John Witherspoon (1723 – 1794) was a Scottish American Presbyterian minister and a Founding Father of the United States
“This work has always been regarded as one of the ablest Calvinistic expositions of that doctrine in any language. I hope you approve Mr. Witherspoon's books. I think his Treatise on Regeneration is the best I have seen upon this important subject” - John Newton
WHEN Christ our Saviour was about to go to his Father, he told his disciples, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. I am persuaded, that by this, he did not only intend to forewarn the twelve of the offence which that generation would take at the ignominy of the cross, but also to intimate, that the case would be the same in all ages; that his doctrine would meet with great resistance and opposition, and that the temper and character of his real disciples would be very different from the spirit that would generally prevail in the world. This hath been continually verified in experience. For as many in the highest stations, and of highest repute for wisdom in the world, did set themselves against the gospel at its first publication, so even where there is a nominal profession of it, there is still an opposition to its doctrines, in their simplicity and purity, by the world, that is to say, those who have most sway in it, who are the most passionate admirers of its fashions, and the most assiduous prosecutors of its honors and pleasures.
It may be also observed, that there is sometimes, perhaps even generally, a sovereignty of divine providence in the choice of the instruments employed in spreading the gospel. As, at first, twelve illiterate fishermen were chosen; so, often since that time, the weakest and most unlikely have been pitched upon, that our faith might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Hence it frequently happens, that it is not only difficult to make men believe the gospel, but even to persuade them to hear it. They are apt to despise and deride the message, because of the meanness of the messenger, or the homeliness of the terms in which it is delivered. This is particularly the case with the present age. From a certain love of ease, and luxury of mind, they despise and trample upon all instructions, which have not something pleasing and insinuating in their dress and form.
