The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 289

patrio~io enough for this.. In ?ther words, Pa~l was ready to forego his own heaven if by domg eo he could brmg his brethren to it. How many Christiane have risen to such o. patriotism? Self-sacrifice for their country may have been faced-but self- eacrifice only for a time. Glory beyond the shadows makes compensation for the pain e.nd the parting here. But eelf-eacrifice for eternity-this is no less than Panl's idea. Let us be patriotic as Paul was, and our country ehall be every way the better for our being reckoned among her sons.-R. M. E. Vere, 6-18.-The children of the promise. We have seen St. Paul as a Christian patriot ready to sacrifice his everlasting fellowship with Christ if it could ensure the salvation of his fellow-countrymen. But, alas I the fact of the rejection of Jesus and his gospel by many of the Jews must be accepted. And when the apostle turns to history, he finds that there has'been no wholesale salvation of either the descendants of Abraham or of Israel, but a certain proportion only became children of promise. How can these facts be dealt with under the Divine gove=ent? It is t.o this the apostle devotes himself in the present passage. I. Goo's JUDGMENT UPON Al,'"Y MAN IS NOT DETERMINED BY THE QUALITIES OF HI8 NATURAL DISPOSITION. When we take up the cases here given, we see that God did not elect to privilege either all the children of the patriarchs, or even those we would incline to elect ourselves. St, Paul mentions the children of Abraham; and, as the history shows, he had eight (Gen. xxv. 2), yet only one becomes the " chilrl of pro- mise." Isaac also had two sons, but the younger, not the elder, becomes in hiB turn the "child of promise." Moreover, when we consider Ishmael and Esau, who are apparently both before Paul's mind, we are inclined to regard them as more manly and noble men than their brothers Isaac and Jacob. They may have become "sons of the desert," yet there is something in both the rejected men which commands our admiration. Of course, we see in them purely natural endowments. They live lives of sense and sight rather than of faith. They live solely under the power of things seen, and are what we now call worldly men. Their natures are as interesting and as noble as pure worldliness of spirit will allow. Now let us suppose for a moment that God's electing love had laid hold on these well-made " noblemen of nature," with all their physical force and muscular power, and had passed by their feebler brothers, the meditative Isaac and the cowardly Jacob; would not violent outcry have surely resulted a,,crainst a God who professed to be a Father, and yet could favour the strong and pass by the weak? It is plain that an electing love which moved along such lines as these would have been denounced by all serious and thoughtful men. But, as a recent preacher has said, " the Father in heaven is a considerate Father. He does not cast out his crippled and deformed children to perish. He holds to a stricter and sterner responsibility the sons that are nobly endowed by birth and nature. He is not the gentleman's God, nor the Redeemer and Saviour of persons of fine culture and beautiful instincts. He is, and from the J:ieginning has been, the Saviour of the lost. And by mn.ny a story &s strange as this of Jacob e.nd Esau he has shown to the honourable and generous and high-minded that there is a possible way of ruin for them; and to those who know in their own sorrowful consciousness, and by the scornful words or looks of others, that they are not of noble or generous strain, that there is a way by which such as they mo.y find salvation and the eterno.l favour of God." 1 II. THE CHILDREN OF THE l'RO:MISE HAVE DEEN LED TO PRIZE IT AND TO TB UST THB FAITHFUL Pnomsn:n. Both Isaac and Jacob were children of the promise in this sense, that their mothers would never have borne them had not God sust.'\ined their hope of children by the promise of a seed. But Esau wns included in this promise as well as Jacob. There was, however, another nnd a better promise--a promise about :ill the families of the el\rth being blessed through a particular seed. In other words, the promise of o. Messiah wus held before them o.s their highest hope. Now, Ishmael and Es..u despised this arrangement; thoy did not feel indebted to posterity, as many a worldly mind thinks still. But !sane o.nd Jucob got interested in the promised bless- in<r and wero led to trust him who uttered it. Their very weaknes.s and cow&rdice led th~~ to lean upon One mighty to 61'1Vo, and they were pardoned, accepted, and iu due 1 Leonard Woolsey Dnoou's • Simplioity thnt is in Christ,' Sermon :uv. on "Jacob aud Es11u."  2$8 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL 'l'O 'l'HE ROMANS. [oR. 1x, 1-8a.