Wesley Corpus

Paul's answer to that objection, That it was unjust for God to show that mercy to the Gentiles which he withheld from his own people. This he first simply denies, saying, “God forbid!” And then observes, that, according to his own words to Moses, God has a right to fix the terms on which he will show mercy, which neither the will nor the power of man can alter; (verses 15, 16;) and to withdraw his mercy from them who, like Pharaoh, will not comply with those terms. (Verse 17.) And that accordingly “he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy,” namely, those that truly believe; “ and whom he will,” namely, obstinate unbelievers, he suffers to be “hardened.” 28. But “why then,” say the objectors, “doth he find fault” with those that are hardened? “for who hath resisted his will?” (Verse 19.) To this insolent misconstruction of what he had said, the Apostle first gives a severe rebuke; and then adds, “Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Why hast thou made me capable of salvation only on those terms? None indeed hath resisted this will of God. “He that believeth not, shall be damned.” But is this any ground for arraigning his justice? “Hath not” the great “Potter power over his own clay? to make,” or appoint, one sort of “vessels,” namely, believers, “to honour, and” the others “to dishonour?” Hath he not a right to distribute eternal honour and dis honour, on whatever terms he pleases? especially, considering the goodness and patience he shows, even towards them that believe not; considering that when they have provoked him “to show his wrath, and to make the power” of his vengeance “known, yet” he “endures, with much longsuffering,” even those “vessels of wrath,” who had before “fitted” themselves “to destruction.” There is then no more room to reply against God, for making his vengeance known on those vessels of wrath, than for “making known” his glorious love “on the vessels of mercy whom he had before” by faith “prepared for glory; even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” 29. I have spoken more largely than I designed, in order to show, that neither our Lord, in the above-mentioned parable, nor St.