and of not sending it to others who were more likely to have received
but only foreseen? Would this be just? Strange that men should maintain the justice of depriving nations of the gospel for sins which they never committed, yet affirm the injustice of God choosing a soul to everlasting life according to His sovereign will. But this is just one of the paradoxes of Arminianism. God chooses some to life, it is said, because He foresees they will believe. So that it is not faith that save us, but God's foresight of our faith. Nor is it actually unbelief that ruins us, but God's foresight of it.
3. God speaks of sending His messages to some who would reject, and of not sending it to others who were more likely to have received it, "For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel — not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee" (Ezek. 3:5-6). This surely settles the matter — it is not a nation's foreseen willingness to hear that leads God to send His messengers, nor a nation's unwillingness foreseen that prevents Him from sending. It is all according to His sovereign will.
It is affirmed that there is a work equally in the hearts of all men alike. It is said that God has done and is doing the very utmost that can be done for every individual of our race; and that to maintain anything else is to charge God with partiality and injustice, as well as to deny the responsibility of man. The proof adduced in support of these statements is a passage in Isaiah 5, "What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (v. 4). But it is remarkable that this is one of the strongest proofs that God did a great deal more for Israel than He did for any other nation. He allowed the whole world to remain a wilderness, but He made them His vineyard. He fenced this vineyard. He gathered the stones of it and planted it with the choicest vine. "He did not deal so with any
other nation." Was this partiality or injustice? Or was this doing the same thing for all?
Besides, it is evident that this passage is being perverted. It doesn't mean that God at that time had done all He could for Israel. For He went on to do much more for them. Not only did He not cease to bless them, but He multiplied His blessings, and increased in strivings with them, long after He had uttered the words here. So that the passage cannot mean that He had done all He could, for He proceeded to do a great deal more, raising up prophet after prophet to give them line upon line. Nay, many of the most gracious words Israel ever heard were spoken after this time. If, then, the verse does really mean that God had actually done His utmost, the inference which is founded upon it falls to pieces.
It is plain, then, that God does more for some nations than for others. He did more for Israel than He did for Egypt or Babylon. He did more for Israel at one time than at another, for one generation than another; for one district of Judea than another; even for one individual than another. What else is the meaning of the words of Jesus, "I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias ... but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:25-27)? Will any of the deniers of God's sovereignty furnish a solution of this passage? In accordance with their views, what can the Lord mean?
It is not true, then, that God does as much for one nation or for one individual as another. The opposite is and always has been the fact — a fact frequently referred to in Scripture as proof of God's right to do according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the