Note 241 — Quest. XII., XIII. (continued 4)

This notion, perhaps more than any other, has been termed Baxterianism, and yet it is not easy to say that Mr. Baxter ever maintained it. He says indeed “all have so much (grace) as bringeth and leaveth the success to man’s will;” and this in a discourse wherein he allows that God hath “positively elected certain persons by an absolute decree to overcome all their resistances of his Spirit, and to draw them to Christ, and by Christ to himself, by such a power and way as shall infallibly convert and save them.” He moreover says, “What if men cannot here tell how to resolve the question, whether any or how many are ever converted or saved by that mere grace which we call sufficient, or rather necessary, and common to those that are not converted; and whether man’s will ever make a saving determining improvement of it?”—“And yet,” he adds, “this question itself is formed on false suppositions and is capable of a satisfactory solution.” Baxter’s Works, Vol. ii. p. 929.—On the subject of this Note the author begs leave to refer his readers to Doddridge’s Works, Vol. v. p. 238, 239, Notes.