God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, to the end that we should be holy and unblameable before Him in love, Who has predestined us to adopt us to Himself by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, To the praise of the glory of His grace, whereby He has accepted us in His well-beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

I began to show you this morning that it is not lawful for us to take liberty to looseness under the guise that God has chosen us before the making of the world, as though it were right for us to give ourselves over to all naughtiness because we cannot perish, seeing that God has taken us for His children. For we must not put asunder the things which He has coupled together, seeing that He has chosen us to be holy and to walk in purity of life. Election must be as a root that yields good fruits, for as long as God lets us alone in our own kind, we can do nothing but all manner of naughtiness because there is so great corruption and lewdness in man's nature that all that they ever think or do is contrary to God's righteousness.

Therefore, there is no other way but to be changed by God. And whence comes this change but only from the grace that we speak of, namely, that He did elect and choose us for His children before we were born into the world. Herewithal, we have to mark further that God lets His chosen ones go for a time so that they seem to be astray and utterly lost, and yet brings them home again to His flock when it pleases Him. And that serves to humble them the more and to make His goodness and mercy so much the better known to the whole world.

If God should make all His chosen ones walk in perfectness of conversation even from their very childhood, it should not be so well discerned that the same comes from the grace of His Holy Spirit. But when wretched folk who lived loosely and were given to all naughtiness for a time are quite changed, that cannot come to pass without God's working and putting to of His hand. Thus, you see that the cause why God delays the calling of those whom He has chosen is to touch them to the quick by His Holy Spirit, that He may make them walk in His obedience. For when we see them reformed suddenly and beyond the common expectation and opinion of men, therein we perceive that God has manifested His power in them, as I said before. And again, on the other part, every one of us is convicted by experience that we are beholden to God for all the good that is in us.

When we are naturally inclined to any vice, and afterward the same is corrected, we perceive well that God has looked mercifully upon us. You perceive then that we have so much the more cause to humble ourselves, seeing we were in the way of perdition until He drew us out of it. And it stands with us in hand to mark that well, for there are some fantastical heads which imagine that God so guides His chosen ones by His Holy Spirit that they are sanctified beforehand, even from the time that they are born into the world, as soon as they come out of their mother's womb. But the contrary appears.

And in good sooth, we see how simple in another text speaking to the faithful says, some of you were plunged in covetousness, some were given to cruelty, some were scorners, some were lewd and loose livers, and others were gluttons and drunkards, and to be short, you were full of all uncleanness. But God, having changed you and made you clean from such filthiness and infection, has dedicated you to Himself. Again, he says to the Romans, you ought to be ashamed of the life which you led before He drew you to Himself.

So then, whereas it is said in this text that God chose His servants to make them walk in holiness of life, it is not meant that He is bound to govern them with His Holy Spirit even from their childhood. For, as I have said already, experience shows us that He lets them run astray until a convenient time comes for Him to call them. But yet we must always bear in mind that God's choosing of us was to the end that we should live holy lives. If He should let us alone still as wretched castaways, surely we could do nothing but all manner of naughtiness, according to the corruption that is in us. The good then proceeds from His freely bestowed mercy that He has used towards us before we were born, yea, and before the world was made. Thus, you see, in effect, what we have to mark upon this strain.

And so the blasphemies of those who would deface God's praise are repelled, which make a jar and, as it were, a divorce between God's free election and the endeavour of doing well. "Yea," say they, "if God has chosen us, then let each of us do what we list, for we cannot perish. What should we care about doing either good or evil?"

Seeing that our salvation is grounded upon God's mere grace and not upon any virtue of our own, the answer hereunto is easy, namely, that if God's election were not, look how many thoughts and appetites there are in us, so many rebellions should there be against all righteousness. For we tend all of us but to evil, and we are not only inclined to it, but we are as it were seething hot with it. And we run to it with frantic eagerness because the devil possesses all such as are not reformed by God's Holy Spirit. And so we must conclude that our giving of ourselves to do good is because God guides us and leads us thereto by His Holy Spirit, all because of His election.

Therefore, as I said earlier, we must not separate the things that God has joined together, for we are not chosen to take leave to do what we list, but to show by our deeds that God has adopted us to be His children and taken us into His keeping, intending to dwell in us by His Holy Spirit and to knit us to Himself in all perfection of righteousness. Herewithal let us mark also that although God has reformed us, and set us in the good way, and made us to feel that He has already wrought in us to subdue us to His word, and make us serve Him obediently in all things, it does not therefore follow that we are fully reformed on the first day. No, not even in all our whole lifetime. St. Paul says not that God brings His chosen and faithful ones to the full point of perfection, but he says that He draws them towards it, and so we are but in the way thither, even until our death.

