Welcome to tape number six of A Defense of the Secret Providence of God by John Calvin, as read by Michael Wyatt. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwaters Revival Books. There is no copyright on this material and we encourage you to reproduce it and pass it on to your friends. Thank you. or by mail at 4710-37A, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L3T5. If you do not have a web connection, please request a free printed catalog. If you do have a web connection and would like to be added to our email list, please send an email to add at swrb.com with the word add in the subject line. And now to the 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. Welcome to take number six of A DEFENSE OF THE SECRET PROVIDENCE OF GOD by John Calvin as read by Michael Wyatt. This Reformation Audio Resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. There is no copyright on this material and we encourage you to reproduce it and pass it on to your friends. Many free resources, as well as our 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. If you do not have a web connection, please request a free printed catalog. If you do have a web connection and would like to be added to our email list, please send an email to add at swrb.com with the word add in the subject line. 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 near to the Lord Jesus Christ. Article 10, that is, Columni number 10, Satan is a liar at the command of God. Against this tenth article, Calvin, which is a part of your doctrine, your adversaries argue thus, If Satan is a liar at the command of God, to be a liar is just, and therefore Satan is just. For if it is just to command a lie, and if Calvin speaks the truth, it is, then to obey a lie is also to be considered just from the justice of the precept. And again, as to obey an unjust precept is unjust, so to obey a just precept is just. If Calvin hereupon replied that Satan is not a liar obediently, that is, out of mere obedience to God, we reply, according to Calvin's own sentiments, that Satan's being a liar, but not out of obedience to God, is also at the command of God. And now the reply of John Calvin to Article 10 and to the calumniators' observations. Now only reflect on what kind of man it is you are curling your shafts. For that assertion at which you aim your weapon is not mine, it proceeds from the Spirit of God Himself. The very words of the Scripture are these, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Immediately upon which God calls Satan, and commands him to go and to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets, in order that he might deceive Ahab." 1 Kings 22, verses 20-22. Now then, bark, dog, as you are, as loud as you will. You will no more obscure the glory of God by your revilings than you can obscure the brightness of the sun by spitting in his blazing face. But here again, let me use the words of Augustine rather than my own. Quote, When God testifies that false prophets are sent by him and that his hand is upon them to cause them to deceive men or kings, This is not an act of his mere patience or permission, but an exercise of his effectual power." As to your prating that Satan is not a liar by the command of God out of obedience to that command, it is no marvel that you entangle yourself in knots and nets without number whilst you refuse to acknowledge that God uses the workings of Satan in an inexplicable manner according to his sovereign will that he may thereby manifest the justice and equity of his supreme dominion. Yet he never liberates the wicked instruments which he uses from the sin and the guilt, which are theirs, which instruments his power compels to execute his decrees, and in some sense even against their own wills. Though therefore your bitter malice may howl a hundred times over, which I utter is not the voice of Calvin, but the voice of God who saith, I have given commandment unto my saints. Wherefore, if you imagine that God assumes to himself more than he ought, he will sooner or later find a way to clear and vindicate himself from all such accusations as thine, and to take vengeance on all such accusers as thee." Article 11, that is, Calumny number 11. God gives the will to those who do evil. He also suggests depraved and dishonest affections not only permissively but effectively, and that too for his own glory." Against this eleventh article, your opponents argue thus, Calvin actually attributes to God that which evidently belongs to the devil, as is manifest from the united testimony of the whole of Scripture. Moreover, if God suggests depraved and dishonest affections, and yet commands us to resist depraved affections, He must positively command us to resist himself and is therefore inconsistent with himself. Every good gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights, the Scriptures sayeth. Are then even depraved affections to be considered good gifts? Do they also come down from the Father of Lights? James plainly asserts that no one is tempted of God, but that every man is tempted by his own heart's lust. And whereas you add that God doth this for his own glory, your opponents maintain that such an idea is absurd. Nebuchadnezzar did indeed experience the justice and the power of God when, on account of his own pride, he was changed into the nature and habit of a brute. And he gave glory to God for the same, because he judged and plainly saw that God therein was just as well as mighty. And now the reply of Mr. John Calvin to Article Here again you go on, as before, to fabricate monsters out of your own brain and to slaughter them in your own imagination, glorying to yourself in a mighty triumph which you vainly think you had gained over a harmless servant of God. But as to the places in my works wherein I had spoken or taught the doctrines contained in this article, those places you are and ever will be wholly unable to find. Wherefore, without my saying one word, your futility and your impudence also fall to the ground