herein one is responsible to none for one's actions. But they will
not have denied that God owes to himself what goodness and justice demand
of him. On that matter one may see M. Amyraut's _Apology for Calvin_: it is
true that Calvin appears orthodox on this subject, and that he is by no
means one of the extreme Supralapsarians.

179. Thus, when M. Bayle says somewhere that St. Paul extricates himself
from predestination only through the consideration of God's absolute right,
and the incomprehensibility of his ways, it is implied that, if one
understood them, one would find them consistent with justice, God not being
able to use his power otherwise. St. Paul himself says that it is a
_depth_, but a depth of wisdom (_altitudo sapientiae_), and _justice_ is
included in _the goodness of the All-wise_. I find that M. Bayle speaks
very well elsewhere on the application of our notions of goodness to the
actions of God (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 81, p. 139):
'One must not assert here', he says, 'that the goodness of the [239]
infinite Being is not subject to the same rules as the goodness of the
creature. For if there is in God an attribute that can be called goodness,
the marks of goodness in general must apply to him. Now when we reduce
goodness to the most general abstraction, we find therein the will to do
good. Divide and subdivide into as many kinds as you shall please this
general goodness, into infinite goodness, finite goodness, kingly goodness,
goodness of a father, goodness of a husband, goodness of a master, you will
find in each, as an inseparable attribute, the will to do good.'

180. I find also that M. Bayle combats admirably the opinion of those who
assert that goodness and justice depend solely upon the arbitrary choice of
God; who suppose, moreover, that if God had been determined by the goodness
of things themselves to act, he would be entirely subjected to necessity in
his actions, a state incompatible with freedom. That is confusing
metaphysical necessity with moral necessity. Here is what M. Bayle says in
objection to this error (_Reply_, ch. 89, p. 203): 'The consequence of this
doctrine will be, that before God resolved upon creating the world he saw
nothing better in virtue than in vice, and that his ideas did not show him
that virtue was more worthy of his love than vice. That leaves no
distinction between natural right and positive right; there will no longer
be anything un