federal head, might be
delivered, and, by strong hand, rescued out of that
state of sin and misery, and made effectual
partakers of that liberty and redemption, purchased
by Christ his Son, the Sponsor and Surety of his
elect.
Secondly, the design of Christ, the Surety and
Sponsor of the elect, in the whole work of mediation,
which he undertook to go through for the elect,
which his Father had chosen in him, which was to
purchase for, and in time to apply actually to the
elect, the saving benefit of that freedom and
redemption purchased by himself.
Thirdly, the design and office of the Holy
Ghost, which is to sanctify and renew the souls of
the elect in effectual calling, and to carry on and
maintain the work of grace, begun in the believer to
the end.
Fourthly, the design of the Gospel in revealing
and discovering the mystery of God’s love and grace
to his elect and chosen, which is, that believers
might, by virtue of Christ’s death savingly applied,
die unto all sin, and that they might, by virtue of
Christ’s resurrection, walk in newness of life before
God.

44
 Fifthly, the design of divine providence
towards true believers, which is to purge them from
the remains of indwelling sin more and more, and to
make them more and more to abound in holy
conformity to Christ their mystical Head.
All these, as so many lines in a center, do
meet in the doctrine of particular election, the which,
when the believer seriously considers, and the Spirit
through faith applies to himself, he is so far from
being drawn either to sin or desperation thereby, as
that he finds the quite contrary in himself, viz., an
admirable aversion and repugnancy to yield consent
to the flattering solicitations of sin, and an anchor
hold, which powerfully keeps him from descending
into the darksome valley of desperation, which is, as
I may say, the very entrance into hell itself.
When the believer is at any time attacked by
Satan, his enticing instruments, or by indwelling
corruption, to yield to the motions of sin, he fetches
arguments against sin from the doctrine of God’s
election thus, “hath God from all eternity fixed his
gracious purpose of delivering and rescuing me out
of that state of sin and misery, into which the
apostasy of Adam, my natural and federal head,
plunged me, and that by choosing out and fixing on
his own Son to be a Surety and Saviour to purchase
a liberty, and to work out a perfect and complete
redemption for me; and shall I, can I, with
approbation, yield my full consent to grieve and
offend this freely and this dearly-loving God? I
cannot do it; neither can all the craft and policy of
my spiritual enemies ever work me to a willingness
to go back into that state of spiritual captivity, under
Sin and Satan, from which the grace of God, in
election and effectual calling, hath set me free.”
Secondly, “hath Christ the Son of God
pursuant to his Father’s holy decree and gracious

45
purpose, and in compliance with so noble and
glorious a design as redeeming captive sinners, and
reconciling them to his Father, consented to become
a mediator for me, to work out a work of perfect
redemption for me, that I might be set at liberty
from the Law’s curse, from the dominion of sin, and
the usurpation and tyranny of the devil, and shall I
consent to commit sin against such bowels of mercy
and love? I cannot do it.”
Thirdly, “hath the Holy Ghost, who, in
conjunction with the Father and the Son, had a hand
in my election to eternal life, vouchsafed to take on
him the office of a sanctifier, to sanctify and renew
the elect in effectual calling, and who hath begun in
me the work of special sanctification, and will never
finally leave me till he hath perfected his work begun
in me; and shall I, can I, willingly grieve and offend
that Holy Spirit, by whom I am sealed to the day of
redemption? I cannot do it.”
Fourthly, “is the Gospel appointed by Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, to be a word of revelation, to
discover to me how the heart of God, his Christ, and
Holy Spirit stood affected towards the elect, and
toward me in particular, from eternity and to endless
eternity; and not only so, but the same might be a
rule of direction to me, all my days, to discover the
false ways I am to shun and avoid, as also the paths
I am to walk in, in order to a pleasing the Holy
Trinity, and coming safe to heaven; and shall I, can
I, consent to abuse so sweet and excellent a Gospel?
I cannot do it.”
Fifthly, “is the design of divine providence, in
all its various dispensations to the elect, and to me
in particular, to purge believers from the remains of
indwelling corruption, and to make them more and
more to abound in holy conformity to Christ their
mystical Head; and shall I abuse it by sinning

46
against it, and taking an occasion therefrom to be
vain and secure in my conversation? I cannot do it.”
And as the true believer is enabled, being
taught and guided by the Holy Ghost, to fetch
arguments against sin from the five sacred topics
now mentioned; so is he, in like manner, enabled,
being savingly influenced by the inhabitation of the
Holy Ghost in him, to fetch from the above-named
topics arguments to keep him from final
desperation, in the most violent hurricane of
temptation which can attend on a deserted or an
afflicted condition.
To evince and clear up this truth, for the
comfort and encouragement of the poorest believer,
in an hour of sore distress, when the waters of
affliction reach even to the very soul, to a sensible
endangering the extinguishing the little grace lodged
in the soul; let it be seasonably and seriously
considered, that the believer, when he finds Satan,
his wicked instruments, and indwelling corruption,
all conjunctly together, pressing and working his
soul within to despair of mercy and salvation, he falls
on arguing from the sweet doctrine of God’s election
thus, “shall I, can I, who am secured of life eternal
by the gracious and unchangeable decree of the
immutable God, despair of mercy and salvation, as
Satan, the wicked world, and my own carnal reason,
would have me do? I cannot do it. If it were possible
that my sinking soul should drop through the very
jaws of despondency into hell itself, from thence
would God’s unchangeable purpose of grace fetch
and deliver it.”
Secondly, “shall I, or can I, for whom Christ
the Son of God hath undertaken, as a sponsor and
surety, and for whom he hath wrought a perfect
reconciliation by his own mediatorial righteousness,
in which no spot or defect ever was, or ever shall be,

47
found by God, angels, or men, despair of mercy and
salvation, as devil, wicked men, and my own carnal
reason would fain persuade me to do? I cannot do
it.”
Thirdly, “shall I, to and for whom the Holy
Ghost is become a sanctifier and a renewer of my
nature, and who, by his saving influential presence,
dwells in me, never finally to leave me till his good
work of grace begun in my soul in effectual calling,
be completely perfected, despair of mercy and
salvation, as the devil, wicked men, and my own
carnal reason would have me do? I can by no means
do it.”
Fourthly, “shall I, who have all the sweet and
precious promises of the Gospel, of God’s love and
grace to comfort and assure me, that God, Christ,
and the blessed Spirit, will never, never fail or
forsake me, despair of mercy and salvation as mine
enemies would persuade me to do? I cannot do it.”
Lastly, “shall I, who have the divine
providence engaged for me, to uphold me, to purge
out the remains of indwelling sin in me, and to
forward me in conforming to my mystical Head,
Christ, in holiness, despair of mercy and salvation as
my enemies would have me? I cannot do it.” This is
the use which a true believer makes of the doctrine
of God’s election before time, while faith in the
believer is in its right exercise; none will stumble at
it, so as eternally to perish, but such as are not, by
that act of God’s electing decree given to Christ
before time, to be actually redeemed in time.
Secondly, the doctrine of free-will and general
redemption, is a doctrine which encourageth to sin,
and which necessarily leads to desperation. I shall
offer two things to consideration for evincing and
clearing up this for truth; the which I desire the
reader to weigh and consider without prejudice.

