§. I.
This Doctrine a Novelty.First, We may safely call this Doctrine a Novelty, seeing in the first four hundred Years after Christ there is no Mention made of it: For as it is contrary to the Scriptures Testimony, and to the Tenor of the Gospel, so all the ancient Writers, Teachers, and Doctors of the Church pass it over with a profound Silence. The Rise of it.The first Foundations of it were laid in the later Writings of Augustine, who, in his Heat against Pelagius, let fall some Expressions which some have unhappily gleaned up, to the establishing of this Error; thereby contradicting the Truth, and sufficiently gainsaying many others, and many more and frequent Expressions of the same Augustine. Afterwards was this Doctrine fomented by Dominicus a Friar, and the Monks of his Order; and at last unhappily taken up by John Calvin (otherwise a Man in divers Respects to be commended) to the great staining of his Reputation, and Defamation both of the Protestant and Christian Religion; which though it received the Decrees of the Synod of Dort for its Confirmation, hath since lost Ground, and begins to be exploded by most Men of Learning and Piety in all Protestant Churches. However, we should not oppugn it for the Silence of the Ancients, Paucity of its Assertors, or for the Learnedness of its Opposers, if we did observe it to have any real Bottom in the Writings or Sayings of Christ and the Apostles, and that it were not highly injurious to God himself, to Jesus Christ our Mediator and Redeemer, and to the Power, Virtue, Nobility, and Excellency if his blessed Gospel, and lastly unto all Mankind.