sity of operations, it is God who worketh all in all -that he is throned in universal sovereignty-as supreme in the inner and unseen world of spirits, as he is absolute and uncontrolled in fixing all the events which belong to the visible history of nature and providence. On this principle, we cannot look to the fact of one man believing the gospel, without connecting it with the fact that God has ordained it so and neither can we look to the fact of another man disobeying the gospel, without connecting it with the fact that God has left it so. If asked to assign the reason of God having so done, or the cause of this difference between one man and another, and that with the view of explaining or vindicating the counsels of the upper sanctuary-we have no other answer to make, but make it frankly and immediately, that we cannot tell. At an earlier stage of this exposition, we have attempted to draw what we conceive to be the limit between the knowable and the unknowable in this question; and have also there stated the principles on which I hold, that, whatever difficulty there may be in explaining the procedure of God, this carries in it no excuse for the wickedness of man. The moral certainties in the one field, are not in the least bedimmed or overshaded, by the metaphysical obscurities which rest on the other and the more arduous field of speculation. Man's unbelief, if resolvable into man's wilfulness, and our Saviour does resolve it into the evil of their own doings,1 stands as clearly 1 John, iii, 19.

out a rightful object of condemnation, whether the policy and jurisprudence of Heaven are thrown open to our view, or shrouded in deepest secrecy. If the question be put, Why are some only preached unto, and not all? we reply, that as far as this proceeds from the indifference of those called Christians to the souls of the perishing millions around them, the fault lies clearly with man. If the question be put, Why do some only of those preached unto believe, and not all? we reply, that as far as this proceeds from the love of darkness and the power of depravity, the perversity and the fault still lie clearly with man. But if the question be put, Why is it that the Spirit from on high selects some only, whom He disposes to receive and obey the gospel, and not all? we confess ourselves overawed by the difficulties of a theme so transcendentally and so hopelessly above us; and would join the apostle in saying, Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?

Ver. 1. I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.' At the conclusion of the last chapter we find the apostle saying that, all day long, or during the whole period of their political subsistence as a nation, God had held converse, whether in the way of remonstrance or entreaty, with the children of Israel-Sending them, from one age to another, prophets and righteous men, whom they slew and persecuted, till at length they crucified the Lord

VOL. IV.

I

.

of glory, after which, by an act of terrible retribution, the whole Jewish economy, both civil and ecclesiastical, was utterly exterminated, or swept off by the "besom of destruction" from the face of the earth. The question of our present verse follows quite naturally in the train of such a contemplation. Hath God then entirely rejected His ancient people? Hath he wholly and conclusively cast them away? to which question Paul's answer is a prompt and emphatic negative; and, in confirmation of which, he quotes himself as a specimen. He himself was an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham and tribe of Benjamin, or as he elsewhere says, an Hebrew of the Hebrews-yet, so far from being an outcast, was a convert to the new faith, and in full possession both of its hopes and privileges. It is perhaps somewhat gratuitous in some to imagine that he particularises his tribe, because it was the last and least of the twelve, and at one time indeed on the eve of its extermination—as all the more striking illustration or proof, that, great and signal though the days of their calamitous visitation had been, yet "the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance."1 But, instead of straining at ingenuities of this sort, let us be satisfied with the idea, that Paul meant nothing more by the specification of his tribe, than simply to authenticate his genealogy as a Jew, and so make it all, the more palpable that he incurred no forfeiture thereby-seeing that he was not only Psalm xciv, 14.

himself gifted with the unsearchable riches of Christ, but commissioned to preach, and thus make a full tender of them to others also.

6

Ver. 2, 3. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.' God did not reject all Israel. He did not cast off those of whom He foreknew, and who were the objects not of His prescience only, but of His predestination to eternal blessedness. "Whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate." We are here reminded of the expression, that “ they are not all Israel which are of Israel." God knoweth his own. He hath known them from the beginning, and all His purposes regarding them shall stand.

And these gracious purposes of the Almighty often extend to a greater number than we think; and of this the apostle gives a most memorable historic illustration in the case of the prophet Elijahwho cast a despairing eye over the land of Israel, and could not recognise over the whole length and breadth of it, even so much as one true worshipper. He made complaint to God of a universal apostacy -grounding, as is often done in all sciences and all subjects, a hasty generalisation on his own limited and personal experience. But, God seeth not as man seeth. He knew the children of His own election, His own "hidden ones," as they have been

termed; and could discern no less than seven thousand, when the prophet, gifted and endowed as he was, could not fix on a single individual. God knew them now as well as foreknew them (ver. 2) from all eternity; but it is altogether worthy of observation, that it is not by their election that He marks them out to Elijah. He does not read their names to him out of the book of life in heaven, or make any revelation of the secret purposes respecting them which He had from everlasting. He singles them out to the prophet by a sensible and a present mark, by a great and palpable act of obedience to His will upon earth. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.'-Ver. 4.

Now we hold it of great theological importance to notice this peculiarity. God might have told Elijah of His primitive decree respecting these men. But no-He prefers telling him of their present doings. Known to Himself are all His works, and among the rest, the state of these seven thousand men from the beginning of the world; and on this high and transcendental ground, He could have told the prophet of their safety. But, instead of this, He chooses what may be called a lower and experimental ground, on which to indicate or make known to him the condition of these men as children of God's own family. They had not bowed the knee to Baal; and this He thought to be ground enough on which to satisfy the mind of