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SEAM.
II.]
GOD'S
ELECTION
OF MEN
IN
JESUS
CHRIST.
31
Christ.
Have
you given
up your
souls to
the
hands
of
Jesus,
the Saviour,
without
reserve,
that
you may
be
made holy
and.
happy
?
Then
you may
infer
with
assur-
ance,
that God
has given
you
also
into
the hands
of
Christ
for this blessed
purpose.
Have
you
the charac-
ters of the children
of
God
upon
you,
and are you made
like to
his first beloved Son?
You
may
assure yourselves
then,
that
you were
predestinated
to
the
adoption
of
chil-
dren
by
Jesus
Christ.
O
divine science
I
O blessed skill
of
searching
into the
secret of
the
decrees
of God,
and
of
finding
that our
names
are written
in
the
book
of
life
!
Use
II.
Let
those
who
by
a
sincere search have found
the
blessed
marks
and
evidences of
their
election in
Christ
Jesus
take the comfort
of
it,
rejoice
in it,
live
upon
it,
and walk
worthy
of
so
divine
a
privilege. See
that
you
keep
your
evidences
of
grace ever clear
and
bright
by
holy watchfulness,
that
ye may
have
a
strong
defence
in
every
hour of temptation.
"
Shall
I
who
am
chosen
out of
the world
that
I
may
be
holy, shall
I
mingle
myself
with sinful men,
and
indulge
iniquity?
Shall
I
who am
adopted
into
God's
family, live
like one
of
the
children of
Satan
?"
This
is
a
sweet refuge also
for
us
to
have recourse
to in
every
outward distress
:
"
Shall
I
faint
and
be
overwhelmed
under a present
sorrow,
who
have
the
holy
evidences
of
election upon
me,
who am
chosen
and
prepared
of
God
for
everlasting happiness
?"
Let
us
walk in this
daily practice,
in this
joy of
the
Holy
Spirit,
and wait for
a
rich
and
abundant
entrance into
the
kingdom
and
glory
of
our Lord and
Saviour.
The third thing
I
proposed
to
mention
was,
the abuses
of
this awful
doctrine.
There
is
nothing
so
true,
so
sacred and
so
divine,
but it
may be
abused
through the
wickedness,
or the weakness
of
the
hearts of
men,
and
the temptations
of
the
evil
-one:
Abuse
I.
One
abuse
of
this
doctrine
is,
when
we
per-
vert it
to
nourish presumption, and to indulge
our
sloth
and
negligence, when
we
sit
with folded hands like the
sluggard
in
the neglect
of
duty, or allow ourselves in
a
course
of
sin,
upon this pretence,
"
That if
I
am
elected
-I
shall
be
called, and
sanctified,
and
saved
;
the grace
of
'God
will
take hold
of
me some
time or other, and bring
me to
faith,
and holiness, and
eternal
life."
Answer
I.
Do
you
dare venture
to
argue thus
foolish-
5