A04920:632
An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations
An answer to a great number of blasphemous cavillations written by an Anabaptist, and adversary to Gods eternal predestination. And confuted by John Knox, minister of Gods word in Scotland. Wherein the author so discovereth the craft and falsehood of that sect, that the godly knowing that error, may be confirmed in the trueth by the evident Word of GodAn answer to a great nomber of blasphemous cauillations written by an Anabaptist, and aduersarie to Gods eternal predestination. And confuted by Iohn Knox, minister of Gods worde in Scotland. Wherein the author so discouereth the craft and falshode of that sect, that the godly knowing that error, may be confirmed in the trueth by the euident Worde of God
Geneva: printed by John Crespin, 1560Geneva: printed by Iohn Crespin, 1560
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
In the words of Zechariah you show your ignorance, & in collecting the mind of Oded,1 you plainly declare your accustomed falsehood in farther stretching the mind of the Prophet, than his words will bear. Which thing I will first show by reciting the plain words, and so return to the Prophet Zechariah. There was in Samaria a Prophet of the Lords (saith the history) whose name was Oded, and he went out before the host that came to Samaria, and said unto them:2 Behold because the Lord God of your fathers is wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hands, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up to heaven. And now ye purpose to keep under the children of Judah and Jerusalem, as servants and had maids unto you: But are not you such that sins are with you before the Lord your God? These be his words in that matter, by the which if you be able to prove, that the Israelites did more, then God in his eternal counsel had appointed that they should do against Judah, and Jerusalem, we will patiently hear your probation, and reasons. If you say the Prophet reproved them of ⟨p. 358⟩their cruelty, therefore they did more then God would: y• doth not follow, for the just will of God must not be measured, by the cruelty of their fact, but by his own word, which doeth affirm, that God gave over Judah into, the hands of the king of Syria, & into the hands of the king of Israel, who did strike them with a great slaughter, and that for the sins, and abominable idolatry, which they, & Achas their king, had committed. We hear, and see affirmed by the holy Ghost, that God gave them over into the hands of their enemies, which thing he did willingly, and not by permission as you writ. Now to the place of Zachariah in which I say, you show gross, and wicked ignorance. For if your interpretation should be received, then of necessity it should follow, that in God their lacked power to impede, and stay the fury of those cruel men, who in their victory did so insolently rage. For if God would only have had the Jews gently corrected, & not to have been so severely, and rigorously destroyed: and yet, that against all manner, & sort of his will, they were so cruelly entreated, it can not be denied, but that the cruelty, and rage of the Babylonians was greater, then God could impede or stay, how blasphemous, and false this is, the godly doeth understand.