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And now to our reading of A Defense of the Secret Providence of God by John Calvin. which we pray you find to be a great blessing, and which we hope draws you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 And here the admonition of Augustine may be listened to with profit. In point of oneness or agreement there is something a mighty difference between men and God in the matters of his righteous acts and judgments. as when, for instance, God wills righteously that which men will evilly, and when God righteously willeth not that which men evilly will not. And so again, in point of difference or contrariety, God and men do not ill agree as when men will well that which God righteously doth will not, and when also men righteously Do not will that which God righteously doth will. For example, the son may wish for the death of his father, that he may rush upon the inheritance. God also may will that this same father should die. God willeth that Jerusalem should be utterly destroyed, that the temple should be profaned and demolished, and that the Jews should suffer every extreme of torment. The Itamians were all the while longing for the same. In order that the same measure might be measured to a dire and ruthless man who had spared no one, God wills that no help whatever should be brought to him when pressed to destruction on every side by inevitable necessity. His own son shall refuse him every duty of affection, nor shall he have the least desire to aid him in his desperate need. But God willed that the son of Eli should not listen to the counsels of their father, because he had determined to destroy them. The sons, on their part also, would not hear their father. Now there appears herein at first sight a certain kind of harmony and agreement, but when we consider abstractedly the evil and the good involved, there is a much disagreement and contrariety as between fire and water. A husband shall wish for a longer life of a beloved wife whom God calls out of this world. Christ shuddered at and prayed against that death which was a sacrifice of the sweetest odor unto God. Now the will of each, both of the husband and of Christ, although diverse from the will of God, at first appearance was equally without blame. Wherefore, far be it from any man to drag God into a participation of sin or guilt or blame, whenever any apparent similitude between the plainly depraved passions of men and his secret counsel may present itself, let that sentiment of Augustine be ever present to our minds. Wherefore, by the mighty and marvelous workings of God, which is so exquisitely perfect in the accomplishment of every purpose and bent of His will, that in a wonderful and ineffable way is not done without His will, which is even done contrary to His will, because it could not have been done had He not permitted it to be done. And yet He did not permit it without His will, but according to His will. " and hereby is refuted either the ignorance or the wickedness of those who deny that the nature of the will of God can be one and simple if there be any other will ascribed to him than that which is plainly and manifestly revealed by him in his own law. Some also ask in derision, If there be any will of God which is not revealed in his law, by what name is that will called? But those men must be deprived of their senses, in whose opinion all those scriptures signify nothing, which speak with so much wonder and admiration of the profound depth of the judgments of God. When Paul exclaims, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, he most certainly teaches us in all plainness plainness that the judgment of God was something more and deeper than that which is expressed by the simple words of Christ in that memorable ejaculation, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye would not!" Matthew 23.37 And whereas God willed that the sons of Eli should not be obedient to their father, that divine will differed in appearance from the precept of the law which commands children to obey their parents. In a word, wherever the apostle sets forth the wonderful judgments of God and the depth of his thoughts and ways which are pathfinding out, he is not speaking at all of the works of the law which stand always plain before our eyes, he is rather magnifying that inaccessible light in which is hidden God's secret counsel, which, being exalted far above the utmost stretch of the human mind, we are compelled to gaze upon with uplifted eyes and to adore. Someone will perhaps say, If that light is inaccessible, why do you approach it? I do not so approach it as to wish, by an insolent curiosity, to search into those things which God wills to keep deeply hidden in Himself, but that which the Scriptures openly declare I embrace with a sure faith and look upon with reverence. But you will say, How can it be that God, who is ever consistent with Himself and unchangeable even in the shadow of of a turn should yet will that which is contrary to that which he seems to be. I reply, it is no matter to wonder that God, when speaking with men, should accommodate Himself to the limits of their comprehension. Who will affirm that God ever appeared to His servants, even in visions, such as He really is? For the brightness of His glory is such that the sight of Him as He is by our naked vision would absorb and overwhelm all our senses in a moment. He has, therefore, ever so revealed Himself as men were able to bear the revelation. But whether God talks with us in the language of a child, or whether He conceals that which He knows to be beyond our comprehension, that there is anything in what he pleases to say, feigned or dissembled, I solemnly deny. Most true is that which the psalm affirms, Thou hatest all workers of iniquity, Psalm 5. 