Plea from it in the mouth of Adam he knew as much as any man ever since knew of the nature of God as discoverable in Creation he could not in Innocence fancy an ignorant God a God that knew nothing of future things he could not be so ignorant of his own action but he must have perceived a force upon his Will had there been any had he thought that Gods Prescience impos'd any necessity upon him he would not have omitted the Plea especially when he was so daring as to charge the Providence of God in the Gift of the Woman to him to be the cause of his Crime Gen. 3.12 How come his Posterity to invent new charges against God which their Father Adam never thought of who had more knowledg than all of them He could find no cause of his Sin but the liberty of his own Will he charges it not upon any necessity from the Devil or any necessity from God nor doth he alledg the gift of the Woman as a necessary cause of his Sin but an occasion of it by giving the Fruit to him Judas knew that our Saviour did foreknow his Treachery for he had told him of it in the hearing of his Disciples John 13.21 26. yet he never charg'd the necessity of his Crime upon the foreknowledg of his Master if Judas had not done it freely he had had no reason to repent of it his Repentance justifies Christ from imposing any necessity upon him by that foreknowledg No man acts any thing but he can give an account of the motives of his action he cannot father it upon a blind necessity the Will cannot be compelled for then it would cease to be Will God doth not root up the foundations of Nature or change the order of it and make men unable to act like men that is as free Agents God foreknows the actions of irrational Creatures this concludes no violence upon their nature for we find their actions to be according to their nature and spontaneous 3. Gods foreknowledg is not simply considered the cause of any thing It puts nothing into things but only beholds them as present and arising from their proper causes The knowledg of God is not the Principle of things or the cause of their existence but directive of the action nothing is because God knows it but because God Wills it either positively or permissively God knows all things possible yet because God knows them they are not brought into actual existence but remain still only as things possible Knowledg only apprehends a thing but acts nothing 't is the rule of acting but not the cause of acting the Will is the immediate Principle and the Power the immediate cause to know a thing is not to do a thing for then we may be said to do every thing that we know But every man knows those things which he never did nor never will do Knowledg in it self is an apprehension of a thing and is not the cause of it A Spectator of a thing is not the cause of that thing which he sees that is he is not the cause of it as he beholds it We see a man Write we know before that he will Write at such a time but this foreknowledg is not the cause of his Writing We see a man Walk but our vision of him brings no necessity of Walking upon him he was free to Walk or not to Walk Rawley of the World lib. 1. cap. 1. sect 12. We foreknow that Death will seize upon all men we foreknow that the Seasons of the Year will succeed one another yet is not our foreknowledg the cause of this succcession of Spring after Winter or of the Death of all men or any man We see one man fighting with another our sight is not the cause of that contest but some Quarrel among themselves exciting their own Passions As the knowledg of present things imposeth no necessity upon them while they are acting and present so the Knowledg of future things imposeth no necessity upon them while they are coming We are certain there will be men in the World to morrow and that the Sea will Ebb and Flow but is this knowledg of ours the cause that those things will be so I know that the Sun will rise to morrow 't is true that it shall rise but 't is not true that my foreknowledg makes it to rise If a Physician Prognosticates upon seeing the Intemperances and Debaucheries of men that they will fall into such a distemper is his Prognostication any cause of their Disease or of the sharpness of any Symptoms attending it The Prophet foretold the cruelty of Hazael before he committed it but who will say that the Prophet was the cause of his Commission of that evil And thus the foreknowledg of God takes not away the liberty of mans Will no more than a foreknowledg that we have of any mans actions takes away his liberty We may upon our knowledg of the temper of a man certainly foreknow that if he falls into such Company and get among his Cups he will be Drunk but is this foreknowledg the cause that he is Drunk no the cause is the liberty of his own Will and not resisting the Temptation God purposes to leave such a man to himself and his own ways and man being so left God foreknows what will be done by him according to that corrupt nature which is in him tho' the Decree of God of leaving a man to the liberty of his own Will be certain yet the liberty of mans Will as thus left is the cause of all the extravagancies he doth commit Suppose Adam had stood would not God certainly have foreseen that he would have stood yet it would have been concluded that Adam had stood not by any necessity of Gods foreknowledg but by the liberty of his own Will Why should then the foreknowledg of God add more necessity to his falling than to his standing * Rivet in Isa 53.1 p. 16. And though it be said sometimes in Scripture that such a thing was done that the Scripture might be fulfilled as John 12.38 that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled Lord who hath believed our report the word That doth not infer that the Prediction of the Prophet was the cause of the Jews unbelief but infers this that the Prediction was manifested to be true by their unbelief and the event answered the Prediction this Prediction was not the cause of their Sin but their foreseen Sin was the cause of this Prediction and so the Particle That is taken Psal 51.6 against thee thee only have I sinned that thou mightest be justified c. the justifying God was not the end and intent of the Sin but the event of it upon his acknowledgment 4. God foreknows things because they will come to pass but things are not future because God knows them Foreknowledg presupposeth the object which is foreknown a thing that is to come to pass
Instruments He needs no Matter to work upon because he can make something from nothing all Matter owes it self to his Creative Power He needs no time to work in for he can make Time when he pleases to begin to work He needs no Copy to work by Himself is his own Pattern and Copy in his Works All created Agents want Matter to work upon Instruments to work with Copies to work by Time to bring either the births of their Minds or the works of their hands to perfection But the Power of God needs none of these things but is of a vast and Incomprehensible nature beyond all these As nothing can be done without the compass of it so it self is without the compass of every Created Understanding 4. This Power is of a distinct conception from the Wisdom and Will of God They are not really distinct but according to our Conceptions We cannot discourse of Divine things without observing some proportion of them with humane ascribing unto God the Perfections sifted from the Imperfections of our Nature In Us there are three Orders of Understanding Will Power and accordingly three Acts Counsel Resolution Execution which though they are distinct in Us are not really distinct in God In our Conceptions the Apprehension of a thing belongs to the Understanding of God Determination to the Will of God Direction to the Wisdom of Gâ—d Execution to the Power of God The Knowledge of God regards a thing as possible and as it may be done the Wisdom of God regards a thing as fit and convenient to be done the Will of God resolves that it shall be done the Power of God is the application of his Will to effect what it hath resolved Wisdom is a fixing the Being of things the measures and perfections of their several Beings Power is a conferring those Perfections and Beings upon them His Power is his ability to act and his Wisdom is the Director of his action His Will orders his Wisdom guides and his Power effects His Will as the spring and his Power as the worker are exprest Psal 115.3 He hath done whatsoever he pleased He commanded and they were created Psal 140.5 and all three exprest Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will So that the Power of God is a Perfection as it were subordinate to his Understanding and Will to execute the results of his Wisdom and the orders of his Will to his VVisdom as directing because he works skilfully to his Will as moving and applying because he works voluntarily and freely The exercise of his Power depends upon his Will His Will is the supream cause of every thing that stands up in Time and all things receive a Being as he wills them His Power is but Will perpetually working and diffusing it self in the season his Will hath fixed from Eternity 't is his Eternal Will in perpetual and successive springs and streams in the Creatures 't is nothing else but the constant efficacy of his Omnipotent Will This must be understood of his Ordinate Power But his Absolute Power is larger than his Resolving Will for though the Scripture tells us He hath done whatsoever he will yet it tells us not that he hath done whatsoever he could He can do things that he will never do Again His Power is distinguisht from his Will in regard of the Exercise of it which is after the act of his Will His Will was conversant about Objects when his Power was not exercis'd about them Creatures were the objects of his VVill from Eternity but they were not from Eternity the effects of his Power His Purpose to Create was from Eternity but the execution of his Purpose was in Time Now this execution of his VVill we call his Ordinate Power His VVisdom and his VVill are supposed antecedent to his Power as the Counsel and Resolve as the Cause precedes the performance of the Purpose as the effect * Gamacheus Some distinguish his Power from his Understanding and VVill in regard that his Understanding and VVill are larger than his Absolute Power for God understands Sins and wills to permit them but he cannot himself do any Evil or Unjust action nor have a power of doing it But this is not to distinguish that Divine Power but Impotence for to be unable to do Evil is the perfection of Power and to be able to do things Unjust and Evil is a weakness imperfection and inability Man indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform and understands many things that he is not able to effect he understands much of the Creatures something of Sun Moon and Stars he can conceive many Suns many Moons yet is not able to create the least Atom But there is nothing that belongs to Power but God understands and is able to effect To sum this up The VVill of God is the Root of all the VVisdom of God is the Copy of all and the Power of God is the Framer of all 5. The Power of God gives activity to all the other perfections of his Nature and is of a larger extent and efficacy in regard of its Objects than some perfections of his Nature I put them both together 1. It contributes Life and Activity to all the other perfections of his Nature How vain would be his Eternal Counsels if Power did not step in to execute them His Mercy would be a feeble pity if he were destitute of Power to relieve and his Justice a slighted Scarecrow without Power to punish his Promises an empty sound without Power to accomplish them As Holiness is the Beauty so Power is the Life of all his Attributes in their exercise and as Holiness so Power is an Adjunct belonging to All a Term that may be given to All. God hath a powerful Wisdom to attain his Ends without interruption He hath a powerful Mercy to remove our Misery a powerful Justice to lay all Misery upon Offenders He hath a powerful Truth to perform his Promises an Infinite Power to bestow Rewards and inflict Penalties 'T is to this purpose Power is first put in the two things which the Psalmist had heard Psal 62.11 12. Twice have I heard or two things have I heard first Power then Mercy and Justice included in that expression Thou rendrest to every man according to his work In every perfection of God he heard of Power This is the Arm the Hand of the Deity which all his other Attributes lay hold on when they would appear in their Glory this hands them to the World by this they act in this they triumph Power framed every stage for their appearance in Creation Providence Redemption 2. 'T is of a larger extent in regard of its Objects than some other Attributes Power doth not alway suppose an Object but constitutes an Object It supposeth an Obiect in the act of Preservation but it makes an Object in the act of Creation but Mercy supposeth an object Miserable
not by any impulsion God's Knowledge was not suspended between certainty and uncertainty He certainly foreknew that his Law would be broken by Adam he foreknew it in his own Decree of not hindering him by giving Adam the efficacious Grace which would inâ—allibly have prevented it yet Adam did freely break this Law and never imagin'd that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it He could find no cause of his own sin but the liberty of his own will He charges the occasion of his sin upon the woman and consequently upon God in giving the woman to him * Gen. 3.12 He could not be so ignorant of the Nature of God as to imagine him without a foresight of future things since his knowledge of what was to be known of God by Creation was greater than any mans since in all probability But however if he were not acquainted with the Notion of God's foreknowledge he could not be ignorant of his own act there could not have been any necessity upon him any kind of constraint of him in his action that could have been unknown to him and he would not have omitted a Plea of so strong a nature when he was upon his Trial for Life or Death especially when he urgeth so weak an Argument to impute his Crime to God as the gift of the Woman as if that which was design'd him for a help were intended for his ruine If God's prescience takes away the liberty of the Creature there is no such thing as a free action in the World for there is nothing done but is foreknown by God else we render God of a limited understanding nor ever was no not by God himself ad extra For whatsoever he hath done in Creation whatsoever he hath done since the Creation was foreknown by him he resolved to do it and therefore foreknew that he would do it Did God do it therefore necessarily as necessity is oppos'd to liberty As he freely decrees what he will do so he effects what he freely decreed Foreknowledge is so far from intrenching upon the liberty of the will that predetermination which in the notion of it speaks something more doth not dissolve it God did not only foreknow but determine the suffering of Christ †Acts 4.27 28. It was necessary therefore that Christ should suffer that God might not be mistaken in his foreknowledge or come short of his determinate decree But did this take away the liberty of Christ in suffering Eph. 5.2 Who offered himself up to God that is by a voluntary act as well as design'd to do it by a determinate Counsel It did infallibly secure the event but did not annihilate the liberty of the Action either in Christ's willingness to suffer or the Crime of the Jews that made him suffer God's prescience is God's prevision of things arising from their proper Causes As a Gardiner foresees in his Plants the Leaves and the Flowers that will arise from them in the Spring because he knows the strength and nature of their several Roots which lye under ground but his foresight of these things is not the cause of the rise and appearance of those Flowers If any of us see a Ship moving towards such a Rock or Quick-sand and know it to be govern'd by a negligent Pilot we shall certainly foresee that the Ship will be torn in pieces by the Rock or swallowed up by the Sands but is this foresight of ours from the Causes any cause of the effect or can we from hence be said to be the Authours of the miscarriage of the Ship and the loss of the Passengers and Goods The fall of Adam was foreseen by God to come to pass by the consent of his Freewill in the choice of the proposed Temptation God foreknew Adam would sin and if Adam would not have sinned God would have foreknown that he would not sin Adam might easily have detected the Serpents fraud and made a better Election God foresaw that he would not do it God's foreknowledge did not make Adam guilty or innocent whether God had foreknown it or no he was guilty by a free choice and a willing neglect of his own Duty Adam knew that God foreknew that he might eat of the Fruit and fall and dye because God had forbidden him the foreknowledge that he would do it was no more a cause of his Action than the foreknowledge that he might do it Judas certainly knew that his Master foreknew that he should betray him for Christ had acquainted him with it John 13.21 26. yet he never charg'd this foreknowledge of Christ with any guilt of his Treachery 3. The third Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by decreeing the eternal Rejection of some men Reprobation in its first Notion is an act of preterition or passing by A man is not made wicked by the act of God but it supposeth him wicked and so 't is nothing else but God's leaving a man in that guilt and filth wherein he beholds him In its second Notion 't is an Ordination not to a Crime but to a Punishment Jude 4. An ordaining to Condemnation And though it be an eternal act of God yet in order of Nature it follows upon the foresight of the Transgression of Man and supposeth the Crime God considers Adam's Revolt and views the whole Mass of his corrupted Posterity and chuses some to reduce to himself by his Grace and leaves others to lye sinking in their Ruins Since all Mankind fell by the fall of Adam and have Corruption conveyed to them successively by that Root whereof they are Branches All men might justly be left wallowing in that miserable Condition to which they were reduced by the Apostacy of their Common Head and God might have pass'd by the whole Race of Man as well as he did the fallen Angels without any hope of Redemption He was no more bound to restore Man than to restore Devils nor bound to repair the Nature of any one Son of Adam and had he dealt with Men as he dealt with the Devils they had had all of them as little just ground to complain of God for all Men deserved to be left to themselves for all were concluded under sin But God calls out some to make Monuments of his Grace which is an act of the Soveraign Mercy of that Dominion whereby he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy Rom. 9.18 Others he passes by and leaves them remaining in that Corruption of Nature wherein they were born If men have a power to dispose of their own Goods without any unrighteousness why should not God dispose of his own Grace and bestow it upon whom he pleases since it is a Debt to none but a free guift to any that enjoy it * Amyral defence de Calv. p. 145. God is not the cause of sin in this because his operation about this is negative 't is not an action but a denial of action and therefore cannot be the
cause of the evil actions of men God acts nothing but withholds his Power he doth not enlighten their minds nor encline their wills so powerfully as to expel their darkness and root out those evil Habits which possess them by Nature God could if he would savingly enlighten the minds of all men in the World and quicken their hearts with a new Life by an invincible Grace but in not doing it there is no positive act of God but a cessation of Action We may with as much reason say that God is the Cause of all the sinful Actions that are committed by the Corporation of Devils since their first Rebellion because he leaves them to themselves and bestows not a new Grace upon them As say God is the Cause of the sins of those that he overlooks and leaves in that state of Guilt wherein he found them God did not pass by any without the consideration of sin so that this act of God is not repugnant to his Holiness but conformable to his Justice 4. Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by his secret will to suffer sin to enter into the World God never willed sin by his preceptive Will It was never founded upon or produced by any word of his as the Creation was He never said Let there be sin under the Heaven as he said Let there be Water under the Heaven Nor doth he will it by infusing any Habit of it or stirring up Inclinations to it no God tempts no man James 1.13 Nor doth he will it by his approving Will 't is detestable to him nor ever can be otherwise He cannot approve it either before Commission or after 1. The Will of God is in some sort concurrent with sin He doth not properly will it but he wills not to hinder it to which by his Omnipotence he could put a bar If he did positively will it it might be wrought by himself and so could not be evil If he did in no sort will it it would not be committed by his Creature Sin entred into the World either God willing the permission of it or not willing the permission of it The latter cannot be said for then the Creature is more powerful than God and can do that which God will not permit God can if he be pleased banish all sin in a moment out of the World He could have prevented the Revolt of Angels and the Fall of Man they did not sin whether he would or no He might by his Grace have stept in the first Moment and made a special impression upon them of the Happiness they already possessed and the Misery they would incur by any wicked attempt He could as well have prevented the sin of the fallen Angels and confirmed them in Grace as of those that continued in their happy state He might have appeared to man informed him of the Issue of his Design and made secret impressions upon his heart since he was acquainted with every avenue to his Will God could have kept all sin out of the world as well as all Creatures from breathing in it he was as well able to bar sin for ever out of the World as to let Creatures lye in the Womb of nothing wherein they were first wrapped To say God doth will sin as he doth other things is to deny his Holiness to say it entred without any thing of his Will is to deny his Omnipotence If he did necessitate Adam to fall what shall we think of his Purity If Adam dâ—d fall without any concern of God's Will in it what shall we say of his Soveraignty The one taints his Holiness and the other clips his Power If it came without any thing of his Will in it and he did not foresee it where is his Omniscience If it entred whether he would or no where is his Omnipotence Rom. 9.19 Who hath resisted his Will There cannot be a lustful Act in Abimelech if God will withhold his Power Gen. 20.6 I withheld thee Nor a cursing word in Balaam's Mouth unless God give power to speak it Numb 22.38 Have I now any power at all to say any thing The Word that God puts in my mouth that shall I speak As no Action could be sinful if God had not forbidden it so no sin could be committed if God did not will to give way to it 2. God doth not will sin directly and by an efficacious Will He doth not directly will it because he hath prohibited it by his Law which is a discovery of his Will So that if he should directly will sin and directly prohibite it he would will good and evil in the same manner and there would be Contradictions in God's Will To will sin absolutely is to work it Psal 115.3 God hath done whatsoever he pleased God cannot absolutely will it because he cannt work it * Rispolis God wills good by a positive decree because he hath decreed to effect it He wills evil by a privative decree because he hath decreed not to give that Grace which would certainly prevent it †Bradward lib. 1 cap. 34. God wills it secundum quid God doth not will sin simply for that were to approve it but he wills it in order to that Good his Wisdom will bring forth from it He wills not sin for it self but for the event To will sin as sin or as purely evil is not in the capacity of a Creature neither of Man nor Devil The Will of a Rational Creature cannot will any thing but under the appearance of good of some good in the sin it self or some good in the issue of it Much more is this far from God ‖ Aquin. cont Gent. l. 1. c. 95. who being infinitely good cannot will evil as evil and being infinitely knowing cannot will that for good which is evil Infinite Wisdom can be under no Errour or Mistake To will sin as sin would be an unanswerable blemish on God but to will to suffer it in order to good is the glory of his Wisdom It could never have peep'd up its head unless there had been some decree of God concerning it And there had been no decree of God concerning it had he not intended to bring good and glory out of it If God did directly will the discovery of his Grace and Mercy to the World he did in some sort will sin as that without which there could not have been any appearance of Mercy in the World For an Innocent Creature is not the Object of Mercy but a Miserable Creature and no Rational Creature but must be sinful before it be miserable 3. God wills the permission of sin He doth not positively will sin but he positively wills to permit it And though he doth not approve of sin yet he approves of that act of his Will whereby he permits it For since that sin could not enter into the World without some concern of God's Will about it that act of his Will that gave way
Jews Crucifying our Saviour God did not imprint upon their Minds by his Spirit a consideration of the greatness of the Crime and the horrour of his Justice due to it And being without those Impediments they run furiously of their own accord to the Commission of that Evil. As when a Man lets a Wolf or Dog out upon his Prey he takes off the Chain which held them and they presently act according to their Natures †Lawson pag. 64. In the Fall of Angels and Men Gods Act was a leaving them to their own strength In Sins after the Fall 't is Gods giving them up to their own Corruption The first is a pure suspension of Grace the other hath the nature of a Punishment Psal 81.12 So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts The first Object of this Permissive Will of God was to leave Angâ—ls and Men to their own liberty and the use of their Free-will which was Natural to them ‖ Suarez Vol. 4. p. 414. not adding that Supernatural Grace which was necessary not that they should not at all sin but that they should infallibly not sin They had a strength sufficient to avoid Sin but not sufficient infallibly to avoid Sin a Grace sufficient to preserve them but not sufficient to confirm them 3. Now this Permission is not the cause of Sin nor doth blemish the Holiness of God It doth not intrench upon the Freedom of Men but supposeth it establisheth it and leaves Man to it God acted nothing but only ceased to Act and therefore could not be the Efficient cause of Mans Sin As God is not the Author of good but by willing and effecting it so he is not the Author of Evil but by willing â—nd effecting it But he doth not positively will Evil nor effect it by any Efficacy of his own Permission is no Action nor the cause of that Action which is permitted but the will of that Person who is permitted to do such an Action is the cause * Suarez de Legib. p. 43. God can no more be said to be the cause of Sin by suffering a Creature to act as it will than he can be said to be the cause of the not Being of any Creature by denying it Being and letting it remain Nothing 'T is not from God that it is Nothing 't is Nothing in it self Though God be said to be the Cauâ—e of Creation yet he is never by any said to be the Cause of that Nothing which was before Creation This Permission of God is not the Cause of Sin but the cause of not hindering Sin Man and Angels had a Physical Power of sinning from God as they were created with Free-will and supported in their Natural strength but the Moral power to sin was not from God He counsell'd them not to it laid no obligation upon them to use their Natural power for such an end He only left them to their freedom and not hinder'd them in their acting what he was resolved to permit 2. The Holiness of God is not tainted by this because he was under no obligation to hinder their Commission of sin Ceasing to act whereby to prevent a Crime or mischief brings not a Person permitting it under guilt unless where he is under an obligation to prevent it But God in regard of his Absolute Dominion cannot be charged with any such Obligation One Man that doth not hinder the Murder of another when it is in his power is guilty of the Murder in part but it is to be considered that he is under a Tye by Nature as being of the same kind and being the others Brother by a communion of Blood also under an obligation of the Law of Charity enacted by the Common Soveraign of the World But what tye was there upon God since the Infinite Transcendency of his Nature and his Soveraign Dominion frees him from any such obligation Job 9.12 If he takes away who shall say What dost thou God might have prevented the Fall of Men and Angels he might have confirm'd them all in a state of perpetual Innocency but where is the Obligation He had made the Creature a Debtor to himself but he ow'd nothing to the Creature Before God can be charged with any guilt in this case it must be proved not only that he could but that he was bound to hinder it No Person can be justly charged with anothers Fault meerly for not preventing it unless he be bound to prevent it else not only the First sin of Angels and Man would be imputed to God as the Author but all the sins of Men. He could not be obliged by any Law because he had no Supeiour to impose any Law upon him and it will be hard to prove that he was obliged from his own Nature to prevent the entrance of Sin which he would use as an occasion to declare his own Holiness so transcendent a Perfection of his Nature more than ever it could have been manifested by a total exclusion of it viz. in the Death of Christ He is no more bound in his own Nature to preserve by Supernatural Grace his Creature from Falling after he had framed him with a sufficient strength to stand than he was obliged in his own Nature to bring his Creature into Being when it was Nothing He is not bound to create a Rational Creature much less bound to create him with Supernatural gifts though since God would make a Rational Creature he could not but make him with a Natural Uprightness and rectitude God did as much for Angels and Men as became a Wise Governour He had publish'd his Law back'd it with severe Penalties and the Creature wanted not a Natural strength to observe and obey it Had not Man a power to obey all the Precepts of the Law as well as one How was God bound to give him more Grace since what he had already was enough to shield him and keep up his Resistance against all the Power of Hell It had been enough to have pointed his Will against the Temptation and he had kept off the force of it Was there any Promise past to Adam of any further Grace which he could plead as a tye upon God No such voluntary Limit upon Gods Supream Dominion appears upon Record Was any thing due to Man which he had not Any thing promis'd him which was not perform'd What Action of Debt then can the Creature bring against God Indeed when Man began to neglect the light of his own Reason and became Inconsiderate of the Precept God might have enlightned his Understanding by a special flash a Supernatural beam and imprinted upoâ— him a particular consideration of the Necessity of his Obedience the Misery he was approaching to by his Sin the folly of any such Apprehension of an equality in Knowledge he might have convinc'd him of the falsity of the Serpents Arguments and uncas'd to him the Venom that lay under those Baits But how doth it
