A guide to go to GodA guide to goe to God

Q. Can God be an Author of sin?

Q. CAn God be an Author of sinne?

A. No verily. It is the greatest blasphemy that can be to avouch, or conceit any such thing of God. There is no one thing so contrary to another, not white to black, not darkness to light, not death to life, as sin to God. That which is said of lying, may more generally be said of sin,¹ It is impossible (and that in the most strict and absolute kind of impossibility that can be) It is impossible that God should sin,² or be a cause, or Author of sin. This we ought to believe and profess, 1. because his supreme and absolute power is such as it ought not to be called into question. Is it fit to say to a King, thou art wicked? and to Princes, ye are ungodly? ³how much less to him that accepteth not the person of Princes, &c? 2. because the perfection of his purity is such as it admitteth no mixture.⁴ God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁵3. Because he is the original fountain of all goodness:⁶ so as if this principle (doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?) be infallibly true of any fountain, it is without contradiction most true of this original fountain. On these and other like grounds, we may well know that God hath power to give, with-hold, or withdraw what he will, and when he will: and to support or forsake whom he will: and that he is not bound to that law which he hath set to his creatures, nor to give an account to any. Yea we ought to acknowledge God to be as most pure in his nature, so most just in all his counsels, words and works: and if we cannot fully and clearly understand how the forenamed actions concerning leading into temptation can be attributed unto God, and yet God freed from all accessarinesse to sin, to lay our hands upon our mouths, and to ascribe it to the shallowness of our own apprehension: but no way to charge God with folly or sin. Among the Principles which without all gain-saying ought to be believed, this is one of the prime,