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GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY NOT TO BE ARRAIGNED BY MEN
THERE are some persons so partial to, what we may call, the high doctrines of the Gospel, that they can scarcely endure to hear any thing else: they are like persons whose taste is vitiated by strong drink or highly-seasoned food; they have no appetite for any thing which does not savour of their favourite opinions. This is a great evil in the Church, not only as injuring the souls in whom it exists, but as tending exceedingly to strengthen the prejudices of others against the doctrines which are so abused. Those who are thus disposed towards “the deep things of God,” fancy themselves edified, merely because their corrupt taste is gratified: but their edification is not real and scriptural; for, if it were, it would incline them to receive with meekness and humility every word of God; whereas they treat with contempt every thing which seems to savour of plain practical religion. We regret exceedingly that such persons exist: but we must not, on their account, run into an opposite extreme, and keep these doctrines altogether out of sight: we must “not shun to declare unto men the whole counsel of God.” Whatsoever is revealed in the sacred records must be brought forth in its season: nor are we at liberty to “withhold from men any thing that may be profitable unto them.” We therefore address ourselves to every subject in its place: though on such subjects as that which is before us, we would do it with fear and trembling, conscious how unable we are to do justice to it, and fearful lest by any means we should make it an occasion of offence to those who are not prepared for the investigation of it. The sovereignty of God is to the proud heart of man an unpalatable subject; but in the passage before us we are called to vindicate it against the objections of those who are disposed, like the Jew in our text, to contend against it.
To place the matter in its true light, we shall consider,
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 offensive 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 evident; for to this end St. Paul’s arguments had tended; and nothing less than this could have given rise to such an objection: 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 “condemn 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 own sovereign will and pleasure: and the other was, That in the way he had hitherto disposed of them, and had determined still to dispose of them, he was fully justified.]
Let us consider these assertions more fully—
[A potter, it is acknowledged, has 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 dishonour, either in their first creation, or in their subsequent use and destination.
The same also we may say in relation to the eternal states of men, if only we consider them, as they really are, one vast mass of guilt and corruption. When Adam fell, God was at liberty to leave him as he was, in all his guilt and corruption, or to redeem him from it, and to make him a vessel of honour by his new-creating power. When God chose Abraham out of the whole world of idolaters, he was at liberty to have chosen others besides him, if he had been pleased so to do, or to have restricted the blessings of his covenant to Ishmael and Esau, instead of limiting them to Isaac and Jacob. If he had seen fit to do this, whom would he have injured? or who would have had any right to complain? Whom did he injure when he chose the Jews? Did he by separating them from the rest of mankind, and granting exclusively to them the ordinances of his grace, do any injustice to the Gentile world? or, now that he is pleased to send his Gospel to the Gentiles, does he do any injustice to the Jews? In favouring us with the full light of revelation, does he injure the millions of Mahometans and Pagans who are less favoured than ourselves? In like manner, if he send to some of us fuller opportunities of instruction than to others, or richer communications of his grace, is he not at liberty to do so?
Let it be remembered, that the question is not, Whether God shall punish an innocent person, or a guilty person beyond his deserts? That could receive no other answer than that given by the Apostle, “Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” But the question is, Whether, when all mankind are in a state of guilt and condemnation, God may not “have mercy on whom he will have mercy?” And to this question we reply by asking another, “May He not do what he will with his own [Note: Mat_20:15.]?”
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 determined 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 destruction?” 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 justice, 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 communications 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 hundred 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 indignation 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 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 his 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 everlasting [Note: 1Ti_1:16.]?” 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 [Note: Joh_11:6; Joh_11:15; Joh_11:40.]. And did he any wrong in this?
But if our proud hearts be yet disposed to rise up against God, and reply against him, the extraordinary caution with which St. Paul gives his answer must silence us for ever. Between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy he makes this striking distinction; that the vessels of wrath fit themselves for destruction, but the vessels of mercy are prepared for glory by their God [Note: See the Greek.]. The judgments executed on the ungodly, at whatever period they are inflicted, are brought on them, not by any absolute decree of God, but by their own wilful and obstinate continuance in sin: but the blessings imparted to the godly are solely the fruit of God’s sovereign grace and mercy. They who perish must take all the shame to themselves; and those who are saved must give all the glory to their God.
The manner in which the Apostle states his argument, should not be altogether unnoticed. “What if” so and so? Who has any thing to reply against it? Is there any thing in it contrary to reason? let him bring it to the test of reason. Is there any thing contrary to Scripture? let him consult the passages to which I now refer him, and he shall see, that this very mode of dealing towards all mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles, is precisely that which all the prophets have taught us to expect at the hands of God [Note: ver. 25–27.]. He has, for his own glory, left the Gentiles for two thousand years, and taken the Jews for his peculiar people; and now, for his own glory also, will he for a season leave the Jews, and take the Gentiles. In this matter, neither the one nor the other have any claim upon him: in taking the one and leaving the other, he did no injustice formerly: and in now abandoning those whom he formerly took, (more especially since they have filled up the measure of their iniquities,) and in taking those whom he then left, he does no injustice now: but in both he is, and will be, glorified: he even in this world glorifies, both in the one and in the other, his patience and long-suffering, and forbearance; but, in the world to come, he will glorify his perfections upon both of them in a more appropriate way;—on the vessels of wrath, his power; but on the vessels of mercy, his free, and sovereign, and unbounded grace.]
Having investigated with care the Apostle’s answer, we will conclude with suggesting,
III. The proper improvement of the subject—
The subject offers many important hints,
1. To objectors—
[These, alas! are a very numerous body, even in the Christian world. Favoured as we are above the rest of the world, it might be hoped that we should be the last to arraign the sovereignty of Almighty God. Yet amongst us there are many who will dispute against the doctrines of grace, precisely in the way that the unbelieving Jew is represented as doing in our text. One would be ready to suppose, from the confidence with which they urge their impious objections, that they had been the secret counsellors of the Most High. They determine, without any hesitation or doubt, what will, and what will not, consist with the Divine attributes.