is the object of the Divine Knowledg but not the cause of the act of Divine Knowledg and though the foreknowledg of God doth in Eternity precede the actual presence of a thing which is foreseen as future yet the future thing in regard of its futurity is as Eternal as the foreknowledg of God As the Voice is uttered before it be heard and a thing is visible before it be seen and a thing knowable before it be known But how comes it to be knowable to God it must be answered either in the Power of God as a thing possible or in the Will of God as a thing future he first Willed and then knew what he Willed he knew what he Willed to effect and he knew what he Willed to permit as he Willed the Death of Christ by a determinate Counsel and Willed the Permission of the Jews Sin and the ordering of the malice of their nature to that end Acts 2.22 God decrees to make a rational Creature and to govern him by a Law God Decrees not to hinder this rational Creature from transgressing his Law and God foresees that what he would not hinder would come to pass Man did not Sin because God foresaw him but God foresaw him to Sin because man would Sin If Adam and other men would have acted otherwise God would have foreknown that they would have acted well God foresaw our actions because they would so come to pass by the motion of our Free-Will which he would permit which he would concur with which he would order to his own holy and glorious ends for the manifestation of the Perfection of his nature If I see a man lye in a Sink no necessity is inferred upon him from my sight to lye in that filthy place but there is a necessity inferr'd by him that lies there that I should see him in that condition if I pass by and cast my eye that way 5. God did not only foreknow our actions but the manner of our actions That is he did not only know that we would do such actions but that we would do them freely he foresaw that the Will would freely determine it self to this or that the Knowledg of God takes not away the nature of things though God knows possible things yet they remain in the nature of possibility and tho' God knows contingent things yet they remain in the nature of contingencies and tho' God knows free Agents yet they remain in the nature of liberty God did not foreknow the actions of man as necessary but as free so that liberty is rather established by this foreknowledg than removed God did not foreknow that Adam had not a power to stand or that any man hath not a power to omit such a sinful action but that he would not omit it Man hath a power to do otherwise than that which God foreknows he will do Adam was not determin'd by any inward necessity to Fall nor any man by any inward necessity to commit this or that particular Sin but God foresaw that he would Fall and Fall freely for he saw the whole Circle of means and causes whereby such and such actions should be produced and can be no more ignorant of the motions of our Wills and the manner of them than an Artificer can be ignorant of the motions of his Watch and how far the Spring will let down the String in the space of an hour he sees all causes leading to such events in their whole order and how the Free-Will of man will comply with this or refuse that he changes not the manner of the Creatures operation whatsoever it be 6. But what if the foreknowledg of God and the liberty of the Will cannot be fully reconciled by man shall we therefore deny a Perfection in God to support a liberty in our selves Shall we rather fasten ignorance upon God and accuse him of blindness to maintain our liberty That God doth foreknow every thing and yet that there is liberty in the rational Creature are both certain but how fully to reconcile them may surmount the Understanding of man Some Truths the Disciples were not capable of bearing in the days of Christ and several Truths our understandings cannot reach as long as the World doth last yet in the mean time we must on the one hand take heed of conceiving God ignorant and on the other hand of imagining the Creature necessitated the one will render God imperfect and the other will seem to render him unjust in punishing man for that Sin which he could not avoid but was brought into by a fatal necessity God is sufficient to render a reason of his ovvn Proceedings and clear up all at the day of Judgment 't is a part of mans curiosity since the Fall to be prying into Gods Secrets things too high for him vvhereby he singes his ovvn Wings and confounds his ovvn Understanding 'T is a cursed affectation that runs in the Blood of Adams Posterity to know as God tho' our first Father smarted and ruin'd his Posterity in that attempt the vvays and knovvledg of God are as much above our thoughts and conceptions as the heavens are above the earth Isa 55.9 Daillá Melang part 2. p. 712. 725. and so sublime that vve cannot comprehend them in their true and just greatness his designs are so mysterious and the vvays of his conduct so profound that it is not possible to dive into them The force of our understandings is belovv his infinite Wisdom and therefore vve should adore him vvith an humble astonishment and cry out vvith the Apostle Rom. 11.33 Oh the depth of the Riches of the Wisdom and Knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out When ever vve meet vvith depths that vve cannot fathom let us remember that he is God and vve his Creatures and not be guilty of so great extravagance as to think that a Subject can pierce into all the secrets of a Prince or a Work understand all the operations of the Artificer Let us only resolve not to fasten any thing on God that is unvvorthy of the Perfection of his nature and dishonourable to the Glory of his Majesty nor imagine that vve can ever step out of the rank of Creatures to the glory of the Deity to understand fully every thing in his nature So much for the second general What God knovvs III. The third is How God knows all things As it is necessary vve should conceive God to be an Understanding Being else he could not be God so vve must conceive his understanding to be infinitely more pure and perfect than ours in the act of it else vve liken him to our selves and debase him as lovv as his Foot-stool Maxim Tyriu◠Dissert 1. p. 9. 10. As among Creatures there are degrees of Being and Perfection Plants above Earth and Sand because they have a Povver of grovvth Beasts above Plants because to their Povver of grovvth there is an
English Word to express the act of the Vnderstanding as his power is co-eternal with him so is his knowledg all times past present and to come are embrac'd in the Bosom of his Understanding he fixed all things in their Seasons that nothing new comes to him nothing old passes from him Damianus What is done in a Thousand years is as actually present with his Knowledg as what is done in one day or in one Watch in the night is with ours Since a Thousand years are no more to God than a day or a Watch in the Night is to us Psal 90.4 God is in the highest degree of Being and therefore in the highest degree of Understanding Knowledg is one of the most perfect acts in any Creature God therefore hath all Actual as well as Essential and Habitual knowledg his Vnderstanding is infinite IV. The fourth general is Reasons to prove this Reas 1. God must know what any Creature knows and more than any Creature knows There is nothing done in the World but is known by some Creature or other every action is at least known by the person that acts and therefore known by the Creator vvho cannot be exceeded by any of the Creatures or all of them together and every Creature is knovvn by him since every Creature is made by him Gerhard And as God vvorks all things by an Infinite Povver so he knovvs all things by an Infinite Understanding 1. The Perfection of God requires this Gamach in 1. part Aquin. q. 14. cap. 1. p. 118. 119. All Perfections that include no Essential Defect are formally in God but knowledg includes no Essential Defect in it self therefore it is in God Knovvledg in it self is desirable and an excellency Ignorance is a defect 't is impossible that the least grain of defect can be found in the most perfect Being Since God is Wise he must be Knovving for Wisdom must have Knovvledg for the Basis of it A Creature can no more be vvise vvithout Knovvledg than he can be active vvithout Strength Novv God is only Wise Rom. 16.27 and therefore only knovving in the highest degree of Knovvledg incomprehensibly beyond all degrees of Knovvledg because infinite Again the more Spiritual any thing is the more Understanding it is The dull Body understands nothing Sense perceives but the Understanding faculty is seated in the Soul vvhich is of a spiritual nature vvhich knovvs things that are present remembers things that are past foresees many things to come What is the property of a Spiritual nature must be in a most eminent manner in the supream Spirit of the World that is in the highest degree of Spirituality and most remote from any matter Again nothing can enjoy other things but by some kind of Understanding them God hath the highest enjoyment of himself of all things he hath Created of all the Glory that accrues to him by them nothing of Perfection and Blessedness can be vvanting to him Felicity doth not consist vvith ignorance and all imperfect knovvledg is a degree of ignorance God therefore doth perfectly know himself and all things from vvhence he designs any glory to himself The most noble manner of acting must be ascribed to God as being the most noble and excellent Being to act by Knowledg is the most excellent manner of acting God hath therefore not only Knowledg but the most excellent manner of Knowledg for as it is better to know than to be ignorant so it is better to know in the most excellent manner than to have a mean and low kind of knowledg His knowledg therefore must be every way as perfect as his Essence infinite as well as that An infinite nature must have an infinite knowledg A God ignorant of any thing cannot be counted infinite for he is not infinite to whom any degree of Perfection is wanting 2. All the knowledg in any Creature is from God And you must allow God a greater and more perfect Knowledg than any Creature hath yea than all Creatures have All the drops of Knowledg any Creature hath come from God and all the knowledg in every Creature that ever was is or shall be in the whole Mass was derived from him If all those several Drops in particular Creatures were collected into one Spirit into one Creature it would be an unconceivable knowledg yet still lower than what the Author of all that knowledg hath for God cannot give more knowledg than he hath himself nor is the Creature capable of receiving so much Knowledg as God hath As the Creature is uncapable of receiving so much power as God hath for then it would be Almighty so it is uncapable of receiving so much Knowledg as God hath for then it would be God Nothing can be made by God equal to him in any thing if any thing could be made as Knowing as God it would be Eternal as God it would be the cause of all things as God The Knowledg that we poor Worms have is an Argument God uses for the asserting the greatness of his own Knowledg Psal 94.10 He that teaches man knowledg shall not he know Man hath here Knowledg ascribed to him the Author of this Knowledg is God he furnisht him with it and therefore doth in a higher manner possess it and much more than can fall under the comprehension of any Creature as the Sun enlightens all things but hath more Light in it self than it darts upon the Earth or the Heavens and shall not God eminently contain all that knowledg he imparts to the Creatures and infinitely more exact and comprehensive 3. The accusations of Conscience evidence Gods knowledg of all actions of all his Creatures Doth not Conscience check for the most secret Sins to which none are privy but a mans self the whole World beside being ignorant of his Crime do not the fears of another Judg gall the heart If a Judgment above him be fear'd an Understanding above him discerning their Secrets is confest by those fears whence can those horrors arise if there be not a Superior that understands and records the Crime What Perfection of the Divine Being can this relate unto but Omniscience What other Attribute is to be feared if God were defective in this The Condemnation of us by our own Hearts when none in the World can condemn us renders it legible that there is one greater than our hearts in respect of Knowledg who knows all things 1 John 3.20 Conscience would be a vain Principle and stingless without this it would be an easy matter to silence all its accusations and mockingly laugh in the face of its severest frowns What need any trouble themselves if none knows their Crimes but themselves Conceal'd Sins gnawing the Conscience are Arguments of Gods Omniscience of all present and past actions 4. God is the first cause of every thing every Creature is his Production Since all Creatures from the highest Angel to the lowest Worm exist by the power of God
such a Property that it was capable of receiving it This Capacity is from the nature of the Metal by God's Creation of it but the carving the Figure of this or that Man is not the Act of God but the Act of Man As Images in Scripture are called the Work of mens hands in regard of the imagery though the Matter Wood or Stone upon which the Image was carv'd was a Work of God's Creative Power When an Artificer frames an excellent Instrument and a Musician exactly tunes it and it comes out of their hands without a blemish but capable to be untun'd by some rude hand or receive a crack by a suddain fall if it meet with a Disaster is either the Workman or Musician to be blam'd The ruin of a House caused by the wastfulness or carelesness of the Tenant is not to be imputed to the Workman that built it strong and left it in a good Posture 2. Proposition God's Holiness is not blemisht by enjoyning Man a Law which he knew he would not observe 1. The Law as not above his strength Had the Law been impossible to be observed no Crime could have been imputed to the Subject the fault had layn wholly upon the Governour the Non-observance of it had been from a want of strength and not from a want of will Had God commanded Adam to fly up to the Sun when he had not given him Wings Adam might have a will to obey it but his Power would be too short to perform it But the Law set him for a Rule had nothing of impossibility in it it was easie to be observed the Command was rather below than above his strength and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and fear him from the breach of it than encourage any daring Attempts against it He had as much power or rather more to conform to it than to warp from it and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it than to violate it his All was secured by the one and his Ruin ascertained by the other * 1 Joh. 5.3 The Commands of God are not grievous from the first to the last Command there is nothing impossible nothing hard to the original and created Nature of Man which were all summ'd up in a love to God which was the pleasure and delight of Man as well as his Duty if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected the dictates and resolves of his own Understanding The Law was suted to the strength of Man and fitted for the Improvement and Perfection of his Nature In which respect the Apostle calls it good as it refers to Man as well as holy as it refers to God †Rom. 7.12 Now since God Created man a Creature capable to be governed by a Law and as a Rational Creature endued with Understanding and Will not to be govern'd according to his Nature without a Law was it congruous to the Wisdom of God to respect only the future state of Man which from the Depth of his Infinite Knowledge he did infallibly foresee would be miserable by the wilful defection of Man from the Rule Had it been agreeable to the Wisdom of God to respect only this future state and not the present state of the Creature and therefore leave him lawless because he knew he would violate the Law Should God forbear to act like a wise Governour because he foresaw that Man would cease to act like an obedient Subject Shall a righteous Magistrate forbear to make just and good Laws because he foresees either from the dispositions of his Subjects their ill humour or some Circumstances which will intervene that Multitudes of them will incline to break those Laws and fall under the Penalty of them No blame can be upon that Magistrate who minds the Rule of Righteousness and the necessary Duty of his Government since he is not the Cause of those turbulent Affections in Men which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just Edicts 2. Though the Law now be above the strength of man yet is not the holiness of God blemisht by keeping it up 'T is true God hath been graciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigour of the Law by the entrance of the Gospel yet where men refuse the terms of the Gospel they continue themselves under the Condemnation of the Law and are justly guilty of the breach of it though they have no strength to observe it The Law as I said before was not above mans strength when he was possessed of Original Righteousness though it be above mans strength since he was stript of Original Righteousness The Command was dated before man had contracted his Impotency when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it Had it been enjoyned to man only after the fall and not before he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself because of the impossibility of it yet he would not have had sufficient excuse since the impossibility did not result from the Nature of the Law but from the corrupted Nature of the Creature It was weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.3 but it was promulg'd when man had a strength proportion'd to the Commands of it And now since man hath unhappily made himself uncapable of obeying it must God's Holiness in his Law be blemisht for enjoyning it Must he abrogate those Commands and prohibit what before he enjoyned for the satisfaction of the corrupted Creature would not this be his ceasing to be holy that his Creature might be unblameably unrighteous Must God strip himself of his Holiness because man will not discharge his Iniquity He cannot be the cause of sin by keeping up the Law who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men by removing the Authority of it Some things in the Law that are intrinsecally good in their own Nature are indispensable and it is repugnant to the Nature of God not to Command them If he were not the Guardian of his indispensable Law he would be the Cause and Countenancer of the Creatures Iniquity So little reason have men to charge God with being the Cause of their sin by not repealing his Law to gratifie their Impotence that he would be unholy if he did God must not lose his Purity because man hath lost his and cast away the Right of his Soveraignty because man hath cast away his Power of Obedience 3. God's foreknowledge that his Law would not be observ'd lays no blame upon him Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible yet it doth not necessitate the Creature in acting It was certain from Eternity that Adam would fall that men would do such and such Actions that Judas would betray our Saviour God foreknew all those things from Eternity but it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam or any other Branch of his Posterity in the doing those Actions that were so foreseen by God they voluntarily run into such Courses
of the Act As the good Judge that Condemned the Prisoner out of Conscience concurred with the evil Judge who condemned the Prisoner out of private Revenge not in the Principle and Motive of Condemnation but in the Material part of Condemnation So God assists in that Action of a Man wherein Sin is placed but not in that which is the Formal reason of Sin which is a privation of some Perfection the Action ought Morally to have 3. It will appear further in this that hence it follows that the Action and the viciousness of the Action may have two distinct Causes That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other and hath no hand in the producing of it God concurs to the Act of the Mind as it Counsels and to the external Action upon that Counsel as he preserves the Faculty and gives strength to the Mind to consult and the other parts to execute yet he is not in the least tainted with the Viciousness of the Action Though the Action be from God as a concurrent Cause yet the ill quality of the Action is solely from the Creature with whom God concurs The Sun and the Earth concur to the production of all the Plants that are formed in the womb of the one and Midwiv'd by the other The Sun distributes Heat and the Earth communicates Sap 't is the same Heat dispersed by the one and the same Juyce bestowed by the other It hath not a sweet Juyce for one and a sowr Juyce for another This general Influx of the Sun and Earth is not the immediate cause that one Plant is poysonous and another wholsom but the Sap of the Earth is turned by the Nature and quality of each Plant If there were not such an Influx of the Sun and Earth no Plant could exert that poyson which is in its Nature but yet the Sun and Earth are not the cause of that poyson which is in the Nature of the Plant. If God did not concur to the motions of Men there could be no sinful Action because there could be no Action at all yet this Concurrence is not the cause of that Venom that is in the Action which ariseth from the Corrupt Nature of the Creature no more than the Sun and Earth are the cause of the Poyson of the Plant which is purely the effect of its own Nature upon that general Influx of the Sun and Earth The Influence of God pierceth through all Subjects but the Action of Man done by that Influence is vitiated according to the Nature of its own Corruption As the Sun equally shines through all the Quarrels in the Window if the Glass be bright and clear there is a pure splendor if it be Red or Green the splendor is from the Sun but the discolouring of that Light upon the Wall is from the quality of the Glass †Zanch. Tom. 2. lib. 3. cap. 4. qu. 4. p. 226. But to be yet plainer The Soul is the Image of God and by the Acts of the Soul we may come to the knowledge of the Acts of God the Soul gives motion to the Body and every Member of it and no Member could move without a concurrent virtue of the Soul if a Member be Paralitick or Gouty whatsoever motion that Gouty Member hath is derived to it from the Soul but the Goutyness of the Member was not the Act of the Soul but the fruit of Ill humors in the Body the lameness of the Member and the motion of the Member have two distinct causes the motion is from one cause and the Ill motion from another As the Member could not move irregularly without some Ill humor or cause of that distemper so it could not move at all without the activity of the Soul So though God concur to the act of Understanding Willing and Execution why can he not be as free from the Irregularity in all those as the Soul is free from the Irregularity of the mâ—â—ion of the Body while it is the cause of the motion it self There are two Illustrations generally used in this case that are not unfit the motion of the Pen in writing is from the hand that holds it but the Blurs by the Pen are from some fault in the Pen it self And the Musick of the Instrument is from the hand that touches it but the Jarring from the faultiness of the Strings both are the causes of the motion of the Pen and Strings but not the blurs or jarrings 4. 'T is very congruous to the Wisdom of God to move his Creatures according to their particular Natures but this Motion makes him not the cause of Sin Had our Innocent Nature continued God had moved us according to that Innocent Nature but when the state was changed for a Corrupt one God must either forbear all concourse and so annihilate the World or move us according to that Nature he finds in us If he had overthrown the World upon the entrance of Sin and created another upon the same terms Sin might have as soon defac'd his second Work as it did the first and then it would follow that God would have been alway building and demolishing It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a Wise Governour of his Creature because Man did cease from his Loyalty as a Subject Is it not more agreeable to Gods Wisdom as a Governour to concur with his Creature according to his Nature than to deny his concurrence upon every Evil determination of the Creature God concurr'd with Adams mutable Nature in his first act of Sin he concurr'd to the act and left him to his Mutability If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden Fruit God would have supported his Natural faculty then and concurr'd with him in his motion When Adam would put out his hand to take the Forbidden Fruit God concurr'd to that Natural action but left him to the choice of the Object and to the use of his mutable Nature And when Man became Apostate God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him and cannot move him otherwise unless he should alter that Nature Man had contracted God moving the Creature as he found him is no cause of the Ill motion of the Creature As when a Wheel is broken the space of a foot it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended He that moves it uses the same motion as it is his Act which he would have done had the Wheel been sound the motion is good in the Mover but bad in the Subject 'T is not the fault of him that moves it but the fault of that Wheel that is moved whose breaches came by some other cause A Man doth not use to lay aside his Watch for some Irregularity as long as it is capable of motion but winds it up Why should God cease from concurring with his Creature in its vital Operations and other actions of his
God said and he there owns him ver 5. Ye shall become as Gods He owns God in the question he asks the Woman and perswades our first Parents to be Gods themselves And in all stories both Ancient and Modern the Devil was never able to Tincture mends minds with a professed denial of the Deity which would have opened a door to a world of more wickedness than hath been acted and took away the bar to the breaking out of that evil which is naturally in the hearts of men to the greater prejudice of human societies He wanted not malice to rase out all the Notions of God but power He knew it was impossible to effect it and therefore in vain to attempt it He set up himself in several places of the ignorant world as a God but never was able to overthrow the opinion of the being of a God The impressions of a Deity were so strong as not to be struck out by the malice and power of Hell What a folly is it then in any to contradict or doubt of this Truth which all the periods of time have not been able to wear out which all the Wars and Quarrels of men with their own Consciences have not been able to destroy which Ignorance and Debauchery it s two greatest Enemies cannot weaken which all the falsehoods and errors which have reigned in one or other part of the world have not been able to banish which lives in the consents of men in spight of all their wishes to the contrary and hath grown stronger and Shone clearer by the improvements of natural reason 3. Natural and innate which pleads strongly for the perpetuity of it T is natural tho some think it not a Principle writ in the heart of man * Pink. Eph. 6. pag. 10. 11. t is so natural that every man is born with a restless instinct to be of some kind of Religion or other which implies some object of Religion The impression of a Deity is as common as reason and of the same age with reason * King en Jonah pag. 16. T is a Relique of knowledg after the fall of Adam like fire under ashes which sparkles as soon as ever the heap of ashes is opened A notion sealed up in the Soul of every man * Amyrant des Religious pag. 6. 5. 8. 9. else how could those people who were unknown to one another separate by Seas and Mounts differing in various customes and manner of living had no mutual intelligence one with another light upon this as a common Sentiment if they had not been guided by one uniforme reason in all their minds by one nature common to them all though their Clymates be different their tempers and constitutions various their imaginations in somethings as distant from one another as Heaven is from Earth the Ceremonies of their Religion not all of the same kind Yet wherever you find human nature you find this setled perswasion So that the Notion of a God seems to be twisted with the nature of man and is the first natural branch of Common reason or upon either the first inspection of a man into himself and his own state and constitution or upon the first sight of any external visible object Nature within man and nature without man agree upon the first meeting together to form this Sentiment that there is a God T is as natural as any thing we call a Common Principle One thing which is called a Common Principle and natural is that the whole is greater than the parts If this be not born with us yet the exercise of reason essential to man settles it as a certain Maxim upon the dividing any thing into several parts he finds every part less than when they were altogether By the same exercise of reason we cannot cast our eyes upon any thing in the world or exercise our understandings upon our selves but we must presently imagine there was some cause of those things some cause of my self and my own being so that this Truth is as natural to man as any thing he can call most natural or a Common Principle It must be confest by all that there is a Law of nature writ upon the hearts of men which will direct them to commendable actions if they will attend to the writing in their own Consciences This Law cannot be considered without the notice of a Law-giver For t is but a natural and obvious conclusion that some superior hand engrafted those principles in man since he finds something in him twitching him upon the pursuit of uncomely actions though his heart be mightily enclined to them man knows he never planted this principle of Reluctancy in his own Soul he can never be the cause of that which he cannot be friends with If he were the cause of it why doth he not rid himself of it No man would endure a thing that doth frequently molest and disquiet him if he could casheir it T is therefore sown in man by some hand more powerful than man which riseth so high and is rooted so strong that all the force that man can use cannot pull it up If therefore this principle be natural in man and the Law of Nature be natural the Notion of a Law-giver must be as natural as the Notion of a Printer or that there is a Printer is obvious upon the sight of a stamp imprest After this the multitude of effects in the World step in to strengthen this beam of natural light and the direct Conclusion from thence is that that power which made those outward objects implanted this inward principle This is sown in us born with us and sprouts up with our growth or as one saith * Chaâ—leâ—â—â— t is like Letters carved upon the bark of a young plant which grows up together with us and the longer it grows the Letters are more legible This is the ground of this universal consent and why it may well be termed natural This will more evidently appear to be natural because 1. This consent could not be by meer Tradition 2. Nor by any mutual intelligence of Governors to keep people in aw which are two things the Atheist pleads the first hath no strong foundation and that other is as absurd and foolish as it is wicked and abominable 3. Nor was it fear first introduced it 1. It could not be my meer Tradition Many things indeed are entertained by posterity which their Ancestors delivered to them and that out of a common reverence to their Fore-Fathers and an opinion that they had a better prospect of things than the increase of the corruption of suceeding ages would permit them to have But if this be a Tradition handed from our Ancestors they also must receive it from theirs we must then ascend to the first man we cannot else escape a confounding ourselves with running into infinite was it then the only Tradition he left to them is it not probable he acquainted them with
