have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

14 What shall we say then?

descendants, that the latter, in comparison, may be said to have been hated; they had not experienced the numerous mercies vouchsafed to the children of Israel. It is an instance of the strong mode of expression common in the east; thus, in Gen. xxix. 31, when it is said that Leah was hated, it is only meant that she was far less tenderly loved than Rachel, for Jacob, her husband, was a good man, and would not hate his wife (verse 30); and in Luke xiv. 26, when our Lord says, "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, &c., he cannot be my disciple," he means not that his disciples should cast off the natural affections of the heart, but that they should be so devoted to him, that no earthly affection should induce them to forsake or to offend him. Although Esau, in early youth, had been profane and reckless, and thereby had irrecoverably forfeited his birthright, yet we have reason to believe that he sincerely repented and was accepted of God; for he was blessed with large possessions and a numerous family, he was cordially reconciled, and acted very generously to Jacob, who had grievously wronged him, and every subsequent act recorded of him is highly to his honourbut his posterity, by their wickedness, incurred God's hatred and were destroyed, as the prophets declare.

Verse 15.-"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" (Exod. xxxiii. 19). God dispenses his favours according to his own good pleasure - he bestows privileges on one nation, or on one individual, which are withheld from another, and which neither nation nor individual could claim as a matter of right; but though he distributes his gifts variously, he deals equitably with all; "a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he;" to whom much is given, of them will much be required. In his very interesting essay on Election, Archbishop Whately has argued with great force from the analogy of God's dealings with the Jews, as pointed to in the passages here quoted by the apostle, and in other parts of the Old and New Testaments, and also from the analogy of his ordinary dealings with men, that

That there is unrighteousness with God? No; God forbid !

15 For he saith to Moses,

the calling and election of Christians to the knowledge of the true God is as arbitrary as was that of the Israelites; and as every Jew was called and elected to all the privileges of his nation, so every Christian is called and elected to all the privileges of the Christian church; but as no Jew was chosen to enjoy God's favour, and to enter into the promised land absolutely, but to have the offer of that favour and the promise of that land on condition of his obedience, so no Christian is elected to eternal salvation absolutely, but only to the knowledge of the Gospel, to the privileges of the Christian church, to the offer of God's Holy Spirit, and to the promise of final salvation, on condition of being a faithful follower of Christ. In 1 Cor. x., St. Paul himself draws the parallel for us, and strongly directs our attention to it; he not only always addresses his converts (the very persons whom he congratulates as the called and favoured and elect of God) as if it depended on themselves to avail themselves or not of these offers to lay hold on eternal life, or to forfeit it by their own neglect-but he also warns them, by the example of the Israelites, against the error of misunderstanding what it was to which they were elected. The great lesson that he draws from the history of the children of Israel is this, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall"—that is, let not the Christian, though he is one of God's peculiar and favoured people, as the Israelites were of old, flatter himself that he is chosen, any more than they were, to the absolute attainment of a final blessing, but only to the offer of it, together with the privileges and advantages which will enable him to attain it; let him not doubt that the option is left to him, as it was to them, of securing or forfeiting his ultimate reward. The same system is pursued in the ordinary course of God's providence also; a man's being born to wealth, rank, and power, to a healthy constitution, or to great abilities, does not depend upon himself; but it does depend upon himself whether such advantages will prove a blessing to him, by his making a right use of them, or shall aggravate his condemnation by his abuse of them-there is

"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Exod. xxxiii. 19).

