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OUR ELECTION MADE SURE.

To ascertain our election of God we must ascertain our regeneration by the Spirit and our union to Jesus. These lastmentioned attainments are two posterior terms in the sequence of spiritual causation; but it is from their existence alone that we can warrantably argue that the prior or anterior term of election has taken place. We have no means of knowing our election but by its effects. We cannot fathom the deep things of God or explore and investigate the secrets of the book of life which the Father hath kept in his own power. We may attempt to discover the Divine purposes by endeavouring to be wise about what is written; but it is a vain and fruitless attempt, for none hath known the minds of the Lord, and his ways are past finding out. But there is a more excellent method by which we may come to know our election of God, and the certainty of our approaching and everlasting salvation, by believing and obeying the Gospel. Let us betake ourselves to this patent and accessible path, instead of bewildering ourselves with obscure and mysterious speculations; and, whilst shadows, clouds, and darkness rest, and must ever rest, upon the adventurous inquirer who would explore the designs of the Eternal by an act of immediate inspection into his secret decrees, our path will prove that of the just, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

If we would make our election sure, we must make our calling sure. We cannot arrive at the highest term in the series but by beginning our ascent at the lowest term. It is true, indeed, that the eternal electing and predestinating love of God is the first term from which all the others originate, but God has so constituted and arranged the economy of grace, that we can know nothing of his everlasting decrees but by their actual fulfilment and verification upon our persons. Unless we find that we are the subjects of a renewing process of the Spiritunless we are born again-unless we have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us in the Gospel-unless we are bringing forth the fruits of righteousness in our life and conversation, we have no reason to conclude that we have been chosen to everlasting felicity. This is the only legitimate way of reasoning out our election. We cannot fetch our knowledge of it from afar, from the unfathomable depths of a past eternity. We may imagine or conjecture it; but this can only be a delusion. It is not faith; it is but fancy. And this fancy, if indulged in, the want of evidence will leave the soul in utter spiritual desolation at the hour of death. It is one of those 28-VOL. VI.

refuges of lies which the rain shall sweep away and the hail shall destroy.

Of the designs and decrees of God we can positively know nothing as regards ourselves by any direct insight or intuition. We can only know them by inferential deduction from unquestionable facts which occur in our history and in our personal experience. But we do know, assuredly, that all who are chosen unto salvation are so chosen through sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth. The former is the end, and the latter are the means. And ere the end can be attained, even the salvation of the soul, the means must be diligently employed. It is hence we are so strenuously exhorted to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We cannot, by any penetration which we possess, arrive at the conclusion that we have been elected to everlasting life, irrespective of that intermediate process which the Bible tells us must be described ere we are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. But, if that process has been described -if we have entered into the kingdom of grace by the strait and narrow gate of regeneration-if we are walking by faith and not by sight-if we are giving diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end-if we are desirous to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness, we carry the evidence of our eternal election upon us. And we need not an angel from heaven or a voice from the upper sanctuary to testify to our blessed predestination, for we have a more sure word of testimony in that authentic record which declares the characteristics of the children of God, and betwixt which and our personal experience we can discern a marked and manifold and minute correspondency. He that believeth hath the witness in himself that he hath passed from death unto life by the virtues and graces of christianity which are now graven upon the tablet of his inner man, and which demonstrate that old things are done away-that he is a new creature-that he is dying to sin and living to righteousness.

It is thus that one may know his election of God and his predestination to a blessed immortality by sure and satisfactory evidence. And that this is the proper order of procedure seems to be indicated in the conversation which the Saviour held with Nicodemus, in which it is very remarkable that the Great Teacher began by instructing his visitor in the nature and necessity of the new birth, and then went on to speak of his own atonement, which he was about to accomplish, and finally referred to the Father's everlasting love, which is the original fountain of human redemption. This is the order in which we may attain to the assurance of a personal interest in Christ. Though the electing love of God be first in the order of time,

yet it is last in the order in which it is made known to us; and the work of the Spirit, which is last in the scheme of redemption, is the first thing of which the renewed soul is assured. But if it be ascertained on Scriptural grounds that an individual is a subject of the work of the Spirit in regeneration, it necessarily follows that he is one of those for whom Christ died, and that he was chosen unto salvation ere the foundations of the earth were laid. That we may know our election of God, the way is not to imagine this for ourselves, or to attempt to discover it by obtaining a supernatural revelation, but we must begin by endeavouring to ascertain whether we have been born again, and whether we be in the faith. Regeneration and faith are the sure stepping stones to future glory hereafter, and they constitute now the sure evidences of an interest in the eternal love of God. If we love him it is because he first loved us; and if we keep his commandments it is because we were chosen from the beginning that we might be holy.

Now

There is a chain of concatenation in the Divine decrees reaching from the eternity that is past to the eternity that is to come with reference to all who are chosen to everlasting life. And of this chain, election may be considered as the first link, and salvation as the last. But the new birth and faith in Christ and personal holiness of character are so many intervening links betwixt the election of God and eternal salvation. the only way in which we can take hold of the salvation of God on the one hand and eternal election on the other is just by apprehending those links of the chain which are within our reach. Let us only make regeneration sure, and faith sure, and our personal holiness sure, and we may then rest assured both of our election in the past eternity and of our salvation in the coming eternity. If there be a stream of grace struck out in the heart, sweetly constraining us to all holy obedience, it is living water from the upper sanctuary; and, though we may not be able to see either the fountain from whence it hath emanated, or the ocean to which it tends, yet may we be fully persuaded that it had its origin, and will have its termination, in the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. All ignorant as we may be both of God's everlasting purposes and of our own everlasting destination by any reasonings which we can institute on these profound and unfathomable subjects, we may know if the Spirit of God work mightily in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, and if this be the case we may look back to election retrospectively and forward to our salvation prospectively, being confident of this one thing, that He who hath begun a good work will carry it on to the day of redemption. As election, the new birth, faith and holiness; and eternal salvation are inseparably joined together, so by taking hold of the

intervening terms in this succession, we secure both the first and the last terms of the series. If upon scriptural evidence we find that we have been renewed and sanctified, we may confidently conclude that we have been elected by God, and so will inherit everlasting life. Let us only endeavour to apprehend and to keep fast hold of those links of the chain by Divine predestination which are let down to earth, and they will conduct us by a safe and infallible process to the Jerusalem which is above. But if we have recourse to any other means to ascertain our election we wander out of the way of understanding, and shall remain in the congregation of the dead.

T. S.

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