QUESTION XII. 347 even the non-elect, as well as those that are elected : And that to this day, the gospel should, be continued to the nations who have so many years and ages abused it ; that the ministry of the: word should call whole kingdoms to be reconciled to God by a Mediator, to trust in the merit of Christ, to receive Jesus, as their Saviour and their Lord, to accept ofpardon of sin and eter- nal happiness, upon the terms which the gospel reveals. VI. It is probably owing to the same undertaking of Christ, and the overflowing value of his righteousness and death, that there are so many means of grace and divine assistancei, both outward and inward, afforded to whole nations where the gospel comes ; that even those who are not elected, have so many awakening providences, so many peculiar opportunities of mercy, so many excellent sermons preached to them, so many suitable words spoken both from the law and the gospel, as it were to their own souls. It is surely from this mediation of Christ, that they have their consciences at any time impressed with divine things, and excited to reprove them for sin, and to seek after salvation; that they have so many common workings of the Holy Spirit, and his blessed influences upon their hearts, to make them bethink themselves about their eternal concernments, to give them some knowledge of Christ the Saviour, and to stir them up to the duties of faith and repentance, and new obedi- ence : and that they are not only exhorted outwardly by the word, but inwardly by some common and general operations of the Holy Spirit, to receive this salvation. Could all these blessings be really bestowed upon sinful men by the faithful and merciful God, if the original, and eternal, and only design of themwere merely to render them so much the more heinòusly criminal, and the more extremely miserable, without any possibility of hope or recovery ever included in these blessings, or intimated by them ? VII. In the last place, it is owing to the most redundant merit of Christ our Lord, that such a conditional pardón and salvation, or such conditionalpropositions of peace as the gospel expresses, were ever provided for them who were not elected ; these are set forth in such general proposals and offers as we read in the bible : Whosoever believeth shall be saved : Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely: Ho, every one that thirsteth, 4c. Look unto me and be saved, all ye ends of the earth, 4c. If there were no such blessing provided for them, so much as in a conditional manner, surely it could never be really and actually, and expressly offered to them. Surely the righteous, the gracious, and the holy God does not tantalize his perishing and miserable creatures, nor send his gospel and his ministers to offer them a mere nullity instead of a benefit Christ does not call them in his gospel to' receive an empty nothing, when his words propose to them a solid blessing. Ile
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