Page 32 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

(1) There is a predestination of some particular persons to life, so "Many are
called, but few chosen" (Matt. 20.15), i.e., the Gospel revelation comes,
indiscriminately, to great multitudes, but few, comparatively speaking, are

spiritually and eternally the better for it, and these few, to whom it is the savour
of life unto life, are therefore savingly benefited by it, because they are the
chosen or elect of God. To the same effect are the following passages, among

many others: "For the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened" (Matt. 24.22).
"As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed" (Acts 13.48). "Whom He
did predestinate, them He also called" (Rom. 8.30), and ver. 33, "Who shall lay

anything to the charge of God's elect?" "According as He hath chosen us in
Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy... Having
predestinated us to the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, unto Himself,

according to the good pleasure of His will" (Eph. 1.4,5). "Who hath saved us,
and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us, in Christ, before the world

began" (2 Tim. 1.9).

(2) This election of certain individuals unto eternal life was for the praise of the
glory of Divine grace. This is expressly asserted, in so many words, by the

apostle (Eph. 1.5,6). Grace, or mere favour, was the impulsive cause of all: it
was the main spring, which set all the inferior wheels in motion. It was an act of
grace in God to choose any, when He might have passed by all. It was an act of

sovereign grace to choose this man rather than that, when both were equally
undone in themselves, and alike obnoxious to His displeasure. In a word, since
election is not of works, and does not proceed on the least regard had to any

worthiness in its objects, it must be of free, unbiassed grace, but election is not
of works (Rom. 11.5,6), therefore it is solely of grace.

(3) There is, on the other hand, a predestination of some particular persons to

death. "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost" (2 Cor. 4.3). "Who
stumble at the word being disobedient; whereunto also they were appointed" (1

Pet. 2.8). "These as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed" (2 Pet.
2.12). "There are certain men, crept in unawares, who were before, of old,
ordained to this condemnation" (Jude 4). "Whose names were not written in the
book of life from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 17.8). But of this we shall

treat professedly, and more at large, in the fifth chapter.

(4) This future death they shall inevitably undergo, for, as God will certainly