Section 11.

SECTION 11.

A rational and Scriptural view of St. Paul’s meaning in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans — Some of the deepest passages of that chapter are thrown into the Scripture Scales, and by being weighed with parallel texts, appear to have nothing to do with free wrath and Calvinistic reprobation.

IF Zelotes find himself pressed by the weights of my second Scale, he will probably try to screen his “doctrines of grace,” by retreating with them behind the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. But I am beforehand with him: and appealing to that chapter, I beg leave to show that the passages in it, which at first sight seem to favour the doctrine of free wrath, are subversive of it, when they are candidly explained according to the context, and the rest of the scriptures. Five couple of leading propositions open the section.

I.

I. To deny that God out of mere distinguishing grace, may and does grant Church blessings, or the blessings of the covenant of peculiarity, to some men, making them comparatively vessels to honour; and making of consequence other men comparatively vessels to dishonour, or vessels less honourable: to deny this, I say, is to oppose the doctrine of the dispensations, and to rob God of a gracious sovereignty, which he justly claims.

II. God is too gracious unconditionally to reprobate, i.e. ordain to eternal death, any of his creatures.

III. In the day of initial salvation, they who through grace believe in their light, are conditionally vessels of mercy, or God’s elect, according to one or another dispensation of his grace.

IV. God justly gives up to final blindness of mind, and complete hardness of heart, them that resolutely II.

To insinuate that God, out of mere distinguishing wrath, fixes the curse of absolute rejection upon a number of unborn men, for whom he never had any mercy, and whom he designs to call into being only to show that he can make and break vessels of wrath — to insinuate this, I say, is to attribute to God a tyrannical sovereignty, which he justly abhors.

God is too holy and too just not to reprobate his obstinately rebellious creatures.

In the day of initial salvation, they who unnecessarily do despite to the Spirit of grace and disbelieve, are conditionally vessels of wrath, that “fit themselves for destruction.”

Perverse free will in us, and not free wrath in God, or necessity from Adam, is the cause of our avoidable unbelief: and our personal avoidable unbelief is the cause of our complete personal shut their eyes, and harden their hearts to the end of their day of initial salvation.

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

reprobation, both at the end of the day of grace, and in the day of judgment.

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 Romans 9, does not plead for a fight 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 Romans 9. 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 sorrow,” 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 ceremonies, 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 preterition, 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, personal 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 13:46; 22:21. f15 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 generally 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 matchless affection for them all; thus impiously raising his own reputation, as a benevolent man, upon the ruins of the reputation of his malevolent God?

Come we now to the middle part of the chapter. St. Paul, having prepared the Jews for the disagreeable message which he was about to deliver, 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 f16 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?” To this rational argument St. Paul adds another (ad hominem) peculiarly adapted to the Jews, who supposed it a kind of sacrilege to deny that, as children of Abraham, they were absolutely “the chosen nation,” and “the temple of the Lord.” To convince them that God was not so partial to the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they imagined, the apostle reminds them that God had excluded the first born of those favoured patriarchs from the peculiar blessings which by birthright belonged to them: doing it sometimes on account of the sin of those first born, and sometimes previously to any personal demerit of theirs, that he might show that his purpose, according to election to peculiar privileges and Church prerogatives, does “not stand of works, but of him that” chooseth, and “calleth” of his sovereign, distinguishing 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 promise, 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 Mosaic 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 same godly father, but the same free and pious mother; the younger of whom was nevertheless preferred to the elder without any apparent reason. He leaves the Jews to think how much more this might be the case, when there is an apparent cause, as in the case of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, Jacob’s three eldest sons, who, through incest, treachery, and murder, forfeited the blessing of the first born; a blessing this which by that forfeiture devolved on Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, whose tribe became the first and most powerful of all the tribes of Israel, and had of consequence the honour of producing the Messiah, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” St. Paul’s argument is masterly, and runs thus: — If God has again and again excluded some of Abraham’s posterity from the blessing of the peculiar covenant, which he made with that patriarch concerning the “promised seed:” — if he said, “In Isaac,” Jacob, and Judah, “shall thy seed [the Messiah] be called,” and not in Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben, the first born sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; how absurd is it in the Jews to suppose that merely because they are descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they shall absolutely share the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom? If God excluded from the birthright Ishmael the scoffer, Esau the seller of his birthright, and Reuben the defiler of Bilhah, his father’s wife; why might not Israel (his son called out of Egypt) his first born among nations, forfeit his birthright through unbelief? And why should not the Gentile world, God’s prodigal son, inherit the blessing of the first born, if they submitted to the obedience of faith, and with the younger son in the parable, returned from “the far country” to their father’s house; while the elder son insolently quarreled with God, reproached his brother, absolutely refused to come in, and thus made his calling void, and his reprobation sure? The apostle’s argument is like a two-edged sword. With one edge he cuts down the bigotry of the Jews, by the above-mentioned appeals 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 undoubted right to fix the gracious or righteous terms, on which he will finally bestow salvation; or inflict damnation on his rational creatures.

