Featured Romans 9:11, A calling, not one's works, precedes the election.

The only place in my life that I have ever seen calling procede election is in your writings, such as in the O.P., etc., which puts them at odds with the clear revealed Word of God, and is totally contridictary to the Bible in every way and sense of the words.

“The dead man cannot spontaneously originate his own quickening, nor
the creature his own creating, nor the infant his own begetting. Whatever
man may do after regeneration, the first quickening of the dead must
originate with God.”

"Hovey, Manual of Theology, 287—“Calvinism, reduced to its lowest terms,
is election of believers, not on account of any foreseen conduct of theirs,
either before or in the act of conversion, which would be spiritually better
than that of others influenced by the same grace, but on account of their
foreseen greater usefulness in manifesting the glory of God to moral beings
and of their foreseen non-commission of the sin against the Holy Spirit.”

"But even here we must attribute the greater usefulness and the abstention
from fatal sin, not to man's unaided powers but to the divine decree: see:

Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”

"(d) The doctrine of election becomes more acceptable
to reason when we remember:

"first, that God's decree is eternal,...

"secondly, that God's decree to create involves the decree of all that in the
exercise of man's freedom will follow;

"thirdly, that God's decree is the decree of him who is all in all, so
that our willing and doing is at the same time the
working of him who decrees our willing and doing.

"The whole question turns upon the initiative in
human salvation: if this belongs to God, then in spite
of difficulties we must accept the doctrine of election."

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/strong/Systematic Theology - Augustus Hopkins Strong.pdf

 

The Love involved in election - a peculiar, free, inalienable,
saving love of Complacency towards the elect.

This answers the question, How does God regard the elect?

Ex. xxxiii. 19: "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy."

Rom. ix. 13, 15, 16, 18: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved. . . . For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. . . Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy."

Mal. i. 2, 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau."

Deut. vii. 7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you."

Deut. x. 15: "Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed."

Isa. xliii. 4 : "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life."

Isa. lxiii. 9: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old."

Isa. lxiii. 16: "Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting."

Ps. lxxxix. 19, 20, 28, 30-35: "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him. . . . My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. . . . If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."

Ps. xciv. 18: "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up."

Isa. liv. 8, 10: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. "

Isa. xlix. 15: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

Mic. vii. 20: "Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou bast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."

Jer. xxxi. 3: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

Zeph. iii. 17: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."

John xvii. 23, 26: "I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou bast sent me, and hast loved them as thou bast loved me . . . . And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Rom. v. 5, 8, 9: "Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. . . . God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Rom. viii. 32, 33: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"

Rom. viii. 38, 39: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Rom. ix. 13: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

"The testimonies alleged from Scripture clearly reveal the nature of God's electing love. It is expressly declared to be eternal. It is peculiar: it is directed to the people of God. It is saving: it is the source of every benefit of redemption and the cause of preservation to everlasting life.

"The fact that the passage in Titus declares that the kindness and love of God appeared in time can create no difficulty. That which was manifested in time must have eternally existed, for it is impossible to conceive that God began to love in time - that a divine attribute had a temporal origin.

"Following the instructions of the Scriptures, we are constrained to admit that there are two distinct aspects of the divine love or goodness. One of these, in the form of benevolence, terminates on men indiscriminately, the just and the unjust, the evil and the good; and, when it is directed to them as ill-deserving and miserable, it assumes the special form of mercy. The other, the love of complacency, is a peculiar affection, supposing the existence in its sinful objects of a saving relation to Christ as Mediator, Federal Head and Redeemer.

"Now let it be supposed that the infinite benevolence of God, in the form of mercy contemplating the lost and wretched condition of man, into which he was conceived as having plunged himself by his sin and folly, suggested his salvation: "Deliver him from going down to the pit."

That suggestion was checked by the demands of infinite justice, which could not be denied without a sacrifice of the divine glory: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." For, although the attributes of God are all infinite, and cohere in his essence in perfect harmony with each other, the exercise of one may be limited by another. The exercise of mercy towards the fallen angels was checked by wisdom and by justice. It pleased God, in the case of human sinners, by a sovereign act of his will, to open a way for the outgoing and exercise of his mercy in the salvation of a part of them, and to leave the way open for the exercise of his justice in the punishment of the remaining part.

"The Father, as the representative of the Godhead, "according to the good pleasure of his will," elected some of mankind to be redeemed. This, while it was a sovereign act of his will, involved the exercise of infinite love and mercy; and as the objects upon which the choice terminated were regarded simply as sinners, condemned and unholy, the love and mercy were free, mere love and mercy. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," and, of course, the unmerited love which so illustriously expressed itself on earth was eternal.

"Those thus designated became the Father's elect ones, his sheep, whose redemption he had sovereignly determined to effect. Appointing, in infinite wisdom and love, the eternal Son as their Mediator and Redeemer, the Father entered into covenant with him as Federal Head and Representative, and gave his elect sheep to him, that as their good Shepherd, he might, when incarnate, lay down his life for their redemption. "Thine they were," says the Saviour, "and thou gavest them me."

"The Son, on his part, freely accepted the momentous trust, and engaged to lay down his life for them, to lose none of them, to give every one of them everlasting life and raise him up at the last day. "I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all." "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."

"Thus conceived as in Christ the elect became the objects of a complacential love, measured only by the regard of the Father for his well-beloved Son. "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou bast been honorable, and I have loved thee." "I," says the Lord Jesus, "have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Girardeau - Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism

con't More scriptures on God's Eternal Love toward His Elect.

 

Eph, ii. 4, 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. . . . That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

Tit. iii. 4-7: "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

Heb. xiii. 5: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

1 Jno. iii. 1: "Behold, what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."

1 Jno. iv. 9, 10, 19: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. . . . We love him because he first loved us."

2 Thess. ii. 16, 17: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work."