Page 36 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

neither are all men universally ordained to condemnation. This follows from
what has been proved already; however, I shall subjoin some further
demonstration of these two positions.

(1) All men universally are not elected to salvation, and, first, this may be
evinced a posteriori; it is undeniable from Scripture that God will not in the last
day save every individual of mankind! (Dan. 12.2; Matt. 25.46; John 5.29).

Therefore, say we, God never designed to save every individual, since, if He
had, every individual would and must be saved, for "His counsel shall stand,
and He will do all His pleasure." (See what we have already advanced on this
head in the first chapter under the second article, Position 8). Secondly, this may

be evinced also from God's foreknowledge. The Deity from all eternity, and
consequently at the very time He gives life and being to a reprobate, certainly

foreknew, and knows, in consequence of His own decree, that such a one would
fall short of salvation. Now, if God foreknew this, He must have predetermined
it, because His own will is the foundation of His decrees, and His decrees are
the foundation of His prescience; He therefore foreknowing futurities, because

by His predestination He hath rendered their futurition certain and inevitable.
Neither is it possible, in the very nature of the thing, that they should be elected
to salvation, or ever obtain it, whom God foreknew should perish, for then the

Divine act of preterition would be changeable, wavering and precarious, the
Divine foreknowledge would be deceived, and the Divine will impeded. All
which are utterly impossible. Lastly, that all men are not chosen to life, nor

created to that end is evident in that there are some who were hated of God
before they were born (Rom. 9.11-13), are "fitted for destruction" (ver. 22), and
"made for the day of evil" (Prov. 16.4).

But (2) all men universally are not ordained to condemnation. There are some
who are chosen (Matt. 20.16). An election, or elect number, who obtain grace
and salvation, while "the rest are blinded" (Rom. 11.7), a little flock, to whom it

is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom (Luke 12.32). A people whom
the Lord hath reserved (Jer. 50.20) and formed for Himself (Isa. 43.21). A
peculiarly favoured race, to whom "it is given to know the mysteries of the

kingdom of heaven," while to others "it is not given" (Matt. 13.11), "a remnant
according to the election of grace" (Rom. 11.5), whom "God hath not appointed
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ" (1 Thes. 5.9). In a word, who

are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,
that they should show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of
darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2.9), and whose names for that very