of the Heaven c. How could this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it Every plant every Atome as well as every Star at the first meeting whispers this in our Ears I have a Creator I am witness to a Deity who ever saw Statues or Pictures but presently thinks of a Statuary and Limner Who beholds Garments Ships or Houses but understands there was a Weaver a Carpenter an Architect * Philo. ex Petav. Theolo Dog Tom 1. li. 1. cap. 1 pa. 4. somewhat changed Who can cast his eyes about the world but must think of that power that formed it and that the goodness which appears in the formation of it hath a perfect Residence in some Being those things that are good must flow from somthing perfectly good that which is chief in any kind is the cause of all of that kind Fire which is most hot is the cause of all things which are hot There is some being therefore which is the cause of all that Perfection which is in the Creature and this is God Aquin. 1 qu. 2. Artic. 3. All things that are demonstrate something from whence they are All things have a contracted perfection and what they have is Communicated to them Perfections are parcelled out among several Creatures Any thing that is imperfect cannot exist of it self We are led therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection a hand which distributes those several degrees of Being and Perfection to what we see we see that which is imperfect our minds conclude somthing perfect to exist before it our eye sees the streams but our understanding riseth to the head as the eye sees the shadow but the understanding informs us whither it he the shadow of a man or of a beast God hath given us Sense to behold the objects in the World and Understanding to reason his Existence from them the understanding cannot conceive a thing to have made it self that is against all reason * Rom. 1.20 As they are made they speak out a Maker and cannot be a trick of chance since they are made with such an immense Wisdom that is too big for the grasp of all humane understanding Those that doubt whither the Existence of God be an implanted Principle yet agree that the effects in the world lead to a supream and universal cause And that if we have not the knowledge of it rooted in our Natures yet we have it by discourse since by all Masters of reason a Processus in Infinitum must be accounted impossible in subordinate causes This will appear in several things First I. The World and every Creature had a beginning The Scripture Ascertains this to us * Gen. 1. By Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God c. David who was not the first man gives the praise to God of his being curiously wrought c. Psal 139.14.15 God gave being to Men and Plants and Beasts before they gave being to one another He gives being to them now as the Fountain of all being though the several Modes of being are from the several natures of second causes * Heb. 11.3 T is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God that they were made by his word that they were made of nothing and not only this lower world wherein we live but according to the Jewish division the world of Men the the world of Stars and the world of Spirits and Souls We do not waver in it or doubt of it as the Heathen did in their disputes we know they are the workmanship of the true God of that God we adore not of false Gods By his Word without any instrument or engin as in earthly Sâ—ructures of things which do not appear without any preexistent matter as all Artificial works of men are framed Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason and if it had a beginning it had also some higher cause than it self Every effect hath a cause * Daille 20. Serm. Psa 102.26 pa. 13. 14. The World was not Eternal or from Eternity The matter of the world cannot be Eternal Matter cannot subsist without form nor put on any form without the action of some cause this cause must be in being before it acted that which is not cannot act The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form that therefore cannot be Eternal before which another did subsist if it were from Eternity it would not be subject to mutation If the whole was from Eternity why not also the parts what makes the changes so visible then if Eternity would exempt it from mutability 1. Time cannot be infinite and therefore the World not Eternal * Daille ut Supra All motion hath its beginning if it were otherwise we must say the number of Heavenly revolutions of days and nights which are past to this instant is actually infinite which cannot be in nature If it were so it must needs be granted that a part is equal to the whole because infinite being equal to infinite the number of days past in all Ages to the beginning of one year being Infinite as they would be supposing the World had no beginning would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to the end of the next whereas that number of days past is indeed but a part and so a part would be equal to the whole 2. Generations of Men Animals and Plants could not be from Eternity * Petar Theo. Dogmat. tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 15. If any Man say the world was from Eternity then there must be propagations of living Creatures in the same manner as are at this day For without this the World could not consist what we see now done must have been perpetually done if it be done by a necessity of nature But we see nothing now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another If the world were Eternal therefore it must be so in all Eternity take any particular species suppose a man if men were from Eternity then there were perpetual generations some were born into the World and some died Now the natural condition of generation is that a man doth not generate a man nor a Sheep a Lamb as soon as ever it self is brought into the World but get strength and vigour by degrees and must arrive to a certain stated age before they can produce the like for whilst any thing is little and below the due age it cannot increase its kind Men therefore and other Creatures did propagate their kind by the same Law not as soon as ever they were born but in the interval of some time and Children grew up by degrees in the Mothers Womb till they were fit to be brought forth If this be so then there could not be an Eternal
succession of propagating For there is no Eternal continuation of time Time is always to be conceived as having one part before another But that perpetuity of Nativities is always after some time wherein it could not be for the weakness of age If no man then can conceive a propagation from Eternity there must be then a beginning of Generation in time and consequently the Creatures were made in time * To express 〈◊〉 in the words of one of our own Wolscley of Atheism pa. 4◠If the World were Eternal it must have been in the same posture as it is now in a state of Generation and Corruption And so Corruption must have been as Eternal as Generation and then things that do generate and corrupt must have Eternally been and Eternally not have been There must be some first way to set Generation on work We must lose our selves in our conceptions we cannot conceive a Father before a Child as well as we cannot conceive a Child before a Father And reason is quite bewildred and cannot return into a right way of Conception till it Conceive one first of every kind One first man one first animal one first Plant from whence others do proceed The argument is unanswerable and the wisest Atheist if any Atheist can be called wise cannot unlose the knot We must come to something that is first in every kind and this first must have a cause not of the same kind but Infinite and Independent otherwise men run into unconceivable Labyrinths and contradictions Man the Noblest Creature upon Earth hath a beginning No Man in the World but was some years ago no man If every man we see had a beginning then the first Man had also a beginning then the World had a beginning For the Earth which was made for the use of man had wanted that end for which it was made We must pitch upon some one man that was unborn that first man must either be Eternal * Petav. ut supr p. 10. that cannot be for he that hath no beginning hath no end or must spring out of the Earth as Plants and Trees do That cannot be Why should not the Earth produce men to this day as it doth Plants and Trees He was therefore made and whatsoever is made hath some cause that made it which is God * Damason If the World were uncreated it were then immutable but every Creature upon the Earth is in a continual flux always changing If things be mutable they were Created if Created they were made by some Author whatsoever hath a beginning must have a maker if the World hath a beginning there was then a time when it was not it must have some cause to produce it That which makes is before that which is made and this is God Secondly II. Which will appear further in this proposition No Creature can make it self The world could not make it self If every man had a beginning every man then was once nothing he could not then make himself because nothing cannot be the cause of something Psa 100.3 The Lord he is God he hath made us and not we our selves whatsoever begun in time was not and when it was nothing it had nothing and could do nothing And therefore could never give to it self nor to any other to be or to be able to do For then it gave what it had not and did what it could not * Petav. Theo. Dog tom 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pag. 14. Since reason must acknowledge a first of every kind a first Man c. it must acknowledge him Created and made not by himself why have not other men since rise up by themselves not by Chance why hath not Chance produced the like in that long time the World hath stood If we never knew any thing give being to it self how can we Imagine any thing ever could If the chiefest part of this lower World cannot nor any part of it hath been known to give being to it self then the whole cannot be supposed to give any being to it self Man did not forme himself His body is not from himself it would then have the power of moving it self but that is not able to live or act without the presence of the Soul Whilst the Soul is present the body moves when that is absent the body lies as a senseless log not having the least action or motion His Soul could not form it self can that which cannot form the least mote the least grain of dust form it self a nobler substance than any upon the Earth This will be evident to every Mans reason if we consider 1. Nothing can act before it be The first Man was not and therefore could not make himself to be For any thing to produce it self is to act if it acted before it was it was then something and nothing at the same time it then had a being before it had a being it acted when it brought it self into being How could it act without a being without it was So that if it were the cause of it self it must be before it self as well as after it self it was before it was it was as a cause before it was as an effect Action always supposeth a priciple from whence it flows as nothing hath no Existence so it hath no operation there must be therefore something of real Existence to give a Being to those things that are and every cause must be an effect of some other before it be a cause To be and not be at the same time is a manifest contradiction which would be if any thing made it self That which makes is always before that which is made Who will say the House is before the Carpenter or the Picture before the Limbner The world as a Creature must be before it self as a Creature 2. That which doth not understand it self and order it self could not make it self If the first Man fully understood his own nature the excellency of his own Soul the manner of its operations why was not that understanding conveyed to his posterity Are not many of them found who understand their own nature almost as little as a Beast understands it self or a Rose understands its own sweetness or a Tulip it s own Colours The Scripture indeed gives us an account how this came about viz. by the deplorable Rebellion of Man whereby Death was brought upon them a Spiritual Death which includes ignorance as well as an inability to Spritual action * Gen. 2.17 Psal 49.8 Thus he fell from his Honour and became like the Beasts that perish and not retaining God in his knowledge retained not himself in his own knowledge But what reply can an Atheist make to it who acknowledges no higher cause than nature If the Soul made it self how comes it to be so muddy so wanting in its knowledge of it self and of other things If the Soul made its own understanding whence did the defect arise If some
reasonably doubt but that there is some first cause which makes the things appear so to them They cannot be the cause of their own appearance For as nothing can have a being from it self so nothing can appear by it self and its own force Nothing can be and not be at the same time But that which is not and yet seems to be if it be the cause why it seems to be what it is not it may be said to be and not to be But certainly such persons must think themselves to exist If they do not they cannot think and if they do exist they must have some cause of that Existence So that which way soever we turn our selves we must in reason own a first cause of the World Well then might the Psalmist term an Atheist a fool that disowns a God against his own reason Without owning a God as the first cause of the world no man can give any tolerable or satisfactory account of the world to his own reason And this first cause 1. Must necessarily exist * Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pa. 10. 11. T is necessary that he by whom all things are should be before all things and nothing before him And if nothing be before him he comes not from any other and then he always was and without beginning He is from himself not that he once was not but because he hath not his Existence from another and therefore of necessity he did exist from all Eternity Nothing can make it self or bring it self into being therefore there must be some being which hath no cause that depends upon no other never was produced by any other but was what he is from Eternity and cannot be otherwise and is not what he is by will but nature necessarily existing and always existing without any capacity or possibility ever not to be 2. Must be infinitely perfect Since man knows he is an imperfect being he must suppose the perfections he wants are seated in some other being which hath limited him and upon which he depends Whatsoever we conceive of excellency or perfection must be in God For we can conceive no perfection but what God hath given us a power to conceive And he that gave us a power to conceive a transcendent perfection above whatever we saw or heard of hath much more in himself else he could not give us such a conception Secondly II. As the production of the world so the harmony of all the parts of it declare the being and wisdom of a God Without the acknowledging God the Atheist can give no account of those things The multitude elegancy variety and beauty of all things are steps whereby to ascend to one fountain and orignal of them Is it not a folly to deny the being of a wise Agent who sparkles in the beauty and motions of the Heavens rides upon the wings of the wind and is writ upon the flowers and fruits of Plants As the cause is known by the effects so the wisdom of the cause is known by the elegancy of the work the proportion of the parts to one another Who can imagine the world could be rashly made and without consultation which in every part of it is so Artificially framed * Philo. Judae Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 9. No work of Art springs up of its own accord The world is framed by an excellent Art and therefore made by some skilful Artist As we hear not a melodious instrument but we conclude there is a Musitian that touches it as well as some skilful hand that framed and disposed it for those Lessons And no man that hears the pleasant sound of a Lute but will fix his thoughts not upon the Instrument it self but upon the skill of the Artist that made it and the art of the Musitian that strikes it though he should not see the first when he saw the Lute nor see the other when he hears the harmony So a rational Creature confines not his thoughts to his sense when he sees the Sun in its Glory and the Moon walking in its brightness but riseth up in a contemplation and admiration of that infinite Spirit that composed and filled them with such sweetness This appears 1. In the linking contrary qualities together All things are compounded of the Elements Those are endued with contrary qualities driness and moisture heat and cold These would always be contending with and infesting one anothers rights till the contest ended in the destruction of one or both Where fire is predominant it would suck up the water where water is prevalent it would quench the fire The heat would wholly expel the cold or the cold over-power the heat Yet we see them chained and linkt one within another in every body upon the Earth and rendring mutual offices for the benefit of that body wherein they are seated and all conspiring together in their particular quarrels for the publick interest of the body How could those contraries that of themselves observe no order that are always preying upon one another joyntly accord together of themselves for one common end if they were not linkt in a common band and reduced to that order by some incomprehensible wisdom and power which keeps a hand upon them orders their motions and directs their events and makes them friendly pass into one anothers Natures Confusion had been the result of the discord and diversity of their Natures No composition could have been of those conflicting qualities for the frame of any body nor any harmony arose from so many jarring strings if they had not been reduced into concord by one that is supream Lord over them and knows how to dispose their varieties and enmities for the publick good * Athanasius Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 4. 5. If a man should see a large City or Country consisting of great multitudes of men of different tempers full of Frauds and Factions and Animosities in their natures against one another yet living together in good order and peace without oppressing and invading one another and joyning together for the publick good he would presently conclude there were some excellent Governor who tempered them by his Wisdom and preserved the publick Peace though he had never yet beheld him with his eye T is as necessary to conclude a God who moderates the contrarieties in the world as to conclude a wise Prince who overrules the contrary dispositions in a state making every one to keep his own bounds and confines Things that are contrary to one another subsist in an admirable order 2. In the subserviency of one thing to another * Gassend Physic sect 1. lib. 4. cap. 2. pag. 315. All the Members of living Creatures are curiously fitted for the service of one another destin'd to a particular end and endued with a vertue to attain that end and so distinctly placed that one is no hinderance to the
understand what storms it is to contest with or why it shoots up its branches towards Heaven Doth it know it needs the droppings of the clouds to preserve it self and make it fruitful These are acts of understanding The root is downward to preserve its own standing the branches upward to preserve other Creatures This understanding is not in the Creature it self but originally in another Thunders and Tempests know not why they are sent yet by the direction of a mighty hand they are instruments of Justice upon a wicked world * Coccei sum Theolog. cap. 8. § 67. c. Rational Creatures that act for some end and know the end they aim at yet know not the manner of the natural motion of the members to it When we intend to look upon a thing we take no counsel about the natural motion of our eyes we know not all the principles of their operations or how that dull matter whereof our bodies are composed is subject to the order of our minds * Peirson on the Creed p. 35. We are not of Counsel with our stomacks about the concoction of our meat or the distribution of the nourishing juyce to the several parts of the body Neither the Mother nor the Foetus sit in Council how the formation should be made in the Womb. We know no more than a plant knows what Stature it is of and what medicinal vertue its fruit hath for the good of man yet all those natural operations are perfectly directed to their proper end by an higher wisdom than any human understanding is able to conceive since they exceed the ability of an inanimate or fleshly nature yea and the wisdom of a man Do we not often see reasonable Creatures acting for one end and perfecting a higher than what they aimed at or could suspect When Josephs Brethren sold him for a Slave their end was to be rid of an Informer * Gen. 37.2 But the action issued in preparing him to be the preserver of them and their families Cyrus his end was to be a Conqueror but the action ended in being the Jews deliverer Prov. 16.9 A mans heart deviseth his way but the Lord directs his steps 3. Therefore there is some superior understanding and nature which so acts them That which acts for an end unknown to it self depends upon some over-ruling wisdom that knows that end Who should direct them in all those ends but he that bestowed a being upon them for those ends * Lessius de providen lib. 1. pag. 652. who knows what is convenient for their life security and propagation of their natures An exact knowledge is necessary both of what is agreeable to them and the means whereby they must attain it which since it is not inherent in them is in that wise God who puts those instincts into them and governs them in the exercise of them to such ends Any man that sees a dart flung knows it cannot hit the mark without the skil and strength of an Archer Or he that sees the hand of a Dial pointing to the hours successively knows that the Dial is ignorant of its own end and is disposed and directed in that motion by an other All Creatures ignorant of their own natures could not universally in the whole kind and in every Climate and Country without any difference in the whole world tend to a certain end if some over-ruling wisdom did not preside over the world and guide them and if the Creatures have a Conductor they have a Creator All things are turned round about by his Council that they may do whatsoever he Commands them upon the face of the world in the earth * Job 37.12 So that in this respect the folly of Atheism appears Without the owning a God no account can be given of those actions of Creatures that are an imitation of Reason To say the Bees c. are rational is to equal them to man nay make them his superiors since they do more by nature than the wisest man can do by art T is their own Counsel whereby they act or anothers If it be their own they are reasonable Creatures If by anothers t is not meer nature that is necessary Then other Creatures would not be without the same skill There would be no difference among them If nature be restrained by another it hath a superior if not t is a free agent T is an understanding being that directs them And then it is something superior to all Creatures in the world and by this therefore we may ascend to the acknowledgment of the necessity of a God Fourthly IV. Add to the production and order of the world and the Creatures acting for their end the preservation of them Nothing can depend upon it self in its preservation no more than it could in its being If the order of the world was not fixed by it self the preservation of that order cannot be continued by it self Tho the matter of the world after Creation cannot return to that nothing whence it was fetched without the power of God that made it because the same power is as requisite to reduce a thing to nothing as to raise a thing from nothing yet without the actual exerting of a power that made the Creatures they would fall into confusion Those contesting qualities which are in every part of it could not have preserved but would have consumed and extinguisht one another and reduced the world to that confused Chaos wherin it was before the Spirit moved upon the waters As contrary parts could not have met together in one form unless there had been one that had conjoyned them So they could not have kept together after their conjunction unless the same hand had preserved them Natural contrarieties cannot be reconciled T is as great power to keep discords knit as at first to link them Who would doubt but that an Army made up of several Nations and humors would fall into a Civil War and sheath their Swords in one anothers bowels if they were not under the management of some wise General or a Ship dash against the Rocks without the skill of a Pilot * Gassend Phy. sect 6. lib. 4. cap. 2. pa. 101. As the body hath neither life nor motion without the active presence of the Soul which distributes to every part the vertue of acting sets every one in the exercise of its proper function and resides in every part So there is some powerful cause which doth the like in the world that rules and tempers it There is need of the same power and action to preserve a thing as there was at first to make it When we consider that we are preserved and know that we could not preserve our selves we must necessarily run to some first cause which doth preserve us All works of art depend upon nature and are preserved while they are kept by the force of nature As a Statue depends upon the matter whereof it is
of its capacity The understanding can conceive the whole world and paint in it self the invisible Pictures of all things T is capable of apprehending and discoursing of things superior to its own nature * Culverwel T is suted to all objects as the Eye to all Colours or the Ear to all sounds How great is the Memory to retain such varieties such diversities The Will also can accomodate other things to it self It invents Arts for the use of Man prescribes rules for the Government of States ransacks the bowels of nature makes endless conclusions and steps in reasoning from one thing to another for the knowledge of Truth It can contemplate and form notions of things higher than the world 2. The quickness of its motion * Theodoret. Nothing is more quick in the whole course o◠nature the Sun runs through the World in a day this can do it in a moment It can with one flight of fancy ascend to the battlements of Heaven The mists of the Air that hinder the sight of the Eye cannot hinder the flights of the Soul it can pass in a moment from one end of the World to the other and think of things a thousand miles distant It can think of some mean thing in the world and presently by one cast in the twinkling of an Eye mount up as high as Heaven As its desires are not bounded by sensual objects so neither are the motions of it restrained by them It will break forth with the greatest vigour and conceive things infinitely above it Though it be in the body it acts as if it were ashamed to be Cloystered in it This could not be the result of any material cause Whoever knew meer matter understand think will And what it hath not it cannot give That which is destitute of Reason and Will could never confer Reason and Will * Coccei sum The dog cap. 8. § 51.52 T is not the effect of the Body for the Body is fitted with members to be subject to it T is in part ruled by the activity of the Soul and in part by the Counsel of the Soul T is used by the Soul and knows not how it is used Nor could it be from the Parents since the Souls of the Children often transcend those of the Parents in vivacity acuteness and comprehensiveness One man is stupid and begets a Son with a capacious understanding one is debauched and beastly in morals and begets a Son who from his Infancy testifies some vertuous inclinations which sprout forth in delightful fruit with the ripeness of his age I do not dispute whether the Soul were generated or no Suppose the substance of it was generated by the Parents yet those more excellent qualities were not the result of them Whence should this difference arise a fool begat the wise man and a debauched the vertuous man The wisdom of the one could not descend from the foolish Soul of the other nor the vertues of the Son from the deformed and polluted Soul of the Parent it lies not in the Organs of the Body For if the folly of the Parent proceeded not from their Souls but the ill disposition of the Organs of their bodies how comes it to pass that the bodies of the Children are better Organiz'd beyond the goodness of their immediate cause We must recur to some invisible hand that makes the difference who bestows upon one at his pleasure richer qualities than upon another You can see nothing in the World endowed with some excellent quality but you must imagine some bountiful hand did inrich it with that dowry None can be so foolish as to think that a vessel ever inricht it self with that spritely Liquor wherewith it is filled or that any thing worse than the Soul should indow it with that knowledge and activity which sparkles in it Nature could not produce it That nature is intelligent or not if it be not then it produceth an effect more excellent than it self in as much as an understanding being surmounts a being that hath no understanding If the supream cause of the Soul be intelligent why do we not call it God as well as nature We must arise from hence to the notion of a God a Spiritual nature cannot proceed but from a Spirit higher than it self and of a transcendent perfection above it self If we beleive we have Souls and understand the state of our own faculties we must be assured that there was some invisible hand which bestowed those faculties and the riches of them upon us A man must be ignorant of himself before he can be ignorant of the Existence of God By considering the nature of our Souls we may as well be assured that there is a God as that there is a Sun by the shining of the beams in at our Windows And indeed the Soul is a Statue and representation of God as the Land-Skip of a Country or Map represents all the parts of it but in a far less proportion than the Country it self is The Soul fills the body and God the world the Soul sustains the body and God the World the Soul sees but is not seen God sees all things but is himself invisible How base are they then that prostitute their Souls an image of God to base things unexpressibly below their own nature 3. I might add the union of Soul and Body Man is a kind of compound of Angel and Beast of Soul and body if he were only a Soul he were a kind of Angel if only a body he were another kind of brute Now that a body as vile and dull as earth and a Soul that can mount up to Heaven and rove about the world with so quick a motion should be linkt in so strait an acquaintance that so noble a being as the Soul should be an inhabitant in such a Tabernacle of Clay must be owned to some infinite power that hath so chained it 3. Man witnesseth to a God in the operations and reflections of Conscience Rom. 2.15 Their thoughts are accusing or excusing An inward comfort attends good actions and an inward torment follows bad ones for there is in every mans Conscience fear of punishment and hope of reward There is therefore a sense of some superior Judge which hath the power both of rewarding and punishing If man were his supream rule what need he fear punishment since no man would inflict any evil or torment on himself nor can any man be said to reward himself for all rewards refer to another to whom the action is pleasing and is a conferring some good a man had not before If an action be done by a Subject or Servant with hopes of reward it can not be imagined that he expects a reward from himself but from the Prince or person whom he eyes in that action and for whose sake he doth it 1. There is a Law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil There is a Notion
