There is nothing in religion farther out of Nature's reach, and more
remote from the natural man's liking and believing, than the doctrine
of Redemption by a Saviour, and by a crucified Saviour. It is
comparatively easy to persuade men of the necessity of an amendment of
conduct; it is more difficult to make them see the necessity of
Repentance in the _Gospel_ sense, the necessity of a change in the
_principle_ of action; but to convince men of the necessity of the
Death of Christ is the most difficult of all. And yet the first is but
varnish and white-wash without the second; and the second but a barren
notion without the last. Alas! of those who admit the doctrine in
words, how large a number evade it in fact, and empty it of all its
substance and efficacy, making the effect the efficient cause, or
attributing their election to Salvation to a supposed Foresight of
their Faith and Obedience.--But it is most vain to imagine a faith in
such and such men, which being foreseen by God, determined him to
elect them for salvation: were it only that nothing at all is
_future_, or can have this imagined _futurition_, but _as_ it is
decreed, and _because_ it is decreed by God so to be.