Part 27
He hath, as some speak, dispensed with his own moral law in some cases, in commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, a righteous son,
a son whereof he had the promise, that ' in Isaac should his seed be called;' yet he was commanded to sacrifice him by the right of his absolute sovereignty, as the supreme Lord of the lives of his creatures, from the highest angel to
the lowest worm, whereby h'e bound his subjects to this law, not himself.
* Qu. 'creature'? — ED.
432 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CIII. 19
Our lives are due to him when he calls for them, and they are a just forfeit to him at the very moment we sin, at the very moment we come into the world, by reason of the venom of our nature against him, and the disturbance the first sin of man (whereof we are inheritors) gave to his glory. Had Abraham sacrificed his son of his own head, he had sinned, yea, in attempt ing it ; but being authorised from heaven, his act was obedience to the sovereign of the world, who had a power to dispense with his own law ; and
with this law he had before dispensed in the case of Cain's murder of Abel, as to the immediate punishment of it with death, which indeed was settled afterwards by his authority, but then omitted because of the paucity of men, and for the peopling the world, but settled afterwards, when there was almost, though not altogether, the like occasion of omitting it for a time.
[3.] His sovereignty appears in punishing the transgression of his law.
First, This is a branch of God's dominion as lawgiver. So was the vengeance God would take upon the Amalekites. Exod. xvii. 16, ' The Lord hath sworn, that the Lord will have war.' The Hebrew is, ' the hand upon the throne of the Lord,' as in the margin. As a lawgiver, he saves or destroys, James iv. 12. He acts according to his own law, in a congruity to the sanction of his own precepts ; though he be an arbitrary lawgiver,
appointing what laws he pleases, yet he is not an arbitrary judge. As he commands nothing but what he hath a right to command, so he punishetli none but whom he hath a right to punish, and with such punishment as the law hath denounced. All his acts of justice and inflictions of curses are the
effects of this sovereign dominion : Ps. xxix. 10, ' He sits king upon the floods ; ' upon the deluge of waters wherewith he drowned the world, say some. It is a right belonging to the authority of magistrates, to pull up the infectious weeds that corrupt a commonwealth. It is no less the right of God, as the lawgiver and judge of all the earth, to subject criminals to his vengeance, after they have rendered themselves abominable in his eyes, and carried themselves unworthy subjects of so great and glorious a king. The first name whereby God is made known in Scripture is Elohim:
Gen. i. 1, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;' a name which signifies his power of judging, in the opinion of -some critics. From him it is derived to earthly magistrates ; their judgment is said there
fore to be the ' judgment of God,' Deut. i. 17. When Christ came, he pro posed this great motive of repentance, from the kingdom of heaven being at hand ; the kingdom of his grace, whereby to invite men ; the kingdom of his justice, in the punishment of the neglecters of it, whereby to terrify men.
Punishments as well as rewards belong to royalty ; it issued accordingly.
Those that believed and repented came under' his gracious sceptre ; those that neglected and rejected it, fell under his iron rod. Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple demolished, the inhabitants lost their lives by the edge of the sword, or lingered them out in the chains of a miserable cap
tivity. This term of judge, -which signifies a sovereign right to govern and punish delinquents, Abraham gives him, when he came to root out the people of Sodom, and make them the examples of his vengeance, Gen. xviii. 25.
Secondly, Punishing the transgressions of his law. This is a necessary branch of dominion. His sovereignty in making laws would be a trifle if there were not also an authority to vindicate those laws from contempt and injury ; he would be a Lord only spurned at by rebels. Sovereignty is not
preserved without justice. When the psalmist speaks of the majesty of God's kingdom, he tells us that ' righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne,' Ps. xcvii. 1, 2. These are the engines of divine dignity,
Ps. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 483
which render him glorious and majestic. A legislative power would be trampled on without executive ; by this the reverential apprehensions of God are preserved in the world. He is known to be Lord of the world by ' the judgments which he executes,' Ps. ix. 16. When he seems to have lost his i dominion, or given it up in the world, he recovers it by punishment. When
he takes some away ' with a whirlwind, and in his wrath,' the natural con sequence men make of it is this, ' Surely there is a God that judgeth the earth,' Ps. Iviii. 9, 11. He reduceth the creature by the lash of his judg ments, that would not acknowledge his authority in his precepts. Those sins which disown his government in the heart and conscience, as pride, inward blasphemy, &c., he hath reserved a time hereafter to reckon for. He doth not presently shoot his arrows into the marrow of every delinquent, but those sins which traduce his government of the world, and tear up the foun- ! clations of human converse, and a public respect to him, he reckons with I particularly here as well as hereafter, that the life of his sovereignty might i not always faint in the world.
Third! 11, This of punishing was the second discovery of his dominion in i the world. His first act of sovereignty was the giving a law ; the next, his
appearance in the state of a judge. When his orders were violated, he rescues the honour of them by an execution of justice. He first judged the angels, punishing the evil ones for their crime ; the first court he kept among them as a governor was to give them a law ; the second court he kept,
I was as a judge trying the delinquents, and adjudging the offenders to be
' reserved in chains of darkness,' till the final execution, Jude 6. And at I the same time probably he confirmed the good ones in their obedience by
grace. So the first discovery of his dominion to man was the giving him a i precept ; the next was the inflicting a punishment for the breach of it. He
summons Adam to the bar, indicts him for his crime, finds him guilty by his own confession, and passeth sentence on him according to the rule he : had before acquainted him with. .
Fourthly, The means whereby he punisheth shews his dominion. Some times he musters up hail and mildew ; sometimes he sends regiments of wild beasts ; so he threatens Israel, Lev. xxvi. 22 ; sometimes he sends out a party of angels to beat up the quarters of men, and make a carnage among them, 2 Kings xix. 85 ; sometimes he mounts his thundering battery, and U shoots forth his ammunition from the clouds, as against the Philistines, 1 Sam. vii. 10 ; sometimes he sends the slightest creatures to shame the pride and punish the sin of man, as lice, frogs, locusts, as upon the Egyp tians, Exod. viii., ix., x.
