“The doctrine of Election is everywhere in the Scripture proposed for the encouragement and consolation of believers, and to further them in their course of obedience and holiness. Eph 1:3–10; Rom 8:28, etc.
“In particular, a consideration of God’s electing love and grace inculcates the following:
“(1) Humility. For what were we when he thus set his heart upon us, to choose us, and to do us good forever? Poor, lost, undone creatures, who lay perishing under the guilt of our apostasy from him.
“(2) Submission to the sovereign will of God in the disposal of all our concerns … The first act of divine sovereign pleasure concerning us was, the choosing us from all eternity to holiness and happiness … and shall we not now put all our temporal concerns into the same hand?
“(3) Love, kindness, compassion, forbearance towards all the saints … for, if God has chosen them from all eternity, should not we love them also?
“(4) Contempt of the world will proceed from hence …”
SOURCE: John Owen, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Richard Baynes, 1826), 245, 246–48