I.

V. There can be no sovereign, distinguishing free grace in a good God; because goodness can bestow free, undeserved gifts.

II.

There can never be sovereign, distinguishing free wrath in a just God; because justice cannot inflict free, undeserved punishments.

Reason and conscience should alone, one would think, convince us that St. Paul, in Rom, ix, does not plead for a right in God so to hate any of his unformed creatures as to intend, make, and fit them for destruction, merely to show his absolute sovereignty and irresistible power. The apostle knew too well the God of love, to represent him as a mighty potter, who takes an unaccountable pleasure to form rational vessels, and to endue them with keen sensibility, only to have the glory of absolutely filling them, by the help of Adam, with sin and wickedness on earth, and then with fire and brimstone in hell. This is the conceit of the consistent admirers of unconditional election and rejection, who build it chiefly upon Rom. ix. Should you ask, why they fix so dreadful a meaning on that portion of Scripture; I answer, that through inattention and prejudice, they overlook the two keys which the apostle gives us to open his meaning, one of which we find in the three first, and the other in the three last verses of that perverted chapter.

In the three first verses St. Paul expresses the "continual sor. row," which he "had in his heart," for the obstinacy of his countrymen, the Jews, who so depended upon their national prerogatives, as Jews; their Church privileges, as children of Abraham; and their Pharisaic righteousness of the law, as observers of the Mosaic ceremomes, that they detested the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, if the apostle had believed that God, by a wise decree of preteri tion, had irreversibly ordained them to eternal death "to illustrate his glory by their damnation," as Calvin says; how ridiculous would it have been in him to sorrow night and day about the execution of God's wise design! If God, from the beginning of the world, had absolutely determined to make the unbelieving Jews personally and absolutely vessels of wrath, to the praise of the glory of his sovereign free wrath; how wicked would it have been in St. Paul to begin the next chapter by saying, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for unbelieving Israel-for the obstinate Jews, is that they might be saved!" Would he not rather have meekly submitted to the will of God, and said, like Eli, "It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good?" Did it become him-nay, was it not next to rebellion in him, so passionately to set his heart against a decree made (as we are told) on purpose to display the absoluteness of Divine sovereignty? And would not the Jews have retorted his own words! "Who art thou, O vain man, that repliest against God" by wishing night and day the salvation of “vessels of wrath :" of men whom he hath absolutely set apart for destruction? "But if the apostle did not intend to establish the absolute, persona! preterition of the rejected Jews and their fellow reprobates, what could he mean by that mysterious chapter?" I reply: He meant in general to vindicate God's conduct in casting off the Jews, and adopting the Gentiles. This deserves some explanation. When St. Paul insinuated to the Jews that they were rejected as a Church and people, and that the uncircumcised Gentiles (even as many as believed on Jesus of

Nazareth) were now the chosen nation, "the peculiar people," and Church of God, his countrymen were greatly offended: and yet, as "the apostle of the Gentiles," to "provoke the Jews to jealousy," he was obliged peculiarly to enforce this doctrine among them. They generally gave him audience till he touched upon it. But when he "waxed bold," and told them plainly that Christ had bid him "depart from Jerusalem," as from an accursed city; and had "sent him far thence unto the Gentiles," they could contain themselves no longer; and "lifting up their voices, they said, Away with such a fellow from the earth,” Acts xiii, 46; xxii, 21.*

When St. Paul wrote to Rome, the metropolis of the Gentile world, where there were a great many Jews, the Holy Ghost directed him to clear up the question concerning the general election of the Gentiles, and the general rejection of the Jews. And this he did, both for the comfort of the humble, Gentile believers, and for the humiliation of his proud, self-elected countrymen; that being provoked to jealousy, they, or at least some of them, might with the Gentiles make their personal calling and election sure by believing in Christ. As the Jews were gene. rally incensed against him, and he had a most disagreeable truth to write, he dips his pen in the oil of brotherly love, and begins the chapter by a most awful protestation of his tender attachment to them, and sorrowful concern for their salvation, hoping that this would soften them, and reconcile their prejudiced minds. But if he had represented them as absolute reprobates, and vessels of wrath irreversibly ordained of God to destruction, he would absurdly have defeated his own design, and exasperated them more than ever against his doctrine and his person. To suppose that he told them with one breath, he wished to be accursed from Christ for them, and with the next breath insinuated that God had absolutely accursed them with unconditional, personal reprobation, is a notion so excessively big with absurdity, that at times Zelotes himself can scarcely swallow it down. Who indeed can believe that St. Paul made himself so ridiculous as to weep tears of the most ardent love over the free wrath of his reprobating Creator? Who can imagine that the pious apostle painted out "the God of all grace," as a God full of immortal hatred to most of his countrymen while he represented himself as a person continually racked with the tenderest feelings of a matchles affection for them all; thus impiously raising his own reputation, as a benevolent man, upon the ruins of the reputation of his malevolen God?

