God's Earnest Invitation, part 2

"Isa. 55:1, Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that hath no silver, come buy, and eat

2. God loves, approves the believing of Jerusalem and of her children, as a moral duty as the hen loves to warm and nourish her chickens; and he hates, with an exceeding and unfeigned dislike of improbation and hatred, their rebellious disobedience and refusing to be gathered: but there is no purpose, intention, or decree of God held forth in these invitations called his revealed will, by which he says he intends and wills that all he makes the offer unto shall obey and be saved.

But it's to be observed, that the revealed will of God, held forth to all does not hold forth formally that God intends, decrees, or purposes in his eternal council that any man shall actually obey, either elect or reprobate; it formally is the expression only of the good liking of that moral and duty conjunction between the obedience of the creature and the reward, but it does not hold forth any intention or decree of God that any shall obey, that all shall obey, or that none at all shall obey."


- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), from Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pp. 443-45 (1647).