16 Therefore the blessing is not at the pleasure of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

no such distinction among Christians as the called and the uncalled, the elect and the non-elect; the Gospel itself is a call to all who have heard it; and they who, instead of obeying it, wait for any further call, are deluded by the father of lies. Though all that have been initiated into Christ's Church are arbitrarily elected to this invaluable privilege, their salvation is not arbitrary, but will depend on the use they make of their privileges, those privileges to which all Christians are called, the knowledge of the Gospel, the aids of the Holy Spirit, and the offer of eternal life, privileges of which all are exhorted, but none are compelled to make a right use, and which will prove either a blessing or a curse, to each, according to the use he makes of them. The doctrine that final salvation is represented in Scripture, as resting solely on the arbitrary appointment of God, is deduced from two premises1st, that election infallibly implies salvation-2dly, that election is entirely arbitrary, whence it follows that final salvation is arbitrary; but though the latter of these premises is true, the former is utterly false, and contrary to the whole analogy of the Old Testament and of God's ordinary dealings, and contrary also, to the general tenour of St. Paul's exhortations to his converts. (See Whately's "Essays on Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul," from which this note has been collected.) "It is observable that the apostle, arguing here with the Jews, to vindicate the justice of God, in casting them off from being his people, uses three sorts of arguments; the first is the testimony of Moses, of God's asserting this to himself by the right of his sovereignty; and this was enough to stop the mouths of the Jews; the second, from reason (verses 1924); and the third, from his predictions

17 Nay further, the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, "Even for this very purpose have I stirred thee up, that I may show my power in thee, and that my name may be declared in all the earth" (Exod. ix. 16).

18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

of it to the Jews, and the warning he gave them of it beforehand (verses 25-29)."— Locke.

Verse 16- Seems to allude to the history of Jacob and Esau; neither the wishes of Isaac nor the exertions of Esau in the chase were of any avail, because God had purposed to bestow the blessing upon Jacob.

Verse 17.-"The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh❞—that is, God, as recorded in Scripture, saith unto Pharaoh (Exod. ix. 16) while kings and conquerors are indulging their passion or their pride, they are unconsciously fulfilling the purposes of a higher power, which, without diminishing their responsibility as moral agents, controls and overrules their actions, bringing good out of their evil deeds, so that they may be said to have been stirred up and called into action for the purpose of illustrating his glory-thus Jehovah called to the Assyrian to be the rod of his anger (Is. x. 5) for the chastisement of a people that had provoked him, although the tyrant meant not so, neither was God in his thoughts; and when he had executed the divine will upon the offending nation, he was himself punished for the pride of his heart, which gloried in his own strength and wisdom, as if to them alone he was indebted for success. Thus, also, God stirred up and called by name, Cyrus, who knew him not, to release his captive people and rebuild their city (Is. xliv. 28); and thus, while Pharaoh was indulging his pride and hardening his heart against the plainest manifestations of divine will, he was only giving occasion for more signal displays of God's awful power, and is, therefore, said to have been stirred up for that purpose.

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power

Verses 18 to 21.-We may not so interpret any passage of Scripture that it shall be contradictory to the clear meaning of any other, or, indeed, to any certain truth. Now, nothing is more certain than that God neither causes any man to sin, nor takes pleasure in any man's wickedness, but, on the contrary, is holy, just, and good, the enemy of all sin; when, therefore, he is said to harden a man's heart, the meaning probably is that by his forbearing to punish, the man is tempted to persevere in a wicked course instead of being softened to repentance; divine wisdom, indeed, has so framed the laws that regulate human thought and conduct, that every evil act has a tendency to produce a vicious habit, and by long custom the mind may be so set and hardened in vice that nothing less than a miracle of divine mercy shall reclaim it, but such a hardening of the heart, although the result of laws divinely established is far from lessening the guilt of the wicked, for the effect of habit is familiarly known to all mankind, and was designed to be ancillary to virtue, and it is only by a perversion of the divine purpose that it is rendered subservient to vice. It was through the force of evil habit, no doubt, that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened; the sinister advice, perhaps, of his sycophants inflaming the obstinacy and the pride habitual to a despot, and leading him to spurn the warnings that would have saved him from destruction. To the unbelieving Jews, or any others disposed to murmur against God and arraign the justice or the goodness of his dispensations towards them, by asking why he should find fault with them since nothing happens without his permission, the apostle repeats the reply of Isaiah xlv. 9, to a like cavil, put forward by the unbelievers of his time, "Who art thou that

