repentance, that they may come to amendment out of the snare of the devil, which are taken of him at his pleasure’ (2 Tim. ii. 24-26).
Besides, Augustine also teaches, that both the grace of free election and predestination, and also wholesome admonitions and doctrines, are to be preached (Lib. de Bono Perseverantiæ, cap. 14).
We therefore condemn those who seek otherwise than in Christ whether they be chosen from all eternity, and what God has decreed of them before all beginning. For men must hear the Gospel preached, and believe it. If thou believest, and art in Christ, thou mayest undoubtedly hold that thou art elected. For the Father has revealed unto us in Christ his eternal sentence of predestination, as we even now showed out of the people, in 2 Tim. 9, 19. This is therefore above all to be taught and well weighed, what great love of the Father toward us in Christ is revealed. We must hear what the Lord does daily preach unto us in his Gospel: how he calls and says, ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you’ (Matt. xi. 28); and, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John iii. 16); also, ‘It is not the will of your Father in heaven that any of these little ones should perish’ (Matt. xviii. 14).
Let Christ, therefore, be our looking-glass, in whom we may behold our predestination. We shall have a most evident and sure testimony that we are written in the Book of Life if we communicate with Christ, and he be ours, and we be his, by a true faith. Let this comfort us in the temptation touching predestination, than which there is none more dangerous: that the promises of God are general to the faithful; in that he says, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive; every one that asketh receiveth’ (Luke xi. 9, 10). And, to conclude, we pray, with the whole Church of God, ‘Our Father which art in heaven’ (Matt. vi. 9); and in baptism we are ingrafted into the body of Christ, and we are fed in his Church, oftentimes, with his flesh and blood, unto everlasting life. Thereby, being strengthened, we are commanded to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling,’ according to that precept of Paul, in Phil. ii. 12.