Therefore, as long as we live in this world, let us learn to profit and to go forward more and more, assuring ourselves that there is still always some way to go. They that imagine any perfection are as good as bewitched with hypocrisy and pride, or else have no feeling nor fear of God in them, but mock Him flatly to His face. For he that examines himself shall always find such a store of vices as he shall be ashamed of if he considers them well. Those then who say that we can come to any perfection while we dwell in this mortal body, do well show that either they are utterly blinded with devilish pride, or else that they are heathenish folk void of all religion and godliness.

As for our part, let us mark, as I touched upon before, that God has chosen us to the end that we should be blameless, howbeit that we are not able to be so until we are quite rid of all our infirmities and departed out of this prison of sin, wherein we are held fast as of now. And therefore, when we feel any vices in us, let us fight manfully against them, and not be disheartened as though we were not God's children because we are not yet faultless before Him. But let our sins be always before our eyes, which make us guilty. Although then we find never so many miseries in ourselves to thrust us out of the way, yet let us go on still, assuring ourselves that as long as we live here beneath upon the earth, our way is never at an end. We must always go forward, and we can never come to our resting place.

Thus, the faithful ought to harden and strengthen themselves, although they are not perfect. And let the same also cause us to groan and sigh under the burden which we feel, for the perfection of the faithful and of God's children is to acknowledge their own weakness and to pray, not only to amend all their misdoings, but also to bear with them of His infinite goodness, and not to call them to account with extremity and rigour. You see then that the thing whereunto we must resort for succour is God's mercy, whereby He covers and bears with all our sins because we have not yet attained to the mark whereunto He calls us, that is to a holy and faultless life. But however the world goes with us, let us go forward still, and take good heed that we step not out of the right way.

If the word "love" be referred to men, then St. Paul meant to signify the true righteousness of Christians, that is, to deal faithfully and uprightly. For we know that the hypocrites would content God with ceremonies and shows, as men term them, and meanwhile, some of them shall be given to catching and snatching, some shall be full of envy, malice, cruelty, and treason. Some shall be drunkards, and others shall be lewd and loose livers, giving themselves the bridle to all naughtiness.

Yet for all this, they think all is safe if they may make a few gestures and pretend some countenance of holiness by using a few ceremonies. St. Paul, to cut off all such stuff, says that we must walk in love, which is the bond of perfection and the fulfilling of the law if we intend to have our life allowed by God. And so, you see what we have to mark upon that strain.

Furthermore, let us mark that in this place, St. Paul exhorted us to acknowledge ourselves beholden to God for all the virtue and goodness that is in us. As for example, if we have any good zeal, if we fight against our own vices, or if we walk in the obedience of God, whence comes it even from this wellspring that He purposed it, that is, that He chose us beforehand. Then let us consider that the praise thereof is due unto Him and let us not defraud Him of His right. For although we lived as perfectly as angels, yet, if we were so foolish as to think that the same comes of our own free will and self-movement, we miss the chief point of all. For what do our good works serve but to glorify God? And if we take them to spring from ourselves, we see they be marred by so doing and are turned into vices, so as they become nothing else than stark vainglory.

You see then that the thing whereat St. Paul aimed in this sentence is to bring us always back to God's free election, that we might know how all goodness depends thereupon. He added immediately that we be predestinated in adoption in Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His own will. Whereas he says that God has predestinated us in adoption, it is to show that if we be God's children, it is not through nature, but through His only grace. Now, His only grace is not in respect of anything that God foresaw in us, as I touched this morning, but because He had already marked us out and appointed us to such adoption, even in such a way that the cause thereof is not to be sought elsewhere than in Himself. And that is the cause why St. Paul adds immediately that He did it in Himself and according to the good pleasure of His own will.

Also, he repeated the same thing that I declared this forenoon, namely, that all was done in Jesus Christ. You see, therefore, that the thing which we have to mark in this sentence is that none other cause makes us God's children than only His choosing of us in Himself, for we have no such prerogative by birth or inheritance. Neither does it come of flesh and blood, as it is said in the first chapter of St. John, inasmuch as all that ever can be sought in our own selves is utterly excluded and abolished. And that is to show us that if men be let alone in their former plight, they have no intercommunication at all with God, but are utterly cut off from His kingdom. True, it is that our first father Adam was created after the image of God, and that he was excellent in his first state. But after the coming in of sin, we were all utterly lost, inasmuch as even Adam had not any state of himself, and his free will, that was given him, served him to none other purpose but to make him the more inexcusable, for he fell willfully and through his own malice. But hereby we see what manner of constancy he had in him since he was no sooner made, but he by his fall drew us down into his fall with him.

