earneft what he could have done more to make them fruitful in good works than he had done? Can he declare he was longJuffering towards them because he was not willing they fhould perifh, but rather by his patience fhould be led unto repentance; and yet, from all eternity, decree to leave them under a fad neceffity of perifhing, and to deny them that affift ance which could alone produce within them repentance unto life?

6thly. Doth it comport with the wifdom of providence, to promife or to threaten upon impoffible conditions, an impoffible condition being in true conftruction, none at all; how much lefs will it comportwith the fame wifdom to tender the convenant of grace to all mankind to whom the gofpel is vouchfafed upon conditions which the most part of them, before that convenant was established, were utterly unable to perform, and who by God's decree of preterition were inevitably left under that dif ability; or to declare he exercifed fuch providences towards his people to try them, thus difabled, whether they would obey his commandments or not, i. e. whether they would exercife those faculties which, under that difability, they could not exercife? Is it agreeable to this wifdom to be ftill foliciting, entreating, chaflifing, punishing, alluring and fending prophets, preachers, meffengers to engage them to do what his decree, de non dando auxilium neceffarium, of not affording the aid necef fary for thofe ends, had rendered it impoffible for them to do? Surely thefe dealings must import this, that God saw they might have done what, through want of due attention, confideration and reflection, they did not; or that he paffionately defired that might be done, which only was not done, because he did not unfruftrable work the change in them? That is, he ferioufly defired and wifhed they had been of the number of his elect, when he himself, by an abfolute decree from all eternity, had excluded them out of that number.

7thly. On the other hand, can it accord with the fame wif dom of providence to threaten the fevereft judgments to them, if they repented not, or if they turned away from their rightcoufnefs, or fell away from their own fedfaftness, or endured not to the end, whom he had abfolutely decreed to give repentance to, and by continuance in welldoing to preferve them to a blessed immortality; or to caution them not to do so, or to inquire whether temptations had not prevailed upon them fo to do, or bid them fear left they fhould do fo.

8thly. Is it fuitable to the fincerity of his providential dif penfations, of which his dealings with men by his revealed will towards them, make fo great a part, to move them to the performance of their duty only by motives which he knows cannot work upon them without that farther aid he from eternity

hath determined to deny them; or to call heaven and earth to witness that he had fet before them life and death, good and evil, and therefore required them to choose the good, and refuse the evil, when he before hand knew it was impoffible for most of them to do either; and after all to inquire what could he have done more to render them obedient, to ask why they would not be made clean? Or when this would once be? And to wonder at their unbelief, and upbraid them for their impenitence, and to complain that, after fuch engaging difpenfations, and fuch judgments, they repented not, they turned not to him, or only did this feignedly? Or, laftly, to fend his meffengers to them with this encouragement, it may be they will confider, it may be they will return from their evil ways, it may be they will reverence my fon; for what room can there be for any of thefe fuppofitions, where the effect depends on God's own immediate acting upon the heart, and not upon any hearing, or confideration of man without it, or upon any difpofitions in them, or any means that they can use to move him to enable them to do it.

-xOr laftly. Is it fuitable to the fame wifdom and fineerity to move fuch perfons by promifes to repent and believe, and to require them, having fuch promifes to cleanfe themselves from all filthiness of flesh and fpirit, perfedling holiness in the fear of God? For feeing to call men to faith and repentance, is to call men to believe to the falvation of their fouls, and to repent that they may live and not die, and therefore to be seriously willing they should be fayed and not perish, and to pass antecedently a decree of preterition on the fame men, is feriously to will they fhall not be faved, but fhall inevitably perish; what wit of man can fhew how God can be ferious in calling fuch men to faith and repentance, much lefs in his concern, that they might do fo, or in his trouble, that they have not done fo, and yet be ferious and in good earnest in his antecedent decree to deny them that aid, without which they never can believe or repent?

CHAPTER II.

TH HE third and laft objection respecting the ftate of Heathens, to whom the gofpel either never hath been tendered, or who for many ages have been deprived of the knowledge of it, being of more importance, requires a more large confideration, and therefore in this chapter I fhall offer what I can produce in the difcuffion of it.

Objection. The difficulty, as it is abftracted from this controverfy is propounded by (e) Dr. Sherlock thus: “That fince all men have immortal fouls, and must be happy or miferable forever, God fhould for fo many ages fuffer the whole world, excepting the Jews, to live in ignorance, and in Pagan idolatry and fuperftition, that Chrift came fo late into the world to reveal the true God, and to publifh the gospel to them; and that so great a part of the world ftill are Pagans and Mahometans, and that fo little a part of the chriftian world retain the true faith and worship of Chrift. This is ten thoufand times a greater difficulty than any prefent evils and calamities; because the confequences of it reach to eternity."