Come we now to the middle part of the chapter. St. Paul, having

It is remarkable that Jewish rage first broke out against our Lord, wher he touched their great Diana-the doctrine of their absolute election. Yo think, said he, to be saved, merely because you are Abraham's children, an God's chosen, peculiar people. “But I tell you of a truth," God is not so parti to Israel as you suppose. "Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, bu to none of them was Elias sent, but to a Zidonian [heathen] widow. And man lepers were in Israel in the days Elisha, yet none of them was cleansed sav Naaman the Syrian," Luke iv, 25, &c. The Jews never forgave our Lord the levelling saying. If he narrowly escaped their fury at Nazareth, it was only meet it increased sevenfold in the holy city. So fierce and implacable a the tempers to which some professors work up themselves, by drinking into u seriptural notions of election!

prepared the Jews for the disagreeable message which he was about to dehver, begins to attack their Pharisaic prejudices concerning their absolute right, as children of Abraham, to be God's Church and people, exclusively of the rest of the world whom they looked upon as reprobated dogs of the Gentiles. To drive the unbelieving Jews out of this sheltering place, he indirectly advances two doctrines: (1.) That God, as the Creator and supreme Benefactor of men, may do what he pleases with his peculiar favours; and that as he had now as indubitable a right freely to give five talents of Church privileges to the Gentiles, as he had once to bestow three talents of Church privileges upon the Jews. And, (2.) That God had as much right to set the seal of his wrath upon them, as upon Pharaoh himself, if they continued to imitate the inflexibleness of that proud unbeliever; inexorable unbelief being the sin that fits men for destruction, and pulls down the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

The first of those doctrines he proves by a reasonable appeal to conscience: (1.) Concerning the absurdity of replying against God, i. e. against a being of infinite wisdom, goodness, justice, and power. And (2.) Concerning a right which a potter has of the same "lump of clay" to make one vessel for* honourable, and another for comparatively dishonourable uses. The argument carries conviction along with it. Were utensils capable of thought, the basin, in which our Lord washed his disciples' feet, (a comparatively dishonourable use,) could never reasonably complain that the potter had not made it the cup in which Christ consecrated the sacramental wine. By a parity of reason, the king's soldiers and servants cannot justly be dissatisfied because he has not made them all generals and prime ministers. And what reason had the Jews to complain, that God put the Gentiles on a level with, or even above them? May he not, without being arraigned at the bar of slothful servants, who have buried their talents, give a peculiar, extraordinary blessing when he pleases, and to whom he pleases? "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" Shall the foot say, Why am I not the head? and the knee, Why am I not the shoulder? Or, to allude to the parable of the labourers, "if God chooses to hire the Gentiles, and send them into his favourite vineyard, blessing them with Church privileges as he did the Jews; shall the eye of the Jews "be evil because God is good" to these newly hired labourers? "May he not do what he pleases with his own?"

I have lived these fifteen years in a part of England where a multitude of potters make all manner of iron and earthen vessels. Some of these mechanics are by no means conspicuous for good sense, and others are at times besotted through excessive drinking; but I never yet saw or heard of one so excessively foolish as to make, even in a drunken fit, a vessel on purpose to break it, to show that he had power over the work of his own hands. Such, however, is the folly that Zelotes' scheme imputes to God. Nay, if a potter makes vessels on purpose to break them, he is only a fool; but if he could make sensible vessels like dogs, and formed them on purpose to roast them alive, and that he might show lus sovereign power, would you not execrate his cruelty as much as you would pity his madness? But, what would you think of the man if he made five or ten such vessels for absolute destruction, while he made one for absolute salvation, and then assumed the title of gracious and merciful potter, and called his potting schemes "schemes of grace?"

I am oed LTE S. Pini aos aber vnd hominem) Perut Bacred to the Jews Fir scoosed a kind of sacrilege to OLT TIL 19 Core ť Avatar they ver ately the chosen moe" and the temple of the Loes Trecevoce them that God WIS DE SO PL to be postenty of Arian asc, and Jacob, as DAY IOLEDAL the poste reminds them that God had excluded the first boes of those favoured pacmanis fr en the peculiar blessings which by teringat bergged v tes: ever it scortines on account of the sin of those first bors and scoetimes previously to any personal demerit of theirs, that be mint so that his purpose, according to election to peculiar privileges and Church premcives, does not stand of works but of him that evreets, and -caleta" of his sovereign, distinguish. ing grace. St. Paul confirms this part of his doctrine by the instance of Ishmael and Isaac, who were both sons of Abraham: God having preferred Isaac to Ishmael, because Isaac was the child of his own pro mise, and of Abraham's faith by Sarah, a free woman, who was a type of grace and the Gospel of Christ: whereas Ishmael was only the child of Abraham's natural strength by Agar, an Egyptian bondswoman who was a type of nature and the Mosare dispensation.

