SERMON XLVI. 51 immediately to the second thing 1 proposed, which was to shew what are the proper uses of this-doctrine of God's election of sin- ners to salvation, and giving them into the hands of his Son. their eyes ; their wills refusé to receive the grace of the gospel, they shut it out of their own hearts: they have a delight in sin, a dislike of Christ, and of his salvation, which consists in holiness and the love of God ; they have a rooted obstinacy of will against the methods of divine mercy. This is their condemna- tion; John iii. 19. That tight came into Meworld, and they loveddarkness rather than light; and therefore they must die in their sins, because they would not come unto Christ, that they might have life ; John v. 40. I confess this aversion, this obstinacy of mind and will against the gospel may be called natural, or rather native, as it comes to as by nature in its present corrupted state ; and in scripture it is sometimes represented as impotence or inability to repent, to return to God, to receive Christ, and his grace, John vi. 65. No man can come tome, except it were given him of my Father. And it is termed blindnessof mind and hardnsss of heart, and a death in sin ; not that there is really such a natural incapacity in their mind and will to receive this grace, as there is in a blind or deadcarcase; but it is a moral impotency, as it is well ex- pressed by our divines, because the aversion is so strong and on rooted is-their hearts,-that they will never renounce sin, and receive the salvation of Christ, without thepowerful influencesof divine grace. And that it is a moral impotence and not properly natural, appears by the moral remedies applied to cure it, viz. commands, promises, threatenings, Bic, which it would be useless, and ridiculous to apply to natural impotence, that is, to make the blind see, or the dead arise. Both the first and second answer to this objection, may be represented by a very fair similitude.. Suppose God has decreed, that he will make the rising sun- beams shine so effectually on a thousand certain persons, that they shall be roused thereby to their morning work, and enjoy the pleasure of it; May we not say, the sun has beams sufficient to enlighten the whole nation, and'they have all h natural power to beholdand enjoy this light; though perhaps only that thousand will see the sun rising, because their sloth confines the rest to their beds, they havean aversion to theearly business of the morning ; and this lazy humour hangs so heavy upon them, that they cry, they cannot rise. Thus though the Sun of Righteousness has light and grace enough in him tosave all mankind, yet their own sloth and obstinacy, and evil inclinations, exclude them from this sal- vation. Both these events arise without a just complaint against the God of nature, who called up themorning sun to enlighten the nations, or against the God of grace, who sent forth the Sun of Righteousness, to bless the dark and sinful world. III. No condemnedsinner shall have reason to say, that there wasany bar or hinderance laid in the way of hissalvation, by this decree of God, or by his chu.. sing some sinners, and giving them to Christ, for though he provided effectual grace for those whom he choose to certain salvation, yet he only left others to their own natural state, as corrupted by the fall of Adam; he left them to the wilful blindness of their own minds, and the wilful hardness of their own hearts. While this original counsel of God, this decreeof election provides and secures graceand glory to some, it does not in the least hinder others from receiving and obeying the gospel. IV. None shall be condemned at last, because they were not chosen in Christ, but because they were impenitent sinners, who in some measure have resisted the light of their own consciences, under whatsoever dispensation they have lived, whether under the law of nature, the law of Moses, or the gospel ofChrist. These conscienees of theirs shall lay them under a dreadful and unanswerable conviction of their own guilt, shall give sentence against them, and confirm the condemning sentence of Jesus, the Judge of all. There are other difficulties which are started against this doctrine, which Jr2
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