tion was devised for fallen man and not for fallen angels. (2.) It was a matter of grace that that plan was revealed to some portions of our race and not to others. (3.) The acceptance, or justifica- tion of every individual heir of salvation is a matter of grace. (4.) The work of sanctification is a work of grace, i. e., a work carried on by the unmerited, supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. (5.) It is a matter of grace that of those who hear the gospel some accept the offered mercy, while others reject it. All these points are so clearly taught in the Bible that they are practi- cally acknowledged by all Christians. Although denied to satisfy the understanding, they are conceded by the heart, as is evident from the prayers and praises of the Church in all ages and in all its divisions. That the vocation or regeneration of the believer is of grace, i. g., that the fact of his vocation is to be referred to God, and not to anything in himself is specially insisted upon by the Apostle Paul in almost all his epistles. For example, in 1 Cor. i. 17-31. It had been objected to him that he did not preach " with the wisdom of words," He vindicated himself by showing, first, that the wisdom of men had not availed to secure the saving knowl- edge of God ; and secondly, that when the gospel of salvation was revealed, it was not the wise who accepted it. In proof of this latter point, he appealed to their own experience. He referred to the fact that of their number God had not chosen the wise, the great, or the noble ; but the foolish, the weak, and the despised. God had done this. It was He who decided who should be brought to accept the Gospel, and who should be left to themselves. He had a purpose in this, and that purpose was that those who glory should glory in the Lord, i. e., that no man should be able to refer his salvation (the fact that he was saved while another was not saved) to himself. For, adds the Apostle, it is of Him that we are in Christ Jesus. Our union with Christ, the fact that we are believers, is to be referred to Him, and not to ourselves.
The Apostle's Argument in Romans ix.
This also is the purpose of the Apostle in the whole of the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. He had asserted, agreeably to the predictions of the ancient prophets, that the Jews as a nation were to be cast off, and the blessings of the true religion were to be extended to the Gentiles. To establish this point, he first shows that God was not bound by his promise to Abraham to save all the natural descendants of that patriarch. On the contrary, that it was a prerogative which God, as sovereign, claimed and exercised,
344 PART m. Ch. I. — the plan OF SALVATION.
to have mercy on whom He would, and to reject whom He would. He chose Isaac and not Ishmael, Jacob and not Esau, and, in tliat case, to show that the choice was perfectly sovereign, it was an- nounced before the birth of the children, before they had done good or evil. Pharaoh He had hardened. He left him to himself to be a monument of justice. This right, which God both claims and exercises, to choose whom He will to be the recipients of his mercy, involves, the Apostle teaches us, no injustice. It is a right of sovereignty which belongs to God as Creator and as moral Gov- ernor. No one had a right to complain if, for the manifestation of his mercy, he saved some of the guilty family of men ; and to show his justice, allowed others to bear the just recompense of their sins. On these principles God, as Paul tells us, dealt with the Jews. The nation as a nation was cast off, but a remnant was saved. And this remnant was an " election of grace," i. e., men chosen gratuitously. Paul himself was an illustration of this election, and a proof of its entirely gratuitous nature. He was a persecutor and a blasphemer, and while in the very exercise of his malignant op- position, was suddenly and miraculously converted. Here, if in no other case, the election was of grace. There was nothing in Paul to distinguish him favourably from other unbelieving Pharisees. It could not be the foresight of his faith and repentance which was the ground of his election, because he was brought to faith and repentance by the sovereign and irresistible intervention of God. What, however, was true of Paul is true of every other believer. Every man who is brought to Christ is so brought that it is re- vealed to his own consciousness, and openly confessed by the mouth, that his conversion is of God and not of himself; that he is a monument of the election of grace ; that he, at least, was not chosen because of his deserts.
Argument from Experience.
The whole history of the Church, and the daily observation of Christians, prove the sovereignty of God in the dispensation of saving blessings, for which Augustinians contend. It is true, in- deed, first, that God is a covenant keeping God, and that his promise is to his people and to their seed after them to the third and fourth generations. It is, therefore, true that his grace is dis- pensed, although not exclusively, yet conspicuously, in the line of their descendants. Secondly, it is also true that God has prom- ised his blessing to attend faithful instruction. He commands par- ents to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of