TRACT III.

SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE DOCTRINES OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

THAT there is a general sufficiency of pardon, grace, and happiness provided for all mankind through Jesus Christ, which it is left to themselves to accept or refuse, may, I think, be proved by the following considerations:

I. It is very hard to vindicate the sincerity of the blessed God, or his Son in their universal offers of grace and salvation to men, and their sending ministers with such messages and invitations to accept of mercy, if there be not such a conditional pardon and salvation provided for them.

His ministers indeed, as they know not the event of things, may be sincere in offering salvation to all persons, according to their general commission, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' But how can God or Christ be sincere in sending them with this commission, to offer this grace to all men, if God has never provided such grace for any but the elect, no, not so much as conditionally?

It is hard to suppose, that the great God, who is truth itself, and faithful in all his dealings, should call upon dying men to trust in a Saviour for eternal life, when this Saviour has not eterpal life intrusted with him to give them if they

do as he requires? It is hard to conceive, how the great Governor of the world can be sincere, in inviting sinners, who are on the brink of hell, to cast themselves upon an empty word of invitation,a mere shadow and appearance of support, if there be nothing real to bear them up from those deeps of destruction, nothing but mere words and empty invitations. Can we think that the righteous and holy God would encourage his ministers, to call them to lean and rest the weight of their immortal concerns upon a gospel, a covenant of grace, a mediator, and his merit; all which are a mere nothing with regard to them, a heap of empty names, an unsup porting void, which cannot uphold them?When our blessed Redeemer charges the Jews with aggravated guilt for refusing his grace, can we suppose, he had no grace in his hand to offer them? Or when he, as it were, consigns them over to death, because (says he) ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life;' can we suppose, he has no eternal life, not so much as a conditional grant of it in his hands for them?

To avoid these hard and absurd consequences of the calls of grace and offers of salvation,' where none is really provided, some roundly assert there are no calls of grace,no offers of salvation at all in the word of God to any but the elect. But this runs counter to a great many plain scriptures, wherein pardon and salvation are proposed to all sinners whatsoever, without any regard whether they are chosen of God or not. And it is the design and voice of the whole current of scripture, to call sinners to repentance by pro

mises of mercy, and to enforce that which Isaiah speaks, (chap. lxv. 6, 7.) Seek ye the Lord. while he may be found: Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

II. It is very hard to defend the sincerity of the Spirit of God, in awakening the consciences of those persons who are not elected, [as appears from this, that they live and die in their sins,] and stirring them up to think of receiving the salvation of Christ upon the terms of the gospel, if there be no such salvation provided for them, to receive upon any terms. It is hard to suppose he should excite the consciences of such sinners in any degree to any repentings for sin, and bring them near to the kingdom of heaven, in the beginnings of conviction, if there was no pardon provided in any sense for those who are not chosen, whether they repent or no. It is hard to suppose he should give them any, even the weakest excitations, to trust in the merit of a Saviour, if that merit has obtained no salvation for them, not so much as conditional.

* Shall it be ever said, that God the Father, and his Son, and Spirit, have done each their parts to encourage and excite non-elect sinners to accept of, and trust in the gospel for salvation, when there is not so much as the least salvation, even in a conditional sense, provided for them to accept of?

III. It is equally difficult to vindicate the equity of God, as the judge of all meņ, in con

demning unbelievers for not accepting the offers of pardon, if no pardon was provided for them; and in punishing them eternally for not resting on the merit of Christ, and receiving his salvation, if there was no such merit for them to rest upon, nor any such salvation for them to receive. Surely it will appear in that day, that the condemnation of sinners, and their eternal misery, was merely the fruit of their refusing to receive the grace of God provided for them, and offered to them, and not of any want of sufficient provision made for them, by him who calls them to receive it. The language of Christ, in his ministry to sinners, is, Come to the feast of the gospel, for all things are ready: This is the condemnation, that when light came into the world, they loved darkness rather than light. Men are expressly condemned, because they would not come unto Christ, that they might have life. And (as the apostle John often represents) therefore they die in their sins.' And surely the Lord Jesus would never be sent in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them that obey not the gospel, if there was no sufficient provision made, whereby they might be enabled to obey it!

* It will render this consideration much more forcible, when we observe, that there is a much severer condemnation to those who have heard of this gospel, and not embraced it, ni proportion to the light wherein it was set before them. It shall be less tolerable for those who refused the gospel that Christ preached, than for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment.' So their having it thus proposed, makes their case much worse

than if it had never been proposed to them.And can we think that the righteous Judge of the world will send forth words of grace and sal vation, when there is no real grace or salvation in those words, on purpose to make his creatures so much the more miserable? It is very hard indeed to vindicate the righteousness of the sentence, of their double condemnation, for refusing pardon and salvation, if there was not any pardon nor any salvation provided for them!

*IV. The word of God, by the general commands, promises, and threatenings, given to all men whatsoever, and often repeated therein, represents mankind as in a state of trial, and in the way to eternal rewards or punishments, according to their behaviour in this life. Now it is very hard to suppose, all this should be no real and just representation, but a mere amusement: it is hard to suppose, that all these proposals of mercy, and displays of the gracious dealings of God, should be an empty show with regard to all the millions of mankind, besides the few that are chosen to happiness. It is hard to suppose that they should be so fixed in a wretched, hopeless, and deplorable state, under the first sin of the first man, as to be utterly irrecoverable from the ruins of it: yea, as unalterably lost, as the very devils are, for whom there was no Saviour provided, and whom God has not treated in this way of precept, promise, and threatening. Is there not a plain difference made in scripture, between 'the angels who sinned,whom God spared not but cast them down' from heaven ‘under chains of darkness, until the judgment of the great day;'