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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 in the return 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 gracious 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 another, 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 indepen- dency 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 presupposeth : secondly, against the covenant they are under, and the light they are guided by, before the beams
" Qui liberatur, gratiatn diligat, qui noii libeTaturr-debitum agnoscat. Aug. de bon. persev, cap. 8. Ex nequissimis in ipso vitaj exitu gral4a invenit quos adoptet, cum miilci, qui minus noccntcs videantur, doni inijus alien) sunt. Pros, de voc. Gen. lib. 1. cap. 17.
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of the gospel shine upon them. Now in these generally all are equal," all having sinned and 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, before the gospel? comes unto them, cannot have any general demerit, that the means of life 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 in ungodliness, de- serve 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 negative, 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 not 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.
3. That there is a right in the gospel, and a fitness in that gracious dispensation to be made known to all people in the world ; that no singular portion ot the earth should be any longer a holy land, or any mountain of the world lift up its head above its fellows. And this right hath a double foundation.
(1.) The infinite value and worth of the blood of Christ, giving fulness'' and fitness to the promises founded thereon, to be propounded to all mankind : ' For through his blood,
o 1 Cor. i. 25, 26. P Acts xiv. 16, 17. xvii. 30, 31.
1 Rom. viii.32. Joel ii. 28. John xvii. 22. Rom. i. .7. xvi 26.
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remission of sins is preached to whosoever believes on him;' Acts X. 43. * to every creature;' Matt. xvi. 15. God would have a price of that infinite value for sin laid down, as might justly give advantage, to proclaim a pardon infinitely to all that will come in and accept of it, there being in it no defect at all (though intentionally only a ransom for some), but that by it, ' the world might know that he had done whatsoever the Father commanded him;' John xiv. 31.