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 First, the use which all unregenerate men
make of the doctrine of free-will, which sad
experience teacheth, is this, I will turn to God by
repentance; I will believe in an atoning Saviour; I
will fall on the work of reformation, and thereby
prevent my perishing by the deserved judgments of
God, when I see my own time, and when I am
thereto disposed. Who sees not, except one
spiritually blind, how greatly this doctrine doth
encourage to sin? For, saith my carnal reason, as
often it hath while I was in a state of nature, if I do
not return to God upon his call and invitation this
day, this month, this year, I fully purpose and
resolve to do it the next; for God hath implanted in
my soul a principle of free-will whereby I am enabled
to answer his call, by repenting, believing, and
reforming; the which, when I do, though not at
present, God will have mercy on me, and I shall be
accepted, being secured by that general redemption
provided for all who so repent, believe, and reform.
Woeful and sad experience convinceth me, that
many god-provoking follies and vanities of youth, in
my heart and life, have been indulged by this
deceiving cursed doctrine. Oh, how often hath carnal
reason within me cried out, when the common
notions of the Spirit of God hath touched my
conscience, to call on me to convert and turn to God?
I will repent, I will convert, I will turn to God
tomorrow, tomorrow. As Augustin confesseth of
himself, he often put God off with his free-will,
“tomorrow, tomorrow,” till at length he grew both
ashamed and weary of his graceless tomorrow,
crying out to the Almighty, in the very hour of his
effectual conversion. “How long, O Lord, shall I cry
tomorrow, tomorrow? Why, O Lord, should I not be
converted this very day?”

49
 And as an unregenerate man takes
encouragement from this principle to go on in sin,
so it leads him to desperation; of this also my sad
experience hath fully convinced me, as plainly
appears by the near approach I made to hell, in my
own apprehensions, while I bordered so near the
confines of final desperation, finding in myself how
vastly short my personal qualifications came of
answering the Law’s demand, as a condition of life
and salvation, I found that nothing could possibly
quiet or satisfy my wounded despairing conscience,
but what doth effectually appease and satisfy that
Holy God, against whom I have so many thousands
of times offended, which can be nothing short of an
infinite righteousness; which righteousness can be
had nowhere but in Christ, and no way to be
experienced but in a way of believing, of which
mystery my blind and perverted reason was as
ignorant as a beast; and not only so, but my heart
and soul were zealously set against looking for life
and salvation in any other way than that of free-will
and general redemption.
This principle, so every way quadrating with
my legal, frame of heart, which was acted by no
other principle but do, and live. Here it might not be
amiss or unseasonable, for the relief and
encouragement of a poor tempted soul, who, as
touching this very point of election, may, by walking
in darkness, having no light of comfort in his own
spirit, to answer or resolve this needful question.
How shall a poor, bewildered, tempted soul, come to
know that itself in particular was elected of God
before time?
To this question, about which many of God’s
called ones are not a little distressed in their own
spirits, I shall answer in three particulars. First, the
way to know thou art elected before time, is to go

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about it in a right way or manner. By this I mean,
thou art not to attempt to pry into the secret
counsels of the Most High concerning this matter,
knowing that secret things belong to God, and to
none else, until he pleaseth to reveal, them. “The
secret things belong unto the LORD our God; but
those things which are revealed belong unto us and
to our children forever, that we may do all the words
of this law.” Deut.29:29. Therefore, in order to know
this mystery to thy comfort, do as thou wouldest do,
if thou wert to bring both ends of a bottom of thread
or yarn to meet together; the way is not to begin at
that end which is hid in the very center of the
bottom, but to take the end which is outmost and
next to thee, and by thus doing thou wilt soon bring
both ends to meet; whereas, if thou go about it in
any other way, as by cutting or raveling the bottom
to hasten the work, thou wilt but fret and vex
thyself, and which is worse thou wilt mar and spoil
the work. Do not then attempt, as the devil and
carnal reason would have thee, to climb up to
heaven to inform thyself of this matter; God’s work
must be done in the way of his own appointment;
which is, that thou begin first with thy own heart.
“But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on
this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend
into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from
above; or, who shall descend into the deep, that is,
to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what
saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth,
and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we
preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Rom.10:6-9. See, examine, and search thy own
soul, to find out whether his Holy Spirit hath ever
been at work there. The cause must be known by its

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proper effects, not the effects by the cause. II
Cor.13:5; Gal.6:4; II Pet.1:10.
Election, the thing thou wouldest fain be
resolved about, is the cause {this is a secret in God’s
breast} which can be known by thee no other way,
ordinarily, but by its effects, which are faith in thy
heart, and obedience to Christ’s commands in thy
life and conversation. If the Spirit of God hath called
thee to embrace Christ, held forth in the Gospel; and
if the fruits of thy fleeing to Christ do discover
themselves in thy life and conversation, thou hast
no ground or reason to question thy election, but
what the devil and thy carnal reason suggest. “And
as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
Acts 13:48. “But we are bound to give thanks alway
to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and
belief of the truth; whereunto he called you by our
gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” II Thes.2:13-14. “And other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold; them also I must
bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall
be one fold, and one shepherd.” Jn.10:16. “But ye
believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I
said unto you.” John 10:26. In the Scriptures now
quoted, election to eternal life is held forth as the
cause of faith; and faith, or believing in Jesus, as the
undoubted fruit or effect of election.
Secondly, art thou frequently tempted to
doubt of; and question, thine election to eternal life?
This is an undoubted argument, that the devil
discerns in thee the fruits and effects of God’s
electing love to thy person, which puts him upon
tempting thee to question and doubt of God’s love
to thee. Where the devil knows he hath the full and
quiet possession of a sinner, there he suggests, that

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the man is a good Christian; his faith is a good faith,
and God is his father, and that he is elected and shall
be saved, notwithstanding he lives after the flesh.
On the contrary, where the devil sees and
discovers the fruits and effects of God’s grace and
love appear, there he pesters the soul with infernal
suggestions and temptations, to put the soul on
misbelieving and questioning the truth of God’s
grace bestowed on the sinner; thou art but a painted
hypocrite, thou art none of God’s elect; it is in vain
for thee to hope or expect to go to heaven. Thus he
dealt with the believer’s Redeemer, “if thou be the
Son of God,” &c. Matt.4:3-6. And if the adversary
hath done this to the green tree, what will he not
attempt to do to the dry? Luke 23:31.
Thirdly, dost thou find thine heart fixedly
resolved, come life come death, to cast thy soul at
the foot of Divine Sovereignty, in the way of duty,
shunning all known sin, and pressing after holiness,
resting entirely on the grace and merit of Christ after
life and salvation? Thou art to know, for thine
everlasting comfort and encouragement, that no
reprobate ever was, or ever shall be, able to do this.
Time will discover that thou art one of God’s elect;
go on in the strength of thy God, fear not.

CHAPTER II.

OF REPROBATION.

