N01056:69
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.
But in this Wilderness I find Giants to be Encountered with.
But in this Wilderness I find Giants to be Encountred with.
There is a very Numerous party of men, in the World, who hold no Grace necessary to bring a Sinner into a State of Salvation, but only that which they call Moral Grace, or, Moral Suasion; and which amounts to no more than a Rational Proposal of our Duty, To turn from Sin to God in Christ, with Reasonable Considerations, to Excite men unto the doing of this their Duty. They Deny, any purpose of Mercy in God, for any, but what may be obliged by a Fore-sight of the Good Use, which a Sinner may make of his own Free-will. They Deny, all Gracious Qualities, created ⟨p. 24⟩in the Heart, or Will of a Repenting Sinner by the Spirit of God, and reject the Notion of Infused Habits. They Deny, all such Sanctifying Operations of the Almighty Spirit, on the Will of a Sinner, as will or can Certainly incline it to act, or incline it any more to act, than not to act. All that they will allow Grace to do, is to Propose unto the Will, and leave the Will Indifferent, and leave it wholly unto the Determination of the Free-Will in the Sinner, whether the Proposal shall have any Effect or no. Tis no Special Grace, which they allow; there is in it, no more done by the Spirit of Faith, for them that are Saved, than for them that are Damned. In the mean time, they ascribe such a Vast Power unto the Will of Sinful Man, that they Expressly assert, The Will of man cannot be determined unto its Acts by any Irresistible motion, [Ne ab ipso Deo quidem!] no, not from the Great God Himself. They maintain, That when all the Works of Grace in order to the Conversion of a Sinner are past upon the Will, it still remains in the Free Power of the Will, to Convert, or not Convert it self. The Lord shall not have His Will▪ the Predestination of GOD, and the Undertaking of CHRIST, and the Application of the SPIRIT; shall all come to nothing, if the Will of Sinful Man, will please to Resist it all; The Great GOD can do nothing to overcome the Resistance! Thus is there an Idol Set up, which has more People, and Nations, and Languages, falling down before it, than there did