some things might take possession of beeing without his leave or notice The originall of this feare is want of distinction betweene chance or casualty and such contingency as hath beene expressed 6 Many reasons might be alledged sufficient to demonstrate the inevitable absurdities of this supposed absolute necessity But it is one labour to convince an error before indifferent hearers another to make men forsake the errours which have long possessed them a third to win them unto a liking of the contrary truth For effecting the two latter no meanes can be so effectuall in respect of their disposition with whom we have to deale as a plaine declaration how ill this opinion of absolute necessity how well this doctrine of mixt possibility or contingency consorts first with their owne resolution of other difficulties in this very argument whereof wee treate secondly with the perpetuall voice of Gods Spirit and his Messengers specially when they seeke ex professo to perswade to good and to disswade from evill CHAP. 15. The principall conclusions which are held by the favourers of absolute necessity may be more clearly justified and acquitted from all inconveniences by admitting a mixt possibility or contingency in humane actions 1 THe most I have met withall are afraid in plaine termes to maintaine That God did as immediately and as necessarily decree Adams fall or state of sinne as his originall justice or state of integrity For this were to make him as true as proper and necessary a cause of sinne and of all evill as he is of goodnesse To allay the harshnesse of some speeches heretofore used by those men whom they favour they will grant no more then this that God did decree to permit his fall But the speech is improper and very ambiguous and in what sense soever it may be taken it must plead its warrant or right use from our opinion theirs can afford it none Permission to speake properly is a vertuall part of the Decree it selfe not the object whereto the decree is terminated But to let this passe we will take Gods decree to perâ—it to be all one as if they had said Gods permissive decree Did God then by his decree permit Adam to sinne if he did this decree was either just or unjust Whatsoever is by just decree permitted is by the same decree sufficiently warranted At least the punishment otherwise due unto it is dispensed with Such divorces as were unlawfull from the first institution of Matrimony in Paradise were permitted to the Israelites for the hardnesse of their hearts by Moses and for this reason they were not punished by the judiciall Law If it should please our Soveraigne to permit sickly Students to eate flesh in Lent we would take his professed permission for a sufficient dispensation with the penall Statutes in this case provided God questionlesse would never have punished Adam for eating an Apple if by his eternall decrece he had permitted him to have eaten it But their meaning haply is not that God did allow or approve his eating of it seeing he threatned it with death But if by his decree he did not allow it he did permit it onely in such a sense as we may say the Lawes of our land permit men to be hanged because they keepe not men close prisoners nor so tye their hands that they cannot steale rob or kill before they bee suspected or convicted of felonie robbery or murder But no tyrant did ever before hand forbid such a fact under paine of death without a supposed naturall possibility to avoid it And just Lawes afford ordinary or civill meanes for satisfying nature in necessities lest these as they know no lâ—w enforce men to use their naturall possibilities or faculties amisse The lawes of this Land and others which make theft matter of death permit men the free imployment of bodily faculties to earne their bread or if they be impotent to crave or accept the benevolence of others lest they should perish for hunger or be enforced to steale If our lawes or Lawgivers not permitting any of these meanes or the like should punish the taking of a loafe of bread or cup of drinke with death they might be more truly said to enjoyne then permit theft to be more delighted with the bloud of the needy than with preservation of publike peace albeit they did not set other mens meat before theÌ„ when they are hungred nor lead their hands to take it In like manner he that saith God did permit Adam to eate the forbidden fruit and by eating to incurre death doth necessarily imply that God permitted him the free use of his externall and internall faculties to satisfie his appetite with some other meate Now the free use of any faculty includes the concourse or cooperation of God without which it is impossible any creature should move And this concourse was a part of his decree or will as it concerned this act More plainly He that permitted Adam to sinne did more than permit him to abstaine from sinne or to persevere in obedience If then God in permitting him onely to sinne did afford meanes necessary for reducing this possibility of sinning into a sinfull act not allowed his more than permission of him to abstaine from sinne his commandement to persevere in obedience did not onely suppose a true possibility for him to abstaine and persevere but include withall better meanes for reducing this possibility into act then were afforded for enabling him actually to sinne These two contrary possibilities and the severall meanes for accomplishing them must beare a proportion answerable to a meere permission without approbation or to a prohibition and to a peremptorie command of civill authoritie Now every just Lawgiver affords better meanes and incouragement for accomplishing his commands or requests then he doth for breaking or neglecting them 2 For conclusion when they say God by his aeternall deree did permit Adams fall their meaning rightly expressed is no more then this God did not decree that his perseverance should bee necessarie For necessitie of perseverance excludes all possibility of falling But if his fall had beene necessarie in respect of the aeternall decree it had not onely beene permitted but allowed and required It remaines then that both were possible neither necessary in respect of the divine decree Or to untwist the knot a little further God by his decree did permit and allow him a possibility to fall but he did not allow the reduction of this possibility into act that is he gave it him not to the end that he should fal but that his perseverance might be more beneficiall He did not onely permit or allow him a possibitie of perseverance but did command and require the reduction of this possibilitie into act 3 This forme of wholsome doctrine admitted will clearely enlighten the truth of another distinction or resolution much used but mightily obscured or rather quite stifeled by such as hold all things necessary in respect of the
