To Make Intercession For Men

Whensoever God's Truth Is Defaced Or When Any Man Turns Away From The Pure Simplicity Of The Gospel, We Must Not In Any Wise Spare Him, But Although The Whole World Should Set Itself Against Us, Yet Must We Maintain The Case With Invincible Constancy, Without Bending For Any Creature.

Again I Ask Whence It Happened That The Fall Of Adam Involved, Without Remedy, In Eternal Death So Many Nations, Together With Their Infant Children, Except Because It So Seemed Good To God? A Decree Horrible, I Confess, And Yet True.

Whenever Our Sins Press Hard Against Us, Whenever Satan Would Drive Us To Despair, We Must Hold Up This Shield, That God Does Not Want Us To Be Overwhelmed In Everlasting Destruction, For He Has Ordained His Son To Be The Salvation Of The World.

We Say, Then, That Scripture Clearly Proves This Much, That God By His Eternal And Immutable Counsel Determined Once For All Those Whom It Was His Pleasure One Day To Admit To Salvation, And Those Whom, On The Other Hand, It Was His Pleasure To Doom To Destruction. We Maintain That This Counsel, As Regards The Elect, Is Founded On His Free Mercy, Without Any Respect To Human Worth, While Those Whom He Dooms To Destruction Are Excluded From Access To Life By A Just And Blameless, But At The Same Time Incomprehensible Judgment

God Is Undoubtedly Ready To Pardon Whenever The Sinner Turns. Therefore, He Does Not Will His Death, In So Far As He Wills Repentance. But Experience Shows That This Will, For The Repentance Of Those Whom He Invites To Himself, Is Not Such As To Make Him Touch All Their Hearts. Still, It Cannot Be Said That He Acts Deceitfully; For Though The External Word Only Renders, Those Who Hear It, And Do Not Obey It, Inexcusable, It Is Still Truly Regarded As An Evidence Of The Grace By Which He Reconciles Men To Himself.