Stephen Charnock
The Existence and Attributes of God
Vol. 2, pp. 1095-1097.

Prop. 3. The holiness of God is not blemished by decreeing the eternal rejection of some men.

Reprobation in its first notion is an act of preterition, or passing by. A man is not made wicked by the act of God, but it supposeth him wicked, and so it is nothing else but God’s leaving a man in that guilt and filth wherein he beholds him. In its second notion it is an ordination, not to a crime, but to a punishment—an ordaining to condemnation (Jude 4). And though it be an eternal act of God, yet in order of nature it follows upon the foresight of the transgression of man, and supposeth the crime. God considers Adam’s revolt, and views the whole mass of his corrupted posterity, and chooses some to reduce to himself by his grace, and leaves others to lie sinking in their ruins. Since all mankind fell by the fall of Adam, and have corruption conveyed to them successively by that root whereof they are branches; all men might justly be left wallowing in that miserable condition to which they were reduced by the apostasy of their common head, and God might have passed by the whole race of man, as well as he did the fallen angels, without any hope of redemption.

He was no more bound to restore man than to restore devils, nor bound to repair the nature of any one son of Adam; and had he dealt with men as he dealt with the devils, they had had all of them as little just ground to complain of God; for all men deserved to be left to themselves, for all were “concluded under sin” (Gal. 3:22). But God calls out some to make monuments of his grace, which is an act of the sovereign mercy of that dominion whereby “he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy” (Rom. 9:18). Others he passes by, and leaves them remaining in that corruption of nature wherein they were born. If men have a power to dispose of their own goods, without any unrighteousness, why should not God dispose of his own grace, and bestow it upon whom he pleases, since it is a debt to none, but a free gift to any that enjoy it?

God is not the cause of sin in this, because his operation about this is negative; it is not an action, but a denial of action, and therefore cannot be the cause of the evil actions of men. God acts nothing, but withholds his power; he doth not enlighten their minds, nor incline their wills so powerfully as to expel their darkness, and root out those evil habits which possess them by nature. God could, if he would, savingly enlighten the minds of all men in the world, and quicken their hearts with a new life by an invincible grace, but in not doing it there is no positive act of God, but a cessation of action. We may with as much reason say, that God is the cause of all the sinful actions that are committed by the corporation of devils since their first rebellion, because he leaves them to themselves, and bestows not a new grace upon them; as say God is the cause of the sins of those that he overlooks and leaves in that state of guilt wherein he found them. God did not pass by any without the consideration of sin, so that this act of God is not repugnant to his holiness, but conformable to his justice.