5. Nor, indeed, does God there testify by the mouth of David anything else than that which He exemplifies in reality every day when He punishes men for their transgressions. Nor would he punish their sins if he did not hate those sins. You see, then, that God is an avenger from which we are fully assured that he is not an approver. But many are deceived in these sacred matters, not rightly considering that God willeth righteously those things which men do wickedly. How will you explain this, you may say? I reply, God abominates all adulterous and incestuous intercourse. Absalom defiles his father's concubines in the sight of the people. Was this done in every sense contrary to the will of God? No, God had predicted by His servant Nathan that Absalom should do this. 2 Samuel 12, 11, 12 I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this Son. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the Son." The Scripture is replete with examples of the same nature and tendency. Shall we then on that account either impute the cause or fault of sin to God, or represent Him as having a double or twofold will, and thus make Him inconsistent with Himself? But as I have already shown that he wills the same thing in certain cases as the wicked and profane, but in a different manner, so we must, on the other hand, hold that he wills in the same manner with the wicked and reprobate that which is in appearance different, so that in those things which are presented to our minds the apparent diversity is tempered with the utmost oneness and harmony. Thus, inasmuch as Absalom If monstrous impiety towards his father was a perfidious violation of the law of marriage, and a gross profanation of the order of nature, it is most certain that his atrocious wickedness was highly offensive to God, who can be pleased with nothing but honesty, modesty, fidelity, and chastity, and who wills that the lawful order which he has established among men should be preserved sacred and And yet it pleased him to punish in this manner the adultery of David. And thus he wills in the same manner with men things which seem to us quite diverse. For that will of God by which he commands what shall be done, and by which he punishes all transgressions of his law, is one and simple. We have before observed that sins are frequently punishments by which God retributively avenges men's former transgressions, in all such dispensations of His providence there are two things which claim our deep consideration, the just judgment of God by which He testifies that He hates the sin which He thus visits with its due punishment, and the wickedness of man which stands directly opposed to the will of God. If such infinite brightness should dazzle our mental vision, what wonders when the eyes of our body cannot endure the sight of the natural sun? For is the vision of the body stronger than that of the mind, or is the brightness of the majesty of God less than that of the natural sun? Wherefore, it behooves us not to be too acute in our penetration into the splendor of the divine majesty, lest, in the meantime, we either deny that to be true which the scripture plainly teaches and confirms by experience, or lest we dare consider this or that to be, as we think, not quite consistent with the character of God. When the last day, says Augustine, shall have come, then will be seen in the brightest light of understanding that which the godly now hold in faith, until it shall be then understood by the fullest comprehension how sure, immutable, and all-efficacious is the will of God, and also how many things he can do and yet not will, but that he wills nothing that he cannot do." The Columbiators preface to certain articles, that is, Columbians, purporting to be extracted from the writings of John Calvin. You are a man, John Calvin, now known throughout almost the whole world. Your doctrine has many favorers and supporters, but it also has many enemies and opponents. For myself, being one who earnestly wishes that there were but one doctrine as there is but one truth, and who greatly desires to see all men agree, if it were possible, in that one doctrine, I have thought that you ought to be informed in a friendly manner of those things which are everywhere spoken against your doctrine, that if false, you might refute them and might have an opportunity of sending your refutation to me, that I might be able to make a stand against your avatars. And I pray that you would frame your refutation of such arguments that may be plainly understood by the people. There are indeed many who differ from you, and that too in many things. For the present, however, I will leave all other questions to other times, and I will deal with you upon that one great subject, the doctrine of fate or predestination. For this one question is exciting vast disturbances in the Church, all of which I should be glad to see quieted. And the arguments of your opponents on this mighty matter are so forcible that they cannot be refuted out of any of your books which you have hitherto published. Certain articles connected with this vast question have been extracted from your books and spread abroad in all directions. These articles I will now place before you without any regularity of order, and to each article I will sub-join the arguments which your opponents advance against it. By this arrangement you will at once see what reply you are called upon to make. the reply of John Calvin to the Columniator's preface, that there are many adversaries to my doctrine I know full well and wonder not, for it is no new thing that brawlers on every side should open their mouths against Christ, under whose banner I fight. My only grief in the sacred matter is that through my feeble side and solemn and eternal truth of God is stabbed. I am sorry, that through my feeble side the solemn and eternal truth of God is stabbed, which ought to be looked upon with reverence and adoration by the whole world. But since I see that this same truth of God has ever, from the beginning, been exposed to the calumnies of the wicked, and that Christ himself, by the decree of his Heavenly Father, must ever be a rock of offense and of contradiction Romans 9.33, Isaiah 8.14 and 15. I consider that the defenders of the truth must bear this offense with all patience. No fierce bites of the wicked, however, will at any time cause me to repent of the doctrine which I have taught, because I feel fully assured that God is its origin and author. Nor have I profited so little by those numerous conflicts in which God Himself has caused me to be engaged, as now to be alarmed by your empty and futile noises. Nay, as far as you yourself are concerned, poor math monitor, I derive some consolation from the thought that you cannot be ungrateful towards the man who has treated you with much greater kindness than you deserved at his hands. without betraying at the same time your foul wickedness against God. I know quite well that there is no sport more grateful to you academics than the rooting out of all faith from the hearts of the godly by casting a shade of doubt over all that they hold dear. And how sweet you feel in yourself all those revilings to bewitch you direct against the secret providence of God is apparent from the very point of your pen, how much soever you strive to hide your base gratification. But I cite you and all your fellows before that tribunal on which the Judge of Heaven sits, from whose mouth the blast and the bolt shall one day fall upon you all, and lay you prostrate. I trust, however, that I myself, before I have done, shall make your insolent speaking against God to be as loathsome to the feelings of all good and godly men as they are inwardly gratifying to your own heart. You demand of me a reputation of that vain scribble of yours which you sent secretly to Paris from a town in Switzerland. That poison might be poured upon my name far and wide without my knowing it, and without the possibility of the application of a remedy. You feigned nevertheless the desire of learning the truth, and yet you concealed your name For what end I know not, unless it be that you well knew that I had it in my power at once to destroy any credit that men might be disposed to give either to yourself or to your fellows. I could conjecture, or rather determine, in a moment who you were from many evidences furnished by your book. But whether you wrote it with your own hand or dictated it to Scotus, the trumpeter employed by your band of madmen, that he might carry to Paris things that you dare not utter here, is a matter of utter unconcern to me. I would indeed that some other were the author of the book, or that you yourself were another man from what you are. But that will never be until you shall have once tasted what true virtue and honesty are For although you have ever spoken respectfully to me, yet how great your natural propensity to cavilling is, I have never any difficulty in discovering and being fully assured. This evil inclination which you have indulged in so many puerile and futile exhibitions of it, I have endeavored to correct, but in vain. Because to that natural propensity there was always appended a depraved affectation which led you to hunt after the praise for learning and wit, even by the most frigid and more than insipid attempts at jesting on divine subjects. Nor can you by any means cover these your vain attempts under the shadow of the authority of Socrates, who, you say, was accustomed to attack many things that were set against his doctrines with sharp sarcasm in return. That excellent man was one endowed with many and eminent virtues, of all which, however, he marred the brightness by this one frailty and defect, which you thus, with as much failure as anxiety, attempt to imitate. You moreover ask me to send you such a reputation of your vain script as shall be understood by the people." I have never done otherwise than study to accommodate myself to the capacity of the most humble and unlettered reader by adopting the purest and simplest language of instruction. But if you will acknowledge none other mode of reasoning than that which the natural mind of an earthly mortal can receive, you at once shut up against yourself by pride and disdain the only way of approach to the comprehension of that doctrine. to the knowledge of which the first step is reverence. I am by no means ignorant of the sarcastic sneers of yourselves and of all like you who treat the deep mysteries of God with a contempt which indicates that, in your estimation, everything loses its grace and its authority which does not at once meet your opinion and approbation. For what prey is the meaning of all this, that the moment anyone chooses to open his mouth against me, I must be called upon to furnace a refutation of his slanders? Now Socrates, whose name you thus brandish before you, would not have suffered himself to be put in such a position. He would not have yielded to the dictation of such a law to him, not that I would follow any man and everything. But if everyone, not only in this but in any other age, was ever permitted constantly to set himself with indignation against the wicked and to refute their calumnies against him as Socrates did, surely even the most malevolent and iniquitous will grant me also a fair opportunity of exercising the same kind of diligence in my defense. Your barking, therefore, is the more intolerable. And for you trample with blind ignorance on my numerous books of self-defense and of reply to my adversaries, and call upon me to do the same work of refutation twice or thrice over. You affirm, however, that there is one question in particular on which the arguments of my enemies against me are too powerful to be refuted by the contents of any of my books, which I have yet as yet written upon the subject. That question, you say, is the great subject of predestination or fate. I would that you could resolve either to inquire into that subject modestly or to argue upon it honestly, rather than thus to cast off all shame and to confound in one thing the most diverse from each other in order to prevent all true light from falling upon them. Fate is a term given by the Stoics to