And this is the decree of reprobation, which by no means makes God the Author of sin (the very thought of which is blasphemy), but declares Him to be an awful, irreprehensible, and righteous Judge and Avenger thereof.

We believe that the same good God, after He had created all things, did not forsake them or give them up to fortune or chance, but that He rules and governs them according to His holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without His appointment; nevertheless, God neither is the author of nor can be charged with the sins which are committed. For His power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that He orders and executes His work in the most excellent and just manner, even then when devils and wicked men act unjustly.

Yet we deny that He is the author of sin, or that the blame of things done amiss can be laid upon Him, seeing His will is the sovereign and infallible rule of all righteousness and equity: but this we confess that He has those admirable means as whereby He makes the devils and the ungodly, as His instruments to serve Him and to turn the evil which they do and whereof they are guilty into good.

The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence, that His determinate counsel extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sinful actions both of angels and men (Rom. 11:32–34; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chron. 21:1); and that not by a bare permission, which also He most wisely and powerfully bounds, and otherwise orders and governs (2 Kings 19:28; Ps. 76:10), in a manifold dispensation to His most holy ends (Gen. 50:20; Isa. 10:6–7, 12); yet so, as the sinfulness of their acts proceeds only from the creatures, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin (Ps. 50:21; 1 John 2:16).

Of the author of sin, we confess that our Lord God, though He is the creator and sustainer of all creatures, yet He is not the author of sin. It is rather the evil will, both in the Devil and in the godless human, that, when he does not obtain help from the Lord God, turns away from God, as Christ speaks in John 8, “When the Devil speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (v. 44).