and therefore the piety of Jacob must have been present before him. If grace be the reward of works, they ought to have had their just value attributed to them before Jacob was born, as much as if he were already grown to maturity. But the apostle proceeds in unravelling the difficulty, and teaches that the adoption of Jacob flowed not from works, but from the calling of God. In speaking of works, he introduces no time, future or past, but positively opposes them to the calling of God, intending the establishment of the one, and the absolute subversion of the other; as though he had said, We must consider the good pleasure of God, and not the productions of men. Lastly, the very terms, _election_ and _purpose_, certainly exclude from this subject all the causes frequently invented by men, independently of God’s secret counsel. V. Now, what pretexts will be urged to obscure these arguments, by those who attribute to works, either past or future, any influence on election? For this is nothing but an evasion of the apostle’s argument, that the distinction between the two brothers depends not on any consideration of works, but on the mere calling of God, because it was fixed between them when they were not yet born. Nor would their subtilty have escaped him, if there had been any solidity in it; but well knowing the impossibility of God’s foreseeing any good in man, except what he had first determined to bestow by the benefit of his election, he resorts not to the preposterous order of placing good works before their cause. We have the apostle’s authority that the salvation of believers is founded solely on the decision of Divine election, and that that favour is not procured by works, but proceeds from gratuitous calling. We have also a lively exhibition of this truth in a particular example. Jacob and Esau are brothers, begotten of the same parents, still enclosed in the same womb, not yet brought forth into light; there is in all respects a perfect equality between them; yet the judgment of God concerning them is different. For he takes one, and rejects the other. The primogeniture was the only thing that gave one a right of priority to the other. But that also is passed by, and on the younger is bestowed what is refused to the elder. In other instances, also, God appears always to have treated primogeniture with designed and decided contempt, to cut off from the flesh all occasion of boasting. He rejects Ishmael, and favours Isaac. He degrades Manasseh, and honours Ephraim.