ROMANS Chapter 9:
The following is a quote from a book by Moses E. Lard:
In choosing Jacob and rejecting Esau, God both chose and rejected with exclusive reference to time, and with no reference to eternity. As to the final destiny of the children, the choice
and rejection, had no known effect upon it. It left each as free to pursue those things which would save him, and to shun those that would condemn him, as though it had never been made. Had each changed place with the other, it would not, in the slightest degree, have altered his prospects for heaven. What men wilfully do, not the divine choice, determines their final doom. God's choice, it is true, rendered the outward, temporal circumstances of Jacob and his posterity far superior to those of Esau and his; but, at the same time, it so increased responsibility as to leave the balances of justice level, and the chances of salvation equal.
The passage in hand has had assigned to it a very notorious conspicuity in theories of election, and, in my judgment, has been greatly abused. It was not penned in the interest of dogmatic Calvinism, and therefore does not countenance its offensive tenets. Interpreted as it should be, it teaches nothing contradictory of other portions of holy Writ, and shocking to our human sense of justice. In it God stands out still in a lovely light, and not as the arbitrary, inexorable Judge, who appoints one man to heaven and another to hell, not only without reason, but in defiance of it, so far as man can see. As I do not feel called upon to hunt up and notice all the various abuses to which the passage has been subjected, I shall leave that task with those who imagine that they can derive any profit from it.
12. The elder shall serve the younger. We have no account of Esau ever having personally served Jacob. The ref- erence then must be to their respective posterities; and with this agree the facts of history. For in 2 Sam. viii: 14 it is distinctly said that "all they of Edom [Esau's posterity] became David's servants." Indeed, the Edomites were long subject to the kings of Israel, the latter often slaying them in great numbers. But the Edomites frequently asserted their independence; and at such times they became most barbarous and cruel. They seem to have taken especial pains to cultivate Esau's ancient hatred of Jacob; and they never let pass an opportunity to display it. About the time Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, they seem to have disappeared as a separate people. After this we hear no more of them.
13. As it is written: I loved Jacob, but hated Esau. This quotation is from Mal. i: 2, 3- The extent to which God

loved Jacob was shown in preferring him to his brother; and the extent to which be bated Esau, in rejecting him from being one
of the heads of his cbosen people. More than this, the words need not be supposed to mean. Hatred, especially, we may assume to be used in the bold exaggerating sense so common with the prophets. It denotes not so much positive hatred, as not love.

SUMMARY.
Is it not unjust in God to choose one and reject another, as in the case of ( Jacob and Esau? Not at all; for in doing so, he acts according to his own avowed principles of conduct, which must be assumed to be right. Accordingly he says to Moses, I will make my own sense of right my rule in showing mercy. It was on this principle that he set up Pharaoh to be king. But all these choices create mere worldly distinctions. They are not choices to eternal life. But If God makes men what he pleases, why does he still find fault with them? He does not do so. He finds no fault with them for being what he makes them, but only for their own voluntary wrong. Again, in these choices, God's creatures should not presume to question him. They must take for granted that he acts justly. He has the absolute right to do what he does. and as he can do none wrong, he must not be questioned,