Then, as now, we are all of us born the children of wrath and are cursed of God. And so, as long as we abide in our former state and plight, there is nothing but endless death in us. Therefore, God must call us home to Him. Are we able to purchase such a prerogative? Where is the gold or silver to buy it with? Where are the virtues whereby we need to recompense God for so great and excellent a privilege? To be sure, as is said already upon this sentence, it comes neither of our flesh nor of blood, that is to say, it comes not of anything that we can find in this world, but only of God's adoption. For the word which St. Paul uses betokens the appointing of children. Like as when a man adopts a child, he chooses him to be his heir, and all the goods that he has afterward do pass under that title, even so are we heirs of the heavenly life because God has adopted and chosen us for His children.

But St. Paul is not contented to magnify God's grace so far forth. He says, moreover, that God had also predestinated us and appointed the thing beforehand. We see then that St. Paul gathers together all the things that may beat down the fond imaginations which we might conceive of bringing ought unto God or of advancing ourselves towards Him to make ourselves acceptable unto Him. Therefore, all such things must be laid aside. That is also the cause why he repeats, "through Jesus Christ." If it be demanded why and how we be predestinated of God to be His children, it is because He vouchsafed to look upon us in Christ. For, as I have said before, He is as it were the register wherein we be written to attain to the heritage of life and salvation.

Though God pities our miseries, we should always be hateful in His sight if Jesus Christ did not come before Him, because all of us who are descended from Adam are of one mould and making, and there is none better than another among us. Now, then, one sort is forsaken. And why is that? It is because God, looking upon them in themselves, dislikes them, but He chooses us in our Lord Jesus Christ and looks upon us there as in a glass that He likes. So, you see where the difference proceeds. However, to express the matter better, St. Paul says that God's choosing of us was in Himself. That is, God had us all good in Himself.

But here St. Paul aims to set out something not seen in all the ordinary works of God: that none other cause moved Him to choose us than His own will. St. Paul, therefore, takes away all respect when he says that God chose us in Himself. If He had found any desert or worthiness, any disposition or forwardness, any goodness or virtue, or, to be short, any one drop of anything that He might like and allow, He would not have chosen us in Himself. We ourselves should have had some partnership with Him. Seeing then that St. Paul looks upon all things in God's purpose which belong to our salvation and says that our election also is shut up there, it is all one as if he should say that men do sorely overshoot themselves when they take upon themselves to be anything worth or to have been furtherers or preparers of themselves to the receiving of such grace. Therefore, we must be carried up aloft if we will know whereupon our salvation is grounded, and what is the very original wellspring and the chief and only cause of the same. So you see what is meant by this saying, that God did it in Himself.

But St. Paul adds further, according to the good pleasure of His own will. If he had set down no more but only the word will, it had been enough. Accordingly, as we have seen heretofore and was declared upon Sunday last, St. Paul was chosen according to the will of God. Why so? Because he was neither fit nor worthy to have such a prerogative, but that it pleased God to choose him. St. Paul, therefore, does not boast that he had gotten the apostleship, but with all mildness acknowledges it to be the free gift of God. Thus, you see what the word will imports, and that not in any one place only, but throughout the whole Holy Scripture. Therefore, whensoever God's will is mentioned, it is to show that men cannot bring anything of their own.

Nevertheless, St. Paul sets down here a word of overplus and says, according to the good pleasure. As if he had said, truly seeing that God's will is the cause of our salvation, we should not flit to and fro and seek other reasons and means thereof. Be it for as much as men are so unthankful and malicious that they would always darken God's glory and so puffed up with fond overweening that they continually challenge more to themselves than belongs unto them. Therefore, if they be not sufficiently persuaded of God's will, let them understand that it comes of the good pleasure of His will, that is to say, of a freely inclined will, which depends not upon any other thing than itself, nor has any respect one way or another, but vouchsafes to choose us freely because He liked and liked to do so.

