edicts written
in so small a hand and has them placarded in so high a place that it is not
possible to read them; with that of a mother who neglects her daughter's
honour in order to attain her own selfish ends; with that of Queen
Catherine de Medicis, who is said to have abetted the love-affairs of her
ladies in order to learn of the intrigues of the great; and even with that
of Tiberius, who arranged, through the extraordinary services of the
executioner, that the law forbidding the subjection of a virgin to capital
punishment should no longer apply to the case of Sejanus's daughter. This
last comparison was proposed by Peter Bertius, then an Armenian, but
finally a member of the Roman communion. And a scandalous comparison has
been made between God and Tiberius, which is related at length by Andreas
Caroli in his _Memorabilia Ecclesiastica_ of the last century, as M. Bayle
observes. Bertius used it against the Gomarists. I think that arguments of
this kind are only valid against those who maintain that justice is an
arbitrary thing in relation to God; or that he has a despotic power which
can go so far as being able to condemn innocents; or, in short, that good
is not the motive of his actions.

167. At that same time an ingenious satire was composed against the
Gomarists, entitled _Fur praedestinatus, de gepredestineerdedief_, wherein
there is introduced a thief condemned to be hanged, who attributes to God
all the evil he has done; who believes himself predestined to salvation
notwithstanding his wicked actions; who imagines that this belief is
sufficient for him, and who defeats by arguments _ad hominem_ a
Counter-remonstrant minister called to prepare him for death: but this
thief is finally converted by an old pastor who had been dismissed for his
Arminianism, whom the gaoler, in pity for the criminal and for the weakness
of the minister, had brought to him secretly. Replies were made to this
lampoon, but replies to satires never please as much as the satires
themselves. M. Bayle (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III,
ch. 154, p. 938) says that this book was printed in England in the [228]
time of Cromwell, and he appears not to have been informed that it was only
a translation of the much older original Flemish. He adds that Dr. George
Kendal wrote a confutation of it at Oxford in the year 1657, under the
title of _Fur pro Tribunali_, and that the dialogue is there inserted. This
dialogue presup