By what hath been discoursed out of the holy

Scriptures, concerning the act of God’s election of
some to life and salvation by Jesus Christ, to the
praise of the glory of his own grace; it unavoidably,
and by necessary consequence, follows, that the
same Sovereign God hath reprobated, or rejected,

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the rest, not so elected; and that, from all eternity,
having decreed never to recover them by converting
grace, but hath fixedly purposed for sin to damn
them; and that for the praise of the glory of his own
justice. Nothing can be more plain than that, if God
hath elected and chosen a certain number out of the
whole corrupted mass or lump of fallen mankind, in
whose salvation he hath purposed to glorify his
mercy and free grace by Jesus Christ, then hath he
refused or passed by the rest, as will most evidently
appear in all the parts of it.
The decree of reprobation hath in it four parts,
to each of which I will speak as plainly and as briefly
as I can. First, God hath refused or rejected some
particular persons, on whom he purposed never to
have mercy; this is most evident from the Scriptures
following. “But ye believe not, because ye are not of
my sheep, as I said unto you.” John 10:26. “But the
election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.”
Rom.11:7. “Therefore hath he mercy, on whom he
will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Rom.9:18. In which Scriptures it is plain and
conspicuous to everyone savingly enlightened, that
there are two distinct or differing parties intended or
spoken of; some, whom Christ chose to himself,
known and distinguished by the term, sheep; and
others, whom Christ denies to be so. These are those
intended in Matthew 25:32,33, termed goats,
opposed to the sheep of Christ. Some, whose
understandings were savingly enlightened to know
the glorious mysteries of the Covenant of Grace, in
order to salvation; and others not at all enlightened,
but left to abide in that spiritual darkness and
blindness of mind, which they brought into the world
with them. Some, whom God’s powerful grace
mollified and softened to saving repentance, in order
to mercy; and others, whom God sees fit to harden,

54
that is, to leave them to that sin of their own, which
hardens them.
Secondly, God hath from eternity rejected or
refused these. This is plain from the Scriptures
following. “There are certain men crept in unawares,
who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation.” Jude 4. “Whose names were not
written in the book of life from the foundation of the
world.” Rev.17:8. “And a stone of stumbling, and a
rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the
word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were
appointed.” I Pet.2:8. From all which it is manifest
that God did, as a just judge, purpose and decree to
give up the reprobates to the obstinacy of their own
mind, and their wilful disobedience against his Son
Jesus Christ; that so they might not only ripen
themselves for, but even pull down, the judgments
of God upon themselves.
Thirdly, God hath decreed to damn these
persons for sin. This is plain from the following
Scriptures. “The Lord hath made all things for
himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”
Prov.16:4. “But these, as natural brute beasts,
made to be taken and destroyed.” II Pet.2:12.
Fourthly, God’s reprobating some persons
from eternity, and that in order to damn them for
sin, is for the praise of the glory of his own justice.
This is so plain and obvious, that he who runs may
read it. “What, if God willing to show his wrath, and
to make his power known, endureth, with much
long-suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction.” Rom.9:22.
Against this doctrine of election and
reprobation of particular persons, the Quakers,
Papists, Arminians, Free-willers, and others, who, in
this point, are all one with them, object several
things; out of which I will single the chief and most

55
material of their objections, which, to ignorant and
injudicious minds, seem to be of great force against
the doctrines now laid down; to which I shall give
plain and clear answers from God’s word, to the end
the fallaciousness and deceit of these men might
appear, open-faced, to all men.
Objection 1. They object, that to hold and
affirm, that God hath from eternity elected and
chosen a particular number to himself out of the
corrupted mass of fallen mankind, on whom he
decreed, unchangeably, to show mercy, leaving the
rest with a full purpose never to recover them to life
and salvation, reflects on God the highest cruelty
imaginable. Answer. To this seeming plausible
objection, I shall reply in the particulars following.
First, I have made it evident, from God’s own word,
that God hath, undeniably, elected a certain
particular number to himself out of the corrupted
mass of fallen mankind, on whom he, unchangeably,
decreed to show mercy, leaving the rest, not so
elected, in that state of sin and misery, into which
they, voluntarily, run themselves.
Secondly, by way of query; I desire to know
by what Scripture the Quakers, or any who are their
abettors in this point, can justify their bringing in lies
to plead for God; or wherein doth it appear that his
truth stands in need of being upheld by the figments
of their vertiginous brains? Job puts such a like
question to his three friends, who all seemed to take
part with God against himself. “Will ye speak
wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him? Will
ye accept his person? Will ye contend for God? Is it
good that he should search you out, or as one man
mocketh another, do ye so mock him?” Job 13:7-9.
What do these heretical pretenders to an
infallible spirit less than mock God, who, in pretence
of making God more merciful and pitiful than he

56
himself hath revealed in his word he will be, or than
the wicked in hell will find him to be, strike at, and
audaciously dispute against the Justice and
Sovereignty of God.
These pleaders for God will, forsooth, have
God to be so tender, compassionate, and kind, as to
love all his creatures with an equal love; and
consequently, that to fix his love on a small and
particular number, to whom his special grace and
favour should be extended, and to pass by the
greatest number, on whom to resolve never to show
mercy, is altogether inconsistent with the tender,
kind, and merciful nature of God. Now, whether
these men do not, in pretence of pleading for God,
cause, as much as in them lies, both his attributes,
his counsels, and his word, to clash and contradict
each other, I leave to the judicious and unprejudiced
reader to judge.
I demand from John Burnyeats, and the rest
of the Quakers who joined with him in challenging
me to make out, by the Scriptures of truth, that
doctrine which I am now defending against them,
why or wherefore God was so strict and severe, as
to confine those angels, which, of their own accord,
fell from that state of innocency and blessedness,
wherein they were created, to those chains of
darkness wherein they are to be kept to the
judgment of the great day, and that without
extending the benefit of a redeemer to them.
Was it because the angels were not his
creatures? Certainly they will not say so; for without
dispute, the angels were in their nature far more
glorious and excellent creatures than was Adam and
his posterity in their state of innocency. Was it
because God’s arm could not reach to help and
deliver them? They dare not say so. Neither was it
because God had no bowels of mercy and

57
compassion in him towards his creatures; this
cannot be supposed to be the reason; for, alas, this,
viz., the tender and merciful nature of God to his
creatures in general, is the argument whereby they
would overthrow the doctrine of particular election.
What is the reason then? Did the angels fall by sin
and apostasy? Yes, they cannot deny it, unless they
deny the Scriptures to be the Scriptures of truth.
And were those angels, all of them, sent forthwith to
hell for their apostasy and rebellion? This they
cannot deny. Was not the least dram of mercy
shown to one of that numberless number which fell?
They dare not affirm there was, or ever shall be; if
they do, it lies at their door to prove it.
If then the reason why the apostate angels
are eternally lost, is not because they stood not
related to God as creatures, nor because the hand
of God was not strong enough to prevent their
sinking into hell; nor yet because God wanted
bowels of mercy and compassion; the reason then
must be, because the glorious God did, before time,
decree and purpose with himself, not to recover
those creatures whom he foreknew would
causelessly rebel and apostatize from that state of
holiness and happiness, in which he decreed to make
them. If then the adversaries I now contend with,
will acknowledge God to be just and righteous in
leaving the angels, which by transgression fell, so as
never to show them favour more; I desire to be
informed by what Law the Sovereign Majesty of
heaven can be justly charged with cruelty, for saving
but a small remnant of apostate Adam’s offspring,
seeing that Adam was every way as voluntary and
free in sinning against God, as were the angels which
fell. Surely, had it pleased God, he might have cast
both Adam and his children into the same lodging
with Beelzebub and his apostate train, there to

58
endure to endless eternity, the torments due to their
rebellion and disobedience. And in that God hath
been pleased to extend mercy to any of Adam’s
posterity, it is mere grace and mercy, every way
undeserved, the which he was no way bound to
show to Adam and his children, any more than he
was obliged or bound to help or commiserate the
fallen angels.
If John Burnyeats, or any of his friends, who
oppose the doctrine of particular election, can prove
by the Scriptures that God hath given, or is by any
Law bound to give, special saving grace to rebels,
who have fallen by their causelessly abusing and
losing the grace given in Adam, their natural and
federal head, any other than what he bestows on his
elect, and that in the right of election, I will readily
submit and yield the cause.
Objection 2. The Scriptures of truth are
express and positive in affirming, that the salvation
discovered and held forth in the Gospel, is designed
by God, and proclaimed by the apostle, to all men in
general, without any distinction or limitation of
persons; and therefore, to restrain that salvation to
a stinted number, is most injurious and wicked.
Answer. These caviling objectors do, at a very easy
rate, wrest and pervert the sense of the Holy Spirit,
not knowing what they say, nor whereof they so
rashly affirm; where they meet with universal terms,
from them they infer universal principles; witness
the Scriptures following, II Cor.5:14; I Tim.2:6;
Heb.2:9, where the apostle saith that Christ died for
all; and that he gave himself a ransom for all men;
and that he tasted death for every man. They from
hence infer and conclude, as they think, that,
beyond all peradventure, the end and design of
God’s sending his Son into the world, and the Son’s
laying down his life, was on full purpose that general

