To place the matter in its true light, we shall con- sider,
I. The point at issue between the objector and St. Paul—
[St. Paul had strongly intimated, that the Jews were now to be rejected from the Church of God, and that the Gentiles were to be admitted into it. This he knew was a most offen- sive subject to the Jews ; and therefore he had shewn, both from God's word to Moses, and his dealings with Pharaoh, that God had a right to communicate his blessings, or execute his judgments, in such a way as should conduce most to his own glory. The Jew, not convinced, is represented as declaring, that, if God exercise his sovereignty in this way, the blame of
man's condemnation must be transferred to God himself, since it was impossible for man to resist his will.
That this was the jet of the question between them, is evi- dent; for to this end St. Paul's arguments had tended; and nothing less than this could have given rise to such an objec- tion : to this also the answer of the Apostle directly applies. The objection, it is true, did not fairly arise out of St. Paul's statement : but the Jew took occasion from his statement to found his objection upon it : and to the question, thus stated, we must now reply.]
II. The Apostle's determination of it —
St. Paul hearing such a blasphemous objection as this, " Why doth God yet find fault ? for who hath resisted his will ?" replies to it,
1. In a way of just reprehension —
[" Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God ?" Consider thyself as a creature ; What right hast thou to sit in judgment upon God? Dost thou understand all his counsels ? Art thou able to fathom the depth of his wisdom ? Canst thou " find out the Almighty to perfection?" How canst thou presume thus to arraign the conduct of thy God, and to "con- demn him that thou mayest be justified?" What wouldest thou think of thine own child, if he, whilst yet a child, should stand up and accuse thee as unwise and unjust, in the most deliberate exercise of thy counsels ? or, What wouldest thou think of a peasant who should presume thus to sit in judgment upon the counsels of a minister of state ? Art thou then authorized to arraign the conduct of thy God?
But consider thyself as a sinner, and how atrocious does thy conduct then appear! Thou who mightest justly have been consigned over to perdition the first moment thou hadst sinned, dost thou complain of thy God as unjust and tyrannical, if he dispense to others the blessings which thou hast refused to accept? Impious wretch! As well might the clay rise up against the potter, and condemn him for having fashioned it according to his own will.]
2. In a way of sound argument —
[Two things St. Paul proceeds to substantiate against his objector : the one was, That God had a right to dispose of every thing according to his oton sovereign will and pleasure : and the other was, That in the ivay he had hitherto disposed of them, and had determined still to dispose of them, he ivas fully justified.']
Let us consider these assertions more fully —
1886.1 god's sovereignty not to be arraigned. 301
[A potter, it is acknowledged, lias a sovereign right over his clay : and so has God over all the works of his hands. When he formed angels, was he bound to furnish them with all the faculties they possess? and, having formed them, might he not have annihilated them again, and consigned them over again to their former non-existence ? When he formed man and beast of the same clay, might he not have given higher faculties to the brute creation, and less to man? or might he not have reduced man immediately to the state of the beasts, without doing any injury to man ? Is not this, in reality, what God is doing every day, as it were, before our eyes ; bereaving one and another of his mental faculties, and reducing him to a state far below the beasts ? It is evident, that God may of the same lump make one vessel to honour, and another to dis- honour, either in their first creation, or in their subsequent use and destination.