§. IV.
4. It makes the Gospel a Mock.Fourthly, It makes the Preaching of the Gospel a mere Mock and Illusion, if many of these, to whom it is preached, be by any irrevocable Decree excluded from being benefited by it; it wholly makes useless the Preaching of Faith and Repentance, and the whole Tenor of the Gospel-promises and Threatenings, as being all relative to a former Decree and Means before appointed to such; which, because they cannot fail, Man needs do nothing but wait for that irresistible Juncture, which will come, though it be but at the last Hour of his Life, if he be in the Decree of Election; and be his Diligence and Waiting what it can, he shall never attain it, if he belong to the Decree of Reprobation.
5. It makes the Coming of Christ an Act of Wrath.Fifthly, It makes the Coming of Christ, and his Propitiatory Sacrifice, which the Scripture affirms to have been the Fruit of God’s Love to the World, and transacted for the Sins and Salvation of all Men, to have been rather a Testimony of God’s Wrath to the World, and one of the greatest Judgments, and severest Acts of God’s Indignation towards Mankind, it being only ordained to save a very few, and for the hardening, and augmenting the Condemnation of the far greater Number of Men, because they believe not truly in it; the Cause of which Unbelief again, as the Divines [so called] above assert, is the hidden Counsel of God: Certainly the Coming of Christ was never to them a Testimony of God’s Love, but rather of his implacable Wrath: And if the World may be taken for the far greater Number of such as live in it, God never loved the World, according to this Doctrine, but rather hated it greatly, in sending his Son to be crucified in it.