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, f17 “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 gloriously 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 meaning 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 professedly “followed after the law of Mosaic righteousness, [as the sportsman Esau did after his game,] have not attained to the law of Mosaic or 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 attain to righteousness? To open the eyes of Zelotes, if any thing will, he answers his own question thus: “Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the external works of the Mosaic law” opposed to Christian faith. “For they stumbled at that stumbling stone,” Christ, who is “a rock of offence” to unbelievers, and “the rock of ages” to believers. “As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a rock,” that some shall, through their obstinate unbelief, make “a rock of offence.” And others, through their humble faith, a rocky foundation, according to the decrees of conditional reprobation and election: “He that believeth not shall be damned, — and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed,” Romans 9:1-33; Mark 16:16.

That Zelotes should mistake the apostle’s meaning when it is so clearly fixed in the latter part of the chapter is unaccountable: but that he should support by it his peculiar notion of absolute reprobation is really astonishing. The unbelieving Jews are undoubtedly the persons whom the apostle had first in view when he asserted God’s right of appointing that obstinate unbelievers shall be “vessels of wrath.” But hear what he said of those REPROBATED JEWS to the ELECTED Gentiles, in the very next chapter but one. “I speak to you Gentiles, &c, if by any means I may provoke to emulation them that are my flesh [the Jews] and might save some of them. If some of the branches [the unbelieving Jews] be broken off, &c, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou [believing Gentile] standest by faith. Be not high minded but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee, &c. Continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off,” and treated as a vessel of wrath “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in,” and treated as vessels of mercy, Romans 11:13, &c. But what need is there of going to Romans 11 to show the inconsistency of the Calvinistic doctrines of free grace in Christ and free wrath in Adam? Of everlasting love to some and everlasting hate to others? Does not Romans ix itself afford us another powerful antidote? If the elect were from eternity God’s beloved people, while the non-elect were the devil’s people, hated of their Maker: and if God’s love and hatred are equally unchangeable, whether free agents change from holiness to sin, or from sin to holiness; what shall we make of these words? “I will call them my people which were not my people; and her beloved which was not beloved. And where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people: there [upon their believing] shall they be called the children of God,” Romans 9:25, 26. What a golden key is here to open our doctrine of conditional election, and to shut Zelotes’ doctrine of absolute reprobation!

Having thus given a general view of what appears to me from conscience, reason, Scripture, and the context, to be St. Paul’s meaning in that deep chapter; I present the reader with a particular and Scriptural explanation of some passages in it which do not puzzle Honestus a little, and by which Zelotes supports the doctrines of bound will and free wrath with some plausibility.

I.

It is not [primarily] of him that willeth, [in God’s way,] nor is it [at all] of him that willeth [in opposition to God’s will, as the self-righteous Jews did,] Romans 9:16.

It is not [primarily] of him that runneth, but f18 of God that showeth mercy, Romans 9:16.

[Elehsw] [ will have mercy on whom I will [or rather elew I should] have mercy, Romans 9:15.

[Oikteirhsw] I will have compassion on whom I will [or rather oikteirw I should] have compassion, Romans 9:15.

II.

Ye will not come to me that you might have life, John 5:40. Whosoever will, let him come, Revelation 22:17. I have set before you life and death, &c, choose, Deuteronomy 30:19. I would, &c, and ye would not, Luke 13:34.

I went, &c, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain, Galatians 2:2. So run that [through mercy] you may obtain, 1 Corinthians 9:24.

