THESIS 11

The form is adoption, as sons, through Jesus Christ, that is, that real relation and ordination, in which we are blessed of God, by the communication of "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" in Christ. Predestination is unto adoption, therefore adoption is not the form of predestination. For "the form gives being to the thing," and adoption does not give being to predestination, but receives its own being from predestination; and it is the first per se and immediate work of divine predestination, and its consequent is life and the heavenly inheritance. Nor is that real relation and ordination, in which we are blessed, "the form of predestination;" for that ordination, in which we are blessed; is the execution of the divine predestination. But the preparation of those blessings is the form of predestination, for, by it, predestination has its being. That preparation is internal and eternal, and that is true also of predestination. Or—to speak with greater accuracy -- the preparation of those blessings is not the form of predestination, for that preparation was made by the death of Christ, the Mediator, but the form consists in the preparation of the communication of those blessings to believers in Christ. We might add that the preparation is certain, and that, according to it, a communion in the benefits of Christ is certainly bestowed on those for whom the participation is prepared.