Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor
brought to repent by effectual grace, and the other not?" (See Whitby, p. 169, 170, 171.) I answer, the unbelief and impenitence of those cities, of that generation, and of those Pharisees, when, on the contrary, the publicans and Nineveh repented, and the men of Sodom would have repented, was an argument that they were worse, more perverse, and hard-hearted than they. Because, though repentance is owing to special, efficacious assistance, yet in his ordinary methods of proceeding with men, God is wont much more rarely to bestow it on those that are more perverse, hard-hearted, and rooted in evil, than others. So much the more as their hearts are hardened, so much the less likely are they to be brought to repentance. And though there be oftentimes exceptions of particular persons, yet it still holds good as a general rule, and especially with regard to societies, nations, cities, and ranks of men: so that Christ might well, from the fact that he mentions, draw an argument of the greater perverseness and stubbornness of those societies and ranks of men that he spoke of. 16. A command and a manifestation of will are not the same thing. A command does not always imply a true desire that the thing commanded should be done. So much at least is manifest by the instance of Abraham commanded to offer up Isaac. That command was not such an effect of the divine will, as the commands to believe and repent, etc. 17. Either the stronger the habitual inclination to good is, the more virtuous, and the stronger the disposition to evil, the more vicious. Or if it be otherwise, then indifference or want of inclination is essential to both virtue and vice. 18. Dr. Whitby's inconsistency appears in that one while, when he is disputing against the decree of election, he maintains that the epistles, where the apostle speaks to the elects, are not written to the converted only, because then it suits his turn that the persons