N01056:91
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 now there is a DEHORTATION to be managed against an Error and a Folly, frequently committed among us. It is a Folly, which we daily see Raging among us; it Stabs the Souls of Multitudes. Multitudes accuse the Predestination of God, as the cause of their ⟨p. 34⟩Impenitent Unbelief; Or at Least, from this Predestination they go to Excuse themselves in their Impenitency. They Argue, [Argue, did I say? I should rather say, They Cavil:] at his rate;
I don't know, Whether I am Chosen of God, or no. None but the Elect shall be Saved. If I am not Elect, unto what purpose is it for me to seek to be Saved? If I am Elect, what need I trouble my self? I cannot miss of being Saved. I don't know, whether I am Given to Christ, or no. It may be, the Death of Christ was never Designed for me. How can I plead the Death of Christ, when, it may be, I am none of those for whom it was Designed. If I perish, how can I help it? It is but what the Lord has Ordered.
I don't know, Whether I am Chosen of God, or no. None but the Elect shall be Saved. If I am not Elect, unto what purpose is it for me to seek to be Saved? If I am Elect, what need I trouble my self? I cannot miss of being Saved. I don't know, whether I am Given to Christ, or no. It may be, the Death of Christ was never Design'd for me. How can I plead the Death of Christ, when, it may be, I am none of those for whom it was Design'd. If I perish, how can I help it? It is but what the Lord has Ordered.
These are the Idle Words, for which men will be greatly Condemned in the Day of Judgment; the Idle Ratiociations, which have a Tendency to make men Idle, in their Preparations for the Day of Judgment.