Election and reprobation

Use in the book

The ordinary sense of choosing appears in Burton’s imagined commonwealth, where some dignities are hereditary and others bestowed by election or gift. The later “elect Archbishop of Lisbone” likewise concerns an office-holder’s chosen status in an anecdote against compulsory celibacy; the story’s date and identity remain uncollated. In the account of the rational soul, “with election” means by choice. Astrological elections have an object supplied by the practice: favourable times for an undertaking. Burton satirizes such elections beside predictions in his attack on useless study. Later “election of times” belongs to the question whether love and hatred can be compelled, a question he defers; the following honourable love cannot be compelled. These examples belong to choosing and its proposed means, not to the divine selection of souls.

The same satire of study has already listed election, predestination and reprobation among the questions by which scholastic theology perplexes its students: how many will be saved or damned? The attack is on inquiry represented as fruitless and tormenting, within a catalogue that also mocks disciplines Burton uses extensively himself. A different predestinarian claim enters medical astrology when Paracelsus requires a physician specifically destined to this patient and illness. Burton calls the practitioners too peremptory, then checks his own competence to decide the whole controversy. Neither episode makes every occurrence of predestination a declaration of Burton’s settled theology.

Burton himself uses “reprobate sense” in hostile polemic: his portrait of the “Carnalists” declares “no hope of their conversion” before the comparison attributed to Melanchthon. That is not a sufferer’s self-accusation. It stands in tension with his later prohibition on deciding who is finally rejected, a tension already noted under Despair. The distinction between final and temporary despair is crucial to the later argument. “Some divide” introduces the scheme: final despair belongs to reprobates, while temporary rejection of hope and comfort can afflict the best of God’s children. The Zanchi margin says the reprobate persist stubbornly to the end. Duration and finality, not the mere presence of terrible feeling now, determine the contrast. Burton still calls the temporary condition a grievous sin, but separately allows a proper despair of one’s own unaided resources when it leads to trust in God. These are theological categories, not diagnoses of a modern patient.

His account of causes then shows how the doctrines become destructive when applied without warrant. Platter’s subjects think they are not predestined and are forsaken, although otherwise devout. Biblical passages about calling, choosing and mercy become terrifying when misconceived; people seek unrevealed knowledge and then misapply what is revealed to themselves. Burton does not reserve criticism for other confessions: “Our indiscreet Pastors” dwell on eternal reprobation, withdrawal of grace, passing over and the signs by which hearers are told to test themselves. His complaint is that indiscriminate preaching turns even small faults and morally indifferent recreations into unforgivable offences.

The symptoms preserve the sufferer’s voice. “No hope, no faith, past cure, reprobate” continues the preceding account of what distressed people think and feel. Likewise “account themselves Reprobates” records a conviction of being abandoned, already damned and incapable of mercy. The reply begins “But these men must know” and insists that no offence is beyond mercy in itself. The continuation specifies believers who are truly penitent, grieved for their offences and desirous of reconciliation, then repeats the call to repentance; the promise is not detached from those qualifications. Reading the earlier self-accusations as Burton’s confirmed verdict would invert the consolatory exchange.

Misread scripture subsequently becomes a “rock of despair.” The question “Who knows … whether he be elect?” is attributed to Solomon, but no biblical locator is supplied and the edition leaves its exact source unresolved. Burton’s rejoinder changes the burden of proof: if sufferers cannot know that they are not reprobates, how can they know that they are? He then assigns the accusations to the devil, whose testimony cannot provide certainty, and opposes Christ’s protection to them. In the example of Peter, Paul and David, grave sins do not prevent reception; Solomon “may be converted,” a possibility rather than an assertion of established conversion. The claim that only impenitency testifies to final reprobation leads towards the universal invitation.

The invitation reaches each hearer: “him, and him, and them” presses the general promise upon individuals. Burton includes belief and repentance in the scriptural sequence. The sufferer’s ensuing lack of felt signs cannot prove exclusion, because the elect themselves lack those signs before conversion. Burton therefore urges the means of conversion and patient waiting, allowing that some are called at the eleventh hour. His argument refuses a premature conclusion; it does not claim that present feelings are a complete register of an eternal decree.

The doctrinal digression is not a single continuous endorsement. Burton first describes the revival of universal grace, calling the doctrine plausible and saying some move to another extreme. He then attributes a wider claim to Caelius Secundus, or a possible impostor writing under that name. It is this author who calls special election and reprobation prejudiced and likely to drive everyone to despair. Burton labels the ensuing inference about the devil’s greater sovereignty erroneous, and his margin directs readers to counterarguments. The reported position moves through the salvation of virtuous pagans to the eventual salvation even of devils, with disappearance into nothing given as an alternative. Burton explicitly rejects these paradoxes in the name of “our Church”.