aeternall decree The distinction is God is the cause of every action but he is not the cause of the obliquitie which accompanies sinfull actions nor of sinne as it is sinne This is their last Apologie for avoyding that imputation of making God the author of sinne Herein wee both agree The coexistence of the all-working decree or divine cooperation is necessarily required to every action or effect Every action includes a motion and in him wee move wee live and have our beeing But hee that will grant this cooperation or actuall coexistence of the all-working decree to be the necessarie cause of every action unto which it is most necessarily required must upon the same tearmes grant God to bee not the necessarie onely but the onely cause of all and every obliquitie of all and every sinne of all that hath beene is or can be blame-worthy in men or devills from their creation to euerlasting The demonstration of this inconvenience or absurdity wherewith we charge the adverse opinion but no maintainer of it must be referred unto the discussions of the state of Innocency and the manner of sinnes entring into the world we are now engaged to extract a better meaning out of their other words than they themselves expresse or can truely be contained in them untill they abandon the opinion of absolute necessity in humane actions as they have reference to the aeternall decree Seeing it is agreed vpon that God and man are joynt agents in every sinfull action or in effects essentially evill such questionlesse was mans desire to be like God or his lusting after the forbiden fruite The Probleme remaines why both should not be aequall sharers in the sinne or how it is possible justly to condemne men of iniquitie without some imputation unto God who is the principall agent in all actions Shall wee bee partiall for him or seeke to excuse him by his greatnesse Shall wee say hee cannot doe amisse because he is supreame Lord over all and may doe with his creatures what hee list To such as count the donative of robbers a true boone or reall curtesie to such as can magnifie their owne integrity whereof they give no proofe save onely as he did by negatives non hominem occidi I am no murtherer The Poet hath shaped an answere as fit as pertinent non pasces in cruce corvos Thou shalt not feede Ravens upon a Gibbet To say God is the Author of sinne were hideous blasphemie yet to say he is no tempter no seducer of mankind to evill is not to offer praise unto him Let my spirit vanish with my breath and my immortall soule returne to nothing rather then suffer her selfe to be overtaken with such a dead slumber as can rest contented to set forth His Glory by bare negatives or by not being the Author of sinne who is most highly to be praised in all his works whose goodnesse is infinitely greater in concurring to sinfull actions then the goodnesse of his best creatures in the accomplishment of their most syncere intentions 4 The truth of this conclusion is necessarily grounded upon these assertions hereafter to bee discussed That mans possibilitie or hopes of attaining everlasting happinesse was of necessitie to bee tempered with a possibilitie of sinning or falling into miserie To permit or allow man this possibility of sinning to bestow upon him the contrary possibility of not sinning and hope of happines was one the same branch of divine goodnesse One the selfe same branch of Gods goodnesse it was to allow this possibilitie of sinning and to afford his concourse for reducing of it into Act. For unlesse he had decreed to afford his concourse thereto it had beene impossible for man actually to have sinned And if for man to sinne had beene made impossible by Gods decree it had been alike impossible for him to have done well or ill or to become truly happy Briefly God in that hee decreed a mixture of contrary possibilities decreed withall a concourse or cooperation sutable unto and sufficient for the actuall accomplishment of both To the probleme propounded the answere from these grounds is easie Albeit God and man bee joynt agents in every action or effect essentially evill yet the whole sinne is wholy mans because the nature of sinne consists either in mans using the possibility of sinne allowed of God for his good to accomplish such acts as God disallowes or in not using the contrary possibilitie unto such acts as he not onely alloweth and approveth but requireth and commandeth such as he most bountifully rewardeth and unto whose accomplishment hee affordeth not his ordinarie concourse onely but his speciall furtherance and assistance In every sin of commission we approve and make choice of those acts which his infinite goodnesse disalloweth In every sinne of omission we do not approve those acts which he approveth although perhaps it may be questioned whether there can be any sinne of pure omission or not mixt with commission that is any sinne wherein we doe not either like what God dislikes or reject and contemne what he likes cōmends unto us for good 5 From these resolutions we may finde some truth in an usuall position which without this truth presupposed is palpably false Every action or effect as it is