we will introduce two more passages
"Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." "In hope of eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." In
these scriptures we are assured _first_, that God chose us in Christ,
before the foundation of the world--_second_, that he saved us
according to his own purpose and grace before the world began, and
_third_ that he promised eternal life before the world began. These
things being embraced in his original plan, and purpose, their
performance is therefore certain as that the whole plan of God will be
carried unto execution.

There is, in my humble opinion, a strange inconsistency in the common
doctrine. They contend that on account of the transgression of our
first parent, all mankind were fallen creatures and even came into
existence totally depraved. To show the justice of God in the
constitution of our nature, they contend that Adam was our covenant
head, and had he maintained his original purity, we would also have
stood perfect in holiness, and no one would have had any reason to
complain. Now since Adam has fallen, and involved us in ruin, it is
equally just in God that we should share the fate of our covenant head
in the one instance as in the other. But if we make use of this same
argument in relation to Christ, the second Adam--if we contend that he
was the covenant head of every man, that the covenant was not made for
_this_, but for the _future_ world--that this covenant of grace being
made between the Father and the Son, was to stand independent of man--
that eternal life was promised and given us in him before the world
began--that as our covenant head, he resisted all temptations, and
perfectly fulfilled the law--that he died, and appeared alive beyond
the tomb free from temptation, and in a holy and immortal
constitution. If we contend for this, making use of their own
arguments, saying that it is just as rational that we should appear in
the image of Christ in the future world as that we should come into
this world in the image of Adam, they will pronounce the argument so
far as applicable to Adam, _sound logic_, but so far as this same
argument of theirs is applied by Universalists to Christ, they
pronounce it perfect jargon.

But, says the objector, there is one point you have not settled, and I