God draws the elect through His Word and Sacraments...

Furthermore, the declaration in John 6:44 is right and true, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who send Me draws him."  However, the Father will not do this without means, but has ordained His Word and Sacraments for this purpose as ordinary means and instruments.  It is not the will of the Father or of the Son that a person should not hear or should despite the preaching of His Word and with for the drawing of the Father without the Word and sacraments.  For the Father draws indeed by the power of His Holy Spirit.  However, He works according to His usual way.  He works by the hearing of His holy, divine Word, as with a net, by which the elect are plucked from the devil's jaws.  Every poor sinner should therefore attend to the Word, hear it attentively, and not doubt the Father's drawing.  For the Holy Spirit will be with His world in His power, and will work by it.  That is the Father's drawing.
~FSD, XI, 76-77

Election is founded upon Christ's merit and God's gracious will...

The Holy Spirit dwells in the elect, who have become believers, as in His temple.  He is not idle in them, but moves God's children to obey God's commands.  Therefore, believers, too, should not be idle, much less resist the work of God's Spirit.  They should practice all Christian virtues, in all godliness, modesty, temperance, patience, and brotherly love; and they should give all diligence to make their calling and election sure.  They should do this so that the more they find the Spirit's power and strength within them, they may doubt their election less. For the Spirit bears witness to the elect that they are God's children.  Sometimes they fall into temptation so terribly that they imagine they can no longer perceive the power of God's indwelling Spirit, and so they say with David, "I had said in my alarm, 'I am cut off from Your sight'" (Psalm 31:22).  Yet they should, without regard to what they experience in themselves, again say with David the words immediately following (as is written in the same place), "But You heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to You for help."

Our election to eternal life is founded not on our godliness or virtue, but on Christ's merit alone and His Father's gracious will.  He cannot deny Himself, because His is unchangeable in will and essence.  Therefore, when His children depart from obedience and stubble, He has called them to repentance again through the Word, and the Holy Spirit wants by the Word to be effective in them for conversion.  When they turn to Him again in true repentance by a right faith, He will always show His old paternal heart to all who tremble at His Word and from their heart turn again to Him, as it is written:

If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her?  Would not that land be greatly polluted?  You have played the whore with many lovers; [yet returned again to Me,] declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:1).
~BOC, FSD, XI 73-75

All Scripture, including the doctrine of election, is written for us, not to be driven to despair, but to have hope...

This eternal election or ordination of God to eternal life must not be considered in God's secret, mysterious counsel in a simple-minded way.  It is not as though election included nothing further, or nothing more belonged to it, or nothing more were to be considered in it, that that God foresaw who and how many were to be saved and who and how many were to be damned.  Nor should we think that He only held a sort of military muster, such as, "This one shall be saved, that one shall be damned; this one shall remain steadfast in faith to the end, that one shall not remain steadfast."

From this notion many get and imagine strange, dangerous, and deadly thoughts.  These cause and strengthen either self-confidence and lack of repentance or hopelessness and despair.  So people fall into troublesome thoughts, and say, "Before the foundation of the world was laid" (Ephesians 1:4), God has foreknown His elect to salvation.  And God's foreknowledge cannot fail or be hindered or changed by anyone.  In view of this, if I am elected to salvation, nothing can hurt me, even if I perform all sorts of shameful sins without repentance, have no regard for the Word and Sacraments, concern myself neither with repentance, faith, prayer, or godliness.  I will and must still be saved, because God's foreknowledge must come to pass. If, however, I am not foreknown, nothing helps me anyway, even though I busy myself with the Word, repent, believe, and so on.  For I cannot hinder or change God's foreknowledge."

In fact, even when godly hearts have repentance, faith, and good intentions to live by God's grace in a godly way, thoughts like these arise:  "If you are not foreknown from eternity to salvation, your every effort and entire labor is no help."  This happens especially when they see their weakness and the examples of those who have not persevered, but have fallen away again.

Against this false delusion and thought we should set up the following clear argument, which is sure and cannot fail:  All Scripture is inspired by God.  It is not for self-confidence and lack of repentance, but "for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).  Also, everything in God's Word has been written for us, not so that we should be driven to despair by it, but so that "through the encouragement of Scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4).  Therefore, there is no question that lack of repentance or despair should not in any way be caused or strengthened by the sound sense or right use of this teaching about God's eternal foreknowledge.  The Scriptures teach this doctrine only to direct us to the Word to encourage repentance and godliness, and to strengthen faith and assure us of our salvation.
~BOC, FSD, XI, 9-12

Election is a cause that gains, works, helps, and promotes our salvation and what belongs to it...

God's eternal election does not just foresee and foreknow the salvation of the elect.  From God's gracious will and pleasure in Christ Jesus, election is a cause that gains, works, helps, and promotes our salvation and what belongs to it.  Our salvation is so founded on it that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18), as is written in John 10:28, "No one shall snatch [My sheep] out of My hand,"  And again, "as many as were appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).
~BOC, FSD, XI, 8

The beginning and cause of evil is the wicked perverse will of the devil and of people, not God's foreknowledge...

God's foreknowledge foresees and foreknows what is evil, yet not in the sense that it is God's gracious will that evil should happen.  Everything that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of people wants and desires to try and do, God sees and knows before it happens.  His foreknowledge sees its order also in wicked acts or works, since a time and measure is fixed by God for the evil that God does not will.  He limits how far it should go, how long it should last, and when and how He will hinder and punish it.  God the Lord rules over all of this so that it must flow to the glory of the divine name and to the salvation of His elect, and for that reason the godless must be astonished.

The beginning and cause of evil is not God's foreknowledge.  (For God does not create and do evil, neither does He help or promote it.)  The cause of this evil is the wicked, perverse will of the devil and of people, as it is written in Hosea 13:9, " He destroys you, O Israel, for you are against Me, against your helper."  Also, "For You are not a God who delights in wickedness" (Psalm 5:4).
~BOC, FSD, XI, 6-7