together. As to but one way in which God can show forth his glory, for if the glory of God did not continually shine forth out of the lies as well as out of other wickednesses of men, Paul speaks in vain when he says that God alone is true, but all men are liars. and he speaks equally in vain when he immediately adds, But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall I say? Is God unrighteous? Romans 3.5 When you argue that God's will is that he should be praised by all nations for the blessings which he confers, what you assert is true, provided you grant also that there is a mighty wood of circumstances out of which God, by his wonderful working, secures praises and glory to himself. And by your ignorance of this you bring on yourself the just punishments of your pride. For professedly laughing at all sound logic and legitimate reasoning, you perpetually argue from the species to the genus negatively. Nor will I deem your profane and blasphemous jest worthy of any length in reply when you intimate that God might as well punish men for wearing the beards which himself has created. For whoever asserted that iniquity was created of God, although it be true that God by His secret and incomprehensible purpose ordains and overrules the workings of that iniquity to righteous, good, and glorious ends, away therefore with your stupid and insipid insolence, when you ignorantly confound the beard of men which grows naturally and imperceptibly, even while they are asleep, with their acts of wickedness which are voluntary, perceptible, and conscious. Rage against me as rabidly as you will. This I will nevertheless hold fast and maintain, that although God does indeed decree and overrule the depraved affections of men to the accomplishment of his own eternal purpose, yet he nevertheless righteously punishes the depraved agents and instruments themselves and makes them to stand condemned in their own consciousness. Only observe how you again entangle yourself in a net of your own creation when you pretend to confess that the secrets of God are unknown to us, and yet would maintain that His justice, like the justice of man, is clearly comprehensible by us. Now suppose anyone should ask you whether there is any justice contained in the secrets of God. Would you deny that there is? Would you then pretend or assert that the justice of God in the secret acts which David and Paul contemplate with wonder and adoration, because it surpasses the utmost stretch of their mental comprehension, is easily intelligible and plainly known? Do not the profundity of the depth and the riches of the height of the wisdom of God and His marvelous judgments contain in them justice? Why then will you deny that God is just whensoever the reason of His work surpasses your comprehension? There is in the book of Job a divine and remarkable distinction made between that wisdom of God which is unsearchable and the brightness of which holds all human nature at an immeasurable distance and that wisdom which is made manifest to us and is revealed and written law. In the same manner, you, if you did not thus confound all things, ought to have made a distinction between that wonderful and profound justice of God, which no human capacity can comprehend, and that rule of justice which God has prescribed for the regulation of the lives of men in His revealed law. I at once confess that it is by the openly revealed doctrine of the gospel that God will assuredly judge the world. But He will, as assuredly, vindicate at the same time the righteousness of His secret providence against all profane brawlers. Indeed, were you but acquainted, even in the least degree, with the gospel concerning which you thus vainly pray, you would easily understand how it is that God richly rewards the righteousness which He sets forth in His glorious law, nor even deprives of their promised crown those from who from the heart obey his commandments, and yet righteously punishes all those who refuse their obedience. These latter, nevertheless, he calls his servants, because he holds their hearts in his hands for the accomplishment of his eternal purpose. Hence Nebuchadnezzar, that furious plunderer of nations and slave of Satan, is called by Jeremiah, and with peculiar significance, the servant of God. And if I have taught that God is as manifest by his judgments on every side, incline the hearts of men hither and thither for the execution of his purposes and decrees, when the prophets of God declared these same things in the same words, and when I cite their own words, why impute you such citations as awful crimes committed by me? Are not these the very words of the divine history? And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go number Israel and Judah." 2 Samuel 24, verse 1. Article 12, that is, Columnii 12. The wicked by their acts or wickedness do rather God's work than their own. The Columniators' Observations and Statements on Article 12 With reference to this article, Calvin, which is your doctrine, your opponents argue thus, If this really be the case, then, God is often angry at that which is good. For if wickedness is the work of God, wickedness itself is good. For all the works of God are good. And again, if wickedness is good, it follows of necessity that godliness is evil, because it is the direct contrary to wickedness. Hence, it will again follow that when the Holy Scriptures command us to hate evil and love that which is good, they command us to love wickedness and hate godliness. Your opponents, moreover, affirm that this article of your doctrine really is saviors of libertinism, and they consequently marvel that you should be so determined a foe to the libertines. The reply of Mr. John Calvin to Article 12, that is, Columni Number 12, and to the calumniator's observations thereon. Before God and the angels and the whole world, I here again testify that what I did truly teach upon this subject you have, by the basest and most wicked calumny, utterly perverted. If it really seemed to you an absurdity