2. This dominion is manifested by God as a proprietor and lord of his creatures, and his own goods.
And this is evident, (1.) In the choice of some persons from eternity. He hath set apart some from eternity, wherein he will display the invincible efficacy of his grace, and thereby infallibly bring them to the fruition of glory : Eph. i. 4,
5, ' According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, ac
cording to the good pleasure of his will.' Why doth he write some names in the book of life, and leave out others ? why doth he enrol some whom he intends to make denizens of heaven, and refuse to put others on his register? The apostle tells us, it is the pleasure of his will. You may
render a reason for many of God's actions till you come to this top and foun dation of all ; and under what head of reason can man reduce this act, but to that
VOL. ir. E e
484 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CIII. 19.
of his royal prerogative ! Why doth God save some, and condemn others at
last ? Because of the faith of the one, and unbelief of the other. Why do some men believe ? Because God hath not only given them the means of grace, but accompanied those means with the efficacy of his Spirit. Why did God accompany those means with the efficacy of his Spirit in some, and
not in others ? Because he had decreed by grace to prepare them for glory. But why did he decree or choose some, and not others ? Into what will you
resolve this, but into his sovereign pleasure ? Salvation and condemnation at the last upshot., are acts of God as the judge, conformable to his own law
of giving life to believers, and inflicting death upon unbelievers ; for those a reason may be rendered, b«t the choice of some and preterition of others, is an act of 'God as he is a sovereign monarch, before any law was actually transgressed, because not actually given. When a prince redeems* a rebel,
he acts as a judge according to law ; but when he calls some out to pardon, he acts as a sovereign by a prerogative above law ; into this the apostle re
solves it, Eom. ix. 13, 15. When he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau, and that before they had done either good or evil, it is because
God ' will shave mercy on whom he will have mercy, and compassion on
whom he will have .compassion.' Though the first scope of the apostle, in the beginning of .the chapter, was to declare the reason of God's rejecting the Jews and calling in the Gentiles, had he only intended to demolish the pride of the Jews, and flat their opinion of merit, and aimed no higher than
that providential 'act of God, he might, convincingly enough to the reason of men., have argued from the justice of God, provoked by the obstinacy of the Jews, and not have had recourse to his absolute will ; but since he asserts this latter,! the strength of his argument seems to lie thus : if God, by his absolute sovereignty, may resolve and fix his love upon Jacob, and estrange
it from Esau, or any other of his creatures, before they have done good or evil, and man have no ground to call his infinite majesty to account, may he not deal thus with the Jews, when their demerit would be a bar to any complaints of the creature against him ? If God were considered here in the quality of a judge, it had been fit to have .considered the matter of fact in the criminal ; but he is considered as a sovereign, rendering no other rea
son of his action but his own will: ' whom he will he hardens,' ver. 18 ; and
then the apostle concludes, ver. 20, ' Who art thou, 0 man, that repliest
against God ?' If the reason drawn from God's sovereignty doth not satisfy in this inquiry, no other reason can be found wherein to acquiesce. For the
last condemnation there will be sufficient reason to clear the justice of his proceedings. But in this case of election no other reason but what is al leged, viz., the will of God, -can be thought of, but what is liable to such knotty exceptions that cannot well be untied.
[1.] It could not be any merit in the creature that might determine God
to choose him. If the <iecree of election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion, as the procuring cause, it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the corrupted mass. The decree of sending Christ did not precede, but followed in order of nature, the determination of choosing some. When men were chosen as the subjects for glory, Christ was chosen as the m«ans for the bringing them to glory; Eph. i. 4, 'Chosen us in him, and predesti nated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.' The choice was not merely in Christ as the moving cause,' — that the apostle asserts to be the good pleasure of his will, — but in Christ, as the means of conveying to the chosen ones the fruits of their election. What could there be in any man that could invite God to this act, or be a cause of distinction of one branch
* Qu. 'condemns?'— ED. f A myrald, Dissert, p. 101, 102.
.Ps. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 435
; of Adam from another ? Were they not all hewed out of the same rock, and
tainted with the same corruption in blood ? Had it been possible to invest , them with a power of merit at the first, had not that venom contracted in
their nature degraded all of power for the future ? What merit was there
i in any but of wrathful punishment, since they were all considered as crimi- , nals, and the cursed brood of an ungrateful rebel ? What dignity can there I be in the nature of the purest part of clay to be made a vessel of honour, i more than in another part of clay, as pure as that, which was formed into a
vessel for mean and sordid use ? What had any one to move his mercy ! more than another, since they were all children of wrath, and equally daubed
, with original guilt and filth ? Had not all an equal proportion of it to pro
voke his justice ? What merit is there in one dry bone more than another, ! to be inspired with the breath of a spiritual life ? Did not all lie wallowing
in their own filthy blood, and what could the steam and noisomeness of that , deserve at the hands of a pure Majesty, but to be cast into a sink furthest i from his sight ? Were they not all considered in this deplorable posture,
i with an equal proportion of poison in their nature, when God first took his
pen and singled out some names to write in the book of life ? It could not i be merit in any one piece of this abominable mass that should stir up that
i resolution in God to set apart this person for a vessel of glory, while he per
mitted another to putrefy in his own gore. He loved Jacob and hated Esau,
i though they were both parts of the common mass, the seed of the same ; loins, and lodged in the same womb.
[2.] Nor could it be any foresight of works to be done in time by them,
! or of faith, that might determine God to choose them. What good could
he foresee resulting from extreme corruption, and a nature alienated from , him ? What could he foresee of good to be done by them, but what he
resolved in his own will, to bestow an ability upon them to bring forth ?
i His choice of them was to a holiness, not for a holiness preceding his deter-
i mination, Eph. i. 4. He hath chosen us, ' that we might be holy' before i him : he ordained us ' to good works,' not for them, Eph. ii. 10. What is a fruit cannot be a moving cause of that whereof it is a fruit. Grace is a stream from the spring of electing love ; the branch is not the cause of the root, but the root of the branch, nor the stream the cause of the spring, but the spring the cause of the stream. Good works suppose grace, and a good
and right habit in the person, as rational acts suppose reason. Can any man say that the rational acts man performs after his creation were a cause why God created him ? This would make creation and everything else not so much an act of his will as an act of his understanding. God foresaw no rational act in man before the act of his will to give him reason, nor foresees
faith in any, before the act of his will determining to give him faith : Eph.
