wilt speak no more--what thou
art, who is as clay formed out of nothing; what he is, who is the former;
and hath not the potter power over the clay? Consider but how great
wickedness it is so much as to question him, or ask an account of his
matters. After you have found his will to be the cause of all things, then
to inquire farther into a cause of his will, which is alone the self-rule
of righteousness, is to seek something above his will, and to reduce his
majesty into the order of creatures. It is most abominable usurpation and
sacrilege, for it both robs him of his royal prerogative, and instates the
base footstool into his throne; but know, that certainly God will overcome
when he is judged, Psal. i. 6. If thou judge him, he will condemn thee; if
thou oppugn his absolute and holy decrees, he will hold thee fast bound by
them to thy condemnation; he needs no other defence but to call out thy
own conscience against thee, and bind thee over to destruction. Therefore,
as one saith well, "Let the rashness of men be restrained from seeking
that which is not, lest peradventure they find that which is." Seek not a
reason of his purposes, lest peradventure thou find thy own death and
damnation infolded in them.

Paul mentions two objections of carnal and fleshly wisdom against this
doctrine of election and reprobation, which indeed contain the sum of all
that is vented and invented even to this day, to defile the spotless truth
of God. All the whisperings of men tend to one of these two,--either to
justify themselves, or to accuse God of unrighteousness; and shall any do
it and be guiltless? I confess, some oppose this doctrine, not so much out
of an intention of accusing God, as out of a preposterous and ignorant
zeal for God; even as Job's friends did speak much for God. Nay, but it
was not well spoken, they did but speak wickedly for him. Some speak much
to the defence of his righteousness and holiness, and, under pretence of
that plea, make it inconsistent with these to fore-ordain to life or death
without the foresight of their carriage; but shall they speak wickedly for
God, or will he accept their person? He who looks into the secrets of the
heart, knows the rise and bottom of such defences and apologies for his
holiness to be partly self-love, partly narrow and limited thoughts of
him, drawing him down to the determinations of his own greatest enemy,
carnal reason. Since men will ascribe to him no righteousness, but