There can be no grace when there is no sovereignty.

Why is it that Britain is a land of light and Africa a land of darkness?  Who made the difference?  Who sent the gospel to Britain and withheld it from Africa?  Is God unjust in leaving the mighty continent in the hands of Satan, and in delivering from his yoke this small island of the sea?

None have deserved saIvation.  No man is more fit for it than another.  God was not bound to save any.  God might have saved all.  Yet He has only saved some.  Is He, then, unjust in only saving some when He could have saved all?  Objectors say, Oh, those who are lost, are lost because they rejected Christ.   But did not all equally reject Him at first?   What made the unbelief of some give way?   Was it because they willed it, or because God put forth His power in them?  Surely the latter.   Might He not, then, have put forth His power in all, and prevented any from rejecting the Saviour?  Yet He did not.  Why?  Because so it seemed good in His sight.

Is it unjust of God to save only a few when all are equally doomed to die?  If not, is there any injustice in His determining aforehand to save these few, and leave the rest unsaved?  They could not save themselves, and was it unjust in Him to resolve, in His infinite wisdom, to save them?   Or, was it unjust in Him not to resolve to save all?  Had all perished there would have been no injustice with Him.  How is it possible that there can be injustice in His resolving to save some?

There can be no grace when there is no sovereignty.  Deny God's right to choose whom He will and you deny His right to save whom He will.  Deny His right to save whom He will, and you deny that salvation is of grace.  If salvation is made to hinge upon any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end.

- Horatius Bonar 

The Reign of Grace