Mens going into the notion, that an offer of Christ is not to be made in general, or that there must be no general tender of Christ to sinners, has run them into a farther absurdity, that unconverted sinners are not to be exhorted to believe in Christ, or to seek after that repentance which is to salvation, and that it cannot be the duty of such to believe in a Saviour. The pretence is, that a sinner has no power of his own, to believe and repent: I freely own, that I am firmly settled in my adherence to this, as an evangelical truth, that it is not in the power of fallen men, to contribute any thing towards working saving faith or repentance to life, in himself; but to say, that it is not the duty of a poor perishing soul, to cast itself on Christ, to trust in him for righteousness, or to fly to him for refuge from the wrath to come, looks to me to be an assertion little short of blasphemy, which I cannot but earnestly press you to be cautious of. God has commanded such as would not perish in their sins, to believe in Christ, and he requires men of all sorts, every where to repent; and will any venture to say, that it is not the duty of unconverted sinners to do what he commands and requires? can it, with any justice, be said, that he loses his right by the creature having render'd itself impotent to all that is good? The Spirit has made use of exhortations from the word, to trust in Christ, as the only Saviour, and to turn from sin, as means to begin a good work, in thousands, and ten thousands of holy souls; now if these exhortations had not been used, he could never have worked by them; and unless they had been to be made, he never would have honour'd them so far, as he has done, in causing them to be ordinances for good. I must freely confess to you, that as long as I find, that my great master address'd himself to a mixt multitude, saying, "repent and believe the gospel," I shall look upon the maxim, that unbelieving sinners are not to be exhorted to saving faith and evangelical repentance, to be a rude and insolent attempt to find out a better method of preaching, than that which lies in imitating the practice of the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls.
Abraham Taylor, An Address to Young Students in Divinity, By Way of Caution Against Some Paradoxes, Which Lead to Doctrinal Antinomianism (London: Printed for John Oswald, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, near Stocks-Market, 1739), 15–17.
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