An evident display of Popish practises, or patched Pelagianism Wherein is mightily cleared the…An euident display of Popish practises, or patched Pelagianisme Wherein is mightelie cleared the…

What is it to play the Devil,¹ if this be not? The words of Calvin which thou hast wrested, are these. We must (sayeth he) see how the will of GOD is cause of all things that are done in the world, and yet GOD is not the Author of evils. I will not say with Augustine (which yet I reverence as spoken truly of him,) that in Sin or evil, there is nothing posititious. For it is a sharp saying which would not content many. But I make choice of an other beginning. Those things which are wickedly and unjustly done of men, the same are the right and just works of God. If this seem to some at the first sight a Paradox, ²let them not at the least be so high minded, but a little be content with me to enquire out of the word of God what is to be thought. These sayeth Calvin. Then he showeth by the Scriptures, how God by his counsel governeth those things which seem most casual, what is the Stoical necessity, and how far casualty is not abandoned. Then he descendeth to those actions wherein the counsels and endeavours of men come in betwixt, and teacheth, that God worketh, so as that that be performed which was or dained from above, even by the wicked themselves, albeit ⟨p. 162⟩unwitting and against their will. Summarily, Calvin teacheth, that God worketh well, even by evil instruments so oft as pleaseth him, nor therefore, that himself is allied to any fault, or that the evil instruments do not sin. If he speak either wickedly, or unaptly, or too obscurely that speaketh so, let yt holy Ghost be blamed of all these faults. For yt Lord letteth not in Isai to call yt miserable destruction of Jerusalem full of all calamities,