Whoso forsaketh his sin shall have mercy, Proverbs 28:13. Let the wicked forsake his way, and, &c, the Lord will have mercy upon him, Isaiah 55:7. He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy, James 2:13.

All the paths of the Lord are mercy to such as keep his covenant, Psalm 25:10.

As the heaven is high above the earth; so great is his mercy toward them that fear him, Psalm 103:11.

The things that belong unto thy peace are hid from thine eyes, &c, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation, Luke 19:44. How is it that ye do not discern this time, yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? Luke 12:56, 57. Hear, O heavens, &c, I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, &c, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. It is a people of no understanding; therefore he that formed them will show them no favour, Isaiah 1:3; 27:11. And God said to Solomon, Because thou hast asked for thyself understanding, &c, lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, 1 Kings 3:11, 12. Because he considereth, &c, he shall not die, — he shall surely live, Ezekiel 18:28.

[Who can help seeing through this cloud of scriptures, that “God has mercy on whom he should have mercy,” according to his Divine attributes; extending initial mercy to all, according to his long suffering and impartiality; and showing eternal mercy, according to his holiness and truth, to them that use and improve their talent of understanding, so as to love him and keep his commandments?]

I.

The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth [i.e. that God might show, he may and will choose some of Abraham’s posterity to some peculiar privileges which he does not confer upon others: and likewise to teach us that grace and the new man mystically typified by Jacob, shall have the reward of the inheritance, — a reward this, which fallen nature and the old man, mystically typified by Esau, shall never receive: to teach us this] it was said to Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger [in his posterity f19 though not in his person:] that is, the younger shall have the blessing of the first born.

And it was accordingly conferred upon Jacob in these words, Be lord over thy brethren, Genesis 27:20. To conclude, therefore, from Jacob’s superior blessing, that Esau was absolutely cursed and reprobated of God, is as absurd as to suppose that Manasseh, Joseph’s eldest son, was also an absolute reprobate, because Ephraim, his younger brother, had Jacob’s chief blessing: for the old patriarch refusing to put his right hand upon the head of Manasseh, said, “Truly his younger brother shall be greater than he,” Genesis 48:19. But would Zelotes himself infer from such words that Manasseh was personally appointed from all eternity to II.

Thus saith the Lord, — Did I plainly appear to the house of thy father, &c, and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, &c. Why kick ye at my sacrifice?

Wherefore the Lord God saith, I said indeed that thy house should walk before me for ever. But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed, 1 Samuel 2:27, &c. Again: the Lord said to Samuel, [I have not chosen,] I have refused him [Eliab] for the Lord seeth not as man seeth: the Lord looketh at the heart [and chooseth in consequence:

accordingly, when] “Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before the Lord, Samuel said, The Lord hath not chosen these, 1 Samuel 16:7, 10. The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, [David,] because thou [Saul] hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. Once more: the Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou,” 1 Samuel 13:14; 15:28.

The kingdom of Israel was an unpromised gift to Saul and to David, and yet God’s election to and reprobation from that dignity were according to dispositions and works.

How much more may this be said of God’s election to or reprobation from a crown of glory! a crown this, which God hath promised by way of reward to them that love him; refusing it by way of punishment to them that hate him; whom he clothes in hell with shame and with a vengeful curse, according to their works and his own declaration which follows: — “Yet saith the [Predestinarian] house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? Are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you every one according to his ways. Repent and turn, disbelieve and be damned, and Ephraim to believe and be saved; that the purpose of God according to absolute reprobation and election might stand “not of works f20 but of him that capriciously and irresistibly calleth” some to finished salvation in Christ, and others to finished damnation in Adam?

That God abhors such a proceeding is evident from the scriptures which fill my left scale, and in particular from the opposite texts.

It is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated, Romans 9:13.

&c, so iniquity shall not be your ruin,” Ezekiel 18:29, &c. “I will do unto them according to their way; and according to their deserts [secundum merita] will I judge them, and they shall know that I am the Lord,” Ezekiel 7:27. To these scriptures you may add all the multitude of texts where God declares that he will judge, i.e. justify or condemn, reward or punish, finally elect or finally reprobate men for, by, according to, or because of their works.

