him receive it," plainly signified, as well the paucity of those that were like to embrace and follow that his counsel, on the one hand, as the great and singular benefit whereunto it must needs redound to those who should follow it, on the other hand; in like manner the Apostle Paul, when, by the Holy Ghost, he had indited the contents of this chapter, might well have characterized the genius of it by this or some like eulogium: Capiat qui potis est capere. "Let him understand it that can understand it." It is a field wherein there is a treasure of wisdom and knowledge hid; but he must be content to dig deep and hard that desires to find it, yea, and must be provided of such digging instruments, also, which are proper for the work; I mean, of such principles which are of good and pregnant accord with all things delivered and intended by the Apostle in the chapter. Otherwise, the pre-conceptions of his judgment being erroneous, and lying thwart and cross to those notions and truths which are asserted here, must of necessity turn him out of the way of the Apostle's meaning, and occasion him to sit down in his belief quite besides that which is written. Yea, though a man's judgment be comportant enough with the general scope or main conclusion driven at in a discourse, yet if either it wars against any part of the method, or any argument managed in order to the eviction of such a conclusion, or else misapprehends the scope and main conclusion itself, judging it to be one, when as it is another far differing from it, either of these, but especially both of them meeting together, must needs disorder a man's thoughts, and reduce him to an utter incapacity of understanding aright the carriage of particulars in the discourse. Both these disadvantages, in reference to a true understanding of the Apostle in the chapter before us, I clearly find in the greatest part of our modern expositors, yea, and in some of the more ancient also, who have commented upon it. For,

III. 1. To speak first to the latter, they more generally conceive the Apostle's scope in the body of the chapter, to be an holding forth or asserting of a peremptory election and reprobation from eternity of a determinate number of men, under a mere personal consideration; whereas, to him that shall narrowly and attentively weigh and consider the tenour and process of the Apostle's discourse from verse 6 to the end, it will be found, as clear as the light at noon-day, that there is nec vola

nec vestigium, neither little nor much, of any such either election or reprobation in it; but that his express scope and intent is, to vindicate that great doctrine of justification by faith, and this more particularly against two main objections, the one insinuated in verse 6, the other mentioned in verse 14. This I plainly demonstrate in the entrance of my Exposition; and give further light, ever and anon, to the truth of it, upon occasion offered, in the progress thereof.

2. The opinion and sense of the said expositors being, that, if God should elect or choose men, or purpose or decree to elect them, by, or according to, their faith, election should be as much from men themselves, and as little from God, as it would be, in case he should elect, or purpose to elect, them, by, or according to, the merit of their works; whereas, the Apostle clearly supposeth the contrary in this his discourse, as I make evident upon verse 11; evident it is that they lie under the other disadvantage also, lately mentioned, and, by reason of such a notion or principle, cannot possibly fall in or close kindly with him in his sense and meaning along the chapter.

IV. If my brethren of hardest thoughts against me really knew, first, how little pleasure I take in declining them, or their judgment, either in the sense of this chapter, or in any other controversial point in religion; and, secondly, how little offence I take at them, or any of them, simply for their opposition in judgment unto me; I suppose they could not, lightly, be any otherwise affected towards me, notwithstanding my distance in judgment in some things from them, than I am towards them ; and, consequently, that they would only pity and pray for me, as a man to whom the light of truth hath only in part as yet shined, and not be continually shooting the "arrows of bitter words," as David calls them, against me, as if I either were a person disaffected unto them, or their interest, or did not desire, and ev aya, (Eph. iv. 15,) to follow or speak the truth in love as well as they. However, if I could think that the measure which they mete out unto me in hard sayings, and otherwise, would turn to as good an account unto them in honour and peace at the great day of Jesus Christ, as I am certain they will unto me, I could count the tentation double joy unto For the truth is, that my reproaches are my best riches; and my mortality is much more endeared unto me by my sufferings for the truth, than by any thing I have done, or am

me.

in a capacity of doing otherwise, for it. My brethren need not fear that I shall ever reciprocate, either hard sayings or doings with them: Nature itself teacheth me not to reproach my benefactors.

V. I easily apprehend that some will attempt the disparagement of the explication here presented unto thee, by pretending that it Arminianizeth; and, if so, what, will these men say, is it good for, but, with unsavory salt, to be cast upon the dunghill? But I suppose the ears of sober Christians have been so long beaten and accustomed to the noise of Arminianism, that by this time it signifieth little or nothing to them, and that they are no more affected with the sound of it, than those that dwell near unto the catadupes of Nilus are with the hideous noise thereof, who by a continual hearing it are scarce sensible that they do hear it, nor are anyways disturbed or inconvenienced by it. However, we know, notwithstanding that disgraceful demand in the mouth of a true Israelite, "Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" that there did come the greatest good that ever the world saw, had, or enjoyed, from thence. If the Exposition doth Arminianize, that is, was first given unto and delivered by Arminius, or any person styled by men Arminian, I know much more reason why the men should be had in honour for the Exposition's sake, than why the Exposition should suffer for the men's sake. That Arminius studied, upon equal terms with the best of his fellows," to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth," is a word sufficiently established in the mouth of more than either two or three witnesses, and these very competent; and, therefore, according to the law, he ought to be acquitted from any sinister imputation in that kind.

