Another stand-point of Goodwin’s is _Election_. He argues for the necessity of this--saying, that without it “Christ had died in vain, and not saved a man,” and had been in heaven alone to lament that He had come short in this work. Goodwin dwells upon the order of God’s decrees touching election and reprobation, and upon the end to which the elect are ordained, even a supernatural union with God, and the communication of Himself to their souls. The infinity of God’s electing grace is a special theme of this writer’s meditations, in which, amongst other points most repulsive to moderate Calvinists, he insists upon a vast disproportion between the elect and the rest--rejoicing not, as one would suppose, in the thought, that the saved immensely outnumber the lost, but in the thought, that the paucity of men who enjoy any privilege magnifies it the more. He speaks of the infinite number of those laid aside in a fallen condition, in comparison with the very few elected out of them, as enhancing the grace of election. He contends for the perfect freedom of election, and the absence in it of all reference to merit or worthiness; for its intimate connection with effectual calling, which he unfolds at length; and for the doctrine of final perseverance, which follows from the doctrine he has previously laid down. It is remarkable that he employs a whole book in showing that election in its ordinary course runs from believing parents to their posterity; that the covenant of grace is entailed upon the children of believers, and that God most usually makes them His choice. He is careful practically to apply his views to Christian parents on the one hand, and to their children on the other.[520] The doctrine of reprobation is connected by Goodwin with the doctrine of election; it is described as being its dark shadow. If Goodwin was not a supralapsarian, he was, next to that, the highest predestinarian a man could be.[521] It is marvellous how, with all his thoughtfulness, he could have overlooked the question of moral government and human responsibility, in connection with some of his speculations; and it is distressing to find that one so zealous for what he deemed the glory of Divine grace, could lay his scheme of theology open to the charge of its robbing God of the attributes of justice and righteousness.