ll('R~,,n Mnctified. God's elect-ing low thus moves along lines where thero ls the likelihood that the poor, crippled, crushed souls mll lel\rn to trust God who is mighty to save, It is h,mier for a rich man, for exl\mple, tl) trust God. than it is for a poor man ; hence 0---..i has "~hosen the poor in this w,?rhi, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom" (Jae, u. 5). It 19 harder to get able-bodied men, who never know whe.t a de.y's sickness ia, to trust God than it is to get the sick aud the sorrowing; and hence we find the.t Jobs and Asaphs, who have been pl&,,<Y\led all the day, aud who are in deep waters al.most c-0nstant.ly, are m&de by Divine grace to show to the unbelieving world that they can serve God for naught, that even t.hongh he slays them, yet will they trust in him (Job i. 9; xiii. 15; Ps. ln:iii.). And so, as the writer already quoted says, "Be of good comfort, all whose need of se.lvation is deepest and most inward. You shall be saved, not only in spite of these shameful faults and infirmities which you e.bhor in yourself and which God abhors; you shall not only be saved, blessed, loved, in spite of them;- you shall be saved.from them-and that is a greater thing. Faith in God is the vita.I air of all true human nobleness. In this air the stunted germs of human virtue unfold and blossom. Without faith, their fairest, strongest growths tend to shrivel and decay, For lack of fa..ith in God, the noble gifts of Esau are of no avail. He shuts himself out, a willing stranger to the covenant.s of promise, having no hope, without God in the world. He moves, a wandering star, in a track: without a centre, on towards blackness of darkness. By faith, the low nature of that 'worm Jacob' is by-and-by redeemed from the power of evil, and, transformed in character and in name, Jacob the sup- plant.er is changed to Israel the prince that hath power with God" (Bacon, ut supra). III. Gon's ELECTING LOVE AND REPROBATING BA.TE OANNOT BE CHARGED WITH ANY =usnCE.. Now, in ane.lyzing God's love for the children of promise, the apostle dis- tinctly trace, their election to God's good pleasure. He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and compassion on whom he will have compassion. And if mercy he "undeserved favour," that is to say, if no one deserves it or is entitled to it, then he may justly ~ve it to whomsoever he plee.seth. On the other band, those who are passed by and hardened, having no claim to better treatment, receive simply the due reward of their deeds. And here it may be well to guard against a false view of the statement about God's hatred of Esau. It is not to be illferred that God hated Esau before he was born and had any opportunity of doing evil. When we consult the passage here quoted by Paul, we :find it refers to the judgment of Edom in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It is in Ma.Li. 2: "Was not EsauJacob's brother? saith the Lord; yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragonB of the wilderness." To quote an acute writer upon this very subject, " Esau is left in his inferiority before his birth. but he is not hated, in the sense of the prophet, until nine hundred and ninety-six years la.tor, when King Nebuchadnezzar put his mountains to desolation. Without being blessed like his brother, Esau received his home • in the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.' His indifference had cost hlm his right of primogeniture, and he could no more receive it back (Gen. xxv. 32; xxvii. 33--37; Heb. xii. ~6, 17); _yet. the Law p~escribed respect for i:iim, ' Thou shalt not have the ldwruea.n m abollllll&tlon, for he 1s thy brother;' and God endured ten centuries of hardness of heart before he said, 'I have hated FA1&u."'l That is to say, God's reprobation of Esau is not to be confounded with his t:lection of Jacob. The mistake made by many in thinking of these subjects is in taking reprobation as the opposite of election-as if God decreed men's reprobation in the exerciJ;e of the same pure sovereignty in which he decrees the election of others, But so far from this being the case, election and reprobation rest upon two distinct portions of the Divine nat_Ure. The op~site of election .is not reprobation, but n~n- dedv.n,; and no human being bas any evidence that be 18 not elected. The opposite of reprobation is approbation, and !"e ~e all reprobated by God so long ~s we do r,ot accept of C,'hrist, and have hun m us, our Hope of glory. Election rests on the good plea.8UTe of God ; reprobation on his holiness, which leads him to anta- gonize and loathe what ia unholy. I cannot do better than quote the elder Robert Hall in his admirable little treatise, 'Help to Zion'a 'l'ravellera.' He se.ye, " ~ in Scripture always stands opposed to, and is the natural negative of, 1 Of. M.omc::ll'1 • La Predestination,' p. 26; see aleo QD this whole p11,1nge Doyaohlag',
' Die Pa.uliD.iacbe Theodicee,' Bomer i.L-n. m1. xx. 1-83.] THE J!JPIBTLE OP· PAUL TO THE ROMANS. 289