“For when man had voluntarily broken all the relation of love and moral good between God and him, had defaced his image—the only representation of his holiness and righteousness in this lower world—and deprived him of all his glory from the works of his hands, and had put himself into the society and under the conduct of the devil; what dishonor could it have been unto God, what diminution would there have been of his glory, if he had left him unto his own choice—to eat forever of the fruit of his own ways, and to be filled with his own devices unto eternity? It is only infinite wisdom that could find out a way for the salvation of any one of the whole race of mankind, so as that it might be reconciled unto the glory of his holiness, righteousness, and rule. Wherefore, as we ought always to admire sovereign grace in the few that shall be saved, so we have no ground to reflect on divine goodness in the multitudes that perish, especially considering that they all voluntarily continue in their sin and apostasy.” —John Owen