of its existence would be vain for since God is a Being Chance which is nothing could not bring forth something and by the same reason that he sprung up by chance he might totally vanish by chance What a strange notion of a God would this be Such a God that had no life in himself but from chance Since he hath life in himself and that there was no cause of his existence he can have no cause of his limitation and can no more be determined to a time than he can to a place What hath life in it self hath life without bounds and can never desert it nor be deprived of it So that he lives necessarily and it is absolutely impossible that he should not live whereas all other things live and move and have their being in him * Acts 17.28 and as they live by his Will so they can return to nothing at his Word 3. If God were not eternal he were not immutable in his nature 'T is contrary to the nature of immutability to be without eternity for whatsoever begins is changed in its passing from not being to being It began to be what it was not and if it ends it ceaseth to be what it was It cannot therefore be said to be God If there were either beginning or ending or succession in it Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not Job 37.23 Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out God argues here saith Calvin from his unchangeable nature as Jehovah to his immutability in his purpose Had he not been eternal there had been the greatest change from nothing to something A change of Essence is greater than a change of purpose God is a Sun glittering always in the same glory No growing up in Youth no passing on to Age If he were not without succession standing in one point of Eternity there would be a change from past to present from present to future The Eternity of God is a Shield against all kind of mutability If any thing sprang up in the Essence of God that was not there before he could not be said to be either an eternal or an unchanged Substance 4. God could not be an infinitely perfect Being if he were not eternal A finite duration is inconsistent with infinite perfection Whatsoever is contracted within the limits of time cannot swallow up all perfections in it self God hath an unsearchable perfection * Job 11.7 Canst thou by searching find out God canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection He cannot be found out He is infinite because he is incomprehensible Incomprehensibility ariseth from an infinite perfection which cannot be fathom'd by the short line of Man's Understanding His Essence in regard of its diffusion and in regard of its duration is incomprehensible as well as his action If God therefore had beginning he could not be infinite if not infinite he did not possess the highest perfection because a perfection might be conceived beyond it If his Being could fail he were not perfect Can that deserve the name of the highest perfection which is capable of corruption and dissolution To be finite and limited is the greatest imperfection for it consists in a denial of being He could not be the most blessed Being if he were not always so and should not for ever remain to be so and whatsoever perfections he had would be sowred by the thoughts that in time they would cease and so could not be pure perfections because not permanent But He is blessed from everlasting to everlasting * Psal 41.13 Had he a beginning he could not have all perfection without limitation he would have been limited by that which gave him beginning that which gave him being would be God and not himself and so more perfect than he But since God is the most soveraign perfection than which nothing can be imagined perfecter by the most capacious understanding He is certainly eternal being infinite nothing can be added to him nothing detracted from him 5. God could not be Omnipotent Almighty if he were not Eternal The title of Almighty agrees not with a nature that had a beginning whatsoever hath a beginning was once nothing and when it was nothing could act nothing Where there is no being there is no power Neither doth the title of Almighty agree with a perishing nature He can do nothing to purpose that cannot preserve himself against the outward force and violence of Enemies or against the inward causes of corruption and dissoluon No account is to be made of Man because his breath is in his Nostrils * Isa 2.22 Could a better account be made of God if he were of the like condition He could not properly be almighty that were not always mighty If he be omnipotent nothing can impair him He that hath all power can have no hurt * Voet. Natural Theol. p. 310. If he doth whatsoever he pleaseth nothing can make him miserable since misery consists in those things which happen against our will The Almightiness and Eternity of God are linkt together * Rev. 1.8 I am Alpha and Omega the Beginning and Ending saith the Lord which was and which is and which is to come the Almighty * Rev. 1.8 Almighty because Eternal and Eternal because Almighty 6. God would not be the first Cause of all if he were not Eternal But he is the first and the last the first cause of all things the last end of all things * Rev. 1.8 Ficin de Immort l. 2. cap. 5. That which is the first cannot begin to be it were not then the first it cannot cease to be Whatsoever is dissolved is dissolved into that whereof it doth consist which was before it and then it was not the first * Coccei Sum Theol. cap. 8 The world might not have been it was once nothing it must have some cause to call it out of nothing Nothing hath no power to make it self something there is a superior Cause by whoso Will and Power it comes into Being and so gives all the Creatures their distinct forms This Power cannot but be eternal it must be before the world the Founder must be before the Foundation * Crellins de Deo cap. 18. p. 43. and his Existence must be from Eternity or we must say nothing did exist from Eternity And if there were no being from Eternity there could not now be any being in time What we see and what we are must arise from it self or some other it cannot from it self If any thing made it self it had a power to make it self it then had an active power before it had a being It was something in regard of Power and was nothing in regard of Existence at the same time Suppose it had a Power to produce it self this power must be conferred upon it by another and so the power of producing it self was not from it self but from another But if the power of being was from
it self why did it not produce it self before Why was it one moment out of being * Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. 1. l. 1. c. 10.11 If there be any existence of things 't is necessary that that which was the first Cause should exist from Eternity Whatsoever was the immediate Cause of the world yet the first and chief Cause wherein we must rest must have nothing before it if it had any thing before it it were not the first He therefore that is the first Cause must be without beginning nothing must be before him If he had a beginning from some other he could not be the first Principle and Author of all things If he be the first Cause of all things he must give himself a beginning or be from Eternity He could not give himself a beginning whatsoever begins in time was nothing before and when it was nothing it could do nothing it could not give it self any thing for then it gave what it had not and did what it could not If he made himself in time why did he not make himself before What hindred him It was either because he could not or because he would not if he could not he always wanted power and always would unless it were bestowed upon him and then he could not be said to be from himself If he would not make himself before then he might have made himself when he would How had he the power of willing and nilling without a Being Nothing cannot will or nill Nothing hath no faculties So that it is necessary to grant some eternal Being or run into inextricable Labyrinths and Mazes If we deny some eternal being we must deny all being our own being the being of every thing about us unconceivable absurdities will arise So then if God were the Cause of all things He did exist before all things and that from Eternity The third thing is Eternity is only proper to God and not communicable * Bapt. 'T is as great a madness to ascribe Eternity to the Creature as to deprive the Lord of the Creature of Eternity 'T is so proper to God that when the Apostle would prove the Deity of Christ he proves it by his immutability and eternity as well as his creating power * Heb. 1.10 11 12. Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail The Argument had not strength if Eternity belonged essentially to any but God and therefore he is said only to have Immortality * 1 Tim. 6.16 All other things receive their being from him and can be deprived of their being by him All things depend on him he of none All other things are like Clothes which would consume if God preserved them not Immortality is appropriated to God i. e. an independent Immortality Angels and Souls have an Immortality but by donation from God not by their own Essence dependent upon their Creator not necessary in their own nature God might have annihilated them after he had created them so that their duration cannot properly be called an Eternity it being extrinsical to them and depending upon the will of their Creator by whom they may be extinguisht It is not an absolute and necessary but a precarious Immortality Whatsoever is not God is temporary Whatsoever is eternal is God 'T is a contradiction to say a Creature can be eternal as nothing eternal is created so nothing created is eternal What is distinct from the nature of God cannot be eternal Eternity being the Essence of God Every Creature in the notion of a Creature speaks a dependence on some Cause and therefore cannot be eternal * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. As it is repugnant to the nature of God not to be eternal so it is repugnant to the nature of a Creature to be eternal for then a Creature would be equal to the Creator and the Creator or the Cause would not be before the Creature or Effect It would be all one to admit many Gods as many Eternals and all one to say God can be created as to say a Creature can be uncreated which is to be eternal 1. Creation is a producing something from nothing What was once nothing cannot therefore be eternal not being was eternal therefore it s being could not be eternal for it should be then before it was and would be something when it was nothing 'T is the nature of a Creature to be nothing before it was created what was nothing before it was cannot be equal with God in an Eternity of Duration 2. There is no Creature but is mutable therefore not eternal As it had a change from nothing to something so it may be changed from being to not being If the Creature were not mutable it would be most perfect and so would not be a Creature but God for God only is most perfect 'T is as much the Essence of a Creature to be mutable as it is the Essence of God to be immutable Mutability and Eternity are utterly inconsistent 3. No Creature is infinite therefore not eternal To be infinite in Duration is all one as to be infinite in Essence * Lessius de Perfect l. 4. c. 2. 'T is as reasonable to conceive a Creature immense filling all places at once as eternal extended to all ages because neither can be without infiniteness which is the Property of the Deity A Creature may as well be without bounds of place as limitations of time 4. No effect of an intellectual free Agent can be equal in duration to its Cause The Productions of natural Agents are as antient often as themselves the Sun produceth a Beam as old in time as its self But who ever heard of a piece of wise Workmanship as old as the wise Artificer God produced a Creature not necessarily and naturally as the Sun doth a Beam but freely as an intelligent Agent The Sun was not necessary it might be or not be according to the pleasure of God * Crellius de Deo cap. 18. p. 43. A free act of the Will is necessary to precede in order of time as the Cause of such effects as are purely voluntary Those Causes that act as soon as they exist act naturally necessarily not freely and cannot cease from acting But suppose a Creature might have existed by the Will of God from Eternity yet as some think it could not be said absolutely and in its own nature to be eternal because Eternity was not of the Essence of it The Creature could not be its own Duration for though it were from Eternity it might not have been from Eternity because its Existence depended upon the free Will of God who might have chose whether he would have created it or no. God only is eternal the first and the last the beginning and the end who as he subsisted before any Creature had a being so he will eternally subsist if all Creatures were reduced to nothing IV. Vse 1. Information 1. If God
the Creation till this day and are of so great antiquity yet they must bow down to a change before the Will and Word of their Creator and shall we rest upon that which shall vanish like Smoke Shall we take any Creature for our support like Ice that will crack under our feet and must by the order of their Lord Creator deceive our hopes Perishing things can be no support to the Soul If we would have rest we must run to God and rest in God How contemptible should that be to us whose fashion shall pass away which shall not endure long in its present form and appearance contemptible as a rest not contemptible as the work of God contemptible as an end not contemptible as a means to attain our end If these must be changed how unworthy are other things to be the Center of our Souls that change in our very using of them and slide away in our very enjoyment of them Thou art the same The Essence of God with all the perfections of his nature are pronounced the same without any variation from Eternity to Eternity So that the Text doth not only assert the eternal duration of God but his Immutability in that duration his Eternity is signified in that expression thou shalt endure his Immutability in this thou art the same 〈…〉 â—eb To endure argues indeed his Immutability as well as Eternity For what endures is not changed and what is changed doth not endure But thou art the same 〈◊〉 â—â—om 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth more fully signifie it He could not be the same if he could be changed into any other thing than what he is The Psalmist therefore puts not thou hast been or shalt be but thou art the same without any alteration thou art the same that is the same God the same in Essence and Nature the same in Will and Purpose Thou dost change all other things as thou pleasest but thou art immutable in every respect and receivest no shadow of change though never so light and small * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all change Theodor. The Psalmist here alludes to the name Jehovah I am and doth not only ascribe Immutability to God but exclude every thing else from partaking in that perfection All things else are tottering God sees all other things in continual motion under his feet like Water passing away and no more seen while he remains fixed and immoveable His Wisdom and Power his Knowledge and Will are alway the same His Essence can receive no alteration neither by it self nor by any external Cause whereas other things either naturally decline to destruction pass from one term to another till they come to their period or shall at the last day be wrapped up after God hath compleated his Will in them and by them as a man doth a Garment he intends to repair and transform to another use So that in the Text God as immutable is opposed to all Creatures as perishing and changeable Doct. God is unchangeable in his Essence Nature and Perfections Immutability and Eternity are linkt together and indeed true Eternity is true Immutability whence Eternity is defin'd the Possession of an immutable Life Yet Immutability differs from Eternity in our conception Immutability respects the Essence or Existence of a thing Eternity respects the duration of a Being in that State or rather * Gamacheus Immutability is the State it self Eternity is the measure of that State A thing is said to be changed when it is otherwise now in regard of Nature State Will or any Quality than it was before when either something is added to it or taken from it when it either loses or acquires But now it is the essential property of God not to have any accession to or diminution of his Essence or Attributes but to remain entirely the same He wants nothing He loses nothing but doth uniformly exist by himself without any new nature new thoughts new will new purpose or new place * Amyraut sur Heb. 9. p. 153. This unchangeableness of God was anciently represented by the figure of a Cube a piece of Metal or Wood framed four-square when every side is exactly of the same equality cast it which way you will it will always be in the same posture because it is equal to it self in all its dimensions He was therefore said to be the Center of all things and other things the Circumference the Center is never moved while the Circumference is it remains immoveable in the midst of the Circle There is no variableness nor shadow of turning with him * James 1.17 The Moon hath her Spots so hath the Sun there is a mixture of Light and Darkness it hath its changes sometimes it is in the increase sometimes in the wane it is always either gaining or losing and by the turnings and motions either of the Heavenly-bodies or of the Earth 't is in its Eclipse by the interposition of the Earth between that and the Sun The Sun also hath its diurnal and annual motion it riseth and sets and puts on a different Face It doth not alway shine with a noon-day light 't is sometimes vail'd with Clouds and Vapours it is always going from one Tropick to another whereby it makes various shadows on the Earth and produceth the various seasons of the year 't is not always in our Hemisphere nor doth it always shine with an equal force and brightness in it Such shadows and variations have no place in the eternal Father of Lights He hath not the least spot or diminution of Brightness nothing can cloud him or eclipse him For the better understanding this Perfection of God I shall Premise three things 1. The Immutability of God is a Perfection Immutability considered in it self without relation to other things is not a Perfection 'T is the greatest misery and imperfection of the evil Angels that they are immutable in malice against God But as God is infinite in Essence infinitely good wise holy so it is a Perfection necessary to his Nature that he should be immutably all this all excellency goodness wisdom immutably all that heis without this he would be an imperfect Being Are not the Angels in Heaven who are confirmed in a holy and happy state more perfect than when they were in a possibility of committing evil and becoming miserable Are not the Saints in Heaven whose Wills by Grace do unalterably cleave to God and goodness more perfect than if they were as Adam in Paradise capable of losing their Felicity as well as preserving it We count a Rock in regard of its stability more excellent than the Dust of the Ground or a Feather that is tossed about with every Wind Is it not also the perfection of the Body to have a constant tenor of health and the glory of a man not to warp aside from what is just and right by the perswasions of any temptations 2. Immutability is a
wise that hath no Mate for Wisdom * 1 Tim. 1.17 none wise besides himself If he knew that thing this day which * 1 Tim. 1.17 he knew not before he would not be an only wise Being for a Being that did know every thing at once might be conceived and so a wiser Being be apprehended by the mind of man If God understood a thing at one time which he did not at another he would be changed from Ignorance to Knowledge As if he could not do that this day which he could do to morrow he would be changed from Impotence to Power He could not be always Omniscient because there might be yet something still to come which he yet knows not though he may know all things that are past What way soever you suppose a change you must suppose a present or a past Ignorance If he be changed in his knowledge for the perfection of his understanding he was ignorant before If his understanding be impaired by the change he is ignorant after it 2. If God were changeable in his Knowledge it would make him unfit to be an Object of Trust to any rational Creature His Revelations would want the due ground for entertainment if his Understanding were changeable for that might be revealed as truth now which might prove false heareafter and that as false now which hereafter might prove true and so God would be an unfit Object of Obedience in regard of his Precepts and an unfit Object of confidence in regard of his Promises For if he be changeable in Knowledge he is defective in Knowledge and might promise that now which he would know afterwards was unfit to be promised and therefore unfit to be performed It would make him an incompetent Object of dread in regard of his threatnings for he might threaten that now which he might know hereafter were not fit or just to be inflicted A changeable mind and understanding cannot make a due and right judgment of things to be done and things to be avoided No wise man would judge it reasonable to trust a weak and flitting person God must needs be unchangeable in his Knowledge But as the Schoolmen say that as the Sun always shines so God always knows as the Sun never ceaseth to shine so God never ceaseth to know Nothing can be hid from the vast compass of his Understanding no more than any thing can shelter it self without the Verge of his Power This farther appears in that 1. God knows by his own Essence He doth not know as we do by habits qualities species whereby we may be mistaken at one time and rectified at another He hath not an Understanding distinct from his Essence as we have but being the most simple Being his Understanding is his Essence and as from the infiniteness of his Essence we conclude the infiniteness of his Understanding so from the unchangeableness of his Essence we may justly conclude the unchangeableness of his Knowledge Since therefore God is without all composition and his Understanding is not distinct from his Essence what he knows he knows by his Essence and there can then be no more mutability in his Knowledge than there can be in his Essence and if there were any in that he could not be God because he would have the property of a Creature If his Understanding then be his Essence his Knowledge is as necessary as unchangeable as his Essence As his Essence eminently contains all perfections in it self so his Understanding comprehends all things past present and future in it self If his Understanding and his Essence were not one and the same he were not simple but compounded if compounded he would consist of parts if he consisted of parts he would not be an independent Being and so would not be God 2. God knows all things by one intuitive act As there is no succession in his Being so that he is one thing now and another thing hereafter so there is no succession in his Knowledge He knows things that are successive before their existence and succession by one single act of intuition by one cast of his eye all things future are present to him in regard of his Eternity and Omnipresence So that though there is a change and variation in the things known yet his Knowledge of them and their several changes in nature is invariable and unalterable As imagin a Creature that could see with his eye at one glance the whole compass of the Heavens by sending out beams from his eye without receiving any species from them he would see the whole Heavens uniformly this part now in the East then in the West without any change in his eye for he sees every part and every motion together and though that great Body varies and whirls about and is in continual agitation his eye remains stedfast suffers no change beholds all their motions at once and by one glance * Suarez vol. 1. pa. 137. God knows all things from Eternity and therefore perpetually knows them the reason is because the Divine Knowledge is infinite * Psal 145.5 His understanding is infinite and therefore comprehends all knowable Truths at once An eternal Knowledge comprehends in it self all Time and beholds past and present in the same manner and therefore his Knowledge is immutable By one simple Knowledge he considers the infinite spaces of past and future 3. Gods knowledge and Will is the cause of all things and their successions * Austin Bradwardine There can be no pretence of any changeableness of knowledge in God but in this case before things come to pass he knows that they will come to pass after they are come to pass he knows that they are past and slide away This would be something if the succession of things were the cause of the divine Knowledg as it is of our knowledge but on the contrary the divine Knowledge and Will is the cause of the succession of them God doth not know Creatures because they are but they are because he knows them All his works were known to him from the beginnig of the world * Acts 15.18 All his works were not known to him if the events of all those works were not also known to him If they were not known to him how should he make them he could not do any thing ignorantly He made them then after he knew them and did not know them after he made them His Knowledge of them made a change in them their existence made no change in his Knowledg He knew them when they were to be Created in the same manner that he knew them after they were Created before they were brought into act as well as after they were brought into act before they were made they were and were not they were in the Knowledge of God when they were not in their own nature God did not receive his knowledge from their existence but his Knowledge and Will acted upon them to bring them
Nature 1. Because every Creature rose from nothing As they rose from nothing so they tend to nothing unless they are preserved by God The Notion of a Creature speaks changeableness because to be a Creature is to be made something of nothing and therefore Creation is a change of nothing into something The Being of a Creature begins from change and therefore the Essence of a Creature is subject to change God only is uncreated and therefore unchangeable If he were made he could not be immutable for the very making is a change of not Being into Being All Creatures were made good as they were the fruits of Gods Goodness and Power but must needs be mutable because they were the extracts of nothing 2. Because every Creature depends purely upon the Will of God They depend not upon themselves but upon another for their Being As they received their Being from the Word of his Mouth and the Arm of his Power so by the same Word they can be cancel'd into nothing and return into as little significancy as when they were nothing He that created them by a Word can by a Word destroy them Psalm 104.29 If God should take away their Breath they dye and return into their Dust As it was in the power of the Creator that things might be before they actually were so it is in the power of the Creator that things after they are may cease to be what they are and they are in their own Nature as reducible to nothing as they were producible by the power of God from nothing for there needs no more than an Act of Gods Will to null them as there needed only an Act of Gods Will to make them Creatures are all subject to a higher Cause They are all reputed as nothing He doth according to his Will in the Armies of Heaven and among the Inhabitants of the Earth and none can stay his Hand or say unto him what dost thou * Dan. 4.35 But God is unchangeable because he is the highest Good none above him all below him all dependent on him himself upon none 3. No Creature is absolutely perfect No Creature can be so perfect or can ever be but something by the infinite Power of God may be added to it for whatsoever is finite may receive greater additions and therefore a change No Creature you can imagin but in your thoughts you may fancy him capable of greater perfections than you know he hath or than really he hath The perfections of all Creatures are searchable the perfection of God is only unsearchable * Job 11.6 and therefore he only immutable God only is always the same Time makes no addition to him nor diminisheth any thing of him His Nature and Essence his Wisdom and Will have always been the same from Eternity and shall be the same to Eternity without any variation 4. The fourth thing propounded is some Propositions to clear this Vnchangeableness of God from any thing that seems contrary to it First There was no change in God when he began to create the World in Time The Creation was a real change But the change was not subjectively in God but in the Creature the Creature began to be what it was not before Creation is considered as active or passive * Gamach in part 1. Aquin. Qu. 9. cap. 1. p. 72. active Creation is the Will and Power of God to create this is from Eternity because God willed from Eternity to create in Time This never had beginning for God never began in time to understand any thing to will any thing or to be able to do any thing but he alway understood and alway willed those things which he determined from Eternity to produce in Time The Decree of God may be taken for the Act decreeing that is eternal and the same or for the Object decreed that is in Time So that there may be a change in the Object but not in the Will whereby the Object doth exsist 1. There was no change in God by the Act of Creation because there was no new Will in him There was no new Act of his Will which was not before The Creation begun in Time but the Will of creating was from Eternity The Work was new but the Decree whence that new work sprung was as ancient as the Ancient of days When the time of creating came God was not made ex nolente volens as we are for whatsoever God willed to be now done he willed from Eternity to be done but he willed also that it should not be done till such an instant of time and that it should not exist before such a time If God had willed the Creation of the World only at that time when the World was produced and not before then indeed God had been changeable But though God spake that word which he had not spoke before whereby the World was brought into act yet he did not will that Will he willed not before God did not create by a new Counsel or new Will but by that which was from Eternity Eph. 1.9 All things are wrought according to that purpose in himself and according to the Counsel of his Will v 11. and as the holiness of the Elect is the fruit of his eternal Will before the foundation of the World v. 4. So likewise is the Existence of things and of those persons whom he did elect As when an Artificer frames a house or a Temple according to that Model he had in his mind some years before there is no change in the Model in his mind the Artificer is the same though the work is produced by him sometime after he had framed that Copy of it in his own mind but there is a change of the thing produced by him according to that Model Or when a rich man intends four or five years hence if he lives to build an Hospital Is there any change in his Will when after the expiration of that time he builds and endows it Though it be after his Will yet it is the fruit of his precedent Will So God from all Eternity did will and command that the Creatures should exist in such a part of time and by this eternal Will all things whether past present or to come did do and shall exist at that point of time which that Will did appoint for them Not as though God had a new Will when things stood up in Being but only that which was prepared in his immutable Counsel and Will from Eternity doth then appear There can be no Instant fixed from Eternity wherein it can be said God did not will the Creation of the World For had the Will of God for the shortest Moment been undetermined to the Creation of the World and afterwards resolved upon it there had been a moral change in God from not willing to willing But this there was not for God executes nothing in Time which he had not ordained from Eternity and appointed all
