But let us turn to the latter part of the Apostle's answer ; wherein he asserts confidently, that if we attend carefully to the way in which God has disposed of men, and has deter- mined still to dispose of them, he is, and ever must be, justified.
God has determined to get himself glory upon all mankind, whether they will it, or not. He will be glorified both in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
" What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known, endure the vessels of wrath fitted to destruc- tion?" is he not at liberty to do so? Take, for instance, Pharaoh. If God had pleased, he might have cut off Pharaoh on his first refusal to let the people of Israel go ; or at any one of the ten successive plagues: but he was not obliged to do so: he was surely at liberty to spare him, and exercise forbearance towards him, and to remove in succession the different plagues from him, and to give him space for repentance, till he had filled up the measure of his iniquities, and was quite ripe for those signal judgments that had been denounced against him. In like manner, the Jews might justly have been cut off, when they renounced their allegiance to God, and worshipped the golden calf. God might, without*any impeachment of his jus- tice, have executed then the threatened judgment of destroying instantly that rebellious nation, and raising up another from the loins of Moses. But he saw fit to exercise mercy towards them, and to impart to them yet more abundant communi- cations of his grace and favour. Surely in this he did them no injury. So also under all their provocations in the wilderness, during the space of forty years, and under all their apostasies from him in the land of Canaan for the space of fifteen hun- dred years, he might, if he had seen fit, have destroyed them : and, to say the least, he did them no injury in bearing with them, till, by the crucifixion of their Messiah, they had " filled up the measure of their own and their fathers' iniquities." God's fore-knowing how much they would abuse his mercies, was no reason why he should not exercise mercy towards them : for by his forbearance his mercy was displayed ; and by their accumulated guilt and aggravated condemnation his in- dignation against sin, and his power to avenge it, were more conspicuously displayed. The same we may say in reference to any person or number of persons ; God is not bound to cut them off the moment they sin against him : he may continue to cultivate the barren fig-tree year after year, if he be pleased to do so, in order to shew more clearly its incurable sterility, and his own justice in its final excision. Thus, I say, He may act towards " the vessels of his wrath."
So also he may pursue a similar line of conduct towards " the vessels of mercy," in order ultimately to " make known
1886.1 god's sovereignty not to be arraigned. S63
upon them the riches of his glory." He was not compelled to bring out Abraham from his family and his country, while he was yet a child : he was at liberty to leave him bowing down to stocks and stones, like all the rest around him, till the hour which he in his1 secret counsels had appointed for his effectual calling was arrived. Nor, when God called Abraham, was he compelled to call all other Gentiles at the same time : he was at liberty to " leave them to their own ways " till the times of the Messiah, in order to shew more fully, that " the world by wisdom knew not God," and that, if left to themselves, nothing but universal ruin must ensue. St. Paul tells us, that God, in his secret counsels, had " separated him as a chosen vessel, even from his mother's womb :" yet had God left him for many years to his own heart's lusts, and to the perpetration of the most enormous wickedness. Was God unjust in this? Was God bound to convert him before ? Was he not at liberty to leave this man to the dictates of his own deceived conscience, that he might gain the more glory in his conversion, and " shew forth in him all long-suffering, for a pattern to all who should hereafter believe in him to life everlastingb?" The dying thief too, — Was not God at liberty to let him go on as he did to the latest hour of his life, that he might shew in him what divine grace and mercy could effect, even at the eleventh hour? God would have done no injury to any of these, if he had never so distinguished them by his power and grace : nor, in having so distinguished them, has he done any injury to others, either to Paul's companions in his journey, or to the other thief upon the cross. It was thus that our blessed Lord acted in reference to Lazarus. When called to come and heal him, he staid till he had been dead four days on purpose that, by raising him after so long a time, his own power might be the more abundantly glorified". And did he any wrong in this ?