ALL GLORY TO GOD
"According as H e hath chosen us in H im before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before H im in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to H imself, according to the good pleasure of H is will." -E PHESIANS 1:4, 5 [KJV] It is a very solemn but a very true assertion, that no man can quicken his own soul; and it is an equally solemn, we might almost say, a tremendous truth, that the gospel only comes in power to those whom God has chosen unto eternal life. Indeed the one flows from the other; for if no man can quicken his own soul, it necessarily follows it must be of sovereign grace that it is quickened at all. Once you allow the fall, and acknowledge that a man is by nature so thoroughly dead in trespasses and sins that he cannot raise himself up out of this state to newness of life, then the doctrine of election necessarily follows. A living soul may reason thus: "Am I quickened? Yes...