2. By the sanctification of their hearts and lives —
[This, if I may so speak, is the broad seal of heaven : " By their fruits ye shall know them:" " He that hath my com- mandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."' By this seal the Thessalonian converts were so distinguished, that St. Paul did not hesitate to infer, from what he saw in them, that they were God's chosen people : when he called to mind " their works of faith, and labours of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, he knew from it their election of Godk." And on all true believers this seal is found: God's " peculiar people are invariably found to be holy and zealous of good works1."
Now this consideration may well reconcile us to the exercise of God's sovereign grace : for, if the idea of God's choice being altogether uninfluenced by holiness, either seen or foreseen in the objects of his choice, appear to militate against the interests of morality, the circumstance of God's having in- separably united this seal with the foregoing, sufficiently removes all fear on that head. In God's mind, our sanctifica- tion is as much ordained as our final salvation : " We are chosen, that we may be holym," and " elect unto obedience11,'" and predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son ° : and in this way alone will any one finally attain the salvation of his soul ; since it is only in, and by, and through the means, that God has ordained the end : " He has from the beginning chosen us to salvation; but it is through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth p."]
3. By the manifestation of God's love to their souls —
[The Holy Spirit is a " Spirit of adoption " in the hearts of God's people q: he is also a " Witness testifying of their adoption1:" yea, he is to them, and within them, an earnest of their everlasting inheritance8; "shedding abroad in their hearts that love of God," which will constitute their happiness through eternal ages1. In this also he operates as a seal, as St. Paul has said in reference to all true Christians : " Now he who establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God ; who hath also sealed, us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts"."
By the first of these seals we are known to God alone : by
k 1 Thess. i. 3, 4. > Tit. ii. 14. ™ Eph. i. 4.
n 1 Pet. i. 2. ° Rom. viii. 29. p 2 Thess. ii. 13.
i Rom. viii. 15. r Rom. viii. 16.
s Eph. i. 13. 2 Cor. v. 5. l Rom. v. 5.
« 2 Cor. i. 21, 22.