at in all the places of Scripture in which
Israel is reproved and has evil attributed to it, the expression, "the
haters of Israel," is substituted for Israel.' 'We read: Isaiah was
punished, because he called Israel a people of unclean lips,' &c. Cf.
S. and H., p. 249, and my _Ephesians_, p. 261.

[23] 1 Pet. iv. 6. 'The gospel was preached to' these 'dead men that
they might be judged according to men in the flesh,' i.e. by perishing
in the flood, 'but live according to God in the spirit,' i.e. through
our Lord's preaching in Hades. There is, I think, so far, no ambiguity
about this passage.

[24] Not, however, without regard to man's will to respond to the
divine offer, see later, p. 82 ff.

[25] Mal. i. 2, 3. 'Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet
I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation,
and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Whereas Edom
saith, We are beaten down, but we will return,' &c. This passage (1)
plainly refers to _Esau_ as meaning _Edom_, the people; (2) describes
not the original lot of Esau, which was secondary indeed, but highly
blessed (Gen. xxvii. 39, 40); but the ultimate lot of Esau when he had
misused his original endowment in violence and cruelty.

{31}

DIVISION IV. Sec. 2. CHAPTER IX. 14-29.

_God's liberty in showing mercy and judgement always retained and
asserted._

But the obvious reply of the Jewish objector to St. Paul's assertion of
the absolute and apparently arbitrary freedom of God's election is that
it is unfair. It convicts God of unrighteousness. To this objection
(ver. 14), which St. Paul deprecates with horror, he replies not by any
large consideration of divine justice, but still by keeping the Jew to
his own scriptures. The God revealed in scripture must be to the
objector still the just God. He cannot call God unjust if His method
as it now appears is that to which He called attention long ago. Look
back, then, at the past records. Did God disclose Himself as bound to
show mercy on Moses the Israelite, or to harden and judicially condemn
Pharaoh the Egyptian? No, He declares to Moses His unrestricted
freedom to exhibit His {32} compassion on whom He will (Exod. xxxiii.
19). Men cannot by any choice or efforts of their own produce an
exhibition of divine favour such as was shown to Moses the leader of
Israel: the absolute initiative must come from God, and in taking that
initiative He decl