an effect or action or as it proceeds from God is good The best meaning whereof it is capable must be this Gods goodnesse is seene in every action even in those which are most sinfull To vouchsafe his cooperation to them is a branch of his goodnesse because man could not be happy without a possibility of deserving to be miserable But humane actions or effects in their owne nature indefinitely considered or in the abstract as they are actions are neither morally good nor morally bad When it is said that every action as an action is good this must be understood of transcendentall goodnes only of which kind of goodnes moral evill or sin it selfe is partaker If every action as it is an actiō were morally good it were impossible any action shold be morally evill If we consider humane actions not indefinitely or with this reduplication as they are actions but descending unto particulars some are good some are bad and some perhaps positively indifferent but of this hereafter CHAP. 16. The former contingency in humane actions or mutuall possibility of obtaining reward or incurring punishment proved by the infallible rule of faith by the tenour of Gods covenant with his people 1 THough manifest deductiōs of ill sounding Consequences from their positiōs which we refute and more commodious explanations of other tenents common to both may somewhat move the Favourers of universall necessity to a dislike of their owne opinions in part incline them to the opposit truth yet is it positive proofe of Scriptures that must strike the maine stroak fasten their assents unto it And God forbid they should bee so uncharitable as to think that we or any sonnes of
weild so high a prerogative with upright constancy But in that Holy and mighty One the reservation of such liberty as anon we intimate is a point of high perfection 6 That to be able to decree an absolute contingency as well as necessity is an essentiall branch of Omnipotency or power infinite shall by the assistance of this Power be clearly demonstrated in the Article of Creation That God did omnipotently decree a contingency in humane actions that the execution of this decree is a necessary consequent of his communicative goodnesse a consequent so necessary that unlesse this be granted we cannot acknowledge him to be truly good much lesse infinitely good shall by the favour of this his Goodness be fully declared in the Treatise of mans fall and of sinnes entrance into the World by it That which in this place wee take as granted is That Gods wisedome is no lesse infinite than his power that he perfectly foreknowes whatsoever by his omnipotency can be done that his power and wisedome are fully commensurable to his immensity and eternity that all these rules following are exactly parallell in true Divinity Gods Presence is not circumscriptible by the coexistence of his creatures He is in every one of them as a Center and all of them are in Him as in a circumference capable not of them only but of all that possibly can bee onely uncapable of Circumscription or Equality His Eternity is more than commensurable to time or any duration of created Entities It is in every duration as a permanent instant and all durations are contained in it as a fluent instant in a set time or as noonetide in the whole day His Power likewise may not be confined to effects that are have beene or shall bee the production of every thing out of nothing argues it to be truly infinite and yet the production of all is to the infinity of it not so much as a beame of light which is strained through a needles eye is to the body of the Sunne or to all the light diffused throughout the world Least of all may his infinite wisedome be comprehended within those effects which by his power have been produced or which it now doth or hereafter shall produce But looke how farre his immensity exceeds all reall or compleat space or his Eternity succession or the duration of things created or his Power all things already reduced from possibility to actuall existence so farre doth his infinite Wisedome surmount the most exact knowledge that can bee imagined of all things already ereated and their actions Nothing that is could have borne any part in the world without the light or direction of his Knowledge and yet that measure of his Knowledge which can bee gathered from the full harmony of this Vniverse is lesse in respect of it absolutely considered then skill to number digits is to the entire or exact knowledge of all proportions or other arithmeticall rules or affections that can arise from their multiplications or divisions The causes properties hidden vertues of each thing created are better knowne to Him than so much of them as we see or perceive by any other sense is to us and yet He knowes whatsoever by infinite power possibly might have beene but now is not whatsoever hereafter may be though it never shall be as perfectly as he doth the things which at this instant are heretofore have beene or hereafter must be 7 The subject wherein this his incomprehensible wisedome exhibits the most liuely and surest apprehensions for drawing our hearts after it in admiration is the harmony or mixture of contingency with necessity And this most conspicuous in moderating the free thoughts of Men or Angells and ordaining them to the certaine and necessary accomplishment of his glory The contingent means which by his permission and donation these creatures may use for attaining their severall ends or private good may be successively infinite And yet albeit the utmost possibilities of their varieties and incōstancies were reduced to act the ends notwithstanding which his infinite wisedome hath forecast in their creation should by any course of many thousands which they may take be as inevitably brought to passe as if no choice or freedome had beene left them or as if every succeeding thought had been drawne on by the former and al linked to that which hee first inspired or by his irresistible power produced with indissoluble