The choice, moreover, was after the calling, and is _yet_ to take place, and as a consequence the passage does not prove that election is eternal. No doubt, whatever God does in time He purposed to do in eternity, but we should distinguish between a purpose to choose and the choice itself. There is nothing, then, in this passage to perplex any one. God, the infinite Father and heavenly King, has provided a feast of love for all men, and therefore for you, O reader, whosoever you are. Christ has wrought out a robe of righteousness for all, and therefore for you. The Holy Spirit prays you to be clothed with it--that is, to depend on Christ and Christ only, and not upon your doings or upon your feelings. When you cease to depend on self and to rest entirely on Jesus, there springs up in the heart an aspiration to be Christ -like, and to be wholly His. By being clothed with Christ's righteousness you will have, by God's grace, a title to sit down at the heavenly feast, and a moral meetness for heavenly society. THE ELECT FOREKNOWN.--In Romans viii. 29, 30, it is written: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." This passage is one of the strongholds of the view we contend against; but if it prove eternal election, it will also prove much more than this. If the persons spoken of were eternally elected, then they were also eternally called, and eternally justified, and eternally glorified. They would thus be justified before they sinned, and glorified before they had a being. The verbs are all in the aorist tense, and what is true of one verb is true of all the others. An interpretation burdened with such consequences cannot be true.