From Zanchius' Absolute Predestination

As we here in East Texas dig ourselves out of our holes from whence Hurricane Ike has driven us, may we recognize that God holds the storms in His hands and they may only go where He directs.

Now, fresh from my hole and finding access to electricity, a few excerpts from Zanchius' book, which I read last month.

"Some seem to believe what God has done, He must do, as if there is some law superior to Him. 'Nay but,' says one, 'God's own attributes of goodness and justice, holiness and truth, are a law to Himself.' I answer, 'Amen, the Lord is holy in all His ways and righteous in all His works' (Psalm 145:17). He cannot be chargeable with injustice for disposing of His own as He will."

"The laws promulgated by Him are designed for the rule of our conduct, not of His." -- Jerome Zanchius

Augustine: "The commandment will tell thee, O man, what thou oughtest to have, reproof will show thee wherein thou art wanting, and praying will teach thee from whom thou must receive the supplies which thou wantest."

Augustine: "We must preach, we must reprove, we must pray, because they to whom grace is given will hear and act accordingly, though they to whom grace is not given will do neither."

"Conversion and salvation must, in the very nature of things, be wrought and effected either by ourselves alone, or by ourselves and God together, or solely by God Himself. The Pelagians were for the first. The Arminians are for the second. True believers are for the last, because the last hypotheses, and that only, is built on the strongest evidence of Scripture, reason and experience: it most effectually hides pride from man, and sets the crown of undivided praise upon the head, or rather casts it at the feet, of that glorious Triune God, who worketh all in all." -- Jerome Zanchius, p. 104

"When a converted person is assured, on one hand, that all whom God hath predestinated to eternal life shall infallibly enjoy that eternal life to which they are chosen, and, on the other hand, when he discerns the signs of election, not only in himself, but also in the rest of his fellow-believers, and concludes from thence (as in a judgment of charity he ought) that they are as really elected as himself, how must his heart glow with love to his Christians brethren! How feelingly will he sympathise with them in their distresses! How tenderly will he bear with their infirmities! How tenderly will he bear with infirmities How readily will he relieve the former, and how easily overlook the latter. Nothing will so effectually knit together the hearts of God's people in time as the belief of their having been written by name in one book of life from everlasting, and the unshaken confidence of their future exaltation to one and the same state of glory above will occasion the strongest cement of affection below." -- Jerome Zanchius pp. 111,112

"Himself is the causa causarum, the cause of all causes beside." -- Seneca

The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted by Jerome Zanchius