And for the arguments derived from the attributes of God, so far forth as those attributes are argumentative, that is, so far forth as their significations be conceivable, I admit them for arguments; but where they are given for honour only, and signify nothing but an intention and endeavour to praise and magnify as much as we can Almighty God, there I hold them not for arguments, but for oblations; not for the language, but (as the Scripture calls them) for the calves of our lips; which signify not true nor false, nor any opinion of our brain, but the reverence and devotion of our hearts; and therefore they are no sufficient premises to infer truth or convince falsehood. The places of Scripture that make for me are these. First, (Gen. xlv. 5): Joseph saith to his brethren that had sold him, _Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life._ And again (verse 8), _So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God._ And concerning Pharaoh, God saith, (Exod. vii. 3): _I will harden Pharaoh’s heart._ And concerning Sihon King of Heshbon, Moses saith, (Deut. ii. 30): _The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate._ And of Shimei that did curse David, David himself saith, (2 Sam. xvi. 10): _Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, curse David._ And (1 Kings, xii. 15): _The King hearkened not to the people, for the curse was from the Lord._ And Job, disputing this very question, saith, (Job xii. 14): _God shutteth man, and there can be no opening_: and verse 16: _The deceived and the deceiver are his_: and verse 17: _He maketh the Judges fools_: and verse 24: _He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way_: and verse 25: _He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man._ And of the King of Assyria, God saith, _I will give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets._ (Isaiah x. 6.) And Jeremiah saith, (Jer. x. 23): _O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps._ And to Ezekiel, whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel, God saith thus: _When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin._ (Ezek. iii. 20.) Note here, God lays the stumbling block, yet he that falleth dieth in his sin: which shows that God’s justice in killing dependeth not on the sin only. And our Saviour saith, (John vi. 44): _No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him._ And St. Peter, concerning the delivering of Christ to the Jews, saith thus, (Acts ii. 23): _Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken_, &c.