While we assert the eternal sovereignty of God in choosing sinners to salvation, we would not insinuate that any compulsion is exercised over the will. The freedom of that is eminently preserved by the grace that restores it to the original object of its choice. The will is not compelled, but drawn, _suavi omnipotentiâ et omnipotenti suavitate_, by a sweet and all-powerful at traction; and then the sinner is “made willing in the day of God’s power.” Psal. cx. Neither has this great truth the least tendency to relax the obligation of personal holiness, or to affect the interests of morality in the world; since the people of God are said to be “chosen in Christ, _that they should be_ holy and without blame before him in love.” Ephes. i. 4. The invidious charge, that, “if persons are chosen to salvation they may live as they list,” has no foundation in truth and facts; and there is no position more abominable in our view, than that by which some accommodate to us, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” And to sin, _because_ grace abounds, we esteem a species of the most detestable and first-rate wickedness. If some have abused these doctrines to purposes of licentiousness; it should be remembered, that the world in general use the opposite ones as an opiate to lull them asleep in fatal supineness. So that, if any argument be founded on the number of those who are influenced by these tenets respectively, an immense majority will be on the side of opposition both to truth and godliness; and the argument must, of course, preponderate in favor of those, who, by partial judges, are supposed to be most affected by it. But as we admit of no election, but such as hath holiness for one of its salutary streams, and look for no perseverance, but such as implies the habitual practice of good works, and a continuance in them even to the end; so we insist, that, without the election of grace, the power to perform them would be wanting, and the hopes of salvation rest on a very precarious foundation. It is the everlasting spring, from whence floweth that river of God, which is full of water, that gladdens the church with its perennial source and inexhaustible supplies. Built upon this rock, the people of God are secure; and their salvation as great a certainty, as the purposes, dispensations, covenant, promises, and blood of Jesus, can make it.