their doctrine of necessity which they had formed out of a multiplexed labyrinth of contradictory reasoning, a doctrine calculated to call God Himself to order and to set Him laws whereby to work. But predestination I define to be, according to the Holy Scriptures, that free and unfettered counsel of God by which He rules all mankind and all men and things, and also all parts and particles of the world, by his infinite wisdom and incomprehensible justice. Now, if the depravity of mind and the lust of cavaling and diabolical pride have so blinded you that you can see nothing in the midday light, Yet to readers who really have eyes which can see, the distinction I have laid down shows in a moment the great justice and equity of your quarreling with God in the profound matter of His secret providence. Add to this, had you been willing to look into my books, you would have been convinced at once how offensive to me is the profane term fate. Nay, you would have learned in reading my writings that this same abhorrent term was cast in the teeth of Augustine by the malignity and hatred of the wicked and the worthless of his day. And you would have also discovered in my testimony that these objections were replied to by that holy Father and godly Teacher in a manner which would fully answer every purpose of my own cause and defense upon the present occasion. In the articles, also purporting to be extracts from my books, which you say you will give the public in your proposed order, you will find that my manner and substance of argument are precisely the same with those of that holy father of happy memory. Malevolent ones, however, knowing that this doctrine was not well known, nor generally received, have boastingly published abroad these articles, which are partly false and partly mutilated, that the ignorant and inexperienced might be fired with hatred of their content, and might not be able to form any but the most unfavorable judgment concerning them. And though many persons thought at the first sight of them that the articles put forth in Augustine's day were really extracts from his writing, yet the Holy Father bitterly complained that they were imputed to him falsely. For the compilers of them had either put together short portions of sentences with evil industry, or else had, with wicked art, corrupted sentences which were whole and true and godly by the crafty introduction of a few words, thus wholly altering the original, that they might thereby create offense in the minds of the simple. And all honest and sincere readers, many of whom will gladly take the pains to compare my doctrine with those thy base calumnies, will discover that the articles which you now boast you will put forth as extracted from my writing are of precisely the same description as those which were published abroad in Augustine's day, purporting to be true extracts from his books. And first of all I take this stand against you, that you act neither kindly nor honestly in not affixing any marks of designation or reference to the passages purporting to be extracts from my books so that readers might refer to the originals and assure themselves that I really had written as the extracts represent. And what can be more iniquitous than confusedly to state that in the course of fifty or more volumes written by me, some fourteen articles were found of such and such a description? Now had you possessed one drop of common honesty you would have cited as a matter of course my sentences verbatim, or, if you had met with any doubt or danger in so doing from want of the realities and originals, you would have warned your readers against the doubtfulness of the text in such cases. Whereas now you cast a shade of doubt over all my writings together, hoping thereby to destroy all good memory of them from the earth, and thus that in my books, which might have been read without any offense at all, you have for your own convenience malignantly corrupted and exposed to hatred and contempt. And though I do not altogether condemn Augustine for his prudence where wishing to meet the craft and iniquity of his enemies, He tempers his modes of reply to them so as to escape odium. Yet, according to my views, my reply to you will be more generally useful if I refute in this great cause your revilings freely, openly, and unreservedly, than if I so write as to convey the least idea whatever of retreat or tergiversation. Reading from the articles extracted from the Latin, as well as the French, books of John Calvin on predestination. Article 1, that is, Columnii No. 1. God of his pure and mere will created the greatest part of the world to perdition. This is the first article I shall produce, and now hear what arguments are brought by your adversaries against it. Columniator's Statements and Observations Your opponents maintain that this article is contrary to nature and contrary to the scripture. With respect to nature, they affirm that every animal loves its own offspring. Now this nature is given of God whence it follows that God also loves his own offspring. For God would not cause all animals to love their own offspring unless he himself loved his own offspring. and this position they prove in the following manner from Isaiah 46 verse 9 I'm sorry Isaiah 66 verse 9 shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth as if he had said that which I cause others to do I also do myself now I cause others to bring forth therefore I also bring forth By a parody of reasoning, therefore, they derive this argument and its conclusion. God causes all animals to love their own offspring, therefore he himself also loves his own offspring. Now all men are the offspring of God, for God is the father of Adam, from whom all men sprung. But to create men to perdition is not an act of love, but of hatred. Therefore God did not create anyone to perdition, and again they argue creation is a work of love, not of hatred. Therefore God created all men in love, not in hatred. And again, no beast is so cruel to