God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men A
Sermon by Jonathan Edwards Romans, Chapter 9, Verse
18 Therefore hath he mercy, on whom he
will have mercy, and whom he will he
hardeneth.
The Apostle, in the beginning of this chapter,
expresses his great concern and sorrow of heart
for the nation of the Jews, who were
rejected of God.
This leads him to observe the difference which
God made by election between some of the
Jews and others, and between the bulk of
that people and the Christian Gentiles.
And speaking of this, he enters into a
more minute discussion of the sovereignty of God
in electing some to eternal life, and rejecting
others, than is found in any other part
of the Bible, in the course of which
he quotes several passages from the Old Testament,
confirming and illustrating this doctrine.
In the ninth verse he refers us to
what God said to Abraham, showing his election
of Isaac before Ishmael.
For this is the word of promise, at
this time will I come, and Sarah shall
have a son.
Then to what God had said to Rebekah,
showing his election of Jacob before Esau, the
elder shall serve the younger.
In the thirteenth verse, to a passage from
Malachi, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have
I hated.
In the fifteenth verse, to what God said
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion.
And the verse preceding the text, to what
God says to Pharaoh, 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.
In what the apostle says in the text,
he seems to have respect especially to the
two last cited passages, to what God said
to Moses in the fifteenth verse, and to
what he said to Pharaoh in the verse
immediately preceding.
God said to Moses, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy.
To this the apostle refers in the former
part of the text, and we know how
often it is said of Pharaoh that God
hardened his heart, and to this the apostle
seems to have respect in the latter part
of the text, and whom he will he
hardeneth.
We may observe in the text, one, God's
different dealing with men.
He hath mercy on some and hardeneth others.
When God is here spoken of as hardening
some of the children of men, it is
not to be understood that God by any
positive efficiency hardens any man's heart.
There is no positive act in God, as
though he put forth any power to harden
the heart.
To suppose any such thing would be to
make God the immediate author of sin.
God is said to harden men in two
ways, by withholding the powerful influences of his
spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened
and grow harder and harder.
In this sense, he hardens them as he
leads them to hardness, and again by ordering
those things in his providence which, through the
abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of
their hardening.
Thus God sends his word and ordinances to
men which, by their abuse, prove an occasion
of their hardening.
So the apostle said that he was come
unto some a saver of death unto death.
So God is represented as sending Isaiah on
this errand, to make the hearts of the
people fat, and to make their ears heavy,
and to shut their eyes, lest they should
see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and convert,
and be healed.
Isaiah chapter 6 verse 10.
Isaiah's preaching was in itself of a contrary
tendency to make them better, but their abuse
of it rendered it an occasion of their
hardening.
As God is here said to harden men,
so he is said to put a lying
spirit in the mouth of false prophets.
Second Chronicles chapter 18 verse 22.
That is, he suffered a lying spirit to
enter into them, and thus he is said
to have bid Shimei curse David.
Second Samuel chapter 16 verse 10.
Not that he properly commanded him, for it
is contrary to God's commands.
God expressly forbids cursing the ruler of the
people.
Exodus chapter 22 verse 28.
But he suffered corruption at that time, so
to work in Shimei, and ordered that occasion
of stirring it up as a manifestation of
his displeasure against David.
Two.
The foundation of his different dealing with mankind,
that is, his sovereign will and pleasure.
He hath mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
This does not imply merely that God never
shows mercy, or denies it against his will,
or that he is always willing to do
it when he does it.
A willing subject or servant, when he obeys
his Lord's commands, may never do anything against
his will, nothing but what he can do
cheerfully and with delight.
And yet he cannot be said to do
what he wills in the sense of the
text.
But the expression implies that it is God's
mere will and sovereign pleasure which supremely orders
this affair.
It is the divine will without restraint or
constraint or obligation.
The doctrine is this.
God exercises his sovereignty in the eternal salvation
of men.
He not only is sovereign, and has a
sovereign right to dispose and order in that
affair, and he not only might proceed in
a sovereign way, if he would, and nobody
could charge him with exceeding his right, but
he actually does so.
He exercises the right which he has.
In the following discourse, I propose to show,
one, what is God's sovereignty.
Two, what God's sovereignty in the salvation of
men implies.
Three, that God actually doth exercise his sovereignty
in this matter.
And four, the reasons for this exercise.
One, I would show what is God's sovereignty.
The sovereignty of God is his absolute independent
right of disposing of all creatures according to
his own pleasure.
I will consider this definition by the parts
of it.
The will of God is called his mere
pleasure.
One, in opposition to any constraint.
Men may do things voluntarily, and yet there
may be a degree of constraint.
A man may be said to do a
thing voluntarily, that is, he himself does it,
and all things considered he may choose to
do it.
Yet he may do it out of fear,
and the thing in itself considered be irksome
to him, and sorely against his inclination.
