The Institution of Christian Religion

The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away, as it pleased God so is it come to pass. We gather that God was the author of that trial of Job, whereof Satan and the wicked thieves were ministers. Satan goeth about to drive the holy man by desperation to madness. The Sabeans cruelly & wickedly do invade and rob his goods that were none of theirs. Job knowledgeth that he […] by God stripped of all his goods and made poor, because it so pleased God. Therefore whatsoever men or Satan himself attempt, yet God holdeth the stern to turn all their travails to the executing of his judgements. It was Gods will to have the false king Ahab deceived:¹ the devil offered his service thereunto: he was sent with a certain commandment, to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the Prophets. If the blinding and madness of Ahab be the judgement of God, then the devise of bare Sufferance is vain. For it were a fond thing to say, that the judge doeth only suffer and not also decree what he will have done,² and command the ministers to put it in execution. It was the Jews purpose to destroy Christ, Pilate and the soldiers do follow their raging lust, and yet in a solemn prayer the disciples do confess, that all the wicked men did nothing else but that which the hand and counsel of God had determined:³ even as Peter had before preached, that Christ was by the decreed purpose and foreknowledge of God delivered to be slain. As if he should say: that God (from whom nothing is hidden from the beginning did wittingly and willingly appoint that which the Jews did execute, as in an other place he••herseth, that God which showed before by all his Prophets that Christ should suffer, hath so fulfilled it.⁴ Absalom defiling his fathers bed with incestuous adultery, committed detestable wickedness. Yet God pronounceth that this was his own work. For the words are these. Thou haste done it secretly, but I will do it openly, and before the sun.⁵ Jeremiah pronounceth that all the cruelty that the Chaldees used in Jury, was the work of God. For which cause Nebuchadnezzar is called the servant of God. God every where crieth out that with his