say nothing of man that it would desire to create its young to misery. How much less, then, shall such a desire be found in God? Would not God in such a case of creation be less kind and merciful than the wolf which He has created? Christ argued in this way, If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall God? It is just thus that your adversaries argue. They say, If Calvin, though an evil man, yet would not wish to beget a child unto misery, how much less shall God desire to do so? These and like arguments your opponents bring forward with respect to nature. But with reference to the scriptures they reason thus, God saw that all things which he had made were very good. Such therefore was man, whom also he had made very good. But what if God created him to destruction? If such be the case, God created that which was very good to destruction and perdition, and therefore he must love to destroy. But that is a thing in pious, even in thought, And again they argue, God created one man and placed him in paradise, which is a life of happiness. Therefore God created all men for a happy life, for all men were created in the one man. And if all men fell in Adam, it follows that all men stood in Adam, and also in the very condition in which Adam stood. And further God says, I would not the death of a sinner. And again it is written that God willeth not that any should perish. but that all men should come to the knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2.4. Further, if God created the greatest part of the world to perdition, it follows that His anger is greater than His mercy, and it consequently follows, also, that His anger is strewn unto the third and fourth generation, whereas it is evident, on the contrary, that His mercy extends even unto the thousandth generation. This is the reply of John Calvin to Article 1, that is, Columni 1, and to the Columniators' observations thereon, that on which you seethe as your first article is that God by His pure and mere will created the greatest part of the world to perdition. Now, all this, the greatest part of the world unto perdition, and by his own pure and mere will is a perfect fiction and a production from the workshop of your own brain. For although God did certainly decree from the beginning everything which should befall the race of men, yet such a manner of speech as the saying that the end or object of God's work of creation was destruction or perdition is nowhere to be found in my writings. Just like an unclean hog, therefore you root up with your foul snout all doctrine that is of sweet odor, hoping to find in it something filthy and offensive. In the next place, although my doctrine is that the will of God is the first and supreme cause of all things, yet I everywhere teach that wheresoever in His counsels and works the cause does not plainly appear, yet that there is a cause which lies hidden in himself, and that according to it he has decreed nothing but that which is wise and holy and just. Therefore, with reference to the sentiments of the schoolmen concerning the absolute or tyrannical will of God, I not only repudiate but abhor them all, because they separate the justice of God from His ruling power. Now see then, thou unclean dog, how much thou hast gained and how far thou hast advanced thy cause by this thy impudent barking. For myself, while I subject the whole human race to the will of God, I at the same time ever affirm that God never decrees anything but with the most righteous reason, which reason, though it may at the present time be unknown to us, will assuredly be revealed to us at the last day in all its infinite righteousness and divine perfection. You thrust in my face and impudently abrade me with the pure and mere will of God, which idea I in a hundred or more passages of my books utterly repudiate. Meantime, I freely acknowledge my doctrine to be this. that Adam fell not only by the permission of God but by his very secret counsel and decree, and that Adam drew all his posterity with himself by his fall into eternal destruction. Both these positions, it seems, give you great offense as being, according to your account, contrary to nature and to the scripture. You attempt to prove it to be contrary to nature because every animal naturally loves its own offspring. Whence you argue that, therefore God, who gave such a natural affection to brute beasts, ought not certainly less to love all men, seeing that they are his offspring. Your argument and thought are infinitely too coarse and low, and infinitely beneath the mightiness of the matter, when you demand of God, the eternal Author of Nature, just what He rightfully demands of an ox and an ass which He has created. as if God himself ought to be bound by the same laws as those which he has appointed for the creatures which he has made, that every animal might propagate its own kind, he has implanted in each animal the desire of that propagation. Go thou, then, and expostulate with God, and ask him how it is that from all eternity he has remained content with himself and has retained his own native excellency and glory barren, as it were, and unpropagated, God ought certainly ever to be consistent with himself. If thou therefore art to be our judge in the mighty and stupendous matter, God has violated the order by choosing rather to be without all offspring than to exercise his fruitfulness. Moreover, as all brute beasts fight for their offspring, even unto death, how is it, according to your doctrine, that God permits his helpless offspring to be torn to pieces and devoured by tigers and bears and lions and wolves? Is it because his hand is too short so that he cannot stretch it down out of heaven for their defense? See you not how wide a field lies open to me if I were inclined to expose and condemn all your idle and absurd reasonings? But I will content myself with dwelling on one point only, and let that suffice. The proofs of the love of God towards the whole human race exist innumerable, all which