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274 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
they do it through necessity, and if they are damned, it is by
necessity also, for all the damned are destined to be so by God,
even before their creation. This monstrous doctrine will be
refuted in the next Section.
49. Calvin maintains this horrible opinion by the following
reasons : God never, he says, could have had the foreknowledge
of the eternal happiness or misery of any of us,
if he had not
ordained by his decree the good or bad works we perform during
"
our lives : Decretum quidem horribile fateor, inficiari tamen
nemo poterit, quin praisciverit Deus, quern exitum esset habiturus
homo ; et ideo pra3sciverit, quia decreto suo sic ordinaverat."
We answer, that there is a great difference between foreseeing
and predestining the sins of mankind. There is not the least
doubt but that God, by his infinite intelligence, knows and com
prehends every thing that will come to pass, and, among the rest,
but some things he fore
all the sins which each one will commit ;
sees according to his positive decree; others according to his
permission; but neither the Divine decree nor the permission
are opposed to man s free will, for when God foresees our good
or evil works, he foresees them all performed freely. The secta
ries argue thus : If God has foreseen Peter s sin, for example,
he cannot be mistaken as to his knowledge of what will happen
when the time foreseen arrives ;
therefore Peter must necessarily
sin. Here they are in error, however, when they say neces
sarily ; he will infallibly sin, because God has foreseen it, and
cannot err in his foresight; but he will not necessarily sin,
because, if he wishes to sin, he will do so of his own free will, by
his own malice, and God will permit him to do so, solely not to
deprive him of that free will which he gave him.
50. We shall now see how many absurd consequences proceed
from this sectarian doctrine. First absurdity They say that
God, for his own just ends, ordains and wills the sins committed
by mankind. But nothing can be clearer than the Scriptures on
this point, which tell us that God not only does not wish sins, but
looks on them with horror, and wishes nothing so much as our
sanctification :
" Thou
art not a God that wiliest iniquity
(Psalm v, 5). "To God the wicked and his wickedness are
hateful alike" (Wisdom, xiv, 9) ;
"
Thy eyes are too pure to
behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity" (Habak. i, 13).