tification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."
But this cannot prove that the election spoken of was eternal,
because the Spirit's work takes place in time, and not in eternity.
Neither does it prove that it was unconditional. It is through the
Spirit that men are convicted of sin, and led by His gracious
influences to trust in Jesus. The epistle was written to believers,
to those who had been "born again" (1 Peter i. 23), and he says that
they were elected, choice ones, according to God's foreknowledge,
who knew from eternity that they would believe under His grace; and
they were, being believers, chosen unto obedience, and also to a
justified state, or "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus." To
contend that if a man believes under what is termed "common grace,"
this is to make himself to "differ," and to take the praise of
salvation to himself, is in our opinion entirely wrong. Does the
patient who takes the medicine under the persuasion of a kind
physician, and is cured, have whereof to boast? Because the blind
beggar takes an alms, has he whereof to glory? Neither do we see
that a poor guilty sinner has any reason for boasting when, under
the persuasion of the Divine Spirit, he accepts a full pardon of all
his sins. Were a prisoner who has been condemned to be visited by
the sovereign, and a pardon put into his hands, to go afterwards
through the streets shouting, "I have saved myself--I have saved
myself," we should say the man was crazed. Why will not theologians
look at things from a commonsense point of view? There is nothing in
the passage to prevent you at once entering among the elect.

MAKING ELECTION SURE.--In 2 Peter i. 10, it is written thus:
"Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling
and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall."
But the passage says nothing about the _time_ when they were
elected, nor whether they were elected to get a peculiar influence
to necessitate faith. It implies the negative of the Calvinistic
opinion. The Christians were exhorted to make their election sure.
But if they were elected by an infallible decree, how could they
make it sure? It was, by the theory, sure, independent of them. The
exhortation shows that Peter did not know anything of the dogma, and
that he held that men had to do with watching over their spiritual
life, so that their calling to glory and their election might not
fai