cannot be sever'd from his Power nor his Power from his Essence for the Power of God is nothing but God acting and the wisdom of God nothing but God knowing As the power of God is always so is his Essence as the power of God is every where so is his Essence whatsoever God is he is alway and every where To confine him to a place is to measure his Essence as to confine his actions is to limit his power his Essence being no less infinite than his Power and his Wisdom can be no more bounded than his Power and Wisdom but they are not separable from his Essence yea they are his Essence if God did not fill the whole World he would be determin'd to some place and excluded from others and so his substance would have bounds and limits and then something might be conceived greater than God for we may conceive that a Creature may be made by God of so vast a greatness as to fill the whole World for the power of God is able to make a body that should take up the whole space between Heaven and Earth and reach to every corner of it but nothing can be conceived by any Creature greater than God he exceeds all things and is exceeded by none God therefore cannot be included in Heaven nor included in the Earth cannot be contained in either of them for if we should imagine them vaster than they are yet still they would be finite and if his Essence were contain'd in them it could be no more infinite than the World which contains it As water is not of a larger compass than the Vessel which contains it If the Essence of God were limited either in the Heavens or Earth it must needs be finite as the Heaven and Earth are But there is no proportion between finite and infinite God therefore cannot be contain'd in them If there were an infinite body that must be every where certainly then an infinite Spirit must be every where Unless we will account him finite we can render no reason why he should not be in one Creature as well as in another if he be in Heaven which is his Creature why can he not be in the Earth which is as well his Creature as the Heavens 2. Reason Because of the continual operation of God in the World This was one reason made the Heathen believe that there was an infinite Spirit in the vast body of the World acting in every thing and producing those admirable motions which we see every where in Nature That cause which acts in the most perfect manner is also in the most perfect manner present with its effects God preserves all and therefore is in all the Apostle thought it a good induction Acts 17.27 He is not far from us for in him we live For being as much as because shews that from his operation he concluded his real presence with all 'T is not his vertue is not far from every one of us but He his Substance himself for none that acknowledge a God will deny the absence of the vertue of God from any part of the World He works in every thing every thing lives and works in him therefore he is present with all * Pont. or rather if things live they are in God who gives them life If things live God is in them and gives them life If things move God is in them and gives them motion If things have any Being God is in them and gives them Being if God withdraws himself they presently lose their Being and therefore some have compar'd the Creature to the impression of a Seal upon the water that cannot be preserved but by the Presence of the Seal As his Presence was actual with what he Created so his Presence is actual with what he preserves since Creation and Preservation do so little differ if God creates things by his Essential Presence by the same he supports them If his substance cannot be disjoyn'd from his preserving Power his power and wisdom cannot be separated from his Essence where there are the marks of the one there is the presence of the other for it is by his Essence that he is powerful and wise no man can distinguish the one from the other in a simple Being God doth not preserve and act things by a vertue diffus'd from him N.B. It may be demanded whether that vertue be distinct from God if it be not 't is then the Essence of God if it be distinct 't is a Creature and then it may be ask't how that vertue which preserves other things is preserved it self it must be ultimately resolv'd into the Essence of God or else there must be a running in infinitum or else * Amyrald de Trinitat p. 106. 107. is that vertue of God a substance or not Is it endued with understanding or not If it hath understanding how doth it differ from God If it wants understanding can any imagine that the support of the World the guidance of all Creatures the wonders of Nature can be wrought preserv'd manag'd by a vertue that hath nothing of understanding in it If it be not a substance it can much less be able to produce such excellent Operations as the preserving all the kinds of things in the World and ordering them to perform such excellent ends this Vertue is therefore God himself the infinite Power and Wisdom of God and therefore wheresoever the effects of these are seen in the World God is essentially present some Creatures indeed act at a distance by a vertue diffus'd but such a manner of acting comes from a limitedness of nature that such a nature cannot be every where present and extend its substance to all parts To act by a vertue speaks the Subject finite and it is a part of indigence Kings act in their Kingdoms by Ministers and Messengers because they cannot act otherwise but God being infinitely perfect works all things in all immediately 1 Cor. 12.6 Illumination Sanctification Grace c. are the immediate Works of God in the heart and immediate Agents are present with what they do 't is an Argument of the greater Perfection of a Being to know things immediately which are done in several places than to know them at the second hand by Instruments 't is no less a Perfection to be every where rather than to be tyed to one place of action and to act in other places by Instruments for want of a Power to act immediately it self God indeed acts by means and second causes in his Providential Dispensations in the World but this is not out of any Defect of Power to Work all immediately himself but he thereby accommodates his way of acting to the nature of the Creature and the Order of Things which he hath setled in the World And when he Works by means he acts with those means in those means sustains their faculties and vertues in them concurs with them by his Power so
Worship He is present to observe and present to accept our Petitions and answer our Suits Good men have not only the Essential Presence which is common to all but his gracious presence not only the presence that flows from his nature but that which flows from his Promise his Essential Presence makes no difference between this and that man in regard of Spirituals without this in conjunction with it his nature is the cause of the Presence of his Essence his Will engag'd by his Truth is the cause of the Presence of his Grace He promis'd to meet the Israelites in the place where he should set his name and in all places where he doth Record it Exod. 20.4 In all places where I Record my Name I will come unto thee and I will Bless thee in every place where I shall manifest the special Presence of my Divinity In all places hands may be lifted up without doubting of his ability to hear he dwells in the contrite Hearts wherever it is most in the exercise of contrition which is usually in times of special Worship Isa 57.15 and that to revive and refresh them Habitation notes a special Presence tho' he dwell in the highest Heavens in the sparklings of his Glory he dwells also in the lowest Hearts in the beams of his Grace as none can expel him from his Dwelling in Heaven so none can reject him from his residence in the heart The Tabernacle had his peculiar Presence fixed to it Levit. 26.11 his Soul should not abhor them as they are washed by Christ tho' they are loathsom by Sin In a greater dispensation there cannot be a less Presence since the Church under the New Testament is called the Temple of the Lord wherein he will both dwell and walk 2 Cor. 6.6 Or. I will indwell in them as if he should say I will dwell in and in them I will dwell in them by Grace and walk in them by exciting their Graces he will be more intimate with them than their own Souls and converse with them as the Living God i. e. as a God that hath Life in himself and Life to convey to them in their Converse with him and shew his Spiritual Glory among them in a greater measure than in the Temple since that was but a heap of Stones and the figure of the Christian Church the mystical Body of his Son His presence is not less in the Substance than it was in the Shadow this Presence of God in his Ordinances is the Glory of a Church as the Presence of a King is the Glory of a Court the Defence of it too as a Wall of Fire Zech. 2.5 alluding to the Fire Travellers in a Wilderness made to fright away wild Beasts 'T is not the meaness of the place of Worship can exclude him the second Temple was not so magnificent as the first of Solomon's Erecting and the Jews seem to despond of so glorious a Presence of God in the second as they had in the first because they thought it not so good for the entertainment of him that inhabits Eternity but God comforts them against this conceit again and again Hag. 2.3.4 Be strong Be strong Be strong I am with you the meaness of the place shall not hinder the grandeur of my Presence no matter what the Room is so it be the Presence-Chamber of the King wherein he will favour our Suits he can every where slide into our Souls with a perpetual sweetness since he is every where and so intimate with every one that fears him If we should see God on Earth in his amiableness as Moses did should we not be encouraged by his Presence to present our Requests to him to Eccho out our Praises of him and have we not as great a ground now to do it since he is as really present with us as if he were visible to us he is in the same room with us as near to us as our Souls to our Bodies not a word but he hears not a motion but he sees not a breath but he perceives he is through all he is in all 4. The Omnipresence of God is a comfort in all special Services God never puts any upon a hard task but he makes Promises to encourage them and assist them and the matter of the Promise is that of his Presence so he did assure the Prophets of Old when he set them difficult tasks and strengthned Moses against the Face of Pharaoh by assuring him he would be with his Mouth Exod. 4.12 and when Christ put his Apostles upon a Contest with the whole World to Preach a Gospel that would be Foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling Block to the Jews he gives them a Cordial only compos'd of his Presence Math. 28.20 I will be with you 't is this presence scatters by its Light the darkness of our Spirits 'T is this that is the cause of what is done for his Glory in the World 't is this that mingles its self with all that is done for his Honour 't is this from whence springs all the assistance of his Creatures markt out for special purposes 5. This Presence is not without the special Presence of all his Attributes Where his Essence is his Perfections are because they are one with his Essence yea they are his Essence tho' they have their several degrees of manifestation As in the Covenant he makes over himself as our God not a part of himself but his whole Deity so in promising of his Presence he means not a part of it but the whole the Presence of all the Excellencies of his nature to be manifested for our good 'T is not a piece of God is here and another parcel there but God in his whole Essence and Perfections in his Wisdom to guide us his Power to protect and support us his Mercy to pity us his Fulness to refresh us and his Goodness to relieve us He is ready to sparkle out in this or that Perfection as the necessities of his People require and his own Wisdom directs for his own Honour So that being not far from us in any excellency of his nature we can quickly have recourse to him upon any emergency so that if we are miserable we have the presence of his Goodness if we want direction we have the presence of his Wisdom if we are weak we have the presence of his Power and should we not rejoyce in it as a man doth in the Presence of a Powerful Wealthy and Compassionate Friend 3. USE of Exhortation 1. Let us be much in the actual Thoughts of his Truth How should we enrich our understandings with the knowledge of the Excellency of God whereof this is none of the least nor hath less of Honey in its Bowels tho' it be more Terrible to the Wicked than the Presence of a Lyon 't is this that makes all other excellencies of the Divine Nature sweet What would Grace
him he therefore knows innumerable Worlds innumerable Angels with higher Perfections than any of them which he hath Created have So that if the World should last many Millions of Years God knows that he can every day Create another World more capacious than this and having Created an unconceivable number he knows he could still Create more So that he beholds infinite Worlds infinite numbers of Men and other Creatures in himself infinite kinds of things infinite species and individuals under those kinds even as many as he can Create if his Will did order and determine it Ficin de immort lib. 2. cap. 10. for not being ignorant of his own Power he cannot be ignorant of the effects wherein it may display and discover it self A comprehensive knowledg of his own Power doth necessarily include the objects of that power so he knows whatsoever he could effect and whatsoever he could permit if he pleased to do it If God could not understand more than he hath created he could not create more than he hath created for it cannot be conceived how he can create any thing that he is ignorant of what he doth not know he cannot do he must know also the extent of his own goodness and how far any thing is capable to partake of it so much therefore as any detract from the Knowledg of God they detract from his Power 3. 'T is further evident that God knows all possible things because he knew those things which he has created before they were created when they were yet in a possibility If God knew things before they were created he knew them when they were in a possibility and not in actual reality 'T is absurd to imagine that his Understanding did lacquy after the creatures and draw knowledg from them after they were created 'T is absurd to think that God did create before he knew what he could or would create If he knew those things he did create when they were possible he must know all things which he can create and therefore all things that are possible To conclude this We must consider that this Knowledg is of another kind than his knowledg of things that are or shall be He sees possible things as possible not as things that ever are or shall be If he saw them as existing or future and they shall never be this knowledg would be false there would be a deceit in it which cannot be He knows those things not in themselves because they are not nor in their causes because they shall never be he knows them in his own Power not in his Will He understands them as able to produce them not as willing to effect them Things possible he knows only in his Power things future he knows both in his Power and his Will as he is both able and determin'd in his own good pleasure to give being to them Those that shall never come to pass he knows only in himself as a sufficient cause those things that shall come into being he knows in himself as the efficient cause and also in their immediate second causes This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admirations of the excellency of God and the divine Knowledg his Understanding is infinite 2. God knows all things past This is an argument used by God himself to elevate his Excellency above all the commonly adored Idols Isa 41.22 Let them shew the former things what they be that we may consider them and know the latter end of them He knows them as if they were now present and not past for indeed in his Eternity there is nothing past or future to his knowledg This is called remembrance in Scripture as when God remembred Rachels prayer for a child Gen. 30.22 and he is said to put tears into his bottle and write them in his Book of Accompts which signifies the exact and unerring knowledg in God of the minute circumstances past in the World and this knowledg is called a book of remembrance Mal. 3.16 signifying the perpetual presence of things past before him There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and perpetuity of Gods knowledg of sins past Job 14.17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag and thou sowest up my iniquity A Metaphor taken from men that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep tye the bag sow up the holes and bind it hard that nothing may fall out or a vessel wherein they reserve liquors and daub it with pitch and glutinous stuff that nothing may leak out but be safely kept till the time of use Or else as some think from the bags Attorneys carry with them full of Writings when they are to manage a Cause against a person Thus we find God often in Scripture calling to mens minds their past actions upbraiding them with their ingratitude wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past benefits and their Crimes His knowledg in this regard hath something of infinity in it since tho' the sins of all men that have been in the World are finite in regard of number yet when the sins of one man in thoughts words and deeds are numberless in his own account and perhaps in the count of any creature the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have been or shall be are much more numberless it cannot be less than infinite knowledg that can make a collection of them and take a survey of them all at once If past things had not been known by God how could Moses have been acquainted with the Original of things How could he have declared the former transactions wherein all Histories are silent but the Scripture How could he know the cause of mans present misery so many ages after wherewith all Philosophy was unacquainted How could he have writ the order of the Creation the particulars of the sin of Adam the circumstances of Cains murder the private speech of Lamech to his Wives if God had not revealed them And how could a Revelation be made if things past were forgotten by him Do we not remember many things done among men as well as by our selves and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth And shall not God much more who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding A man that makes a curious Picture hath the form of it in his mind before he made it and if the fire burn it the form of it in his mind is not destroyed by the fire but retained in it Gods memory is no less perfect than his understanding If he did not know things past he could not be a righteous Governour or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner he could not dispense Rewards and Punishments according to his promises and threatnings if things that were past could be forgotten by him he could not require that which is past Eccles 3 15. if he did not remember that
him * Petavius changed Did he create he knew not what and knew not before what he should Create Was he ignorant before he acted and in his acting what his operation would tend to or did he not know the nature of things and the ends of them till he had produced them and saw them in Being Creatures then did not arise from his Knowledg but his Knowledg from them he did not then Will that his Creatures should be for he had then willed what he knew not and knew not what he willed they therefore must be known before they were made and not known because they were made he knew them to make them and he did not make them to know them By the same reason that he knew what Creatures should be before they were he knows still what Creatures shall be before they are Bradward lib. 3. cap. 14. for all things that are were in God not really in their own nature but in him as a cause so the Earth and Heavens were in him as a Model is in the mind of a Work man which is in his Mind and Soul before it be brought forth into outward act 2. The Predictions of future things evidence this There is not a Prophecy of any thing to come but is a spark of his fore-knowledg and bears Witness to the Truth of this assertion in the punctual accomplishment of it this is a thing challenged by God as his own peculiar wherein he surmounts all the Idols that mans inventions have Godded in the World Isa 41.21 22. Let them bring forth speaking of the Idols and shew us what shall happen or declare us things to come shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that you are Gods Such a fore-knowledg of things to come is here ascribed to God by God himself as a distinction of him from all false Gods such a Knowledg that if any could prove that they were possessors of he would acknowledg them Gods as well as himself that we may know that you are Gods He puts his Deity to stand or fall upon this account and this should be the point which should decide the controversy whether he or the Heathen Idols were the true God the dispute is managed by this medium He that knows things to come is God I know things to come ergo I am God the Idols know not things to come therefore they are not Gods God submits the Being of his Deity to this Tryal If God know things to come no more than the Heathen Idols which were either Devils or men he would be in his own account no more a God than Devils or men no more a God than the Pagan Idols he doth scoff at for this defect If the Heathen Idols were to be stript of their Deity for want of this foreknowledg of things to come would not the true God also fall from the same excellency if he were defective in Knowledg he would in his own judgment no more deserve the Title and Character of a God than they How could he reproach them for that if it were wanting in himself It cannot be understood of future things in their causes when the effects necessarily arise from such causes as Light from the Sun and Heat from the Fire many of these men know more of them Angels and Devils know if God therefore had not a higher and farther Knowledg than this he would not by this be proved to be God any more than Angels and Devils who know necessary effects in their causes The Devils indeed did predict some things in the Heathen Oracles but God is differenced from them here by the infiniteness of his Knowledg in being able to predict things to come that they knew not or things in their particularities things that depended on the liberty of mans Will which the Devils could lay no claim to a certain knowledg of Were it only a conjectural knowledg that is here meant the Devils might answer they can conjecture and so their Deity were as good as Gods for tho' God might know more things and conjecture nearer to what would be yet still it would be but conjectural and therefore not a higher kind of Knowledg than what the Devils might challenge How much then is God beholden to the Socinians for denying the knowledg of all future things to him upon which here he puts the trial of his Deity God asserts his knowledg of things to come as a manifest evidence of his Godhead those that deny therefore the Argument that proves it deny the conclusion too for this will necessarily follow that if he be God because he knows future things then he that doth not know future things is not God and if God knows not future things but only by conjecture then there is no God because a certain knowledg so as infallibly to predict things to come is an inseparable Perfection of the Deity It was therefore well said of Austin that it was as high a madness to deny God to be as to deny him the foreknowledg of things to come The whole Prophetick part of Scripture declares this Perfection of God every Prophets Candle was lighted at this Torch they could not have this foreknowledg of themselves Why might not many other men have the same insight if it were by nature it must be from some superior Agent Pacuvius said Siqui quae eventura sunt provident aeqâ—â— parent Gell. lib. 14. c. 1. and all Nations owned Prophecy as a Beam from God a fruit of Divine Illumination Prophecy must be totally expunged if this be denyed for the subjects of Prophecy are things future and no man is properly a Prophet but in Prediction now Prediction is nothing but foretelling and things foretold are not yet come and the foretelling of them supposeth them not to be yet but that they shall be in time several such Predictions we have in Scripture the event whereof hath been certain The years of Famine in Egypt foretold that he would order second causes for bringing that Judgment upon them the Captivity of his People in Babylon the calling of the Gentiles the rejection of the Jews Daniels Revelation of Nebuchadnezzars Dream that Prince refers to God as the revealer of Secrets Dan. 2.47 By the same reason that he knows one thing future by himself and by the infiniteness of his Knowledg before any causes of them appear he doth know all things future 3. Some future things are known by men and we must allow God a greater Knowledg than any Creature Future things in their Causes may be known by Angels and men as I said before whosoever knows necessary causes and the efficacy of them may foretell the effects and when he sees the meeting and concurrence of several causes together he may presage what the consequent effect will be of such a concurrence So Physicians foretel the Progress of a Disease the increase or diminution of it by natural Signs and Astronomers foretel Eclipses
by their observation of the motion of Heavenly Bodies many years before they happen Cusanus can they be hid from God with whom are the reasons of all things Fuller's Pifgab l. 2. p. 2â—1 an expert Gardener by knowing the Root in the depth of Winter can tell what Flowers and what Fruit it will bear and the Month when they will peep out their heads and shall not God much more that knows the Principles of all his Creatures and is exactly privy to all their natures and qualities know what they will be and what operations shall be from those Principles Now if God did know things only in their causes his Knowledg would not be more excellent than the knowledg of Angels and men tho' he might know more than they of the things that will come to pass from every cause singly and from the concurrence of many Now as God is more excellent in Being than his Creature so he is more excellent in the objects of his Knowledg and the manner of his Knowledg well then shall a certain knowledg of something future and a conjectural knowledg of many things be found among men and shall a determinate and infallible knowledg of things to come be found no where in no Being If the conjecture of future things savours of ignorance and God knows them only by conjecture there is then no such thing in Being as a perfect intelligent Being and so no God 4. God knows his own Decree and Will and therefore must needs know all future things If any thing be future or to come to pass it must be from it self or from God not from it self then it would be independent and absolute if it hath its futurity from God then God must know what he hath decreed to come to pass those things that are future in necessary causes God must know because he willed them to be causes of such effects he therefore knows them because he knows what he willed The knowledg of God cannot arise from the things themselves for then the knowledg of God would have a cause without him and Knowledg which is an eminent Perfection would be conferred upon him by his Creatures But as God sees things possible in the glass of his own power so he sees things future in the Glass of his own Will in his effecting Will if he hath Decreed to produce them in his permitting Will as he hath Decreed to suffer them and dispose of them Nothing can pass out of the rank of things meerly possible into the order of things future before some Act of Gods Will hath passed for its futurition Chequell 'T is not from the infiniteness of his own Nature simply considered that God knows things to be future Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. for as things are not future because God is infinite for then all possible things should be future so neither is any thing known to be future only because God is infinite but because God hath Decreed it his declaration of things to come is founded upon his appointment of things to come Coccei sum Theol. p. 50. In Isa 44.7 it is said and who as I shall call and declare it since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming Gamaul in Aquin Part 1. q. 14. cap. 3. p. 124. Nothing is Created or ordered in the World but what God Decreed to be Created and ordered God knows his own Decree and therefore all things which he hath Decreed to exist in time not the minutest part of the World could have existed without his Will not an action can be done without his Will as Life the Principle so Motion the fruit of that Life is by and from God as he decreed Life to this or that thing so he decreed motion as the effect of Life and Decreed to exert his Power in concurring with them for producing effects natural from such causes for without such a concourse they could not have acted any thing or produced any thing and therefore as for natural things which we call necessary causes God foreseeing them all particularly in his own Decree foresaw also all effects which must necessarily flow from them because such causes cannot but act when they are furnisht with all things necessary for action He knows his own Decrees and therefore necessarily knows what he hath Decreed or else we must say things come to pass whether God will or no or that he Wills he knows not what but this cannot be for known unto God are all his Works from the beginning of the World Acts 15.18 Now this necessarily flows from that Principle first laid down That God knows himself since nothing is future without Gods Will if God did not know future things he would not know his own Will for as things possible could not be known by him unless he knew the fulness of his own Power so things future could not be known by his Understanding unless he knew the resolves of his own Will Maimonid More Nevoch Part 3. Cap. 21. P. 393. 394. Thus the Knowledg of God differs from the Knowledg of men Gods knowledg of his Works precedes his Works mans knowledg of Gods works follows his works just as an Artificers knowledg of a Watch Instrument or Engine which he would make is before his making of it he knows the motions of it and the reason of those motions before it is made because he knows what he hath determin'd to Work he knows not those motions from the consideration of them after they were made as the Spectator doth who by viewing the Instrument after it is made gains a knowledg from the sight and consideration of it till he understands the reason of the whole so we know things from the consideration of them after we see them in being and therefore we know not future things But Gods Knowledg doth not arise from things because they are but because he Wills them to be and therefore he knows every thing that shall be because it cannot be without his Will as the Creator and maintainer of all things knowing his own substance he knows all his Works 5. If God did not know all future things he would be mutable in his Knowledg If he did not know all things that ever were or are to be there would be upon the appearance of every new object an addition of Light to his Understanding and therefore such a Change in him as every new knowledg causes in the mind of a man or as the Sun works in the World upon its rising every morning scattering the darkness that was upon the face of the Earth if he did not know them before they came he would gain a knowledg by them when they came to pass which he had not before they were effected his Knowledg would be new according to the newness of the objects and multiplyed according to the multitude of the objects If God did not know things to come as perfectly as he knew things
