calling, their free justification from all their sins, and their final glorification at his right hand for ever. In the Apostle's statement we may see,
I. The principal ends of predestination —
God acts in all things according to his own sove- reign will and pleasure : yet is that will regulated by the counsels of infallible wisdom3. Whilst therefore in all things he consults primarily his own glory, he has respect to such ends and objects as are most suited to promote his glory. The ends he has proposed to himself, in predestinating men to life, were two-fold : the immediate end respected us; and the ultimate end respected his beloved Son, through whom all his pur- poses were to be accomplished.
1. The immediate end respected us —
[He decreed that all the objects of his choice " should be conformed to the image of his Son." But how were they to be conformed to him? We answer, In holiness, in sufferings, and in glory.
We are to be conformed to Christ in holi?iess. Our blessed Lord was altogether without spot or blemish, a perfect exem- plar of universal holiness : his bitterest enemies could not find any imperfection in him ; and St. John's testimony concerning him is, " In him was no sinb." Such, "according to the mea- sure of the gift of Christ," are we to be also0. Like him we must live, not unto ourselves, but unto our God alone ; making it " our meat and our drink to do his holy will." Though in the world, we must not be of the world, any more than he wasd: we must rise superior to all its concerns, resist all its temptations, mortify all its lusts, and " walk in all things as Christ walkede." The same mind altogether that was in him, must be in us alsof. And to this zoe are predestinated. We were not chosen of God from eternity, or made the subjects of his new-creating grace in time, because we were holy, or be- cause he foresaw that we should be holy; but that we " might be holy :" " we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them8."
We are to be conformed to Christ i?i sufferings. Through- out his whole life our Saviour was " a man of sorrows, and
a Eph. i. 5, 11. b 1 John in. 5. c Eph. iv. 7.
* Johnxvii. 14, 16. e 1 John ii. 6. f Phil. ii. 5.
e Eph. i. 4. and ii. 10. These two passages deserve the most at- tentive consideration in this view.