Now, then, we see that such searchers into the cause why God has chosen us would, if it lay in them, overthrow His everlasting ordinance. For the one is inseparable from the other. If God has chosen us, as it is showed here, then nothing can hang upon our deserts, nor upon any thought that we might have to come. But God wrought it according to His own freely inclined will and found no other reason to move Him thereto than His own good pleasure. If any man thinks this to be strange, it is because they would be held fellows with God. And herein appears their devilish malapertness, that they cannot suffer God to reign freely as the thing that He likes might be received as good, just, and rightful without gainsaying. But let such folk bark like dogs as much as they list, yet is this sentence definitive, unable to be repealed, which the Holy Spirit has uttered here by the mouth of St. Paul, namely, that it is not for us to search any further cause for our election than the good pleasure of God. That is to say, than His own freely inclined will whereby He has chosen us, though we were not worthy in any other respect, then for that He listed to say so it pleased with Him.

And so you see, in effect, what we have to gather upon those words of St. Paul.

Now, he says immediately that it is to the praise of the glory of His grace. Here he showed the final cause that God looked at in choosing us, namely, that His grace might be praised by it, and that not in a common and ordinary manner, but with a certain glory.

For He has coupled those two things together to the intent we should be ravished when we see how God has drawn us out of the bottom of hell, to open us the gate of His kingdom, and to call us to the heritage of salvation. Here we see yet again the thing that I treated off this morning, namely, that all such as would put away God's predestination or are loath to hear it spoken of, do thereby show themselves to be mortal enemies of God's praise. To their seeming, it slides up and vanishes away. But who is the competent judge thereof? Do they think themselves wiser than God who has spoken the clean contrary to that which they allege? Oh, say they, that were the next way to open the mouths of many men to blaspheme God. Surely, as for the wicked, it is certain that they will always find cause to rail, and they cannot be hindered so to do. But yet, for all that, God shall have enough wherewith to justify Himself, and all they that despise Him and His righteousness shall be confounded. However, then, the case stands, it is not without cause said here that God is duly glorified, and His praise magnified when we acknowledge that He has freely chosen whom He listed, and that there is no other cause of difference between men than only His will, so that they whom He has refused perish because they are worthy of it, and they whom He calls to salvation must not seek the cause thereof elsewhere than from the said free bestowed adoption.

Furthermore, by those two words, St. Paul meant also to stir us up to a greater and fervent earnestness of praising God. For it is not enough for us to confess coldly that our salvation springs from God's mere goodwill, but we must be as it were inflamed, and give ourselves wholly to His praise, as if we were wholly wedded to it. As St. Peter shows, for as much as we were drawn out of the darkness of death, it is good reason that we should be speaking of the inevitable praises of God.

And hereby, he means to show that when the faithful have strained themselves to the utmost to discharge themselves in praising God's goodness, they shall never fully accomplish it because it is a thing incomprehensible. Mark well, therefore, what we have to bear in mind, and so upon this goodness or grace of which he speaks. It behoves us to gather that men shall never yield God His due glory until they are utterly abased, so that there remains not anything at all in them to glory of. Let us put the case that God's election were never thought of; should He therefore cease to be praised? No, but He should still have some portion of His praise, for if men should say no more than that God causes His sun to shine upon us, that would be cause enough to praise Him. And when we open our eyes to look upward and downward upon the wonderful works that He shows us, the same is a large provocation to exercise us in His praise all our life long. Moreover, when His gospel is preached unto us, there too we have cause to praise Him, though no mention at all be made of His election.

I say there is enough in respect of us, but then should He be robbed of His chief praise, and we should yield Him but a piece of that which is due to Him. And why so? Because the faithful should think that they have faith of their own self-moving and free-inclined will.

I told you this morning that faith is a fruit of election, for there is no other difference between us and the unbelievers but that God reached us His hand and drew us to Him by a secret means at such time as we turned our backs upon Him and were strangers to Him.

To be short, it is not for naught that St. Paul says here that God's praise shall never be glorified as it ought to be until we acknowledge His election to be the cause of all the benefits which He bestows upon us. And that if He, of His infinite mercy, adopted us not of set purpose from everlasting, we should have a piece of the praise to ourselves which is due unto Him.

And so should God be diminished and abridged of so much of His right. To be sure, we see well enough how it is said here that men must be utterly abased to the end that God may have His right and no man be made co-partner with Him. But all men must confess that He is both the beginner and the accomplisher of our salvation.

