ditus_, (or from Adam's fall, as others
will, _homo lapsus objectum est reprobationis_) with _perseverantia
sanctorum_, we must be certain of our salvation, we may fall but not
finally, which our Arminians will not admit. According to his immutable,
eternal, just decree and counsel of saving men and angels, God calls all,
and would have all to be saved according to the efficacy of vocation: all
are invited, but only the elect apprehended: the rest that are unbelieving,
impenitent, whom God in his just judgment leaves to be punished for their
sins, are in a reprobate sense; yet we must not determine who are such,
condemn ourselves or others, because we have a universal invitation; all
are commanded to believe, and we know not how soon or how late our end may
be received. I might have said more of this subject; but forasmuch as it is
a forbidden question, and in the preface or declaration to the articles of
the church, printed 1633, to avoid factions and altercations, we that are
university divines especially, are prohibited "all curious search, to print
or preach, or draw the article aside by our own sense and comments upon
pain of ecclesiastical censure." I will surcease, and conclude with
[6807]Erasmus of such controversies: _Pugnet qui volet, ego censeo leges
majorum reverenter suscipiendas, et religiose observandas, velut a Deo
profectas; nec esse tutum, nec esse pium, de potestate publica sinistram
concipere aut serere suspicionem. Et siquid est tyrannidis, quod tamen non
cogat ad impietatem, satius est ferre, quam seditiose reluctari._

But to my former task. The last main torture and trouble of a distressed
mind, is not so much this doubt of election, and that the promises of grace
are smothered and extinct in them, nay quite blotted out, as they suppose,
but withal God's heavy wrath, a most intolerable pain and grief of heart
seizeth on them: to their thinking they are already damned, they suffer the
pains of hell, and more than possibly can be expressed, they smell
brimstone, talk familiarly with devils, hear and see chimeras, prodigious,
uncouth shapes, bears, owls, antiques, black dogs, fiends, hideous
outcries, fearful noises, shrieks, lamentable complaints, they are
possessed, [6808]and through impatience they roar and howl, curse,
blaspheme, deny God, call his power in question, abjure religion, and are
still ready to offer violence unto themselves, by hanging, drowning, &c.
Never any miserable wretch from th