Every man is left without excuse. God can say to all who have rejected His gospel, “I would, but you would not” (cf. Mt. 23:37). There is absolutely no such thing as “reprobation” in the Word of God, meaning the consignment, on God’s part, of any number of His creatures to everlasting damnation. Everlasting fire is prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:41). Men will rush into it. “Vessels of wrath” are fitted, not by God, but by themselves, to destruction (Rom. 9:22). Everyone who gets to heaven will have to thank God for it. Everyone who finds himself in hell will have to thank himself for it.

Furthermore, we have ever to remember that the sinner has nothing to do with God’s unpublished decrees. What does he, what can he, know about such? Nothing whatever. But he has to do with God’s published love, His proffered mercy, His free salvation, His glorious gospel. We may fearlessly assert that so long as these glowing and glorious words shine in the record of God, “Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely,” it is impossible for any son or daughter of Adam to say, “I longed to be saved, but could not. I thirsted for the living water, but could not reach it. The well was deep and I had nothing to draw with.” Ah, no, such language will never be used; such an objection will never be urged by anyone in all the ranks of the lost. When men pass into eternity, they will see with awful clearness what they now affect to think is so obscure and perplexing, namely, the perfect compatibility of God’s electing sovereign grace and the free offer of salvation to all: the fullest harmony between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We fondly trust the reader sees these things, even now.