Christ's willingness to receive sinners. John vi. 37. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
IT is a pleasing reflection that there is a people secured to Christ, who, having been given to him by the Father, shall, each in his appointed time, " be gathered unto Shiloh," to be the fruits of his travail, and the spoils of his victory. This pleasure however would be greatly damped, if we believed, that there were any infallibly, and from eternity, given over to perdition, who should be sent into the world for no other purpose than to fill up the measure of their iniquities, and to fit themselves for the place, to which they had been doomed by an eternal and irreversible decree. We confess that we cannot so draw the line between prasterition and predestination, as to satisfy in all cases a cavilling, or perhaps a scrupulous mind : but the same difficulties occur, if we attempt to mark the distinct boundaries of free will, and free grace; or to shew how the existence of sin could ever consist with the holiness of God. This however is not our province : we must leave to God to reconcile the difficulties that occur ; and receive the truths he de- clares, not because we can comprehend every thing- respecting them, but because they are revealed by an unerring God. That some are secured to Christ appears from hence, that, if they were not, it might eventually happen, that none might come to him ; and consequently, that he might shed his blood in vain. We are not however left to found this sentiment on any uncertain reasonings of our own ; since our Lord himself, in the very words before the text, says, " All that the Father hath given me, shall come to me." But are all others therefore of necessity sealed up unto perdition? no; for he adds, " And him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."
To improve this blessed declaration, let us con- sider,
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