ii. 8, ' Faith is the gift of God.' In the salvation which grows up from this first purpose of God, he regards not the works we have done as a principal motive to settle the top-stone of our happiness, but his own purpose, and
the grace given in Christ : 2 Tim. i. 9, ' Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to his
own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ before the world
began.' The honour of our salvation cannot be challenged by our works, much less the honour of the foundation of it. It was a pure gift of grace, without any respect to any spiritual, much less natural perfection. Why
should the apostle mention that circumstance, when he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau, ' when neither of them had done good or
evil,' Rom. ix. 11, if there were any foresight of men's works as the moving
acuse of his love or hatred '? God regarded not the works of either as the
486 CHABNOCK'S WOBKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
first cause of his choice, but acted by his own liberty, without respect to any of their actions, which were to be done by them in time. If faith be the fruit of election, the prescience of faith doth not influence the electing act of
God : Titus i. 1, it is called ' the faith of God's elect ;' ' Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect ;' i.e. settled in this office to bring the elect of God to faith. If men be chosen by God upon the fore
sight of faith, or not chosen till they have faith, they are not so much God's elect as God their elect ; they choose God by faith, before God chooseth
them by love. It had not been the faith of God's elect; i.e. of those already chosen, but the faith of those that were to be chosen by God after wards. Election is the cause of faith, and not faith the cause of election.* Fire is the cause of heat, and not the heat of fire ; the sun is the cause of the day, and not the day the cause of the rising of the sun. Men are not chosen because they believe, but they believe because they are chosen. The apostle did ill else to appropriate that to the elect which they had no more interest in by virtue of their election than the veriest reprobate in the world. If the foresight of what works might be done by his creatures was the motive of his choosing them, why did he not choose the devils to redemption, who could have done him better service by the strength of their nature than the
whole mass of Adam's posterity ?
Well, then, there is no possible way to lay the original foundation of this act of election and preterition, in anything but the absolute sovereignty of God.
Justice or injustice comes not into consideration in this case. There is no debt, which justice or injustice always respects in its acting. If he had pleased, he might have chosen all ; if he had pleased, he might have chosen none. It was in his supreme power to have resolved to have left all Adam's posterity under the rack of his justice ; if he determined to snatch out any, it was a part of his dominion, but without any injury to the creatures he leaves under their own guilt. Did he not pass by the angels and take man ? And by the same right of dominion may he pick out some men from the common mass, and lay aside others to bear the punishment of their crimes. Are they not all his subjects ? All are his criminals, and may be dealt with at the pleasure of their undoubted Lord and Sovereign. This is a work of arbitary power, since he might have chosen none, or chosen all, as he saw good himself. It is at the liberty of the artificer to determine his wood or stone to such a figure, that of a prince or that of a toad ; and his materials have no right to complain of him, since it lies wholly upon his own liberty.
They must have little sense of their own vileness, and God's infinite excel lency above them by right of creation, that will contend that God hath a lesser right over his creatures than an artificer over his wood or stone. If it were at his liberty whether to redeem man or send Christ upon such an undertaking, it is as much at his liberty, and the prerogative is to be allowed him, what persons he will resolve to make capable of enjoying the fruits of that redemption. One man was as fit a subject for mercy as another, as they all lay in their original guilt. Why would not divine mercy cast its eye upon this man as well as upon his neighbour ? There was no cause in the creature, but all in God, it must be resolved into his own will.
Yet not into a will without wisdom. God did not choose hand over head, and act by mere will without reason and understanding. An infinite wisdom is far from such a kind of procedure; but the reason of God is inscrutable to us, unless we could understand God as well as he understands himself. The whole ground lies in God himself, no part of it in the creature : Rom.
* Daille in loc.
Ps. CIII. .19.J GOD'S DOMINION. 487
i ix. 15, 16, ' Not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that
: shews mercy.' Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will, we i can resolve it into no other than his sovereign empire over all creatures.
; It is not without a stop to our curiosity, that in the same place where God
• asserts the absolute sovereignty of his mercy to Moses, he tells him he could i not see his face: Exod. xxxiii. 19, 20, 'I will be gracious to whom I will j be gracious ;' and he said, ' Thou canst not see my face." The rays of his i infinite wisdom are too bright and dazzling for our weakness. The apostle
' acknowledged not only a wisdom in this proceeding, but a riches and treai sure of wisdom ; not only that, but a depth and vastness of those riches of j wisdom, but was unable to give us an inventory and scheme of it, Rom. xi.
83. The secrets of his counsels are too deep for us to wade into ; in attempti ing to know the reason of those acts, we should find ourselves swallowed up I into a bottomless gulf. Though the understanding be above our capacity,
i yet the admiration of his authority, and submission to it, are not. ' We
should cast ourselves down at his feet, with a full resignation of ourselves
to his sovereign pleasure.'* This is a more comely carriage in a Christian, than all the contentious endeavours to measure God by our line.
(2.) In bestowing grace where he pleases. God in conversion and pardon works not as a natural agent, putting forth strength to the utmost, which God must do if he did renew man naturally, as the sun shines and the fire burns, which always act ad extremum virium, unless a cloud interpose to eclipse the one, and water to extinguish the other. But God acts as a4 voluntary agent, which can freely exert his power when he please, and suspend it when he please. Though God be necessarily good, yet he is not necessitated to manifest all the treasures of his goodness to every subject ; he hath power to distil his dews upon one part and not upon another. If he were necessi tated to express his goodness without a liberty, no thanks were due to him. Who thanks the sun for shining on him, or the fire for warming him ? None ; because they are necessary agents, and can do no other.
What is the reason he did not reach out his hand to keep all the angels from sinking as well as some, or recover them when they were sunk ? What is the reason he engrafts one man into the true vine, and lets another remain a wild olive ? Why is not the efficacy of the Spirit always linked with the motions of the Spirit ? Why doth he not mould the heart into a gospel frame, when he fills the ear with a gospel sound ? Why doth he strike off the chains from some, and tear the veil from the heart, while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Egyptian darkness ? Why do some lie under the bands of death, while another is raised to a spiritual life ? What reason is there for all this but his absolute will ? The apostle resolves the question, if the question be asked why he begets one and not another ? Not from the will of the creature, but his own will, is the determination of one, James i. 18. Why doth he work in one to will and to do, and not in another ? Because of his good pleasure, is the answer of another, Philip, ii. 13. He could as well new create every one, as he at first created them, and make grace as universal as nature and reason ; but it is not his pleasure so to do.
