not been extremely ftupid, would they ever have thought of it, after hearing the voice of God? Mofes accuses them of requiting the Lord, “ as a "foolish people and unwife." They receive the very fame character from God. " They are a na❝tion void of counsel, neither is there any un"derstanding in them "." And they continued to deferve no better character, in their fucceeding generations: " My people is foolish,-they are "fottish children, and they have none understanding ." 66 66 If they were fo deficient as to wisdom in divine things, it cannot be fuppofed that their fuperior goodness would atone for their other defects. This, indeed, is immediately added as the great evidence of their want of true wifdom: They are wife to do evil, but to do good they "have no knowledge y." Even the fons of Jacob were stained by envy, cruelty and perfidy. They hated Jofeph, because their father loved him. They first confpired against his life, and afterwards fold him for a flave. Their cruel and perfidious conduct to the Shechemites made Jacob "to ftink among the inhabitants of the land, a"mongst the Canaanites, and the Perizzites 2;" the very people whom God, because of their wickedness, was to drive out before Ifrael. We have formerly feen, that in Egypt they polluted themfelves with the idolatry of the inhabitants of that land. Afterwards, as if a mere conformity to their w Deut. xxxii. 6. 28. x Jer. iv. 22 y Ibid. their idolatrous neighbours had been too little, they did worse than all the nations round about 2, "worse than the heathen whom the LORD had deftroyed before them "." The all-wife God knew their character when he chose them. None can be fo foolish as to imagine that he hoped they would prove better than they did, that they would be awed by his judgments, or mollified by his mercies. He forefaw the whole extent of their wickednefs. Thus, he exprefsly teftifies that he knew what they were, and what they would be. He declares that when he fixed his love on them, he difcerned nothing that could in any refpect or degree prove a recommendation. He illuftrates their original fituation by a moft ftriking allufion to a child expofed by its unnatural parent, according to a barbarous custom that greatly prevailed among the heathen. Instead of wealth or power, he saw nothing but nakedness and weakness! Instead of wisdom or moral beauty, all the ignorance of infancy and the groffeft pollution! "Thou waft "caft out in the open field, to the lothing of thy perfon, in the day that thou waft born." He alfo declares his certain foreknowledge of their future conduct: "I knew that thou wouldeft deal "very treacherously, and waft called a tranfgreffor "from the womb d." 66 Since fuch was the character of this people, why did God choose them? The fovereignty of his a Ezek. xvi. 46, 47. d Ifa. xlviii. 8. b 2 Chr. xxxiii. 9. c Ezek. xvi. 5. his own will was the only reafon of his choice. He looked for no moving caufe without himself. He took care that they should be particularly informed of this. Therefore Mofes, having informed the Ifraelites, that the Lord did not set his love upon them, nor choose them because of their number, fubjoins ;-" But because the LORD "loved you, and because he would keep the oath "which he had fworn unto your fathers." The faithfulness of God, although here connected with his fovereignty, is not to be confidered as a reafon for his love, but for their enjoyment of the fruits of it, in being brought out," as it follows, "with a mighty hand, and redeemed out of "the house of bondmen." For the operation of the faithfulness of God, with refpect to them, was only the fruit of the eternal purpose of his love. He had "fworn to their fathers," because he had, in abfolute fovereignty, chofen their feed to be his peculiar people. Mofes elsewhere affures them, that God ftood in no need of them as a people: "Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens "is the LORD's thy God, the earth alfo with all "that therein is. Only the LORD had delight in "thy fathers to love them, and he chofe their "feed after them, even you above all people, as it "is this day." And well might the man of God remind Ifrael of the fovereignty of this choice, when he pleads it with God himself, as a more powerful argument in their behalf, than all their unworthinefs could be against them: "Look "not "not unto the ftubbornness of this people, nor to "their wickedness, nor to their fin.-Yet they "are thy people, and thine inheritance .". 66 Now, as, in the choice of literal Ifrael, God had no respect to any worth in the object of his love, this was a figure of the fovereign manner in which he chooses his true Ifrael. They had no merit, when he feparated them as his peculiar people. Thus they fitly prefigured them, who are called, "not for works of righteousness which they have done, but of his own mercy." Did he know that the future conduct of his chofen people would be equally undeferving? In this also they exhibited the character of his fpiritual feed. For when he fixed his love on them, he forefaw all their wanderings and apoftacies, their unbelief and ingratitude. But he "loved them, "because he loved them." If, without any obftacle on the part of his juftice or goodness, he might fingle out one nation to the enjoyment of fpiritual privileges, to the exclufion of every other; who will presume to say that it is inconfiftent with any of thefe perfections, that he should felect certain persons to the enjoyment of all the benefit arifing from thefe fpiritual privileges, although others be excluded? Indeed, to fhew us the great defign of this part of the divine conduct, we find this national election terminating in a choice of individuals. When God had ferved his ends, by the election of a particular nation, when he was about to abolish this diftinction, we find VOL. II. P g Deut. ix. 27. 29. it it running into an election of perfons, to the exclufion of the body of that once-favoured nation. Were the carnal Jews ready to object, that the Christian religion could not be true, because in this cafe God must have rejected his people, and broken his promife? the apoftle Paul could reply; "They are not all Ifrael, which are of If"rael: neither because they are the feed of Abra"ham, are they all children.-They which are "the children of the flesh are not the children of "God: but the children of the promise are count"ed for the feed." Thus he fhews that it could by no means be faid, that "the word of God had "taken none effect;" that his promise to the fathers had failed h. He fhews that the promise, although it literally and primarily respected the choice of the nation, as fuch, to diftinguishing privileges, carried in its womb, nay, ultimately and fpecially refpected a further difplay of divine fovereignty, in the choice of individuals of that nation to the effence of these privileges; that, although its outward afpect feemed confined to Ifrael according to the flesh, it was inwardly pointed to all who fhould be the feed of Abraham by faith, "not of the Jews only, but also of the "Gentiles i." He even fhews that all along, under the old difpenfation, the national election to external privileges, was only a figure of a perfonal election to thofe which are inward; that the former was as it were the covering of the other, the cabinet, however precious in itself, that contained |
