350 aune APD RECOVERY,' SLC. our most expressly informs us; Mat. xxii: 14. that many are called, but few are chosen. Yet, I think, we must cancel all these scriptures, and deny all offers of grace and salvation made to sinners in general if Christ procured and provided nothing for them ; or we must grant that there is a conditional salvation provided for all mankind, in order to justify thesincerity of God and his Son in the .public call and general invitation given to sin- ners to repent and accept of this salvation. II. It is very hard to defend the sincerity of the Spirit of God, in awakening the consciences of these persons sometimes, who are not elected, and stirring them up to think of receiving the salvation of Christ upon the terms of the gospel, if there be no such salvation conditionally provided for them to receive: It is hard to suppose that God should send his own Spirit to excite the consciences of such sinners in any common degrees to any repentings for sin even in the most legal sense, and to bring them near to the kingdom of heaven in the beginnings of con- viction and sorrow, if there was no pardon provided in any sense for those whoare not chosen, whether they repent or no ; or that the Spirit should give them any, even the weakest excitations, to trust in the merit of a Saviour, if that merit has obtained no blessing for them, not so much as conditional. Shall it be ever said, that God the Father, and his Son and Spirit have each done their parts toencourage and excite nonselect sinners to trust in the gospel for salvation, or the least grace or salvation in a conditional senseprovided for them to trust in or to accept of? III. It is equally difficult to vindicate the equity of God, as the judgeof all men, in condemning unbelievers, and punish- ing them eternally for not accepting the offers of pardon, if there was not so much as a conditional pardon provided for them ; and for not resting on the merit of Christ, and receiving his salva- tion, when there was no such merit appointed for them to rest upon, nor any such salvation for them to receive. Surely it will appear in the day of judgment, that the final condemnation of sinners, and their eternal misery, was merely the fruit of their own negligence and disobedience to the voice of the gospel, and refusing the offered grace, and not to any real want of sufficient provision made for them by him who calls them to receive it. The language of Christ, in his ministry to sinners, is, Conte to this feast of the gospel, for all things are ready ; Mat. xxii. 4. This is the condemnation, that when light carne into the world, they loved darkness rather than light ; John iii. 18, 19. Men are expressly condemned because they would not believe in Christ, nor corne unto hint that they might have life; chapter v. 40. and therefore they die in their sins, as the apostle John often repre- sents, chapter viii. 21, 24. Surely the Lord Jesus would never be sent in flaming fire to render vengeance on them that obey
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