fore Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. He was vividly conscious of the fearful obstacles which divine grace had met and overcome in his conversion. No sooner was he alone in the house of Judas than the strangeness of his call came to his soul. He pondered over it. In Arabia the wonder of it increased as he meditated. Never to the end of his life could he think of it as anything but a marvel that God laid a saving hand on him, the blasphemer, the persecutor, and enlisted all his powers in the service of Christ. This wonder frequently expresses itself in the epistles in most humble allusions to his conversion and to the honors laid upon him as a herald of Christ. Nowhere, however, does he attempt to explain the mystery. Half the glory of election, to his mind, is in the fact that the problem admits of no solution. If he had experienced less of the fierce power of sin, he might perhaps have hinted at an explanation. Some men might suspect a tinge of self-merit, but not "the chief of sinners." Pelagius could explain election, Augustine never. If you ask the man who once set out for Damascus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter," why he was arrested on the road in his wickedness, and by the grace of God exalted to the highest spiritual blessedness, he can only murmur, "the good pleasure of his will." We may fairly question whether that mystery is even now clear to Paul, whether, as he stands in the very presence of the divine glory, and sees face to face, and rejoices in the grace which brought him there, he is not "lost in wonder" as well as in "love and praise." No man is ready to preach the doctrine of election, until he has had something of this personal experience of it which fired Paul. It might be said that no Christian minister is prepared to proclaim any part of the gospel, until he is assured that he is "an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God;" and that, after he has once gained this assurance, he VOL. L. NO. 197. 6 will preach all truths with the fire and force of personal conviction. But it is peculiarly true that he must approach the doctrine of election along the avenue of personal experience, if he is to speak to edification. If he comes to it by way of his seminary lectures merely, or only along the road of philosophic investigation, his sermon will be as angular, hard, and heavy as the chiselled stone which the builder fits snugly into the arch. The Christian preacher is first of all a redeemed sinner, as unworthy of salvation as any of his hearers. If he knows his own heart he will often be filled with a sweet surprise at the position in which he finds himself, a chosen man, selected in his unworthiness, and ordained to the high honor and privilege of ministering the divine grace to his fellow-men. The more he ponders on it the greater will the marvel grow. It will sometimes seize him in the midst of his preaching. Whatever else grace may seem to be, it will more and more appear to him as "amazing grace." Once he sung of the happy day that fixed his choice on Christ. As his experience deepens, he will sing in his heart of the happy day that fixed Christ's choice on him. It will do him no harm to ask again and again, how it could be that he should have been elected to this blessedness, because such questioning will always force him back upon Paul's answer, "the good pleasure of his will." And he will leave the solution just there, where the Bible leaves it, and content himself with wondering, often saying to himself what Faber said: "Oh, gift of gifts! oh, grace of faith! My God, how can it be That thou, who hast discerning love, Out of this personal experience of the truth the preacher will so present it, first of all, as to set before his hearers the meaning and the comfort of Christian sonship. The doctrine, rightly explained, will on the one hand define to the mind of the church the true import of adoption into the family of God, and on the other hand will fortify the confidence of believers in the security of their standing in Christ. What is it to be a son of God? What makes us sons of God? These two vital questions believers will ask, and some answer will be entertained in the mind. Perhaps the inquiries will take a simpler form: Am I Christian? How do I know that I am a Christian? but the questions touch. the foundations of religious life. Now let the preacher, in untechnical language, and with the sincerity of personal experience, unfold the truth that "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself." Let him simply open such a text and show what is in it,-the family of God's chosen ones-adoption into this family through Jesus Christ -God's eternal purpose in their redemption. If the believer has conceived of sonship merely as the imitation of certain virtues which he finds in Christ, will he not rejoice in this new inheritance? If he has thought that he was made a son "by the will of man," if his confidence has rested simply on the fact that once he "decided to be a Christian," will not his sense of security be greatly reinforced when thus he learns "what is the hope of his calling"? There is a wide difference between the assurance that I am trying to live for Christ and the knowledge that Christ is living in me. It is true that I hold Christ's hand, but the best truth is that Christ's mighty hand holds mine. My choice of Christ I may at times distrust, but Christ's choice of me sets my feet upon a rock. Indeed, it cannot too earnestly be urged upon the reflection of believers that they "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." What is it to be a son in the Father's family? Not to improve the behavior, but to receive adoption. Not to do something with the hands, but to have something done in the heart. What makes us sons of God? His electing grace, unmerited, resisted from the first, inscrutable, infinitely merciful and condescending. He chose us in Christ before the morning stars sang together. Then sonship is God's work in the soul. The preacher will go on to show that the doctrine of election assures the believer of his continuance in the faith even unto the end. "If sons, then heirs." Adoption is the pledge of salvation "to the uttermost." It is interesting to observe how this corollary to the doctrine of election pressed upon Paul's mind in his discussion of the subject. There is in all his writings no more exultant burst of confidence in the believer's perseverance than the fervid climax of the eighth of Romans, beginning, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And what is the ground of this challenge? God's electing grace. Look back a few verses. "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Faith in electing grace blossoms into the assured hope of eternal life. God chose us then he will hold us fast. The love of Christ laid hold of us in our sin: then nothing can separate us from that love. There is a deal of inspiration in this comfortable old doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. The perseverance, however, is not in the saints. "Old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon." The grace of God perseveres. Christ himself suggested the true connection between electing grace and perseverance, before Paul pointed it out. "Those that thou gavest me, I have kept." "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." Again the contrast appears between the doubts and fears which arise when the Christian estimates his own powers, and the triumphant confidence which inspires him when he reflects on his standing as chosen of God. It is a familiar question which the pastor hears from anxious converts, "Shall I hold out?" It is the pastor's privilege to reply in the spirit of Paul's words to the Philippians, "Being confi An eternity back dent of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Hold out? Of course you will not hold out. It is divine grace that holds out. An eternity back God determined to glorify himself in your salvation. He has bestowed upon you adoption, and "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." The Christian life does not consist in a series of human struggles to win heaven. "Loving God is but letting God love us." Even the inspired word almost seems to correct itself on this subject where it says, "But now, after that ye have known God," and immediately adds, "or rather are known of God." Not our knowledge of God, but his knowledge of us, is the warrant of our hope. Turning to the relation of this doctrine to holy living, the preacher is tempted to present them in antithesis, as if utter reliance on electing grace might prove fatal to good works. He seeks to guard his hearers against the supposed evil consequences of trusting too much in God's choice of them, reminding them that, although they are chosen, they must nevertheless strive to lead righteous lives. The Scriptures never present the case in this way. They set forth the fact of election as a great incentive to, and a sure guarantee of, good works. "He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself." It is a necessary sequence. The only results which can follow trust in electing grace are obedience, fidelity, unreserved consecration. The very end of election. is Christian character to God's glory. Christ himself so teaches, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit." Paul repeats the thought to the Ephesians, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love;" and again to the Romans, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." In no other epistles as in |