that can say with David, "I have kept myself from mine [Ps. 18.23.] iniquity?" Or, to use the words of the Prophet, "Run ye [Jer. 5. 1.] to and fro through the streets of the city, and see now and know, and seek if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth, that serveth the Lord with a perfect heart and a willing mind." I do not deny but there are a great many professors of religion amongst us, who would fain be accounted more strict and holy than their neighbours, so as to be reckoned the religious; as the friars and nuns are in the Church of Rome: but are they therefore to be esteemed the elect and chosen of God, because they fancy themselves to be so? Or rather is not their pride and self-conceitedness an argument that they are not so? Blessed be God for it, I have no spleen nor rancour against any of them, but heartily wish they were as truly good and holy as they would seem to be. But what? Is not pride a sin? Is not self-conceitedness a sin? Is not irreverence in God's worship a sin? Is not disobedience to magistrates a sin? Is not uncharitableness or censoriousness a sin? Certainly all these will be found to be sins another day. And, therefore, whatsoever pretences men may make unto religion, if they allow themselves in such sins as these, they are as far from being in the number of the chosen as the most dissolute and scandalous persons in the world but when these, too, are removed from the number of the called, how few of them will appear to be chosen !

5. Yet once again. Take out all such as believe not in our Lord Jesus Christ, but, being morally honest and faithful in performing their duty to God and man, trust more in their own good works than to His merit and Mediation. For that all such are to be excluded, is plain from the whole tenour of the Gospel, which assures us, that there is no Salvation to be had but only by Jesus Christ; nor by Him neither, but only by believing in Him. But if Christ should come this day to judgment, would He find faith upon earth? Verily, I fear, He would find but very little, if any at all, amongst us: He might, I believe, find some pretty strict and circumspect in obeying of His other laws, or at least in endeavouring to do so. But for man to do all that

G G

is required of him, and yet to count himself an unprofitable servant, for a man to do all he can, and yet rest upon nothing that he hath done, but to depend wholly upon another, even upon Jesus Christ, for life and happiness,-this is hard indeed to flesh and blood, and as rare to find as it is to find a rose among the weeds and thistles of a barren wilderness, or a diamond amongst the gravel upon the sea-shore: here and there I believe there may be found one, but so rarely, that they can scarce be termed any, be sure but very few, in comparison of the many who are called.

Now, let us put these things together, and we shall easily grant that this saying of our Saviour was but too true, that "many are called, but few chosen." And to bring it closer to ourselves, we are all called to repent and believe the Gospel: now, take out from amongst us all ignorant persons, that have heard indeed, but understand not what they hear; all atheistical persons, that believe not really there is a God to judge them; all debauched sinners, that live in open and notorious crimes; all pharisaical hypocrites, that avoid open, but indulge themselves in secret sins, that have [2Tim.3.5.]" the form but not the power of godliness;" and all such [Phil. 3. 6.] who are as St. Paul was before his conversion, "as touching

the righteousness of the Law blameless," but yet believe not
in Jesus Christ. Take out, I say, all such persons as I have
named from amongst us, and what a small number propor-
tionably should we have left behind! how many would be
excluded the presence of God! how few would continue in
it! What cause should we then have to
say with our
Saviour, that" many are called, but few are chosen !"

Having thus explained the meaning, and confirmed the truth, of this proposition, that many are called, but few chosen, we must consider the reasons of it, how it comes to pass, that of the many which are called, there are but few chosen; a thing which I confess we have all just cause to wonder and admire at. Are not men all rational creatures? Are they not able to distinguish betwixt good and evil? Do not they understand their own interest? What, then, should be the reason that so many of them should be called and invited to the chiefest good, the highest happiness their natures are capable of, yet so few of them should mind or

prosecute it, so as to be chosen or admitted into the participation of it? What shall we ascribe it to? The will and pleasure of Almighty God, as if He delighted in the ruin of His creatures, and therefore, although He calls them, He would not have them to come unto Him? No, that cannot be; for in His revealed will, which is the only rule that we are to walk by, He hath told us the contrary in plain terms, and hath confirmed it, too, with an oath, saying, “ As I live, saith Ezek.33.11. the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,

