We should be duly sensible that this is indeed the conduct of God in relation to his Gospel : and we should evince,
1. Our submission to it, as an act of sovereignty —
[Certainly in this matter God acts as a sovereign, who has a right to dispense his blessings to whomsoever he will : " it is even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight." God might have revealed his Gospel to all, or hid it from all, if it had pleased him ; and none would have had any right to com- plain. As well might the fallen angels complain that man alone had a Redeemer provided for him, as any child of man complain, that he has derived less advantage from the Gospel than another. Had any other of Paul's hearers reason to complain, because " the Lord opened Lydia's heart to attend to the things that were spoken by him ? " Assuredly not : God's grace is his own ; and he may dispense it as he pleases, accord- ing to his own sovereign will and pleasure s. He himself asks, " Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" and if we claim such a right, much more may He, who is, as Jesus calls him, " Lord of heaven and earth," and who consequently may dispose both of heaven and earth according to his will, and "without giving to us an account of any of his matters1." When therefore we behold this, shall we presume to strive with God, or to say unto him, 'What doest thou?' Shall the clay arraign the conduct of the potter, or " the vessel say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thusu?" " He that reproveth God, let him answer itx."
Many, who see that God does indeed dispense his blessings according to his own good pleasure and the inscrutable counsel of his own will, endeavour to get rid of the notion of his sove- reignty by asserting, that God has respect to some goodness in man which he has foreseen ; and that he regulates his dispen- sations in accordance with some worthiness which he knows will at a future period appear in the objects of his choice, bestowing his favours on those who he knows will make a good use of them, and withholding them from those only who he foresees would abuse them. But, if this be so, how shall we understand those declarations of our Lord both in the preced- ing and following context ? He turned him, we are told, to his Disciples, and said privately, " Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see : for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard themy." In this place the sovereign grace
s Eph. i. 5. Phil. ii. 13. * Job xxxiii. 13. u Rom. ix. 20, 21. x Job xl. 2. y ver. 23, 24.