Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

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Note VIII.
and wrath, before either side had done any actual good or
evil, The children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. And were a predestination to
privileges all that was meant by the passage that some
are born to wealth or rank, others to poverty or obscurity,
some in a heathen and others in a Christian country, what
ground would there be for raising the objection ? Thou
wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault, for
who hath resisted His will ? It is evident that this is a
complaint against the Divine justice, or an objection to
the Apostle s doctrine just before laid down, on the ground
that it contradicts that Divine attribute. But how could
a mere inequality in the dispensing of religious privileges
provoke such a charge, except from a positive infidel?
Inequality is a plain feet of God s visible providence, and
could never support a charge of injustice, except the
objector were willing to go the further step of denying a
Divine creation and providence altogether on account of
this fact. The objector here plainly means to say this :
How can it be just that a man should be the object of
Divine wrath before he has done anything to deserve it ?
That he should be incapacitated for obtaining the qualifi
cations necessary for eternal life, and then blamed because
he has not got them ? Why doth he find fault, for who
hath resisted His will ? Why does God condemn the
sinner, when His own arbitrary will has incapacitated him
for being anything else but a sinner ?
At the same time I am ready to admit, that there is
ground for saying that a milder sense of reprobation does
come in, in this passage, along with the stronger one ; and
that language is used expressive rather of the modified
than of the extreme doctrine of predestination. It
is at any rate doubtful whether honour and dishonour
do not mean higher and inferior good rather than positive
good and evil. The use of the words in 2 Tim. ii. 20.
In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and earth, and some to honour
and some to dishonour would seem to attach the former