God is love. God is loving to every man, and his tender mercies [in the accepted time] are over all his works. Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal:

but as for them, their way is not equal, &c, 1 John 4:8. Psalm 145, in the common prayers, Ezekiel 33:17.

Zelotes. who catches at whatever seems to countenance his doctrine of free wrath, thinks that this scripture demonstrates the electing and reprobating partiality, on which his favourite doctrines are founded. To see his mistake, we need only consider, that in the Scripture language a love of preference is emphatically called love; and an inferior degree of love is comparatively called hatred. Pious Jacob was not such a churlish man as positively to hate any body, much less Leah — his cousin and his wife: nevertheless, we read, “The Lord saw that Leah was hated: the Lord hath heard that I was hated: now, therefore, my husband will love me:” i.e. Jacob will prefer me to Rachel, his barren wife, Genesis 29:31, 32. Again: Moses makes a law concerning “a man that hath two wives, one beloved and another hated,” without intimating that it is wrong in the husband to hate, that is, to be less fond of one of his wives than of the other, Deuteronomy 21:15. Once more: our Lord was not the chaplain of the old murderer, that he should command us positively to hate our fathers, mothers, and wives: for he, who thus “hateth another, is a murderer.” Nevertheless, he not only says, “He that hateth his life [that invaluable gift of God] shall keep it unto life eternal; and he that loveth his life shall lose it:” but he declares, “If any man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, he cannot be my disciple,” Luke 14:26. Now, Christ evidently means, that whosoever does not love his father, &c, and his own life less than him, cannot be his sincere disciple. By a similar idiom it is said, “Esau have I hated:” an expression this, which no more means that God had absolutely rejected Esau, and appointed him to the pit of destruction, than Christ meant that we should absolutely throw away our lives, reject our fathers, wives, and children, and abandon them to destruction.

II.

f21 Whom he will he hardeneth, Romans 9:18.

That is, God judicially gives up to a reprobate mind whom he will, not according to Calvinistic caprice, but according to the rectitude of his own nature: and according to this rectitude displayed in the Gospel, he will give up all those who, by obstinately hardening their hearts to the last, turn the day of salvation into a day of final provocation, see Psalm 95:8, &c. He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them, John 12:40.

That is, he hath judicially given them up to their own blindness and hardness. They had said so long, We will not see, that he said at last in his just anger, They shall not see; determined to withdraw the abused, forfeited light of his grace; and so they were blinded.

The Lord [in the above-mentioned sense] hardened Pharaoh’s heart, [for his unparalleled cruelty to Israel,] Exodus 1:10, 22; 7:13. See the next note.

I.

The god of this world [not the Almighty] hath, [by their own free consent] blinded the minds of them that believe not. Now is the day of salvation. Despisest thou the riches of God’s goodness, forbearance, and long suffering? not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness, and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath, 2 Corinthians 4:4; 6:2; Romans 2:4, 5.

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, who says, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and, seeing, ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people’s heart is waxed gross [through their obstinately resisting the light;] and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them, Matthew 13:14, 15.

Pharaoh hardened his heart, and hearkened not, Exodus 8:15. Zedekiah stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord, 2 Chronicles 36:13. Take heed lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, Hebrews 3:18. Happy is the man that feareth alway; but he that hardeneth his heart [as Pharaoh did] shall fall into mischief, [God will give him up,] Proverbs 28:14. They are without excuse:

because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, &c. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, &c. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections, &c. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, Romans 1:20, 28.

II.

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why does he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

Romans 9:19.

I.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Genesis 18:25. That thou mightest be justified in thy saying, and clear when thou art judged, Psalm 51:4. Com. Prayer.

Who but Zelotes could justify an imaginary being that should, by the channel of irresistible decrees, pour sin and wrath into vessels made on purpose to hold both; and should call himself the God of love, the Holy One of Israel, and a God of judgment? Nay, who would not detest a king, who should absolutely contrive the contracted wickedness and crimes of his subjects, that he might justly sentence them to eternal torments, to show his sovereignty and power?

