Page 43 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

their eternal happiness. Now God, as we have already more than once had
occasion to observe, does nothing in time which He did not from eternity
resolve within Himself to do, and if He, in time, creates and regenerates His
people with a view to display His unbounded mercy, He must consequently

have decreed from all eternity to do this with the same view. So that the final
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causes of election appear to be these two: first and principally, the glory of
God; second and subordinately, the salvation of those He has elected, from
which the former arises, and by which it is illustrated and set off. So, "The Lord
hath made all things for Himself" (Prov. 16.4), and hence that of Paul, "He hath

chosen us—to the praise of the glory of His grace" (Eph. 1.).

POSITION 6.—The end of election, which, with regard to the elect themselves,

is eternal life. I say this end and the means conducive to it, such as the gift of
the Spirit, faith, etc., are so inseparably connected together that whoever is
possessed of these shall surely obtain that, and none can obtain that who are not
first possessed of these. "As many as were ordained to eternal life," and none

else, "believed" (Acts 13.48). "Him hath God exalted—to give repentance unto
Israel and remission of sins" (Acts 5.31): not to all men, or to those who were

not, in the counsel and purpose of God, set apart for Himself, but to Israel, all
His chosen people, who were given to Him, were ransomed by Him, and shall
be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation. "According to the faith of God's
elect" (Tit. 1.1), so that true faith is a consequence of election, is peculiar to the

elect, and shall issue in life eternal. "He hath chosen us—that we should be
holy" (Eph. 1.), therefore all who are chosen are made holy, and none but they;
and all who are sanctified have a right to believe they were elected, and that

they shall assuredly be saved. "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called;
whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also
glorified" (Rom. 8.30), which shows that effectual calling and justification are

indissolubly connected with election on one hand and eternal happiness on the
other; that they are a proof of the former and an earnest of the latter. "Ye believe
not, because ye are not of My sheep" (John 10.26); on the contrary, they who

believe, therefore, believe because they are of His sheep. Faith, then, is an
evidence of election, or of being in the number of Christ's sheep; consequently,
of salvation, since all His sheep shall be saved (John 10.28).

POSITION 7.—The elect may, through the grace of God, attain to the knowledge
and assurance of their predestination to life, and they ought to seek after it. The
Christian may, for instance, argue thus: "'As many as were ordained to eternal

life, believed'; through mercy I believe, therefore, I am ordained to eternal life.