re chosen now; although, strictly
speaking, the term can by us be applied, in its full sense, to those
only who are passed beyond the reach of evil.

Those, then, we may call chosen, who, having heard their call, have
turned to obey it, and have gone on following it. Those we may call
chosen,--I do not say chosen irrevocably, but chosen now; chosen so that
we may be very thankful to God on their behalf, and they thankful for
themselves,--who, since their Confirmation, or since a period more
remote, have kept God before their face, and tried to do His will. Those
are, in the same way, chosen, who having found in themselves the sin
which did most easily beset them, have struggled with it, and wholly, or
in a great measure, have overcome it. Thus, they are chosen, who, having
lived either in the frequent practice of selfish, extravagance, or of
falsehood, or of idleness, or of excess in eating and drinking, have
turned away from these things, and, for Christ's sake, have renounced
them. They are chosen, I think, in yet a higher sense, who, having found
their besetting sin to be, not so much any one particular fault, as a
general ungodly carelessness, a lightness which for ever hindered them
from serving God, have struggled with this most fatal enemy; and, even
in youth, and health, and happiness, have learnt what it is to be
sober-minded, what it is to think. Now, such as these have, in a manner,
entered into their inheritance; they are not merely called, but chosen.
God and spiritual things are not mere names to them, they are a reality.
Such persons have tasted of the promises; they have known the
pleasure--and what pleasure is comparable to it?--of feeling the bonds
of evil passion or evil habit unwound from about their spirit; they have
learnt what is that glorious liberty of being able to abstain from the
things which we condemn, to do the things which we approve. They have
felt true sense of power succeed to that of weakness. It is a delightful
thing, after a long illness, after long helplessness, when our legs have
been unable to support our weight, when our arms could lift nothing, our
hands grasp nothing, when it was an effort to raise our head from the
pillow, and it tired us even to speak in a whisper,--it is a delightful
thing to feel every member restored to its proper strength; to find that
exercise of limb, of voice, of body, which had been so long a pain,
become now a source of perpetual pleasure. This is de