as moved with compassion, and He wept. He knew what had been
done for the guilty inhabitants--how God had borne with them--and
the doom that, like the sword of Damocles, hung over them, and His
tender heart found relief in tears. In the presence of this weeping
Redeemer can we entertain the Calvinistic notion that He could
easily have saved the people, _if He had only wished it_? He wished
to gather them as a hen doth her chickens under her wings, but they
would not come. Were there not another passage in the Bible than the
one just referred to (Matthew xxiii. 37), it is sufficient to
dispose of the theory that God uses irresistible grace in saving
men. He had used the most powerful motives to bring them to himself,
but they would not come.

John Wesley, in writing on Predestination, says,--"Let it be
observed that this doctrine represents our blessed Lord Jesus
Christ, the righteous, the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of
grace and truth, as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man
void of common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that He everywhere
speaks as if He was willing that all men should be saved. Therefore,
to say that He was not willing that all men should be saved, is to
represent Him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler. It cannot be
denied that the gracious words which came out of His mouth are full
of invitations to all sinners. To say, then, He did not intend to
save all sinners, is to represent Him as a gross deceiver of the
people. You cannot deny that He says, 'Come unto me all ye that are
weary and heavy laden.' If, then, you say He calls those that cannot
come, those whom He knows to be unable to come, those whom He can
make able to come but will not; how is it possible to describe
greater insincerity? You represent Him as mocking His helpless
creatures, by offering what He never intends to give. You describe
Him as saying one thing and meaning another, as pretending the love
which He had not. Him in whose mouth was no guile, you make full of
deceit, void of common sincerity; then, especially when drawing nigh
the city He wept over it, and said, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would
not.' Now, if ye say they would but He would not, you represent Him
(which who could hear) as weeping crocodile's tears; weeping over
the prey which himself had doomed to destruction"