N01056:188
Free-grace, maintained & improved. Or, The general offer of the Gospel, managed with considerations…
Free-grace, maintained & improved. Or, The general offer of the Gospel, managed with considerations of the great things done by special grace, in the election and redemption and vocation of those who embrace that offer. And the illustrious doctrines of divine predestination and humane impotency, rescued from the abuses, which they too frequently meet withal; and rendered (as they are) highly useful to the designs of practical piety. : In two brief discourses; published at the desire of some, who have been greatly apprehensive of growing occasions for such treatises.
Boston: printed by B. Green, 1706
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
'Tis true; The Lord knows, that Reprobates will not Come unto Him; And, He knows, that He will ⟨p. 69⟩not give them a Will to Come. Yet He Delude no man, when He says to all men, Him that comes unto […] I will in no wise cast out. Where is the Reprobate, who can say, That the Lord has dealt falsely with him? It must be a man, who knows himself to be a Reprobate. This no man Living does. O man, As 'tis thy Duty to come unto thy Saviour, so 'tis thy Duty to reckon it probable, that thou art one whom the Lord intends to bring unto thy Saviour. To doom thy self a Reprobate, would be a Criminal Impiety: Oh! Do it not!
'Tis true; The Lord knows, that Reprobates will not Come unto Him; And, He knows, that He will ⟨p. 69⟩not give them a Will to Come. Yet He Delude no man, when He says to all men, Him that comes unto 〈…〉 I will in no wise cast out. Where is the Reprobate, who can say, That the Lord has dealt falsely with him? It must be a man, who knows himself to be a Reprobate. This no man Living does. O man, As 'tis thy Duty to come unto thy Saviour, so 'tis thy Duty to reckon it probable, that thou art one whom the Lord intends to bring unto thy Saviour. To doom thy self a Reprobate, would be a Criminal Impiety: Oh! Do it not!
Had the Call to come unto a Saviour, been directed unto the Elect, exclusive of the Reprobate, or been any other than unto All the Children of man in general, the Ends of the Call had utterly been defeated. On the one side; No man would have Obeyed the Call; For no man can know himself to be one of the Elect, until he has Obeyed the Call. Every Individual man, would have been at a Loss; whether he might have come unto the Saviour, or no. On the other side; The Reprobate now Enjoy many Privileges, many Advantages by the Call. It Restrains them from very much Disorder: It proves an Instrument that furnishes them with many Ornaments. And, It prevents their passing away their Time, in such a doleful Desperation, as would otherwise make very Devils of them.