The Book of Religions: Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches — John Shaqi
The Book of Religions: Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical SketchesHayward, John
Religion
The Book of Religions: Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches
Hayward, John
Christian biography; Religions; Sects
“4. That the impotency of sinners, with respect to believing in
Christ, is not natural, but moral; for it is a plain dictate of
common sense, that natural impossibility excludes all blame. But
an unwilling mind is universally considered as a crime, and not as
an excuse, and is the very thing wherein our wickedness consists.
That the impotence of the sinner is owing to a disaffection of
heart, is evident from the promises of the gospel. When any object
of good is proposed and promised to us upon asking, it clearly
evinces that there can be no impotence in us, with respect to
obtaining it, besides the disapprobation of the will; and that
inability which consists in disinclination, never renders any
thing improperly the subject of precept or command.
“5. That, in order to faith in Christ, a sinner must approve, in
his heart, of the divine conduct, even though God should cast him
off forever; which, however, never implies love of misery, nor
hatred of happiness. For if the law is good, death is due to those
who have broken it. The Judge of all the earth cannot but do
right. It would bring everlasting reproach upon his government to
spare us, considered merely as in ourselves. When this is felt in
our hearts, and not till then, we shall be prepared to look to the
free grace of God, through the redemption which is in Christ, and
to exercise faith in his blood, ‘who is set forth to be a
propitiation to declare God’s righteousness, that he might be
just, and yet be the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.’
“6. That the infinitely wise and holy God has exerted his
omnipotent power in such a manner as he purposed should be
followed with the existence and entrance of moral evil into the
system. For it must be admitted on all hands, that God has a
perfect knowledge, foresight, and view of all possible existences
and events. If that system and scene of operation, in which moral
evil should never have existed, were actually preferred in the
divine mind, certainly the Deity is infinitely disappointed in the
issue of his own operations. Nothing can be more dishonorable to
God than to imagine that the system which is actually formed by
the divine hand, and which was made for his pleasure and glory, is
yet not the fruit of wise contrivance and design.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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