What follows that rejection remains compressed. Burton places foreseen faith, foreseen works, passing over, the absolute decree, humanity considered before or after the Fall, and perseverance of the saints in an uneven account of disagreements. “As many of our Church hold” is not the same as every member holding an identical scheme. The printed negatives and alternatives must remain; the passage cannot safely be rewritten as an orderly modern taxonomy of all the schools he names. Its practical conclusion is clearer: all are invited, but only the elect are “apprehended,” a passive form meaning taken hold of. Nevertheless “we must not determine who are such,” or condemn ourselves or others, because the invitation is universal and reception may be early or late.

Burton ends the digression by invoking the declaration prefixed to the Church’s Articles in his 1633 edition, which restricts speculative dispute and private interpretations. His concluding Erasmus passage prefers endurance of authority only provided it does not compel impiety. After returning to the sufferer’s distress, Burton eventually calls election an immutable decree and an uneraseable mark. That confident pastoral address belongs beside, not instead of, the prohibition on identifying anyone as finally rejected. The original Table’s “Election misconceived, cause of despair” points back to the reading problem, rather than treating election itself as an invariably harmful doctrine.

Related entries

Faith, assurance and presumption (Faith, assurance and presumption); Grace (Grace). Despair; Conscience; Religious melancholy; Astrology. Election, the supplementary note to Astrology, treats choosing and astrological timing separately; it is not another title for predestinarian election. The earlier Astrology records election and election of times already explain the timing constructions, and Despair record despair in the election dispute already distinguishes Caelius’s allegation from Burton’s conclusion. Those shared passages are routes between articles, not newly discovered occurrences. Celibacy and vows and its record votary already use the archbishop-elect anecdote to explain votaries; Astrology record iatromathematical professors already discusses the medical-astrological context. These are shared source contexts, not newly found episodes.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 19–21election as appointment, contrasted with hereditary dignity.
2. Subsection 9. The Rational Soul · paragraphs 21–23the rational soul acting by choice.
3. Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraphs 17–22; Subsection 7. A Collection of Other Events That Cause Melancholy: The Death of Friends, Losses, and So On · paragraph 18theological speculation and astrological elections in the satire of study.
4. Member 4. Subsection 1. Physician, Patient, Medicine · paragraphs 7–9a healer predestined for an individual cure, a reported and criticized claim.
5. Subsection 3 Honourable Objects of Love · paragraphs 23–25choosing times in a deferred question about compelled love.
6. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 13–17elect Archbishop as a title of office, not salvific status, in an uncollated historical anecdote.
7. Its Object, God; What His Beauty Is; How It Attracts. The Parts and People Affected · paragraphs 20–22reprobate sense in the classification of religious deficiency.
8. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 60–64Burton’s own hostile reprobate sense and the claim that conversion is hopeless.
9. The Different Meanings and Definitions of Despair and the People and Parts Affected · paragraphs 39–42final and temporary despair, with the Zanchi margin.
10. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 11–13Platter’s subjects believe they are not predestined.
11. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 29–39misconceived election, misapplication and indiscreet preaching.
12. Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraphs 38–40; Symptoms of Despair: Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, Horror of Conscience, Terrifying Dreams and Visions · paragraph 39reprobate in the sufferers’ reported experience, especially the passage.
13. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 21–25; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 24; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 22self-condemnation and the answer through mercy, qualified by belief and repentance.
14. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 40–55; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 42the reversal, accusation and protection, universal invitation and delayed conversion.
15. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 1–23; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraph 20reported alternatives, explicit rejection, disputed doctrinal syntax, the passive apprehended and the prohibition of final judgements. The refusal of final judgement contrasts with the earlier claim that conversion is hopeless.
16. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 50–51the concluding promise of restoration and confidence in election.
17. E · paragraph 175the original heading “Election misconceived, cause of despair, 713,714,715.” This is a Table unit, not a running-body paragraph.

In this edition

“Reprobate” becomes “rejected by God” in the reported symptoms, while “account themselves Reprobates” becomes “consider themselves reprobates” in the next stage of the argument. “Whether he be elect” becomes “whether he is among the elect”; the original predicative adjective elect is recast as membership “among the elect,” a collective substantive phrase. The modern text subsequently renders “not reprobates” as “not rejected by God,” retaining the negation before Burton reverses the question. Speaker and scope are as important as the headwords.