venture 1 Kings 22.39 this some call a mixt contingent made up partly of necessity and partly of accident 't is necessary the Bullet when sent out of the Gun or Arrow out of the Bow should fly and light somewhere but it is an accident that it hits this or that man that was never intended by the Archer Other things as voluntary actions are purely contingents and have nothing of necessity in them all free actions that depend upon the Will of man whether to do or not to do are of this nature because they depend not upon a necessary cause as burning doth upon the Fire moistning upon Water or as descent or falling down is necessary to a heavy Body for those cannot in their own nature do otherwise but the other actions depend upon a free Agent able to turn to this or that point and determine himself as he pleases Now we must know that what is accidental in regard of the Creature is not so in regard of God the manner of Ahab's Death was accidental in regard of the hand by which he was slain but not in regard of God who foretold his Death and foreknew the Shot and directed the Arrow God was not uncertain before of the manner of his fall nor hovered over the Battel to watch for an opportunity to accomplish his own Prediction what may be or not be in regard of us is certain in regard of God to imagine that what is accidental to us is so to God is to measure God by our short line How many events following upon the results of Princes in their Counsels seem to persons ignorant of those Counsels to be a hap-hazard yet were not contingencies to the Prince and his assistants but foreseen by him as certainly to issue so as they do which they knew before would be the fruit of such causes and instruments they would knit together That may be necessary in regard of Gods foreknowledg which is meerly accidental in regard of the natural disposition of the immediate causes which do actually produce it Contingent in its own nature and in regard of us but fixed in the Knowledg of God * Zanch. One illustrates it by this similitude A Master sends two Servants to one and the same place two several ways unknown to one another they meet at the place which their Master had appointed them their meeting is accidental to them one knows not of the other but it was foreseen by the Master that they should so meet and that in regard of them it would seem a meer accident till they came to explain the business to one another Both the necessity of their meeting in regard of their Masters Order and the accidentalness of it in regard of themselves vvere in both their circumstances foreknovvn by the Master that employ'd them For the clearing of this take it in this method 1. 'T is an unworthy conceit of God in any to exclude him from the knowledg of these things 1. It will be a strange contracting of him to allow him no greater a Knowledg than we have our selves Contingencies are knovvn to us vvhen they come into act and pass from futurity to reality and vvhen they are present to us vve can order our affairs accordingly shall vve allovv God no greater a measure of Knovvledg than vve have and make him as blind as ourselves not to see things of that nature before they come to pass shall God know them no more Shall we imagine God knows no otherwise than we know and that he doth like us stand gazing with admiration at events man can conjecture many things is it fit to ascribe the same uncertainty to God as tho' he as well as we could have no assurance till the issue appear in the view of all If God doth not certainly foreknow them he doth but conjecture them but a conjectural knowledg is by no means to be fastned on God for that is not knowledg but guess and destroys a Deity by making him subject to mistake for he that only guesseth may guess wrong so that this is to make God like our selves and strip him of an universally acknowledged Perfection of Omniscience A conjectural Knowledg saith one Scriveneâ— is as unworthy of God as the Creature is unworthy of Omniscience 'T is certain man hath a liberty to act many things this or that way as he pleases to walk to this or that quarter to speak or not to speak to do this or that thing or not to do it which way a man will certainly determine himself is unknown before to any Creature yea often at the present to himself for he may be in suspense but shall we imagine this future determination of himself is conceal'd from God Those that deny Gods foreknowledg in such cases must either say that God hath an opinion that a man will resolve rather this way than that but then if a man by his liberty determine himself contrary to the opinion of God is not God then deceived and what rational Creature can own him for a God that can be deceived in any thing or else they must say that God is at uncertainty and suspends his Opinion without determining it any way then he cannot know free acts till they are done he would then depend upon the Creature for his information his knowledg would be every instant increased as things he knew not before came into act and since there are every minute an innumerable multitude of various imaginations in the minds of men there would be every minute an accession of new Knowledg to God which he had not before besides this knowledg vvould be mutable according to the Wavering and Weathercock resolutions of men one vvhile standing to this point another vvhile to that if he depended upon the Creatures determination for his knovvledg 2. If the free acts of men were unknown before to God no man can see how there can be any Government of the World by him Such contingencies may happen and such resolves of mens Free-Wills unknovvn to God as may perplex his affairs and put him upon nevv Councels and methods for attaining those ends vvhich he setled at the first Creation of things if things happen vvhich God knovvs not of before this must be the consequence vvhere there is no Fore-sight there is no Providence things may happen so sudden if God be ignorant of them that they may give a check to his intentions and Scheme of Government and put him upon changing the whole model of it How often doth a small intervening circumstance unforeseen by man dash in pieces a long meditated and well-formed Design To govern necessary causes as Sun and Stars whose effects are natural and constant in themselves is easy to be imagin'd but how to govern the World that consists of so many men of Free-Will able to determine themselves to this or that and which have no constancy in themselves as the Sun and Stars have cannot be imagin'd unless we
man that understands the disposition of his Child or Servant knows before what he will do upon such an occasion may not God much more who knows the inclinations of all his Creatures and from Eternity run with his eyes over all the works he intended Our Wills are in the number of causes and since God knows our Wills as causes better than we do our selves why should he be ignorant of the effects God determines to give Grace to such a man not to give it to another but leave him to himself and suffer such temptations to assault him now God knowing the corruption of man in the whole mass and in every part of it is it not easy for him to foreknow what the future actions of the Will will be when the Tinder and Fire meet together and how such a man will determine himself both as to the substance and manner of the action Is it not easy for him to know how a corrupted Temper and a Temptation will suit God is exactly privy to all the gall in the hearts of men and what Principles they will have before they have a Being He knows their thoughts afar off Psal 139.2 as far off as Eternity as some explain the words and thoughts are as voluntary as any thing he knows the power and inclinations of men in the order of second causes he understands the corruption of men as well as the Poyson of Dragons and the Venom of Asps this is laid up in store with him and sealed among his Treasures Deut. 32.33 34. Among the Treasures of his foreknowledg say some What was the cruelty of Hazael but a free act yet God knew the frame of his heart and what acts of murder and oppression would spring from that bitter fountain before Hazael had conceived them in himself 2 Kings 8.12 as a man that knows the Mineral through which Waters pass may know what rellish they will have before they appear above the earth so our Saviour knew how Peter would deny him he knew what quantity of Powder would serve for such a Battery in what measure he would let loose Satan how far he would leave the Reins in Peters hands and then the issue might easily be known and so in every act of man God knows in his own Will what measure of Grace he will give to determine the Will to good and what measure of Grace he will withdraw from such a person or not give to him and consequently how far such a person will fall or not God knows the inclinations of the Creature he knows his own Permissions what degrees of Grace he will either allow him or keep from him according to which will be the degree of his Sin This may in some measure help our Conceptions in this tho' as was said before the manner of Gods foreknowledg is not so easily explicable 3. Gods foreknowledg of mans voluntary actions doth not necessitate the Will of man The foreknowledg of God is not deceived nor the liberty of mans Will diminisht I shall not trouble you with any School distinctions but be as plain as I can laying down several Propositions in this case Proposition 1. 'T is certain all necessity doth not take away liberty Indeed a compulsive necessity takes away liberty but a necessity of immutability removes not liberty from God why should then a necessity of Infallibility in God remove liberty from the Creature God did necessarily create the World because he Decreed it yet freely because his Will from Eternity stood to it he freely Decreed it and freely created it as the Apostle saith in regard of Gods Decrees who hath been his Councellor Rom. 11.34 so in regard of his actions I may say who hath been his compeller he freely decreed and he freely created Jesus Christ necessarily took our flesh because he had covenanted with God so to do yet he acted freely and voluntarily according to that Covenant otherwise his Death had not been efficacious for us A good man doth naturally necessarily love his Children yet voluntarily 'T is part of the happiness of the Blessed to love God unchangeably yet freely for it would not be their happiness if it were done by compulsion What is done by force cannot be called felicity because there is no delight or complacency in it and tho' the Blessed love God freely yet if there were a possibility of change it would not be their Happiness their Blessedness would be dampt by their fear of falling from this Love and consequently from their nearness to God in whom their happiness consists God foreknows that they will Love him for ever but are they therefore compell'd for ever to love him If there were such a kind of constraint Heaven would be rendered burdensome to them and so no Heaven Again Gods foreknowledg of what he will do doth not necessitate him to do he foreknew that he would create a World yet he freely created a World Gods foreknowledg doth not necessitate himself why should it necessitate us more than himself We may instance in ourselves When we Will a thing we necessarily use our faculty of Will and when we freely Will any thing 't is necessary that we freely Will but this necessity doth not exclude but include liberty or more plainly when a man writes or speaks whilst he writes or speaks those actions are necessary because to speak and be silent to write and not to write at the same time are impossible yet our writing or speaking doth not take away the power not to write or to be silent at that time if a man would be so for he might have chose whether he would have spoke or writ So there is a necessity of such actions of man which God foresees that is a necessity of infallibility because God cannot be deceived but not a coactive necessity as if they were compelled by God to act thus or thus 2. No man can say in any of his voluntary actions that he ever found any force upon him When any of us have done any thing according to our Wills can we say we could not have done the contrary to it were we determin'd to it in our own intrinsick nature or did we not determine our selves Did we not act either according to our reason or according to outward allurements did we find any thing without us or within us that did force our Wills to the embracing this or that Whatever action you do you do it because you judg it fit to be done or because you will do it What tho' God foresaw that you would do so and that you would do this or that did you feel any force upon you did you not act according to your nature God foresees that you will Eat or Walk at such a time do you find any thing that moves you to Eat but your own appetite or to Walk but your own Reason and Will If Prescience had impos'd any necessity upon man should we not probably have found some kind of
addition of excellency of sense rational Creatures above Beasts because to Sense there is added the Dignity of Reason The Understanding of man is more noble than all the vegetative povver of Plants or the sensitive Power of Beasts God therefore must be infinitely more excellent in his Understanding and therefore in the manner of it As man differs from a Beast in regard of his knovvledg so doth God also from man in regard of his Knovvledg As God therefore is in Being and Perfection infinitely more above a man than a man is above a Beast the manner of his Knovvledg must be infinitely more above a mans knovvledg than the knovvledg of a man is above that of a Beast our understandings can clasp an object in a moment that is at a great distance from our sense our eye by one elevated motion can vievv the Heavens the manner of Gods Understanding must be unconceivably above our glimmerings as the manner of his Being is infinitely more perfect than all Beings so must the manner of his Understanding be infinitely more perfect than all Created understandings Maimoniaâ— More Nevochim part 3. c. 20. p. 391 392 393. Indeed the manner of Gods Knovvledg can no more be knovvn by us than his Essence can be knovvn by us and the same incapacity in man vvhich renders him unable to comprehend the Being of God renders him as unable to comprehend the manner of Gods Understanding As there is a vast distance betvveen the Essence of God and our Beings so there is betvveen the Thoughts of God and our Thoughts the Heavens are not so much higher than the Earth as the Thoughts of God are above the thoughts of men yea and of the highest Angel Isa 55.8 9. yet tho' vve knovv not the manner of Gods Knovvledg vve knovv that he knovvs as tho' vve knovv not the infiniteness of God yet vve knovv that he is infinite 'T is Gods sole Prerogative to knovv himself vvhat he is and it is equally his Prerogative to knovv hovv he knovvs the manner of Gods knovvledg therefore must be considered by us as free from those Imperfections our knovvledg is encumbred vvith In general God doth necessarily knovv all things he is necessarily Omnipresent because of the immensity of his Essence so he is necessarily Omniscient because of the infiniteness of his Understanding 'T is no more at the liberty of his Will whether he will know all things than whether he will be able to create all things 't is no more at the liberty of his Will whether he will be Omniscient than whether he will be Holy he can as little be ignorant as he can be impure he knows not all things because he will know them but because it is Essential to his nature to know them In particular Proposition 1. God knows by his own Essence that is He sees the nature of things in the Ideas of his own mind and the events of things in the Decrees of his own Will he knows them not by viewing the things but by viewing himself his own Essence is the Mirrour and Book wherein he beholds all things that he doth ordain dispose and execute and so he knows all things in their first and original cause which is no other than his own Essence Willing and his own Essence executing what he Wills he knows them in his Power as the Physical Principle in his Will as the moral Principle of things as some speak He borrows not the knowledg of Creatures from the Creatures nor depends upon them for means of Understanding as we poor Worms do who are beholden to the objects abroad to assist us with Images of things and to our senses to convey them into our minds God would then acquire a Perfection from those things which are below himself and an excellency from those things that are vile his Knowledg would not precede the Being of the Creatures but the Creatures would be before the act of his Knowledg If he understood by Images drawn from the Creatures as we do there would be something in God which is not God viz. the Images of things drawn from outward objects God would then depend upon Creatures for that which is more noble than a bare Being for to be Understanding is more excellent than barely to be Besides if Gods Knowledg of his Creatures were derived from the Creatures by the impression of any thing upon him as there is upon us he could not know from Eternity because from Eternity there was no actual existence of any thing but himself and therefore there could not be any Images shot out from any thing because there was not any thing in Being but God as there is no Principle of Being to any thing but by his Essence so there is no Principle of the Knowledg of any thing by himself but his Essence If the knowledg of God were distinct from his Essence his Knowledg were not Eternal because there is nothing Eternal but his Essence His Understanding is not a faculty in him as it is in us but the same with his Essence because of the simplicity of his nature God is not made up of various parts one distinct from another as we are and therefore doth not understand by a part of himself but by himself so that to be and to understand is the same with God his Essence is not one thing and the power whereby he understands another he would then be compounded and not be the most simple Being This also is necessary for the Perfection of God for the more perfect and noble the way and manner of knowing is the more perfect and noble is the knowledg The perfection of Knowledg depends upon the excellency of the medium whereby we know As a knowledg by Reason is a more noble way of knowing than knowledg by sense so 't is more excellent for God to know by his Essence than by any thing without him any thing mixt with him the first would render him dependant and the other would demolish his simplicity Again the natures of all things are contained in God not formally for then the nature of the Creatures would be God but eminently he that planted the ear shall he not hear he that formed the eye shall he not see Psal 94.9 He hath in himself eminently the Beauty Perfection Life and Vigor of all Creatures he Created nothing contrary to himself but every thing with some foot-steps of himself in them he could not have pronounced them good as he did had there been any thing in them contrary to his own goodness and therefore as his Essence primarily represents it self so it represents the Creatures and makes them known to him As the Essence of God is eminently all things so by understanding his Essence he eminently understands all things * Dionyâ— And therefore he hath not one knowledg of himself and another knowledg of the Creatures but by knowing himself as the original and exemplary cause of all things he
cannot be ignorant of any Creature which he is the cause of so that he knows all things not by an understanding of them but by an understanding of himself by understanding his own Power as the efficient of them his own Will as the orderer of them his own Goodness as the adorner and beautifier of them his own Wisdom as the disposer of them and his own Holiness to which many of their actions are contrary * Kendall against Goodwin of Foreknowledg As he sees all things possible in his own Power because he is able to produce them so he sees all things future in his own Will decreeing to effect them if they be good or Decreeing to permit them if they be Evil. In this Glass he sees what he will give Being to and what he will suffer to fall into a deficiency without looking out of himself or borrowing Knowledg from his Creatures he knows all things in himself And thus his Knowledg is more noble and of a higher elevation than ours or the knowledg of any Creature can be he knows all things by one comprehension of the causes in himself Proposition 2. God knows all things by one act of intuition This the Schools call an intuitive knowledg This follows upon the other for if he know by his own Essence he knows all things by one act there would be otherwise a division in his Essence a first and a last a nearness and a distance As what he made he made by one word so what he sees he pierceth into by one glance from Eternity to Eternity As he Wills all things by one act of his Will so he knows all things by one act of his Understanding he knows not some things discursively from other things nor knows one thing successively after another As by one act he imparts Essence to things so by one act he knows the nature of things 1. He doth not know by Discourse as we do That is By deducing one thing from another and from common notions drawing out other rational conclusions and arguing one thing from another and springing up various consequences from some Principle assented to but God stands in no need of reasonings the making inferences and abstracting things would be stains in the infinite Perfection of God here would be a mixture of knowledg and ignorance while he knew the Principle he would not know the consequence and conclusion till he had actually deduc'd it one thing would be known after another and so he would have an ignorance and then a knowledg and there would be different conceptions in God and knowledg would be multiplyed according to the multitude of objects as it is in humane Understandings But God knows all things before they did exist and never was ignorant of them Acts 15.18 known unto God are all his Works from the beginning of the World He therefore knows them all at once the knowledg of one thing was not before another nor depended upon another as it doth in the way of Humane reasoning Suarez vol. 1. de Deo lib 3. cap. 2. p. 133 134. Tho' indeed some make a vertual Discourse in God that is tho' God hath a simple knowledg yet it doth vertually contain a Discourse by the flowing of one knowledg from another as from the knowledg of his own Power he knows what things are possible to be made by him and from the knowledg of himself he passes to the knowledg of the Creatures but this is only according to our Conception and because of our weakness they are apprehended as two distinct acts in God one of which is the reason of another As we say that one Attribute is the reason of another as his Mercy may be said to be the reason of his Patience and his Omnipresence to be the reason of the knowledg of present things done in the World God indeed by one simple act knows himself and the Creatures but when that Act whereby he knows himself is conceived by us to pass to the knowledg of the Creatures we must not understand it to be a new Act distinct from the other but the same act upon different terms or objects such an order is in our understandings and conceptions not in God's 2. Nor doth he know successively as we do That is not by Drops one thing after another This follows from the former a knowledg of all things without Discourse is a Knowledg without Succession Gamach in Aquin. q. 14. cap. 1. p. 119. The knowledg of one thing is not in God before another one act of knowledg doth not beget another in regard of the objects one thing is before another one year before another one Generation of men before another one is the cause the other is the effect In the Creatures there is such a Succession and God knows there will be such a Succession but there is no such order in Gods knowledg for he knows all those Successions by one glance without any succession of knowledg in himself Man in his view of things must turn sometimes his Body sometimes only his Eyes he cannot see all the Contents of a Letter at once and tho' he beholds all the lines in the page of a Book at once and a whole Country in a Map yet to know what is contain'd in them he must turn his eye from word to word and line to line and so spin out one thing after another by several acts and motions We behold a great part of the Sea at once * saith Epiphanius but not all the dimensions of it for to know the length of the Sea we move our eyes one way to see the breadth of it we turn our eyes another way to behold the depth of it we have another motion of them And when we cast our eyes up to Heaven we seem to receive in at an instant the whole tent of the Hemisphere yet there is but one object the eye can attentively pitch upon and we cannot distinctly view what we see in a lump without various motions of our eyes which is not done without succession of Time Amyrant morale chresti Tom. 3. p. 137. And certainly the Understanding of Angels is bounded according to the measure of their Beings so that it cannot extend it self at one time to a quantity of objects to make a distinct application of them but the objects must present themselves one by one But God is all Eye all Understanding as there is no succession in his Essence so there is none in his Knowledg his understanding in the nature and in the act is infinite as it is in the Text. He therefore sees Eternally and Universally all things by one act without any motion much less various motions the various changes of things in their substance qualities places and relations withdraw not any thing from his Eye nor bring any new thing to his Knowledg he doth not upon consideration of present things turn his mind from past or when he beholds
future things turn his mind from present but he sees them not one after another but all at once and all together the whole Circle of his own Counsels and all the various Lines drawn forth from the Center of his Will to the circumference of his Creatures Just as if a man were able in one moment to read a whole Library or as if you should imagine a transparent Chrystal Globe hung up in the midst of a Room and so framed as to take in the images of all things in the Room the Fret-Work in the Cieling the in-laid parts of the Floor and the particular parts of the Tapestry about it the eye of a man would behold all the Beauty of the Room at once in it As the Sun by one light and heat frames sensible things so God by one simple act knows all things As he knows mutable things by an immutable knowledg bodily things by a spiritual knowledg so he knows many things by one knowledg Heb. 4.13 All things are open and naked to him more than any one thing can be to us and therefore he views all things at once as well as we can behold and contemplate one thing alone As he is the Father of Lights a God of infinite Understanding there is no variableness in his mind nor any shadow of turning of his eye as there is of ours to behold various things James 1.17 his Knowledg being Eternal includes all times there is nothing past or future with him and therefore he beholds all things by one and the same manner of knowledg and comprehends all knowable things by one act and in one moment This must needs be so 1. Because of the eminency of God God is above all and therefore cannot but see the motions of all He that sits in a Theater or at the top of a place sees all things all persons by one aspect he comprehends the whole Circle of the place whereas he that sits below when he looks before he cannot see things behind God being above all about all in all sees at once the motions of all The whole World in the eye of God is less than a Point that divides one Sentence from another in a Book as a Cypher a grain of Dust Isa 40.15 so little a thing can be seen by man at once and all things being as little in the eye of God are seen at once by him As all Time is but a moment to his Eternity so all things are but as a point to the immensity of his Knowledg which he can behold with more ease than we can move or turn our eye 2. Because all the Perfections of Knowing are united in God Cusan p. 646. As particular senses are divided in man by one he Sees by another he Hears by another he Smells yet all those are united in one common sense and this common sense apprehends all so the various and distinct ways of knowledg in the Creatures are all eminently united in God A man when he sees a grain of Wheat understands at once all things that can in Time proceed from that Seed so God by beholding his own vertue and power beholds all things which shall in time be unfolded by him We have a shadow of this way of knowledg in our own Understanding the sence only perceives a thing present and one object only proper and suitable to it as the eye sees colour the ear hears sounds we see this and that man one time this another minute that but the understanding abstracts a notion of the common nature of man and frames a conception of that nature wherein all men agree and so in a manner beholds and understands all men at once by understanding the common nature of man which is a degree of knowledg above the sense and fancy we may then conceive an infinite vaster Perfection in the Understanding of God As to know is simply better than not to know at all so to know by one act comprehensive is a greater Perfection than to know by divided acts by succession to receive information and to have an increase or decrease of knowledg to be like a Bucket alway descending into the Well and fetching Water from thence 'T is a mans weakness that he is fixed on one object only at a time 't is Gods Perfection that he can behold all at once and is fixed upon one no more than upon another Proposition 3. God knows all things independently This is Essential to an infinite Understanding He receives not his knowledg from any thing without him he hath no Tutor to instruct him or Book to inform him who hath been his Counsellor saith the Prophet Isa 40.13 he hath no need of the Counsels of others nor of the instructions of others This follows upon the first and second Propositions if he knows things by his Essence then as his Essence is independent from the Creatures so is his Knowledg he borrows not any images from the Creature hath no species or pictures of things in his Understanding as we have no Beams from the Creature strike upon him to enlighten him but Beams from him upon the World the Earth sends not Light to the Sun but the Sun to the Earth Our knowledg indeed depends upon the object but all Created objects depend upon Gods Knowledg and Will We could not know Creatures unless they were but Creatures could not be unless God knew them As nothing that he Wills is the cause of his Will so nothing that he knows is the cause of his Knowledg he did not make things to know them but he knows them to make them Who will imagine that the mark of the foot in the Dust is the cause that the foot stands in this or that particular place If his knowledg did depend upon the things then the existence of things did precede Gods knowledg of them to say that they are the cause of Gods Knowledg is to say that God was not the cause of their Being and if he did Create them it was effected by a blind and ignorant power he Created he knew not what till he had produced it If he be beholden for his Knowledg to the Creatures he hath made he had then no knowledg of them before he made them If his knowledg were dependant upon them it could not be Eternal but must have a beginning when the Creatures had a beginning and be of no longer a date than since the nature of things was in actual existence for whatsoever is a cause of knowledg doth precede the knowledg it causes either in order of time or order of nature Temporal things therefore cannot be the cause of that knowledg which is Eternal His Works could not be foreknown to him if his Knowledg commenc'd with the existence of his Works If he knew them before he made them Act 15.18 he could not derive a knowledg from them after they were made He made all things in Wisdom Psal 104.24 how can this be imagin'd if
