Whatever may be found in hymns, or sermons, or theology, scripture knows no such thing as an elect church ... The very point of Christianity is this, that as to election it is personal - strictly individual. This is precisely what those who contend against the truth of election always feel most: they will allow a sort of body in a general way to be elect, and then that the individuals who compose that body must be brought in, as it were, conditionally, according to their good conduct. No such idea is traceable in the word of God. God has chosen individuals. As it is said in Ephesians: He has chosen us, not the church, but ourselves individually. "The church," as such, does not come in till the end of the first chapter. We have first individuals chosen of God before the foundation of the world.
From William Kelly's introduction to 1 Peter (1870): http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/kelly/3nt_int/Cath_int.html
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