What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. (15) For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. (16) So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. (17) For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. (18) Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
The Apostle here enters upon the justification of the doctrine he is establishing the proofs of in this chapter. He shews upon principles of common sense and right reason only, that the doctrine of Election is as clearly proved as any one circumstance in the ordinary transactions of life. And he manifests the justice and equity of God in the appointment. And that he might carry every force of argument with him, he opens the subject in his usual way of a question. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! There can be none in God's choosing or rejecting, when neither that choice or rejection is induced by anything out of himself, The children, when chosen or rejected, not being born, and consequently not having done either good or evil, can have had no hand in the business, but the whole is referred into the sovereign will of God. Hence, therefore, the children chosen cannot complain, for to them the sovereign will of God is an act of favor wholly undeserved. And the children rejected cannot charge God with injustice, since they have no claim to any favor, or right, which on terms of strict justice they could demand. Thus the matter stands. And here it must stand, and will stand, to all eternity, in opposition to all the querulous arguments and ungodly reasoning of men.
I do not mean to follow the subject any further than what the Apostle hath done. God's own declaration, which Paul quotes, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion; is with me final, unanswerable, and satisfactory. And the instance of Pharaoh most express in point. But I would beg the Reader to remark with me one circumstance, which I confess in my view is particularly striking, It hath through grace satisfied my mind for many long years concerning the sovereignty of God.
Among the carnal world, there is nothing that excites the bitter hatred of the human heart equal to the exercise of God's sovereignty, on the doctrine of election and reprobation. Every son and daughter of Adam, while in the unrenewed state of an unregenerate mind, riseth up in rebellion against it. And yet, wonderful to relate, there is not one of the whole race, either son or daughter, but what, in the proceedings of their own life from day to day, absolutely preach and practise the doctrine both of election and reprobation in all they do or say. From the wayward capricious temper of the little child, to the petulancy and ill-humour of the man of grey hairs, they manifest this in their pursuits and desires, in the objects of their approbation or dislike, their predilection or hatred, almost every hour. They have their choice and aversions, as it respects, their company, their food, their dress, their pleasures, their conversations. If at their daily table there is a variety of dishes, to pamper the appetites of the luxurious, (as through the bounty of a bountiful God too often such persons in a shameful profusion abuse that bounty to the gratification of their unbounded lusts), they will choose here or there, reject, or dislike, as their fancy directs them. And this without either rule or reason, either wisdom or good sense, nay, sometimes to their sorrow, in inducing sickness, and a thousand evils, and death. And should any venture to call them in question, either in their judgment or conduct, what anger sometimes hath followed? Is this preaching and practising election and reprobation, or is it not? And preaching and practising both with an high hand of sin and folly, and not unfrequently in numberless instances of injustice, dishonesty, and fraud! But, when the Judge of all the earth, who cannot but do right, declares, that he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth, the proud unhumbled heart of man riseth in boilings of the most deadly anger, and complains of the righteous decree. So then there is but One Being in the Universe capable of acting with a sovereignty of power and wisdom, whose election and reprobation must be founded on an unerring standard of what is right; and He, according to fallen man's judgment, shall be the only one precluded from the exercise of this privilege! Such is the blindness and desperately wicked state of the heart of man by the fall!