[.I.] It is not for want of strength in himself. The power of God is un questionably able to strike off the chains of unbelief from all. He could surmount the obstinacy of every child of wrath, and inspire every son of Adam with faith as well as Adam himself. He wants not a virtue superior to the greatest resistance of his creature ; a victorious beam of light might be shot into their understandings, and a flood of grace might overspread
* This was Dr Goodwin's speech when he was in trouble.
488 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CIII. 19
their wills, with one word of his mouth, without putting forth the utmost of his power. What hindrance could there be in any created spirit, which cannot be easily pierced into, and new moulded by the Father of spirits ? Yet he only breathes this efficacious virtue into some, and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love, and suffers them to continue in their benighting ignorance, and consume themselves in the embraces of their dear though deceitful Delilahs.
He could have conquered the resistance of the Jews, as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles ; no doubt but he could overpower the heart of the most malicious devil, as well as that of the sim plest and weakest man ; but the breath of the almighty Spirit is in his own power, to breathe where he lists, John iii. 8 ; it is at his liberty whether he will give to any the feeling of the invincible efficacy of his grace. He did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a rock against the temptation of Satan, and poured in such a fortifying grace as to have made him impreg nable against the powers of hell, as well as he did secure the standing of the
angels against the sedition of their fellows. But it was his will to permit it to be otherwise.
[2.] Nor is it from any prerogative in the creature. He converts not any for their natural perfection, because he seizeth upon the most ignorant ; not for their moral perfection, because he converts the most sinful ; not for their civil perfection, because he turns the most despicable.
First, Not for their natural perfection of knowledge. He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant. Were the nature of the Gentiles better manured than that of the Jews, or did the tapers of their understand ings burn clearer ? No ; the one were skilled in the prophecies of the Mes
siah, and might have compared the predictions they owned with the actions and sufferings of Christ, which they were spectators of. He let alone those that had expectations of the Messiah, and expectations about the time of
Christ's appearance, both grounded upon the oracles wherewith he had en trusted them. The Gentiles were unacquainted with the prophets, and
therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah, Eph. ii. 12. They were ' without Christ ;' without any revelation of Christ, because ' aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world ;' without any knowledge of God, or promises of Christ. The Jews might sooner in a way of reason have been wrought upon than the Gentiles, who were ignorant of the pro
phets, by whose writings they might have examined the truth of the apostles' declarations ; thus are they refused, that were the kindred of Christ accord ing to the flesh, and the Gentiles, that were at a greater distance from him, brought in by God. Thus he catcheth not at the subtle and mighty devils, who had an original in spiritual nature more like to him, but at weak and simple man.
Secondly, Not for any moral perfection, because he converts the most sin ful; the Gentiles steeped in idolatry and superstition. He sowed more faith among the Romans than in Jerusalem, more faith in a city that was the common sewer of all the idolatry of the nations conquered by them, than in that city which had so signally been owned by him, and had not practised any idolatry since the Babylonish captivity. He planted saintship at Corinth, a place notorious for , the infamous worship of Venus, a superstition attended with the grossest uncleanness ; at Ephesus, that presented the whole world with a cup of fornication in their temple of Diana ; among the Colossians, votaries to Cybele, in a manner of worship attended with beastly and lasci vious ceremonies. And what character had the Cretians from one of their
Ps. GUI. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 439
own poets, mentioned by the apostle to Titus, whom he had placed among them to further the progress of the gospel, but the vilest and most abomi
nable ? Titus i. 12, ' Liars,' not to be credited ; ' evil beasts,' not to be asso ciated with ; ' slow bellies,' fit for no service. What prerogative was there in the nature of such putrefaction ? As much as in that of a toad, to be elevated to the dignity of an angel. What steam from such dunghills could be welcome to him, and move him to cast his eye on them, and sweeten them from heaven ? What treasures of worth were here to open the treasures of his. grace ? Were such filthy snuffs fit of themselves to be kindled by, and become a lodging for, a gospel beam ? What invitements could he have from lying, beastliness, gluttony, but only from his own sovereignty ? By this he plucked firebrands out of the fire, while he left straighter and more comely sticks to consume to ashes.
Thirdly, Not for any civil perfection, because he turns the most despicable. He elevates not nature to grace upon the account of wealth, honour, or any
civil station 'in the world; he dispenseth not ordinarily those treasures to those that the mistaken world foolishly admire and doat upon: 1 Cor. i. 26,
' Not many mighty, not many noble.' A purple robe is not usually decked with this jewel. He takes more of mouldy clay than refined dust to cast into his image, and lodges his treasures more in the earthly vessels than in the
world's golden ones. He gives out his richest doles to those that are the scorn and reproach of the world. Should he impart his grace most to those that abound in wealth or honour, it had been some foundation for a con ception that he had been moved, by those vulgarly esteemed excellencies, to indulge them more than others. But such a conceit languisheth, when we behold the subjects of his grace as void originally of any allurements as they are full of provocations.
Hereby he declares himself free from all created engagements, and that he is not led by any external motives in the object.
