Welcome to tape number seven 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. 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.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, 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 near to the Lord Jesus Christ. the reply of Mr. John Calvin to Articles 13 and 14, that is, Calumnies 13 and 14, and to the Calumniator's observations thereon. It now only remains that I vindicate the glory of the true and eternal God from your profane maledictions and blasphemies. You boastingly assert that I place before men the devil in the place of the true God. My defense needs only to be brief and comprehensive, because all my writings Openly testify that I never had before me any other end or purpose or prayer than that of the whole world should dedicate itself to God with all fear, reverence, and holiness, and that all men should cultivate equity with a good conscience among and towards each other, and also that my own life might not be inconsistent with my doctrine. I will not so disregard and dishonor the grace of God as to compare myself with you or your fellows who profess whose professed blamelessness of life consists in a mere fawning external appearance. I will only observe that if any unprejudiced and upright arbiter should sit to judge between us, he would at once acknowledge that holy reverence of God was conspicuous both in my speech and in the actions of my life, and he would, with equal readiness, confess that whatsoever proceeded from you breathed fear and dread, which all the godly despise and laugh at. but that I might examine, as briefly as possible, your base calumnies, who or what can be more profane than yourself when you contend that God proves himself to be slow to mercy and quick to anger and predestinating a greater part of the world to eternal death. One thing is certain, that what kind of God soever you might fabricate or imagine for yourself, that one adorable God is to be worshipped and is worshipped by all the godly who for more than 2,000 years left the whole human race except the one family of Abraham to wander in total darkness through the destruction of their souls. Now if you are prepared to charge God with cruelty because He condescended to bless one family of the earth only with the light of life, while He willed that numberless nations should still lie for the same 2,000 years sunk in the darkness of their souls' death, one question will furnish a solemn reply to every inquiry into the deep mystery. How was it that whole nations were not utterly destroyed daily until no more people existed? How was it that the whole world was not destroyed if such a thing were possible a hundred times a year? How was it that during those same two thousand years so many glorious proofs of God's patience and mercy towards men were manifested? Even Paul, the Apostle himself, after having asserted that the wrestles of wrath were fitted to destruction by God's secret and eternal decrees, Forget not, nor hesitate to praise his patience and longsuffering therein. If then the testimony of the Apostle does not content you, I think that such a humble one as I may unconcernedly despise all your growlings at my doctrine. God, however, needs not my feeble defense. He is now and in the last days will be a mighty avenger of his own righteousness, even though all the foul tongues of the world whole world should combine their efforts to becloud that righteousness with obscurity and confusion. Wherefore, go you on with your band of like spirits to hurl your blasphemies up to the very heavens. They shall all assuredly fall back on your own heads. As to your base revilings, I can bear with them with patience and without trouble, provided they touch not the ever-blessed God, whose servant I am. I challenge you to stand where you must one day stand before his tribunal that he may show himself, as he one day will show himself, the righteous avenger of his own doctrine, which doctrine you thus furiously assail in my feeble person. As to your description of the nature of the true God, how appropriately you argue concerning the divine being, let readers judge from the absurd fact that you make the beginning of all true knowledge of him to proceed from common sense. that there is a God is a truth received by the one consent of all nations and all ages, because the seed and principle of this knowledge is imparted by nature in every human mind. But what God is, how shall reason define, which by its own power of sight can do nothing but turn the truth into a lie and adulterate whatever of light and understanding true religion and faith possess? The Holy Spirit commands us to become fools if we were to be the true learners of heavenly doctrine, because the animal man himself can neither receive nor taste anything of wisdom divine. On the direct contrary, you would have human reason and common sense to form a judgment of the great and adorable God, and you would not only set up reason by which, by its blindness, ever extinguishes God's glory as a leader and guide, but would exalt that blind reason above the scripture itself. What marvel, then, if you should unconcernedly permit all religions of all kinds to be confounded together, and that you should consider the Turk, who is enveloped in the deliriums of Mohammed, and who adores as his deity no one knows what, as much a worshipper of God as he who calls upon the Father of Christ, our Redeemer, instructed by the same word and faith of the everlasting gospel. Though that you do not patronize