Anfwer." But then the whole difficulty is no more than this, that we know not what the condition of fuch men is in the other world, who lived in invincible ignorance of the true God, and of our Savior Jefus Chrift in this; this we_confess we do not know, but believe fo well of God, that we are verily perfuaded, could we fee what their ftate will be in another world, we should fee no reason to quarrel with God, only be cause we know not how he deals with the ignorant Heathens in the other world; if we knew how God dealt with these men, and knew that he dealt hardly by them, as far as we could judge, this would be a difficulty; but what diffiulty is there in knowing nothing of the matter? For if we know nothing of it, we can judge nothing of it. Now feeing we cannot look into the world to come, and cannot otherwise know any thing of the future ftate of ignorant Heathens but by revelation, that fcripture which containeth all our Revelations, faying nothing of it; it follows that we can judge nothing of it certainly.

"Some men indeed, but without any authority from fcripture, confidently affirm that ignorant Heathens fhall fuffer the fame condemnation which Chrift has threatened against wilful

(e) Difc. of Providence, p. 120. &c.

infidels, and wicked chriftians, and then it may well be thought a great difficulty that God fhould as feverely punish men for not knowing Chrift, when he was never preached to them, and they had no other poffible way of knowing him, as he will punish those who have had the gospel of Chrift preached to them, but refused to believe in him, or have profeffed the faith of Chrift, but lived very wickedly; but this is a difficulty of their own making, and it would be much more fafe for themselves, and much more honorable for God, to confefs their own ignorance of fuch matters, as they have no poffible way to know, and to refer all fuch unknown cafes to the wifdom, justice and goodness of God, than to pretend to know what they cannot know, and thence to raife fuch objections as they cannot answer."

SECTION I.-As this objection refpects this controversy,

it runs thus: That God feems to have dealt as Controversy,

with

the Heathens, to whom the knowledge of his will and gofpel hath never been revealed, as we can imagine him to have dealt with men according to the doctrine of abfolute election and reprobation, and of fpecial grace vouchfafed only to fome few chriftians, whilst others are left to the defective rule of their own wills without fufficient grace to enable them to turn to God and to do works meet for repentance. For,

1ft. It may be faid that we are forced to grant that the grace of conveying the gofpel to any perfons, and calling them to be his church and people when other nations were left in darknefs, was of free grace without confideration of any worth in them to whom the gofpel was vouchfafed above those who never had the knowledge of it. Now the vonchfafement of the means of grace being from fuch a free election, without confideration of any worth in the perfons, it feems reafonable alfo to believe that the decree itfelf concerning the end, viz. the fal vation tendered to us by the gofpel is alfo free; and that it is not always applied to them whom God forefaw would ufe it better than others, appears from thefe words of Christ, that (a) if the mighty works which were done in Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethfaida, had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented.

Moreover feeing it is in fact certain, that the greatest part of mankind have been always left deftitute of thefe means of grace which were vouchfafed to the Jew firft, and after to the Gentiles, we need not wonder why that God who freely communicates the knowledge of himself by the gospel to fome nations, denying it to others, fhould hold the fame methods with individuals, that he doth with whole bodies; for the

(a) Matth. xi. 21, 24.

rejecting of whole nations by the lump for fo many ages, is much more unaccountable than the felecting of a few to be in fallibly conducted to falvation, and leaving others in that state of difability in which they shall inevitably fail of it. Now to this I reply,

Anfwer. 11ft. That this objection doth by no means anfwer the chief arguments produced against thefe decrees; it faith indeed, that God may as well make fuch decrees, as leave the greatest part of mankind void of the means of grace; which will be afterwards confidered. But what is this to our chief arguments which are all taken from the inconfiftency of thefe decrees, with the truth and fincerity of his following declarations made in fcripture viz. with his commands to all to whom the gofpel is vouchfafed, to repent, with his exhortations and defires that they would do fo, with his threats of ruin to them if they do not, with the fending his meffengers to perfuade them to it, with his declarations that he used great patience and longfuffering to lead them to repentance, and did this out of a fincere defire that they might not perish, with all the promises, motives and encouragements he hath spread before them to induce them to it, with his inquiries, why they would die? With his admiration at their continuance, after all his dealings, in their impenitence, and his upbraiding them for not repenting; with his questions when they would be made clean? With his declarations that he would have cleanfed them, and they would not be cleanfed; he would have gathered them, and they would not be gathered? With his appeal to them, what he could have done more than he had done to effect it, and innumerable things of the like nature, difperfed through the whole body of the fcripture? When those of the contrary perfuafion can fhew the like inconsistency betwixt God's declarations, touching the Heathen world, and his dealings with them, then, and then only will they fhew this difpenfation is obnoxious to the fame difficulties which we object against, thefe abfolute decrees.

2dly. I confels there is, and ought to be allowed in reafon, a greater depth in the divine providence, and in his dipenfa tions towards the fons of men, than we can fathom by cur fhallow reafon; for (b) he doth great things and unfearchable, and fuch whofe footsteps we can never trace, his judgments are a great abyfs, his greatnefs is unfearchable, his understanding is infinite. We therefore may put the quefiion of Zophar the Naamathite to the pretended wife and prudent, and moft fagacious inquirers into wildom, (c) canft thou by wifdom find out God? Canft thou Jearch out the Almighty to

(b) Pfal, xxxvi, 6. cxlv. 3. cxlvii, 5. c) Job xi. 7, 8, 9.

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