Quotes about Election

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.

Hobson's choice

It seems harsh to many to think that God chooses some and rejects others, and does not consider men's worth, that by his own free will he chooses whom he pleases and moreover rejects others. But what is this scruple except a desire to call God to order and subject him to their judgment?

Since he has so chosen us, we belong to him, more especially because he has bought us by the blood of his Son.

Therefore, as Paul testifies, election, which is the cause of good works, does not depend upon men.

Christ is indeed presented to all, but God opens the eyes of the elect alone, and enables them by faith to seek after him.

Whence follows the plain conclusion, that if all men were elected, no man would perish.

he refers rather to their adoption because God's grace is the more striking when he out of all mankind chooses some few to be his own people.

The reason for God's keeping some for himself and rejecting others is to be sought nowhere but in God himself.

Therefore, God's foreknowledge cannot be the reason of our election, because when God [looks into the future and] surveys all mankind, he will find them all, from the first to the last, under the same curse.

How childish is the attempt to meet this argument by the following sophism! "We were chosen because we were worthy, and because God foresaw that we would be worthy."

And surely it is an amazing counsel of God that when he had the whole earth in his hands he chose his people out of the contemptible folk, rather than out of the upper classes who might have brought the name of Christ greater credit through their own excellencies.