to teach that the wicked do the work of God, enter the battle at once with Jeremiah, the prophet of God, whose words are these, Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently, and that keepeth back his sword from blood. Jeremiah 43 verse 10 now 48 verse 10 I'm sorry now by that work of the Lord the Prophet evidently and undeniably means hostile slaughters and desolations which you surely must call wickedness seeing that they proceed from pure avarice cruelty and pride the Chaldeans were urged on to make war upon Moab by their own ambition and thirst for plunder so that regardless of all justice they forced on their way by rapine and slaughter to accomplish their inhuman purposes. But since it pleased God to punish by their hands the idolatry and defiance of the Moabites, their depravity did not alter the fact of their executing the judgments of God upon the Moabites by their wicked hands. What availeth then your barking and growling? What availeth your profane logic and arguments, that therefore wickedness is good? As if wickedness could be imputed unto God, because by his wonderful workings he turns the wickedness of men to an end and to a purpose entirely different to those which the wicked themselves design. Nay, he would even class me with the libertines, the mandalusians, of which sect I have labor to expose and confute beyond all other men. So I need no new defense of myself on the present occasion. " Article 13, that is, Columnii 13, We sin of necessity with respect to God, whether we sin of our own purpose or accidentally. Article 14, that is, Columni 14, what wickedness soever men commit of their own will, those wickednesses proceed also from the will of God. The Columniator's observations and statements on Articles 13 and 14. Against these two articles, your opponents urge the following arguments. If we sin of necessity, all admonitions are evidently vain, and the prophet Jeremiah therefore speaks these words to the people in vain. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death, and he that abideth in the city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. But he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey." Jeremiah 21, verses 8 and 9. All this warning and admonition is utterly vain, I repeat, if, from the state and necessity of things, to flee into the Chaldeans was as great an impossibility as to swallow a mountain. If Calvin here replied that the commandments of God are set before men to render them inexcusable, we rejoin that this also is positively vain. For if any father should command his son to eat up a mountain, and the son did it not, that son would be no more inexcusable after such commandment of his father than he was before. Just in the same manner, if God should command me not to steal, and yet I must steal of necessity imposed on me by him, and if I can no more abstain from stealing on account of that necessity, then I can eat up a mountain I am no more inexcusable after such commandment than I was before, nor am I more excusable before such commandment than I was after. In a word, the opponents of Calvin argue that, if this his doctrine be really true, a man is inexcusable even before the commandment of God is set before him, from which it will follow that all commandment, given with the intent to produce this inexcusableness in man, is altogether needless and vain. Moreover, if the wicked is reprobated of God before he becomes wicked, that is, before he is born, even from all eternity, and if, therefore, he sins of necessity, he is already inexcusable and condemned, even before any precept is given to him. And he is so condemned before he has done any evil act at all, whereas all laws, human and divine, condemn a man after the act and for the act. The reply of Mr. John Calvin to Article 13, that is, Columni 13, and to the Columniators' observations thereon. What you really mean or propose to yourself in this thirteenth article, that is, Columni, I cannot possibly catch or comprehend. You seem to me like one endeavoring to spellbind the senses of men by a buzz of magic whispers. For what are accidental sins? Who, besides yourself, ever fabricated such unheard of creatures as these in the workshop of the human brain? I have elsewhere in my writings than ever taught that all these things which seem to happen accidentally are ruled and overruled by the secret providence of God. Who was it that gave you the license to gather from fence the idea of an accidental sin? And was this doctrine which I have taught upon my own and of my own creation? No, it has God himself for its author. If, when a man is cutting the boughs of a tree, the axe slips from his hand and falls upon the head of one passing by, is this, think you, an accident? Not so thought the servant of God Moses. The Holy Spirit declares by him that the man thus stricken was killed of God. And will you dare to say that God hurls his weapons and deals his blows on this side and on that? as a man would do who was intoxicated or insane? Indeed, if, as you imagine, men sin without purpose, understanding, or mind of God, how shall God be judge of the world? And if the things which are done in the world are done without God's purpose, understanding, mind, and will, in what does God exceed mortal man? In what is the adorable God higher and greater than man? Hence, when I affirm that God knows and has His mind concerned in every sin of man, Are you driven thereby into such madness and hatred of the doctrine as to denounce me, the maker of a false God? Now suppose I were to concede to you that men sin without God's knowledge and without His mind being at all concerned therein. What God would be left in heaven or in earth at all by such a concession? And yet you imagine and boast yourself to be a great popular teacher, whereas by this depriving God of a concerned mind in all things which men do, whether sins or not, and merely dignifying him with the title of God, as Lucretius did his dreams, you make the adorable God nothing more than a