59
redemption might be procured for and granted to all
and singular the sons and daughters of lapsed
Adam; and where the apostle Peter shows that God
is not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance, II Pet.3:9, they would
fain persuade themselves and all others, that,
without any restriction or limitation, the sense must
be, that God wills not that any sinner should be
damned.
And so foolishly fond are they of the general
redemption, which, from the fore-cited Scriptures,
they highly conceit themselves able to demonstrate
and prove against all gainsayers, that they, with
great care, set down the terms, all, every, and any,
in great capital letters, that the reader might
observe and take notice of them.
That those universal terms, all, every, and
any, are to be restrained and limited to a particular
and select number only, which can be no other than
that number which the Scriptures positively affirm
God elected and chose to himself out of the
corrupted mass, as hath been above observed, is
beyond contradiction.
The objection consists of two members, or
branches; first, the design of God, in preparing and
intending redemption and salvation for all men in
general; secondly, God’s commanding to preach it
to all in general, without exception. On these two
mistaken grounds the Quakers, and the other
heretics who in this point join with them against the
word and churches of Christ, do ignorantly and
falsely infer, that the benefit of the second Adam’s
obedience and righteousness is, in God’s imputing
and applying it, as extensive as was the
disobedience and rebellion of the first, which, say
they, was to all the posterity of Adam. The places of
Scripture from which they draw this their

60
unscriptural inference are those of Paul, “therefore,
as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all
men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life.” Rom.5:18. “But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels, for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour,
that he by the grace of God should taste death for
every man.” Heb.2:9.
The ground of these men’s losing themselves
in this controversy, is their using Scriptures without
reason, and reason without Scripture; the which
whoever doth, will be sure to run himself and his
followers into a labyrinth of dark and uncertain
interpretations of the most plain text of Scripture;
whence come, most commonly, chimerical and
enthusiastical notions, which are attended as really
with a satanical energy, to deceive earthly minded
people, as the true word of God is attended with a
divine energy and power, to teach and guide God’s
elect to the saving knowledge of God in Christ.
Here they seem, to the ignorant and unwary
reader, to have Scripture on their side, when
opposing those who assert and defend the doctrine
of particular election against these universalists,
viz., those Scriptures above quoted; in which God
seems to have intended the redemption purchased
by his Son for every individual son and daughter of
Adam, and that because the term set down is
universal.
But now, these men inhering in the bare letter
of the Scriptures, and laying aside the use of reason,
the which they should make use of in distinguishing
terms, they themselves, and their poor deluded
proselytes, lose the true sense of the Scriptures,
never looking farther than the bare letter, never

61
regarding whether they take the sense of the Spirit
with them, yea or not.
And hence it is, that, with such unbridled
licentiousness, some men do, with highest
confidence, positively affirm, that the salvation of
the Gospel is purchased and intended for all and
singular the posterity of the first Adam; and that a
universal offer thereof is, accordingly, made to each
man and woman. Whereas, indeed, when the
judicious and unprejudiced reader joins Scripture
and sanctified reason together, accompanied with
self-denial, and sincere and hearty prayer to God's
throne of grace, for the obtaining from God the true
sense of the Scriptures so much boasted of, he will
plainly see how egregiously they are mistaken in
both the one and the other; for neither doth God
intend the death of his Son for salvation to any of
Adam’s children, save those whom he elected, and
from eternity chose in Christ; neither doth God make
such an universal tender of it to all men as the
Quakers rashly and boldly affirm he doth.
This lies on me to demonstrate and make
good against these boasting universalists; the
which, that I might do to the satisfaction of the
judicious and unprejudiced reader, I shall propound
my argument dilemma-wise, thus. The terms all,
any, and every, on which they ground their
unscriptural assertion, are to be taken either in a
universal sense, intending every individual of
mankind; or else they are to be taken in a limited
and restrained sense, as intending some of all sorts,
ranks, and degrees of men indifferently.
If, by the universal terms above named, some
of all sorts, ranks, and degrees of men indifferently
is to be understood, then the assertion of the
adversaries is manifestly false, and consequently the
doctrine of particular election is true.

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 If by those universal terms all men and
women without exception be intended, as the
adversaries will have it, then must I be allowed to
demand of them, how any of Adam’s children come
to be damned?
For seeing that God willed that Christ should
redeem all the children of Adam who fell by his
transgression, I would fain know how any created
power can effect the hindering God of bringing about
his own purpose, or frustrate the end and design of
Christ in laying down his life; for undoubtedly if God
should absolutely will and purpose the salvation of
every individual son and daughter of Adam, it is not
to be questioned, but that he being the El Shaddai,
the Mighty God, every way perfect and all sufficient,
would find out ways and means to effect and bring
about his own purpose, seeing that he works all
things according to the counsel of his own most holy
will, as Paul witnesseth, Eph1:11, “in whom also we
have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will.”
It is in the work of regeneration as it is in the
work of the first creation, God clothes his word with
a creating power; so that whenever, and wherever,
he sends forth that creating voice of his mighty
spirit, neither devil nor self, nor any other enemy or
impediment, whether internal or external, shall ever
be able to give any stop to his intended work; as the
Lord himself tells his church by the prophet. “Yea,
before the day was I am he; and there is none that
can deliver out of my hand, I will work, and who shall
let it?” Isa.43:13. Whom God in justice and
righteousness will damn and sentence to the flames
of his deserved wrath for sin, who can rescue and
save them? Whom God in sovereign mercy and
grace purposeth to save and deliver, who can hinder

63
or prevent him? “My sheep,” saith the Lord Jesus,
“hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is
stronger than all; and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”
John 10:27.
Here, it is plain, that, from the invincible
power of God and Christ, the certainty of the life,
and salvation of the elect is inferred and proved.
That many of Adam’s children are already in hell,
and that many more will be lodged there, the
Scriptures affirm, and the Quakers cannot deny.
How comes this to pass, seeing God, if we must
believe the Quakers, designed a general redemption
for all mankind, and that the Son of God laid down
his life to ransom them from the curse and wrath of
God, due for their sin. To say that God willed their
salvation, but that their own obstinacy and
wickedness hindered that his will should be
accomplished on them, is, in effect, to say, that God
did seriously and efficaciously will and purpose that
all the children of Adam should be saved; but indeed
the greatest part of Adam’s posterity fell by the
power of Satan and their own rebellious will.
Now, whether to think or say, that either the
power of the serpent, or the corruption in a sinner’s
nature can, or ever did, or shall, overturn or prevent
the efficacious will of God being accomplished, be
not impious and blasphemous, I leave to every
impartial and sober reader to judge. Thus the first
member or branch of the objection appears to be
rotten and unsound; neither is the second any
better, which affirms that God makes a general offer
of that salvation to every individual sinner in the
world; the which, if it be true, as the Quakers affirm,