Beloved brethren, this is not the way in which it becomes frail dust and ashes to proceed: and if you will presume thus to reprove God, you must “answer it” at your cost [Note: Job_40:2.]. Be assured that such conduct ill becomes you, and is most offensive to your God [Note: Job_40:8.]: and your wisdom is to forbear all such impiety in future [Note: Job_40:5.]. Go to any person deeply versed in sciences of any kind; and he will tell you paradoxes without number which you cannot understand, which yet he knows to be true, and is able to prove, if you had sufficient knowledge of that particular science to comprehend him. Know then, that God also, if he have revealed what appears paradoxical to you, can fully reconcile his own declarations, and will do so in the eternal world; though, if he were now to do it, you would not have capacity sufficient to discern the truth and excellence of his communications. Be assured, that, “as the heavens are high above the earth, so are his thoughts and ways high above yours.”
But there are many among those who pretend to vindicate the ways of God, who are scarcely less worthy of reproof than those who presume to condemn them. There are many who speak of “the deep things of God,” as if they were as plain and easy and intelligible as the simplest truth that can be mentioned. They dwell exclusively on these great and hidden mysteries, and leave all the plainer doctrines of repentance, faith, and obedience, as low matters, unworthy of their attention, and as unprofitable to any good end. Nothing pleases them but what brings immediately to their view the Divine decrees: and of these they speak in a way that the Scriptures by no means authorize. They draw conclusions from partial statements, without giving due weight to things which God himself has spoken on the opposite side: and then they vindicate with unhallowed boldness and confidence what they themselves have put, as it were, into the mouth of God. This was the very conduct of Job’s friends; and justly were they rebuked by God for their presumption. They took partial declarations of God, and then put their own unqualified construction upon them, and deduced from them inferences which they were never intended to bear. In this way they bore down righteous Job as an ignorant self-deceiver. But God declared that they had not spoken the thing that was right, as his servant Job had done; and required them to humble themselves for their folly and impiety. Let not any of you ever subject yourselves to the same reproof: for “Woe to him,” saith God, “that striveth with his Maker [Note: Isa_45:9.].” It becomes you, doubtless, to investigate, and as far as possible to understand, every truth of God: but, in things so infinitely beyond the reach of human intellect, it becomes you to be humble, modest, diffident: and in things respecting which the most pious men may differ in their judgment, it becomes you cheerfully to concede to others the liberty which you arrogate to yourselves. And we are well persuaded, that mutual candour and forbearance among those of opposite principles, would do infinitely more towards the bringing all to just views, than all the angry contentions of violent partisans.]
2. To all persons without exception—
[You, brethren, have other things to do than to be wasting your time about unprofitable disputes. You are all at this very moment vessels of wrath, or vessels of mercy: you are now, even whilst I am speaking to you, under the hands of the Potter. You are actually upon the lathes, preparing and fashioning, either for vessels of honour, or vessels of dishonour. The question that most concerns you is, for which you are preparing? and how you may know for which you are destined? In order to ascertain this, you need not look into the book of God’s decrees, but simply examine the state of your own hearts. For what are you preparing? Are you diligently seeking after God from day to day? Are you living by faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ, washing daily in the fountain of his blood, and renewed daily by the operations of his Spirit? Are you progressively advancing in the enjoyment of his presence, the performance of his will, and the attainment of his image? Are you, in a word, beginning to live the life of heaven upon earth? This will mark you vessels of honour: and the want of this is sufficient to stamp you vessels unto dishonour. It is not necessary that you should be committing any flagrant sins in order to constitute you vessels of wrath: it is quite sufficient that you are not growing up into Christ as your living Head, and devoted altogether to his service and glory. Let these inquiries then occupy your mind, and trouble not yourselves about the “secret things which belong only to your God.” Whether you are pleased with the Potter or not, he is going on with his work; and in a short time he will cut you from the lathe, and fix your everlasting destinies. But, blessed be his name! He is able to change both your form and use: and, if you call upon him, he will do it; and he can do it as easily as a potter can mar the clay which has been formed only for a degraded use, and fashion it into a vessel of the most dignified description. Whilst you are upon the lathe, nothing is impossible: and who can tell but that you have been suffered, even to this hour, to fit yourselves for vessels of wrath, in order that God may be the more glorified in the change that shall be wrought in you? Yes, perhaps the hour is now come for Saul’s conversion: perhaps this is the hour when he has decreed to humble you in the dust before him, and to make you a vessel of honour that shall display, almost beyond all others, the riches of his glory? O lift up your hearts to him, and pray, that at this time his grace may be magnified in you, and that you may be monuments of his love and mercy to all eternity.
But perhaps with others the hour is come, when the measure of your iniquities shall be filled, and when, like Pharaoh, you shall be made signal monuments of God’s wrath and indignation. What a fearful thought! The Lord grant that it may not be realized in any of you. But beware! His mercy and forbearance will have an end; and that end may be much nearer than you expect. Let not one hour more pass unimproved: but “seek ye the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him whilst he is near.”
As for you who have reason to hope that you are already vessels of mercy, O! bless and praise your God. Remember, ye were taken from the same mass of clay, as others, who bear a very different shape. Remember, too, to whom you owe the distinction that has been conferred upon you. Had you been left to yourselves, you would have been in as degraded a state as any. It is God, and God alone, who has made you to differ, either from others, or from your former selves. Give him then the glory of his rich and sovereign grace, and seek daily to become more and more “vessels of honour, meet for your Master’s use [Note: 2Ti_2:20-21.].”]