The rigid Calvinists triumph greatly in this objection started by St. Paul. They suppose that it can be reasonably levelled at no doctrine but their own, which teaches, that God by irresistible decrees has unconditionally ordained some men to eternal life, and others to eternal death; and therefore their doctrine is that of the apostle. To show the absurdity of this conclusion, I need only remind the reader once more, that in this chapter St. Paul establishes two doctrines:

(1.) That God may admit whom he will into the covenant of peculiarity, out of pure, distinguishing, sovereign grace: and (2.) That he had an absolute right of hardening whom he will upon Gospel terms, i.e. of taking the talent of f22 softening grace from all that imitate the obstinate unbelief of Pharaoh; such inflexible unbelievers being the only people whom God will harden or give up to a reprobate mind. Now in both those respects the objection proposed is pertinent, as the apostle’s answers plainly show. With regard to the first doctrine, that is, the doctrine of that distinguishing grace, which puts more honour upon one vessel than upon another; calling Abraham to be the Lord’s “pleasant vessel,” while Lot or Moab is only his “wash pot;” the apostle answers: “Nay, but, O man, who art thou who repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Why am I a “wash pot,” and not a “pleasant vessel?” “Hath not the potter power over the clay,” &c. Beside, is it not a blessing to be comparatively a “vessel to dishonour?” Had not Ishmael and Esau a blessing, though it was inferior to that of Isaac and Jacob? Is not a wash pot as good in its place as a drinking cup? Is not a righteous Gentile — a Melchisedec, or a Job, &c, as acceptable to God, according to his dispensation, as a devout Jew and a sincere Christian according to theirs? With respect to the second doctrine, that of hardening obstinate unbelievers, and “making his wrathful power known” upon them: after tacitly granting, that it is impossible to resist God’s absolute will, the apostle intimates in his laconic, and yet comprehensive way of writing, that God has a right to find fault with, and display his wrathful power upon hardened sinners, because “he hardens” none, but such as have personally made themselves “vessels of wrath,” and “fitted themselves for destruction” by doing despite to the Spirit of his grace, instead of improving their day of initial salvation: and he insinuates, that even then, God, instead of presently dealing with them according to their deserts, “endures them with much long suffering,” which, according to St. Peter’s doctrine, is to be accounted a degree of salvation. Therefore in both senses the objection is pertinently proposed, and justly answered by the apostle, without the help of sovereign free wrath, and Calvinistic reprobation.

I.

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:21.

I have observed again and again that the apostle with his two-edged sword defends two doctrines:

(1.) The right which God, our sovereign benefactor, has to give five talents, or one talent to whom he pleases, that is, to admit some people to the covenant of peculiarity, while he leaves others under a more general dispensation of grace and favour. Thus a Jew was once a vessel to honour, a person honoured far above a Gentile, and a Gentile, in comparison to a Jew, might be called “a vessel to dishonour.” Moab, to use again the psalmist’s expression, was once only God’s “wash pot,” Psalm 60:8, while Israel was his “pleasant vessel.”

But now the case is altered: the Jews II.

The vessel that he [the potter] made of clay, was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter, &c. O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, says the Lord, &c. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, &c, to destroy [for its wickedness:] if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, &c, to build it, if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them, Jeremiah 18:4.

When St. Paul wrote Romans 9:21, he had probably an eye to the preceding passage of Jeremiah, which is alone sufficient to rectify the mistakes of Zelotes; there being scarce a stronger text to prove that God’s decrees respecting our salvation and destruction are conditional. Never did are nationally become the “vessel wherein there is no pleasure,” and the Gentiles are the “pleasant vessel.”

And where is the injustice of this proceeding? If a potter may make of the same lump of clay what vessel he pleases, some for the dining room, and others for the meanest apartment, all good and rueful in their respective places; why should not God have the same liberty? Why should he not, if he chooses it, place some moral vessels above others, and raise the Gentiles to the honour of being his peculiar people? An unspeakable honour this, which was before granted to the Jews only.

“Sergeant IF” guard the genuine doctrines of grace more valiantly, or give Calvinism a more desperate thrust than he does in the potter’s house by the pen of Jeremiah.

However, lest that prophet’s testimony should not appear sufficiently weighty to Zelotes, I strengthen it by an express declaration of God himself: — “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord; and not that he should return from his ways and live? Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal [in point of election to eternal life, and appointment to eternal death.] Hear now, O house of Israel, Is not my way equal?

