Thursday, July 18, 2013

Calvin and the supposed two wills of God

Take the matter more briefly and condensedly thus: God wills that adultery should not be committed, in as far as it is a pollution and violation of the holy bond of matrimony, and a great transgression of His righteous law. But, in as as far as God uses adulteries, as well as other wicked doings of men, to execute His own acts of vengeance on the sins of men, He certianly executes the office and performs the sacred duty of judge, not unwillingly, but willingly!

- John Calvin, Calvin's Calvinism Part two of the work on Providence

In as far as God wills a in His word that which should be done, He also wills in His secret counsel that which should not be done this is far because there are two wills in God. But that the first further reveals the latter. That in the latter God has so decreed to damn the Reprobate for sin. He does so in righteousness but in God's rejection of the reprobate he withholds His grace and hardens them making them into vessels of wrath to condemn them. He often times uses their sins to chastise his people to bring them unto glory. 
 

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