(1.) If there had been no difficulties, there had been no dehver- auces. And did we never find our hearts so enlarged towards God upon such advantages, as to say. Well, this day's temper of spirit was cheaply purchased by yesterday's anguish and fear; — that was but a being sick at sea?
(2.) Had there been no tempests and storms, we had not made out for shelter. Did you never run to a tree for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you expected not? Did you never go to God
UNCHANGEABLE, FEEE MERCY. 19
for safeguard in these times/ driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit, the " peaceable fruit of righteousness," ^ that made you say, Happy tempest, which cast me into such a harbour ? It was a storm ^ that occasioned the discovery of the golden mines of India; — hath not a storm driven some to the discovery of the richer mines of the love of God in Christ?
(3.) Had not Esau come against him with four hundred men, Jacob had not been called Israel; — he had not been put to it to try his strength with God, and so to prevail. Who would not purchase with the greatest distress that heavenly comfort which is m the retu^m of prayers? The strength of God's Jacobs in this kingdom had not been known, if the Esaus had not come against them. Some say, this war hath made a discovery of England's strength, what it is able to do. I think so also, — not what armies it can raise against men, but with what armies of prayers and tears it is able to deal with God. Had not the brethren strove in the womb, Rebekah had not asked, "Why am I thus?" — nor received that answer, "The elder shall serve the younger." Had not two sorts of people struggled in the womb of this kingdom, we had not sought, nor received, such gra- cious answers. Thus do all the various motions of the lower wheels serve for our good, and exactly answer the impression they receive from the master-spring, the eternal purpose of God. Of this hitherto.
II. The sending of the gospel to any one nation rather than an- other, as the means of life and salvation, is of the mere free grace and good pleasure of God.
Now, before I come to make out the absolute independency and freedom of this distinguishing mercy, I shall premise three things.
1. That the not sending of the gospel to any person or people is of God's mere good pleasure,^ and not of any peculiar distinguishing demerit in that person or people. No man or nation doth "majorem ponere obicem," lay more or greater obstacles against the gospel than another. There is nothing imaginable to lay a block in the passage thereof but only sin. Now, these sins are, or may be, of two sorts ; — either, first, Against the gospel itself, which may possibly hinder the receiving of the gospel, but not the sending of it, which it pre- supposeth: secondly. Against the covenant they are under, and the light they are guided by, before the beams of the gospel shine upon them. Now, in these generally all are equal,® all having sinned and
' Prov. xviii. 10. 2 Heb. xii. 11.
^ Pet. Mart, de Relig. Jud. decad. i. lib. 1.
* " Qui liberatur, gratiam diligat, qui non liberatur, debitum agnoscat." — Aug. de Bon. Persev., cap. viii. " Ex nequissimis in ipso vitfe exitu gratia invenit quos adoptet, cum tamen multi, etiam qui minus uocentes videantur, doni hujus alieni sunt."— Pros, de Voc. Gen., lib. i. cap. 17.
« 1 Cor. i, 25, 26.
20 A VISION OF
come short of the glory of God ; and in particular sins against the law and light of nature, no nations have gone farther than they which were soonest enlightened with the word, as afterward will appear : so that the sole cause of this is the good pleasure of God, as our Saviour affirmeth, Matt. xi. 25, 26.
2. That sins against the covenant of works, which men are under iDcfore the gospel ^ comes unto them, cannot have any general de- merit, that the means of Hfe and salvation by free grace should not be imparted to them. It is true, all nations have deserved to be turned into hell, and a people that have had the truth, and detained it iu ungodliness, deserve to be deprived of it; — the first, by virtue of the sanction of the first broken covenant; the other, by sinning against that which they had of the second. But that men in a fallen condition, and not able to rise, should hereby deserve not to be helped up, needeth some distinction to clear it.
There is, then, a twofold demerit and indignity ; — one merely nega- tive, or a not deserving to have good done unto us ; the other positive, deserving that good should not be done unto us. The first of these is found in all the world, in respect of the dispensation of the gospel If the Lord should bestow it only on those who do deserve it, he must for ever keep it closed up in the eternal treasure of his own bosom. The second is found directly in none, in respect of that peculiar way which is discovered in the gospel, because they had not sinned against it; which, rightly considered, gives no small lustre to the freedom of grace.