With peculiar wisdom the apostle dwells upon the still more striking instance of Isaac's sons. Esau and Jacob, who had not only the sam godly father, but the same free and pious mother; the younger of whom was nevertheless preferred to the elder without any apparen reason. He leaves the Jews to think how much more this might b the case, when there is an apparent cause, as in the case of Reuber Simeon, and Levi, Jacob's three eldest sons, who, through inces treachery, and murder, forfeited the blessing of the first born; a bless ing this which by that forfeiture devolved on Judah, Jacob's four son, whose tribe became the first and most powerful of all the tribe of Israel, and had of consequence the honour of producing the Me siah, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." St. Paul's argument is ma terly, and runs thus:-If God has again and again excluded some Abraham's posterity from the blessing of the peculiar covenant, whic he made with that patriarch concerning the promised seed :”—if | said, “In Isaac," Jacob, and Judah, “shall thy seed [the Messiah] called," and not in Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben, the first born sons Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; how absurd is it in the Jews to suppo that merely because they are descended from Abraham, Isaac, a Jacob, they shall absolutely share the blessings of the Messial kingdom? If God excluded from the birthright Ishmael the scoff Esau the seller of his birthright, and Reuben the defiler of Bilha his father's wife; why might not Israel (his son called out of Egy his first born among nations, forfeit his birthright through unbeli And why should not the Gentile world, God's prodigal son, inherit blessing of the first born, if they submitted to the obedience of fa and with the younger son in the parable, returned from "the country" to their father's house; while the elder son insolently qu reled with God, reproached his brother, absolutely refused to come and thus made his calling void, and his reprobation sure?

The apostle's argument is like a two-edged sword. With one e he cuts down the bigotry of the Jews, by the above-mentioned app

to the history of their forefathers; and with the other edge he strikes at their unbelief, by an appeal to the destruction of Pharaoh; insinuating that God as Maker, Preserver, and Governor of men, has an doubted right to fix the gracious or righteous terms, on which he will finally bestow salvation; or inflict damnation on his rational crea

tures.

With the greatest propriety St. Paul brings in Pharaoh, to illustrate the odious nature, fatal consequences, and dreadful punishment of unbelief. No example was better known, or could be more striking to the Jews. They had been taught from their infancy, with how "much long suffering" God had "endured" that notorious unbeliever; raising him up," supporting him, and bearing with his insolence day after day, even after he had fitted himself for destruction. They had been informed, that the Lord had often reprieved that father of the faithless, that, in case he again and again hardened himself, (as Omniscience saw he would do,) he might be again and again scourged, till the madness of his infidelity should drive him into the very jaws of destruction; God having on purpose spared him, yea,* "raised him up" after every plague, that if he refused to yield, he might be made a more conspicuous monument of Divine vengeance, and be more glorisly overthrown by matchless power. So should "God's name," i. e. his adorable perfections, and righteous proceedings, "be declared throughout all the earth." And so should unbelief appear to all the world in its own odious and infernal colours.

St. Paul having thus indirectly, and with his usual prudence and brevity, given a double stab to the bigotry of the unbelieving Jews, who fancied themselves unconditionally elected, and whom he had represented as conditionally reprobated; lest they should mistake his meanng as Zelotes does, he concludes the chapter thus: "What shall we

say then?" What is the inference which I draw from the preceding arguments? One which is obvious, namely, this: "That the Gentiles, typified by Jacob the younger brother,] who followed not professedly after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the Christian righteousness which is of faith. But Israel," or the Jews, who profesedly "followed after the law of Mosaic righteousness, [as the sportsman Esau did after his game,] have not attained to the law of Mosaic Christian righteousness:" they are neither justified as Jews, nor sanctified as Christians. "True; and the reason is, because God had absolutely passed them by from all eternity, that he might in time make them vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." So insinuates Zelotes. But happily for the honour of the Gospel, St. Paul declares Just the reverse."Wherefore," says he, did not the reprobated Jews

Is it not strange that Zelotes should infer, from this expression, that God had riginally raised up," that is, created Pharaoh, on purpose to damn him? Is it so evident that Pharaoh justly looked upon every plague as a death? Witness As own words, "Intreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me the death only," Exod. x, 17. And if every plague was a death to Pharaoh, was not every removal of a plague a kind of resurrection, a raising him up, together with his kingdom, from a state of destruction, according to these words of the Egyptians, Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?" How reasonable and Scriptural is this sense! How dreadful, I had almost said, how diabolical is that of Zelotes!