N01056:189
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.
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.
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 Obey'd the Call; For no man can know himself to be one of the Elect, until he has Obey'd 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 Priviledges, 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.
Reprobation is not the Immediate Cause, why the Reprobate will not Come unto the Saviour. No; Their own Sinful, Corrupt, Wicked Nature is the Cause. If God should Lay Chains upon a Sinner, against his Will, and then Bid him to Come unto a Saviour, this indeed would look like a Mockery. But the Cause why a Sinner does not Come unto a Saviour, is not because God will not Enable him; 'Tis because he has Disabled himself; he has cast himself into the Snares of Death, and keeps the Chains of Hell upon his own Soul.