The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God…

The Major is plain enough: People must not be kept from doing that which is their duty at all times. God calls me to Christ: it is my duty to go to him. God offers Christ to me: it is my duty to receive him. God commands me to believe in him: the highest disobedience that can be not to obey. He threatens me with his wrath if I do not believe: I must be damned then if I do not believe in him. God promiseth me, if I believe in him, I shall have his Love, his Grace, be saved: My duty is to believe his Truth and faithfulness: in my Baptism God sealed his Promise and his Covenant: it is my duty to make use of it, to look to my condition under that Covenant, and believe Gods truth, goodness, faithfulness in it: In all these my duty is to believe, God was real, that he did not offer, call, command, promise, seal one thing and mean another; God did not mock me, nor dare I mock him. On the other side, Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Hooker tell me, it is my duty to be content, satisfied without Christ (for if I must be content to be without Gods Love, Grace, and be damned, then I must be content without Christ) if God will have it so: But, say I, Gods will appears contrary, he tells me my duty plainly in all those Heads. There is an imagination, a supposition, set against as plain duties as any in the Bible.

The Major is plain enough: People must not be kept from doing that which is their duty at all times. God calls me to Christ: it is my duty to go to him. God offers Christ to me: it is my duty to receive him. God commands me to believe in him: the highest disobedience that can be not to obey. He threatens me with his wrath if I do not believe: I must be damned then if I do not believe in him. God promiseth me, if I believe in him, I shall have his Love, his Grace, be saved: My duty is to believe his Truth and faithfulness: in my Baptisme God sealed his Promise and his Covenant: it is my duty to make use of it, to look to my condition under that Covenant, and believe Gods truth, goodness, faithfulness in it: In all these my duty is to believe, God was real, that he did not offer, call, command, promise, seal one thing and mean another; God did not mock me, nor dare I mock him. On the other side, Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Hooker tell me, it is my duty to be content, satisfied without Christ (for if I must be content to be without Gods Love, Grace, and be damned, then I must be content without Christ) if God will have it so: But, say I, Gods will appears contrary, he tells me my duty plainly in all those Heads. There is an imagination, a supposition, set against as plain duties as any in the Bible.