God's intention is always the question

"In God's holy garden, we must not want to plant trees upside down - with their roots facing the sky and their branches in the soil! To turn things upside down from the very beginning is a perversion of the whole way. Let the cause, the fountainhead, the root, remain in God, and let nothing else ever be seen in us than the resultant effect, the stream that flows from its source, and the branch with its bud and blossom. There is no election, therefore, on the basis of a foreseen faith, but there is faith as the result of an antecedent election.
And if it is now established that Christ was God, and hence as God knew whom he had chosen and who would come to saving faith as a the result of that election, then it is self-evident that our Mediator, who never desired to bring any other atonement than for those who would believe, intended the provision of the atonement solely and exclusively for his own.
That is why, when discussing whether Christ has died for all individuals or for all the elect, we can never employ the distinction between God's will and God's decree, as the Hessian and Bremen delegates advocated it at Dordt, since this distinction exclusively applies when considering our intention, but never may be given validity when there is a discussion of God's intention.
When Joseph was about to be sold by his brothers, it was God's revealed will to Judah and Reuben, 'Do not sell your brother!' Yet it was God's hidden decree that 'Joseph will be sold by his brothers.'
Accordingly, when we are talking about our activity, about what we are doing or what we intend, oh then most definitely, not only may we, but we must continually reckon with this golden maxim of evangelical wisdom: 'Blind as regards the outcome, but fully obedient to the commandment!'
On the contrary, when, as here, we are discussing not what we but what Christ intended, and not what we but what God willed, then everyone senses that it is the height of absurdity to dare to distinguish in God himself between what he wills and, nevertheless, does not will!" - Abraham Kuyper, Particular Grace