Chapter 12: True and False Conversions Objection 4. "God aims at our happiness, and shall we be more benevolent than God?
Should we not be like God? May we not aim at the same thing that God aims at? Should we not be seeking the same end that God seeks?"
Answer. This objection is specious, but futile and rotten. God is benevolent to others.
He aims at the happiness of others, and at our happiness. And to be like him, we must aim at, that is, delight in his happiness and glory and the honor and glory of the universe, according to their real value.
Objection 5. "Why does the Bible appeal continually to the hopes and fears of men, if a regard to our own happiness is not a proper motive to action?"
Answer l. The Bible appeals to the constitutional susceptibilities of men, not to their selfishness. Man dreads harm, and it is not wrong to avoid it. We may have a due regard to our own happiness, according to its value.
Answer 2. And again; mankind are so besotted with sin, that God cannot get their attention to consider his true character, and the reasons for loving him, unless he appeals to their hopes and fears. But when they are awakened, then he presents the gospel to them. When a minister has preached the terrors of the Lord till he has got his hearers alarmed and aroused, so that they will give attention, he has gone far enough in that line; and then he ought to spread out all the character of God before them, to engage their hearts to love him for his own excellence.
Objection 6. "Do not the inspired writers say, Repent, and believe the gospel, and you shall be saved?"
Answer. Yes; but they require "true" repentance that is, to forsake sin because it is hateful in itself. It is not true repentance, to forsake sin on condition of pardon, or to say,
"I will be sorry for my sins, if you will forgive me." So they require true faith, and true submission not conditional faith, or partial submission.
This is what the Bible insists on. It says he shall be saved, but it must be disinterested repentance, and disinterested submission.
Objection 7. "Does not the gospel hold out pardon as a motive to submission."
Answer. This depends on the sense in which you must the term motive. If you mean that God spreads out before men his whole character, and the whole truth of the case, as reasons to engage the sinner's love and repentance, I say, Yes; his compassion, and willingness to pardon, are reasons for loving God, because they are a part of his glorious excellence, which we are bound to love. But if you mean by "motive" a condition, and that the sinner is to repent on condition he shall be pardoned, then I say, that the Bible no where holds out any such view of the matter. It never authorizes a sinner to say, "I will repent if you will forgive," and no where offers pardon as a motive to repentance, in such a sense as this.
With two short remarks I will close.