10. One of our friends to relieve the difficulty takes an illustration from daily life, and tells us how frequently it happens that masters who are kind and long-suffering towards their erring servants say, "I ruined you"; and "I spoiled you"; meaning to imply that their kindness and long-suffering seem to have occasioned worse behaviour. As then a sophistical reasoner may say that because the master speaks thus, he confesses that he has spoiled the servant; so, it may be urged, what God in His goodness does, having been made the occasion of Pharaoh's hardness, is described as having hardened Pharaoh's heart. And our friend will discover in the Apostle's own words the softer meaning he desires: "Or 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 for thyself wrath in the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his works." Anyway, the same Apostle, in the same Epistle to the Romans, says, "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction," as if the long-suffering of God having endured the vessels of wrath, had, as it were, produced them. For if, because of His long-suffering He did not chastise the sinners but took pity on them, and if wickedness thereby abounded, He in a way by His long-suffering endured |235 the vessels of wrath, and, so to speak, Himself made them vessels of wrath, and accordingly Himself hardened their heart. For when Pharaoh, although so many signs and wonders were wrought, is not persuaded, but after his strange experiences still resists, is he not certainly proved to be harder and more unbelieving, and does it not look as though the hardness and unbelief had arisen from the marvellous miracles? The passage in the Gospel is similar: "For judgment came I into this world"; for the Saviour did not purpose to come for judgment, but His coming for judgment of those who after His marvellous works believed not on Him was a consequence of His coming; He, moreover, came for the fall of many; but He did not purpose when He came to make them fall for whose fall He came.