Seventhly. On the other hand, can it accord with the same wisdom of providence to threaten the severest judgments to them, if 'they repented not, or if they turned away from their righteousness, or fell away from their own stedfastness, or endured not to the end,' whom he had absolutely decreed to give repentance to, and 'by continuance in well-doing' to preserve them to a blessed immortality; or to caution them not to do so, or to enquire whether temptations had not prevailed upon them so to do, or bid them fear lest they should do so?

Eighthly. Is it suitable to the sincerity of his providential dispensations, of which his dealings with men, by his revealed will towards them, make so 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 set before them life and death, good and evil, and therefore required them to chuse the good, and refuse the evil,' when he beforehand knew it was impossible for most of them to do either; and after all to enquire 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 such engaging dispensations, and such judgments, they repented not, they turned not to him,' or only did this feignedly? Or lastly, to send his messengers to them with this encouragement, it may be they will consider, it may be they will return from their evil ways, it maybe they will reverence my Son? For what room can there be for any of these suppositions, where the effect depends on God's own immediate acting upon the heart, and not upon any hearing, or consideration of man without it, or upon any dispositions in them, or any means that they can use to move him to enable them to do it?

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Or, lastly, Is it suitable to the same wisdom and sincerity to move such persons by promises to repent and believe, and to require them, having such promises to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? For seeing to call men to faith and repentance, is to call men 'to believe to the salvation of their souls,' and to repent that they may live and not die, and therefore to be seriously willing they should

be saved and not perish, and to pass antecedently a decree of preterition on the sanie men, is seriously to will they shall not be saved, but shall inevitably perish; what wit of man can shew how God can be serious in calling such men to faith and repentance, much less in his concern that they might do so, or in his trouble that they have not done so, and yet be serious and in good earnest in his antecedent decree to deny them that aid without which they never can believe or repent?

CHAP. II.

THE third and last objection respecting the state of Heathens, to whom the gospel 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 consideration, and therefore in this chapter I shall offer what I can produce in the discussion of it.

OBJECTION. The difficulty, as it is abstracted from this controversy, is propounded by Dr. Sherlock thus: "that since all men have immortal souls, and must be happy or miserable for ever. God should for so many ages suffer the whole world, excepting the Jews, to live in ignorance, and in Pagan idolatry and superstition; that Christ came so late into the world to reveal the true God, and to publish the gospel to them; and that so great a part of the world still are Pagans and Mahometans, and that so little a part of the christian world retain the true faith and worship of Christ. This is ten thousand times a greater difficulty than any present evils and calamities; because the consequences of it reach to eternity."

ANSWER. "But then the whole difficulty is no more than this, that we know not what the condition of such men is in the other world, who lived in invincible ignorance of the true God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ in this. This we confess we do not know; but believe so well of God, that we are verily persuaded, could we see what their state will be in another world, we should

e Disc. of Providence, p. 120, &C.

see no reason to quarrel with God only because 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 difficulty is there in knowing nothing of the matter? For if we know nothing of it, we can judge nothing of it. Now seeing we cannot look into the world to come, and cannot otherwise know any thing of the future state of ignorant Heathens but by revelation, that scripture which containeth all our revelations saying nothing of it; it follows that we can judge nothing of it certainly.

"Some men, indeed, but without any authority from scripture, confidently affirm that ignorant Heathens shall suffer the same condemnation which Christ has threatened against wilful infidels and wicked christians; and then it may well be thought a great difficulty that God should as severely punish men for not knowing Christ, when he was never preached to them, and they had no other possible way of knowing him, as he will punish those who have had the gospel of Christ preached to them, but refused to believe in him, or have professed the faith of Christ, but lived very wickedly. But this is a difficulty of their own making, and it would be much more safe for themselves, and much more honourable for God, to confess their own ignorance of such matters, as they have no possible way to know, and to refer all such unknown cases to the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, than to pretend to know what they cannot know, and thence to raise such objections as they cannot answer."

