my voice; and Israel would none of me; so I gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels;" and
pronounces, "Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and let him which
is filthy be filthy still," and says, "In thy filthiness is lewdness,
because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged; thou shalt not
be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to
rest upon thee." Which passages seem to imply a total desertion of
them, and retraction of all gracious influence. And when it speaks of
letting them be under the gospel, and the ordinary means of salvation,
for the most direful purpose: as that, "This child (Jesus) was set
for the fall, as well as for the rising, of many in Israel"; as that,
"Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling, and a rock of offense"; and, "The
stone which the builders refused, is made a stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offense, even to them which, stumble at the word, being
disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed"; with that of our
Savior Himself, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they
which see not might see; and that they which see, might be made
blind." And most agreeable to those former places is that of the
prophet, "But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept,
line upon line, here a little and there a little; that they might go,
and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." And we may
add, that our God hath put us out of doubt that there is such a sin as
that which is eminently called the sin against the Holy Ghost; that
a man in such circumstances, and to such a degree, sin against that
Spirit, that He will never move or breathe upon him more, but leave
him to a hopeless ruin; tho I shall not in this discourse determine
or discuss the nature of it. But I doubt not it is somewhat else than
final impenitency and infidelity; and that every one that dies, not
having sincerely repented and believed, is not guilty of it, tho every
one that is guilty of it dies impenitent and unbelieving, but was