But O methinks, with what careful hearts will the damned now begin
to look for their names in this book. Those that, when once the
long-suffering of God waited on them, made light of all admonition,
and slighted the counsel of making their calling and election sure,
would now give thousands of treasures, that they could but spy their
names, though last and least among the sons of God. But, I say, how
will they fail; how will they faint; how will they die and languish
in their souls, when they shall still, as they look, see their names
wanting! What a pinch will it be to Cain, to see his brother there
recorded, and he himself left out. Absalom will now swoon and be as
one that giveth up the ghost, when he shall see David his father,
and Solomon his brother written here, while he withal is written in
the earth, among the damned. Thus, I say, will sadness be added to
sadness in the soul of the perishing world, when they fail of
finding their names in this part of the book of life of the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world.
SINNERS WITHOUT EXCUSE AT THE JUDGMENT.
Observe, that among all the objections and cavils that are made and
will be made by the ungodly in the day of the Lord Jesus, they have
not one about election, and reprobation: they murmur not at all that
they were not predestinated to eternal life; and the reason is,
because then they shall see, though now they are blind, that God
could in his prerogative royal, without prejudice to them that are
damned, choose and refuse at pleasure; and besides, they at this day
shall be convinced that there was so much reality, and downright
willingness in God, in every tender of grace and mercy to the worst
of men, and also so much goodness, justness, and reasonableness in
every command of the gospel of grace, which they were so often
entreated and beseeched to embrace, that they will be drowned in the
conviction of this, that they did refuse love, grace, and
reason--love, I say, for hatred, grace for sin, and things
reasonable for things unreasonable and vain.
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