When men do things thus, they cannot be
said to do them according to their mere
pleasure.
Two, in opposition to its being under the
will of another.
A servant may fulfill his master's commands, and
may do it willingly and cheerfully, and may
delight to do his master's will, yet when
he does so, he does not do it
of his own mere pleasure.
The saints do the will of God freely.
They choose to do it.
It is their meat and drink.
They do not do it of their mere
pleasure and arbitrary will, because their will is
under the direction of a superior will.
Three, in opposition to any proper obligation.
A man may do a thing which he
is obligated to do, very freely, but he
cannot be said to act from his own
mere will and pleasure.
He who acts from his own mere pleasure
is at full liberty, but he who is
under any proper obligation is not at liberty,
but is bound.
Now, the sovereignty of God supposes that he
has a right to dispose of all his
creatures according to his mere pleasure, in the
sense explained, and his right is absolute and
independent.
Men may have a right to dispose of
some things according to their pleasure, but their
right is not absolute and unlimited.
Men may be said to have a right
to dispose of their own goods as they
please, but their right is not absolute.
It has limits and bounds.
They have a right to dispose of their
own goods as they please, provided they do
not do it contrary to the law of
the state to which they are subject, or
contrary to the law of God.
Men's right to dispose of their things as
they will is not absolute, because it is
not independent.
They have not an independent right to what
they have, but in some things depend on
the community to which they belong, for the
right they have and in everything depend on
God.
They receive all the right they have to
anything from God, but the sovereignty of God
imports that he has an absolute and unlimited
and independent right of disposing of his creatures
as he will.
I propose to inquire, 2.
What God's sovereignty in the salvation of men
implies.
In answer to this inquiry, I observe, it
implies that God can either bestow salvation on
any of the children of men, or refuse
it, without any prejudice to the glory of
any of his attributes, except where he has
been pleased to declare that he will or
will not bestow it.
It cannot be said absolutely, as the case
now stands, that God can, without any prejudice
to the honor of any of his attributes,
bestow salvation on any of the children of
men, or refuse it, because concerning some, God
has been pleased to declare either that he
will or that he will not bestow salvation
on them, and thus to bind himself by
his own promise, and concerning some, he has
been pleased to declare that he never will
bestow salvation upon them, that is, to those
who have committed the sin against the Holy
Ghost.
Hence, as the case now stands, he is
obligated.
He cannot bestow salvation in one case, or
refuse it in the other, without prejudice to
the honor of his truth.
But God exercised his sovereignty in making these
declarations.
God was not obligated to promise that he
would save all who believe in Christ, nor
was he obligated to declare that he who
committed the sin against the Holy Ghost should
never be forgiven, but it pleased him so
to declare.
And had it not been so that God
had been pleased to oblige himself in these
cases, he might still have either bestowed salvation
or refused it, without prejudice to any of
his attributes.
If it would be in itself be prejudicial
to any of his attributes to bestow or
refuse salvation, then God would not in that
matter act as absolutely sovereign, because it then
ceases to be a merely arbitrary thing.
It ceases to be a matter of absolute
liberty, and has become a matter of necessity
or obligation, for God cannot do anything to
the prejudice of any of his attributes, or
contrary to what is in excellent and glorious.
Therefore, 1.
God can, without prejudice to the glory of
any of his attributes, bestow salvation on any
of the children of men, except on those
who have committed the sin against the Holy
Ghost.
The case was thus when man fell, and
before God revealed his eternal purpose and plan
for redeeming men by Jesus Christ.
It was probably looked upon by the angels
as a thing utterly inconsistent with God's attributes
to save any of the children of men.
It was utterly inconsistent with the honor of
the divine attributes to save any one of
the fallen children of men, as they were
in themselves.
It could not have been done, had not
God contrived a way consistent with the honor
of his holiness, majesty, justice, and truth.
But since God in the has revealed that
nothing is too hard for him to do,
nothing beyond the reach of his power, and
wisdom and sufficiency, and since Christ has wrought
out the work of redemption, and fulfilled the
law by obeying, there is none of mankind
whom he may not save without any prejudice
to any of his attributes, excepting those who
have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost.
And those he might have saved without going
contrary to any of his attributes, had he
not been pleased to declare that he would
not.
It was not because he could not have
saved them consistently with his justice and consistently
with his law, or because his attribute of
mercy was not great enough, or the blood
of Christ not sufficient to cleanse from that
sin, but it has pleased him for wise
reasons to declare that that sin shall never
be forgiven in this world, or in the
world to come.
And so now it is contrary to God's
truth to save such.
But otherwise there is no sinner, let him
be ever so great, but God can save
him without prejudice to any attribute.
If he has been a murderer, adulterer, or
perjurer, or idolater, or blasphemer, God may save
him if he pleases, and in no respect
injure his glory.
