There is no need whatsoever for seeking to avoid the plain sense of the above and similar passages. They bear a clear and unequivocal testimony to divine grace toward all, without the slightest reference to man's responsibility on the one hand, or to God's eternal counsels on the other. These things are just as clearly, just as fully, just as unequivocally, taught in the Word. Man is responsible and God is sovereign. All who bow to Scripture admit these things. But, at the same time, it is of the very last importance to recognize the wide aspect of the grace of God and of the cross of Christ. It glorifies God, and leaves man _wholly_ without excuse. Men argue about God's decrees and man's incompetency to believe without divine influence. Their arguments prove that they do not want God; for did they only want Him, He is near enough to be found of them. The grace of God and the atonement of Christ are as wide as they could desire. "_Any_," "_every_," "_whosoever_," and "_all_" are God's own words; and I should like to know who is shut out. If God sends a message of salvation to a man, He surely intends it for him; and what can be more wicked and impious than to reject God's grace, and make Him a liar, and then give His secret decrees as a reason for so doing? It would be, in a certain sense, honest for a man to say at once, The fact is, I do not believe God's Word, and I do not want His grace or His salvation. One could understand this; but for men to cover their hatred of God and His truth with the drapery of a false, because one-sided, theology, is the very highest character of wickedness. It is such as to make us feel, of a truth, that the devil is never more diabolical than when he appears with the Bible in his hand.