Predestination - christiansquoting.org.uk

Predestination was doomed from the start.

When they inquire into predestination, they are penetrating the sacred precincts of divine wisdom. If anyone with carefree assurance breaks into this place, he will not succeed in satisfying his curiosity and he will enter a labyrinth from which he can find no exit. For it is not right for man unrestrainedly to search out things that the Lord has willed to be hidden in Himself; nor is it right for him to investigate from eternity that sublime wisdom, which God would have us revere but not understand, in order that through this also He should fill us with wonder. He has set forth by His Word the secrets of His will that He has decided to reveal to us. These He decided to reveal in so far as He foresaw that they would concern and benefit us. ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion (III, xxi, 1)

For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. Therefore we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what it is in any way profitable to suppress.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.21.3

But for those who are so cautious or fearful that they desire to bury predestination in order not to disturb weak souls--with what colour will they cloak their arrogance when they accuse God indirectly of stupid thoughtlessness, as if he had not foreseen the peril that they feel they have wisely met? Whoever, then, heaps odium upon the doctrine of predestination openly reproaches God, as if he had unadvisedly let slip something hurtful to the church. -- Calvin Institutes III. 21. 4

Predestination! how remote and dim
Thy root lies hidden from the intellect
Which only glimpses the First Cause Supreme!
And you, ye mortals, keep your judgment checked,
Since we, who see God, have not therefore skill
To know yet all the number of the elect."
Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY, translation by Lawrence Binyon, Copyright 1947 Viking Press Paradiso, Canto XX, Lines 130-135

When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or a princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's sins, but not their names. THOMAS WATSON