ers. We should therefore carefully study the will of God on this matter with great meekness, and humility, with fervent prayer, and a fixed determination to go as far as the Lord has given us light, and no further. Thus doing, we shall find it administering to us joy and comfort wherein we understand it, and teaching us lessons of humility and self-distrust in points we cannot comprehend. 12. Among all the truths of scripture none is more practical, none more essential to right views of God's character and government, or to our own peace and joy, than this, God is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works, v. 14. If the human mind. can once be brought to entertain serious doubts on this subject, wickedness must gain the ascendancy, or a depression bordering on desperation gain possession of our minds. However thick the clouds and darkness that are round about him, let us never doubt that righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne, Ps. 97: 1, 2. Firmly persuaded that the Judge of all the earth will do right, we can defy a thousand assaults of the adversary, and triumph even in the midst of tribulations. 13. In all their generations there was never an Israelite, that expressed sympathy with Pharaoh. On the contrary they always looked back on that fallen foe as an enemy to God and man, justly given over to destruction. Their inspired prophets taught them to speak and even sing in notes of triumph the victory God had granted over him and other bitter opposers of God and his people, Ps. 135:8-12; 136: 10-30. In like manner shall the church triumphant look back on all her proud and persecuting foes, long after the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and tyranny, and oppression and slander shall no longer vex the souls that tremble at God's word, Rev. 15: 1-3. 14. If men are proud and obstinate, refusing to be bound in the chains of love, God has chains and bars of omnipotence that will effectually arrest their career of crime and violence, v. 17. For thousands of years Pharaoh has not had it in his power to create an uneasy sensation or awaken the slightest apprehension in the mind of any child of God in any part of this or of any other world. Glory be to God, the day is not distant when every sorrowing disciple now on earth shall be where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. 15. Let us carefully eschew vain reasonings and sinful questionings concerning God's nature and government, vs. 19, 20. It is a fact with many a man that he dashes his head against the strongest pillars only to damage himself. "So unreasonable is the curiosity of man, that the more perilous the examination of a sub ject is, the more boldly he proceeds." Sadly are men forgetful of their place and their duty when they "enter into a debate with God," and presume to tell what he ought or ought not to do in matters which he has not explained to mortals. "Wo to him that striveth with his maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?" Isa. 45: 9. When worms cite the Almighty to their "blasphemous bar," they may assuredly know that hell feels a raven for her prey. If men will "rush in where angels fear to tread," and prescribe to the Almighty, they must answer for their presumption. 16. The sooner men adoringly submit to the sovereignty of God in all things, and say from the heart, Thy will be done, the better for them, v. 21. God is our potter. Let us own him as such, Jer. 18: 2-10. It is sadly to be regretted that so much time is spent in arrogantly boasting of vain conceits, and so little in adoring him whose righteousness is like the waves of the sea. Indeed one hour's deep abasement before God does more to make us wise than all the great swelling words ever uttered. Brown: "It is a dangerous matter to consult with flesh and blood, and follow the judgment of carnal reason in the matters of God." 17. Sinners perish only on the ground of their sins; yet such is the infinite wisdom of the Most High, that God's justice and power are glorified when men refuse to glorify his mercy and grace by accepting his Son, v. 22. 18. Salvation is and ever will be wonderful in manifesting "glorious riches" of wisdom and power, justice and mercy, truth and grace, faithfulness and righteousness, v. 23. Augustine: "According to their deserts God makes some vessels of wrath; according to his grace he makes others vessels of mercy." No creature can say which of all God's attributes is most glorified in man's redemption. The common impression is that love and mercy are most illustrious. Perhaps they are. But who can fathom the wisdom, estimate the power or gauge the justice therein displayed? 19. The first cause and the last end of all things is God, vs. 17, 22, 23. He is honored willingly or unwillingly by all his creatures. Some praise him silently; some, vocally; some, willingly; some, reluctantly. By him, and through him, and to him, and for him are all things. "Retiring into our own ignorance and weakness, as those that are less than nothing and vanity before him," letus fear by arrogance to insult his heavenly majesty. It is easy to be proud and to perish. It is not easy to be humble and reverent as ever becomes us. Glory be to God in the highest. Amen and amen. CHAPTER IX. VERSES 25-33. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY PROVEN BY THE PROPHETS. BY UNBELIEF THE JEWS REJECT SALVATION, WHILE BY FAITH THE GENTILES ACCEPT IT. 25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. 26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. 27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: 28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. 29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been make like unto Gomorrah. 30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. 