Fourthly, It is not from any obligation which lies upon him. He is in debted to none, disobliged by all. No man deserves from him any act of grace, but every man deserves what the most deplorable are left to suffer. He is obliged by the children of wrath to nothing else but showers of wrath, owes no more a debt to fallen man than to fallen devils, to restore them to their first station by a superlative grace ; how was he more bound to restore them than he was bound to preserve them, to catch them after they fell, than to put a bar in the way of their falling ? God, as a sovereign, gave laws to men, and a strength sufficient to keep those laws. What obligation is there upon God to repair that strength man wilfully lost, and extract him out of that condition into which he voluntarily plunged himself ? What if man sinned by temptation, which is a reason alleged by some, might not many of the devils do so too ? Though there was a first of them that sinned with out a temptation, yet many of them might be seduced into rebellion by the ringleader. Upon that account he is no more bound to give grace to all men than to devils. If he promised life upon obedience, he threatened death upon transgression. By man's disobedience God is quit of his promise, and owes nothing but punishment upon the violation of his law. Indeed, man may pretend to a claim of sufficient strength from him by creation, as God is the author of nature, and he had it ; but since he hath extinguished it by his
sin, he cannot in the least pretend any obligation on God for a new strength. If it be a peradventure whether he will give repentance, as it is, 2 Tim. ii. 25, there is no tie in the case ; a tie would put it beyond a peradventure with
a God that never forfeited his obligation. No husbandman thinks himself obliged to bestow cost and pains, manure and tillage, upon one field more
440 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
than another ; though the nature of the ground may require more, yet he is at liberty whether he will expend more upon one than another.* He may let it lie fallow as long as he please. God is less obliged to till and prune his creatures than man is obliged to his field or trees. If a king proclaim a pardon to a company of rebels, upon the condition of each of them paying such a sum of money, their estates before were capable of satisfying the con dition, but their rebellion hath reduced them to an indigent condition, the proclamation itself is an act of grace, the condition required is not impossible in itself ; the prince, out of a tenderness to some, sends them that sum of money he hath by his proclamation obliged them to pay, and thereby enabled them to answer the condition he requires : the first he doth by a sovereign authority ; the second he doth by a sovereign bounty, he was obliged to neither of them ; punishment was a debt due to all of them. If he would remit upon condition, he did relax his sovereign right ; and if he would by his largess make any of them capable to fulfil the condition, by sending them presently a sufficient sum to pay the fine, he acted as proprietor of hi8 own goods, to dispose of them in such a quantity to those to whom he was not obliged to bestow a mite.
Fifthly, It must therefore be an act of his mere sovereignty. This can only sit arbitrator in every gracious act. Why did he give grace to Abel and not to Cain, since they both lay in the same womb, and equally derived from their parents a taint in their nature, but that he would shew a stand ing example of his sovereignty to the future ages of the world in the first posterity of man ? Why did he give grace to Abraham, and separate him from his idolatrous kindred, to dignify him to be the root of the Messiah ? Why did he confine his promise to Isaac, and not extend it to Ishmael, the seed of the same Abraham by Hagar, or to the children he had by Keturah
after Sarah's death ? What reason can be alleged for this but his sovereign will ? Why did he not give the fallen angels a moment of repentance after their sin, but condemned them to irrevocable pains ? Is it not as free for him to give grace to whom he please, as create what worlds he please ; to form this corrupted clay into his own image, as to take such a parcel of
dust from all the rest of the creation whereof to compact Adam's body ? Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his creatures in a new creation, as he had over the chaos in the old ? And what reason can be rendered of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a star, and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the earth, to compact one part into a glorious sun. and another part into a hard rock, but his royal prerogative ? What is the reason a prince subjects one male factor to punishment, and lifts up another to a place of trust and profit ? that Pharaoh honoured the butler with an attendance on his person, and remitted the baker to the hands of the executioner ? It was his pleasure. And is not as great a right due to God as is allowed to the worms of the earth ? What is the reason he hardens a Pharaoh, by a denying him that grace which should mollify him, and allows it to another ? It is because he
will : Kom. ix. 18, ' Whom he will he hardens.' Hath not man the liberty to pull up the sluice and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases ? What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways ? Because the Lord doth not give it them, Deut. xxix. 4. Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying grace ? Some have mites, and some have treasures. Why doth he give his grace to some sooner, to some later ? Some are inspired in their infancy, others not till a full age and after ; some not till they have fallen into some
* Claude sur la parabole des Noces, p. 29.
Ps. GUI. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 441
gross sin, as Paul ; some betimes, that they may do him service, others later,
: as the thief upon the cross, and presently snatcheth them out of the world.
Some are weaker, some stronger in nature ; some more beautiful and lovely, others more uncomely and sluggish. It is so in supernaturals. What rea son is there for this but his own will ? This is instead of all that can be assigned on the part of God. He is the free disposer of his own goods, and, as a father, may give a greater portion to one child than to another. And what reason of complaint is there against God ? May not a toad complain that God did not make it a man, and give it a portion of reason, or a fly complain that God did not make it an angel, and give it a garment of light, had they but any spark of understanding, as well as man complain that God did not give him grace as well as another ? Unless he sincerely desired it, and then was denied it, he might complain of God, though not as a sove reign, yet as a promiser of grace to them that ask it. God doth not render his J sovereignty formidable, he shuts not up his throne of grace from any that
; seek him ; he invites man, his arms are open, and the sceptre stretched out ;
i and no man continues under the arrest of his lusts but he that is unwilling
1 to be otherwise ; and such a one hath no reason to complain of God. (8.) His sovereignty is manifest in disposing the means of grace to some, j not to all. He hath caused the sun to shine bright in one place, while he
hath left others benighted and deluded by the devil's oracles. Why do the : evangelical dews fall in this or that place, and not in another ? Why was i the gospel published in Rome so soon, and not in Tartary ? Why hath it been I extinguished in some places as soon almost as it had been kindled in them ?
1 Why hath one place been honoured with the beams of it in one age, and been : covered with darkness the next ? One country hath been made a sphere for ;this star that directs to Christ to move in, and afterwards it hath been taken
away and placed in another ; sometimes more clearly it hath shone, some times more darkly in the same place. What is the reason of this ? It is
i true, 'Something of it may be referred to the justice of God, but much more I to the sovereignty of God. That the gospel is published later and not
sooner, the apostle tells us is ' according to the commandment of the living God,' Rom. xvi. 26.
[1.] The means of grace, after the families from Adam became distinct,
were never granted to all the world. After that fatal breach in Adam's family by the death of Abel, and Cain's separation, we read not of the means of grace continued among Cain's posterity; it seems to be continued in Adam's sole family, and not published in societies till the time of Seth : Gen. iv. 26, ' Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.' It was continued in that family till the deluge, which was 1523 years after the crea tion according to some, or 1656 years according to others. After that, when the world degenerated, it was communicated to Abraham, and settled in the posterity that descended from Jacob ; though he left not the world without A witness of himself, and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts, as appears by the book of Job, and the discourses of his friends.
