Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: lore-appointment, in connexion with them, indicates that the election spoken of formed part of his eternal counsels. As both these terms are applied in scripture to the particular subject of our inquiry, so they are to some extent used indifferently and convcrtibly to express the same general idea; and will therefore be sometimes so used in the following inquiry. Next, in proceeding to examine the contents of these passages, we find two general points too manifest to be matter of controversy: one, that the subjects of the predestination and election spoken of in them are in some sense Christian believers and members of Christ's church; the other, that the blessings offered by his gospel constitute in some sense the purpose and end of their predestination and election. Since however it is evident from the contents of the apostolic epistles that (as Christ himself had expressly foretold) the various churches addressed in them included "tares" as well as " wheat," nominal and false as well as real and true believers, an important twofold question here arises. Did the apostles mean to include both the above classes in what they said about predestination and election, or only the latter? And did they mean a predestination and election to the profession of faith in Christ, implying access to those spiritual and eternal blessings whicli his gospel announces, or one to the exercise of living faith in him, implying their actual attainment ? In other words, Who are the subjects of the predestination and election of which they speak, and what does it imply ? This question will bo found to include the essence of the whole controversy about the meaning of the New Testament doctrine of predestination and election. Let us then see ifwe can deduce an answer to each of its parts from an examin...