“You’re going to hang your argument on how a 360-year-old document uses the word “pleased”? From the context, it seems pretty clear to me that “pleased” meant “what God wanted”. “
How about we replace the text and see the results?
CHAPTER 3
Of God’s Eternal Decree
1. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
7. The rest of mankind God wanted, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he wanted, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.
CHAPTER 5
Of Providence
1. God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
3. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.
CHAPTER 6
Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God wanted, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.
2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.
4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
5. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.
6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.
CHAPTER 33
Of the Last Judgment
1. God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.
2. The end of God’s appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice, in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
It doesn’t really read any better, you know.
God always does get what He wants. The quibble that we have between us is the difference between frogmarching the elite out from a line of people headed for hell and making them love Him, and freely offering salvation to all who would accept it from Him and who would then freely love Him.
How about we replace the text and see the results? ...... It doesn’t really read any better, you know.
To me it reads the same, so the intended purpose is accomplished, that of dispelling any idea that God experiences human-like gleeful giddiness in the suffering of others.
The quibble that we have between us is the difference between frogmarching the elite out from a line of people headed for hell and making them love Him, and freely offering salvation to all who would accept it from Him and who would then freely love Him.
I think I know what you're saying so I won't quibble over a quibble, and just say "close enough". :) I suppose this goes back to what sort of child the human is before God. We would say the comparison is much closer to a very young child, one who it utterly incapable of taking care of himself, and if fully dependent on the parent for everything.