infidels seriously is a fact proclaimed aloud by those sarcastic grins of yours which show your teeth gnashing at every plainest and holiest article of our faith while the excuses which you make for the superstitions of all nations prove your malicious purpose to be root out of the earth every doctrine of the holy religion which the sacred oracles of God reveal and teach. On the other hand, out of that very human reason which is the mother of all errors, you form that God of yours who wills without any election or predestination of his own that all men should be saved. Has then the word election, which occurs so frequently in the Scriptures, no meaning whatever? Is it altogether a vain and empty term? Have the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel no meaning whatever, when they everywhere proclaim aloud that all those who were chosen by the eternal counsel of God before the foundation of the world are called and illuminated unto salvation? Is, we repeat, the united and harmonious testimony of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel an utterly vanity? when they pronounce free from all ambiguity that the source and cause of eternal life is the free love of God by which he has loved and embraced not all mankind but those out of mankind whom he pleased? And what will you gain, after all, I pray you, by thus roaring against this truth a hundred times over? You dazzle the sight of the ignorant and the inexperienced by setting before their eyes as a shining cloud your doctrine that God will have all men to be saved. But if these words of the Apostle are not in perfect harmony with that election whereby God predestinated His own children unto eternal life, let me ask you this question. How is it that if God willed all men to be saved, He did not show unto all nations and all men the way of salvation? Universally and well known is the remarkable word of God in the law. Behold, I set before thee this day the way of life and of death." If therefore God willed to gather together unto salvation all men without distinction, why did he not set before all men in common the way of life and of salvation? Whereas the fact was that he deemed one family or nation only worthy of this high privilege, nor did he confer this great blessing upon that one family for any other reason than because he loved them, if the testimony of Moses is to be believed, and because he would choose them for a peculiar people. You affirm that Christ was sent down from heaven in order that his righteousness might overabound wherever sin had abounded, whereas this one sentence of yours evidences that you have come forth, furnished by the devil, out of the very bowels of hell itself, with this spirit and doctrine, that it might conceal every possible religious lie under the show of godliness and truth, in order that you might hold up Christ himself and his true religion to derision. For if, wherever sin abounded, the righteousness of Christ was designed of God to superabound, the condition of Pilate was just as good and as safe as that of Peter or of Paul. But to say nothing of Pilate, Paul declares that the righteousness of Christ and the faith of the gospel can never be separated. And what gospel, I pray you, was there in France and in other distant heathen nations at the time when Christ was upon the earth? What? Was not God the same before the coming of the Son as He was when the Son did come and as He is now? and ever will be? Why then was it that he withheld the treasure of salvation from the nations of the earth except from the family of Abraham until the fullness of the time was come? Galatians 4.4 Wherefore swell yourself with rage to the utmost, and burst into derision, if you will and must, at the apostle Paul himself, for he declares that the mystery was made known by the preaching of the gospel which was before hidden in God. Ephesians 3.9 And now that the voice of the gospel hath sounded forth, the righteousness of Christ cometh unto none, save those who receive it by faith. And whence cometh this faith? If ye reply by hearing, your answer is true. But remember that it cometh not by hearing without the special revelation of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah himself expresses loud his wonder at the small number of those to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed. And Paul uses the very words of the prophet Isaiah when he confines the gift of faith to the elect alone. And will you permit and admit no distinction to be made of God in the salvation of men? Christ does indeed say aloud, Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden. But the same Redeemer of men elsewhere also exclaims, No one can come to me, except my Father which hath sent me, draw him. Nor is there any want of harmony, or oneness of truth, when the same Saviour, who invites all men unto Him without exception by His external voice, yet declares that a man can receive nothing except it were given him from above, and that no one can come unto Him but those to whom it is given of the Father. John 19.11.6.65 There is also another scripture which you be daubed and defiled by your swine-like pollution when you say that the light of the righteousness of Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the world, John 1.9. But had not John, I pray you, just before said that the light shineth in darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not, verse 5, by these words John signifieth that whosoever of human reason or understanding was given to men at the beginning