64
they are highly obliged to show how it comes to pass
that the greatest part of the world by far should
remain in darkness, I mean with respect to the very
external means of salvation, the which God hath
seen fit to deny to many nations in the world; to
which also the very letter of the holy Scripture bears
witness. A few instances hereof I lay down, that the
reader may plainly see how vain these foolish
boasters are in their imaginations, who would fain
impose on all, that God doth love all the children of
Adam with an equal love, and that the offer of his
grace, in general, is made to all, without any
exception or limitation; wherein they prove
themselves as false in their sayings as they appear
vain in their deluded imaginations.
They say, and boldly affirm, that the tender
of salvation is made to all alike; I say, they belie the
Spirit of God, in presence of pleading for God, by
whose instinct and immediate inspiration they would
make the world believe they themselves, above all
men, are guided; and not only so, but they
egregiously thwart and contradict the very letter of
the Scripture, which they seem to own and
acknowledge to be holy, true, and the rule and
standard of trial of all matters in religion wherein
they and Christians differ.
For satisfaction herein, let the reader peruse,
and with serious consideration weigh in the balance
of God’s sanctuary, what is recorded in Psalm
147:19-20. “He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his
statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not
dealt so with any nation, and as for his judgments,
they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.”
Whether the place now quoted doth not evidently
prove, that when God chose, called, and settled a
church unto his own peculiar use and service, to
whom he gave his word and ordinances for a rule of

65
faith and holy obedience, he did not leave the other
nations of the earth, out of whom he chose his
people with a peculiar love and favour, in their native
darkness and blindness, is a matter to be inquired
into. That of our Saviour in Matthew 20:16, “many
are called, but few chosen,” doth also give
countenance to the point in hand; he doth not say
that all are called, but many; in which text there are
three sorts of men offered to consideration. First,
some who are not called at all. Secondly, some who
are called with a common or external call, but not
elected. And, thirdly, some who are called, not only
with the common and external call, but also with the
internal and efficacious call of the Spirit, and that
because elected and chosen to life and salvation.
Now, that these three sorts of people were equally
beloved of God, and their salvation equally intended,
who but children of darkness and deceit dare to
affirm or believe? That of Paul also, Acts 14:16,
“God, who in times past suffered the Gentiles to walk
in their own way,” backs and confirms the present
truth; and doth not the account we have by
travelers, who correspond with the most parts of the
world, inform us, that the greatest part of the
nations have not so much as the name of Jesus
Christ among them; and even in these kingdoms,
where Popery, Arminianism, and Quakerism prevail,
doth not sad experience teach us how deplorable a
condition the generality of the kingdom is in, as
touching the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, or
the proper means appointed by God for the saving
discovery of his justifying righteousness to the souls
of men; such as the pure and unmixed word of truth
read and powerfully preached to them, for calling
them out of darkness into the marvelous light of the
knowledge of God in Christ; for want of an orthodox
teaching ministry, these kingdoms, especially

66
England and Ireland, are near to a harvest ripeness,
ready for the sickle of God’s judgments, through the
affected ignorance of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
reigns in the minds and hearts of the greatest part,
even of England’s and Ireland’s professors; with the
occult and spiritual idolatry of men’s souls, whereby
the Son of God and his pure Gospel worship are shut
out of men’s hearts and affections, that the statutes
of Omri, and their carnal secular interests, might
bear the sway. To which I will add, that deluge of
open debauchery and atheistical oppression and
prophaneness, which like a land flood, over-runs the
nations; the which, if not very speedily prevented by
those who have the reforming power put into their
hands by God, will pull down from heaven such sore
and desolating judgments as will make England,
with her hypocritical formal professors, an abhorring
to all nations. More might be offered to consideration
from God’s word to the same purpose; as the sad
and deplorable condition the Ephesians, Philippians,
and other countries were in before the apostles were
sent among them.
The ancestors and forefathers of whom God
suffered to live and die like brutes, and worse,
serving dumb idols, those teachers of lies, serving
divers lusts, atheists, without the knowledge or hope
of God in the world. “And you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in
time past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and
were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others.” Eph.2:1-3. To them God sent no Prophet or
Apostle, no Law or Gospel, which should be a saving

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discovery of Gospel truth to them, till God sent Paul
to their offspring. Now, can it in truth be said, that
God did equally love and will, or design the salvation
of both the fathers and their posterity, seeing the
message of salvation were denied to the fathers, and
freely given to their posterity?
As touching the learned, or rather silly and
impertinent question, wherein the Quakers desire to
be resolved, viz., what Gospel of glad tidings it is
which I and others, who hold the doctrine of
particular election, have to preach to those for whom
Christ died not? Answer. This silly question is
grounded on a false supposition, that faith is
required of all men; the which I never taught,
neither do I now own to be true. For, I do not think
or believe, that such as never heard of Christ, or who
never had the means of knowing him, are required
to believe that Christ died to redeem them.
Secondly, they are grossly, if not willfully,
mistaken, in thinking and saying, that I press on all
I preach to, that it is their duty to believe that Jesus
Christ died for them all, without any limitation or
restriction. I do not believe that those people to
whom the glad tidings of the Gospel are preached,
are any of them required absolutely, and without
restriction, to believe that Christ died to redeem
them. All who ever attended on my ministry, and
who are able to give a judgment, will witness for me,
that the scope and drift of my preaching is, to
convince and awaken sinners out of their natural
state, by opening up to them, from God’s word, the
happy sinless state wherein God created them in
Adam, their natural and federal representative; how
they came to fall from that happy state; and what
the sad and wretched effects of that fall was to
Adam, the head, and now is to all his children in their
unrenewed state. This I do instrumentally, by

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opening up to sinners the sense and design of the
Law, which is to discover sin, and to damn the
transgressors of it before God, to let sinners know
how spotless that obedience and righteousness must
be, which answers its own demand, in order to its
justifying them at the bar of a holy God; as also how
weak and unable it is to help a lapsed transgressor.
It points out and requires duty, but can afford no
ability or strength to do that duty; and all this, in
order to bring dead sinners to a sight and sense of
their need of a Redeemer. I labour to make them
sensible, that out of Christ no life or salvation is ever
to be expected; and that until Christ the Son of God
be received by a true faith, they themselves, with all
their threadbare polluted morality, and all those
advantages wherein they bless and count
themselves happy, are all under the curse of God;
and living and dying so, they must, as certainly as
God is just and his Law holy, look to be eternally
separated from God and Christ for ever and ever. No
civility, no goodness of natural temper, no morality,
no zeal for that which they take to be the best
religion, no learning or shining parts, whether
natural or acquired, no riches or greatness in this
world, will ever avail to keep them back from being,
by the Law’s powerful sentence, sent down to hell.
When I find and perceive that the Spirit of God
hath, by the Law set home on the conscience,
brought the sinner, with the prodigal, to a sense of
his undone condition; when I hear him cry out, not
in a rotary and formal customary way, which, God
knows, is too much in use and fashion in this sleepy
hypocritical age, in the bitterness of his soul, “men
and brethren, what shall I do to be saved?” I then
open up, as God’s messenger, the mystery of God’s
Covenant of Grace held forth in the Gospel, wherein
is discovered the incomprehensible all-sufficiency of

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the Lord Jesus Christ, to save and reconcile to God,
the greatest and vilest of sinners. I presently fall on
directing and sending the poor sin-sick wounded
sinner to the Son of God, with his wounds and
plague-sores, to be healed, pressing him to believe
in the Son of God, out of whom no salvation is to be
found. Hereto I add the peremptory command of
God himself, that the poor despairing soul believe on
the Son of God, I John 3:23; Mark 16:16, by these
methods and ways of God’s own appointment, God
is pleased to work saving conversion and effectual
faith in the souls of elect sinners.
To what hath been offered out of God's own
word, to prove the doctrine of particular election,
before time, I here set down the judgment of the
most orthodox protestant churches concerning the
same; not that I think the word of God stands in any
need of human testimony to help it out, but rather
to show forth the sweet harmony which is between
the holy Scriptures and the saints of God, in the holy
and orthodox confessions of their faith, concerning
the present so much controverted and impugned
doctrine of election and reprobation before time; as
also to shame those nominal protestants, both non
and conformists, who have so apparently turned the
back upon their own articles of faith, whereby both
the one and the other party hath, not a little,
strengthened the foundation of the Jesuits hope of
bringing England’s neck once more under the papal
yoke; from which I heartily wish, and sincerely pray,
that God will ever keep us, &c.
I begin with the Church of England.
“Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of
God, whereby, before the foundations of the world
were laid, he hath constantly decreed, by his
counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and
damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out

