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188
Balthasar Hübmaier
[1524-
'ordered' will, not as though the secret will were without order, for everything that God wills and does is right and good, but he himself is subject to no rule, but his will itself is the rule of all things. The schoolmen call that will ordered, because it is fulfilled according to the word of Scripture, in which he has revealed his will; and so we speak also of the 'secret' and 'revealed' will of God, not as though there were a double will in God, but the Scripture speaks so in order to accommodate itself to human weakness, that we may know that although God is almighty and can do all things by his power, yet he will not deal with us poor creatures according to his omnipotence, but according to his mercy, which he has shown by his Son. God wills that all men should be saved (1 Tim. ii., 4). Who then can resist the will of God? 'Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? ' (Rom. ix., 20). If then God wills that all men should be saved, it must be done according to his will, and therefore the question is whether we will or not."[1]
It will not seem entirely inexplicable to one who has read carefully this extract, that Hübmaier should be claimed as an advocate of their theologies, with equal confidence, by both Arminians and Calvinists. In the tenet that afterwards became the shibboleth of Calvinism, an atonement limited to the elect, the sympathies of Hübmaier would cer-
- ↑ Freedom of the Will, Op. 23; Hoschek, ii., 154.
