And if he refuse it, persisting in
withdrawing his heart from that surrender, which
must have been made on his adoption into the covenant,
who shall say that the covenant is not at an
end? Who shall say that the way of the Lord is
not equal, in that, because he was once a righteous
man, made righteous by the righteousness of Christ,
"now, the righteousness that he hath had shall not
be mentioned unto him, but in his trespass he shall
die"? Far be it from me to say how long the Lord
shall bear with man; how long he may trespass ere
he dies forever; but I think it most presumptuous
to suppose that God _cannot in honor_ (for it does
come to this) disannul the covenant from which man
has already retracted all his share; though this,
truly, is but a passive one, a surrender of the will-spirit
to the faith of Jesus.
What good it does me to clear up my ideas on
prayer! but there is a limit beyond which intellect
cannot go. No one can fully explain the admission
of evil into the heart. We say "it is because I
listen to temptation;" but why do I listen, to temptation?
Because I did not watch unto prayer. The
Calvinist would say, perhaps, "Because I am without
the covenant;" but he allows that a person may sin
who is in it. Suppose I am one of these? The
origin of evil must ever be hidden, but not of evil
only; the _moral nature of man must ever be a mystery
to his intellectual nature, for it is above it.
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