chains of Adamantine Fate We would esteeme it great wisdome or cunning to use S. Austines illustratiō in a Fowler to be able to catch againe all the Birds which he had formerly caught after he had permitted every one of them to take wings and flye which way they listed God hath nets every where spred for catching such as his wisedome suffers to flye farthest from him or most to decline the wayes which in his goodnesse he had appointed for thē and which is most of all to be admired the very freedome or variety of mens thoughts so they be permitted to imploy them according to their owne liking becomes their most inevitable and most inextricable snare For all their thoughts are actually numbred in his infinite wisedome and the award of every thought determinately measured or defined by his Eternall Decree So farre is freedome of choice or contingency from being incompatible with the immutability of Gods will that without this infinite variety of choice or freedome of thought in man and Angels wee cannot rightly conceive him to be as infinitely wise as his decree is immutable 8 Free it was for mee to have thought or done somewhat in every minute of the last yeare whereby the whole frame of my cogitations or actions for this yeare following might have beene altered and yet should God have beene as true and principall a cause of this alteration and of every thought and deed thus altered as he is of those that de facto are past or of that which I now thinke or doe Nor should his will or pleasure as some object depend on mine but mine though contingently free necessarily subject unto his For unto every cogitation possible to man or Angell he hath everlastingly decreed a proportionate end to every antecedent possible a correspondent consequent which needs no other cause or meanes to produce it but onely the reducing of possibility granted by his decree into Act. For what way soever of many equally possible mans will doth encline Gods decree is a like necessary cause of all the good or evill that befalls him for it Did we that which we doe not but might doe many things would inevitably follow which now doe not Nor doe the things which at this instant befall me come to passe because he absolutely decreed them and none but them as we say in the first place But because hee decreed them as the inevitable consequents of some things which hee knew I would doe which notwithstanding hee both knew and had decreed that I might not have done For
unquestionable earnests of thy everlasting love since more fully manifested For thou so lovedst the world not Israel onely that thou gavest thine onely begotten son to the end that who so beleeved in him should not perish but have everlasting life What further argumeÌ„t of Gods infinite love could flesh blood desire thaÌ„ the Son of Gods voluntary suffring that in our flesh by his Fathers appointment which unto flesh and blood seemes most distastfull That this love was unfaignedly tendered to all at least that have heard or hereafter may heare of it without exception what demonstration from the effect can be more certaine what consequence more infallible thaÌ„ the inference of this truth is froÌ„ a sacred truth received by all good Christians viz. Al such as have heard Gods love in Christ proclaimed and not beleeved in it shall in the day of Iudgement appeare guilty of greater sinnes than their forefathers could be endited of and undergoe more bitter death than any corruption drawne from Adam if Christ had never suffered could have bred I shall no way wrong the Apostle in unfolding his exhortations to the Athenians thus farre but they rather offer the spirit by which hee spake some kinde of violence that would contract his meaning shorter The times of this ignorance before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Because hee hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom hee hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that hee hath raised him from the dead Acts 17. 30 31. 3 Why all men in the world have not heard of Gods infinite love thus manifested many causes may hereafter bee assigned all grounded upon Gods infinite Iustice or Mercy Of Christs death many which heard not might have heard many which are not might have bin partakers save only for their free and voluntary progresse from evill to worse or wilfull refusall of Gods loving kindnesse daily profered to them in such pledges as they were well content to swallow foolishly esteeming these good in themselves being good onely as they plight the truth of Gods love to them which he manifested in the death of his Sonne With this manifestation of his love many againe out of meere mercy have not beene acquainted lest the sight of the medicine might have caused their discase to rage and make their case more lamentably desperate CHAP. 18. Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfeigned love to such as perish a principall meanes or occasion why so many perish 1 BVt if the most part of men as we cannot deny doe finally perish what shall it availe to revive this doctrine of Gods infinite love to all by whose fruitlesse issue he rather is made an infinit looser than men any gainers As for God he hath froÌ„ eternity infallibly forecast the entire redemption of his infinite love which unto us may seeme utterly cast away And of men if many dye whom he would have live for his will is that all should bee saved and come to the knowledge of the truth the fault is their owne or their instructers that seeke not the prevention of their miscariage by acquainting them with this coelestiall fountaine of saving truth whose taste we labor to exhibite unto all because the want of it in observation of the heathen is the first spring of humane misery Or in language more plaine or pertinent to the argument proposed most men reape no benefit from Gods unspeakeable love because not considering it to be his nature they doe not beleeve it to be as he is truly infinite unfeignedly extended to all that call him Maker But