Reprobation.
Opposite to election is reprobation, which is God’s decree, to leave some in their sin and misery, and for sin to damn them; or reprobation is God’s decree, to pass by some and not elect them, and to permit those to fall into sin, and to punish them eternally for sin.
Herein are two acts, 1. Negative: 2. Positive.
Negative, to refuse, or not elect: positive, to punish for sin: for that from which they are reprobate, is from grace and glory, and that whereto they are appointed, is damnation: the cause of non-electing, God’s just pleasure and will, Mat. 11, Rom. 9, without respect of good or evil in the creature; the cause of the second act (damnation) is man’s sin.
God is he that reprobates some sinners, Rom. 9: 18, 1 Thess. 5:9. This is also from eternity, Jud. 4 and many are passed by and reprobated, Mat. 20:16. The things whereof men are reprobate, are true faith, 2 Tim. 3:6, true sanctification, Tit. 1:16, eternal life, Act. 13:38, compared with 1 Thess. 5:9, and Jud. 4. The cause of punishing the wicked is their sin, for justice must needs respect the innocency, or guilt of the creature. The end of reprobation I properly God’s glory, Prov. 16:14.
The perdition of the reprobate is also the end, but by accident: unchangeable also is the decree of God [Isa. 46:10.]
Thus much of election and reprobation.
Henry Ainsworth, The Old Orthodox Foundation of Religion: Left for a Patterne To a New Reformation (London: Printed by E. Cotes, and are to be sold by Michael Spark at the Blue Bible in Green Arbour, 1653), 39-40. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; italics original; and underlining mine.]