CAVILLING AGAINST GOD
Isaiah 45:9-10. Woe unto him that striveth, &c.
I. That man is formed by God, and that all his affairs are ordered by Him as really as the work of the potter is moulded by the hands of the workman.
II. That God has a design in making man, and in ordering and arranging his circumstances in life.
III. That man is little qualified to judge of that design, and not at all qualified to pronounce it unwise, any more than the clay could charge him that worked it into a vessel with want of wisdom.
IV. That God is a Sovereign, and does as He pleases. He has formed man as He chose, as really as the potter moulds the clay into any shape that he pleases. He has given him his rank in creation; given him such a body and intellect as He pleased; He has determined his circumstances in life just as He saw fit. And He is a Sovereign also in the dispensation of His grace—having a right to pardon whom He will—nor has any man any right to complain. Not that God, in all respects, moulds the character and destiny of men, as the potter does the clay. God is just, &c., as well as Sovereign; and man is a moral agent, and subject to the laws of moral agency which God has appointed. God does nothing wrong. He does not compel man to sin and then condemn him for it (H. E. I. 1779, 1780). He does His pleasure according to the eternal laws of equity; and man has no right to call in question the rectitude of His sovereign dispensations.—Albert Barnes, D.D.