“Thirdly, God is said to harden the heart permissively, but not operatively, nor effectively, as he who only lets loose a greyhound out of the slip, is said to hound him at the hare. Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardening? Read Rom. ix. 22, 23: _What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known_ (that is, by a consequent will, which in order of nature follows the prevision of sin), _endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy_, &c. There is much difference between _enduring_ and _impelling_, or inciting the vessels of wrath. He saith of the vessels of mercy, that _God prepared them unto glory_. But of the vessels of wrath, he saith only that they were _fitted to destruction_, that is, not by God, but by themselves. St. Paul saith, that God doth _endure the vessels of wrath with much long-suffering_. T. H. saith, that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad, that he necessitateth them, and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evil, and for which he punisheth them. If _doing willingly_, and _enduring_, if _much long-suffering_, and _necessitating_, imply not a contrariety one to another, _reddat mihi minam Diogenes_, let him that taught me logic, give me my money again. “But T. H. saith, that this distinction between the _operative_ and _permissive_ will of God, and that other between the action and the irregularity, do dazzle his understanding. Though he can find no difference between these two, yet others do; St. Paul himself did (Acts xiii. 18): _About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness_. And (Acts xiv. 16): _Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways._ T. H. would make suffering to be inciting, their manners to be God’s manners, their ways to be God’s ways. And (Acts xvii. 30): _The times of this ignorance God winked at_. It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act. And (1 Cor. x. 13): _God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able_. To tempt is the devil’s act; therefore he is called the _tempter_. God tempts no man to sin, but he suffers them to be tempted. And so suffers, that he could hinder Satan, if he would. But by T. H.’s doctrine, to tempt to sin, and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it, is all one. And so he transforms God (I write it with horror) into the devil, and makes tempting to be God’s own work, and the devil to be but his instrument. And in that noted place, (Rom. ii. 4, 5): _Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath