re decreed to be saved, they
shall be saved; or lost, they shall be lost: So that my suffering
and preaching are entirely in vain.--See that pert young man, he has
just left his loom or his plough, and he is going to hammer at a bit
of Latin; by and by, he becomes a mighty smatterer: With his little
sense, little grace, and next to no learning, he harangues famously
about a decree and a covenant, and puffs and parades, and shouts out
amain, "O the sweetness of God's electing love!" Having by this time
acquired a pretty good stock of assurance, he looks out for a shop,
that is, in the quaint phrase, "he waits for a call;" by and by the
desired object appears, the bargain is struck, and the stipend is
settled, and now we have our pert youngster a Reverend Sir!--"Well,
but what is he to do?" Why, we should think, call sinners to
repentance, and comfort mourners, and establish believers, and help
their faith. But, alas! this is all in vain. This Reverend Sir might
as well have stayed at his loom or plough, as take the poor people's
money for watching over their souls, when all from first to last was
settled by an unalterable decree.

Such is the consistency of predestinarian teachers. Poor simple
souls, who are thus led, do not you see that if such a decree is
gone forth, you are supporting an idle man in vain?[1]--What end is
preaching to answer? Let him lecture with ever such state and
assurance, if the time, the place, the manner be all fixed: I say he
is an ignorant, lazy drone, who is picking his poor people's
pockets; but, perhaps, it was decreed that it should be so.[2]

V. It makes promises and threatenings useless.--I apprehend promises
are intended to encourage the fainthearted, and such as are ready to
be discouraged in their way; and the Lord who has made them, no
doubt, designs to fulfil the same. They are not mere baubles, but
the firm and never-failing words of God. Yet they are conditional. I
know no promise made to us, in the way of experience, but there is a
condition either expressed or implied. The only promises which can
in any measure be said to be unconditional, are such as respect
Christ's coming into the world, the pouring out of the Spirit, or
the preaching of the Gospel. But as for such as respect the
forgiveness of sins, consolation, sanctification, or glorification,
they are all conditional, and, as such, are intended to encourage
all who are travelling to Mount Zion.

So with regard to the