but that he should turn from his way and live." And elsewhere He assures us, that He would "have all men to be 1 Tim. 2. 4. saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." And therefore, if we believe what God saith, nay, if we believe what He hath sworn, we must needs acknowledge, that it is His will and pleasure that as many as are called should be all chosen and saved. And indeed, if He had no mind that we should come when we are called to Him, why should He call us all to come? Why hath He given us His Word,~ His Ministers, His Ordinances, and all to invite and oblige us to repent and turn to Him, if after all He was resolved not to accept of us, nor would have us come at all? Far be it from us that we should have such hard and unworthy thoughts of the great Creator and Governor of the world, especially considering that He hath told us the contrary, as plainly as it was possible for Him to express His mind to us. I do not deny but that, according to the Apostle, "Known unto God are all His works from Acts 15. 18. the beginning of the world." And there are several passages in Scripture which intimate unto us God's eternal election of all that are truly pious, to live with Him for ever. But it is not for us to be so bold and impudent as to pry into the secrets of God, nor so curious as to search into His eternal and incomprehensible decrees; but we must still remember the words of Moses, that "secret things belong Deut. 29.29. unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us, that we may do all the words of His Law." Whatsoever is necessary for us to believe or do, in order to our eternal Salvation, is clearly revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures; and therefore what we there read belongs unto us to know, neither are we to look any further than to His

revealed will. But God in the Scriptures doth plainly tell

us, not only in the places before quoted, but elsewhere, that 2 Pet. 3. 9. He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." This is the revealed will of God, which we are to acquiesce in, and rest fully satisfied with, so as to act accordingly, without concerning ourselves about things that are too high for us, and no way belong unto us. And therefore it is not in His secret but revealed will, that we are to search for the reasons of this proposition, that "many are called, but few chosen."

Now, in consulting the Word of God to find out the reasons of this so strange assertion, that many are called, but few chosen, I know no better or fitter place to search for them than this parable, which gave our blessed Saviour the occasion of asserting it; in which it is very observable that He meddles not at all with any reasons à priori, deduced from the eternal decrees of His Father, but He only suggests to us the reasons à posteriori, drawn from the disposition and carriage of men, why so many of them are called, and yet so few chosen.

For the opening whereof we must know that the end and intent of this parable was only to shew the entertainment which His Gospel had then, and should still meet with in the world; many refusing to embrace it at all, and of those who embrace it, many still walking unworthy of it. So that the issue and consequence of it will be, that though many be called to it, there are but few chosen. And He hath so worded the parable that we need not seek any further for the reasons of this His conclusion from it, they being almost clearly couched in the parable itself; which that we may the better understand, I shall open and explain them particularly, so as to make them intelligible, I hope, to the meanest capacity.

1. The first reason, therefore, why so many are called, but so few chosen, is because they who are called to Christ will not come unto Him: for this is the first reason which Matt. 22. 3. our Saviour Himself in the parable assigns for it: "The king," saith He, "sent his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage, and they would not come." "And they would not come;" so that the great fault is still in the

wills of men, which are generally so depraved and corrupt, that though they be called never so oft, and cannot but in reason acknowledge that it is their interest to come, yet they have so strange an aversion to the holiness and purity of the Gospel which they are called to, that they will not come unto it, only because they will not; for here they who are first bidden give no reason for refusal, only it is said, they would not come. And good cause why: for, when we have searched into all the reasons imaginable, why men do not fully submit themselves to the obedience of the Gospel, they will all resolve and empty themselves into this, that they will not because they will not. Let ministers say what they can, let the Scriptures say what they will, let God Himself say what He pleases, yet sinners men are, and sinners they will be, in spite of them all; as the Prophet, rebuking the people for their sins, said, " But thou saidst, There is no Jer. 2. 25. hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." And so it is to this day; we tell them of their sins, and the dangerous consequences of them; we tell them that they must not love the world, but seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in the first place; we tell them from Christ's Own mouth, that except they repent and forsake their sins, they must perish; but they say in effect, that we had as good hold our tongues; for they have loved the world, and after it they will go; they have found pleasure in the commission of their sins, and therefore they will commit them. Christ calls them to come unto Him, and they know no reason why they should not, but howsoever they will not come. If we were but once willing, the work was done; for what our wills are really inclined to, we cannot but use the utmost of our endeavour to attain. But the mischief is, men read the Gospel, they hear Christ calling upon them to believe and obey it, but their wills are still averse from it; there is a kind of antipathy and contrariety within them against such exact and real holiness as the Gospel requires of them. So that if they perish, they must blame themselves for it; it is their own choice: they choose and prefer their sins, with all the miseries that attend them, before the Gospel of Christ, with all the glory and happiness which is offered in it; and therefore, as God said to His