Also, we must mark well how St. Paul adds that by His own grace He has accepted us in His well-beloved. By this, it is yet more evident why our salvation is grounded upon God's mere election and freely bestowed goodness, for men will never give over their foolish overweening if they be not so vanquished that they have not one word more to reply. St. Paul, therefore, to bring us to such reason, tells us that we'd be damned and lost in ourselves. Now, when such a thunderbolt lights upon our heads, it is not for us to stand checking anymore. If men will be so foolish as still to hunt about with windlasses to have somewhat or other belonging and reserved to themselves besides the only grace of God, they need no more but this same to turn them from it, namely, that we were not in God's favour till we were in Jesus Christ because we be utterly damned and accursed in our own selves. This matter was sufficiently declared already, if we were not overflowed, considering the thing that is so needful and which ought to be so clear unto us. And in good sooth, even experience ought to teach us in this behalf. And surely, if hypocrisy did not blind us too much, we should well perceive that there is nothing but wickedness in us, and God's wrath would strike us in such fear that we should be at our wits' end with it. But God must compel us to obedience by strong hand, or else we cannot find in our hearts to give over all praise unto Him.

Therefore, let us mark well what is meant by this speech, where it is said that we were taken into favour in Jesus Christ because He is the well-beloved. And why is Jesus Christ called God's well-beloved, according as He is termed in the 17th of Matthew and in other places, and also as is showed to be so in the prophet Isaiah? Thereby it is shown to us that God does justly hate and abhor us so long as we abide in our own natural plight. For if that title were not peculiar to Jesus Christ, then was it said in vain, "This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." But if it be peculiar to Jesus Christ, then no other creature can claim it. In so much that although God loves His angels, yet they cannot be thoroughly beloved of Him but by the means of Jesus Christ. And as for us, there's a far greater respect. For as I have said already, we be beheaded, and Jesus Christ is the mediator or spokesman to set the angels at one with God. In so much that there should be no steadfastness, no constancy in them, if they were not upheld by Him. And besides that, their righteousness should not be perfect, but they be blessed and chosen in Him. That serves for one point.

As for us, seeing we are estranged from God through sin, He must needs take us as His enemies and be an adversary to us. Jesus Christ, therefore, is the only well-beloved among men. And as for all the rest of us, God utterly dislikes and disclaims us. Indeed, so much so that He says He repented Him that He made man. This saying implies that we are not worthy to be among the asses, dogs, and other beasts, for they continue to be God's creatures in the same state that He made them, but we are so lewd and depraved that we deserve to be erased and to have our memory cursed and hateful before God.

Now let us go brag and boast and seek ways to ennoble ourselves, for we see how the Holy Ghost disagrees with all such as think themselves to be of any worth. Therefore, let us consider that if we are enemies unto God, we are in worse condition than if we had never been created. Hereupon St. Paul tells us that God has accepted us in His well-beloved. Seeing then that our Lord Jesus Christ is received by God His Father, to be the beloved, not only in His own person but also in respect of the love that is extended to all the members of His body, by that means we are called home again, and God embraces us as His children, whereas previously we were His enemies and utterly hated by Him.

But however the world goes, we must always come back to the election that we have spoken of before. For the grace that is communicated to us by our Lord Jesus Christ also issues from the same spring. Therefore, continuing with the matter that I have touched upon already, he shows us how greatly we need to be well- beloved in Jesus Christ. For if it were not proven to our faces, we would never grant, unfeignedly, that we are beholden to God for all things, for we are always laboring to advance ourselves in some way or other, and every one of us seeks to reserve something to himself, even if it is but the amount of a pinpoint. But contrariwise, St. Paul tells us that God must needs love us out of ourselves, and that if He likes us, it must not be in respect of our own selves. And why? Because we are prisoners and bond slaves of sin, held down under the yoke and tyranny of Satan. Finally, we are shut up in the bondage of death until we are ransomed by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now then, we see that the sum of this lesson is that men are admonished to depart out of themselves and to seek their salvation in God's only goodness, even by holding to the means that is showed us here, which is to resort to our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet there are two evil extremities of which we must beware. The one is that in coming to our Lord Jesus Christ, we must not imagine that there is any worthiness in us that should make us partakers of His benefits. And how may that vice be corrected? Even by being led to God's free election. For the very cause why men presume so much upon their own free will, and the very ground also upon which they build the opinion they have conceived of their own deserts and worthiness, is that they know not how they be nothing in any other respect than for that God has accepted them out of His own mere free goodness because He has chosen them already in His own everlasting purpose.

