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GOD'S
ELECTION
OF
MEN
IN JESUS
CHRIST.
[SEEM.
II.
vation
to
him
that
sits
upon the
throne, and
to the
Lamb,
who
has
redeemed
us
with his own blood
?
To him
be
dominion and glory for ever
and
ever." Amen.
SERMON
II.
GOD'S ELECTION
OF
A
PEOPLE
FOR
HIMSELF AMONGMEN,
AND GIVING THEM
TO HIS SON IN
THE
COVENANT
OF
REDEMPTION.
srui.3,4,5.
Blessed
be
the God and Father of
our Lord
Jesus
Christ,
who
bath
blessed
us
with all spiritual
blessings in
heavenly
places in
Christ
;
according
as
he
bath
chosen us in him before,
the foundation of the world,
that
we
should be holy and without blame before him in
love: Having pre-
destinated
us
unto the adoption of children
by
Jesus
Christ
to
himself,
according
to
the
good pleasure of
his will.
IF
we
enquire
who
are the persons thus
"
blessed with
all
spiritual
blessings,
chosen to be
holy,
and predesti-
nated
to become
the children
of God,"
the
little
word
"
us"
points
plainly to the
apostle Paul
himself, who
wrote
this
epistle,
who
was
a
Jew,
and the
converted
Ephesians,
to whom he wrote, who were gentiles.
These
were the persons thus favoured
of
God.
It
does
not
seem to
me
to
be
the design
of
this text, to tell us
that
God
chose
part
of
the Ephesians,
as well as
other
gen-
tiles
to
be.
an outward
visible
church, with mere
visible
privileges,
as
the nation
of
the
Jews
were
pf
old, who
were
a
type
and
figure
of
the
church
invisible;
;
b
that
he chose some
Jews
and
some
gentiles to
be
parts
of
his
invisible church,
for
they
are
said to be blessed
with
:spiritual
blessings;
with the privilege
of adoption,
and
The
real
work
of
holiness and divine
love in
their hearts.
All the
following
parts of
this
and the next
chapter
seem
plainly
to
declare
this
sense.
If
we
ask
how,
or
by
what medium this grace
was
ex-
ercised;
we
are
informed,
it
was
all
in
and through
Jesus
the
Son
of
God
;
they
are
blessed in
Jesus
Christ, they
are
chosen
in him,
and
through
hirn
they are adopted, or