[A golden chaine: or The description of theologie containing the order of the causes of saluation and damnation, according to Gods word; (Printed by Iohn Legat, printer to the Vniuersitie of Cambridge, 1600)]
William Perkins, born in the year of our Lord 1558 in Marston Jabbett, Warwickshire, did rise from modest origins to become a shining luminary in the reformed Church of England. Educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he attained the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, Perkins was elected Fellow of that College, a station in which he diligently exercised his gifts in the sacred discipline and did greatly profit the students in sound doctrine and holy conversation. Ordained within the ecclesiastical polity of the Church of England, Perkins served faithfully as lecturer at the renowned Church of Great St. Andrew’s, Cambridge. There, by the power of the Spirit, he did powerfully expound the Scriptures, laboring to reform men’s lives and to bring them into the obedience of Christ. His ministry was marked by an extraordinary zeal for experimental divinity, wherein he pressed upon men the necessity of true conversion, effectual calling, and a sanctified walk. Perkins excelled in the art of casuistry, providing godly counsel for tender consciences perplexed with the weight of sin, as demonstrated in his manifold treatises, among which The Golden Chaine and The Arte of Prophesying are eminent. He contended earnestly for the doctrines of grace, upholding predestination, the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement, and the authority of Scripture, all in the service of God’s glory and the edification of His elect. He departed this life in Cambridge in 1602, leaving a legacy both deep and wide, whereby his writings continue to guide souls in the straight and narrow path of godliness.
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There are two things requisite to obtain salvation: Predestination, and the execution thereof. Predestination is a foreordaining of the reasonable creature to grace in this life, and glory in the life to come. Sebastian Cattaneus, Enchiridion, tract. 1, chap. last.
This in regard of the first effects thereof, which are vocation, election, and ordination to eternal life, has the cause of it in God, namely his will; but in regard of the last effect, which is the execution of such an ordinance, and the obtaining of eternal life, it has the cause of it from man, because according to the common opinion, God’s predestination is by reason of works foreseen in men, that is, God does therefore predestinate or reject some man because he foresees that he will well or badly use his grace. But for the more evident declaration of this, these seven conclusions must be set down:
I. The Predestination and Reprobation of God do not constrain or enforce any necessity upon the will of man.
II. God has predestinated all men, that is, he has appointed and disposed all men, so as they might obtain eternal salvation.
III. Man is neither by necessity nor chance saved or condemned, but voluntarily.
IV. God has predestinated some, others has he rejected.
V. Those whom God has predestinated by his absolute predestination, which cannot be lost, they shall infallibly die in grace: but they which are predestinated by that predestination which being according to present justice, may be lost by some mortal sin which follows, are not infallibly saved, but oftentimes such are condemned, and lose their crown and glory. Hence arises that position of theirs, that he which is justified may be a reprobate, and perish eternally. Torrensus,Aug. Confess. 2.book. 4.chap. 20.sect. Therefore predestination is not certain, seeing it may be lost.
VI. God alone does know the certain and set number of them which are predestinated.
VII. There is one set number of them which are predestinated or reproved, and that can neither be increased nor diminished.
The execution of predestination is either in infants or those of years of discretion.