I will take care that they know these
maxims of their teachers:--"God is the author and cause of evil,
willing it, suggesting it, effecting it, commanding it, working
it out, and guiding the guilty counsels of the wicked to this
end. As the call of Paul, so the adultery of David, and the
wickedness of the traitor Judas, was God's own work" (Calvin,
_Institut_. i. 18; ii. 4; iii. 23, 24). This monstrous doctrine,
of which Philip Melanchthon was for once ashamed, Luther however,
of whom Philip had learned it, extols as an oracle from heaven
with wonderful praises, and on that score puts his foster-child
all but on an equality, with the Apostle Paul (Luther, _De servo
arbitrio_). I will also enquire what was in Luther's mind, whom
the English Calvinists pronounce to be "a man given of God for
the enlightenment of the world," when he wished to take this
versicle out of the Church's prayers, "Holy Trinity, one God,
have mercy on us."
I will proceed to the person of Christ. I will ask what these
words, "Christ the Son of God, God of God," mean to Calvin, who
says, "God of Himself" (_Instit._ i. 13); or to Beza, who says,
"He is not begotten of the essence of the Father" (Beza in Josue,
nn.
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