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of mankind, and to bring them, by Christ, to
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.
Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent
a benefit of God, be called, according to God’s
purpose, by his Spirit, working in due season; they
{through grace} obey the calling; they be justified
freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they
be made like the image of his only-begotten Son
Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works;
and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to
everlasting felicity.” Thirty-nine Articles of the
Church of England, Article 17, of Predestination and
Election.
Secondly, the Confession of Faith agreed
upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster.
“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his
glory, some men and angels are predestinated to
everlasting life, and others to everlasting death.
These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore-
ordained, are particularly and unchangeably
designed, and their number is so certain and
definite, that it cannot be either increased or
diminished.” “Those of mankind that are
predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation
of the world was laid, according to his eternal and
immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and
good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto
everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and
love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or
perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in
the creature, as conditions or causes moving him
thereunto; and all to the praise of the glory of his
grace.” “As God hath appointed the elect unto glory,
so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of
his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto.
Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in
Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called

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unto faith in Christ, by his Spirit working in due
season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept
by his power, through faith unto salvation.” “Neither
are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called,
justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the
elect only.” “The rest of mankind God was pleased,
according to the unsearchable counsel of his own
will, whereby he extendeth or with-holdeth mercy as
he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power
over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them
to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of
his glorious justice.” The Assembly’s Confession of
Faith, chapter 3. Of the Eternal Decree of God. To
this the Church of Scotland hath fully agreed. With
this also agrees the articles of Faith of the Church of
Ireland, in bishop Usher’s time. See those articles,
and Usher’s Body of Divinity.
“Question. What are the parts of
predestination? Answer. Election and reprobation.
Question. What is election? Answer. It is the
everlasting predestination or fore-appointing of
certain angels and men unto everlasting life and
blessedness, for the praise of his grace and
goodness. Question. What is reprobation? Answer.
It is the eternal predestination or fore-appointment
of certain angels and men unto everlasting
dishonour and destruction; God, of his own free-will,
determining to pass them by, refuse or cast them
off; and, for sin, to condemn and punish them with
eternal death.” See Usher's Body of Divinity, page
91-92.
The Church of France, in the 12th Article of
the Confession of her Faith, hath these words, viz.,
“we believe that God, out of that corruption and
general curse, into which all men were plunged, doth
free those whom, in his eternal and immutable
counsel, he elected of his mere goodness and mercy

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in our Lord Jesus Christ, without the consideration
of works, leaving the rest in the same corruption and
damnation; to show forth in these his justice, and in
them the riches of his mercy; for none of them are
better than others, because God hath separated
them, &c.”
The Synod of Dort, in the 7th Canon, doth lay
down this plain and clear definition of election, thus,
viz., “election is the unchangeable purpose of God,
by which, before the foundation of the world,
according to the free good pleasure of his will, of his
mere grace, he hath chosen, out of all mankind to
salvation in Christ, a certain and set number of men,
neither better nor more worthy than others; but
lying in the common misery with others, and fallen
from original righteousness into sin and destruction,
by their own fault,” &c. And, in the 15th Canon of
reprobation, they say thus, viz., “the holy Scripture
doth manifest and commend unto us this eternal and
free grace, especially when it doth further witness,
that not all men are elected, but that some are not
elected, or are passed by in the eternal election of
God, viz., those whom God, according to his free,
just, unreproveable, and immutable good pleasure,
decreed to leave in the common misery, into which
they had cast themselves, by their own fault, and
not to give them saving faith, and the grace of
conversion.”
It were almost endless to insert all the
confessions and the judgments of the orthodox, in
all ages, who have held, and, with an unshaken
confidence, maintained to the death, the very same
faith, concerning the doctrine of election and
reprobation; on whom, with the penmen of holy writ,
the frothy Arminians of the age we live in, who are
more crafty than truly wise, do not spare to cast the
basest reflections; as if they were no way worthy to

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compare with themselves for either learning, parts,
or piety. But, whatever others think, for my part, I
am neither afraid nor ashamed to tell them, that the
advances they are daily making towards the
scorners seat, in contemning and undervaluing the
bright shining ones gone to glory, is to me an
invincible argument, not only of their being destitute
of true saving grace, but that this their priding it
over the best of men is a sure prognostic of their
own destruction, when the overflowing scourge,
threatened in Isaiah 28:15, comes on England. The
Arminian drugs of free-will in fallen man, general
redemption, falling from grace, with temporary
conditional election, revived and sown in England by
the Jesuits art, and propagated by too many
preachers of the two parties above-mentioned, have
proved the most successful expedients, to lay
England open to utter ruin, that ever those
incendiaries of the world could devise. And, indeed,
the poisonous drugs now mentioned have so
epidemically overspread the nation, that I cannot
see how the land can be cured in an ordinary way,
any other way than by the preachers of both parties,
who have imbibed those poisonous principles, and,
by preaching, conveyed them insensibly into the
heads and affections of the people; vomiting up, by
sound repentance, those cursed principles, as some
have done their doctrine of passive obedience and
nonresistance; the which had they not done, the
land, before this time, would, in all probability, have
been turned into an Aceldama, or a Papal
Slaughterhouse, vomiting up, I say, by sound
repentance, the cursed principles above-mentioned,
and labouring in preaching up the soul-saving
doctrine held forth in the 39 Articles of Queen
Elizabeth, and the Assembly’s Confession of Faith,
on which they have so shamefully and apostatically

74
turned the back, to undeceive the people, who, by
their means, have been so sadly corrupted in their
principles, and, by reason of those principles, so
wretchedly engulfed in the quagmire of debauchery
and open prophaneness.
It will prove their own, and the nation’s great
advantage, to endeavour, seasonably and cordially,
to retrieve the ground they have lost, by their
modish compliance with the corrupt and erring
humor of the two last reigns; and that by sounding,
in their respective pulpits, a timely retreat, and
exhorting the people, with them, to a cordial
reception of their abdicated articles of religion; from
which the infernal craft of England’s enemies, and
their own supine incautiousness, have drawn them
aside. It is infinitely better for such manifest
corrupters of the true protestant doctrine, to own
their errors, and repent of them here, while the gate
of mercy is open; and all true protestants hearts and
arms are open, ready to receive them, on their
return from the communion of the worst and most
pernicious of the church’s and poor England’s
enemies, than to own and repent of their errors and
prevarications in hell; of which place such men
cannot but know it is said, there is no redemption or
returning from hell. This the inhabitants of that place
know experimentally, to their endless and
remediless sorrow and grief. From which place,
should it please the holy Sovereign of the world, to
send the most gigantic disputers against the
doctrine of God’s free election of particular persons
before time, which are now tongue-tied in that place
of torment, to London, to relate what they know, by
sad experience, since death arrested them, they
would be forced, I doubt not, to declare, that no wit
or parts, natural or acquired, no courage or
magnanimity of mind, no morality or personal

75
qualifications acquirable by any of Adam’s children,
is, or can be, armour proof against the vindictive
proceedings of an angry and a sin-revenging God,
against those Papists, Arminians, Socinians, Free-
willers, &c., now in hell, who, when on earth, did
bend all their wit and learning to run down and
ridicule the doctrine I am now vindicating. It will be
well for their successors, who are yet this side hell,
if this plain dealing with them prove an occasion of
awakening them, and putting them upon a serious
consideration of the present state they are in, and
the way they walk in, that being savingly convinced
both of the wretchedness of the one, and the
destructiveness of the other, they may be driven, by
a holy despair of ever being saved in an
unregenerate state, and walking in ways of their
own devising, to shelter themselves under the
shadow of that mediatorial spotless righteousness of
the Son of God, by a sound faith, and an evangelical
repentance, which the Spirit and Word of the ever
blessed God assures me is the only way to escape
hell and eternal ruin; which is all the harm I dare to
wish them, and the greatest enemies I have now
living. I conclude my treatise with an Apologetical
Reply, &c.

