Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he has constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he has chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor. Therefore those who are endowed with so excellent a benefit of God are called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they are justified freely; they are made sons of God by adoption; they are made like the image of his only-begotten son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length by God’s mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. As the godly consideration of predestination and our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it does greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it does fervently kindle their love towards God: so for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s predestination is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil does thrust them either into desperation or into wretchedness of most unclean living no less perilous than desperation. Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise as they are generally set forth in holy Scripture; and in our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.