had the doctrines which those divine Oracles God is love and would have all men to bee saued naturally afford beene for these forty yeeres last past as generally taught and their right use continually prest with as great zeale and fervency as the doctrine and uses of Gods absolute decree for electing some and reprobating most in that space have beene the plentifull increase of Gods glory and his peoples comfort throughout this land might have wrought such astonishment to our adversaries as would have put their malicious mouths to silence Who would not be willing to be saved if hee were fully perswaded that God did will his salvation in particular because hee protests hee wills not the death of any but the repentance of all that all might live Or were the particulars of this doctrine unto whose generality every loyall member of the Church of England hath subscribed generally taught beleeved all would unfeignedly endeavour with fervent alacrity to be truely happy because none could suspect himselfe to bee excluded from his unfeigned and fervent love who is true happinesse Whose love and goodnesse is so great that hee cannot passe any act whereby any of his creatures should bee debarred either from being like him in love and goodnesse or being such from being like him in true happinesse But alas while the world is borne in hand that the Creator oft-times dispenseth the blessings of this life not as undoubted pledges of a better but deales with most men as man doth with beasts feeding them fattest which are appointed first to bee slaine the magnificent praises of his bounty secretly nurseth such a misperswasion in most men of his goodnesse at least towards them as the Epigrammâ—tist had of a professed Benefactor that shewed him as he thought little kindnesse in great Benevolence Munera magna quidem misit sed misit in hamo Et Piscatorem piscis amare potest Great gifts he sent but under his gifts there covered lay an hooke And by the fish to be belov'd can th'cunning Fisher looke 2 The frequency of sinister respects in dispensing of secular dignities or benevolences makes such as are truly kind to be either unregarded or mistrusted by such as stand in neede of their kindnesse And as fishes in beaten waters will nibble at the bait although they suspect the hooke so the world hath learned the wit to take good turnes and not to be taken by them as suspecting them to bee profered in cunning rather than in true kindnesse and cunning where it is discovered or suspected is usually requited with craft love onely hath just title unto love The most part indeed are so worldly wise that none but fooles will easily trust them howbeit our naturall mistrust of others makes all of us a great deale worse than we would be And as if we thought it a sinne or point of uncharitablenesse to prove other mens conjectures that measure our dispositions by their owne altogether false wee fit our demeanours to their misdeemings of us and resolve rather to do amisse than they should thinke amisse Howbeit even in this perfidious and faithlesse age the old saying is not quite out of date Ipsa fides habita obligat fideÌ„ Many would be more trusty than they are and do much
from Eternitie the Creature onely gets beginning of Being by Creation which before it had not If then there can bee no agencie without an action and every action be in the patient the cause is concluded that every agent though Omnipotent supposeth a patient 2. But it is one thing to suppose or require another to praesuppose or praerequire patieÌ„t one thing to require or suppose a patient another to require or suppose a matter or subject to worke upon We are then to distinguish of Patients and betwixt the workes wrought or effected by agents A Patient is usually taken for the matter or subject on which the Agent doth exercise his active force or out of which it produceth its worke Euery finite agent aswell naturall as artificiall doth praerequire and presuppose such a kind of patient that is some reall matter or subject whereon to worke But this kind of patient is no just compere no full correlative to an agent universally taken The relalatioÌ„ betwixt an agent Patient taken in this sense is neither so formall or necessary as it is inter agens actum betweene the Agent and that which is acted betweene the efficient and the effect or betweene the worker and his worke God wee grant could be no actuall agent much lesse an Omnipotent actuall agent without some Act or worke produced by him As there could bee no Creature without a Creator so could there bee no Creator without a Creature But that which the Naturalist is to prove is that the worke of Creation presupposeth some matter or subject for the Creator to worke upon To manifest the impperfection of his inductions to this purpose and to cleare our contradictorie assertion wee are to distinguish or explicate the severall workes which are or can be wrought 3. Three sorts of workes the meere Naturalist grants 1. Meerely naturall 2. Meerely artificiall 3. Partly naturall partly artificiall Workes of the last ranke for instance are Physicall medicines or all such workes as Nature of her owne accord doth not attempt or undertake but onely as shee is set a working by Art Natuâ—e makes no physicall doses but onely affords the simples of which they are compounded by the Apothecarie who notwithstanding cannot compound them without the ministery or operation of Nature The Physitian may allot the severall quantitie of every ingredient besides the proportion betwixt them but the mixture must be immediately effected by heate or other naturall qualities So likewise must the extraction or expression of many simples bee wrought by Nature but at the appointment or direction of the Physitian Nature doth not attempt the making of Bell-metall much lesse of Bells and yet she affords all the ingredients to the Bell-founder who cannot mixe them by any art or skill without the heate of the fire or other operations of Nature set on worke or directed