The Gospel requires of them a humiliation of soul, a renun- ciation of self-dependence, and a sanctity of heart and life, to which they are utterly indisposed. "They love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evila" ]
Their rejection of it arises altogether from " an evil heart of unbelief b" —
[The Gospel offers salvation, " salvation with eternal glory." But, however desirous men may be of happiness, they will not accept it on the terms proposed. The truth is offensive to their pride, their worldliness, their carnal inclina- tions ; and therefore they hate it, and will not receive it, even though, " if received in the love of it, it would save themc."]
As the just punishment of this unfaithfulness, they are often left to experience, II. A dereliction of God to judicial blindness —
Men, from love of error^ often persuade themselves
that it is truth —
[There are no persons more confident than those who reject the Gospel. Some will pour contempt upon it, as foolishness : others will make it a stumbling-block, as oppos- ing some opinions which they are determined to maintain. And so resolutely will both the one and the other exclude all light from their minds, that they will not only hold fast their delusions, but will really " believe their own lie " ]
To this delusion God himself will often "give them up" —
[" His Spirit shall not alway strive with man." Both under the Jewish and Christian dispensation, "he has given over to a reprobate mind " those who shut their eyes against the truth, and " did not like to retain him in their know- ledged." Nor can there be any thing more just, than that, if we determinately "join ourselves to idols," he should say, " Let them alone"5."]
This sentence once passed, the obstinate unbeliever suffers, III. A final abandonment to everlasting damnation —
The very thought of damnation is terrible in the extreme —
[Who can contemplate what is implied in that judgment, and not tremble at it? -]
a John iii. 19. b Heb. in. 12. c ver. 10.
11 Ps. lxxxi. 11, 12. Rom. i. 28. John xii. 39, 40. e Hos, iv. 17.