Sclater:

And hated Esau] That is, Reprobated Esau: Now that there is Reprobation, appears, because there is Election. 2. God has not Mercy on all. 3. There are Vessels of wrath prepared to destruction, Rom. 9:22, and Jude 4, ordained to this judgement. 4. Effects, denial of means to many for Salvation.

If any ask what it is? Reprobation is an Act of God whereby he determines, not to have mercy on some, but to leave them to destruction, for the glory of his justice. For the moving cause of Election that that may be known, we are to conceive the Acts of Reprobation to be two. 1. A decree not to have mercy; this Absolute, and has no other cause, but the Will of God; And let none say, this is injury, for God is bound to none. Rom. 11:33, therefore, Saint Paul refers to all God’s Will, and admits the depth of this secret, which had been vain, if the cause thereof be foresight of sin and disobedience. 2. The second Act, is ordination unto punishment, and Damnation; this has some respect unto sin, being an Act of Justice, in respect to Execution: And therefore, though it be true that God refuses to show mercy only because he will; yet he ordains no man to damnation, but for his sin; Judas damned for his sin; Comparative, why this not that, no other cause, but God’s Will.

William Sclater, A Brief and Plain Commentary with Notes: Not More Useful, than Seasonable, upon the whole Prophecie of Malachy (London: Printed by J.L. for Christopher Meredith at the sign of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard, 1650), 15.

[Notes: That last sentence may be confusing. What he is saying is that if we ask the question, “Why is this man condemned?” Scalter would say, “That man is condemned solely on account of his sin.” If we ask the second question: “Why is this man elected, but not that man?” Sclater would answer, “This man is elected, but not that man, because of the absolute will of God alone.” For the Reformed, in the first act of reprobation, namely Preterition, man is rejected solely because of the free will of God. In the second act, namely Predamnation, however, man is condemned on account of his sin only. C.f. Heppe and Leigh.]

Binning:

1) These things I write unto you, little children.’ To enforce this the more sweetly, he uses this affectionate compilation, ‘little children; for in all things affection hath a mighty stroke, almost as much as reason. It is the most suitable way to prevail with the spirit of a man, to deal in love and tenderness with it; it insinuates more sweetly, and so can have less resistance, and therefore works more strongly. It is true, another way of terrors, threatenings, and reproofs, mingled with sharp and heavy words of challenges, may make a great deal of more noise, and yet it hath not such virtue to prevail with a rational soul. The Spirit of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still and calm voice which came to Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 11, 12. These suit not the gentle, dove-like disposition of the Spirit; and though they be fit to rend rocks in pieces, yet they cannot truly break hearts, and make them contrite. The sun will make a man sooner part with his cloak than the wind; such is the difference between the warm beams of affection, and the boisterous violence of passions or terror. Now, O that there were such a spirit in them who preach the gospel, such a fatherly affection, that with much pity and compassion they might call sinners from the ways of death! O there is no subject, in which a man may have more room for melting affections, nothing that will admit of such bowels of compassion as this,–the multitude of souls posting to destruction, and so blindfolded that they cannot see it! Here the fountain of tears might be opened to run abundantly. The Lord personates a tender-hearted father or husband often, ‘Oh, why will ye die? Ye have broken my heart with your whorish heart: O Jerusalem, how oft would I, but thou wouldst not!‘ When he, who is not subject to human passions, expresses himself thus, how much more cloth it become us poor creatures to have pity on our fellow-creatures? Should it not press out from us many groans, to see so many perishing, even beside salvation. I wish you would take it so, that the warning you to flee from the wrath to come, is the greatest act of favor and love that can be done to you. It becomes us to be solicitous about you, and declare unto you, that you will meet with destruction in those paths in which you walk; that these ways go down to the chambers of death. O that it might be done with so much feeling compassion of your misery, as the necessity of it requires! But, why do many of you take it so hard to be thus forewarned, and have your danger declared unto you? I guess at the reason of it. You are in a distemper as sick children distempered in a fever, who are not capable of discerning their parents’ tender affection, when it crosses their own inclinations and ways. Hugh Binning, “Fellowship with God,”in The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), Sermon 21, 332-333. [Some spelling modernized, underlining mine.]