Therefore, we cannot by any means ascribe the beginning of our salvation to God unless we confess that which is showed us here, namely, that we were utterly damned and accursed at the time He adopted us, and that the very original cause of His adopting us is that He had predestinated us beforehand, even before the making of the world. Mark that for one point. The other evil extremity of which we must likewise beware is speculation. Many fantastical folk will say, "As for me, I shall never know whether God has chosen me or no, and therefore I must be content to abide still in my destruction." Yes, but that is for want of coming to Jesus Christ. How may we know that God has chosen us before the making of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ. I said before that faith springs from our election and is the fruit of it, which shows that our root is hidden within. He that believes is thereby assured that God has wrought in him. Faith is, as it were, the copy or counterpart which God has delivered to us of the original register of our adoption.

God has His everlasting purpose or determination, and that He keeps always to Himself as a chief precedent or original record, whereas He gives us a copy by faith. I speak here after the manner of men, for we know that God uses neither paper nor parchment to record us in.

And as I have told you already, to speak properly, the register wherein we are enrolled is our Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, God reserves to Himself the knowledge of our election, as a prince would do an original precedent register or record, but He has given us copies or counterparts of it, authentic enough, in that He imprints it in our hearts by His Holy Spirit, that we are His children.

You see then that the faith which we have in our Lord Jesus Christ is enough to warrant us of our election. And therefore, what seek we more? I told you just now that Jesus Christ is the looking glass wherein God beholds us when it is His will to be pleased with us. Likewise, on our side, He is the glass upon which we must cast our eyes and looks when we intend to come to the knowledge of our election.

For whosoever believes in Jesus Christ is God's child, and consequently His heir, as I have declared before. Then it follows that if we have faith, we are also adopted. For why does God give us faith? Even because He chose us before the creation of the world. This, therefore, is an infallible order: inasmuch as the faithful receive God's grace and embrace His mercy, holding Jesus Christ for their head, with the intent to obtain salvation by His means, they know assuredly that God has adopted them. It is true that election is of itself secret, being so deep and hidden a determination as it behooves us to honour it. Nevertheless, God shows it to us as far as is requisite and as He knows it to be for our benefit and welfare, and does so when He enlightens us with the belief of His gospel. Thus, you see why, after St. Paul had spoken of God's everlasting election, he set forth Jesus Christ as the one to whom we must resort to be assured that God loves us and accepts us as His children, and consequently, that He had adopted us before we knew Him, yes, and before the world was made.

Moreover, we must gather from this sentence that the doctrine of predestination serves not to carry us away into wandering speculations, but to beat down all pride in us, and the fond opinion which we conceive always of our own worthiness and deserving, and to show that God has such free power, privilege, and sovereign dominion over us, that He may refuse whom He wills and choose whom He wills. By that means, we are led to glorify Him and therewith to acknowledge that His choosing of us is in Jesus Christ, to the end that we should be held fast in the faith of His gospel. For if we are His members and take Him for our head according to the covenant and holy union that is between Him and us, we can never be broken so long as we believe His gospel. We must repair to Him to be made sure of our salvation because we see and feel by experience that God has adopted and chosen us, and that He presently calls us and tells us that the assurance which He has given us and daily gives us by His gospel, namely that He will be our Father, especially as He engraves it in our hearts by His Holy Spirit, is no deceitful thing. For the gospel may well be preached to all men, even to the castaways, but yet for all that, God is not so gracious to them as to touch them to the quick. Therefore, when we have God's adoption engraved in our hearts, then it shall be declared hereafter. We have a good and imperishable gauge that God will guide us unto the end, and that since He has begun to lead us into the way of salvation, He will bring us to the perfection whereunto He calls us.

Therefore, because without Him, we could not continue for so much as one day. But now let us fall down before the majesty of our good God with acknowledgment of our faults, praying Him to make us perceive them more and more, that being utterly ashamed of them, we may hate our vices and all our whole life with the naughtiness and vileness thereof, and resort to Him who alone is able to remedy the same and not swerve one way or another from Him, as He communicates Himself to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep straight on to Him, acknowledging that as we are chosen in Him, so also we are maintained and preserved for His sake, and that He will show His power more and more in us until we have finished our race and come to the heavenly heritage whereunto we are going. Beseeching Him that although we are yet far from it, yet, He will vouchsafe to give us a steady and invincible strength to hold out continually, so that we fully renounce the world and, being quite consumed in ourselves, are renewed in the image of God, as the same may shine perfectly in us, until we are made partakers of the glorious immortality, which He has bought dearly for us. May it please Him to grant this grace not only to us, but also to all people and nations, etc.