Wesley Corpus

For if Israel had walked in my ways, I should soon have put down their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.” (Psalm lxxxi. 11, &c.) And all this time, you suppose God had unchangeably ordained, that there never should be “such an heart in them !” that it never should be possible for the people whom he thus seemed to lament over, to hearken unto him, or to walk in his ways! How clear and strong is the reasoning of Dr. Watts on this head “It is very hard indeed, 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 at least 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 his grace to all men, if God has not provided such grace for all men, 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 eternal 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 invi tation, 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 leave and rest the weight of their immortal concerns upon a gospel, a covenant of grace, a Mediator, and his merit and righteousness? all which are a mere nothing with regard to them, a heap of empty names, an unsupporting void which cannot uphold them ?” 41.