Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

Or was it out of a foresight that the Gentiles would embrace it, and the Jews reject it, that the Gentiles would embrace it in one place and not in another? How did God foresee it but in his own Grace, which he was resolved to display in one, not in another? It must be then still resolved into his Sovereign pleasure. Or did he foresee it in their wills and nature? What, were they not all one common dross? Was any part of Adam by nature better than another? How did God foresee that which was not, nor could be, without his pleasure to give ability and Grace to receive?

Or was it out of a foresight that the Gentiles would embrace it, and the Jews reject it, that the Gentiles would embrace it in one place and not in another? How did God foresee it but in his own Grace, which he was resolved to display in one, not in another? It must be then still resolved into his Soveraign pleasure. Or did he foresee it in their wills and nature? What, were they not all one common dross? Was any part of Adam by nature better than another? How did God forsee that which was not, nor could be, without his pleasure to give ability and Grace to receive?

Well then, what reason but the Sovereign pleasure of God can be alleged, why Christ forbade the Apostles at their first Commission to Preach to the Gentiles? Matth. 10.15. But at the second and standing Commission orders them to Preach to every Creature. Why did he put a demur to the resolutions of Paul and Timothy, to impart light to Bithynia, or Order them to go into Macedonia? Was that Country more worthy upon whom lay a great part of the blood of the world shed in Alexander's time? Acts 16.6, 7, 9, 10. Why should Corazin and Bethsaida enjoy those means, that were not granted to the Tyrians and Sidonians, who might probably have sooner reached out their Arms to welcome it? Matth. 11.21. Why should God send the Gospel into our Island, and cause it to flourish so long here, and not send it, or continue it in the furthest Eastern parts of the World? Why should the very profession of Christianity possess so small a compass of ground in the world, but five parts in Thirty, the Mahometans holding six parts, and the other nineteen overgrown with Paganism, where either the Gospel was never planted, or else since rooted up? To whom will you refer this, but to the