[2.] The Jews had this privilege granted them above other nations, to have a clearer revelation of God. God separated them from all the world to honour them with the depositum of his oracles : Rom. iii. 2, ' To them were committed the oracles of God.' In which regard, all other nations are said to be ' without God,' as being destitute of so great a privilege, Eph. ii. 12. The Spirit blew in Canaan when the lands about it felt not the sav ing breath of it. « He hath not dealt so with any nation : and as for his judgments, they have not known them,' Ps. cxlvii. 20. The rest had no
warnings from the prophets, no dictates from heaven, but what they had by
442 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. CIII. 19.
the light of nature, the view of the works of creation, and the administration of providence, and what remained among them of some ancient traditions derived from Noah, which in tract of time were much defaced. We read but of one Jonah sent to Nineveh, but frequent alarms to the Israelites by a multitude of prophets commissioned by God. It is true, the door of the Jewish church was open to what proselytes would enter themselves, and em brace their religion and worship; but there was no public proclamation made in the world ; only God, by his miracles in their deliverance from Egypt (which could not but be famous among all the neighbour nations) de clared them to be a people favoured by heaven. But the tradition froi Adam and Noah was not publicly revived by God in other parts, and rail from that grave of forgetfulness wherein it had lain so long buried. Wi there any reason in them for this indulgence? God might have been liberal to any other nation, yea, to all the nations in the world, if it h; been his sovereign pleasure. Any other people were as fit to be entrusi with his oracles, and be subjects for his worship, as that people, yet other nations, till the rejection of the Jews, because of their rejection Christ, were strangers from the covenant of promise. These people wei part of the common mass of the world. They had no prerogative in nature
above Adam's posterity. Were they the extract of an innocent part of his loins, and all the other nations drained out of his putrefaction ? Had the
blood of Abraham, from whom they were more immediately descended, any more precious tincture than the rest of mankind? They as well as other nations were made of one blood, Acts xvii. 16, and that corrupted both in the spring and in the rivulets. Were they better than other nations when
God first drew them out of their slavery ? We have Joshua's authority for it that they had complied with the Egyptian idolatry, and served other gods in that place of their servitude, Josh. xxiv. 14. Had they had an abhorrency of the superstition of Egypt while they remained there, they could not so soon have erected a golden calf for worship in imitation of the Egyptian idols. All the rest of mankind had as inviting reasons to present God with as those people had. God might have granted the same privilege to all the world as well as to them, or denied it them, and endowed all the rest of the world with his statutes ; but the enriching such a small company
of people with his divine showers, and leaving the rest of the world as a barren wilderness in spirituals, can be placed on no other account originally than that of his unaccountable sovereignty of his love to them. There was nothing in them to merit such high titles from God, as his first-born, his peculiar treasure, the apple of his eye. He disclaims any righteousness in them, and speaks a word sufficient to damp such thoughts in them, by charging them with their wickedness, while he ' loaded them with his bene
fits.' Deut. ix. 4, 6, the Lord 'gives thee not this land for thy righteous ness; for thou art a stiff-necked people.' It was an act of God's free pleasure to 'choose them to be a people to himself,' Deut. vii. 6.
[3.] God afterwards rejected the Jews, gave them up to the hardness of their hearts, and spread the gospel among the Gentiles. He hath cast off
' the children of the kingdom,' those that had been enrolled for his subjects for many ages, who seemed, by their descent from Abraham, to have a right
to the privileges of Abraham, and called men ' from the east and from the west,' from the darkest corner of the world, ' to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven,' i. e. to partake with them of the promises of the gospel, Mat. viii. 11. The people that were accounted accursed by the Jews, enjoy the means of grace, which have been hid from those that were once dignified, these sixteen hundred years ; that they have
>Ps. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 4-13
neither ephod nor teraphim, nor sacrifice, nor any true worship of God among them, Hosea iii. 4. Why he should not give them grace to acknow ledge and own the person of the Messiah, to whom he had made the promises ;of him for so many successive ages, but let their heart be fat, and their ears .heavy, Isa. vi. 10 ; why the gospel at length after the resurrection of jChrist should be presented to the Gentiles, not by chance, but pursuant to fthe resolution and prediction of God, declared by the prophets, that it should
be so in time ; why he should let so many hundreds of years pass over, lafter th.e world was peopled, and let the nations all that while soak in their (idolatrous customs ; why he should not call the Gentiles without rejecting [the Jewa, and bind them both up together in the bundle of life ; why he
jshould acquaint some people with it, a little after the publishing it in JeruIsalem, by the descent of the Spirit, and others not a long time after ; some
i in the first ages of Christianity enjoyed it ; others have it not, as those lin America, till the last age of the world : can be referred to nothing but his
: sovereign pleasure.
What merit can be discovered in the Gentiles ? There is something of
justice in the case of the Jews' rejection, nothing but sovereignty in the
Gentiles' reception into the church. If the Jews were bad, the Gentiles were in some sort worse. The Jews owned the one true God, without mixture
of idols, though they owned not the Messiah in his appearance, which they did in a promise ; but the Gentiles owned neither the one nor the other. (Some tell us, it was for the merit of some of their ancestors. How comes
tthe means of grace then to be taken from the Jew, who had (if any people lever had) meritorious ancestors for a plea ? If the merit of some of their
former progenitors were the cause, what was the reason the debt due to their merit was not paid to their immediate progeny, or to themselves, but to a posterity so distant from them, and so abominably depraved, as the Gentile world was, at the day of the gospel-sun striking into their horizon ? What merit might be in their ancestors (if any could be supposed in the most re fined rubbish), it was so little for themselves, that no oil could be spared out of their lamps for others. What merit their ancestors might have, might be forfeited by the succeeding generations. It is ordinarily seen, Ithat what honour a father deserves in a state for public service, may be lost |by the son, forfeited by treason, and himself attainted.
Or was it out of a foresight that the Gentiles would embrace it, and the Jews reject it ; that the Gentiles would embrace it in one place and not in (another ? How did God foresee it but in his own grace, which he was re solved to display in one, not in another ! It must be then still resolved
into his sovereign pleasure. Or did he foresee it in their wills and nature ? What, were they not all one common dross ? Was any part of Adam by 'nature better than another ? How did God foresee that which was not, nor
could be, without his pleasure to give ability and grace to receive ?