Though persons have sinned long, have been obstinate,
have committed heinous sins a thousand times, even
till they have grown old in sin, and
have sinned under great aggravations, let the aggravations
be what they may.
If they have sinned under ever so great
light, if they have been backsliders, and have
sinned against ever so numerous and solemn warnings
and strivings of the Spirit, and mercies of
his common providence, though the danger of such
is much greater than of other sinners, yet
God can save them if he pleases, for
the sake of Christ, without any prejudice to
any of his attributes.
He may have mercy on whom he will
have mercy.
He may have mercy on the greatest of
sinners if he pleases, and the glory of
none of his attributes will be in the
least sullied.
Such is the sufficiency of the satisfaction and
righteousness of Christ that none of the divine
attributes stand in the way of salvation of
any of them.
Thus the glory of any attribute did not
at all suffer by Christ's saving some of
his crucifiers.
1.
God may save any of them without prejudice
to the honor of his holiness.
God is an infinitely holy being.
The heavens are not pure in his sight.
He is of purer eyes than to behold
evil, and cannot look on iniquity.
And if God should in any way countenance
sin, and should not give proper testimonies of
his hatred of it and displeasure at it,
it would be a prejudice to the honor
of his holiness.
But God can save the greatest sinner without
giving the least countenance to sin.
If he saves one who for a long
time has stood out under the calls of
the gospel and has sinned under dreadful aggravations,
if he saves one who, against light, has
been a pirate or blasphemer, he may do
it without giving any countenance to their wickedness,
because his abhorrence of it and displeasure against
it have been already sufficiently manifested in the
sufferings of Christ.
It was a sufficient testimony of God's abhorrence
against even the greatest wickedness that Christ, the
eternal Son of God, died for it.
Nothing can show God's infinite abhorrence of any
wickedness more than this.
If the wicked man himself should be thrust
into hell and should endure the most extreme
torments which are ever suffered there, it would
not be a greater manifestation of God's abhorrence
of it than the sufferings of the Son
of God for it.
2.
God may save any of the children of
men without prejudice to the honor of his
majesty.
If men have affronted God, and that ever
so much, if they have cast ever so
much contempt on his authority, yet God can
save them, if he pleases, and the honor
of his majesty would not suffer in the
least.
If God should save those who have affronted
him without satisfaction, the honor of his majesty
would suffer.
For when contempt is cast upon infinite majesty,
its honor suffers, and the contempt leaves and
obscurity upon the honor of the divine majesty,
if the injury is not repaired.
But the sufferings of Christ do fully repair
the injury.
Let the contempt be ever so great, yet
if so honorable a person as Christ undertakes
to be a mediator for the offender, and
in the mediation suffer in his stead, it
fully repairs the injury done to the majesty
of heaven by the greatest sinner.
3.
God may save any sinner whatsoever consistently with
his justice.
The justice of God requires the punishment of
sin.
God is the supreme judge of the world,
and he is to judge the world according
to the rules of justice.
It is not the part of a judge
to show favor to the person judged, but
he is to determine according to a rule
of justice, without departing to the right hand
or the left.
God does not show mercy as a judge,
but as a sovereign, and therefore when mercy
sought the salvation of sinners, the inquiry was
how to make the exercise of the mercy
of God as a sovereign and of his
strict justice as a judge agree together.
And this is done by the sufferings of
Christ, in which sin is punished fully, and
justice answered.
Christ suffered enough for the punishment of the
sins of the greatest sinner that ever lived,
so that God, when he judges, may act
according to a rule of strict justice, and
yet acquit the sinner if he be in
Christ.
Justice cannot require any more for any man's
sins than those sufferings of one of the
persons in the Trinity, which Christ suffered.
Romans chapter 3, verses 25 and 26, Whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness, that he might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Christ.
4.
God can save any sinner whatsoever without any
prejudice to the honor of his truth.
God passed his word that sin should be
punished with death, which is to be understood
not only of the first, but of the
second death.
God can save the greatest sinner consistently with
his truth in this threatening.
For sin is punished in the sufferings of
Christ, inasmuch as he is our surety, and
so is legally the same person and sustained
our guilt, and in his sufferings bore our
punishment.
It may be objected that God said, If
thou eatest, thou shalt die, as though the
same person that sinned must suffer, and therefore
why does not God's truth oblige him to
that?
I answer, that the word then was not
intended to be restrained to him, that in
his own person sinned.
Adam probably understood that his posterity were included,
whether they sinned in their own person or
not.
If they sinned in Adam, their surety, those
words, If thou eatest, meant, If thou eatest
in thyself or in thy surety, and therefore
the latter words, Thou shalt die, do also
fairly allow of such a construction as, Thou
shalt die in thyself or in thy surety.
Isaiah 42.21 The Lord is well pleased
for his righteousness' sake.
He will magnify the law and make it
honorable.