2) Are these things so? Is this the law, and this the gospel? Do they daily sound in our ears, and what entertainment, I pray you, do they get from this generation? Indeed, Christ’s complaint hath place here, whereunto shall our generation be likened? For he hath lamented to us, and we have not mourned; he hath piped to us, and we have not danced. We will neither be made glad nor sad by these things. How long hath the word of the Lord been preached unto you, and whose heart trembled at it? Shall the lion roar, and the beasts of the field not be afraid? The lion hath roared often to us. God hath spoken often, who will not fear? And yet who doth fear? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, in congregations every day, that terrible trumpet of Mount Sinai that proclaims war between God and men, and yet will not the people be afraid? Amos ii. 6, 8. Have not everyone of you heard your transgressions told you? Are ye not guilty of all the breaches of God’s holy law? Hath not the curse been pronounced against you for these, and yet who believes the report? Ye will not do so much as to sit down and examine your own guiltiness, till your mouth be stopped, and til ye put it in the dust before God’s justice. And when we speak of hell unto you, and of the curses of God passed upon all men, you bless yourselves in your own eyes, saying, peace, peace, even though ye walk in the imagination of your own hearts, add sin to sin, and ‘drunkenness to thirst,’ Dent. xxix. 20. N ow, when all this is told you, that many shall be condemned and few saved, and that God is righteous to execute judgment, and render vengeance on you, ye say within yourselves, For God’s sake, is all this true? But where is the mourning at his lamentations, when there is no feeling or believing them to be true? Your minds are not convinced of the law of God, and how shall your heart be moved? Christ Jesus laments unto you, as he wept over Jerusalem, ‘How often would I have gathered thee, and thou wouldst not!’ What means he? Certainly, he would have you to sympathize with your own condition. When he that is in himself blessed, and needs not us, is so affected with our misery, how should we sympathize with our own misery! God seems to be affected with it, though there be no shadow of turning in him. Yet he clothes his words with such affections, ‘Why will ye die?‘ ‘O that my people had hearkened unto me!‘ He sounds the proclamation before the stroke, if it be possible to move you to some sense of your condition, that concerns you most nearly. Yet who judges himself that he may not be judged? The ministers of the Lord, or Christians, may put to their ear, and hearken to men in their retiring places, but who repents in dust and ashes, and says, ‘What have I done? Jer. viii. 6. But every man goes on in his course without stop. The word ye hear on the Sabbath–day against your drunkenness, your oppressions, your covetousness, your formality, &c., it doth not lay any bands on you to keep you from these things. Long may we hearken to you in secret, ere we hear many of you mourn for these things, or turn from them. Where is he that is afraid of the wrath of God, though it be often denounced against him? Do not men sleep over their time, and dream of escaping from it? Every man hath a refuge of lies he trusts in, and wil not forsake his sins. Hugh Binning, “Several Sermons Upon the Most Important Subjects of Practical Religion,” Practical Sermons in The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), Sermon 10, 597-598. [Some spelling modernized, underlining mine.]

Binning:

1) Nay, but saith the convinced soul, I know not if he will he merciful to me, for  what am I? There is nothing in me to be regarded. I have nothing to conciliate favour, and all that may procure hatred. But, saith the Lord, I am ‘gracious,’ and dispense mercy freely, without respect to condition or qualification. Say not, if I had such a measure of humiliation as such a one,–if I loved him so much,–if I bad so much godly sorrow and repentance,–then, I think he would be merciful to me. Say not so, for behold he is gracious. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy; and there is no other cause, no motive to procure it; it comes from within his own breast. It is not thy repentance will make him love thee, nor thy hardness of heart will make him hate thee or obstruct the vent of his grace towards thee. No! if it be grace, it is no more of works,-not works in that way that thou imagines. It is not of repentance, not of faith in that sense thou conceives; but it is freely, without the hire, without the price of repentance or faith, because all those are but the free gifts of grace. Thou would have these graces to procure his favor, and to make them the ground of thy believing in his promises but grace is without money. It immediately contracts with discovered misery, so that if thou do discover in thyself misery and sin, though thou find nothing else, yet do not cast away confidence, but so much the more address thyself to mercy and grace, which do not seek repentance in thee, but bring repentance and faith with them unto thee. Yet there is something in the awakened conscience. I have gone on long in sin; I have been a presumptuous sinner; can he endure me longer? Well hear what the Lord saith, I am ‘long-suffering’ and patient. And if he had not been so, we had been damned ere now. Patience hath a long term, and we cannot outrun it, outweary it.–Why do we not wonder that he presently and instantly executed his wrath on angels, and gave them not: one hour’s space for repentance, but cast them down headlong into destruction, as in a moment; and yet his majesty hath so long delayed the execution of our sentence, and calls us unto repentance and forgiveness, that we may escape the condemnation of angels? His patience is not slackness and negligence, as men count it, 2 Pet. iii. 9. He sits not in heaven as an idol, and idle spectator of what men are doing; but he observes all wrongs, and is sensible of them also. And if we were mindful and sensible of them also, he would forget them. He is long-suffering. This is extended and stretched-out patience beyond all expectation, beyond all deserving, yea contrary to it.. Therefore, as long as he forbears, if thou apprehend thy misery and sin, and continuance in it; do not conclude that it is desperate. ‘Why should a living man complain?‘ As long as patience lengthens thy life, if thou desire to come to him, believe he will accept thee. Hugh Binning, “The Common Principles of the Christian Religion,” in The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), 51 [Some spelling modernized, underlining mine.]