if God understands his own Power and Excellency nothing can be hid from him that was brought forth by that Power as well as nothing can be unknown to him that that Power is able to produce * Bradwardin p. 6. If God knows nothing besides himself he may then believe there is nothing beside himself we shall then fancy a God miserably mistaken If he knows nothing besides himself then things were not Created by him or not understandingly and voluntarily Created but drop'd from him before he was aware To think that the first cause of all should be ignorant of those things he is the cause of is to make him not a voluntary but natural Agent and therefore necessary and then that the Creature came from him as Light from the Sun and moisture from the Water this would bean absurd opinion of the Worlds Creation if God be a voluntary Agent as he is he must be an intelligent Agent The faculty of Will is not in any Creature without that of Understanding also If God be an intelligent Agent his knowledg must extend as far as his operation and every object of his operation unless we imagine God hath lost his Memory in that long Tract of time since the first Creation of them An Artificer cannot be ignorant of his own Work If God knows himself he knows himself to be a Cause how can he know himself to be a Cause unless he know the Effects he is the Cause of One relation implies another a man cannot know himself to be a Father unless he hath a Child because it is a name of relation and in the notion of it refers to another The name of cause is a name of relation and implies an effect If God therefore know himself in all his Perfections as the Cause of things he must know all his acts what his Wisdom contrived what his Counsel determin'd and what his Power effected The knowledg of God is to be suppos'd in a free determination of himself and that knowledg must be perfect both of the object act and all the circumstances of it How can his Will freely produce any thing that was not first known in his Understanding From this the Prophet argues the understanding of God and the unsearchableness of it because he is the Creator of the ends of the earth Isa 40.28 and the same reason David gives of Gods Knowledg of him and of every thing he did and that afar off because he was formed by him Psal 139.2 15 16. As the perfect making of things only belongs to God so doth the perfect knowledg of things 't is absurd to think that God should be ignorant of what he hath given Being to that he should not know all the Creatures and their qualities the Plants and their vertues as that a man should not know the Letters that are formed by him in Writing Every thing bears in it self the mark of Gods Perfections and shall not God know the representation of his own vertue 5. Without this Knowledg God could no more be the Governour than he could be the Creator of the World Knowledg is the Basis of Providence to Know things is before the Government of things a practical knowledg cannot be without a theoretical knowledg Nothing could be directed to its proper end without the knowledg of the nature of it and its suitableness to answer that end for which it is intended As every thing even the minutest falls under the conduct of God so every thing falls under the knowledg of God A Blind Coach-man is not able to hold the Reins of his Horses and direct them in right Paths Since the Providence of God is about particulars his Knowledg must be about particulars he could not else govern them in particular nor could all things be said to depend upon him in their Being and Operations Providence depends upon the knowledg of God and the exercise of it upon the Goodness of God it cannot be without Understanding and Will Understanding to know what is convenient and Will to perform it When our Saviour therefore speaks of Providence he intimates these two in a special manner Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things Mat. 6.32 and goodness in Luke 11.13 The reason of Providence is so joyned with Omniscience that they cannot be separated What a kind of God would he be that were ignorant of those things that were governed by him The ascribing this Perfection to him asserts his Providence for it is as easy for one that knows all things to look over the whole World if writ with Monosyllables in every little particular of it as it is with a man to take a view of one Letter in an Alphabet Sabund Tit. 84. much changed Again if God were not Omniscient how could he reward the Good and punish the Evil the works of men are either rewardable or punishable not only according to their outward circumstances but inward Principles and Ends and the degrees of Venom lurking in the heart The exact discerning of these without a possibility to be deceived is necessary to pass a right and infallible Judgment upon them and proportion the censure and punishment to the Crime Without such a Knowledg and discerning men would not have their due nay a Judgment just for the matter would be unjust in the manner because unjustly past without an understanding of the merit of the Cause 'T is necessary therefore that the Supream Judg of the World should not be thought to be blindfold when he distributes his Rewards and Punishments and muffle his face when he passes his Sentence 'T is necessary to ascribe to him the knowledg of mens thoughts and intentions the secret wills and aims the hidden works of darkness in every mans Conscience because every mans work is to be measured by the Will and inward frame 'T is necessary that he should perpetually retain all those things in the indelible and plain records of his Memory that there may not be any work without a just proportion of what is due to it This is the glory of God to discover the secrets of all hearts at last as 1 Cor. 4.5 the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the Counsels of all hearts and then shall every man have praise of God This knowledg fits him to be a Judg the reason why the ungodly shall not stand in Judgment is because God knows their ways which is implyed in his knowing the way of the righteous * Psal 1.5 6. I now proceed to the Vse VSE the first is of information or instruction If God hath all knowledg then 1. Jesus Christ is not a meer Creature The two Titles of wonderful Counsellor and mighty God are given him in conjunction Isa 9.6 not only the Angel of the Covenant as he is called Malach. 3.1 or the Executor of his Counsels but a Counsellor in conjunction with him in Counsel as well as
Power This Title is superior to any Title given to any of the Prophets in regard of their Predictions and therefore I should take it rather as the note of his perfect understanding than of his perfect teaching and discovering as Calvin doth He is not only the Revealer of what he knows so were the Prophets according to their measures but the Counsellor of what he revealed having a perfect understanding of all the Counsels of God as being interested in them as the mighty God He calls himself by the peculiar Title of God and declares that he will manifest himself by this Prerogative to all the Churches Rev. 2.23 And all the Churches shall know that I am he which searches the Reins and Hearts the most hidden operations of the minds of men that lye locked up from the view of all the World besides And this was no new thing to him after his Ascension for the same Perfection he had in the time of his earthly flesh Luke 6.8 he knew their Thoughts his eyes are therefore compar'd Cant. 5.12 to Doves eyes which are clear and quick and to a flame of fire Rev. 1.14 not only heat to consume his Enemies but Light to discern their contrivances against the Church he pierceth by his knowledg into all parts as fire pierceth into the closest particle of Iron and separates between the most united parts of Metals and some tell us he is called a Roe from the perspicacity of his Sight as well as from the swiftness of his motion 1. He hath a perfect Knowledg of the Father he knows the Father and none else knovvs the Father Angels knovv God men knovv God but Christ in a peculiar manner knovvs the Father no man knows the Son but the Father neither knows any man the Father save the Son Mat. 11.27 he knows so as that he learns not from any other he doth perfectly comprehend him vvhich is beyond the reach of any Creature vvith the addition of all the Divine Vertue not because of any incapacity in God to reveal but the incapacity of the Creature to receive finite is uncapable of being made infinite and therefore incapable of comprehending infinite so that Christ cannot be Deus factus made of a Creature a God to comprehend God for then of finite he vvould become infinite vvhich is a contradiction As the Spirit is God because he searches the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 that is comprehends them Potav Theo. dogmat Tom. 1. p. 467. c. as the Spirit of a man doth the things of a man now the Spirit of man understands vvhat it Thinks and vvhat it Wills so the Spirit of God understands vvhat is in the Understanding of God and vvhat is in the Will of God He hath an absolute knovvledg ascrib'd to him and such as could not be ascrib'd to any thing but a Divinity Novv if the Spirit knovvs the deep things of God and takes from Christ vvhat he shevvs to us of him John 16.15 he cannot be ignorant of those things himself he must knovv the depths of God that affords us that Spirit that is not ignorant of any of the Counsels of the Fathers Will since he comprehends the Father and the Father him he is in himself infinite for God whose Essence is infinite is infinitely knowable but no Created understanding can infinitely know God The infiniteness of the object hinders it from being understood by any thing that is not infinite Though a Creature should understand all the works of God yet it cannot be therefore said to understand God himself As tho' I may understand all the volitions and motions of my Soul yet it doth not follow that therefore I understand the whole nature and substance of my Soul or if a man understood all the effects of the Sun that therefore he understands fully the nature of the Sun But Christ knows the Father he lay in the Bosom of the Father was in the greatest intimacy with him John 1.18 and from this intimacy with him he saw him and knew him so he knows God as much as he is knowable and therefore knows him perfectly as the Father knows himself by a comprehensive Vision this is the knowledg of God wherein properly the infiniteness of his understanding appears And our Saviour uses such expressions which manifest his Knowledg to be above all Created Knowledg and such a manner of knowledg of the Father as the Father hath of him 2. Christ knows all Creatures That knowledg which comprehends God comprehends all Created things as they are in God 't is a knowledg that sinks to the depths of his Will and therefore extends to all the acts of his Will in Creation and Providence by knowing the Father he knows all things that are contained in the Vertue Power and Will of God whatsoever the Father doth that the Son doth John 5.19 As the Father therefore knows all things he is the cause of so doth the Son know all things he is the worker of as the perfect making of all things belongs to both so doth the perfect knowledg of all things belong to both where the action is the same the knowledg is the same Now the Father did not Create one thing and Christ another but all things were Created by him and for him all things both in Heaven and Earth Col. 1.16 as he knows himself as the cause of all things and the end of all things he cannot be ignorant of all things that were effected by him and are referred to him he knows all Creatures in God as he knows the Essence of God and knows all Creatures in themselves as he knows his own acts and the fruits of his Power those things must be in his Knowledg that were in his Power all the Treasures of the Wisdom and Knowledg of God are hid in him Col. 2.3 Now it is not the Wisdom of God to know in part and be in part ignorant He cannot be ignorant of any thing since there is nothing but what was made by him John 1.3 and since it is less to know than Create for we know many things which we cannot make Petav. Theolo Dogmat. Tom. 1. p. 467. If he be the Creator he cannot but be the discerner of what he made this is a part of Wisdom belonging to an Artificer to know the nature and quality of what he makes Since he cannot be ignorant of what he furnisht with Being and with various endowments he must know them not only universally but particularly 3. Christ knows the hearts and affections of men Peter scruples not to ascribe to him this knowledg among the knowledg of all other things John 21.17 Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee From Christs knowledg of all things he concludes his knowledg of the inward frames and dispositions of men To search the heart is the sole Prerogative of God 1 Kings 8.39 for thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the Children of men
it runs thus To the alone Wise God through Jesus Christ to him be glory for ever But we must not understand it as if God were Wise by Jesus Christ but that Thanks is to be given to God through Christ because in and by Christ God hath revealed his Wisdom to the World The Greek hath a Repetition of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not exprest in the Translation To him be glory Beza expungeth this Article but without reason for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To him and joyning this The only Wise God with the 25th Verse To him that is of Power to establish you Reading it thus To him that is of Power to establish you the only Wise God leaving the rest in a Parenthesis it runs smoothly To him be glory through Jesus Christ And Crellius the Socinian observes that this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some leave out might be industriously inserted by the Apostle to shew that the Glory we ascribe to God is also given to Christ We may Observe That neither in this place nor any where in Scripture is the Virgin Mary or any of the Saints associated with God or Christ in the Glory ascrib'd to them In the Words there is 1. An Appropriation of Wisdom to God and a Remotion of it from all Creatures Only wise God 2. A Glorifying him for it The Point I shall insist upon is Doctr. That Wisdom is a transcendent Excellency of the Divine Nature We have before spoken of the Knowledge of God and the Infiniteness of it The next Attribute is the Wisdom of God Most confound the Knowledge and Wisdom of God together but there is a manifest distinction between them in our conception I shall handle it thus 1. Shew what Wisdom is Then lay down 2. Some Propositions about the Wisdom of God And shew 3. That God is Wise and only Wise 4. Wherein his Wisdom appears 5. The Vse I. What Wisdom is Wisdom among the Greeks first signified an eminent Perfection in any Art or Mystery so a good Statuary Engraver or Limner was called Wise as having an excellent Knowledge in his particular Art But afterwards the Title of Wise was appropriated to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest things that served for a Foundation to Speculative Sciences †A myrant Moral Iom 3. p. 123. But ordinarily we count a Man a Wise Man when he conducts his Affairs with discretion and governs his Passions with moderation and carries himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns But in Particular Wisdom consists 1. In acting for a right End The chiefest part of Prudence is in fixing a right End and in chusing fit Means and directing them to that scope To shoot at random is a mark of Folly As he is the wisest Man that hath the noblest End and fittest Means so God is Infinitely Wise as he is the most excellent Being so he hath the most excellent End As there is none more excellent than himself nothing can be his End but himself As he is the Cause of all so he is the End of all and he puts a true Byass into all the Means he useth to hit the Mark he aims at Of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 2. Wisdom consists in observing all Circumstances for Action He is counted a Wise man that lays hold of the fittest Opportunities to bring his designs about that hath the fullest foresight of all the little Intrigues which may happen in a Business he is to manage and Times every part of his Action in an exact harmony with the proper Minutes of it God hath all the Circumstances of things in one entire Image before him he hath a prospect of every little Creek in any design He sees what Second Causes will act and when they will act this or that yea he determines them to such and such Acts so that it is impossible he should be mistaken or miss of the due Season of bringing about his own Purposes As he hath more Goodness than to deceive any so he hath more Understanding than to be mistaken in any thing Hence the Time of the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour is called the Fulness of Time the proper Season for his coming Every Circumstance about Christ was Tim'd according to the Predictions of God even so little a thing as not parting his Garment and the giving him Gall and Vinegar to drink And all the Blessings he showrs down upon his People according to the Covenant of Grace are said to come in his season Ezek. 34.25 26. 3. Wisdom consists In willing and acting according to the right Reason according to a right Judgment of things We never count a Wilful man a Wise man but him only that acts according to a right Rule when right Counsels are taken and vigorously executed The Resolves and Ways of God are not meer Will but Will guided by the Reason and Counsel of his own Infinite Understanding Eph. 1.11 Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will The Motions of the Divine Will are not rash but follow the Proposals of the Divine Mind He chooses that which is fittest to be done so that all his Works are graceful and all his Ways have a comeliness and decorum in them Hence all his Ways are said to be Judgment Deut. 32.4 not meer Will Hence it appears that Wisdom and Knowledge are two distinct Perfections Knowledge hath its seat in the Speculative Understanding Wisdom in the Practical Wisdom and Knowledge are evidently distinguish'd as two several gifts of the Spirit in Man 1 Cor. 12.8 To one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same Spirit Knowledge is an understanding of general Rules and Wisdom is a drawing Conclusions from those Rules in order to particular cases A Man may have the Knowledge of the whole Scripture and have all Learning in the Treasury of his Memory and yet be destitute of Skill to make use of them upon particular Occasions and unty those knotty Questions which may be proposed to him by a ready application of those Rules Again Knowledge and Wisdom may be distinguish'd in our Conception as two distinct Perfections in God The Knowledge of God is his Understanding of all things his Wisdom is the Skilful resolving and acting of all things And the Apostle in his Admiration of him owns them as distinct Oh the depths of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God Rom. 11.33 Knowledge is the Foundation of Wisdom and antecedent to it Wisdom the Superstructure upon Knowledge Men may have Knowledge without Wisdom but not Wisdom without Knowledge according to our common Proverb The greatest Clerks are not the wisest Men. All Practical Knowledge is founded in Speculation either Secundum rem as in a Man or Secundum rationem as in God They agree
acts of the Divine will yet we must not think that they were acts of meer will without wisdom but they are represented so to us because we are not capable of understanding the infinite Reason of its acts His Soveraignty is more intelligible to us than his Wisdom We can better know the Commands of a Superiour and the Laws of a Prince than understand the reason that gave birth to those Laws We may know the Orders of the Divine will as they are publish'd but not the sublime Reason ot his will Though Election be an act of God's Soveraignty and he hath no cause from without to determine him yet his infinite wisdom stood not silent while meer Dominion acted Whatsoever God doth he doth wisely as well as soveraignly though that wisdom which lies in the secret places of the Divine Being be as incomprehensible to us as the effects of his Soveraignty and Power in the World are visible God can give a reason of his proceeding and that drawn from himself though we understand it not The causes of things visible lye hid from us Doth any man know how to distinguish the seminal vertue of a small Seed from the Body of it and in what nook and corner that lies and what that is that spreads it self in so fair a Plant and so many Flowers Can we comprehend the Justice of God's proceedings in the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the Godly Yet as we must conclude them the fruits of an unerring righteousness so we must conclude all his actions the fruits of an unspotted wisdom though the concatenation of all his counsels is not intelligible to us for he is as essentially and necessarily wise as he is essentially and necessarily good and righteous God is not only so wise that nothing more wise can be conceiv'd but he is more wise than can be imagin'd something greater in all his Perfections than can be comprehended by any Creature 'T is a foolish thing therefore to question that which we cannot comprehend we should adore it instead of disputing against it and take it for granted that God would not order any thing were it not agreeable to the Soveraignty of his wisdom as well as that of his will Though the reason of man proceed from the wisdom of God yet there is more difference between the reason of man and the wisdom of God than between the light of the Sun and the feeble shining of the Glowworm yet we presume to censure the ways of God as if our purblind reason had a reach above him 7. God is only wise infallibly The wisest men meet with rubs in the way that make them fall short of what they aim at they often design and fail then begin again and yet all their counsels end in smoak and none of them arrive at perfection If the wisest Angels lay a plot they may be disappointed for though they are higher and wiser than man yet there is one higher and wiser than they that can check their Projects God always compasseth his end never fails of any thing he designs and aims at all his undertakings are counsel and will as nothing can resist the efficacy of his will so nothing can countermine the skil of his counsel There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord Prov. 21.30 He compasseth his ends by those actions of Men and Devils wherein they think to cross him they shoot at their own Mark and hit his Lucifer's plot by Divine wisdom fulfilled God's purpose against Lucifer's mind The counsel of Redemption by Christ the end of the Creation of the World rode into the World upon the back of the Serpents Temptation God never mistakes the means nor can there be any disappointments to make him vary his Counsels and pitch upon other means than what before he had ordain'd His word that goeth forth of his mouth shall not return to him void but it shall accomplish that which he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it Isa 55.11 What is said of his word is true of his counsel it shall prosper in the thing for which it is appointed it cannot be defeated by all the Legions of Men and Devils for as he thinks so shall it come to pass and as he hath purposed so shall it stand The Lord hath purposed and who shall disanul it Isa 14.24 27. The wisdom of the Creature is a drop from the wisdom of God and is like a drop to the Ocean and a shadow to the Sun and therefore is not able to mate the wisdom of God which is infinite and boundless No wisdom is exempted from mistakes but the Divine He is wise in all his Resolves and never calls bâ—ck his words and purposes Isa 31.2 III. The third General is to prove that God is wise This is ascrib'd to God in Scripture Dan. 2.20 Wisdom and might are his Wisdom to contrive and Power to effect * Culverwell light of Nature p. 30. Where should Wisdom dwell but in the head of a Deity and where should Power triumph but in the arm of Omnipotency All that God doth he doth artificially skilfully whence he is called the Builder of the Heavens Heb. 11.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an artificial and curious Builder a Builder by Art And that word Prov. 8.30 meant of Christ Then I was by him as one brought up with him some render it Then was I the curious Artificer and the same word is translated a cunning workman Cant. 7.5 For this cause Counsel is ascrib'd to God †Isa 46.10 Jer. 22.19 Great in counsel Job 12.13 He hath counsel and understanding not properly for Counsel implies something of Ignorance or Irresolution antecedent to the consultation and a posture of will afterwards which was not before Counsel is properly a laborious deliberation and a reasoning of things An invention of means for the attainment of the end after a discussing and reasoning of all the doubts which arise pro re natâ about the matter in counsel But God hath no need to deliberate in himself what are the best means to accomplish his ends He is never ignorant or undetermin'd what course he should take as men are before they consult But it is an expression in condescension to our Capacity to signifie that God doth nothing but with reason and understanding with the highest prudence and for the most glorious ends as men do after consultation and the weighing of every foreseen circumstance Though he acts all things Soveraignly by his will yet he acts all things wisely by his understanding and there is not a decree of his will but he can render a satisfactory reason for in the face of Men and Angels As he is the Cause of all things so he hath the highest wisdom for the ordering of all things If wisdom among men be the knowledge of Divine and Human things God must be infinitely wise since knowledge is most radiant in
order and fit every Stone in the Building make all things in weight and measure to let them afterwards run at hap hazard Would he bring forth his Power to view in the Creation and let a more glorious perfection lye idle when it had so large a Field to move in Infinite wisdom is inconsistent with inactivity All Prudence doth illustrate itself in untying the hardest knots and disposing the most difficult Affairs to a happy and successful Issue All those various Arts and Inventions among men which lend their assisting hand to one another and those various Employments their several Genius's lead them to whereby they support one anothers welfare are Beams and instincts of Divine wisdom in the Government of the World He that made all things in wisdom †Psal 104.24 would not leave his works to act and move only according to their own folly and idly behold them jumble together and run counter to that end he designed them for we must not fancy a Divine Wisdom to be destitute of Activity 3. Here we may see a ground of God's patience The most impotent persons are the most impatient when un-foreseen Emergencies arise or at Events expected by them when their feeble Prudence was not a sufficient match to contest with them or prevent them But the wiser any man is the more he bears with those things which seem to cross his Intentions because he knows he grasps the whole Affair and is sure of attaining the end he proposeth to himself yet as a finite wisdom can have but a finite patience so an infinite wisdom possesses an infinite patience The wise God intends to bring glory to himself and good to some of his Creatures out of the greatest evils that can happen in the World He beholds no exorbitant Afflictions and monstrous Actions but what he can dispose to a good and glorious end even to work together for good to them that love God * Rom. 8.28 and therefore doth not presently fall foul upon the Actors till he hath wrought out that temporary Glory to himself and Good to his People which he designs The times of Ignorance God winkt at till he had brought his Son into the World and manifested his wisdom in Redemption and when this was done he presseth men to a speedy repentance †Acts 17.30 that as he forebore punishing their Crimes in order to the displaying his wisdom in the design'd Redemption so when he had effected it they must forbear any longer abusing his Patience 4. Hence appears the Immutability of God in his Decrees He is not destitute of a Power and Strength to change his own Purposes but his Infinite Perfection of Wisdom is a bar to his laying aside his Eternal Resolves and f rming new ones Isai 46.10 He resolves the end from the beginning and his couâ—sel stands stands immovable because it is Counsel 'T is an impotent Counsel that is subject to a daily thwarting it self Inconstant Persons are accounted by Men destitute of a due measure of Prudence If God change his Mind 't is either for the better or the worse if for the better he was not wise in his former Purpose if for the worse he is not wise in his present Resolve No alteration can be without a reflect on of Weakness upon the former or present determination God must either cease to be as Wise as he was before or begin to be Wiser than he was before the change which to think or imagine is to deny a Deity If any Man change his Resolution he is apprehensive of a flaw in his former Purpose and finds an Inconvenience in it which moves him to such a change which must be either for want of fore-sight in himselâ— or want of a due consideration of the object of his Counsel Neither of whicâ— can be imagined of God without a denial of the Deity No tâ—ere are no blots and blemishes in his Purposes and Promises Repentance indeed is an act of Wisdom in the Creature but it presupposeth Folly in his former Actions which is inconsistent with Infinite Perfection Men are often too rash in Promising and therefore what they promise in haste they perform at leasure or not at all They consider not before they Vow and make After-enquiries whether they had best stand to it The only wise God need not any After-game As he is Soveraignly Wise he sees no cause of râ—versing any thing and wants not expedients for his own Purpose and as he is Infinitely Powerful he hath no Superiour to hinder him from executing his Will and making his People enjoy the effects of his Wisdom If he had a recollection of Thoughts as Man hath and saw a necessity to mend them he were not Infinitely Wise in his first Decrees As in Creation he looked back upon the several Pieces of that goodly Frame he had erected and saw them so exact that he did not take up his Pensil again to mend any Particle of the first Draught so his Promises are made with such Infinite Wisdom and Judgment that what he writes is Irreversible and for Ever as the Decrees of the Medes and Persians All the words of God are Eternal because they are the Births of Righteousness and Judgment Hos 2.19 I will betroth thee to me for ever in Righteousness and Judgment He is not of a wavering and flitting Discretion If he Threatens he wisely considers what he Threatens if he Promises he wisely considers what he Promises and therefore is Immutable in both 5. Hence it follows thâ—t God is a fit Object for our Trust and Confidence For God being Infinitely Wise when he Promises any thing he sees every th ng which may hinder and every thing which may promote the execution of it so that he cannot discover any thing aftâ—rwards that may move him to take up After thougâ—ts He hath more Wisdom than to promise any thing hand over head or any thing which he knows he cannot accomplish Thougâ— God as True be the Object of our Trust yet God as Wise is the Foundation of our Trust We trust him in his Promise the Promise was made by Mercy and 't is perform d by Truth but Wisdom conducts all Means to the accomplishment of it There are many Men whose Honesty we can confide in but whose Discretion we are diffident of But there is no defect eith r of the one or the other which may scare us from a depending upon God in our concerns The words of Mans wisdom the Apostle entitles Enticing 1 Cor. 2.4 in opposition to the words of Gods wisdom which are firm stable and undeniable demonstrations As the Power of God is an encouragement of Trust because he is able to effect so the Wisdom of God comes into the rank of those Attributes which support our Faith To put a Confidence in him we must be perswaded not only that he is Ignorant of nothing in the World but that he is Wise to manage the whole course of Nature