An Apologetical Reply to the slanderous

charge given against me, to some
of the London Ministers, by that
malcontent party which schismatically
separated from the church in C., whereof I
was the then lawful pastor.

The charge was, that I was a man of an independent

judgment, a great enemy to Mr. Baxter, declaring
that Mr. Baxter is damned in hell; a man who openly
declared, that Christ hath but two or three true and

76
faithful ministers, in and about London, who preach
Christ in truth; and who bid a public challenge to Mr.
Williams, and all the Baxterians, to dispute certain
positions held and asserted by Mr. Baxter, and such
as go his way; and, to add no more, one who is an
universal decryer of all the duties of holiness in a
Christian’s life and conversation, crying out, in the
pulpit, away with your holiness, to hell with your
duties and personal qualifications! This charge
consists of five branches, or parts, to each of which
I will speak as distinctly as I can, and that with as
great seriousness and regard to conscience, as if I
were to make the present defense at the bar of the
Great Judge.
I begin with the first, viz., my being an
independent. I have this to say for myself, first, the
congregational way of church government is the
principle which, according to my present light, I
apprehend to be nearest to the platform of Gospel
Churches, planted by the apostles, which, to own
and practice, I am fully convinced, is my duty; for
which, I humbly hope and charitably believe, none
of my brethren of the Presbyterian persuasion dare
to censure or blame me, until I can see that I am
herein mistaken and out of the way.
Secondly, as touching my judgment herein, I
do affirm, and that in truth, God knows I lie not, I
honestly and fairly acquainted my now reproachers,
what I was in my judgment, as to this very point,
when they first discovered an inclination to call me
to take the pastoral charge of their souls; about this,
they and I had several occasional discourses pro and
con for and against it; and, in conclusion, they, with
the rest of the covenanters with God, in a church
way, did own themselves fully convinced, that the
congregational way of church government was most
certainly the way of the Gospel; and as such, they

77
freely closed with me. If what I have now asserted
be denied, I shall, by authentic testimonies, make
the same good to their faces.
I come to the second branch of the charge,
viz., my being a great enemy to Mr. Baxter, &c. In
answer whereto, I positively affirm, that I never in
my life had any prejudice against Mr. Baxter, save
only to dislike and caution my flock against some
notions of his, wherein I conceived him to be
heterodox in the foundation principle of justification.
I, told my auditory, as plainly as I could speak, that,
in mentioning Mr. Baxter’s name, my design was not
to meddle in judging him, as touching his eternal
state; only what of corruption I found in his books,
I judged it my duty to take notice thereof, and to
caution my hearers, who had his books, to beware
of such notions. And what I did herein, I did it, God
and my conscience know, in faithfulness to Christ,
and the souls of those committed to my pastoral
charge by the great Shepherd of the sheep.
But to say that Mr. Baxter was damned in hell,
I abhor the very hearing or thoughts of such a thing;
neither dares anyone living, except a cauterized and
brazen-faced sinner, to charge such a slander on
me; so far was I from uttering such an uncharitable,
I may say infernal expression, that I plainly spoke
the contrary as my judgment of him, declaring, that
I hoped Mr. Baxter was with Christ in glory, and that
I dare to think no otherwise. As for what of
corruption which is mixed with his writings, I told my
auditory, I looked on that as a part of the wood, hay,
and stubble, intended by the apostle in I Cor.3:12,
of which Mr. Baxter will, I doubt not, suffer the loss
in the great day, though he himself be saved; he
holding Christ the foundation firm and steadfast to
the end, as in charity I hope he did.

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 The third branch of the charge is, that I
affirmed, that Christ had but two or three right
Gospel ministers, who preach Christ truly, in and
about London. To this I answer in the negative, viz.,
that I never thought or spoke such a thing, either in
or out of the pulpit, in all my life. The occasion of
this slander was this; I was, in a sermon, bewailing
the small number of right Gospel preachers; at
which time, and on which occasion, I said, that a
great many preached up the pope, that man of sin.
Others, said I, preach up the national hierarchy, and
its interest, instead of the kingdom of Christ. Others
there be, said I, who preach up Moses, and
obedience to his do, and live, in the room of Christ’s
Mediatorial spotless righteousness, for justification
and life; so that, in comparison, it is undeniably true,
that Christ hath but few who preach him and his
immaculate righteousness, as the only meritorious
and procuring cause of justification and salvation.
This is what I said then, and truly I see but small
reason to think or say otherwise. I question not but
the orthodox in and about London will readily
harmonize with me herein, but that I did limit the
true ministers of Christ to any certain definite
number; or that I mentioned the names of any
ministers, by way of distinction, I utterly deny. And
I have very good reason to judge it no breach of the
Law of charity, to believe that the secret design of
the reporters hereof, was to incense and provoke the
spirits of godly ministers, and their respective
congregations, against me. And hereby to prepare
them for a more facile and ready reception of the
other black and scandalous reproaches which were
to be brought on the stage on purpose to do my
business; as one of their confederates was heard to
say he would do.

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 I come to the fourth branch of the charge,
which is, that I should bid a public challenge to Mr.
Williams, and the rest of Mr. Baxter’s followers, to
dispute certain positions held and asserted by Mr.
Baxter, and those who go his way. To which I reply,
that this is as true as the rest, and did, I am very
sure, proceed from the same lying spirit which
coined and forged their other lying stories against
me; the design whereof was not only to corroborate
that their design in its foundation, but also to draw
over Mr. Williams and others, whom they knew to be
impatient to hear any opposition given to any
notions of Mr. Baxter’s, to them; to help and
encourage them to break that church whereof
themselves were an essential part, and to force my
flight from my station in C. to which their own
electing voice called me.
The occasion of this slander was thus; I did,
one day, in preaching, lay down this position, viz.,
that an elect sinner is, in effectual calling, freely
justified from all charge of sin, both original and
actual, by the alone mediatorial righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, freely imputed by God; and that
without any regard had to any conditions performed
by, or qualifications inhering in, the person of the
sinner, as con-causes with Christ in justification.
This, said I, is a truth so clearly laid down and
asserted in the Gospel, and so backed with the
witness of God’s Spirit in the hearts of all assured
believers, that all the disputers in the world, who
oppose the same, will never be able to overthrow it,
be their wit and parts ever so sharp and admired.
And whether I be mistaken herein, I freely appeal to
the judgment and determination of all orthodox
Protestants, who, in the point of justification, are not
more or less tainted with the Popish-Arminian leaven
of free-will and general redemption. But to bid a