by him Workes meerly naturall comprehend all sorts of bodies generable whether the elements or bodies mixt The generation of every such body presupposeth a mutation or alteration of qualities in the matter before it become capable of a new forme or nature Every alteration of qualitie wrought in any sublunary body whether it be a praeviall disposition or introduction to a new forme or nature or whether it be accomplished without generation of any new substance is the proper effect or worke of the agent which causeth it So is every artificiall worke or forme the effect or worke of the Artificer So that Art hath its proper effects as well as Nature and every artificiall effect or worke supposeth an efficiencie or agencie in the Art or Artist yet doth not the exercise of this active force or efficiencie eyther presuppose or require any such passive alteration of quality in the matter or subject whereon it workes as Nature requires in her patients Every Statue or Image of wood is the effect of the Statuarie or a worke of the Art of Imagery yet doe not these workes being meerly artificiall eyther suppose or necessarily require any alteration of qualitie in stone and wood The Statuary produceth no naturall effect or qualitie which was not in the stone before but onely makes that visible and apparant to the eye which was formerly hidden or enveyled in the stone Every Letter of the Decalogue was in the Tables of stone before they were ingraven eyther by the finger of God or by Moses and became legible onely by their Art or skill of ingraving yet not made legible by any addition of substance of quantitie or qualitie but by meere abscision of quantitative parts And this abscision from which visible characters or terminate figures result whether in wood or stone is the proper effect of the Carver or Ingraver Both these inductions following universally taken are false though both true in their proper subject 1. No Statuary or Carver or other like Artificer can produce his proper worke without some abscision or variation of quantitie in the subject whereon hee workes therefore Nature cannot produce her proper effects without some alteration of quantitie in the matter or subject wherein shee workes 2. Naturall agents or efficients never produce their proper effects but by working some alteration or qualitie in the Matter therefore no Artificer can produce the proper workes of his Art without the like alteration of qualitie in the subject whereon hee workes Nor will it follow that because effects meerly artificiall may be wrought without any alteration of qualitie therefore mixt effects or workes partly naturall partly artificiall as compounded Medicines or Bell-metall can be so wrought Least of all can it be inferred that because Art as well as Nature supposeth a subject praeexistent whereon to worke therefore the Agent supernaturall or the Efficient superartificiall alwayes presupposeth some matter or subject praeexistent out of which or in which hee produceth his proper worke The reason why the former Inductions faile is because the Agents or Efficients are of a different ranke or kinde And the prohibition holds as true in point of induction as of demonstration Non licet transcendere a genere ad genus Hee that will demonstrate any conclusion must not rove from one kinde of subject to another And the reason why in thus roving he shall certainly faile of his intended conclusion is because the principles whence the intended conclusion must be inferred cannot be gathered but by induction and no induction can prove any generall Maxime unlesse it consist of particulars of the same kinde A philosophicall maxime cannot be gathered from Inductions meerly Mathematicall nor mathematicall principles from experiments philosophicall Nor can Artificiall Maximes or conclusions especially negative bee gathered from experiments naturall nor Maximes naturall from observations in subjects meerely Artificiall Least of all can any theologicall maximes be ratified from experiments meerely naturall artificiall or mathematicall but onely by inductions or reasons abstract and metaphysicall that is such as hold true in all Arts or sciences whatsoever The onely certaine
his first sinne or appetite of the forbidden fruite to bee necessarie or necessitate his will in his sinister choyces This were all one as to say that God were the immediate and necessarie cause of sinne of death of all the evills that have befallen mankinde since Adam For he is the sole immediate and necessarie cause of all things which hee so decrees as they cannot possibly fall out otherwise For him to erre in decreeing or for the execution of his decree to bee defeated is impossible In respect of his proper and adaequate object and peremptorily intended effect his will is a more irresistible more powerfully necessitating cause than any other cause whatsoever Now if Gods will had beene to leave no possibility for Adams perserverance his fall had beene the compleat object of Gods decree concerning our first estate and by consequence Gods decree or will had beene the first cause of sinnes first entrance into the world CHAP. 14. The former conclusion proved by the consent of all the Ancients whether Christians or Heathens which did dislike the errour of the Stoikes THE incommodious or inconsiderate speeches which some of better note and antiquitie have let fall were as I perswade my selfe but symptomes of their provoked zeale or eager desire to salve those grosse absurdities which they had rightly espied in others But it is alwaies more easie to expugne an errour or salve a particular inconvenience then to provide that no more shall follow upon the cure or medicine Had those famous lamps of Gods Church by whose light many grosse opinions have beene discried and reformed seene the inconveniences which follow upon their owne positions as clearely as many of their friends since have done it would bee a foule slander in us to suspect that they would not wil-willingly have altered