An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

He had before concluded: that God would have mercy upon whom he would have mercy, and whom it pleased him, those did he harden. As this sentence far surmounted mans capacity,¹ so might it engender some doubts, in the hearts of the very godly. For they might have reasoned if that God will finally destroy all the reprobate, to what purpose are they now permitted to triumph, and to trouble the elect of God? In answering ⟨p. 178⟩to which doubt, the Apostle assigneth three reasons, why God with great patience,² suffereth the vessels of wrath. To wit that his power, his wrath, and the riches of the glory of his mercy more evidently may appear & be known. For if God should suddenly from the bellies of their mothers, take away the reprobate, or if he should in the beginning of their malice so break down their pride, that they could not proceed against him, nether should his power appear so great, nether yet his wrath so just and so holy. But when he doth suffer them, as he did Pharaoh, from one mischief to proceed to an other, often removing his plagues, and so declaring him self easy to be entreated, even unto such time, as their malice and rage do carry them, as it were openly to despise God, and his power, when then, I say, in one moment God potently doth over throw the force & strength of his enemies,³ as that he did of Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Belshazzar, and of others. then is his godly power, and most just wrath more evidently known, then that he should ether have repressed them in the beginning, ether yet have taken them away, before their malice began to bud. For hereby doth he not only admonish others of the certain destruction of all those that continue in cruelty, but also giveth to his Church most singular comfort, letting them see that his providence, and power watcheth for them, even when the rage of the enemy appeareth to devour all. And so do they see what is gods mercy towards them. Further when the elect advisedly do consider what be gods severe judgements against the inobedient, and do consider how prone and ready they them selves be of nature to rebellion against God, except they were conducted by his spirit, they come to a more lively feeling of gods free mercy & grace: by the which only they are exempt from the rank and society of the reprobate.