Proof 14!. "Those that, when the gospel comes, and any spiritual light therein, to them, when they refuse to believe, and suffer them- selves to be withdrawn by other things, they are affirmed to love or choose " darkness rather than light," John iii. 19, (which how could it
396 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK IV.
be, if no light in truth were for them ?) in following I}' ing vanities ; to forsake their own mercies, Jonah ii. 8; to harden their own hearts, Rom. ii. 5; to lose their souls, Matt. xvi. 26; and to destroy them- selves, Hos. xiii. 9. And they being from Adam fallen into darkness, hardness, and their souls [lost], and death jjassed on them, how could these things be if by Jesus Christ no life had been attained, no atone- ment made, no restoration of their souls, nor means procured and used, that they might be saved? God is no hard master, to gather where he hath not strown."
Afis. The sum of this argument is, That those who do not believe upon the preaching of the gospel are the cause of their own ruin and destruction ; therefore, Jesus Christ died for all and every man in the world. Now, though it cannot but be apprehended that it is time cast away and labour lost, to answer such consequences as these, yet I must add a few observations, lest any scruple should remain with the weakest reader; as, — First, All have not the gospel preached to them, nay, from the beginning of the world, the greatest part of men have been passed by in the dispensation of the means of grace, Rom. ii. 14 ; Acts xiv. 16, xvii. 30, — " winked at." All these, then, must be left out in this conclusion, which renders it altogether useless to the business in hand; for the universality of redemption falls to the ground if any one soul be not intended in the payment of the ransom. Secondly, It is not the disbelieving the death of Christ for every in- dividual soul that ever was or shall be (which to believe is nowhere in Scripture required) that is the cause of man's destruction, but a not-believing in the all-sufficiency of the passion and oblation of Jesus Christ for sinners, so as to accept of the mercy procured thereby, upon those terms and conditions that it is held forth in the gospel ; which doth not attend the purpose and intention of God for whom Christ shoidd die, but the sufficiency and efficacy of his death for all that receive him in a due manner, he being the only true way, life, and light, no other name being given under heaven whereby men may be saved. It is a " loving darkness rather than light," as in John iii. 19, the place urged in the proof; which Avord fiaXXov, "rather," there, doth not institute a comparison between their love of darkness and light, as though they loved both, but darkness chiefly; but jilainly intimates an opposition unto the love of light by a full love of dark- ness. And this " men" are said to do ; which being spoken indefinitely, according to the rules of interpreting Scripture followed by this author, should be taken universally, for all men: but we are contented that it be the most of those men to whom Christ jircachcd ; for some also of them " received him," to whom he " gave this privilege, that they should become the sons of God," John i. 1 2.
Why ye should interpret " love" here by " choose," as though cither the words were equivalent, or the word in the original would signify
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either, I can see no reason, for both these are exceeding false. There is a difference between loving and choosing; and as for nyd'irntsav, he would be as bad a translator as ye are an interpreter that should render it " they choose." Now, what is this loving of darkness more than light, but a following and cleaving in affection and practice to the ways wherein they were, being alienated from the life of God, labouring in the unfruitful works of darkness, and refusing to em- brace the heavenly doctrine of the gospel, holding forth peace and reconciliation with God through Christ, with life and immortality thereby. To conclude from hence, [that] therefore Christ died for all and every man in the Avorld, because the greatest part of them to whom he preached the gospel did not believe, is a wild kind of rea- soniug; much better may we infer, that therefore he died not for all men, because it is not " given unto them, for his sake, to believe on him," Phil. i. 29.
Neither will that parenthesis — "Which how could it be, if no light in truth were for them?" — give any light to the former inference; for if the word " for" should denote the intention and purpose of God, the truth is, we dare not say that God intends and purposeth that ^they should receive light who do not, lest by so saying we should make the Strenoi^h of Israel to be like to ourselves, and contradict him who hath said, " My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure," Isa. xlvi. 10. " The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever," Ps. xxxiii. 11; he being " the Lord, and changing not," Mai. iii. 6; James i. 17; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Rom. ix. 11. If by "for them," ye mean such a stock and fulness of light and grace as there is of light in the sun for all the men in the world, though some be blind and cannot see it, then we say that such a hght there is for all in the gospel to whom it is preached, and their own blindness is the sole cause of their not receiving it: so that this hath not got the stone a step forward, which still rolls back upon him.