their dialect or taken advise for expressing their good meaning in tearmes more safe more proper and scholastique If otherwise we abstract their speeches from that respect and reverence which we owe unto their memorie or that good opinion which best men have had of their sinceritie I cannot see wherein the necescesarie consequences of their opinions as they are usually expressed comes short of the Manichees errors or wherein they differ at all from the Stoicks The Manichees held all evill and mischiefe in the world to fall out by inevitable necessity but this necessitie they derived from an evill Author from a prime cause or Creator of evill onely not of any thing that was good And better it is for it is more consonant to our Saviours advise to acknowledge the tree for evill where the fruite is evill then to justifie it for good when the fruite is apparently and of necessitie naught The pertinacie or stiffenesse in this common error Evils and mischiefe or wicked actions fall out by necessitie being presupposed aequall they adde lesse sinne or errour to it which hence acknowledge a prime cause of evill or a cause evill by fatall necessitie then those which hold evill to be necessary in respect of his Omnipotent decree who is infinitely good In fine the Manichees were grosse haeretiques in holding evill and mischiefe to fall out by inevitable necessitie but this heresie once admitted it was rather a consonancy of error then any addition of new heresie to admit two prime causes or Creators the one of good the other of evill They durst not slander goodnesse with any crime or for being the Author of any thing that was not good nor were they disposed to flatter greatnesse as if evill were no evill because it proceeded from it 2. That which the Ancients reprooved in the Stoicks opinion as most injurious to God and all good men was that they held all things and evill things amongst the rest to fall out by fate or unavoydable necessitie This foundation being once laied the rootes of vertue must utterly perish and that which we call vice should bee a meere name or matter of nothing there is no place left for just reward or punishment Whether by fate the Stoicks meant the influence of starres the course of nature or the decree of GOD who to them was all one with Nature all was one in respect of the former inconveniences which necessarily followed from admission of an inevitable necessitie in humane actions whence soever that be derived To say it comes from the first cause or from the second is meerly accidentall to the error or inconvenience so sharply justly reproved by the primitive Church In respect of a Tradesmans commoditie it is all one whether he be prohibited for setting up or trafiquing by the companie of his own profession or by some higher powers so the prohibition or restraint be as large peremptorie without hope of release or if he bee restrained upon his allegiance by the Prince or privy counsell his hopes of thriving will be much lesse then if he were tied onely by the locall statutes of some pettie Corporation Thus if the Stoick derived the necessitie of all things from the revolution of the Heavens or from other second causes as their supposed guides the impossibilitie of doing otherwise then we doe was in every Christians conceipt evidently much lesse then if we derive this necessitie from the Omnipotent decree Now the danger or incenvenience of their opinion did formally consist in nursing a conceipt in men that it was impossible for them to doe otherwise then they doe or to avoyd the evills and mischiefes into which they fall And these dangers or inconveniences are so much greater in Christians then they were in the Stoicks as the God which wee acknowledge is more Omnipotent then nature or the Stoicks god For the more Omnipotent he is the more impossible is it for any creature to avoid the necessitie which by his decree is layed upon him 3. In respect of the former inconveniences or of the opinion it selfe it is meerely accidentall whether this necessity bee layed upon us by coaction or willingly and cheerefully entertained by us whether it proceed from Gods power or impulsion or from his wisdome so our actions and their issues bee in respect of his Omnipotent power or will alike unavoidable If birds and fishes could speake I suppose the one would as much complaine of those that in hard frost or snow allure them with baites to come within the fall of the trappe as the other would doe of Fishers for driving them violently into their nets If the birds once taken be used as hardly their expostulations would be so much more just as their usage before their taking was more kinde To make a man willing to undoe himselfe upon faire promises made not with purpose to doe him good but to circumvent him is greater cruelty then can accompany open violence Hee that wittingly ministers poyson instead of Physick is in all mens judgement as true a Murderer as hee that kils with the sword albeit the partie to whom it is ministred having no reason to suspect any
Nor shall wee by this assertion bee enforced to imagine any new act or determination in God either for daily awarding different successe or the same successe in different measure according to the diversitie or contingency of humane choise which may varie every moment For the infinite incomprehensible and all comprising essence as is before observed is fitnesse it selfe an vnchangeable rule aeternally fitting every alteration possible to the creature without any alteration in it selfe A rule it is which needes no application to the event the event by getting existence or actuall beeing is actually applied unto it The just measure and qualitie of that successe which is by the Idea of equitie bountie or mercie allotted to every event is no lesse essentially contained in goodnesse it selfe then the event it selfe or its beeing is in infinite essence or in Essence it selfe 3 The immediate and proper subject of Fate is Freedome of choise or contingencie in