Page 39 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

should be inscribed there who were not written among the living from eternity?"
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I shall conclude this chapter with that observation of Luther: "This," says he,
"is the very thing that razes the doctrine of free-will from its foundations, to wit,

that God's eternal love of some men and hatred of others is immutable and
cannot be reversed." Both one and the other will have its full accomplishment.

CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING ELECTION UNTO LIFE, OR PREDESTINATION

AS IT RESPECTS THE SAINTS IN PARTICULAR.

HAVING considered predestination as it regards all men in general, and briefly

shown that by it some are appointed to wrath and others to obtain salvation by
Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5.9), I now come to consider, more distinctly, that branch
of it which relates to the saints only, and is commonly styled election. Its

definition I have given already in the close of the first chapter. What I have
farther to advance, from the Scriptures, on this important subject, I shall reduce
to several positions, and subjoin a short explanation and confirmation of each.

POSITION 1.—Those who are ordained unto eternal life were not so ordained on
account of any worthiness foreseen in them, or of any good works to be wrought
by them, nor yet for their future faith, but purely and solely of free, sovereign

grace, and according to the mere pleasure of God. This is evident, among other
considerations, from this: that faith, repentance and holiness are no less the free-
gifts of God than eternal life itself. "Faith—is not of yourselves, it is the gift of

God" (Eph. 2.8). "Unto you it is given to believe" (Phil. 1.29). "Him hath God
exalted with His right hand for to give repentance" (Acts 5.31). "Then hath God
also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11.18). In like manner

holiness is called the sanctification of the Spirit (2 Thess. 2.13), because the
Divine Spirit is the efficient of it in the soul, and, of unholy, makes us holy.
Now, if repentance and faith are the gifts, and sanctification is the work of God,

then these are not the fruits of man's free-will, nor what he acquires of himself,
and so can neither be motives to, nor conditions of his election, which is an act
of the Divine mind, antecedent to, and irrespective of all qualities whatever in
the persons elected. Besides, the apostle asserts expressly that election is not of

works, but of Him that calleth, and that it passed before the persons concerned