was all stifled and extinguished by sin, and that no other remedy now remains than the enlightening of the blind eyes by the Spirit of Christ. It is indeed quite true that Christ never refused His grace to anyone that asked for it, but you forget all the while that all true prayers and entreaties are dictated and directed by the Spirit of God, and you are equally ignorant that faith, which is the fruit and consequence of free election, is the key that opens the ears of God and unlocks the door of the kingdom of heaven. Now, as you are thus evidently ignorant of these first principles of the doctrines of Christ, which, if you take away, you bring down the gospel of Christ at once to a level with the dark heathen mysteries of proserpine or of bacchus, It is really a marvel that persons ensnared by such enormous errors and delusions should ever find their way at all into the company of Christian men. As to your foul assertions that my disciples are made like unto myself, cruel, envious, proud, slanderers, carrying one thing on their tongue and another in their heart, I will come forward and refute this, your impudent revilings, prepared to do so, not so that my words not so much by words as by facts. For as I have no inclination to revile in return, let all your base calumnies, as far as I am concerned, remain dead and buried by my hands, except that I assume the permission, as in sacred duty bound, to make one solemn declaration, calling God to witness, that during the time I fed you at my house I never saw a man more proud, more profiteous, or more devoid of human kindness. And sure I am that those who do not confess that you are an imposter, a fellow of impudent audacity, a religious buffoon professedly set to brawl down all godliness, those, I say, who do not confess these to be your real principles, have no right judgment of your character. For what particular act of mine you accuse me of cruelty I am anxious to know. I myself know not that act, unless it be with reference to the death of your great master, Cervetus, but that I myself earnestly entreated that he might not be put to death, his judges themselves are witnesses, in the number of whom at the time, too, were his staunch favors and defenders. But I have said quite enough about myself. What are the real fruits produced by my doctrine, both in this city and far and wide throughout many nations, I leave to the considerations and reflections of all men. Out of this very skull which you so atrociously attack and unceasingly rend in pieces, God daily chooses to Himself men of the highest principles and of the sweetest odor of His truth to illustrate the doctrine of the gospel, and to be the victims of malice and cruelty. All those who really grow and make any advancement in the doctrine of the gospel, of the number of whom neither the world nor the church needs repent nor be ashamed, live a life supported by the slenderest means. with difficulty indeed, but with the greatest patience and with the greatest kindness towards all men, or else, bidding a spontaneous farewell to luxury of every kind, they give themselves up to frugality, peacefully and freely. They all, as one man resigning the world and self-enjoyment, aspire to the hope of a blessed immortality. Being averse to glorying in myself or boasting of myself, I have called to witness these bright examples of His grace, which God thus sets before the world to prove the truth of. and to defend that doctrine which you vainly endeavored to rend and sunder by your foul revilings. But do pray tell me what you were at the time that you favored this my doctrine. What was your state of mind at that time? You affirmed that you could never clearly understand it because the weight of my authority stood in your way, inducing you to consider it a perfect crime to entertain any judgment whatever in the least contrary to mine. Why, this is a marvelous matter. You must have been a brainless fellow indeed if you could not comprehend, after so many years' trial, that which I had taught you in the most familiar manner in my own house and so often expounded in your hearing in the public congregation. There are, however, many credible witnesses that, although I labored long but in vain to correct and heal by every possible means the depravity of your nature, Yet that during the time you did profess to be one of my followers, you were restrained by a somewhat effectual bridal from your evil ways, so that the real cause of your alienation from me evidently appears to be a longing desire to throw off the reign that you might break forth with unbridled license into this your present and pious chorus which is your true delight and boast, you affirm that it is a principle with you to regard not who it is that speaks, but what is spoken. I wish this had been a real principle with you long ago so that you might have profited by the labor of others and thus accustomed yourself to a teachable spirit. Whereas now, since audacity and loquacity are your only powers, all the favor you can produce to yourself from the evil mind it has gotten from your base despisings of others, I would arrogate nothing to myself, but I really seem to myself to have so far deserved well of the Church that if a place among the faithful servants of God be given to me by her, no man has a right to labor to bring my authority into contempt. Had you asserted that a few unalerted men looked to my nod or hung upon my judgments or were influenced by my fame and authority, you might have had some color of covering for your