“In a reprobate sense” becomes “with depraved judgement”, and “they are in a reprobate sense” becomes “Their understanding is corrupt” in Burton’s own polemic. By contrast, “have a reprobate mind” belongs to the later doctrinal construction. “All are invited, but onely the elect apprehended” becomes “All are invited, but only the elect are taken hold of.” Apprehended is passive; the elect are its grammatical patients, not people silently rewritten as actively accepting the offer. The modern column supplies grammatical connections to a difficult list, not independent authority for a complete doctrinal system.

The boundary uses are also explicit: “with election” becomes “by choice”; “vain elections” becomes “futile choices of auspicious times”; “election of times” becomes “choosing favourable times”. “Elect Archbishop of Lisbone” becomes “archbishop-elect of Lisbon”: the older adjective before the title becomes the modern postposed -elect compound. The astrological quality is supplied from context, not contained in every use of election. The Zanchi margin’s original Reprobi and the English translation that follows it are different source layers. The medical margin Prædestinatum ad hunc curandum likewise remains separate from its editorial translation, “Predestined to cure this person”. In the body, nec prædestinati becomes “and not predestined,” still within the sufferers’ belief. The Solomon question and the Caelius attributions retain the supplied notes’ unresolved source limits rather than receiving invented biblical or historical locators.

election (choosing)

Selection or appointment, distinct from divine choosing for salvation.

Grammar: noun, singular; the prepositional constructions by election and with election.

Original text: “some again by election, or by gift”. In the modern column: “others shall be bestowed by election or grant”. An appointment method contrasted with hereditary dignities in the imagined commonwealth. Burton proposes a form of government, not a statement of actual appointment practice everywhere. The original elliptical verb is supplied as shall be bestowed; election is retained, gift becomes grant.

Original text: “with election”. In the modern column: “by choice”. The rational soul acts through choice. Reported philosophical definition, followed by distinction of understanding and will. The preposition and abstract noun are recast as by choice.

election; predestination; reprobation

Related but distinct terms for divine choosing, prior appointment and exclusion from salvation.

Grammar: three coordinated abstract nouns.

Original text: “Election, Predestination, Reprobation”. In the modern column: “election, predestination, reprobation”. The theological questions ask who will be saved or damned. Burton’s satire attacks fruitless investigation; it does not here define every doctrinal position. The three nouns are retained as separate terms.

Original text: “election, predestination, reprobation, preposterously conceived”. In the modern column: “Misconceived ideas of election, predestination and reprobation”. Misunderstanding and intrusive inquiry make the doctrines a source of torment. The criticism targets misconceived ideas and misapplication, not an assertion that all inquiry has the same effect. Preposterously conceived is redistributed as Misconceived ideas of; the qualification governs the doctrinal list.

election of times

Astrological selection of supposedly favourable times for an action.

Grammar: noun phrase, election qualified by of times; also plural elections.

Original text: “vain elections”. In the modern column: “futile choices of auspicious times”. The selection is an astrological practice in a satirical catalogue. Burton rhetorically dismisses astrology alongside other learned pursuits; no efficacy is established. Vain supplies futile; elections supplies choices; of auspicious times makes the implied object explicit.

Original text: “election of times”. In the modern column: “choosing favourable times”. The procedure is proposed in a dispute about compelling love or hatred. The opening whether governs the elliptical catalogue; Burton defers the question and next denies that honourable love can be compelled. Election becomes choosing and favourable is an explicating addition, not a translation of times.

predestinated (to a cure)

Destined beforehand for the particular task of curing a named person or illness.

Grammar: passive participial adjective, predestinated, with a complement specifying a cure.

Original text: “his Physician predestinated to this mans cure, this malady”. In the modern column: “his physician must be predestined to cure this particular person and this particular illness”. The proposed match is between practitioner and patient. Paracelsus’s requirement, criticized as peremptory by Burton, who then limits his own adjudicative competence. The modern supplies must from will have; predestinated supplies predestined and the cure construction is unfolded.

prædestinatus

Appointed beforehand for a specified end. The complement or context distinguishes a physician destined for an individual cure from people thought to be destined for salvation.

Grammar: passive participial adjective; accusative masculine singular Prædestinatum with the understood physician in the margin, nominative masculine plural prædestinati in the body.

Original margin: “Prædestinatum ad hunc curandum.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “Predestined to cure this person.” The margin condenses the reported Paracelsian requirement that a particular healer be appointed to the particular patient. Reported claim from which Burton distances himself as too peremptory, followed by his qualification of his own competence. Prædestinatum supplies predestined; ad hunc curandum gives the purpose, to cure this person. The aligned construction is the whole phrase, not a whole-phrase gloss assigned to the participle alone.