When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, &c, for his iniquity shall he die. Again: when a wicked man turneth from his wickedness, &c, he shall save his soul alive, Ezekiel 18:23, &c The apostle’s second doctrine respects “vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath,” which in the present case must be carefully distinguished from the “vessels to honour,” or to nobler uses, and “the vessels to dishonour,” or to less noble uses: and, if I mistake not, this distinction is one of those things which, as St. Peter observes, are “hard to be understood in Paul’s epistles.” The importance of it appears from this consideration: God may, as a just, and gracious sovereign, absolutely make a moral vessel for a more or less honourable use, as he pleases; such a preference of one vessel to another being no more inconsistent with Divine goodness, than the king’s appointing one of his subjects lord of the bed chamber, and another only groom of the stable, is inconsistent with royal good nature. But this is not the case with respect to “vessels of mercy” and “vessels of wrath.” If you insinuate, with Zelotes, that an absolute God, to show his absolute love and wrath, absolutely made some men to fill them unconditionally and eternally with love and mercy, and others to fill them unconditionally and eternally with hatred and wrath, by way of reward and punishment, you “change the truth of God into a lie,” and serve the great Diana of the Calvinists more than the righteous Judge of all the earth. Whatever Zelotes may think of it, God never made an adult a vessel of eternal mercy that did not first submit to the obedience of faith; nor did he ever absolutely look upon any man as a vessel of wrath, that had not by personal, obstinate unbelief first fitted himself for destruction. Considering then the comparison of the potter as referring in a secondary sense to the “vessels of mercy,” and to the “vessels of wrath,” it conveys the following rational and Scriptural ideas: — May not God, as the righteous maker of moral vessels, fill with mercy or with wrath whom he will, according to his essential wisdom and rectitude? May he not shed abroad his pardoning mercy and love m the heart of a believing Gentile, as well as in the breast of a believing Jew? And may he not give up to a reprobate mind, yea, fill with the sense of his just wrath a stubborn Jew, a Caiaphas, as well as a refractory Gentile, a Pharaoh? Have not Jews and Gentiles a common original? And may not the Author of their common existence, as their impartial lawgiver, determine to save or damn individuals, upon the gracious and equitable terms of the Gospel dispensations? Is he bound absolutely to give all the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom to Abraham’s posterity, and absolutely to reprobate the rest of the world? Has a Jew more right to “reply against God” than a Gentile? When God propounds his terms of salvation, does it become any man to “say to him that formed him, Why hast thou made me thus” subject to thy government? Why must I submit to thy terms? If God without injustice could appoint that Christ should descend from Isaac, and not from Ishmael; if, before Esau and Jacob had done any good or evil, he could fix that the blood of Jacob, and not that of Esau, should run in his Son’s veins; though Esau was Isaac’s child as well as Jacob: how much more may he, without breaking the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fix that the free-willing believer, whether Jew or Gentile, shall be a “vessel of mercy prepared for glory,” chiefly by free grace; and that the free-willing unbeliever shall be a “vessel of wrath, fitted,” chiefly by free will, “for just destruction?” Is not this doctrine agreeable to our Lord’s expostulation, With “the light of life. which lightens every man, you will not come unto me that you might have life — more abundant life — yea, life evermore?” Does it not perfectly tally with the great, irrespective decrees of conditional election and reprobation, “He that believeth, and is baptized,” that is, he that shows his faith by correspondent works, when his Lord comes to reckon with him, “shall be saved: and he that believeth not,” though he were baptized, “shall be damned?” And is it not astonishing, that when St. Paul’s meaning in Romans 9, can be so easily opened by the silver and golden key, which God himself has sent us from heaven, I mean reason and Scripture, so many pious divines should go to Geneva, and humbly borrow Calvin’s wooden and iron key, I mean his election and reprobation? Two keys these, which are in as great repute among injudicious Protestants, as the keys of his holiness are among simple Papists. Nor do I see what great difference there is between the Romish and the Geneva keys: if the former open and shut a fool’s paradise, or a knave’s purgatory, do not the latter shut us all up in finished salvation or finished damnation?

