Election is something deeper than a mere purpose; it is an actual choice, before all worlds were made, of a people existing then and there in our Lord Jesus Christ; Existing in the sense in which Christ was and is, from everlasting the life of his people. Their eternal life was there. I have no reference in this remark to their life in the earthly Adam, but to their life in the heavenly Adam. Thus Christ is called the "elect of God" and the whole elect family is elected in that election. It can be readily seen that the whole human family existed in Adam as he stood in Eden, before a single one of them was born; Not in their individual development, but their natural life was there. So too, the whole elect family of our God existed undeveloped in the Lord of life and glory when he was set up from of old, "from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." Their spiritual life was there! There is the manifestation of this in time, as the lines of election are drawn in separating from the sons and daughters of the earthly Adam "the vessels of mercy which he had afor prepared unto glory."