THESIS 10

Human beings are creatures, in a condition of nature—which can effect nothing supernatural or divine—to be exalted above nature, and to be transferred to a participation of divine things by the supernatural energy of the Deity.

It is here most manifestly evident that the object of predestination is considered by you to be men in their natural state, which can effect nothing supernatural or divine, that is, as I have said, considered, in a merely natural state, apart from supernatural endowments, and from the corruption which afterwards supervened. But this is not an adequate object of this decree. For the exaltation, which is according to predestination, is not from nature, but from sin beginning. The divine things, a participation in which is prepared by predestination, are not adapted to man in his natural state, but to man involved in sin and misery. That supernatural power belongs to God, which He exercises in Christ, "the power of God and the wisdom of God," 1 Corinthians i. 24, the Jews and Gentiles being called to salvation. Therefore, it was applied to man, considered not in his primitive natural state, but in sin and misery.