Perhaps, however, they
might say, that you, the branches, were broken off, that they might be
grafted in. Well, but it was wholly on account of unbelief that you were
broken off, and it was wholly by faith that they themselves were taken
in. But it becomes them not to be high-minded, but to fear. For if God
spared not you, the natural branches, let them take heed, lest he also
spare not them."
[Footnote 99: Rom. 11. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.]
"Moreover, my kinsmen in the flesh, I must tell you, that you have not
only no right to complain, because the Gentiles have been preferred, but
that you would have no right to complain, even if you were to become the
objects of God's vengeance. You cannot forget, in the history of your
own nation, the example of Pharaoh: you are acquainted with his
obstinacy and disobedience. You know that he stifled his convictions
from day to day. You know that, by stifling these, or by resisting God's
Holy Spirit, he became daily more hardened; and that by allowing himself
to become daily more hardened, he fitted himself for a vessel of
wrath, or prepared the way for his own destruction. You know at length
that God's judgments, but not till after much long suffering, came upon
him, so that the power of God became thus manifested to many. But if you
know all these things, and continue in unrighteousness and unbelief,
which were the crimes of Pharaoh also, why do you imagine that your
hearts will not become hardened like the heart of Pharaoh; or that if
you are guilty of Pharaoh's crimes, you are not deserving of Pharaoh's
punishment?"
CHAP.
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