all gracious influence.  And when it speaks of letting them be under the gospel, and the ordinary means of salvation, for the most direful purpose:  as that, “This child (Jesus) was set for the fall, as well as for the rising, of many in Israel”; as that, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling, and a rock of offense”; and, “The stone which the builders refused, is made a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which, stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed”; with that of our Savior Himself, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see, might be made blind.”  And most agreeable to those former places is that of the prophet, “But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.”  And we may add, that our God hath put us out of doubt that there is such a sin as that which is eminently called the sin against the Holy Ghost; that a man in such circumstances, and to such a degree, sin against that Spirit, that He will never move or breathe upon him more, but leave him to a hopeless ruin; tho I shall not in this discourse determine or discuss the nature of it.  But I doubt not it is somewhat else than final impenitency and infidelity; and that every one that dies, not having sincerely repented and believed, is not guilty of it, tho every one that is guilty of it dies impenitent and unbelieving, but was guilty of it before; so it is not the mere want of time that makes him guilty.  Whereupon, therefore, that such may outlive their day of grace, is out of the question ...

Wherefore, no man can certainly know, or ought to conclude, concerning himself or others, as long as they live, that the season of grace is quite over with them.  As we can conceive no rule God hath set to Himself to proceed by, in ordinary cases of this nature; so nor is there any He hath set unto us to judge by, in this case.  It were to no purpose, and could be of no use to men to know so much; therefore it were unreasonable to expect God should have settled and declared any rule, by which they might come to the knowledge of it.  As the case is then, viz.:  there being no such rule, no such thing can be concluded; for who can tell what an arbitrary, sovereign, free agent will do, if he declare not his own purpose himself?  How should it be known, when the Spirit of God hath been often working upon the soul of man, that this or that shall be the last act, and that he will never put forth another?  And why should God make it known?  To the person himself whose case it is, ’tis manifest it could be of no benefit.  Nor is it to be thought the Holy God will ever so alter the course of His own proceedings but that it shall be finally seen to all the world that every man’s destruction was entirely, and to the last, of himself.  If God had made it evident to a man