I believe many are saved, who to man seem reprobated; and many are
reprobated who in the opinion and sentence of man stand elected. There
will appear at the last day strange and unexpected examples, both of His
justice and His mercy; and therefore to define either is folly in man,
and insolency even in the devils. Those acute and subtle spirits, in all
their sagacity, can hardly divine who shall be saved; which if they could
prognosticate, their labour were at an end; nor need they compass the
earth, seeking whom they may devour. Those who, upon a rigid application
of the law, sentence Solomon unto damnation, condemn not only him but
themselves, and the whole world; for by the letter, and written word of
God, we are, without exception, in the state of death; but there is a
prerogative of God, and an arbitrary pleasure above the letter of His own
law, by which alone we can pretend unto salvation, and through which
Solomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.
The number of those who pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms
who think to pass through the eye of this needle, have much amazed me.
That name and compellation of 'little flock' doth not comfort but deject
my devotion, especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness,
wherein, according to my humble apprehensions, I am below them all.
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