Original text: “nec prædestinati”. In the modern column: “and not predestined”. The Latin body passage describes the sufferers’ belief that they are excluded from salvation. Under the reported Platter account and preceding putant, they think: not an authorial assertion that these devout people are excluded. Nec supplies and not; prædestinati is the plural participial predicate. The English phrase comes from the first rendering of the Latin, not Burton’s following separate English restatement.

elect (office)

Chosen or designated for an office, especially an ecclesiastical dignity, rather than chosen for salvation.

Grammar: adjective before an office-title in the original; postposed -elect compound in the modern.

Original text: “elect Archbishop of Lisbone”. In the modern column: “archbishop-elect of Lisbon”. The designation identifies the protagonist’s ecclesiastical status in the alleged celibacy anecdote. Burton reports an anecdote against compulsory celibacy. The printed date, name and medical story remain uncollated; none is adopted as historical certainty or current medical guidance. Original elect precedes Archbishop; the modern renders the title as the postposed compound archbishop-elect. Lisbon modernizes Lisbone, not elect.

reprobate sense

A depraved or corrupt understanding, in religious polemic associated with rejection and moral insensibility.

Grammar: noun phrase; reprobate is an adjective modifying sense, meaning understanding or judgement.

Original text: “live in a reprobate sense”. In the modern column: “live with depraved judgement”. The construction marks the polemical category of religious deficiency. Burton groups contempt for religion and excessive distrust differently within deficiency; his classifications are confessional judgements. Sense is understood as judgement, not one bodily sense or a momentary sensation.

Original text: “there is no talking to such, no hope of their conversion; they are in a reprobate sense”. In the modern column: “There is no talking to such people, no hope of their conversion. Their understanding is corrupt”. Burton denies hope of conversion to the people in his polemical portrait, then calls their understanding corrupt. This is his hostile judgement, not a reported sufferer’s fear. The claim precedes the explicitly attributed Melanchthon comparison. It must be kept in tension with the later prohibition on final personal condemnation at 168-20, not silently assimilated to that counsel. The modern splits the construction into two sentences and recasts they are in a reprobate sense as Their understanding is corrupt; the repeated no remains negative.

Original text: “are in a reprobate sense”. In the modern column: “have a reprobate mind”. The doctrinal account describes the unbelieving and unrepentant, then forbids deciding who finally belongs there. Burton resumes his own church-position after rejecting the reported wider salvation; he expressly forbids personal condemnation. The locative construction becomes have a reprobate mind; the following yet clause is essential to its application.

reprobate; reprobates

A person or persons rejected from salvation; in the selected complaints, a feared status rather than a confirmed verdict.

Grammar: substantive noun family, singular reprobate and plural reprobates; also predicative reprobate in the reported symptoms.

Original text: “final is incurable, which befalleth Reprobates”. In the modern column: “Final despair is incurable and befalls the reprobate”. The reported scheme distinguishes final from temporary despair. Some divide introduces the classification; temporary despair can affect the best believers and is not equated with final rejection. The supplied noun despair identifies the original elliptical subject; Reprobates becomes the collective the reprobate.

Original text: “reprobate”. In the modern column: “rejected by God”. The sufferer’s reported certainty of rejection forms part of a catalogue of distress. Continuation of they think, not a fresh narrator judgement. The theological status is made explicit without changing who believes it.

Original text: “account themselves Reprobates”. In the modern column: “consider themselves reprobates”. The reflexive object records a conviction about oneself. The next paragraph’s But these men must know challenges the feared conclusion. Account becomes consider and themselves remains the grammatical object.

Original text: “how shall they discern they are not reprobates? But I say again, how shall they discern they are?” In the modern column: “How can they tell that they are not rejected by God? But I ask in return: how can they tell that they are?” Burton turns the demand for certainty against self-condemnation. First the sufferer’s worry, then Burton’s explicit I say again, not two assertions of rejection. The first question’s negation is retained; the second reverses it. The final they are refers back to rejection.

reprobus

Reprobate or rejected, here substantivally naming those who persist to the end.

Grammar: adjective used as substantive; nominative plural reprobi.

Original margin: “Reprobi usque ad finem pertinaciter persistunt. Zanchius.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “The reprobate persist stubbornly to the end. Zanchi.” The original margin provides the persistence-to-the-end qualification. Attributed to Zanchi. The original quotation and its subsequent editorial translation are separate layers. Reprobi is nominative plural used substantivally; to the end renders usque ad finem rather than being part of the noun.

predestinate

Predestined, especially appointed beforehand to salvation in the sufferer’s feared negative judgement.

