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“I Believe In Free Will” “Me, Too”
“That’s where we differ”, said my questioner, “I believe in freewill.” What do you mean by freewill? In one sense nothing can exist, or function, except God permits it, including man’s will. Man is not God, he is not free and self-existent. Man’s will is free only to the extent God allows. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). Yet, undoubtedly, God has allowed men a degree of freedom in their choices and decisions. He does not force us. Even the powerful, sovereign operations of God’s grace in conversion do not drive men to unwilling obedience. Rather, the elect of God, for whom salvation has been eternally purposed are…
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Ten Arguments Against Duty Faith
It is popular in modern evangelical circles to preach that it is the duty of all men to believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. This teaching spawns numerous errors and is so widespread that to question it results in faithful men having their characters and ministry blackened. However, every fashion has its day and we look forward to the time when our brothers and sisters in Christ turn their back on the mongrel gospel of duty faith and return once again to the true gospel of free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. Here are ten arguments with which to rattle and pierce the empty barrel of duty faith. 1. Christ did not teach duty faith All who examine the Lord’s own ministry will…
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Chapter 12: Of Exhortation To Sinners To Come To Christ, In Preaching The Gospel, Examined.
The bowels of Jesus Christ are the greatest bowels to sinners, Phil. 1:8, and therefore let us understand what the bowels and mercies are, Phil. 2:1, and understand what the mind and will of the Lord is, Eph. 5:17, in exhortations. An exhortation plainly differs from an invitation, {though we see that men have mismatched them, as if they understood not the property of them,} and likewise is the difference from an offer of Grace. It is sheer ignorance in the thoughts of any men to take them up promiscuously; that is, without order or consideration, without any regard or respect to difference. An offer, as I’ve have shown, is before a person, and an invitation is of a person, and is sent out after…
Further Study
Chapter 9: Some Texts Of Scripture That Are Evidently Mis-applied To Uphold Offer Preaching, Set Right To Confute The Offer-Way
Epistle To The Reader
Chapter 8: A Continuation To Resolve The Posing Question, How Must We Preach The Gospel To Sinners, If We Do Not Offer The Gospel To Them?
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October 10—Morning Devotion
"That ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel."—Exodus 11:7 Who shall mark down all the properties of distinguishing grace? What a vast difference doth grace make, in this life, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not! And what an everlasting difference will be made in the life which is to come. My soul, make this thought the subject of thine unceasing meditation. Thou canst not walk the street, nor go to public worship, nor watch the Lord's dealings in all the vast and numberless dispensations going on in life, in the wide world of providence and grace, but what every thing speaks, in the language of the morning portion, of the difference…
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The Faith Of God’s Elect
Faith is precious. The Bible tells us so. Yet, not the bare existence of faith. In that sense, faith, in and of itself, is meaningless. I doubt there is a person on the face of this earth who does not claim to have faith in something or other, even if it is simply their own opinion. Similarly, the term ‘people of faith’ has become an all-purpose description to gather together every flavour of religion and all manner of weird and wonderful notions. Christians, Jews, Muslims and flat-earthers are part of the ‘faith community’ but they are not all going to heaven. The Bible says the just shall live by faith and the faith by which the just live is called by Paul the faith of…
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Chapter 11: Of the Invitation of Sinners to Come to Christ.
Having handled the matter of this treatise through the Father’s Donation of Christ, and through the Spirit’s Operation with Christ, I have beaten down, as an instrument in the Lord’s hand, the minister’s dishonourable oblation of Christ. The substance hath been to show, that whilst an offerer of Christ preaches Christ {as he calls it} immediately for acceptance, a faithful steward of the mysteries of Christ {not handling the word of God deceitfully, but workmen like, II Cor. 4:2,} preaches Christ first of all in the Father’s preparations, next in the Son’s procurements, and last of all, under the same communications of the anointing, he preaches Christ in the Spirit’s principles to discern and receive him. I now therefore come to some brief account of…
Further Study
Chapter 4: The Third Principal Point Is To Prove That An Offer Of Grace Is No Gift Of Grace; And Then Where Is Your Offer?
Chapter 6: Some Distinct Resolutions Of The Puzzling Question; How Must We Preach The Gospel To Sinners, If We Do Not Offer The Gospel?
Second Preface (Date Unkown)
