The Institution of Christian Religion

The third sort of their arguments, hath also great affinity with the two former. For they bring fourth the places wherein God reproacheth the unthankful people, and sayeth that they them selves only were the cause that they received not of his tender love all kinds of good things.¹ Of which sort are these places. Amaleck and the Canaanite are before you, with whose sword you shall fall, because ye would not obey the Lord, because I called and ye answered not,² I will do to this house as I did to Silo. Again, this nation hath not heard the voice of the Lord their God, nor hath received discipline,³ therefore it is cast away from the Lord. Again, because ye have hardened your heart and would not obey the Lord, all these evils are happened unto you. Howe (say they,) could such reproaches be laid against them which might readily answer? As for us, we loved prosperity, and feared adversity. But where as for to obtain the one and avoid the other, we obeyed not the Lord, nor hearkened to his voice: this was the cause thereof, for that it was not at our liberty so to do, because we were subject to the dominion of sin. Vainly therefore are these evils laid to our charge, which it was not in our power to avoid. But leaving the pretence of necessity, wherein they have but a weak and sickly defence, I ask of them whether they can purge them selves of all fault. For if they be found guilty of any fault, then the Lord doeth not without cause reproach them, that it came to pass by their perverseness, that they felt not the fruit of his clemency. Let them answer therefore, whether they can deny, that their froward will was the cause of their stubbornness. If they find the spring head of the evil within them selves, why gape they to find out foreign causes, that they might seem not to have been authors of their own destruction? But if it be true that by their own fault and none others, sinners are both deprived of the benefits of God, and chastised with punishments, then is there great reason why they should hear these reproaches at the mouth of God: that if they go obstinately forward in their faults, they may learn in their miseries rather to accuse and abhor their own wickedness, than to blame God of unjust cruelty:

The thyrd sort of their argumentes, hath also great affinitie with the twoo fourmer. For they bryng fourth the places wherein God reprocheth the vnthankefull people, and sayeth that they them selues onlye were the cause that they receyued not of his tender loue all kyndes of good thynges.