“But because he grounds so much upon this text, that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion, I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause. First, these words (ver. 11): _being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil_, upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend, have no reference at all to those words (verse 13), _Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated_; for those words were first uttered by the prophet Malachi, many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead (Mal. i. 2, 3), and intended of the posterity of Esau, who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were. But they are referred to those other words (verse 12), _the elder shall serve the younger_, which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were born. (Gen. xxv. 23.) And though those words of Malachi had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were born, yet it had advantaged his cause nothing: for hatred in that text doth not signify any reprobation to the flames of hell, much less the execution of that decree, or the actual imposition of punishment, nor any act contrary to love. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Goodness itself cannot hate that which is good. But hatred there signifies comparative hatred, or a less degree of love, or at the most a negation of love. As (Gen. xxix. 31), _when the Lord saw that Leah was hated_, we may not conclude thence that Jacob hated his wife; the precedent verse doth fully expound the sense (verse 30): _Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah_. So (Matth. vi. 24), _No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other_. So (Luke xiv. 26), _If any man hate not his father and mother, &c. he cannot be my disciple_. St. Matthew (x. 37) tells us the sense of it: _He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me_. “Secondly, those words (ver. 15) _I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy_, do prove no more but this, that the preferring of Jacob before Esau, and of the Christians before the Jews, was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other, but a work of mercy. And what of this? All men confess that God’s mercies do exceed man’s deserts, but God’s punishments do never exceed man’s misdeeds. As we see in the parable of the labourers (Matth. xx. 13-15): _Friend, I do thee no wrong. Did not I agree with thee for a penny? Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good?_ Acts of mercy are free, but acts of justice are due.