N01056:78
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.
Shall the Children of God say, That God had ⟨p. 28⟩no more Thoughts of Love to them from Eternity, than to those that are under His Everlasting Hatred? That Christ purchased no more for them, than for those that are gone to the Place of Dragons? That the Spirit has done no more, to bring them unto Holiness and Happiness, than for those that wallow for ever in their Filthiness? Oh! do not so go to stifle your Love to God! The Transcendent Love, which you owe to God! Nor take such a way to render your selves Lovers of your selves more than Lovers of God! Abhor those Opinions which will put by your Praises to God, for the Greatest of His Mercies; the Praises wherewith God is to be most of all Glorified for Eternal Ages! Tell us, O ye Adversaries of Grace, and of Christian Gratitude; According to you, what has God done more for Simon Peter, than for Simon Magus? What more for John than for Judas? What more for Paul the Apostle, than for Alexander the Coppersmith?
What will become of our Faith in God, about those concerns, wherein the Wills of men, are concerned? If men are the Masters of their own Wills? If God may not Determine the Wills of men, without Destroying the Nature, the Freedom, of them? Why should we thus render it unnecessary, yea, unreasonable, to Pray for our selves, or others. What? Shall we not Ask of the God of all Grace, that He would Convert us? That He would Incline our Wills to the Things that are ⟨p. 29⟩Holy, and Just, and Good? That He would Effectually bring Home to Himself, all those that are about us? If it be in our own power, why do we put it into our Prayer? If it be not God, who does this for us, by His Grace, but we do it for our selves, why do we go to God for it? Whenever these people Pray, That their own, or other wills may be Subdued unto that which is Right, their Prayers contradict their Principles. Let none of our Hearers Entertain Principles, that have such a Tendency, to confound their Prayers.