"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will... In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." - Eph. 1:4,5,11 (KJV
"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." - Westminster Confession of Faith (Original Edition), 3:1, "Of God's Eternal Decree"
Sovereignty shines in means and end, things of rare providence and justice, in administration of means of salvation to some, not to others....
"The wisdom of God so appoints, as means for his end, that black and white should be in the same body, for beauty, the poor and the rich, the full and the hungry to try the charity of the rich and patience of the poor; that some should weep, some sing and rejoice at the laying of the foundation of the second Temple, Ezra 3, 6. Some of these are acts of mercy, Jesus cometh by the way and two blind men sit by the way; Matthew, Zacheus are in such places and Christ comes by and saves both the one, and the other." - Samuel Rutherford, Westminster divine, Influences of the Life of Grace (1659), https://www.facebook.com/groups/covenanter.org/
"(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." - Romans 9:11-13.
"... give diligence to make your calling and election sure ..." - 2 Peter 1:10.
God's Absolute Sovereignty (Predestination) and Man's Full Responsibility and Free Agency (In the Bible) - Free Reformation Resources (MP3s, Videos, Books, etc.) Best sermon we have heard harmonizing God's absolute sovereignty with man's complete responsibility, as it is revealed in the Bible. "Regarded by many as Jonathan Edwards' greatest work, The Freedom of the Will examines the nature and state of man's will, explaining that man's will is fallen and in need of God's grace for salvation. In 1754 Edwards published The Freedom of the Will, which although it was written long before the modern debate over Open Theism, thoroughly answers and demolishes the errors of this view. The full title of Edwards' great philosophical work is, "An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame." His text was Romans 9:16, "It is not of him that willeth." One of the authors that he was refuting was Daniel Whitby, an Arminian minister in the Church of England. Whitby was known for being strongly anti-Calvinistic, and later gave evidence of strong Arian and Unitarian tendencies. In 1710 he had written his Discourse on the Five Points [of Calvinism]. What Edwards interacted with most was the fourth discourse on "The Liberty of the Will of Man in a State of Trial and Probation." Whitby's statement, "It is better to deny prescience [foreknowledge] than liberty." Is from that section. He also said that it is better to say that God does not know the future, or that God both does and doesn't know the future. One can see the "Openness of God" theology in these statements three hundred years ago. Edwards responded in The Freedom of the Will that man freely chooses whatever seems good to him, but that what seems good to him is always based on an inherent predisposition. That inherent predisposition has been foreordained and predestined by a sovereign God who does not inhibit man's ability to freely choose from a limited menu. For Edwards the issue regarding a totally free will is a simple one: either contingency and the liberty of self-determination must be run out of this world, or God will be shut out." (from Monergism Books) "Pelagianism has a death grip on the modern church. Perhaps the most important refutation of this distinctive is Edwards' Freedom of the Will. I believe this is the most important theological book ever published in America." - Dr. R.C. Sproul "In this book, Edwards annihilated false views of the will that prevailed in his century and in ours, in order that men may know how to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. This profoundest of all Edwards' works is essentially and intentionally an evangelistic tract." - John H. Gerstner
"It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are truly and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make my pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me ... Taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethren; I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God's own church." - Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sovereign Grace Sermons, Still Waters Revival Books, p. 170, http://www.puritandownloads.com/spurgeons-sovereign-grace-sermons-by-charles-spurgeon/).
"...we allow that man has choice and that it is self-determined, so that if he does anything evil, it should be imputed to him and to his own voluntary choosing. We do away with coercion and force, because this contradicts the nature of the will and cannot coexist with it. We deny that choice is free, because through man's innate wickedness it is of necessity driven to what is evil and cannot seek anything but evil. And from this it is possible to deduce what a great difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined. - John Calvin from Bondage and Liberation of the Will, pp. 69-70
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