I will harden] By withdrawing or withholding grace from him, (as by withholding or withdrawing light, he causeth darknesse) and permitting Satan to worke upon him, and to excite and spurre on his corrupt nature to all manner of contradiction and contumacie against God: and herein (viz. in respect of nature and grace) it was with him, as with a Greyhound held in by a slip or collar when an Hare is in sight, for (if that be let loose) he runneth violently at the Hare, (according to the disposition which is naturally in him) and not put into him by him that first held him in, and after let him loose, but is thereupon discovered by leaving him at libertie, to exercise his antipathie on that creature. The grace of God is like that restraining slip or collar, which if it be taken away, mans naughty nature breaks loose into all manner of excesse, to which he is naturally inclined, or Satanically tempted. If it be said that the not hindring sinne maketh a guilt of sinne, as Neh. 13. 15, 16, 17. and therefore that Florinus (though branded for an heretick by the ancients) was in the right, when he held, that God was the author of sinne, it will not follow: for though it be true in men, that they are bound to hinder it all they can: it is not so in God, for he is bound to none, and therefore is free to bestow or withhold his grace, as he pleaseth: and (when the devill and wicked men have done their worst) he knoweth how to make the best of any evill act, and to turne even a great evill into an occasion of great good, as the passion of Christ to the preservation of Christians, Esa. 53. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Rom. 5. 9, 10. Eph. 5. 25, 26, 27.