Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–1666) on God Begging and Inviting Sinners to Come to Him

You should know that it is a sin, a grievous sin, if you do not come when God invites you (Matt. 11:28), loudly calls you (Isa. 55:1), commands you (1 John 3:23: “This is his command, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ”), threatens you (John 3:36: “The wrath of God remains on him”), begs you (2 Cor. 5:20: “As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him”).

Johannes Hoornbeeck, “Spiritual Desertion,” in Gisbertus Voetius and Johannes Hoornbeeck, Spiritaul Desertion, trans. John Vriend and Harry Boonstra, ed. M. Eugene Osterhaven (Baker Academic, 2003), 117.

Bio:
Wiki

For more biographical information, see Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans: With a Guide to Modern Reprints (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 769–71; or Joel R. Beeke, Randall J. Pederon, and Fraser E. Jones, Meet the Puritans: A Guide to Their Lives and Books, 2nd ed. (Reformation Heritage Books, 2025), 1009–14.

All of the men within the broadly Augustinian tradition who use the metaphor of God begging that I have documented so far are the following:

Augustine (Early Church Father), Isaac Ambrose (Puritan), Thomas Brooks (Puritan), Daniel Burgess (Puritan), Jeremiah Burroughs (Westminster divine), Richard Baxter (Puritan), John Calvin (Reformer), Joseph Caryl (Westminster divine), Thomas Case (Puritan), Stephen Charnock (Puritan), John Collinges (Puritan), John Flavel (Puritan), Theophilus Gale (Puritan), William Gearing (Puritan), Andrew Gray (Puritan), William Gurnall (Puritan), Robert Harris (Westminster divine), Nathaniel Heywoood (Puritan), Johannes Hoornbeeck (Puritan), Thomas Larkham (Puritan), Hugh Latimer (Early English Reformer), Thomas Lye (Puritan), Thomas Manton (Puritan), John Murcot (Puritan), George Newton (Puritan), John Oldfield (Puritan), Anthony Palmer (Puritan), Edward Reynolds (Westminster divine), John Richardson (Puritan), Samuel Rutherford (Westminster divine), John Shower (Puritan), Richard Sibbes (Puritan), Sydrach Simpson (Westminster divine), William Strong (Westminster divine), George Swinnock (Puritan), Willem Teellinck (Puritan), John Trapp (Puritan), Ralph Venning (Puritan), Nathaniel Vincent (Puritan), Thomas Watson (Puritan), Daniel Williams (Puritan), Samuel Willard, Benjamin Wadsworth, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Samuel Davies, Ralph Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Walter Chantry, Erroll Hulse, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Paul Washer, and Fred Zaspel.