2) Now, as the spider sucks poison out of the sweetest flower, so the most part of souls suck nothing but delusion and presumption and hardening out of the gospel. Many souls reason for more liberty to sin, from mercy. But behold, how the Lord backs it with a dreadful word, ‘who will. by no means clear the guilty.’ As many as do not condemn themselves before the tribunal of justice, there is no rescinding of the condemnatory sentence, but it stands above their heads, , he that believes not is condemned already.’ Justice hath condemned all by a sentence. He that doth not, in the sense of this, flee unto Jesus Christ from sin and wrath, is already condemned. His sentence is standing. There needs no new one. Since he flees not to mercy for absolution, the. sentence of condemnation stands unrepealed. You guilty souls who clear yourselves, God will not clear you. And, alas! how many of you do clear yourselves! Do you not extenuate and mince your sins? How hard is it to extort any confession of guilt out of you, but in the general! If we condescend to particulars, many of you will plead innocency almost in every thing, though you have, like children, learned to speak these words that ye are sinners. I beseech you consider it; it is no light matter, for’ God will by no means clear the guilty;’ by no means, by no entreaties, no flatteries. ‘What! Will he not pardon sin? Yes indeed: his name tells you he will pardon all kind of sins, and absolve all manner of guilty persons: but yet such as do condemn themselves, such as are guilty in their own conscience, and their mouths stopped before God,–you who do not enter into the serious examination of your ways, and do not arraign yourselves before God’s tribunal daily, till you find yourselves loathsome and desperate, and no refuge for you,–you who do flatter yourselves always in the hope of heaven, and put the fear of hell always from you,–I say, God will by no means, no prayers, no entreaties, clear or pardon you, because you come not to Jesus Christ, in whom is preached forgiveness and remission of sins. You who take liberty to sin, because God is gracious, and delay repentance till the end, because God is Long-suffering,-know God God will not clear you; he is holy and just. as he is merciful. If his mercy make thee not fear and tremble before him, and do not separate thee from thy sins,–if remission of sins be not the strongest persuasion to thy soul of the removing of sin,–certainly thou dost in vain presume upon his mercy.  Hugh Binning, “The Common Principles of the Christian Religion,” in The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1992), 52-53. [Some spelling modernized, underlining mine.]

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Ball:

The use of faith, which is as large as the Word of God, must be distinguished according to the parts and several branches of it, promises, Commandments, threatenings. By promises understand all those declarations of God’s will, wherein he signifies in the Gospel what good he will freely bestow. And these be either Spiritual or Temporal; concerning this life, or the life to Come; of things simply necessary to salvation, or of things good in themselves, but not always good for us: all which received, possessed, and enjoyed by faith, according as they promised of God, either with, or without limitation.

The promises of
forgiveness of sins
Deut. 39:1,2.
1 Reg. 8:35.

Among spiritual promises absolutely necessary, without which there can be no salvation, the first and chief is concerning pardon or forgiveness of sins and Justification. God of his rich grace and mercy in Jesus Christ does make offer of free and full forgiveness of all sins to ever burdened, thirsty, and penitent soul.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to our God for he will abundantly pardon [Isa. 55:7.]. Return though back-sliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep mine anger for ever [Jer. 3:12.]. I will cleanse them from al their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and where they have transgressed against me [Jer. 33: 8 & 31:34.].

This promise is
free.
Isa. 43:25.
& 44:22.

This promise is made of free and undeserved mercy, not for any merit that is, or possibly could be in us.

I, even I am hee that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and I will not remember thy sins. I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him [Hos. 14:4.]. Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniqutity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy [Hos. 14:4.]. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou has redeemed [Deut. 21:8; Heb. 8:12; Jer. 32:34.].

Yet obtained
through Christ
only.

But when we hear of grace, we must remember Christ, in and through whom God is gracious unto us. Christ is the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world,” [John 1:29.]: and this great benefit of forgiveness of sin is plentifully proclaimed unto us miserable sinners, in and through him.

Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the death the third day, and that repentance and Remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem [Luk. 24:46, 47.]. Be it known unto you therefore, Men and brethren, that through this Man, (meaning Christ) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins [Acts 13:38.]. Now then we are Amabassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God [2 Cor. 5:20.]

Hereunto agrees that invitation of our Saviour: “Come unto me all ye that labor, and are hearts laden, and I will give you rest,” Mat. 11:28.].

John Ball, A Treatise of Faith (London: Printed for Edward Brewster, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard, 1657), 209-211. [Some spelling modernized, some reformatting; underlining mine.]