But 2.
God may refuse salvation to any sinner whatsoever,
without prejudice to the honor of any of
his attributes.
There is no person whatever in a natural
condition, upon whom God may not refuse to
bestow salvation, without prejudice to any part of
his glory.
Let a natural person be wise or unwise,
of a good or ill natural temper, of
mean or honorable parentage, whether born of wicked
or godly parents.
Let him be a moral or immoral person,
whatever good he may have done, however religious
he has been, how many prayers soever he
has made, and whatever pains he has taken,
that he may be saved.
Whatever concern and distress he may have, for
fear he shall be damned, or whatever circumstances
he may be in, God can deny him
salvation, without the least disparagement to any of
his perfections.
His glory will not, in any instance, be
the least obscured by it.
1.
God may deny salvation to any natural person
without any injury to the honor of his
righteousness.
If he does so, there is no injustice
nor unfairness in it.
There is no natural man living, let his
case be what it will, but God may
deny him salvation and cast him down to
hell, and yet not be chargeable with the
least unrighteous or unfair dealing in any respect
whatsoever.
This is evident because they all have deserved
hell, and it is no injustice for a
proper judge to inflict on any man what
he deserves.
And as he has deserved condemnation, so he
has never done anything to remove the liability
or to atone for the sin.
He never has done anything whereby he has
laid any obligations on God, not to punish
him as he deserved.
2.
God may deny salvation to any unconverted person,
whatever, without any prejudice to the honor of
his goodness.
Sinners are sometimes ready to flatter themselves that,
though it may not be contrary to the
justice of God to condemn them, yet it
will not consist with the glory of his
mercy.
They think it will be dishonorable to God's
mercy to cast them into hell and have
no pity or compassion upon them.
They think it will be very hard and
severe and not becoming a God of infinite
grace and tender compassion.
But God can deny salvation to any natural
person without any disparagement to his mercy and
goodness.
That which is not contrary to God's justice
is not contrary to his mercy.
If damnation be justice, then mercy may choose
its own object.
They mistake the nature of the mercy of
God, who think that it is an attribute
which in some cases is contrary to justice.
Nay, God's mercy is illustrated by it, as
in the twenty-third verse of the context,
that he might make known the riches of
his glory on the vessels of mercy which
he had afore prepared unto glory.
3.
It is in no way prejudicial to the
honor of God's faithfulness, for God has in
no way obliged himself to any natural man
by his word to bestow salvation upon him.
Men in a natural condition are not the
children of promise, but lie open to the
curse of the law, which would not be
the case if they had any promise to
lay hold of.
3.
God does actually exercise his sovereignty in men's
salvation.
We shall show how he exercises this right
in several particulars.
1.
In calling one people or nation, and giving
them the means of grace, and leaving others
without them.
According to the divine appointment, salvation is bestowed
in connection with the means of grace.
God may sometimes make use of very unlikely
means and bestow salvation on men who are
under very great disadvantages, but he does not
bestow grace wholly without any means.
But God exercises his sovereignty in bestowing those
means.
All mankind are by nature in like circumstances
towards God, yet God greatly distinguishes some from
others by the means and advantages which he
bestows upon them.
The savages who live in the remote parts
of this continent and are under the grossest,
heathenish darkness, as well as the inhabitants of
Africa, are naturally in exactly similar circumstances toward
God with us in this land.
They are no more alienated or estranged from
God in their natures than we, and God
has no more to charge them with.
And yet, what a vast difference has God
made between us and them!
In this he has exercised his sovereignty.
He did this of old when he chose
but one people to make them his covenant
people, and to give them the means of
grace, and left all others, and gave them
over to heathenish darkness and the tyranny of
the devil, to perish from generation to generation
for many hundreds of years.
The earth in that time was peopled with
many great and mighty nations.
There were the Egyptians, a people famed for
their wisdom.
There were also the Assyrians and the Chaldeans,
who were great and wise and powerful nations.
There were the Persians, who by their strength
and policy subdued a great part of the
world.
There were the renowned nations of the Greeks
and Romans, who were famed over the whole
world for their excellent civil governments, for their
wisdom and skill in the arts of peace
and war, and who by their military prowess
in their turn subdued and reigned over the
world.
Those were rejected.
God did not choose them for his people,
but left them for many ages under gross,
heathenish darkness, to perish for lack of vision,
and chose one only people, the posterity of
Jacob, to be his own people, and to
give them the means of grace.
Psalm 147, verses 19 and 20.
He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes
and his judgments unto Israel.
He hath not dealt so with any nation,
and as for his judgments, they have not
known them.
This nation were a small, inconsiderable people in
comparison with many other people.
Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 7.
The Lord did not set his love upon
you, nor choose you, because ye were more
in number than any people, for ye were
the fewest of all people.
So neither was it for their righteousness, for
they had no more of that than other
people.
Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 6.
Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth
thee not this good land to possess it
for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff
-necked people.
God gives them to understand that it was
from no other cause but his free-electing
love that he chose them to be his
people.
That reason is given why God loved them.
It was because he loved them.
Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 8, which is as
much as to say it was agreeable to
his sovereign pleasure to set his love upon
you.
God also showed his sovereignty in choosing that
people when other nations were rejected who came
of the same progenitors.
Thus the children of Isaac were chosen when
the posterity of Ishmael and other sons of
Abraham were rejected.
So the children of Jacob were chosen when
the posterity of Esau were rejected, as the
apostle observes in the seventh verse, neither because
they are the seed of Abraham are they
all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed
be called.
And again in verses 10, 11, 12, and
13.
And not only this, but when Rebekah also
had conceived by one, even by our father
Isaac, the children moreover being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that
the promise of God according to election might
stand, not of works, but of him that
calleth, it was said unto her, the elder
shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated.
The apostle has not respect merely to the
election of the persons of Isaac and Jacob
before Ishmael and Esau, but of their posterity.
In the passage already quoted from Malachi, God
has respect to the nations, which were the
posterity of Esau and Jacob.
Malachi 1, 2, 3.
I have loved you, saith the Lord.
Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?
Was not Esau Jacob's brother?
saith the Lord.
Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau,
and laid his mountains and his waste for
the dragons of the wilderness.
God showed his sovereignty when Christ came in
rejecting the Jews and calling the Gentiles.
God rejected that nation who were the children
of Abraham according to the flesh, and had
been his peculiar people for so many ages,
and who alone possessed the one true God,
and chose idolatrous heathen before them, and called
them to be his people.
When the Messiah came, who was born of
their nation, and whom they so much expected,
he rejected them.
He came to his own, and his own
received him not.
John 1.11. When the glorious dispensation of
the gospel came, God passed by the Jews,
and called those who had been heathens to
enjoy the privileges of it.
They were broken off, that the Gentiles might
be grafted on.
Romans 11.17. She is now called beloved
that was not beloved, and more are the
children of the desolate than the children of
the married wife.
Isaiah 54.1. The natural children of Abraham
are rejected, and God raises up children to
Abraham of stones.
That nation, which was so honored of God,
have now been for many ages rejected, and
remain dispersed all over the world, a remarkable
monument of divine vengeance.
And now God greatly diminishes some Gentile nations
from others, and all according to his pleasure.
2.
God exercises his sovereignty in the advantages he
bestows upon particular persons.
All need salvation alike, and all are, naturally,
alike undeserving of it, but he gives some
vastly greater advantages for salvation than others.
To some he assigns their place in pious
and religious families, where they may be well
instructed and educated, and have religious parents to
dedicate them to God, and put up many
prayers for them.
God places some under a more powerful ministry
than others, and in places where there are
more of the outpourings of the Spirit of
God.
To some he gives much more of the
strivings and the awakening influences of the Spirit
than to others.
It is according to his mere sovereign pleasure.
3.
God exercises his sovereignty in sometimes bestowing salvation
upon the low and mean, and denying it
to the wise and great.
Christ, in his sovereignty, passes by the gates
of princes and nobles, and enters some cottage
and dwells there, and has communion with its
obscure inhabitants.
God, in his sovereignty, withheld salvation from the
rich man, who fared sumptuously every day, and
bestowed it on poor Lazarus, who sat begging
at his gate.
God, in this way, pours contempt on princes
and on all their glittering splendor.
So God sometimes passes by wise men, men
of great understanding, learned and great scholars, and
bestows salvation on others of weak understanding, who
only comprehend some of the plainer parts of
Scripture and the fundamental principles of the Christian
religion.
Yea, there seem to be fewer great men
called than others, and God, in ordering it
thus, manifests his sovereignty.
1 Corinthians 1, verses 26, 27, and 28.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble, are called.
But God hath chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise, and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty.
And base things of the world and things
which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to naught
things that are.
4.
In bestowing salvation on some who have had
few advantages.
God sometimes will bless weak means for producing
astonishing effects when more excellent means are not
succeeded.
God sometimes will withhold salvation from those who
are the children of very pious parents, and
bestow it on others who have been brought
up in wicked families.
Thus we read of good Abijah in the
family of Jeroboam, and of a godly Hezekiah,
the son of wicked Ahaz, and of godly
Josiah, the son of a wicked Ammon.
But on the contrary, of a wicked Ammon
and Absalom, the sons of holy David, and
that vile Manasseh, the son of a good
Hezekiah, sometimes some who have had eminent means
of grace are rejected and left to perish,
and others, under far less advantages, are saved.
Thus the scribes and Pharisees who had so
much light and knowledge of the Scriptures were
mostly rejected, and the poor ignorant publicans saved.