over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, though willing to show his anger, and to make known his power in the punishment of sin, yet endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;

repliest against God?" We can form but a faint and very inadequate conception of the perfections of Almighty God, nevertheless, we behold in his government of the world evidences of wisdom and goodness abundantly sufficient to call forth the adoration of the coldest heart; but even though we were unable to discern the wisdom or goodness of any act of his government, it were the height of folly and presumptuous rashness in creatures of such feeble powers and such limited knowledge, to cavil at what its Creator, a being of infinite perfection, has ordained; and it would be a very sufficient answer to our objections, to say, with the apostle, "Nay but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God?" The potter has not such absolute power over the substance he moulds to whatever use he may deem proper, as the Creator has over his rational creatures; the only limitation to the exercise of God's almighty power being that which is prescribed by his infinite holiness, wisdom, and good

ness.

Verse 22.-But, in addition to that sense of our own incompetent judgment, and of his infinite perfections which should restrain the licence of our cavils, we may further vindicate God's everlasting justice, nay, his admirable clemency towards his creatures; for what, if God, although his anger was provoked, and he was willing to make bare the arm of his power against the guilty, yet forbore to strike, and with much long-suffering endured their provocation, for the merciful purpose of affording them time and means of repentance, that they might escape the stroke of final vengeance; or, if neither the warnings of his providence, nor the means of grace, abundantly bestowed, should awaken them to repentance, then, when they had proved

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23 That he might also make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory,

themselves vessels of wrath, thoroughly fit and prepared, or (as the prophet Jeremiah expresses it, Jer. xii. 3) "sanctified" for destruction, they might fall by a more signal punishment, just victims to divine severity, while, on the other hand, those who should listen to his overtures of mercy, and trust in his gracious promises, who are here styled vessels of mercy, should be made to experience the riches of his glory, and be included in that society, called from all people, nations, and languages, which he had from the beginning prepared and announced his purpose of establishing (chap. ii. 4). The difference in the form of expression adopted by the apostle, in speaking of the vessels of wrath and of the vessels of mercy, has been remarked by and is deserving of special notice. While the vessels of mercy are prepared by God for glory, the vessels of wrath are fitted, it is not said by God, for destruction; fitted surely by their own wickedness, and the malice of the devil. With this passage of St. Paul compare the words of our blessed Lord, in St. Matthew xxv. 34, 41, describing the final judgments that shall be pronounced upon the righteous and upon the wicked; "Then shall the king say to those upon his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; then shall he say to those on the left hand, Depart, from me, ye cursed, into that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" in the case of the

many,

righteous he says, "Ye blessed of my

Father"-in the case of the wicked, merely "ye cursed;" the ever-blessed name, introduced as it were to heighten the happiness of the good, is not allowed to mingle with the malediction of the bad. Again, in the case of the righteous we have, "the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" in the case of the wicked, "that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;"—a kingdom specially prepared for the righteous, and that from the foundation of the world; a fire prepared, not for wicked men, but for the devil and his angels, and without

24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

25 As he saith also in Hosea, "I will call them my people

mention of a preparation from the beginning of the world-perhaps in order to indicate the more forcibly that the future sufferings of the wicked are wrought for themselves by themselves, and not inflicted in consequence of any supralapsarian decree- 'as if," remarks Chrysostom, "he had said, I, indeed, prepared the kingdom for you, but the fire not for you, but for the devil and his angels, and since ye have cast yourselves into it, impute the consequences to yourselves." Throughout the context our Lord studiously separates the name, the nature, and the original pre-appointments of himself and the Father from the miserable doom of those who work out their own perdition. interesting point of sacred criticism is ably discussed in Jebb's "Sacred Literature," sec. 17; from which part of the foregoing note has been taken.

