By HERMAN WITSIUS, D. D.
Professor of Divinity in the Universities of Franeker, Utrecht,
and Leyden; and also Regent of the Divinity College of
the States of Holland and West-Friesland.

Faithfully translated from the LATIN, and carefully
revised,

By WILLIAM CROOKSHANK, D. D.

I.

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of grace.

E are now first of all to consider those be- The benenefits, which belong to the covenant of fits of the grace, taken absolutely and in itself, and covenant therefore common to all those in covenant, under what economy soever: which we enumerate in the following order: 1. Election. 2. Effectual calling to the communion of Christ. 3. Regeneration. 4. Faith. 5. Justification. 6. Spiritual Peace. 7. Adoption. 8. The Spirit of Adoption. 9. Sanctification. 10. Conservation, or preservation. 11. Glorification. The devout meditation of all these things cannot fail to be glorious to God, agreeable, delightful and salutary to ourselves. VOL. II.

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II. The

Election both of

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II. The beginning and first source of all grace is Chrift and ELECTION, both of CHRIST THE SAVIOUR and of of those to those to be saved by him. For even Chrift was chofen be faved. of God, and, by an eternal and immutable decree,

given to be our Saviour; and therefore is faid to be foreordained before the foundation of the world, I Pet. I. 20. And they, whom Christ was to fave, were given to him by the fame decree. John, 17. 6. They are therefore faid to be chofen in Cbrift, Eph. 1. 4. That is, not only by Christ as God, and confequently the elector of them; but also in Christ as Mediator, and on that account the elected who, by one and the fame act, was given to them to be their head and lord, and at the fame time they were given to him to be his members and property, to be saved by his merit and power, and to enjoy communion with him. And therefore the book of election is called The book of life of the Lamb, Rev. 13.8. Not only because life is to be obtained in virtue of the lamb slain, but also, because the lamb takes up the first page of that book, is the head of the rest of the Elect, the first born among many brethren and jointbeirs with him. Rom. 8. 29, 17. But we before treated of this election of Christ the Mediator, book II. chap. III. fect. VIII. and now we are to speak of the Election of those to be faved.

Election III. We thus describe it: ELECTION is the eternal, defcribed, free and immutable counsel of God, about revealing the glory of his grace, in the eternal falvation of fome certain persons. Most of the parts of this description are in these words of the Apostle, Eph. 1. 4, 5, 6, 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 predestinated us unto the adop tion of children, by Jesus Christ to himself, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he bath made us ac cepted in the beloved.

Election,

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IV. We call Election, the counsel of God, by which term we mean that, which is commonly called decounfel. cree; Paul on this subject calls it προθεσις the purpose

why called a

of

:

of God. This term appears very familiar to the
Apostle, which he very frequently makes use of, and
denotes a fure, firm, and fixed decree of God, which
he can never repent of, and which depends on no-
thing out of himself, but is founded only in his
good-pleasure: All this is intimated, 2 Tim. I. 9,
who bath saved us, and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace. To this purpose also, Eph. 1. 11,
we are predestinated according to the purpose of him,
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
And elsewhere the fame Apostle also speaks of προθεσει
the purpose of Election, Rom. 8. 28, who are called
according to his purpose, and Rom. 9. 11, the purpose of
God according to Election. And thus we distinguish
this internal election, and of counsel, from the external
and of fatt, which signifies the actual separation of
believers from unbelievers, by effectual calling. In
this sense the Lord Jesus said to his Apostles John,
15. 19, but I have chosen you out of the world, there-
fore the world bateth you. But the eternal and in-
ternal decree of God could not be the cause of this
hatred, but only as it discovered itself by the event,
and by the actual separation of the Apostles from the
world. To this we may also, it seems, apply, what
the Apostle writes, 1 Cor. 1. 26, 27, ye fee your calling,
brethren, how that not many wife men, &c. But God
bath chofen the foolish things of the world, to confound
the wife, &c. Where he seems to take calling and
election for the same thing. Nor does this internal
Election and of counsel, differ from the external and
of fact, but only in this, that the last is the demon-
stration and execution of the first.

V. It is likewife clear, that we are not here speak- Election ing of an Election to any political or ecclefiaftical dig to grace nity, I Sam. 10. 24, and John 9. 70, nor even to the andglory, priviledge of an external covenant with God; in the manner that God chose all the people of Ifrael, VOL. II. Deut.

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