humane actions the genus proximum is the certaintie of Divine retribution according to the nature and qualitie of the choyse wee make Yet are not rewards or retributions but retributions extraordinary and remarkeable aswell for their manner of execution as for their matter or qualitie properly termed Fatall Of sinister Fates there is no contingent subject which can exhibit a more exact picture or modell for the manner how they come to passe then a game at Chesse or Tables Many games at both which at the beginning or untill the middle of time spent in them are very faire and more then tenne to one after some few oversights or ill dice become desperate and irrecoverable by any skill that can be vsed so events properly fatall become at length unpreventable irresistible but such they were not from the beginning of time or from their infancie or first attempts on whom they fall Such disasterous or dismall events for which the Heathens usually indited Fates were commonly remarkable checks given they know not by whom to humane policies or cunning contrivances They were as the unexpected winning of an after-game upon some great stake or wager Good or dexterous Fates were the unexpected issues of mens contrivances for their owne or associates good Fortunes The manner of accomplishing such fates or Fortunes is like a game wonne by a bungler against a skilfull player by extraordinarie dice or by the suggestion of some by-stander more skilfull then both This kinde of Fate or strange Fortune of which most of the Heathen knew not well what to make wee may define To be the incomprehensible disposition or irresistible combination of second causes conspiring for the infallible execution of Gods will maugre all plots or conspiracies of men to defeate the events which hee had purposed Sinister or disasterous Fates were the infallible execution of his consequent will Good fates or fortune were the infallible effects of his antecedent will both were sometimes strangely remarkeably accomplished against cunning and potent oppositions not so much for the parties sakes whom they befell as for others Many disasters have befallen some men though deservedly for their owne sins yet withall for the admonishing of others to prevent the like Hence it is that the Heathen Poets observation Multi committunt eadem diverso erimina Fato though in many cases most true is no way prejudiciall to the unchangeable rules of the All-seeing Providence which is alwayes full of equitie whose justice is still allayed with mercy CHAP. 22. The opposite opinions of the Stoicks and Epicures In what sense it is true that all things are necessarie in respect of Gods decree 1 THE Stoicks did well in contradicting the Epicures which held fortune and Chance to rule all things or at least to bee in themselves somethings not meere denominations of such events as had no certaine or constant cause apprehensible by man The Originall of their Errour was their desire to be extreamely contrary to the Epicureans in a matter contingent or rather in contingencie it selfe for that is the common subject of Fortune chance or fate Fortune and chance they deny to be any thing with no other purpose it seemes then that they may make Fate to bee all things They were Orthodoxall in acknowledging an infallible unerring providence but they â—rred againe as much in not acknowledging this infallible providence oft-times to hold the meane betweene Chance or Fortune and absolute necessitie or not to order and moderate contingencie it selfe From the same originall some have thought it to be the most safe and compendious course for rooting out errour and superstition to overthrow the aâ—tecedent when their commission directs them onely to deny or refute the consequence As not a few no lesse affraid and the feare it selfe is just to grant merit of workes then the Stoicks were to admit of Chance have taken away all contingency in humane actions save onely with reference to second causes Wherein they seeme to invert that rule of Tyrannicall policie He is a foole that kills the Father and leaves his braits behind to revenge his blood These take away the harmelesse Parents for the faultie issues sake seeking to destroy true and Orthodoxall antecedents for the incommodious consequences which others have falsely fathered upon them The reclaiming of men from this one Errour is my present and scope 2 For the better effecting whereof we will subscribe at length unto their general Maxime That all things are necessary in respect of Gods decree upon condition they wil not extend it beyond its naturall and proper subject or not take decree in the Stoicall but in a civill sense Now hee that saith All things are necessary in respect of Gods decree cannot in civill construction bee conceived to meane any more then thus All things which God hath decreed are necessary The question then is whether every thing that is may truly bee said to be the object or part of the object of Gods decree To which question our answer must be negative For those things onely are properly said to be decreed which are enacted and appointed for better ordering and moderating such things as either by nature custome or ill example are apt to grow worse or may be amended by good education wholesome advice or discipline Every decree of man supposeth the subject or party whom it immediately concernes to be capable of perswasion to good or evill to be alterable in his inclinations through feare of punishment or hope of reward Magistrates or Corporations take order that mad men or dogs should doe no harme yet are not these creatures the proper subject of their decrees or sanctions They do not tie Mastives by penall laws not to bite they do not bind mad men to good behaviour but they iâ—joyn men of reason and understanding to muzzle Mâ—stives lest they bite to keepe mad men or franticks close lest they should doe mischiefe by going abroad Now the Divine decree concerning the ordering of man is the rule or patterne of all humane decrees