Part Xii The Wicked, By Their Acts Of Wickedness, Do Rather God'S Work Than Their Own.
has prescribed for the regulation of the lives of men in His revealed Law. I at once confess that it is by the openly revealed doctrine of the Gospel that God will assuredly judge the world. But He will as assuredly vindicate, at the same time, the righteousness of His secret providence against all profane brawlers!
Indeed, were you but acquainted, even in the least degree, with that Gospel, concerning which you thus vainly prate, you would easily understand how it is that God richly rewards that righteousness which He sets forth in His glorious law, nor ever deprives of their promised crown those who from the heart obey His commandments, and yet righteously punishes all those who refuse their obedience.
These latter, nevertheless, He calls His servants, because He holds their hearts in His hands for the accomplishment of His eternal purposes. Hence Nebuchadnezzar, that furious plunderer of nations and slave of Satan, is called by Jeremiah, and with peculiar significance, "the servant" of God. And if I have taught that God, as is manifest by His judgments on every side, inclines the hearts of men hither and thither for the execution of His purposes and decrees, when the prophets of God declare these same things in the same words, and when I cite their own words, why impute you such citations as awful crimes committed by me? Are not these the very words of the Divine history? "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah" (2 Sam. xxiv. 1).
ARTICLE XII.
(THAT IS, CALUMNY XII.)
THE WICKED, BY THEIR ACTS OF WICKEDNESS, DO RATHER
GOD'S WORK THAN THEIR OWN.
CALUMNIATOR'S OBSERVATIONS AND STATEMENTS ON
ARTICLE XII.
With reference to this TWELFTH ARTICLE, Calvin, which is your doctrine, your opponents argue thus: If this really be the case, then,
God is often angry at that which is good. For if wickedness is the work of God, wickedness itself is good; for all the works of God are good. And again, if wickedness is good, it follows of necessity that godliness is evil, because it is the direct contrary to wickedness.
Hence, it will again follow, that when the Holy Scriptures command us to hate evil and love that which is good, they command us to love wickedness and hate godliness. Your opponents, moreover, affirm that this article of your doctrine really savours of libertinism, and they consequently marvel that you should be so determined a foe to the libertines.
REPLY OF JOHN CALVIN TO ARTICLE
XII.
(THAT IS, CALUMNY XII.)
AND TO CALUMNIATOR'S OBSERVATIONS, ETC., THEREON.
Before God, and the angels, and the whole world, I here again testify that what I did truly teach upon this subject, you have by the basest and most wicked calumny, utterly perverted. If it really seems to you an absurdity to teach that the wicked do the work of God, enter the battle at once with Jeremiah, the prophet of God, whose words are