The greater part of those among whom Christ
was much conversant, and who heard Him preach,
and saw Him work miracles from day to
day, were left, and the woman of Samaria
was taken, and many other Samaritans at the
same time, who only heard Christ preach as
He occasionally passed through their city.
So the woman of Canaan was taken, who
was not of the country of the Jews,
and but once saw Jesus Christ.
So the Jews who had seen and heard
Christ, and saw His miracles, and with whom
the apostles labored so much, were not saved.
But the Gentiles, many of them who, as
it were, but transiently heard the glad tidings
of salvation, embraced them, and were converted.
5.
God exercises His sovereignty in calling some to
salvation, who have been very heinously wicked, and
leaving others who have been moral and religious
persons.
The Pharisees were a very strict sect among
the Jews.
Their religion was extraordinary.
Luke chapter 18 verse 11.
They were not, as other men, extortioners, unjust,
or adulterers.
There was their morality.
They fasted twice a week, and gave tithes
of all that they possessed.
There was their religion.
But yet they were mostly rejected, and the
publicans, and harlots, and openly vicious sort of
people entered into the kingdom of God before
them.
Matthew chapter 21 verse 31.
The apostle describes his righteousness while a Pharisee.
Philippians chapter 3 verse 6.
Touching the righteousness which is of the law,
blameless.
The rich young man who came kneeling to
Christ, saying, Good Master, what shall I do
that I may have eternal life, was a
moral person.
When Christ bade him keep the commandments, he
said, and in his own view with sincerity,
All these have I kept from my youth
up.
He had obviously been brought up in a
good family, and was a youth of such
amiable manners and correct deportment, that it is
said, Jesus, beholding him, loved him.
Still he was left, while the thief that
was crucified with Christ was chosen and called,
even on the cross.
God sometimes shows His sovereignty by showing mercy
to the chief of sinners, on those who
have been murderers, and profaners, and blasphemers.
And even when they are old, some are
called at the eleventh hour.
God sometimes shows the sovereignty of His grace
by showing mercy to some who have spent
most of their lives in the service of
Satan, and have little left to spend in
the service of God.
Six.
In saving some of those who seek salvation
and not others.
Some who seek salvation, as we know both
from Scripture and observation, are soon converted, while
others seek a long time, and do not
obtain at last.
God helps some over the mountains and difficulties
which are in the way.
He subdues Satan and delivers them from his
temptations.
But others are ruined by the temptations with
which they meet.
Some are never thoroughly awakened, while to others
God is pleased to give thorough convictions.
Some are left to backsliding hearts.
Others God causes to hold out to the
end.
Some are brought off from a confidence in
their own righteousness.
Others never get over that obstruction in their
way, as long as they live.
And some are converted and saved, who never
had so great strivings as some who, notwithstanding,
perish.
Number four.
I come now to give the reasons why
God does thus exercise His sovereignty in the
eternal salvation of the children of men.
One.
It is agreeable to God's design in the
creation of the universe to exercise every attribute
and thus to manifest the glory of each
of them.
God's design in the creation was to glorify
Himself or to make a discovery of the
essential glory of His nature.
It was fit that infinite glory should shine
forth, and it was God's original design to
make a manifestation of His glory as it
is.
Not that it was His design to manifest
all His glory to the apprehension of creatures,
for it is impossible that the minds of
creatures should comprehend it.
But it was His design to make a
true manifestation of His glory, such as should
represent every attribute.
If God glorified one attribute and not another,
such manifestation of His glory would be defective,
and the representation would not be complete.
If all God's attributes are not manifested, the
glory of none of them is manifested as
it is, for the divine attributes reflect glory
on one another.
Thus, if God's wisdom be manifested and not
His holiness, the glory of His wisdom would
not be manifested as it is, for one
part of the glory of the attribute of
divine wisdom is that it is a holy
wisdom.
So if His holiness were manifested and not
His wisdom, the glory of His holiness would
not be manifested as it is, for one
thing which belongs to the glory of God's
holiness is that it is a wise holiness.
So it is with respect to the attributes
of mercy and justice.
The glory of God's mercy does not appear
as it is unless it is manifested as
a just mercy, or as a mercy consistent
with justice.
And so, with respect to God's sovereignty, it
reflects glory on all His other attributes.
It is part of the glory of God's
mercy that it is sovereign mercy.
So all the attributes of God reflect glory
on one another.
The glory of one attribute cannot be manifested
as it is without the manifestation of another.
One attribute is defective without another, and therefore
the manifestation will be defective.
Hence it was the will of God to
manifest all His attributes.
The declarative glory of God in Scripture is
often called God's name because it declares His
nature.
But if His name does not signify His
nature as it is, or does not declare
any attribute, it is not a true name.
The sovereignty of God is one of His
attributes, and part of His glory.
The glory of God eminently appears in His
absolute sovereignty over all creatures, great and small.
