God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men — Jonathan Edwards

Romans 9 and the Sovereignty of God

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, 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 leaves 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 six, verse ten. 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 eighteen, verse twenty-two. 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 sixteen, verse ten.

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 twenty-two, verse twenty-eight. 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.

God's Sovereign Will and Absolute Right

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.

Salvation, Justice, and the Sufficiency of Christ's Redemption

Two, 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 itself excellent and glorious.

Therefore, one, 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 gospel 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. One, 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.

Two, 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.

Three, 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 three, 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.

For 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 in as much 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 chapter 42 verse 21, the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable but number two, God may refuse salvation to any sinner whatsoever without prejudice to the honor of any of his attributes.

God's Freedom to Withhold Salvation

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 so ever 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. One, 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. Two, 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 23rd verse of the context that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had a fore prepared unto glory. Three, 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. Three, God does actually exercise his sovereignty in men's salvation.

God's Sovereignty in the Distribution of Grace

We shall show how he exercises this right in several particulars. One, 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 seven verse seven. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people for you 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 nine verse six. 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 seven verse eight 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 Rebecca 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 chapter one verses two and three 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 heritage 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 chapter one verse 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 chapter 11 verse 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 chapter 54 verse one 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 sovereign pleasure.

Two, 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. Three, 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. First Corinthians chapter one, 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.

Four, 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. Five, 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 three verse six. 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 11th 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 man.

God's Sovereignty Displays Every Divine Attribute

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.