VI. Notwithstanding, unless both the credits and the consciences of those who shall call the Exposition Arminian be relieved by the figure synecdoche, which in some cases alloweth men to call the whole by a term appropriate unto a part only, they will both suffer deeply in the adventure. For though there be some strains and turnings here and there which sympathize with the principles of that way, yet the main body and bulk of the Exposition is built upon grounds of common reception amongst all understanding and learned Christians. Arminius himself, as far as I can find, hath not written,

commentary-wise, above the proportion of three or four leaves, at most, in quarto upon the chapter. This piece, though of so narrow a compass, I never read to this day, neither by myself, nor by any other for me; nor do I know any one notion contained in it. I confess, I purposely forbore the reading of it, that I might have wherewith to stop the mouths that were like to be opened against me, as if I had ploughed with Arminius's heifer. The Remonstrants who appeared at the Synod of Dort delivered into this Synod their sense, somewhat largely, touching the middle part of the chapter, beginning with verse 6, and ending with verse 23; but meddled not either with the beginning or the end of it. I confess that at some turns I consulted this piece of a commentary, and sometimes met with such apprehensions which consorted well with my genius, and which contributed somewhat towards the work I had in hand. But he that shall compare the contents of this writing with my Exposition will find very little, comparatively, borrowed from thence; and that which is borrowed, so transformed, and the property of it so altered, by superadded explications, limitations, distinctions, questions, &c., that the natural face of it can hardly be seen or discerned in my glass. Since this writing of the synodical Remonstrants, I have met with nothing from any man of this learning which relateth to the chapter here explained, but only a brief paraphrase with some observations of Simon Episcopius upon this chapter in conjunction with the two next following. But how little communion my Exposition hath with these, whether paraphrase or observations, will readily be found, by him that shall seek to know it, by comparing them. Whether Hugo Grotius will be numbered amongst men of the Arminian persuasion, I know not. However, his commentaries upon the chapter are but brief; nor had I an opportunity to see them, until I had overcome and finished the much greater part of my work, and was passed those quarters of the chapter where the doctrines of a personal election and reprobation from eternity are supposed by many to be lodged. Nor do I yet know what his sense or judgment is touching these passages.

I shall not need to give an account of my method; it is only that which is familiar and common amongst expositors who faithfully endeavour to bring the mind of God into a clear light out of the obscurity of those scriptures which they undertake to expound, partly by a narrow searching into the scope and

context from place to place; partly by a diligent examination of the different senses or significations of words, and choosing that which is most accommodate and proper for the place; partly also by considering the Scripture dialect and phrase; partly again by disencumbering the sense given of such objections and difficulties as seem to lie against it; and lastly, by establishing and avouching the sense given, by showing a perfect harmony between this and other passages of Scripture. "My witness is in heaven, and my record on high," (Job. xvi. 19,) that throughout my Exposition I have not willingly wrested, or adulterously forced, any phrase, word, syllable, or letter; but have, with all simplicity of heart, and as in the sight of God, without turning aside either to the right hand or to the left, followed the most genuine ducture of the context, and scope from place to place, consulting, without partiality, all circumstances which occurred, and which I could think of, in order to a due steerage of my judgment in every thing. The bulkiness of the discourse is not occasioned by any popular enlargements sermon-wise. I only, upon the exposition given of some more nearly-cohering passages, make observation of some brief heads of doctrine from them, respectively, commonly pointing at a scripture, two, or more, comporting with each doctrine; but neither insist upon any proof by way of argument or reason, nor frame or raise any applicatory discourse at all upon them. That which swells the body of the Exposition to that bigness wherein it appears is partly the sublimity or spiritualness of the argument or matter, partly the duvonosa, the difficulty or obscurity of the Apostle's method or vein of discourse, in the managing or handling of it; partly, also, the importunity of such mistaken notions and senses of interpretation which have outrun the truth and gotten the start thereof in the reasons, judgments, and understandings of men. Probable it is that the mind of the Holy Ghost in those turnings and passages of the chapter, which are of the most difficult access to the understandings of men in these days, was of a far more easy and ready comprehension to those to whom the epistle was written, and generally to the saints, who were contemporaries with the Apostles; although it be true also which Peter saith, even with reference to the times wherein he spake it, namely, that in the writings of Paul there are duσvonta Tiva, some things hard to be understood. Such things are hard to be understood which lie, as it were, far remote, and at a great