owing to causes more ancient than the present life, was here a vessel of dishonour, may after reformation become in the new creation “a vessel of honour, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.” And perhaps those who are now Israelites, not having lived worthily of their descent, will be deprived of their rank, being changed, as it were, from vessels of honour into those of dishonour; and many of the present Egyptians and Idumeans who came near to Israel, when they shall have borne fruit to a larger extent, shall enter into the church of the Lord, being no longer accounted Egyptians and Idumeans, but becoming Israelites: so that, according to this view, it is owing to their [varying] purposes that some advance from a worse to a better condition, and others fall from better to worse; while others, again, are preserved in a virtuous course, or ascend from good to better; and others, on the contrary, remain in a course of evil, or from bad become worse, as their wickedness flows on. FROM THE LATIN. 22. But since the words of the apostle, in what he says regarding vessels of honour or dishonour, that “if a man therefore purge himself, he will be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master’s service, and prepared unto every good work,” appear to place nothing in the power of God, but all in ourselves; while in those in which he declares that “the potter hath power over the clay, to make of the same lump one vessel to honour, another to dishonour,” he seems to refer the whole to God,—it is not to be understood that those statements are contradictory, but the two meanings are to be reduced to agreement, and one signification must be drawn from both, viz. that we are not to suppose either that those things which are in our own power can be done without the help of God, or that those which are in God’s hand can be brought to completion without the intervention of our acts, and desires, and intention; because we have it not in our own power so to will or do anything, as not to know that this very faculty, by which we are able to will or to do, was bestowed on us by God, according to the distinction which we indicated above. Or again, when God forms vessels, some to honour and others to dishonour, we are to suppose that He does not regard either our wills, or our purposes, or our deserts, to be the causes of the honour or dishonour, as if they were a sort of matter from which He may form the vessel of each one of us either to honour or to dishonour; whereas the very movement of the soul itself, or the purpose of the understanding, may of itself suggest to him, who is not unaware of his heart and the thoughts of his mind, whether his vessel ought to be formed to honour or to dishonour. But let these points suffice, which we have discussed as we best could, regarding the questions connected with the freedom of the will. FROM THE GREEK.