The second objection Paul mentions, tends to justify men. “Why then doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” Since by his will he hath chained us with an inevitable necessity to sin, what can we do? Men cannot wrestle with him, why then doth he condemn and accuse them? “But who art thou, O man, who disputest against God?” As if Paul had said, thou art a man, and so I am, why then lookest thou for an answer from me? Let us rather both consider whom we speak of, whom thou accusest, and whom I defend. It is God; what art thou then to charge him, or what am I so to clear him? Believing ignorance is better than presumptuous knowledge, especially in those forbidden secrets in which it is more concerning to be ignorant with faith and admiration, than to know with presumption. Dispute _thou_, O man, _I_ will wonder, reply _thou_, _I_ will believe! Doth it become thee, the clay, to speak so to thy Former, “Why hast thou made me thus?” Let the consideration of the absolute right and dominion of God over us,—more than any creature hath over another, yea, or over themselves,—let that restrain us, and keep us within bounds. He may do with us what he pleaseth, for his own honour and praise, but it is his will that we should leave all the blame to ourselves, and rather behold the evident cause of our destruction in our sin, which is nearer us, than to search into a secret and incomprehensible cause in God’s counsel. Lecture XVII. Of Creation Heb. xi. 3.—“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”—Gen. i. 1. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” We are come down from the Lord’s purposes and decrees to the execution of them, which is partly in the works of creation and partly in the works of providence. The Lord having resolved upon it to manifest his own glory did in that due and predeterminate time apply his own power to this business. Having in great wisdom conceived a frame of the world in his mind from all eternity, he at length brings it forth, and makes it visible. We shall not insist upon the particular story of it, as it is set down in general, but only point at some things for our instruction.