is under obligation to extend his grace to all. Whereas he is under obligation to none. All are sinners, and have forfeited every claim to his mercy ; it is, therefore, perfectl)'^ competent to God to spare one and not another; to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. He, as their sovereign Creator, has the same right over them that a pot- ter has over the clay. It is to be borne in mind that Paul does not here speak of the right of God oter his creatures as creatures, but as sinful creatures ; as he himself clearly intimates in the next verses. It is the cavil of a sinful creature against his Creator, that he is answering; and he does it by showing that God is under no obligation to give his grace to any, but is as sovereign as the potter in fashioning the clay.
Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, TVhy hast thou made me thus ? See Isaiah 45 : 9. In this clause Paul presents mainly the idea of God's right, and in the subsequent verses he shows that nothing unjust is included in the right here claimed. We are justly in his hands ; and it is the height of irreverence and folly for us to call him to account for the manner in which he may see fit to dispose of us.
(21) Hath not the potter power over the clay, out of the same lump, to make one vessel, &c. The word rendered power means also authority and right. In this case it means, the lawful power or right ,- he not only can do it, but he has a perfect right to do it ; see the use of the Greek word in Matt. 21 : 23. 1 Cor. 8: 9, and frequently elsewhere. This verse is merely an illustration of the idea contained in the last clause of the pre- ceding. The Creator has a perfect right to dispose of his creatures as he sees fit. From the very idea of a creature, it can have no claim on the Creator ; whether it exists at all, or how, or where, from the nature of the case, must depend on him, and be at his sovereign disposal. The illustration of this truth which follows, is peculiarly appropriate. The mass of fallen men is in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter, and it is his right to dispose of them at pleasure ; to make all ves- sels unto honour, or all unto dishonour, or some to one and some to the other. These are points on which, from the nature of the relation, we have no right to question or complain.
(22, 23) What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ; and thai he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us P &c. These verses contain Paul's second answer to the diflftculty presented in the 19th verse. He had shown in vs. 20, 21, that in virtue of his relation to men as his sinful creatures, God is at perfect liberty to dispose of them at his pleasure, pardoning one and punishing another, as seemeth good in his sight. He now shows that in the exercise of this right there is nothing unreasonable or unjust, nothing of which his crea- tures have the least right to complain. The punishment of the wicked is not an arbitrary act, having no object but to make them miserable; it is designed to manifest the displeasure of God against sin, and to make