If the glory of a prince be His
power and dominion, then the glory of God
is His absolute sovereignty.
Herein appear God's infinite greatness and highness above
all creatures.
Therefore it is the will of God to
manifest His sovereignty.
And His sovereignty, like His other attributes, is
manifested in the exercises of it.
He glorifies His power in the exercise of
power.
He glorifies His mercy in the exercise of
mercy.
So He glorifies His sovereignty in the exercise
of sovereignty.
2.
The more excellent the creature is over whom
God is sovereign, and the greater the matter
in which he so appears, the more glorious
is His sovereignty.
The sovereignty of God in His being sovereign
over men is more glorious than in His
being sovereign over the inferior creatures.
And His sovereignty over angels is yet more
glorious than His sovereignty over men.
For the nobler the creature is, still the
greater and higher doth God appear in His
sovereignty over it.
It is a greater honor to a man
to have dominion over men than over beasts,
and a still greater honor to have dominion
over princes, nobles, and kings than over ordinary
men.
So the glory of God's sovereignty appears in
that He is sovereign over the souls of
men, who are so noble and excellent creatures.
God therefore will exercise His sovereignty over them.
And the further the dominion of any one
extends over another, the greater will be the
honor.
If a man has dominion over another, only
in some instances, he is not therein so
much exalted as in having absolute dominion over
his life and fortune and all he has.
So God's sovereignty over men appears glorious, that
it extends to everything which concerns them.
He may disperse of them with respect to
all that concerns them, according to His own
pleasure.
His sovereignty appears glorious, that it reaches their
most important affairs, even the eternal state and
condition of the souls of men.
Herein it appears that the sovereignty of God
is without bounds or limits, in that it
reaches to an affair of such infinite importance.
God therefore, as it is His design to
manifest His own glory, will and does exercise
His sovereignty towards men, over their souls and
bodies, even in this most important matter of
their eternal salvation.
He has mercy on whom He will have
mercy, and whom He will, He hardens.
Application 1.
Hence we learn how absolutely we are dependent
on God in this great matter of the
eternal salvation of our souls.
We are dependent not only on His wisdom,
to contrive a way to accomplish it, and
on His power to bring it to pass,
but we are dependent on His mere will
and pleasure in the affair.
We depend on the sovereign will of God
for everything belonging to it, from the foundation
to the topstone.
It was of the sovereign pleasure of God
that He contrived a way to save any
of mankind, and gave us Jesus Christ, His
only begotten Son, to be our Redeemer.
Why did He look on us and send
us a Savior, and not the fallen angels?
It was from the sovereign pleasure of God.
It was of His sovereign pleasure what means
to a point.
His giving us the Bible and the ordinances
of religion is of His sovereign grace.
His giving those means to us rather than
to others, His giving the awakening influences of
His Spirit and His bestowing saving grace are
all of His sovereign pleasure.
When He says, Let there be light in
the soul of such an one, it is
a word of infinite power and sovereign grace.
2.
Let us with the greatest humility adore the
awful and absolute sovereignty of God.
As we have just shown, it is an
imminent attribute of the divine being that He
is sovereign over such excellent beings as the
souls of men, and that in every respect,
even in that of their eternal salvation, the
infinite greatness of God and His exaltation above
us appears in nothing more than in His
sovereignty.
It is spoken of in Scripture as a
great part of His glory.
Deuteronomy 32.39. See now that I, even
I, am He, and there is no God
with me.
I kill, and I make alive.
I wound, and I heal.
Neither is there any that can deliver out
of my hand.
Psalm 115.3. Our God is in the
heavens.
He hath done whatsoever He pleased.
Daniel 4.34.35. Whose dominion is an
everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation
to generation, and all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing, and He doeth
according to His will, in the armies of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay His hand, or say
unto Him, What doest Thou?
Our Lord Jesus Christ praised and glorified the
Father for the exercise of His sovereignty in
the salvation of men.
Matthew 11.25.26. I thank Thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou
hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
in Thy sight.
Let us therefore give God the glory of
His sovereignty, as adoring Him, whose sovereign will
orders all things, beholding ourselves as nothing in
comparison with Him.
Dominion and sovereignty require humble reverence and honor
in the subject.
The absolute, universal, and unlimited sovereignty of God
requires that we should adore Him with all
possible humility and reverence.
It is impossible that we should go to
excess in lowliness and reverence of that Being,
who may dispose of us to all eternity
as He pleases.
3.
Those who are in a state of salvation
are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone,
and to give all the praise to Him
who maketh them to differ from others.
Godliness is no cause for glorying, except it
be in God.
1 Corinthians 1.29.30.31. That no
flesh should glory in His presence, but of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption.
That, according as it is written, He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
Such are not by any means, in any
degree, to attribute their godliness, their safe and
happy state and condition, to any natural difference
between them and other men, or to any
strength or righteousness of their own.