Grammar: adjectival participle.

Original text: “They think they are not predestinate”. In the modern column: “They think they are not predestined”. The reported subjects believe themselves excluded despite otherwise zealous religion. Felix Platter’s reported observations; the thought-content is not Burton’s certification of divine decree. The participle is modernized; They think and not are retained.

præterition

God’s passing over those not elected, one of the disputed theological distinctions in the preaching catalogue.

Grammar: abstract noun, singular; the printed ligature spelling præterition.

Original text: “præterition”. In the modern column: “being passed over”. The term occurs alongside eternal reprobation, withdrawal of grace and voluntary permission. Burton criticizes indiscreet pastors in his own church, not just opponents; the compressed list does not define every school’s doctrine. The abstract theological noun is expanded as a passive verbal phrase; an active human choosing is not implied.

elect

Chosen for salvation; used adjectivally or substantivally as the elect.

Grammar: adjective in predicative he be elect; substantive adjective in the plural collective the Elect.

Original text: “whether he be elect”. In the modern column: “whether he is among the elect”. The question asks whether the individual belongs to those chosen. Burton attributes the question to Solomon without a locator; the exact biblical source remains unresolved. Original elect is a predicative adjective after be. The modern recasts it as membership among the elect, a collective substantive noun phrase; whether retains the question.

Original text: “the Elect themselves are without them, before their conversion”. In the modern column: “even the elect lack these signs before their conversion”. The absence of signs before conversion defeats an immediate inference of rejection. Burton answers the sufferer’s objection and urges future conversion, prayer and desire. The modern these signs resolves them from the preceding complaint; the temporal before is preserved.

particularity; special election

The restriction of election to particular people, as distinguished from a general invitation or an asserted universal salvation.

Grammar: abstract noun particularity and noun phrase special election.

Original text: “This opinion alone of particularity?” In the modern column: “Merely this opinion that salvation is restricted to particular people?” The rhetorical question asks whether this alone grounds the sufferer’s distrust. Burton moves towards universal promises but later retains the distinction between all invited and the elect apprehended. The modern expands the contextual object of the abstract noun; it is not a definition of all ordinary particularity.

Original text: “speciall Election and Reprobation”. In the modern column: “particular election and reprobation”. The reported opponent denounces the restricted doctrine. He refers to Caelius or the possible impostor, not Burton. Burton’s marginal counterargument and erroneous in the next unit oppose the inference. Speciall is modernized as particular; the two doctrinal nouns remain.

perseverantia sanctorum

Perseverance of the saints: continuance in salvation despite a fall not regarded as final in the position reported.

Grammar: Latin noun phrase: singular perseverantia with genitive plural sanctorum, of the saints; inserted after English with.

Original text: “with perseverantia sanctorum, we must be certain of our salvation, we may fall but not finally”. In the modern column: “With the perseverance of the saints, we must be certain of our salvation: we may fall, but not finally”. The Latin phrase introduces certainty and the distinction between a fall and final loss. Burton says Arminians will not admit this and distinguishes positions among his own church; the paragraph is syntactically compressed. The phrase itself corresponds only to perseverance of the saints; the ensuing modal and negative clauses are separate.

immutable decree

An unchangeable divine determination, invoked as a ground of confidence in the final pastoral address.

Grammar: noun phrase; immutable is an adjective qualifying decree.

Original text: “it is an immutable decree; a mark never to be defaced”. In the modern column: “it is an unchangeable decree, a mark that can never be erased”. Election is represented as enduring despite present distress. Confident counsel addressed to the distressed reader; earlier prohibition of identifying final reprobates remains in force. Immutable becomes unchangeable; defaced becomes erased in the separate mark image.

Earlier explanation: apprehended

Earlier explanation: apprehend · apprehended · local use 3

For apprehended, see Apprehension.

Context passages: the passage, the passage, the passage, the passage. These are reading contexts, not additional occurrences of the cited form.

Reference scope: The following local explanation is retained as a reading aid to the earlier-owned occurrence, not a new supporting record.

Taken hold of, a passive description of the elect in contrast with the universal invitation.

Grammar: past participle in an elliptical passive construction: the elect [are] apprehended.

• The passage (Source page 716–717). Original text: “all are invited, but onely the elect apprehended”. In the modern column: “All are invited, but only the elect are taken hold of”. The contrast separates the scope of invitation from its effect. The following yet forbids deciding who is finally rejected; neither the restricted clause nor universal invitation may erase the other. The passive participle is retained as are taken hold of, not emended into an active apprehend or accept.