lifeless, unconcerned idol. As to your arguments that if man's sin of necessity, all doctrine is superfluous, all precepts useless, all admonitions vain, and all rebukes and threatens absurd, If Augustine's book to Valentinus, quote, Concern, Compulsion, and Grace, end quote, suffices not to wash these frivolous objections out of your brain to the discussion which subject Augustine was especially pointed of God, you are not worth the hearing of one word farther from me on the sacred matter. Moreover, I have so beaten off Pygius and your favorite master Servetus from their hold of this columnine that teachable and candid readers require not another word of defense from me on this point of my testimony. I will only offer this one brief word to your boasting calumnies directed against me on the momentous doctrine of truth now in question. If you will not permit God to command anything which is beyond the natural comprehension of men, when God shall bring you to stand before His tribunal, He will make you to see with awful plainness that which He hath declared, and not in vain by the mouth of His Apostle. that he hath accomplished by his grace that which was impossible by the law, Romans 8.3. It is plain and certain that in the law is set forth that perfect righteousness which God required, in order that it might be ready at hand and plainly presented before the eyes of all men, if men had but strength to do what God commands. But the apostle openly It declares that to attain unto righteousness commanded in the law is, on our part, impossible. What ground have you then for contending with and reviling Calvin respecting his doctrine on this divine point? If you steal of necessity according to your own argument, think you not that you are less excusable after the law has been given than you were before it was given? How wildly different is the Apostle Paul's opinion of himself where he confesses that he was sold under sin, but where at the same time he freely and loudly testifies that the law worketh wrath, showing thereby that it is in vain to stretch forth in our defense the shield of necessity when every man's own conscience condemns him of voluntary and willful wickedness. Now I would just ask you this question. When a year ago you had your own hook in your hand by which you might have pulled down firewood to warm your own house? Was it not your own will that drove you to steal wood from your neighbor? If then this one act suffices for your own righteous condemnation, that you willingly made a base and wicked gain to your neighbor's loss, what noise soever did you make about necessity? Necessity did not acquit you on that occasion. But as to your farther noisy argument that no one can be justly condemned, accepting on account of his crime and after his crime, After his crying, concerning the former, there exists no strife nor cause of strife, or ought not to exist, between me and you, because I everywhere teach that no one perishes but by the just judgment of God. But I cannot withhold my testimony that there lies concealed under your words a great depth of poison. For if your statement of the divine matter and your figure of speech are to be received, God will appear unjust, who righteously includes the whole race of Abraham under the guilt of original sin. You deny that it is lawful and right in God to condemn any one of mortals unless it be on account of sins committed. Now numberless mortals are taken out of life while yet perfect infants. You had better then commence your virulent war with God Himself who casts innocent babes just taken from the womb of their mothers under the guilt of original sin and subjects them to His wrath and to the desert of eternal death. Who, I pray you, must not detest the blasphemy of thus contending against God when it is exposed to view either by the vice or by the pen of truth. Curse me as long as you will, but blaspheme not the adorable God. For as to myself, I can never expect to be free or exempt from the reproaches of those who spare not the ever-blessed God Himself. With respect to the second member of your argument that no one can justly be condemned until after his crime, But just weigh in your own balance of lightness and emptiness of your loquicity therein. Why, your own masters, piggiest, servetest, and all like barking unclean dogs, will at least confess that all those whom God foreknew to be worthy of eternal destruction were condemned by Him before the foundation of the world. Whereas you will not grant unto God the right to condemn any to eternal death but those who have first been brought before earthly judges for their actual perpetrated crimes. From such arguments as these, readers, may at once gather the marvelous extent of your insanity who hesitate not to root out, in absolute sport or jest, all the solemn order of the divine justice. THE COLUMNATOR'S DESCRIPTION OF THE FALSE GOD The false god is slow to mercy and swift to anger, who has created the greatest part of the world to perdition and has predestinated them not only to damnation but also to the cause of but also to the cause of their damnation, and has therefore decreed from all eternity and wills and causes their sins, which sins are consequently of necessity, so that neither thefts nor adulteries nor murders are committed but by his will and instigation. For he suggests in men depraved and evil affections, not only permissively but effectively, and hardens men's hearts. Wherefore, while men are living wickedly, they are rather doing the work of God than their own work, and cannot do otherwise. This God makes Satan a liar, so Satan is not the cause of his own lies, but Calvin's God is. The Columniator's description of the true God. But that God which nature, reason, and the Holy Scriptures teach is plainly the contrary to this God of Calvin. For he is inclined to mercy and slow to anger. And he created the first man from whom all men arose in his own image, that he might place him in paradise and bestow upon him eternal life. This God wills that