31 But Israel, which followed after the law of rigr.teousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. TH HE apostle, having laid down his doctrine concerning God's sovereignty in choosing and saving whom he will, and having shown that God exercised that sovereignty in the very dawn of the history of the Jewish people, proceeds to show from the prophets that it was to be expected that in the latter days the Most High would continue to act according to the good pleasure of his own will. 25. As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. 26. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. The first of these verses is cited from Hosea 223; the last, from Hos. I: 9, 10, but in neither case does the apostle closely follow either the Hebrew or the Septuagint; but under the guidance of the Spirit gives a rendering of his own, following the Septuagint in chief part. The variations are not important. There is some transposition of the order of the clauses, as well as of the verses cited, but we need not dwell on that. An examination of the early part of the book of Hosea shows that the prophet is there specially speaking of the ten tribes, and not of the Gentiles. This has made some difficulty, and has led to various explanations. Perhaps the best solution is this. In showing that in calling men, whether Jews or Gentiles, God exercises his own good pleasure and is a free sovereign, he proceeds to state that in the history of Abraham's descendants, there is a comparatively modern and well known example of the exercise of his prerogative as supreme Lord of all, in the history of the ten tribes, who for a season were rent off from the theocracy, and from the temple service, and so from the throne of David, but were, very much like the Gentiles, outcasts from God. Hosea and Isaiah were in part cotemporaries as we learn from the first verse of the books that bear their names respectively. Hosea here predicts the restoration of Israel or the ten tribes, at least in part, to the true worship of God; so that they which were for a time not a people and not beloved, shall be beloved and shall be a people. More than a hundred years later a like prediction is given by the weeping prophet, Jer. 50: 4, 5. And so God displayed his sovereignty both in rejecting for a season the ten tribes, and then in bringing many of them back to his true worship. This solution is entirely pertinent to Paul's whole argument-God's right to reject at any time any man, or class of men, who had no claim on him except that derived through lineal descent from a friend of his. It in like manner shows the riches of God's grace in extending mercy to many persons in these tribes so soon after their practice of idolatry in the worship of the calves, etc. The objection that may occur to some is that in the preceding verse Paul had mentioned the Gentiles, but in the same verse he had spoken of the Jews also; and he had named both incidentally, and not at all in logical connection with these verses. His object had been to show that God always had exercised his sovereign right to choose, call and save whom he would, whether among the descendants of Abraham or of any one else. In his sovereignty he for a season rejected ten out of the twelve tribes; but in his mercy he gathered again many from among them and made them his people. That this is not doing violence to any rule of sound interpretation is manifest from the fact that in v. 27 the apostle expressly says that he is still speaking of Israel. Now Abram himself "was a Syrian ready to perish," Deut. 26: 5. He was the descendant of gross idolaters and many think he was one himself, Josh. 24: 2, 3. Sarah was of the same stock of vile idolaters, Gen. 11: 29; 20: 12. So vile were the people, from whom they sprang that in Ezek. 16: 3 Abram is called an Amorite and his wife a Hittite. This is of course figurative language, denoting that they descended from a people as vile as the descendants of Heth, the second son of Canaan, and of Emor, the fourth son of Canaan, the ancestors respectively of the Hittites and Amorites, two tribes as odious as any that could be named to a Jew. God showed his supreme authority as Lord of all in making choice of this man and this woman, as the ancestry of the Jews. So in Abraham's family the Lord passed by the Son of Hagar and the six sons of Keturah, and chose Isaac. In Isaac's family he rejected Esau and chose Jacob. In Jacob's family he passed by Reuben the first born, and gave the sceptre to Judah, and the richest blessing to Joseph. In Joseph's family he gave the preference to Ephraim the younger over his elder brother Manasseh. In all the early history of Abraham and his descendants God showed his sovereignty. So now says Paul he did the same in the case of the ten tribes. Other explanations are offered by commentators. Calvin says that the most successful in interpreting these verses supposed that Paul meant to reason thus-" What may seem to be an hinderance to the Gentiles to become partakers of salvation did also exist as to the Jewish nation; as then God did formerly receive the Jews, whom he had cast away and exterminated, so also now he exercises the same kindness towards the Gentiles." Calvin offers another interpretation of his own, viz.: that the prophet was aiming to give consolation both to Jews and Gentiles by showing them that they were ruined unless they turned to the kingdom of Christ. All this is doubtless true. The difficulty is in getting it out of this verse. The apostle of the circumcision quotes a part of these verses and applies them to the elect of his day, some of whom were Jews, and some, Gentiles, 1 Pet. 2 10. So that if the words have a primary fulfilment in the conversion of a portion of the ten tribes they have a continuous fulfilment in the effectual calling of every people. In every age God receives outcasts, and all past history shows it. The words of these verses are generally easily understood. 27. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: |