1. The greatest sinners have a passive disposition to see their need
flogs them for, they look for a shelter, which they never did in all their peaceful wickedness.
II. Why God chooses the greatest sinners, and lets his elect run on so far in sin before he turns them.
1. The greatest sinners have a passive disposition to see their need more than moral or superstitious men because they cannot boast of any self-righteousness. A blameless outward appearance and freedom from the common sins of their time and place often deceives them, causing them to become cold and distant towards Christ. They imagine that Christ cannot but look upon them, even if they never turn towards him. Because they are not steeped in such serious sins as others, their consciences are not disturbed by self-reflection.
Therefore, when the law's threats are directed at certain sins, these men wipe their mouths, being untainted by those sins, and vainly boast in their outward appearance. Like the Pharisee, they thank God that they are not sinners of such a scarlet dye and that they perform certain duties. As a result, they continue without seeing the need for a new birth, and this allows the strength of sin to become more condensed and strengthened in them.
Superstitious and formal men are hardly brought to their right minds, partly because of a defect in their reasoning from which those extravagances arise, and partly because those false habits and spirit of error that possess their faculties make them incapable of more noble impressions. Moreover, they are more stubborn in the opinions they have absorbed, which have gained control and command over their souls. Such misguided zeal fortifies men against proposals of grace and binds them in a more obstinate inflexibility to any converting motions. This self-righteous temperament is like an external heat that enters the body, producing a hectic fever that is not easily detected until it becomes incurable. Naturally, it is more difficult to part with self-righteousness than to part with gross sins because it is more deeply rooted in the stock of self-love, a principle that does not depart from us without our very nature. Self-
righteousness has more arguments to support it and has a natural conscience, a patron of it, whereas a great sinner is speechless when reproved, and a faithful monitor has a good second and correspondent of natural conscience within a person's own breast. It was not the gross sins of the Jews against the light of nature so much as the establishment of the idol of their own righteousness that hindered them from submitting to the righteousness of God
(Romans 10:3).
Christ "came to his own, and his own received him not," John 1:11.
Those who seem to have his particular stamp and mark upon them, those whose moral righteousness resembled that of God and who remained undefiled by the common pollutions of the world, did not receive him. Meanwhile, tax collectors and prostitutes got ahead of them and grasped the offers of grace: "Truly, I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you," Mat. 21:31. Just like travellers who have wasted their time in a pub, aware of how the darkness is creeping up on them, hurry on and outstrip those who were many miles on their way, and arrive at their destination before them, these tax collectors and prostitutes, who were far from heaven, reached it before those who, like the young man, were not far from it.
Great sinners are most easily convinced of the notorious wickedness of their lives. They reflect on their terrible crimes against the light of nature, are more inclined to try to escape from the devil's slavery, and are frightened and shaken by their consciences into compliance with the doctrine of redemption. Meanwhile, those who do by nature the things contained in the law are so much a law to themselves that it is challenging to persuade them of the necessity of conforming to another law and giving up this self-law in matters of justification. As metals of the noblest substance are hardest to be polished, so men of the most generous, natural, and moral endowments are more difficult to be argued into a state of Christianity than those of more base conversations. Cassianus speaks very confidently in this case:
We frequently see that people who are cold and carnal come to