not without cause the vessels of wrath are
said to be fitted for destruction, and that God is said to have
prepared the vessels of mercy, because in this way the praise of
salvation is claimed for God; whereas the blame of perdition is thrown
upon those who of their own accord bring it upon themselves. But were
I to concede that by the different forms of expression Paul softens
the harshness of the former clause, it by no means follows that he
transfers the preparation for destruction to any other cause than the
secret counsel of God. This indeed is asserted in the preceding
context, where God is said to have raised up Pharaoh, and to harden
whom he will. Hence it follows that the hidden counsel of God is the
cause of hardening. I at least hold with Augustine, that when God
makes sheep out of wolves he forms them again by the powerful
influence of grace, that their hardness may thus be subdued; and that
he does not convert the obstinate, because he does not exert that more
powerful grace, a grace which he has at command if he were disposed to
use it (August, de Praedest. Sanct., Lib. i., c. 2)....

[Illustration: _SEPTUAGINT._

Facsimile, somewhat reduced, of a page of the
VATICAN MANUSCRIPT.

Fourth Century. Vatican Library.

The Septuagint is the Greek translation, by seventy elders, of
the Hebrew Bible.

The earlier copies are all in uncial or "capital" letters,
cursive or "lower-case" letters being a later invention.

This is a good specimen of the hand-work of the ecclesiastical
scribes of the fourth century.]

Accordingly, when we are accosted in such terms as these: Why did God
from the first predestine some to death, when as they were not yet in
existence, they could not have merited sentence of death?--let us by
way of reply ask in our turn, What do you imagine that God owes to
man, if he is pleased to estimate him by his own nature? As we are all
vitiated by sin, we cannot but be hateful to God, and that not from
tyrannical cruelty, but the strictest justice. But if all whom the
Lord predestines to death are naturally liable to sentence of death,
of what injustice, pray, do they complain? Should all the sons of Adam
come to dispute and contend with their Creator, because by his eternal
providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual
destruction: when God comes to reckon with them, what will they be
able to mutter agains