This

Verses 25 to 29.-The apostle having declared the purpose of God in a manner that was likely to offend the Jews, proceeds to confirm his statement by an authority which they could not gainsay—that of their own venerated prophets, and first he cites two passages from Hosea ii. 23, and i. 10, in which God promises to supply the loss of the ten tribes by bringing in great numbers of true Israelites into the Church, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, a promise in part fulfilled at the first preaching of the Gospel, and which shall receive its complete fulfilment at the restoration of the Jews and the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles. But Isaiah crieth out with more vehement emotion, that God would cut off the greater part of his people for their wickedness, and leave only a remnant who should trust in him, a monument of his grace; and in another passage affirms that it was only God's overflowing mercy that should save them from being destroyed, as utterly as Sodom and Gomorrah had been. The remnant preserved in Jerusalem from Sennacherib's invasion, which was the immediate object of the prophet's vision, was a type (as we may infer from this passage of St. Paul)

which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved.

26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God" (Hosea ii. 23; i. 10).

27 Isaiah also crieth out concerning Israel, "Though the number of the children of Israel be countless as the sand of the sea, a remnant only shall be saved;

of those converts under the Gospel, who should escape the vengeance which fell upon the main body of the Jewish nation for their sin in rejecting Christ, and of that larger remnant which shall be saved in the last age of the world.

Verse 30.-"What shall we say then?" -what explanation shall we give of this matter, this adoption of the Gentiles and casting off of his ancient people? That the Gentiles, not seeking justification by their own merit, but joyfully receiving the glad tidings of salvation, have attained to justification, namely, the justification which is by faith; while the Jews, seeking a principle of justification in their own merit, have failed of attaining what they sought, since a being who, at all times, OWES perfect obedience, can never be justified by a plea of merit. It is only a light from heaven that can guide and conduct the souls of men to heaven, and this is the great design of the Gospel, to unfold the true way of recourse to God, the true way of uniting the soul of man to God, and of deriving a participation of God to man; in this consists its pre-eminence over the law. "The Jews," says Smith, "imagined that the system of laws delivered on Mount Sinai, and enlarged by their traditions, was a sufficient dispensation from God, and comprised all that was needed for raising man to his perfection; that man had such an absolute freedom of will and such a sufficient power within himself to determine himself to virtue and goodness, that he only needed some law as the object on which to exercise this power, in order to

28 For the Lord doth fulfil his word, and decisively execute itin righteousness, for a decisive word a decisive decree-shall the Lord execute upon the land" (Isaiah x. 22, 23).

29 And as Isaiah said before, "Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah" (Isaiah i. 9).

30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after justification,

work out and earn for himself eternal life, by the observance of it. That the proper

end of their law was to enrich them with good works, and afford them several ways of augmenting their merits, and so to establish the foundations of life and blessedness among them, to enable them to attain all righteousness here, and glory hereafter. The apostle, on the other hand, maintains that the law was the ministration of death, and in itself a lifeless thing, which never could produce that divine life and spiritual form of godliness in the soul, which God expects from all the heirs of glory, nor that glory which results only from a true divine life-while the Gospel carries with it a mighty emanation of life and spirit, issuing from the deep fountain of divine grace and love, whereby the divinity derives himself into the souls of men, transforming them into his own likeness, and strongly imprinting upon them a copy of his own beauty and goodness. The legal righteousness of which the Jews boasted was of the earth, earthy, consisting merely in external performances, and so falling far short of that internal and godlike frame of spirit which is necessary for a true union of the souls of men with God, and for making them capable of true blessedness, while the righteousness of faith is, in its own nature, a vital and spiritual administration, whereby God converseth with man. The old covenant was only externally promulged, the new is set forth in living characters imprinted on mens' souls" (2 Cor. iii. 3). The principle of justification here spoken of corresponds to the principle of spiritual life (viii. 2),