Zelotes indeed does not often use the power of the keys; one key does generally for him. He is at times so ashamed of the iron key, which is black and heavy; and so pleased with the wooden key, which is light and finely gilt; that instead of holding them out fairly and jointly as St. Peter’s pictures do the keys of hell and heaven, he makes the shining key alone glitter in the sight of his charmed hearers. Now and then, however, when he is driven to a corner by a judicious opponent, he pulls out his iron key, and holding it forth in triumph, he asks, “Who has resisted his will?” To these wrested words of St. Paul he probably adds two or three perverted scriptures — Which I beg leave to weigh next in my Scales.

Shall [natural evil] be in the city, and the Lord hath not done it [for the punishment of the ungodly, and for the greater good of the godly?] Amos 3:6.

They have [done moral evil]—they have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons with fire, &c, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind—neither came it into my heart, Jeremiah 19:5; 7:31. The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre: thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, Psalm 45:6. Abhor that which is evil, Romans 12:9. Thus saith the Lord, I will bring [natural] evil upon this city, &c, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words, Jeremiah 19:15. Therefore, when David says, that "the Lord does whatsoever pleaseth him," he does not speak of either man's sin or duty, but only of God's own work, which HE absolutely intends to perform. (1.) Not of man's sin: for "God is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness," Psalm 5:4. Nor (2.) Of man's duty: for though a master may do his servant's work, yet he can never do his servant's duty. It can never be a master's duty to obey his own commands: the servant must do it himself, or his duty (as duty) must remain for ever undone.

I. Ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying, &c, our Lord Jesus Christ, [as lawgiver, judge, and king,] &c. These be they who separate themselves [from their self-denying brethren] sensual, not having the Spirit [i.e. having quenched the Spirit]—walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words [whereby they creep in unawares into rich widows' houses; seducing the fattest of the flock, and] having men's persons in admiration because of advantage, verses 4, 16, 19.

Ye will not come to me that ye might have life, John v, 40. Ye put the word of God from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, Acts 13:46.

II. There are certain men, &c, who f23 were before of old ordained to this condemnation, &c, [namely, the condemnation of] the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, [whom] he [God] hath reserved in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day, Jude 1:4, 6.

To them that are disobedient, &c, he is a rock of offence, even to them who stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed: [or rather] whereunto [namely, to be disobedient] they f24 have even disposed [or settled] themselves, 1 Peter 2:7, 8. I shall close the preceding scriptures by some arguments which show the absurdity of supposing that there can be any free wrath in a just and good God.

(1.) When Adam, with all his posterity in his loins, came forth out of the hands of his Maker, he was pronounced very good, as being “made in the likeness of God,” and “after the image of him,” who is a perfect compound of every possible perfection. God spake those words in time; but if we believe Zelotes, the supposed decree of absolute, personal rejection, was made before time; God having fixed, from all eternity, that Esau should be absolutely hated. Now, as Esau stood in and with Adam, before he fell in and with him; and as God could not but consider him as standing and righteous, before he considered him fallen and sinful; it necessarily follows, either that Calvinism is a system of false doctrine; or, that the God of love, holiness, and equity, once hated his righteous creature, once reprobated the innocent, and said by his decree, “Cain, Esau, Saul and Judas are very good, for they are seminal parts of Adam my son, whom I pronounce very good, Genesis 1:31. But I actually hate those parts of my unsullied workmanship: without any actual cause, I detest mine own perfect image. Yea, I turn my eyes from their present complete goodness, that I may hate them for their future pre-ordained iniquity.” Suppose the God of love had transformed himself into the evil principle of the Manichees, what could he have done worse than thus to hate with immortal hatred, and absolutely to reprobate his innocent, his pure, his spotless offspring, at the very time in which he pronounced it very good? If Zelotes shudders at his own doctrine, and finds himself obliged to grant, that so long, at least, as Adam stood, Cain, Esau, Saul, and Judas stood with him, and in him were actually loved, conditionally chosen, and wonderfully blessed of God in paradise; it follows that the doctrine of God’s everlasting hate, and of the eternal, absolute rejection of those whom Zelotes considers as the four great reprobates, is founded on the grossest contradiction imaginable.

