It is to be observed that it is the custom in the Holy Scripture to speak of God's permission as His energy, as when the apostle says in the Epistle to the Romans, Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor? And for this reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble things, but the personal choice of each one. And this is manifest from what the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel to honor sanctified, and fit for the master's use, and prepared for every good work. And it is evident that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he says, purge himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, If a man does not purge himself he will be a vessel to dishonor, unfit for the master's use and fit only to be broken in pieces. Therefore this passage that we have quoted and this, God has concluded them all in unbelief, and this, God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, all these must be understood not as though God Himself were energizing, but as though God were permitting, both because of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.