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challenge to Mr. Williams, or any other, to dispute
matters of controversy in religion, I do most
solemnly profess, I never spake such a thing, either
in or out of the pulpit.
The fifth and last branch of the black charge
brought in against me, was, that I am a universal
decryer of all religious duties in the life and
conversation of a christian; crying out, in the pulpit,
away with your holiness, &c. The design of my
accusers in this, was, to represent and expose me
as a rank Antinomian; and so I should prove, were
the accusation true. But to let all who read this see
with what a virulent and malicious spirit the
contriver and presenter of this black charge against
me has acted, I here sincerely and conscientiously
set down the very words I spake, from which the
occasion was taken to represent me in such black
colors. The thing was thus, the subject I was then
upon, leading me to discover the sad and deplorable
condition the poor sinner is in while in a state of
unregeneracy, I had these expressions, whose
design and tendency was to awaken and convince
the sinner of his misery by nature, by way of
observation, viz., that where God sets the Law on
work in the conscience of an unconverted sinner, it
will, like the avenger of blood, pursue the guilty
sinner, till it either drive the sinner to Christ, the only
city of refuge, or till the sinner be lodged in hell.
To bring the matter home more particularly
and closely to an awakened conscience, labouring,
with Adam, to cover the sinner with the fig-leaves of
self-righteousness, both negative and positive,
thereby to be justified and saved, I addressed
myself to this sinner in these words, “thou convinced
rebel sinner, who art now under the Law’s arrest,
and sinking under the heavy weight of thy sins,
hoping to relieve and lick thyself whole with thy

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conditions and qualifications, as if thereby thou
couldest make amends to the offended justice of
God, for all thy violations of his righteous Law; know
and consider it thou must, that the just and
righteous Law of God, whose terrible sentence, in
thy guilty conscience, thou art now striving to fly and
shun in this way of works, is like a strict creditor,
who will not accept, for payment, any coin which
appears short and deficient, either in quantity or
quality. It will not hear of a sinner’s being justified
by any works, but such as are exactly
commensurate to its own just and holy demands.
Now, said I, either see that thy conditions and
qualifications, whereunto thou trustest for life and
salvation, be spotless, and exactly commensurate to
the Law’s demand; or in case they be not, then away
with thy fig-leaf holiness, to hell with thy duties and
personal qualifications. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ
by an eye of faith, cast thy weary sinking soul on
him for life and salvation, or thou wilt perish
eternally. John 3:36; 8:24. This is what I said then;
Christ knows I lie not, my conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost.
When I have to do with believing Christians, I
press them to the duties of practical holiness and
good works, as if they were to be justified and saved
by them; but still with this seasonable caution, that
believers do never join their works of sanctification
with Christ’s justifying righteousness in the work of
justification.
Besides the black charge brought against me,
to which I have spoken by way of apology, mine
accusers, the better to palliate their own black and
horrid crimes, charge me with defectiveness in my
life and conversation, as not practicing what I
preach. To this I reply in four particulars. First, by
way of concession, or grant, my life and

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conversation is not according to my preaching. In a
sense I own it. I do humbly acknowledge, with
shame and grief, that I find myself vastly short of
that perfection of devoutness which, in preaching, I
press as a duty on myself and others; and the
Searcher of hearts best knows of how great a
concern it is to me, to reflect on the vast disparity
which I sensibly perceive is between what I am, and
what I ought to be, in point of conformity to Christ,
in life and conversation; which lays me under an
indispensable necessity of subscribing to that, “I
know and approve better things, but follow or incline
to things which are worse,” and to that of Paul,
Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am,” &c.
Secondly, by way of negation. If my accusers
intend and mean, that I give myself up to a course
of dissolute and loose living, or that I allow myself
in the approved practice of any immorality, which is
incompatible with a regenerate state, or which is
inconsistent with a holy profession; I absolutely,
through special grace, deny the charge, and do bid
my invidious bespatterers, and all such as do
uncharitably credit such malicious reports of me, a
fair and sober challenge, to make good such a
charge against me, by any authentic witness, which
is not known to be prejudiced against me, if not one
or more of them who have plotted to overthrow my
reputation and ministry.
Thirdly, if short coming in living up to what I
preach and profess, be a sufficient warrant for
church members to prevaricate and run away, like
children of Belial, throwing off the yoke of duty in
the church; I would gladly know how it is possible
for any churches to be kept up on earth, considering
that the instruments, by whose ministry God sees fit
to gather and build up churches, to fit them for
glory, are frail men, not sinless spirits.

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 For my own part, albeit I am far from pleading
for any sin, though but the least infirmity, whereof
either I myself, or any other know me guilty, I must
needs say, that I never yet could find that ever God
the Father, in the Old Testament, or Christ his Son,
in the New, did call or send any to be prophets or
apostles, who were exempt or free from personal
failings, or who were ever able to live up, perfectly,
to the doctrine they preached to others; yea, it is
most evident to any intelligent reader, that a
considerable part of the canon of holy Scripture is
occupant about discovering, acknowledging, and
bewailing the sinful miscarriages and short-comings
of the penmen thereof; as the learned and godly well
know.
Fourthly, and lastly, supposing that my
brethren knew and could prove me guilty of as great
falls as ever any pardoned sinner fell into; is it not
the duty of church members to endeavour my
recovery, by coming to me in the spirit of meekness
and brotherly love, to call on me, and to stir me up
to repentance and reformation? Knowing that the
holiest of saints, even those of the highest
attainments in grace, while in the body, are
obnoxious to the sorest temptations; and by reason
thereof, and the remains of indwelling corruption,
are liable to the sorest falls thereby.
The word of God proves, that so to do is the
undoubted duty of church members, one towards
another, Lev.19:17, Gal.6:1, but this my
schismatical brethren never did to me, though never
so earnestly courted, and lovingly entreated thereto,
and that both in and out of the pulpit; as can be
sufficiently proved, if need be.
Satan and his plotting agents knew full well,
that the old trade, “report, and we will report it,”
Jer.20:10, was the most likely and effectual way to

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accomplish their ungodly design, which was to
unchurch the church, and, for future, to render my
ministry useless; in order whereto, the pastor must
first be attacked, according to Zech.13:7, “smite the
shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.”
This apology I thought not only expedient, but
my duty to publish, for the true information of those,
especially dissenting ministers, who have, from the
character given them of me by those I here intend,
sucked in prejudice against my name and ministry.
And to occasion their seriously considering, how
every way unbecoming the Gospel it is, for one
Christian, especially such as are called to sacred
office, to be open-eared, and of too credulous a
temper, in listening to, and improving, to the great
prejudice of those whom the Law of charity
commands them to love, any reports, which look like
a design to blacken or stain the reputation of a
brother, especially a poor stranger, who, for Christ
and the Gospel, hath lost his all; and who, for
witnessing against the spreading errors of the times,
is surrounded and besieged with enemies of all
sorts. To frown on, and carry it strange to such, will
neither please God, credit religion, or help to make
a dying bed easy and comfortable. Exod.22:21;
Deut.10:19; Matt.7:12; Col.3:12-15. Flattery
begets friends, speaking truth causeth enemies.
Compare Isaiah 30:10 with Amos 5:10.

The occasion of this slander, as the daughter of our author

informed me, was this; the second wife Mr. Barry married
was found to be a leper literally, which he knew not till
after marriage, and the first child he had by her was born
a leper; on which account he never would cohabit with
her afterwards. He was greatly disgusted at her for not
informing him before marriage of her disorder. She
became his enemy because he refused cohabitation. And
it was a great grief of mind to him, to see the child live

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nineteen years in such a rotten condition, and at that age
die of it. These things his enemies improved to their
advantage. But what man of God could, with conscience,
throw a stone at him for this? W. H. S. S.

FINIS

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