Well then, what reason but the sovereign pleasure of God can be alleged, ,why Christ forbade the apostles at their first commission to preach to the
Gentiles, Mat. x. 15, but at the second and standing commission orders them to preach ' to every creature ' ? Why did he put a demur to the resolu tions of Paul and Timothy, to impart light to Bithynia, or order them to go into Macedonia ? Was that country more worthy upon whom lay a great part of the blood of the world shed in Alexander's time, Acts xvi. 6, 7, 9, 10 ? 'Why should Chorazin and Bethsaida enjoy those means that were not granted
to the Tyrians and Sidonians, who might probably have sooner reached out their arms to welcome it ? Mat xi. 21. Why should God send the gospel into our island, and cause it to flourish so long here, and not send it or continue
444 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
it in the furthest eastern part of the world ? Why should the very profes sion of Christianity possess so small a compass of ground in the world, but five parts in thirty, the Mahomedans holding six parts, and the other nineteen overgrown with paganism, where either the gospel was never planted, or else since rooted up ? To whom will you refer this, but to the same cause our Saviour doth the revelation of the gospel to babes, and not to the wise, even
to his Father? 'For so it seemed good in thy sight,' Mat xi. 25, 26.
' For so was thy good pleasure before thee' (as in the original). It is at his pleasure whether he will give any a clear revelation of his gospel, or leave them only to the light of nature. He could have kept up the first beam of
the gospel in the promise in all nations, among the apostasies of Adam's posterity, or renew it in all nations, when it began to be darkened, as well as he first published it to Adam after his fall. But it was his sovereign pleasure, to permit it to be obscured in one place, and to keep it lighted in another.
(4.) His sovereignty is manifest in the various influences of the means of grace. He saith to these waters of the sanctuary, as to the floods of the sea, Hitherto you shall go, and no further. Sometimes they wash away the filth of the flesh, and outward man, but not that of the spirit. The gospel spiritualiseth some and only moraliseth others ; some are by the power of it struck down to conviction, but not raised up to conversion. Some have only the gleams of it in their consciences, and others more powerful flashes; some remain in their thick darkness under the beaming of the gospel every day in their face, and after a long insensibleness, are roused by its light and warmth. Sometimes there is such a powerful breath in it, that it levels the haughty imaginations of men, and lays them at its feet, that before strutted against it in the pride of their heart. The foundation of this is not in the gospel itself, which is always the same, nor in the ordinances, which are channels as sound at one time as at another, but divine sovereignty, that
spirits them as he pleaseth, and ' blows when and where it lists.' It has sometimes conquered its thousands, Acts ii. 41, at another time scarce its tens ; sometimes the harvest hath been great when the labourers have been but few, at another time, it hath been small when the labourers have been many ; sometimes whole sheaves, at another time scarce gleanings. The evangelical net hath been sometimes full at a cast, and at every cast, at another time many have laboured all night and day too, and catched nothing:
Acts ii. 47, ' The Lord added to the church daily.' The gospel chariot doth not always return with captives chained to the sides of it, but sometimes
blurred and reproached, wearing the marks of hell's spite, instead of im printing the marks of its own beauty. In Corinth, it triumphed over many people, Acts xviii. 10; in Athens, it is mocked, and gathers but a few clusters, Acts xvii. 32, 84. God keeps the key of the heart as well as of the womb. The apostles had a power of publishing the gospel, and working miracles, but under the divine conduct. It was an instrumentality durante beneylacito, and as God saw it convenient. Miracles were not upon every occasion allowed to them to be wrought, nor success upon every adminis tration granted to them. God sometimes lent them the key, but to take out no more treasure than was allotted to them.
There is a variety in the time of gospel operation : some rise out of their graves of sin and beds of sluggishness at the first appearance of this sun, others lie snorting longer. Why doth not God spirit it at one season as well as at another, but set his distinct periods of time, but because he will shew his absolute freedom ?
And do we not sometimes experiment that, after the most solemn prepara tions of the heart, we are frustrated of those incomes we expected. Per-
Pg. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 445
haps it was because we thought divine returns were due to our preparations, and God stops up the channel, and we return drier than we came, that God may confute our false opinion, and preserve the honour of his own sove reignty. Sometimes we leap with John Baptist in the womb at the appear ance of Christ ; sometimes we lie upon a lazy bed when he knocks from heaven ; sometimes the fleece is dry and sometimes wet, and God withholds to drop down his dew of the morning upon it. The dews of his word, as well as the droppings of the clouds, belong to his royalty. Light will not shine into the heart, though it shine round about us, without the sovereign
order of that God ' who commanded light to shine out of the darkness ' of the chaos, 2 Cor. iv. 6. And is it not seen also in regard of the refreshing influences of the word ? Sometimes the strongest arguments and clearest promises prevail nothing towards the quelling black and despairing imagina tions, when afterwards we have found them frighted away by an unexpected word, that seemed to have less virtue in itself than any that passed in vain before it. The reasonings of wisdom have dropped down like arrows against a brazen wall, when the speech of a weaker person hath found an efficacy. It is God, by his sovereignty, spirits one word and not another. Sometimes a secret word comes in, which was not thought of before, as dropped from heaven, and gives a refreshing, when emptiness was found in all the rest.
One word from the lips of a sovereign prince is a greater cordial than all the harangues of subjects without it. What is the reason of this variety, but that God would increase the proofs of his own sovereignty ; that, as it was
a part of his dominion to create the beauty of a world, so it is no less to create the peace as well as the grace of the heart ? Isa. Ivii. 19, ' I create
the fruit of the lips, peace.' Let us learn from hence to have adoring thoughts of, not murmuring fancies against, the sovereignty of God ; to acknowledge it with thankful ness in what we have, to implore it with a holy submission in what we want. To own God as a sovereign in a way of dependence, is the way to be owned
by him as subjects in a way of favour.