all men should be saved, and that no man should perish. And for this very end he sent his Son into the world, that his righteousness might abound wherever the sin of man has abounded. The light of this righteousness lightens every man that cometh into the world, and this Son of God, the Savior of the world, calls aloud to all, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This God suggests good affections and honorable, and delivers men from the necessity of sinning, into which they precipitate themselves by their disobedience. And He heals all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. Nay, so merciful is He. that he never denies his mercy and help unto anyone that prays to him for them. In fact, this true God comes from the very end that he might destroy the works of that God of Calvin and thrust him out of doors. Now these two gods, as they are by nature contrary to each other, so do they beget children that direct contraries to each other. The children of that false, merciless God are ever proud, unmerciful, envious, bloodthirsty, columnious, feigned, carrying one thing in their countenance and another in their Impatient, rash, malicious, seditious, contentious, ambitious, avarice, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, in a world filled with depraved and evil affections which their God Himself has inspired them, but the other God begets men merciful, modest, gentle, benevolent, beneficent, abhorring the shedding of blood, open, candid, speaking the truth out of the abundance of the heart, benignant, quiet, peaceful, detesting broils and strifes, despisers of honor, liberal lovers of God more than lovers of pleasure, in a world full of all pure and honest affections, which which they are inspired of their Father. These are the views and arguments which your adversaries entertain concerning your doctrine, Calvin, and they advise all men to judge of your doctrine by its fruits. They, moreover, affirm that both you and your disciples bear abundant fruits of your God, that they are for the most part contentious, thirsty after revenge, Ever tenacious and mindful of an injury received and filled with numberless other vices which your God begets in them, if anyone replied to these assertions of your adversaries, and alleged that these are not false calls by your doctrine, your opponents rejoined that your doctrine does evidently beget such men, and that such as the case is manifest from the fact that many, after they had embraced and followed your doctrine, became such characters who were before far from being persons of that evil description, while on the other hand those who have believed the doctrine of Christ have always been rendered better men, but they affirm that men ever become manifestly worse by your doctrine. They also assert that when you and your followers profess that you hold a sound doctrine, you are not to be believed. The truth is that I myself once favored your doctrine and even defended it, though I really did not clearly understand it. For I thought so much of the weight of your authority that I considered the mere entertaining one thought contrary to it was quite a crime. But now, having the argument of your opponents, I have nothing to say in reply to their conclusions and proofs. Your disciples, indeed, do attempt to reply in your defense, and among those whom they can find to be the favors of your doctrine, they boldly boast of having the truth on their side. But when they come to deal with your opponents, vacillate and run to your books for protection, but that which they find there is too weak to support them. For your reasoning are so weak, and for the most part so unsound, that as soon as your book drops from their hands, your reasoning drops from their memories, and therefore they fail to convince your adversaries. On the other hand, the arguments of your opponents are manifest, powerful, and easily committed to memory, and are therefore at once understood by the illiterate, of which description were most of those who followed Christ. Whence it followed that the generality of your disciples depends more upon your authority than upon the sound reason. In finding that they cannot vanquish their adversaries by argument, they hold them as heretics and bigots, shun their society, and warn all other sides to do the same. On the contrary, I who am always of the opinion that what is said, not the person who speaks, ought to be the subject of consideration, judge that all men ought to be heard and all things that are said duly proved. and that what is good ought to be received and retained. Wherefore, Calvin, if you have any arguments to produce which are true, plain, and sound, by which your adversaries can be refuted, bring them forth, I pray you, before us all, and thus prove yourself in reality a defender of the truth. You know what is written. I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries shall be able to gainsay or resist. Luke 21.15 As to myself, wheresoever I can find the truth, I am prepared to follow it. and to exhort others to adopt the same course. If you have, perchance, error, for we all are men, I entreat you, Calvin, give glory to God by a full confession. Your so doing will be more noble and will bring you more fame than the persevering in error. But be not, I pray you, angry with me on account of this my letter. If you are just and true, you have nothing to fear from it. First, because it is your own advantage to be admonished by his arguments, and secondly, as you believe, as you say, that all things are done of necessity, you must believe that this letter also was written by me of necessity. Farewell. This ends tape number six of A Defense of the Secret Providence of God by John Calvin. Please go to the next tape in this series. Thank you. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's 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. If you do not have a web connection, please request a pre-printed catalog. 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