2. But Zelotes possibly complains that I am unfair, because I point out the deformity of his “doctrine of grace,” without saying one word of its beauty. “Why do you not,” says he, “speak of God’s absolute everlasting love to Jacob, as well as of his absolute, everlasting hate to Esau, Pharaoh, and Judas? Is it right to make always the worst of things?” Indeed, Zelotes, if I am not mistaken, your absolute election is full as subversive of Christ’s Gospel, as your absolute reprobation. The Scripture informs us, that when Adam fell he lost the favour, as well as the image of God; and that he became “a vessel of wrath” from head to foot: but if everlasting, changeless love still embraced innumerable parts of his seed, his fall was by no means so grievous and universal as the Scriptures represent it: for “a multitude, which no man can number,” ever stood, and shall ever stand on the Rock of ages: a rock this which, if we believe Zelotes, is made of unchangeable, absolute, sovereign, everlasting love for the elect, and of unchangeable, absolute, sovereign, everlasting wrath for the reprobates.

3. But this is only part of the mischief that necessarily flows from the fictitious doctrines of grace. They make the cup of trembling, which our Lord drank in Gethsemane, and the sacrifice which he offered on Calvary, in a great degree insignificant. Christ’s office as high priest was to sprinkle the burning throne with his precious blood, and to “turn away wrath” by the sacrifice of himself: but if there never was either a burning throne, or any wrath flaming against the elect; if unchangeable love ever embraced them, how greatly is the oblation of Christ’s blood depreciated? Might he not almost have saved himself the trouble of coming down from heaven to “turn away a wrath” which never flamed against the elect, and which shall never cease to flame against the reprobates?

4. From God’s preaching the Gospel to our first parents it appears that they were of the number of the elect, and Zelotes himself is of opinion that they belonged to the little flock. If this was the case, according to the doctrine of free, sovereign, unchangeable, everlasting love to the elect, it necessarily follows, that Adam himself was never a child of wrath. Nor does it require more faith to believe that our first parents were God’s pleasant children, when they sated themselves with forbidden fruit, than to believe that David and Bathsheba were persons after God’s own heart, when they defiled Uriah’s bed. Hence it follows that the doctrine of God’s everlasting love, in the Crispian sense of the word, is absolutely false, or that Adam himself was a child of changeless, everlasting love, when he made his wife, the serpent, and his own belly, his trinity under the fatal tree: while Cain was a child of everlasting wrath, when God said of him, in his father’s loins, that he was very good. Thus we still find ourselves at the shrine of the great Diana of the Calvinists, singing the new song of salvation and damnation finished from everlasting to everlasting, according to the doctrine laid down by the Westminster divines in their catechism: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass.”

5. This leads me to a third argument. If God from all eternity did “unchangeably ordain” all events, and, in particular, that the man Christ should absolutely die to save a certain, fixed number of men, who (by the by) never were children of wrath, and therefore never were in the least danger of perishing: if he unalterably appointed that the devil should tempt, and absolutely prevail over a certain fixed number of men who were children of wrath, before temptation and sin made them so: if this is the case, I say, how idle was Christ’s redeeming work! How foolish the tempter’s restless labour! How absurd Zelotes’ preaching! How full of inconsistency his law messages of wrath to the elect, and his Gospel messages of free grace to the reprobates! And how true the doctrine, which has lately appeared in print, and sums up the Crispian gospel in these sentences: — Ye, elect, shall be saved do what ye will; and ye, reprobates, shall be damned, do what ye can; for in the day of his power the Almighty will make you all absolutely willing to go to the place which he has unconditionally ordained you for, be it heaven or hell; God, if we believe the Westminster divines, in their catechism, “having unchangeably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.” An unscriptural doctrine this, which charges all sin and damnation upon God, and perfectly agrees with the doctrine of the consistent Calvinists, I mean the doctrine of finished salvation and finished damnation, thus summed up by Bishop Burnet in his exposition of the seventeenth article: “They think, &c, that he,” God, “decreed Adam’s sin, the lapse of his posterity, and Christ’s death, together with the salvation and damnation of such men as should be most for his own glory: that to those that were to be saved he decreed to give such efficacious assistances as should certainly put them in the way of salvation; and to those whom he rejected, he decreed to give such assistances and means only as should render them inexcusable.” Just as if those people could ever be inexcusable who only do what their almighty Creator has “unchangeably foreordained!”