(5.) His sovereignty is manifested in giving a greater measure of know ledge to some than to others. What parts, gifts, excellency of nature any
have above others are God's donative. ' He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding,' Dan. ii. 21. Wisdom the habit, and knowledge the right use of it in discerning the right nature of objects, and fitness of means conducing to the end ; all is but a beam of divine light, and the different degrees of knowledge in one man above another are the effects of his sovereign pleasure. He enlightens not the minds of all men to know every part of his will ; one eats with a doubtful conscience, another in faith without any staggering, Rom. xiv. 2. Peter had a desire to keep up circumcision, not fully understanding the mind of God in the abolition of the Jewish ceremonies, while Paul was clear in the truth of that doctrine. A thought comes into our mind, that like a sunbeam makes a Scripture truth visible in a moment, which before we were poring upon without any success ; this is from his pleasure. One in the primitive times had the gift of knowledge, another of wisdom ; one the gift of pro phecy, another of tongues ; one the gift of healing, another that of discerning spirits. Why this gift to one man, and not to another ? Why such a dis
tribution in several subjects ? Because it is his sovereign pleasure. ' The
Spirit divides to every man severally as he will,' 1 Cor. xii. 11. Why doth he give Bezaleel and Aholiab the gift of engraving, and making curious works for the tabernacle, Exod. xxxi. 3, and not others ? Why doth he bestow the treasures of evangelical knowledge upon the meanest of earthen vessels,
446 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
the poor Galileans, and neglect the Pharisees, stored with the knowledge both of naturals and morals ? Why did he give to some, and not to others,
'to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven' ? Mat. xiii. 11. The reason is implied in the words, because it was the mystery of his kingdom, and therefore was the act of his sovereignty. How would it be a kingdom and monarchy, if the governor of it were bound to do what he did ? It is to be resolved only into the sovereign right of propriety of his own goods, that he furnisheth babes with a stock of knowledge, and leaves the wise and
prudent empty of it. Mat. xi. 26, ' Even so, Father : for so it seemed good in thy sight.' Why did he not reveal bis mind to Eli, a grown man, and in the highest office in the Jewish church, but open it to Samuel, a stripling ? Why did the Lord go from the one to the other ? Because his motion depends upon his own will. Some are of so dull a constitution, that they are uncapable of any impression, like rocks too hard for a stamp ; otherslike water, you may stamp what you please, but it vanisheth as soon as the seal is removed. It is God forms men as he pleaseth. Some have parts to govern a kingdom, others scarce brains to conduct their own affairs ; one is fit to rule men, and another scarce fit to keep swine ; some have capacious souls in crazy and deformed bodies, others contracted spirits and heavier minds in a richer and more beautiful case. Why are not all stones alike ? Some have a more sparkling light, as gems, more orient than pebbles ; some
are stars of first, and others of less magnitude, others as mean as glow-worms, a slimy lustre. It is because he is the sovereign disposer of what belongs to him, and gives here, as well as at the resurrection, to one a glory of the sun, to another that of the moon, and to a third a less, resembling that of a star, 1 Cor. xv. 40. And this God may do by the same right of dominion as he exercised when he endowed some kind of creatures with a greater per fection than others in their nature. Why may he not as well garnish one man with a greater proportion of gifts, as make a man differ in excellency from the nature of a beast ; or frame angels to a more purely spiritual nature than a man ; or make one angel a cherubim or seraphim, with a greater , measure of light than another ? Though the foundation of this is his dominion, yet his wisdom is not uninterested in his sovereign disposal ; he garnisheth those with a greater ability, whom he intends for greater service, than those he intends for less, or none at all ; as an artificer bestows more labour, and carves a more excellent figure upon those stones that he designs for a more honourable place in the building. But though the intending this or that man for service, be the motive of laying in a greater provision in him than in others, yet still it is to be referred to his sovereignty, since that first act of culling him out for such an end was the fruit solely of his sovereign i pleasure. As when he resolved to make a creature, actually to glorify him, in wisdom he must give him reason, yet the making such a creature was an act of his absolute dominion.
(6.) His sovereignty is manifest in the calling some to a more special ser vice in their generation. God settles some in immediate offices of his ser vice, and perpetuates them in those offices, with a neglect of others, who seem to have a greater pretence to them. Moses was a great sufferer for Israel, the solicitor for them in Egypt, and the conductor of them from Egypt to Canaan ; yet he was not chosen to the high priesthood, but that was an office settled upon Aaron, and his posterity after him in a lineal descent. Moses was only pitched upon for the present rescue of the captived Israelites, and to be the instrument of divine miracles ; but notwith
standing all the success he had in his conduct, his faithfulness in his employment, and the transcendent familiarity he had with the great Kuler
Ps. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 447
of the world, his posterity were left in the common level of the tribe of Levi, without any special mark of dignity upon them above the rest for all the services of that great man. Why Moses for a temporary magistracy, Aaron for a perpetual priesthood above all the rest of the Israelites, hath little reason but the absolute pleasure of God, who distributes his employments as he pleaseth, and as a master orders this servant to do the noblest work, and another to labour in baser offices, according to his pleasure. Why doth he call out David, a shepherd, to sway the Jewish sceptre, above the rest of the brothers, that had a fairer appearance, and had been bred in arms, and inured to the toils and watchings of a camp ? Why should Mary be the mother of Christ, and not some other of the same family of David, of a more splendid birth, and a nobler education ? Though some other reasons may be rendered, yet that which affords the greatest acquiescence, is the sovereign will of God. Why did Christ choose out of the meanest of the people the twelve apostles, to be heralds of his grace in Judea and other parts of the world ; and afterwards select Paul, before Gamaliel his instructor, and others of the Jews as learned as himself, and advance him to be the most eminent apostle, above the heads of those who had ministered to Christ in the days of his flesh ? Why should he preserve eleven of those he first called to propagate and enlarge his kingdom, and leave the other to the employment of shedding his blood ? Why in the times of our Reformation should he choose a Luther out of a monastery, and leave others to their superstitious nastiness, to perish in the traditions of their fathers ? Why set up Calvin as a bulwark of the gospel, and let others as learned as himself wallow in the sink of popery ? It is his pleasure to do so. The potter hath power to separate this part of the clay to form a vessel for a more public use, and another part of the clay to form a vessel for a more private one. God takes the meanest clay to form the most excellent and honourable vessels in his house. As he formed man, that was to govern the creatures, of the same clay and earth whereof the beasts were formed, and not of that nobler element of water which gave birth to the fish and birds, so he forms some that are to do him the greatest service of the meanest materials, to manifest the absolute right of his dominion.
(7.) His sovereignty is manifest in the bestowing much wealth and honour upon some, and not vouchsafing it to the more industrious labours and attempts of others. Some are abased, and others are elevated ; some are enriched, and others impoverished ; some scarce feel any cross, and others scarce feel any comfort, in their whole lives. Some sweat and toil, and what they labour for runs out of their reach ; others sit still, and what they wish for falls into their lap. One of the same clay hath a diadem to beautify his head, and another wants a covering to protect him from the weather ; one hath a stately palace to lodge in, and another is scarce master of a cottage