A Call to the Unconverted

I know there are many particular cavils that are brought by them against the Lord, but I shall not here stay to answer them particularly, having done it already in ⟨p. 228⟩in my Treatise of Judgement, to which I shall refer them. Had the disputing part of the world been as careful to avoid sin and destruction, as they have been busy in searching after the cause of them, and forward indirectly to impute it to God, they might have exercised their wits more profitably, and have less wronged God, and sped better themselves. When so ugly a monster as sin is within us, and so heavy a thing as punishment is on us, and so dreadful a thing as Hell is before us, one would think it should be an easy question, who is in the fault, and whether God or man be the principal or culpable cause▪ Some men are such favourable Judges of themselves, that they are proner to accuse the Infinite Perfection and Goodness it self, then their own hearts: and imitate their first parents that said, The Serpent tempted ⟨p. 229⟩me, and the woman that thou gavest me, gave unto me, and I did eat;] secretly implying that God was the cause. So say they, [The understanding that thou gavest me, was unable to discern; the will that thou gavest me, was unable to make a better choice; the objects which thou didst set before me, did entice me; the temptation which thou didst permit to assault me, prevailed against me. And some are so loth to think that God can make a self-determining creature, that they dare not deny him that which they take to be his prerogative, to be the determiner of the will in every sin, as the first efficient immediate physical cause. And many could be content to acquit God from so much causing of evil, if they could but reconcile it with his being the chief cause of good; as if truths must be no longer truths, then we are able to see ⟨p. 230⟩them in their perfect order and coherence: because our r•velled wits cannot set them right together, nor assign each truth its proper place, we presume to conclude that some must be cast away. This is the fruit of proud self-conceitedness, when men receive not Gods truths as a child his lesson, in an holy submission to the omniscience of our Teacher, but as Censurers that are too wise to learn.