demonstrate the ingratitude of those who perish or come to perdition. This fact, however, forms no reason whatever why God should not confine His special or peculiar love to a few whom He has, in infinite condescension, been pleased to choose out of the rest. When God was pleased to adopt unto Himself the family of Abraham, He thereby most plainly testified that He did not embrace the whole of mankind with an equal love. When again God rejected Esau, the elder, and chose Jacob, the younger brother, He gave a manifest and signal proof of His free love, of that love which He loves none other than those whom He will. Moses declared aloud that one certain nation was beloved of God, while all nations besides were passed by and disregarded as to any peculiar love of God for them. The prophets everywhere testify that the Jews exceeded and surpassed all other nations in excellency and importance for no other reason than because God freely loved them. Again, Christ is not addressing the whole human race. nor indeed the whole Jewish nation, but God's little chosen flock alone, whom he says, and not in vain, Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke 12, 32. By which Christ intimates that none experience the favor of God unto the hope of eternal life, but those whom he has rendered acceptable and well-pleasing unto himself by his only begotten Son. But if you are determined to make God subject to the laws of nature, you must necessarily accuse and condemn Him of injustice, because on account of the fault of one man, we are all involved in the guilt and desert of eternal death. One man's sin, and we are all dragged to punishment. And not that only, but by the pollution of one, we are all drawn into the contagion and are born corrupt and infected with a deadly disease. What have you to say to this, noble teacher and judge? Will you accuse the blessed God of cruelty because he has thus precipitated all his offspring into ruin by the fall of one man? For although Adam destroyed both himself and all his offspring, yet the corruption and the guilt of that fall of one man must necessarily be ascribed to the secret counsel and decree of God. for the fault of one man could have had nothing to do with us had not our heavenly judge been pleased to consign us to eternal destruction on the account. Now only reflect for a moment how craftily you apply those passages of the prophet Isaiah as a covering for your error. Isaiah 54 verse 1 In Isaiah 49, 19-21, as it seemed beyond all belief that the church of God in her Babylonian captivity, being not only bereft of her children but also barren in her power to produce more, should, by the recovery of her strength, become even more fruitful than she was before, God in these passages speaks as it were thus to her. Am not I, by whose power women conceive and bring forth, able to raise up an offspring to thee also? Because God speaks thus to His church, you under this pretext would force Him to assume the affections of any kind of animal. And you daringly reason that because God causes all animals to love their own offspring, He also loves all His own offspring, namely the whole race of mankind. And suppose for a moment that I grant you this, it will not therefore at once follow that God loves his own in the same manner as beasts love their own. And in the next place, if God does love his own, it does not the less follow that he has a right to reject, as a just judge, those to whom he has in vain shown his love and indulgence throughout the whole life as the kindest father. But you are ready to reply next that, quote, to create is a work of love, not of hatred, and that God therefore created in love, not in hatred, end quote. But you perceive not that though all men are hateful to God and fallen Adam, yet that in their original creation the love of God shines in all that brightness. That argument, therefore, which you think is so plausible, any other person endowed with the most moderate judgment and with common equity acknowledges in a moment to be frivolous and vain. That which you next add I do not consider it my duty so much to refute as to cut down at once with the stroke of the sword. It is indeed evident that men are born to misery, but is the cause of this to be imputed to my writing? Whence arises this miserable condition of us all that we are subject not only to temporal evils but to eternal death? Does it not arise from the solemn fact that, by the fall and fault of one man, God was pleased to cast us all under the common guilt, in this miserable ruin of the whole human race? Therefore, it is not my opinion only that is plainly seen, but it is the work of God Himself that is so openly, undeniably manifest. Meantime, you hesitate not to vomit forth your profane and abhorrent opinion that God is worse than any wolf who thus wills to create men to misery. Some men, be it remembered, are born blind, some deaf, some dumb, some of the monstrous deformity. Now, if we are to go by your opinion as the judge in these sacred and deep matters, But God is also cruel, because he afflicts his offspring with such evils as these, and that, too, before they had seen the light. But the day, be thou assured, will come when thou wilt heartily wish that thou hadst been blind, rather than thou hadst ever been so wonderfully sharp-sighted in thus penetrating into these secrets of the eternal God. This ends tape number three of A Defense of the Secret Providence of God by John Calvin. Please go on to the next tape in the series and continue listening. Thank you. This Reformation Audio resource is a production of Stillwaters Revival Books. Many free resources, as well as SWRB's complete mail-order catalog containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, CDs and much more at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at SWRB at SWRB.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710 37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L 3T5. 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