it was not so with Esau
and Jacob: they were alike in the womb. If there was any prerogative, Esau
the eldest had it,--they had done neither good nor evil. What difference
was then between them to cast the balance of his will? Can you imagine
any? Indeed carnal reason will say that God foreknew what they would do,
and so he chose or rejected them. But, why doth not the apostle answer
thereunto that objection of unrighteousness in God? ver. 14. It had been
ready and plain. But rather he opposes the will and calling of God, to all
works past or to come. He gives no answer but this, "he will have mercy
because he will have mercy;" that is the supreme rule of righteousness,
and hitherto must we flee, as the surest anchor of our hope and stability.
Our salvation depends not on our willing or running, on our resolving or
doing, but upon this primitive good pleasure and will of God, on which
hangs our willing and running and obtaining. It is certainly an unorderly
order, to flee unto that in men, for the cause of God's eternal counsels,
which only flows from his eternal counsel, Eph. i. 4. Hath he chosen us
because he did foreknow that we would be holy, and without blame, as men
think? Or hath he not rather chosen us to be holy and without blame? He
cannot behold any good or evil in the creatures, till his will pass a
sentence upon it; for from whence should it come?

Seeing then this order and contrivance of God's purpose is but feigned, it
seems to some that the very contrary method were more suitable even to the
rules of wisdom. You know what is first in men's intention is last in
execution. The end is first in their mind, then the means to compass that
end. But in practice again, men fall first upon the means, and by them
come at length to attain their end; therefore those who would have that
first, as it were, in God's mind, which he doth first, do even cross
common rules of reason in human affairs. It would seem then, say some,
that this method might do well; that what is last in his execution, was
first in his purpose, and by him intended as the end of what he doth
first, and so some do rank his decrees; that he had first a thought of
glorifying man, and to attain this end he purposed to give him grace, and
for this purpose to suffer him to fall, and for all to create him. But we
must not look thus upon it either. It were a foolish and ridiculous
counsel, unbeseeming the poor wisdom of man, to purpose the glorifying of