N01056:94
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.
I. It would be a very Great Sin, in the Greatest Sinner among us all, to conclude himself a Reprobate.
We read, Deut. 29.29. The Secret things belong unto the Lord, but those things which are Revealed, ⟨p. 35⟩belong unto us. Reprobation is One of the Secret Things; You have no Direction to meddle with it. It is not Revealed, who is, and who is not, a Reprobate. But I am sure, it is Revealed, That every One of us ought to come unto the Lord JESUS CHRIST, with as much Alacrity, as if we were already Assured, that the Father has Given us unto Him. A man may, by the Sanctification of the Spirit, and the Belief of the Truth, know himself to belong unto the Election of Grace. But a man cannot ordinarily by his Unsanctified Life, know himself to be a Reprobate. Should a Man be never so Wicked, it would be a further Wickedness in him, to define himself a Reprobate. No; Let the Chief of Sinners among us, be Quickened in Seeking and Pressing after Conversion to God, from this Consideration. Sinner, Thou dost not know, but that there are Thoughts of Mercy, yet in the Heart of the Blessed GOD concerning thee. Many, Many of the Elect of God, have been left unto all the horrid Abominations, that have made thy Soul so Desolate. But they have after all been brought unto the Faith of Gods Elect, and been Called and Justified and Sanctified, and fetched away to Eternal Blessedness. Who can tell? No man alive can tell, but Thou, O Black Sinner, O worst in all the Black Tribe of Sinners, Thou mayest be One of These.
We read, Deut. 29.29. The Secret things belong unto the Lord, but those things which are Revealed, ⟨p. 35⟩belong unto us. Reprobation is One of the Secret Things; You have no Direction to meddle with it. It is not Revealed, who is, and who is not, a Reprobate. But I am sure, it is Revealed, That every One of us ought to come unto the Lord JESUS CHRIST, with as much Alacrity, as if we were already Assured, that the Father has Given us unto Him. A man may, by the Sanctification of the Spirit, and the Belief of the Truth, know himself to belong unto the Election of Grace. But a man cannot ordinarily by his Unsanctified Life, know himself to be a Reprobate. Should a Man be never so Wicked, it would be a further Wickedness in him, to define himself a Rebrobate. No; Let the Chief of Sinners among us, be Quickened in Seeking and Pressing after Conversion to God, from this Consideration. Sinner, Thou dost not know, but that there are Thoughts of Mercy, yet in the Heart of the Blessed GOD concerning thee. Many, Many of the Elect of God, have been left unto all the horrid Abominations, that have made thy Soul so Desolate. But they have after all been brought unto the Faith of Gods Elect, and been Called and Justified and Sanctified, and fetch'd away to Eternal Blessedness. Who can tell? No man alive can tell, but Thou, O Black Sinner, O worst in all the Black Tribe of Sinners, Thou mayest be One of These.