84 Narrowness of Vision CHAP. 



hath done, and there is no respect of persons." 3 

 Yet all who call themselves Christians " believe in 

 the forgiveness of sins." 



Next, as to the relation of the elect to the rejected. 

 God's elect do not always value and use their bless- 

 ings aright. Sometimes they value their privileges, 

 not indeed too highly, but in a selfish and exclusive 

 spirit, like the elder brother who was angry when 

 the returned prodigal was restored to the place in 

 the father's house which he had abandoned and 

 forfeited. They are often, to their own great and 

 grievous loss, slow to receive things outside their own 

 election; they often fail to see that they are elect, 

 not only to receive a blessing for themselves, but to 

 be a channel of blessing to the rest ; so that " the 

 election of some, and the final salvation of all, may 

 both be seen as consistent parts of one purpose." 2 

 Israel was the elect of the former dispensation, yet 

 the calling of the Gentiles was a stumbling-block to the 

 Israelites of the Apostolic age; and in the present 

 age many of God's elect elect not only to Christian 

 privileges, but, I have no doubt, to a place in Christ's 

 eternal Kingdom denounce as heresy the doctrine 

 of a general restoration ; being, as yet, unable to see 

 that the purpose of their election, as of that of the 

 Israel of old, is not only to show the grace of God 

 towards themselves, but to make them, ultimately, 

 channels of grace to the rejected of the present 



1 Col. iii. 25. 

 2 Jukes's Names of God in Holy Scripture, p. 105. 