calumny. But now, since you magnify it into a notorious disgrace to me that my doctrine does not satisfy or please illiterate men who think you will believe you if you assert that learned and talented men alone have a taste for my books and that they derive the wisdom from them, nay, that they are so overawed by my authority as not to attempt any judgment of their own, If things be so, we shall prove upon your own authority that nothing can be judged to be true or right but that which seems to the ignorant multitude to be plausible. Yes, you would drive away all men from the liberal and useful arts and sciences and would boast among your fellows that all study and learning are useless and all the time spent in vain which is devoted to philosophy, to grammar, to logic, and even to divinity itself. He would thus cry down, I say, all youthful learning, for this very reason, that you might procure to yourselves ignorant disciples, and make yourselves great among them. And you say that they who followed Christ were such, such as if the Christian faith were a matter standing contrary to and inconsistent with learning. But let Christian readers here mark the difference which exists between you and me. I ever affirm that the wisest among men, until they become fools, and bidding farewell to all their own wisdom, give themselves up humbly and meekly to the obedience of Christ, are blinded by their own pride and remain utterly unable to taste one drop of heavenly doctrine. For all human reason is tasteless in the mysteries of God, and all human prospicuity blind. I maintain, therefore, that the beginning and essence of all Divine wisdom is humility. This strips us of all the wisdom of the flesh and prepares us to enter upon the mysteries of God with reverence and faith. You, on the contrary, bid ignorant and untaught men to come forth into public, men who, despising all learning and inflated with pride alone, rashly attempt to pass their judgment on divine things. Nor will you acknowledge any to be legitimate judges in divine matters, but those who, content with the opinion of reason and common sense, unceremoniously reject all which does not just suit their own mind and taste. Respecting the other reproach with which you loathe my humble followers, that of being heretics, the testimony of the Apostle quite satisfied them on that point, upon whose authority they would rather turn away from such real heretics as yourself and your followers than knowingly pollute their ears by listening to their blasphemies. You maintain, however, that such is not your principle of action. You hold that all men ought to be heard. Think you, then, that the apostles said in vain, A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject Titus 3.10? Now, if anyone had denied to you the right of being heard, you would have had some cause for complaint. But when there are always granted you the liberty of prating as you liked in the public assembly of the people, nay, when after having been called and almost dragged there, you had often sat down vanquished and with nothing to say, what farther liberty of speech would you have if the ears of the godly are ever opened to you unless they are satiated and nauseated unto disgust at your blasphemies against the adorable God? You can find gratification and delight in holding up all the first great principles of godliness to derision. But would you, therefore, have all the children of God to be such fools as to laugh at your audacious impudence or to endure your profane reproaches without a word or an emotion? With regard to the sacred cause in question, I feel confident that I have hereby given you a sufficient answer. so that all readers of a sound mind may easily perceive that I am not altogether destitute of that blessed Spirit who gives a mouth and a wisdom, which mouth and wisdom, if you are still determined to resist, you can do nothing more thereby than sustain a disgrace and a confusion corresponding with your obstinacy. Nevertheless, I will not cease to wish and to pray that you may yet bow to the manifest truth of God, though such a thing I scarcely dare to hope. One final word upon your remaining profaned year, that I have no ground for being angry at your reproaches, because, according to my own doctrine, they were written of necessity. But I am here furnished by the Scriptures with a solemn and effectual exhortation to forbearance, and nothing can be more instructive and appropriate in this case, nor better adapted to appease my indignation than this admonition of David. Let him curse for God hath bidden him," 2 Samuel 16.11. David knew that Shimei on that occasion was driven on by the same rage of cursing as that which you boil now. But those curses which Shimei thought he was hurling at David under the, to him, fortuitous occurrence of then present circumstances, David knew by reflection to be directed by the overruling and secret providence of God. And therefore he restrains himself by the utterance of these memorable words. And indeed, no man will ever bear the assaults of the devil and of the wicked men with a composure and moderation but the man who can turn away his mind and thoughts from those assaults to God alone, who ordained them, and who can say, using the words of God himself, The Lord rebuketh thee, saying, Zechariah 3.2. Amen. Geneva, January 5, 1558. This concludes the reading of The Defense of the Secret Providence of God by John Calvin. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. 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