I. As this objection respects this controversy, it run thus: "that God seems to have dealt as severely with the Heathens, to whom the knowledge of his will and gospel hath never been revealed, as we can imagine him to have dealt with men according to the doctrine of absolute election and reprobation, and of special grace vouchsafed only to some few christians, whilst others are left to the defective rule of their own wills without sufficient grace to enable them to turn to God and to do works meet for repentance." For,

First. It may be said, that we are "forced to grant that the grace of conveying the gospel to any persons, and calling them to be his church and people, when other nations were left in darkness,

was of free grace without consideration of any worth in them to whom the gospel was vouchsafed above those who never had the knowledge of it. Now the vouchsafement of the means of grace being from such a free election, without consideration of any worth in the persons, it seems reasonable also to believe that the decree itself concerning the end, viz. the salvation tendered to us by the gospel, is also free; and that it is not always applied to them whom God foresaw would use it better than others, appears from these words of Christ, that if the mighty works which were done in Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.'*

"Moreover seeing it is in fact certain, that the greatest part of mankind have been always left destitute of these means of grace which were vouchsafed to the Jew first, and after to the Gentile, we need not wonder why that God who freely communicates the knowledge of himself by the gospel to some nations, denying it to others, should hold the same methods with individuals that he doth with whole bodies. For the rejecting of whole nations by the lump for so many ages, is much more unaccountable than the selecting of a few to be infallibly conducted to salvation, and leaving others in that state of disability in which they shall inevitably fail of it."-Now to this I reply,

ANSWER FIRST. That this objection doth by no means answer the chief arguments produced against these decrees; it saith, indeed, "that God may as well make such decrees, as leave the greatest part of mankind void of the means of grace;" which will be afterwards considered. But what is this to our chief arguments which are all taken from the inconsistency of these decrees with the truth and sincerity of his following declarations made in scripture, viz. with his commands to all to whom the gospel is vouchsafed, to repent, with his exhortations and desires that they would do so, with his threats of ruin to them if they do not, with the sending his messengers to persuade them to it, with his declarations that he used great patience and long-suffering to lead them to repentance, and did this out of a sincere desire that they might not perish, with all the promises, motives, and encouragements he hath spread before them to induce them to it, with his

a Matthew xi, 21, 24.

enquiries why they would die, with his admiration at their conti-. nuance, 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 cleansed them, and they would not be cleansed; 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, dispersed through the whole body of the scripture? When those of the contrary persuasion can shew the like inconsistency betwixt God's declarations touching the Heathen world and his dealings with them, then, and then only, will they shew this dispensation is obnoxious to the same difficulties which we object against these absolute decrees.

Secondly. I confess there is, and ought to be allowed in reason, a greater depth in the divine providence, and in his dispensations towards the sons of men, than we can fathom by our shallow reason; for he doth great things and unsearchable," and such whose footsteps we can never trace, his judgments are a great abyss, his greatness is unsearchable, his understanding is infinite?' We therefore may put the question of Zophar the Naamathite to the pretended wise and prudent, and most sagacious enquirers into wisdom, Canst thou by wisdom find out GOD? Canst thou search out THE ALMIGHTY to perfection?' Now from this very topick the apostle doth conclude that we are, in such cases as these are, even that of the rejection of his once beloved people, after all that we can say to vindicate his justice, and his goodness, to end in this divine apostrophe, 'Oh the depth of the wisdom, and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! But then as it would be in us an intolerable piece of insolence to say, against the plainest declarations of the scripture, that "God did not in wisdom make the world," because we are not able to discern the wisdom of all things framed in it; so must it be an equal insolence in us to say, “God doth not act in the preserving it, and in the ordering of affairs in it according to the measures of true goodness," because we who are unacquainted with the inward dispositions of men,

Psalm xxxvi, 6, exlv, 3. cxvlii, 5.

• Job xi, 7, 8, 9.

d Romans xi, 33.