An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavillations

To prove this similitude good and to show how much his love towards his children exceedeth the love of all creatures towards their births he sayeth:¹ Can a woman forget the child of her womb, and not pity the same whom she hath borne? And though she do forget it,² yet I will not forget thee. Here he speaketh not only to the elect (as some say) but also to them which did for sake and despise him as there.³ Alas for these disobedient children (sayeth the Lord) that they will take counsel without me. Here he calleth the wicked which heap sin upon sin▪ and were disobedient, his children.⁴ Christ sayeth, If ye when ye are evil can give your children good gifts, how much more your heavenly father? After the same manner may I reason with you (careless by necessity) if none of you though ye be evil, would beget a child to misery how much less would God which is all good beget and create man his own image to perpetual pains? Here we may see how much this naughty opinion is contrary to nature and to reason. and that it is contrary to the word, God willing I will prove. If God hath ordained the most part of the world to be damned, then were his wrath greater than his mercy. But the scripture witnesseth that his mercy is over all his works,⁵ and that God is slow unto wrath and ready unto mercy, so that his wrath is extended only to the third and fourth generation, but his mercy to the thousand generation wherefore thus (sayeth he):