allow the first choice to arise from ourselves. Have ye then chosen Christ ? Have ye chosen him as your almighty Saviour and your rightful Lord ? If you think you have, consider how much is implied in such a choice. If you acknowledge you have not, " out of your own mouth shall ye be judged."]
2. Those who doubt their own election —
[You are too apt to perplex yourselves with unprofitable inquiries. You should rather examine whether ye have been called. It is by your vocation that you are to know your election a. Keep your evidences of conversion clear, and they will be indisputable proofs that you have been chosen to life.]
3. Those who have good reason to hope that they have been elected of God —
[Never can you sufficiently admire the goodness of God to you. Well may you say, Why was / taken, while so many better than myself were left? But at the same time remember to what ye are chosen. Never attempt to separate the end from the means. If ye have this hope, ye are bound to purify yourselves, even as God is pureb.]
a 1 Thess. i. 4, 5. b 1 John iii. 3.
John xv. 18 — 20. If the ivorld hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye ivere of the world, the world would love his oivn ; but because ye are not of the ivorld, but I have chosen you out of the ivorld, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you ; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
WELL might our Lord enjoin his Disciples to love one another ; for, if they be not united in affection towards each other, they will in vain look for any love in the world. They are " as sheep in the midst of wolves :" the wolves indeed are kept from devour- ing now, as they have done in former times ; but the disposition to devour still remains in the minds of ungodly men, and the godly are still regarded as their legitimate preyB. Our Lord may be considered
a Isai. lix. 15.