They have no reason to exalt themselves in
the least degree, but God is the Being
whom they should exalt.
They should exalt God the Father who chose
them in Christ, who set His love upon
them and gave them salvation before they were
born, and even before the world was.
If they inquire why God set His love
on them and chose them rather than others,
if they think they can see any cause
out of God, they are greatly mistaken.
They should exalt God the Son who bore
their names on His heart when He came
into the world and hung on the cross,
and in whom alone they have righteousness and
strength.
They should exalt God the Holy Ghost, who
of sovereign grace has called them out of
darkness into marvelous light, who has, by His
own immediate and free operation, led them into
an understanding of the evil and danger of
sin, and brought them off from their own
righteousness, and opened their eyes to discover the
glory of God and the wonderful riches of
God in Christ Jesus, and has sanctified them
and made them new creatures.
When they hear of the wickedness of others
or look upon vicious persons, they should think
how wicked they once were, and how much
they provoked God, and how they deserved forever
to be left by Him to perish in
sin, and that it is only sovereign grace
which has made the difference.
First Corinthians chapter 6 verse 10.
Many sorts of sinners are there enumerated, fornicators,
idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind.
And then in the eleventh verse the apostle
tells them, Such were some of you, but
ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but
ye are justified, in the name of the
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our
God.
The people of God have the greater cause
of thankfulness, more reason to love God, who
hath bestowed such great and unspeakable mercy upon
them, of His mere sovereign pleasure.
4.
Hence we learn what cause we have to
admire the grace of God, that He should
condescend to become bound to us by covenant,
that He who is naturally supreme in His
dominion over us, who is our absolute proprietor,
and may do with us as He pleases,
and is under no obligation to us, that
He should, as it were, relinquish His absolute
freedom, and should cease to be merely sovereign
in His dispensations toward believers, when once they
have believed in Christ, and should, for their
more abundant consolation, become bound, so that they
can challenge salvation of this sovereign, they can
demand it through Christ as a debt, and
it would be prejudicial to the glory of
God's attributes to deny it to them.
It would be contrary to His justice and
faithfulness.
What wonderful condescension is in such a being
thus to become bound to us, worms of
the dust, for our consolation!
He bound Himself by His word, His promise,
but He was not satisfied with that.
But that we might have stronger consolation still,
He hath bound Himself by His oath.
Hebrews 6.13, etc., For when God made
promise to Abraham, because he could swear by
no greater, he swear by himself, saying, Surely
blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I
will multiply thee.
And so, after he had patiently endured, he
obtained the promise.
For men verily swear by the greater, and
an oath for confirmation is to them an
end of all strife.
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto
the heirs of promise the immutability of His
counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by
two immutable things, in which it was impossible
for God to lie, we might have a
strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to
lay hold upon the hope set before us,
which hope we have as an anchor of
the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which
entereth into that within the veil, whether the
forerunner is for us entered even Jesus, made
an high priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek.
Let us therefore labor to submit to the
sovereignty of God.
God insists that His sovereignty be acknowledged by
us, and that even in this great matter,
a matter which so nearly and infinitely concerns
us as our own eternal salvation.
This is the stumbling block on which thousands
fall and perish, and if we go on
contending with God about His sovereignty, it will
be our eternal ruin.
It is absolutely necessary that we should submit
to God as our absolute sovereign, and the
sovereign over our souls, as one who may
have mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and harden whom he will.
5.
And lastly, we may make use of this
doctrine to guard those who seek salvation from
two opposite extremes—presumption and discouragement.
Do not presume upon the mercy of God,
and so encourage yourself in sin.
Many hear that God's mercy is infinite, and
therefore think that if they delay seeking salvation
for the present and seek it hereafter, that
God will bestow His grace upon them.
But consider that though God's grace is sufficient,
yet He is sovereign, and will use His
own pleasure whether He will save you or
not.
If you put off salvation till hereafter, salvation
will not be in your power.
It will be, as a sovereign God pleases,
whether you shall obtain it or not.
Seeing, therefore, that in this affair you are
so absolutely dependent on God, it is best
to follow His direction in seeking it, which
is to hear His voice today.
Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden
not your heart.
Beware also of discouragement.
Take heed of despairing thoughts, because you are
a great sinner, because you have preserved so
long in sin, have backslidden, have resisted the
Holy Ghost.
Remember that let your case be what it
may, and you ever so great a sinner.
If you have not committed to sin against
the Holy Ghost, God can bestow mercy upon
you without the least prejudice to the honor
of His holiness, which you have offended, or
to the honor of His majesty, which you
have insulted, or of His justice, which you
have made your enemy, or of His truth,
or of any of His attributes.
Let you be what sinner you may.
God can, if He pleases, greatly glorify Himself
in your salvation.
Amen.