An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

For the Edomites descending of Esau were cut of from the body of the church and became manifest enemies to the posterity of Jacob because that their father was subject to Jacob and pronounced to be his servant, Such as understand this place of corporal service and worldly riches or dignity only, do nothing else but show their own ignorance corrupting the meaning of the holy Ghost.¹ For saint Paul in the 9. chapter to the Romans after that he hath affirmed that the promise and • lection of God were sure (albeit that many of the carnal seed had refused Christ preached,²) he bringeth in this former sentence,³ to remove all slander: Saying,⁴ All are not sons, because they are the seed of Abraham, that is those that be the sons of the flesh, are not therefore the sons of God: but those that be the sons of promise are accounted for seed. And so to prove that which before he had affirmed, to wit, hat all were not Israelites that came of Israel, he added these words. Not only this, but also when Rebecca had conceived of one, our father Isaac, while the children were not borne, while they had neither done good nor cuill (that the purpose of God should by de according to election, not of works, but of the caller) it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger. Such as be not more then blind, may easily perceive, that the Apostle looketh to an other end, then to worldly dignity. For his purpose was not in that place to dispute and reason who should be rich in this world and who should be poor, who should be lords temporal, and who should be servants, but his purpose and m•nd was to declare t• whom did that benediction promised unto Abraham appertain, and to whom it did not appertain. So that the holy Ghost speaking by saint Paul is a commentary of the words spoken to Rebecca. And I doubt not, but so she did understand them.⁵ To wit, that that promise which appeared ⟨p. 53⟩