two more passages “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”  “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.”  In these scriptures we are assured first, that God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world—­second, that he saved us according to his own purpose and grace before the world began, and third that he promised eternal life before the world began.  These things being embraced in his original plan, and purpose, their performance is therefore certain as that the whole plan of God will be carried unto execution.

There is, in my humble opinion, a strange inconsistency in the common doctrine.  They contend that on account of the transgression of our first parent, all mankind were fallen creatures and even came into existence totally depraved.  To show the justice of God in the constitution of our nature, they contend that Adam was our covenant head, and had he maintained his original purity, we would also have stood perfect in holiness, and no one would have had any reason to complain.  Now since Adam has fallen, and involved us in ruin, it is equally just in God that we should share the fate of our covenant head in the one instance as in the other.  But if we make use of this same argument in relation to Christ, the second Adam—­if we contend that he was the covenant head of every man, that the covenant was not made for this, but for the future world—­that this covenant of grace being made between the Father and the Son, was to stand independent of man—­ that eternal life was promised and given us in him before the world began—­that as our covenant head, he resisted all temptations, and perfectly fulfilled the law—­that he died, and appeared alive beyond the tomb free from temptation, and in a holy and immortal constitution.  If we contend for this, making use of their own arguments, saying that it is just as rational that we should appear in the image of Christ in the future world as that we should come into this world in the image of Adam, they will pronounce the argument so far as applicable to Adam, sound logic, but so far as this same argument of theirs is applied by Universalists to Christ, they pronounce it perfect jargon.

But, says the objector, there is one point you have not settled, and I will here rest the whole of my argument upon it.  It is this—­God has, in no instance, promised eternal to unbelievers; and unless you can prove that the promise does extend to them, your arguments must fall like rottenness to the ground.  We have certainly proved this, and to attend to the objector’s request would but be, in some measure, going over the ground already occupied.  We will, however, just touch this point again.  We will introduce the following words of Paul to Titus.  “In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.”