Will which no Effects which he hath wrought can drain and put to a stand As he can raise Stones to be Children to Abraham * Mat. 3.9 so with the same mighty Word whereby he made one World he can make Infinite numbers of Worlds to be the Monuments of his Glory After the Prophet Jeremy 32.17 had spoke of Gods Power in Creation he adds And nothing is too hard for thee For one World that he hath made he can create Millions For one Star which he hath beautified the Heavens with he could have garnisht it with a Thousand and multiplied if he had pleased Rom. 4.17 every one of those into Millions for he can call things that are not not some things but all things possible The barren Womb of Nothing can no more resist his Power now to educe a World from it than it could at first No doubt but for one Angel which he hath made he could make many Worlds of Angels He that made one with so much ease as by a Word cannot want Power to make many more till he wants a Word The Word that was not too weak to make One cannot be too weak to make Multitudes If from One Man he hath in a way of Nature multiplied so many in all Ages of the World and covered with them the whole Face of the Earth he could in a Supernatural way by One Word multiply as many more 'T is the breath of the Almighty that gives life Job 33.4 He can create infinite Species and kinds of Creatures more than he hath created more variety of Forms For since there is no searching of his Greatness there is no conceiving the numberless possible effects of his Power The Understanding of Man can conceive Numberless things possible to be more than have been or shall be And shall we imagine that a Finite Understanding of a Creature hath a greater Omnipotency to conceive things possible than God hath to produce things possible When the Understanding of Man is tyr'd in its Conceptions it must still be concluded That the Power of God extends not only to what can be conceiv'd but infinitely beyond the measures of a Finite faculty Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out he is excellent in power and in judgment Job 36.23 For the Understanding of Man in its Conceptions of more kind of Creatures is limited to those Creatures which are It cannot in its own Imagination conceive any thing but what hath some foundation in and from something already in Being It may frame a new kind of Creature made up of a Lion a Horse an Ox but all those parts whereof its Conception is made have distinct Beings in the World though not in that composition as his Mind mixes and joyns them But no question but God can create Creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of Creatures yet in Being 'T is certain that if God only knows those things which he hath done and will do and not all things possible to be done by him his knowledge were finite so if he could do no more than what he hath done his Power would be finite 1. Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they do The Understanding of man can frame from one Principle of Truth many Conclusions and Inferences more than it doth Why cannot then the Power of God frame from one first Matter an infinite number of Creatures more than have been created The Almightiness of God in producing real Effects is not inferiour to the Understanding of man in drawing out real Truths An Artificer that makes a Watch supposing his liâ—e and health can make many more of a different form and motion And a Limner can draw many Draughts and frame many Pictures with a new variety of Colours according to the richness of his Fancy If these can do so that require a preexistent Matter fram'd to their hands God can much more who can raise beautiful Structures from nothing As long as men have matter they can diversifie the matter and make new Figures from it So long as there is nothing God can produce out of that nothing whatsoever he pleases We see the same in Inanimate Creatures A spark of Fire hath a vast Power in it it will kindle other things increase and enlarge it self Nothing can be exempt from the active force of it It will alter by consuming or refining whatsoever you offer to it It will reach all and refuse none and by the efficacious power of it all those new Figures which we see in Metals are brought forth When you have exposed to it a multitude of things still add more it will exert the same strength yea the vigour is increased rather than diminisht The more it catcheth the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act you cannot suppose an end oâ— its operation or a decrease of its strength as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance This must be but a weak shadow of that infinite Power which is in God Take another Instance in the Sun It hath power every year to produce Flowers and Plants from the Earth and as is able to produce them now as it was at the first lighting it and rearing it in the Sphear wherein it moves And if there were no kind of Flowers and Plants now created the Sun hath a power residing in it ever since its first Creation to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishâ—ng and bringing them forth Whatsoever you can conceive the Sun to be able to do in regard of Plants that can God do in regard of Worlds produce more Worlds than the Sun doth Plants every year without weariness without languishment The Sun is able to influence more things than it doth and produce numberless effects but it doth not do so much as it is able to do because it wants matter to work upon God therefore who wants no matter can do much more than he doth He can either act by second Causes if there were more or make more second Causes if he pleas'd 2. God is the most free Agent Every free Agent can do more than he will do Man being a free Creature can do more than ordinarily he doth will to do God is most free as being the Spring of Liberty in other Creatures He acts not by a necessity of Nature as the waves of the Sea or the motions of the Wind and therefore is not determin'd to those things which he hath already called forth into the World If God be infinâ—tely wise in contrivance he could contrive more than he hath and therefore can effect more than he hath effected He doth not act to the extent of his Power upon all occasions 'T is according to his will that he works Eph. 1. 'T is not according to his work that he wills his work is an evidence of his will but not the rule of his will His Power is not the rule of his Will but hâ—s Will is the disposer of
his Power according to the light of his infinite Wisdom and other Attributes that direct his Will and therefore his Power is not to be measur'd by his actual Will No doubt but he could in a moment have produced that World which he took six days time to frame He could have drown'd the old World at once without prolonging the time till the revolution of forty days He was not limited to such a term of time by any weakness but by the determination of his own Will God doth not do the hundred thousandth part of what he is able to do but what is convenient to do according to the â—nd which he hath proposed to himself Jesus Christ as Man could have ask'd Legions of Angels and God as a Soveraign could have sent them †Matth. 26 53. God could raise the dead every day if he pleased but he doth not He could heal every d seased person in a moment but he doth not As God can will more than he doth actually will so he can do more than he hath actually done He can do whatsoever he can will he can will more Worlds and therefore can create more Worlds If God hath not abilâ—ty to do more than he will do he then can do no more than what he actually hath done and then it will follow that he is not a free but a natural and necessary Agent which cannot be supposed of God 2. This Power is infinite in regard of action As he can produce numberless Objects above what he hath produced so he could produce them more magnificently than he hath made them As he never works to the extent of his Power in regard of things so neither in regard of the manner of acting for he never acts so but he could act in a higher and perfecter manner 1. His Power is infinite in regard of the independency of Action He wants no Instrument to act When there was nothing but God there was no cause of action but God When there was nothing in being but God there could be no instrumental Cause of the being of any thing God can perfect his action without dependance on any thing ‖ Suarez vol. 1. ac Deo p. 151. And to be simply independent is to be simply infinite In this respect it is a Power incommunicable to any Creature though you conceive a Creature in higher degrees of perfection than it is A Creature cannot cease to be dependent but it must cease to be a Creature To be a Creature and independent are terms repugnant to one another 2. But the infiniteness of Divine Power consists in an ability to give higher degrees of perfection to every thing which he hath made * Becan Sum. Theol. p. 82. As his Power is infinite extensivè in regard of the multitude of Objects he can bring into being so it is infinite intensivè in regard of the manner of operation and the endowments he can bestow upon them Some things indeed God doth so perfect that higher degrees of perfection cannot be imagined to be added to them †Becan Sum. Theol. p. 84. As the Humanity of Christ cannot be united more gloriously than to the Person of the Son of God a greater degree of perfection cannot be conferred upon it Nor can the Souls of the Blessed have a nobler Object of vision and fruition than God himself the infinite Being No higher than the enjoyment of himself can be conferred upon a Creature Respectu termini This is not want of power He cannot be greater because he is greatest nor better because he is best nothing can be more than infinite But as to the things which God hath made in the World he could have given them other manner of beings than they have A human Understanding may improve a thought or conclusion strengthen it with more and more force of reason and adorn it with richer and richer elegancy of Language Why then may not the Divine Providence produce a World more perfect and excellent than this He that makes a plain Vessel can embellish it more engrave more Figures upon it according to the capacity of the subject And cannot God do so much more with his Works Could not God have made this World of a larger quantity and the Sun of a greater bulk and proportionable strength to influence a bigger World so that this World would have been to another that God might have made as a Ball or a Mount this Sun as a Star to another Sun that he might have kindled He could have made every Star a Sun every spire of Grass a Star every grain of Dust a Flower every Soul an Angel And though the Angels be perfect Creatures and unexpressibly more glorious than a visible Creature yet who can imagine God so confin'd that he cannot create a more excellent kind and endow those which he hath made with excellency of a higher rank than he invested them with at the first moment of their Creation Without question God might have given the meaner Creatures more excellent endowments put them into another order of nature for their own good and more diffusive usefulness in the World What is made use of by the Prophet ‖ Mal 2.15 in another case may be used in this Yet had he a residue of Spirit The capacity of every Creature might have been enlarg'd by God for no work of his in the World doth equal his Power as nothing that he hath framed doth equal his Wisdom The same matter which is the matter of the body of a Beast is the matter of a Plant and Flower is the matter of the body of a Man and so was capable of a higher form and higher perfections than God hath been pleas'd to bestow upon it And he had power to bestow that perfection on one part of matter which he denied to it and bestowed on another part If God cannot make things in a greater perfection there must be some limitation of him He cannot be limited by another because nothing is superiour to God If limited by himself that limitation is not from a want of Power but a want of Will He can by his own Power raise Stones to be Children to Abraham * Matth. 3.9 He could alter the nature of the Stones form them into Human Bodies dignifie them with rational Souls inspire those Souls with such Graces that may render them the Children of Abraham But for the more fully understanding the nature of this Power we may observe 1. That though God can make every thing with a higher degree of perfection yet still within the limits of a finite Being No Creature can be made infinite because no Creature can be made God No Creature can be so improved as to equal the goodness and perfection of God †Gamach in Aquin. tom 1. qu. 25. yet there is no Creature but we may conceive a possibility of its being made more perfect in that rank of a Creature than it is As we
entertain a Soul of a heavenly extraction form'd by the breath of God * Gen. 2.7 He brought Light out of thick Darkness and living Creatures Fish and Foul out of inanimate waters †Gen. 1.20 and gave a power of spontaneous motion to things arising from that Matter which had no living motion To convert one thing into another is an evidence of infinite Power as well as creating things of nothing for the distance between life and not life is next to that which is between being and not being God first forms Matter out of Nothing and then draws upon and from this indisposed Chaos many excellent Pourtraitures Neither Earth nor Sea were capable of producing living Creatures without an infinite Power working upon it and bringing into it such variety and multitude of Forms and this is called by some mediate Creation as the producing the Chaos which was without form and void is called immediate Creation Is not the power of the Potter admirable in forming out of temper'd Clay such varieties of neat and curious Vessels that after they are fashion'd and past the Furnace look as if they were not of any kin to the Matter they are formed of And is it not the same with the Glass-maker that from a little melted gelly of Sand and Ashes or the Dust of Flint can blow up so pure a Body as Glass and in such varieties of shapes and is not the Power of God more admirable because infinite in speaking out so beautiful a World out of nothing and such varieties of living Creatures from Matter utterly indispos'd in its own nature for such forms 3. And this conducts to a third thing were in the power of God appears in that He did all this with the greatest ease and facility 1. Without Instruments As God made the World without the advice so without the assistance of any other He stretched forth the Heavens alone and spread abroad the Earth by himself Isai 44.24 He had no engine but his Word no pattern or model but himself What need can he have of Instruments that is able to create what Instruments he pleases Where there is no resistance in the Object where no need of preparation or instrumental advantage in the Agent there the actual determination of the Will is sufficient to a production What Instrument need we to the thinking of a Thought or an act of our Will Men indeed cannot act any thing without Tools the best Artificer must be beholden to something else for his noblest works of Art The Carpenter cannot work without his Rule and Ax and Saw and other Instruments The Watch-maker cannot act without his File and Pliars But in Creation there is nothing necessary to Gods bringing forth a World but a simple act of his Will which is both the principal cause and instrumental He had no Scaffolds to rear it no Engines to polish it no Hammers or Mattocks to clod and work it together 'T is a miserable Error to measure the actions of an Infinite Cause by the imperfect model of a Finite since by his own Power and Out-stretched Arm he made the Heaven and the Earth * Jer. 32.17 ‖ Gassend What excellency would God have in his work above others if he needed Instruments as Feeble men do Every Artificer is counted more admirable that can frame curious Works with the less matter fewer Tools and assistances God uses Instruments in his Works of Providence not for necessity but for the display of his Wisdom in the management of them yet those Instruments were originally framed by him without Instruments Indeed some of the Jews thought the Angels were the Instruments of God in creating Man and that those words Gen. 1.26 Let us make Man in our own image were spoken to Angels But certainly the Scripture which denies God any Counsellor in the model of Creation †Isai 40.12 13 14. doth not joyn any Instrument with him in the operation which is every where ascribed to himself without created assistance Isai 45.18 It was not to Angels God spake in that affair if so Man was made after the image of Angels if they were Companions with God in that work But it is every where said Gen. 1.27 that Man was made after the image of God Again the image wherein Man was created was that of dominion over the lower Creatures as appears verse 26. which we find not conferr'd upon Angels and it is not likely that Moses should introduce the Angels as Gods Privy Counsel of whose Creation he had not mention'd one syllable Let us make Man rather signifies the Trinity and not spoken in a Royal style as some think Which of the Jewish Kings writ in the style We That was the custom of later Times and we must not measure the language of Scripture by the style of Europe of a far later date than the penning the History of the Creation If Angels were his Counsellors in the Creation of the material World what Instrument had he in the Creation of Angels If his own Wisdom were the Director and his own Will the producer of the one why should we not think that he acted by his sole Power in the other 'T is concluded by most that the Power of Creation cannot be deriv'd to any Creature it being a work of Omnipotency The drawing Something out from Nothing cannot be communicated without a communication of the Deity it self The educing things from Nothing exceeds the capacity of any Creature and the Creature is of too feeble a Nature to be elevated to so high a degree 'T is very unreasonable to think that God needed any such aid If an Instrument were necessary for God to create the World then he could not do it without that Instrument If he could not he were not then All-sufficient in himself if he depended upon any thing without himself for the production or consummation of his Works And it might be enquired how that Instrument came into Being If it begun to be and there was a time when it was not it must have its Being from the Power of God and then why could not God as well create all things without an Instrument as create that Instrument without an Instrument For there was no more Power necessary to a producing the whole without Instruments than to produce one Creature without an Instrument No Creature can in its own nature be an Instrument of Creation If any such Instrument were used by God it must be elevated in a miraculous and supernatural way and what is so an Instrument is in effect no Instrument for it works nothing by its own nature but from an elevation by a Superior nature and beyond its own nature All that power in the Instrument is truly the Power of God and not the power of the Instrument And therefore what God doth by an Instrument he could do as well without If you should see one apply a Straw to Iron for the cutting of it
1 Cor. 1.9 Is he the Instrumental or Principal cause of our effectual Vocation And can the Will of God be the Instrument of putting Paul into the Apostleship or the Soveraign cause of investing him with that Dignity when he calls himself an Apostle by the will of God Ephes 1.3 And when all things are said to be through God as well as of him must he be counted the Instrumental cause of his own Creation Counsels and Judgments * Rom. 11.36 When we mortifie the deeds of the Body through the Spirit Rom. 8.13 or keep the Treasure of the Word by the Holy Ghost 2 Tim. 1.14 Is the Holy Ghost of no more dignity in such acts than Instrument Nor doth the gaining a thing by a Person make him a meer Instrument or Inferior as when a Man gains his Right in a way of Justice against his Adversary by the Magistrate is the Judge inferiour to the Suppliant If the Word were an Instrument in Creation it must be a created or uncreated Instrument If Created it could not be true what the Evangelist saith that All things were made by him since himself the Principal thing could not be made by himself if Uncreated he was God and so acted by a Divine Omnipotency which surmounts an Instrumental cause But indeed an Instrument is impossible in Creation since it is wrought only by an act of the Divine Will Do we need any Organ to an act of Volition the efficacious Will of the Creator is the cause of the Original of the Body of the World with its particular Members and exact Harmony It was form'd by a Word and establish'd by a Command †Psal 33.9 the beauty of the Creation stood up at the Precept of his Will Nor was the Son a Partial cause as when many are said to build a House one works one part and another frames another part God created all things by the immediate operation of the Son in the unity of Essence Goodness Power Wisdom not an extrinsick but a connatural Instrument As the Sun doth illustrate all things by his Light and quickens all things by his Heat so God created the Worlds by Christ as he was the brightness or splendor of his Glory the exact image of his Person which follows the declaration of his making the Worlds by him ‖ Heb. 1.3 4. to shew that he acted not as an Instrument but one in Essential conjunction with him as Light and Brightness with the Sun But suppose he did make the World as a kind of Instrument He was then before the World not bounded by Time and Eternity cannot well be conceiv'd belonging to a Being without Omnipotency He is the End as well as the Author of the Creatures * Colos 1.16 not only the Principle which gave them Being but the Sea into whose glory they run and dissolve themselves which consists not with the meaness of an Instrument 2. As Creation so Preservation is ascribed to him Colos 1.17 By him all things consist As he preceded all things in his Eternity so he establishes all things by his Omnipotency and fixes them in their several Centers that they sink not into that nothing from whence he fetched them By him they flourish in their several Beings and observe the Laws and Orders he first appointed That Power of his which extracted them from insensible Nothing upholds them in their several Beings with the same facility as he spake Being into them even by the word of his Power ‖ Heb. 1 3. and by one Creative continued Voice called all Generations from the beginning to the Period of the World * Isai 41.4 and causes them to flourish in their several seasons 'T is by him Kings reign and Princes decree justice and all things are confin'd within the limits of Government All which are Acts of an Infinite Power 3. Resurrection is also ascrib'd to him The Body crumbled to Dust and that Dust blown to several quarters of the World cannot be gathered in its distinct parts and new formed for the entertainment of the Soul without the strength of an Infinite Arm. This he will do and more change the vileness of an Earthly Body into the glory of an Heavenly one a Dusty flesh into a Spiritual Body which is an argument of a Power Invincible to which all things cannot but stoop for it is by such an operation which testifies an ability to subdue all things to himself †Phil. 3.21 especially when he works it with the same ease as he did the Creation by the power of his Voice John 5.28 All that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth Speaking them into a restored life from insensible Dust as he did into Being from an empty Nothing The greatest acts of Power are own'd to belong to Creation Preservation Resurrection Omnipotence therefore is his Right and therefore a Deity cannot be denied to him that inherits a Perfection essential to none but God and impossible to be intrusted in or managed by the hands of any Creatures And this is no mean comfort to those that believe in him He is in regard of his Power the Horn of salvation so Zachariah sings of him Luke 1.69 Nor could there be any more Mighty found out upon whom God could have laid our help ‖ Psal 89.19 No reason therefore to doubt his ability to save to the utmost who hath the Power of Creation Preservation and Resurrection in his hands His Promises must be accomplished since nothing can resist him He hath Power to fulfil his Word and bring all things to a final issue because he is Almighty by his Outstretched Arm in the Deliverance of his Israel from Egypt for it was his Arm 1 Cor. 10. he shewed that he was able to deliver us from Spiritual Egypt The charge of Mediator to expiate Sin vanquish Hell form a Church conduct and perfect it are not to be effected by a Person of less ability than Infinite Let this Almightiness of his be the Bottom wherein to cast and fix the Anchor of our Hopes 2. Information Hence may be inferred the Deity of the Holy Ghost Works of Omnipotency are ascrib'd to the Spirit of God By the motion of the Wings of this Spirit as a Bird over her Eggs was that rude and unshapen Mass hatcht into a comly World * Gen. 1.2 So the word Moved properly signifies The Stars or perhaps the Angels are meant by the garnishing of the Heavens in the Verse before the Text were brought forth in their comliness and dignity as the ornaments of the upper World by this Spirit By his Spirit he hath garnished the Heavens To this Spirit Job ascribes the formation both of the Body and Soul under the Title of Almighty Job 33.4 The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life Resurrection another work of Omnipotency is attributed to him Rom. 8.11 The Conception of our Saviour
to make it good is to pretend to have an Arm like God and be able to thunder with a Voice equal or superior to him as the expression is Job 40.9 All Security in Sin is of this strain When Men are not concerned at Divine Threatnings nor stagger'd in their sinful Race they intimate that the Declarations of Divine Power are but Vain-glorious boastings that God is not so strong and able as he reports himself to be and therefore they will venture it and dare him to try whether the strength of his Arm be as forcible as the Words of his Mouth are terrible in his Threats this is to believe themselves Creators not Creatures We magnifie Gods Power in our wants and debase it in our Rebellions as though Omnipotence were only able to supply our Necessities and unable to revenge the Injuries we offer him 2. This Power is Contemn'd in Distrust of God All Distrust is founded in a doubting of his Truth as if he would not be as good as his Word or of his Omniscience as if he had not a Memory to retain his Word or of his Power as if He could not be as great as his Word We measure the Infinite Power of God by the short Line of our Understandings as if Infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our Finite Reason as if He could do no more than we were able to do How soon did those Israelites lose the Remembrance of Gods Outstretched Arm when they utter'd that Atheistical Speech Psal 78.9 Can God furnish a Table in the Wilderness As if he that turned the Dust of Egypt into Lice for the punishment of their Oppressors could not turn the Dust of the Wilderness into Corn for the support of their Bodies As if he that had Miraraculously rebuked the Red Sea for their Safety could not provide Bread for their Nourishment Though they had seen the Egyptians with lost Lives in the Morning in the same place where Their Lives had been miraculously preserved in the Evening yet They disgrace that Experimented Power by opposing to it the Stature of the Anakims the Strength of their Cities and the height of their Walls Numb 13.32 And Numb 14.3 Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this Land to fall by the Sword As though the Giants of Canaan were too strong for Him for whom they had seen the Armies of Egypt too weak How did they contract the Almightiness of God into the littleness of a Little man as if he must needs sink under the Sword of a Canaanite This Distrust must arise either from a flat Atheism a denial of the Being of God or his Government of the World or unworthy Conceits of a Weakness in him that he had made Creatures too hard for himself that He were not strong enough to grapple with those mighty Anakims and give them the possession of Canaan against so great a Force Distrust of him implies either that He was alway destitute of Power or that his Power is exhausted by his former Works or that it is limited and near a Period 'T is to deny him to be the Creator that moulded Heaven and Earth Why should we by Distrust put a slight upon that Power which he hath so often exprest and which in the minutest Works of his hands surmount the force of the sharpest Understanding 3. 'T is Contemn'd in too great a fear of Man which ariseth from a distrust of Divine Power Fear of Man is a crediting the Might of Man with a disrepute of the Arm of God it takes away the glory of his Might and renders the Creature stronger than God and God more feeble than a Mortal as if the Arm of Man were a Rod of Iron and the Arm of God a brittle Reed How often do Men tremble at the Threatnings and Hectorings of Ruffians yet will stand as Stakes against the Precepts and Threatnings of God as though he had less Power to preserve us than Enemies had to destroy With what disdain doth God speak to Men infected with this humor Isai 51.12 13. Who art thou that art afraid of a Man that shall die and of the Son of Man that shall be made as grass and forgettest the Lord thy Maker that hath stretched forth the Heavens and laid the foundation of the Earth and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the Oppressor To fear Man that is as Grass that cannot think a Thought without a Divine concourse that cannot Breath but by a Divine Power nor touch a Hair without License first granted from Heaven This is a forgetfulness and consequently a slight of that Infinite Power which hath been manifested in founding the Earth and garnishing the Heavens All Fear of Man in the way of our Duty doth in some sort thrust out the Remembrance and discredit the great Actions of the Creator Would not a Mighty Prince think it a Disparagement to him if his Servant should decline his Command for fear of one of his Subjects And hath not the Great God just cause to think himself disgrac'd by us when we deny him Obedience for fear of a Creature As though he had but an Infant ability too feeble to bear us out in Duty and uncapable to ballance the strength of an Arm of Flesh 4. 'T is Contemn'd by trusting in our selves in Means in Man more than in God When in any Distress we will try every Creature-refuge before we have recourse to God and when we apply our selves to him we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames and with so much despondency as if we despair'd either of his Ability or Will to help us and implore him with cooler Affections than we sollicite Creatures Or when in a Disease we depend upon the virtue of the Medicine the ability of the Physician and reflect not upon that Power that endued the Medicine with that virtue and supports the quality in it and concurs to the operation of it When we depend upon the activity of the Means as if they power originally in themselves and not derivatively and do not eye the Power had of God animating and assisting them We cannot expect relief from any thing with a neglect of God but we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God We acknowledge a greater fulness in a shallow Stream than in an Eternal Spring we do in effect depose the True God and create to our selves a New one we assert by such a kind of acting the Creature if not superior yet equal with God and independent on him When we trust in our own strength without begging his Assistance or boast of our own strength without acknowledging his concurrence as the Assyrian By the strength of my hand have I done this I have put down the Inhabitants like a valiant Man Isai 10.13 'T is as if the Ax should boast it self against him that hews therewith and thinks it self more Mighty than the Arm that wields it verse 15. when we trust in
can have no Superior to impose a Precept on him A Rational Creature with a liberty of Will and power of Choice cannot be made by Nature of such a mould and temper but he must be as well capable of chusing wrong as of chusing right and therefore the standing Angels and glorified Saints though they are Immutable 't is not by Nature that they are so but by Grace and the good pleasure of God for though they are in Heaven they have still in their Nature a remote power of sinning but it shall never be brought into act because God will always incline their Wills to love him and never concur with their Wills to any evil act Since therefore Mutability is essential to a Creature as a Creature this changeableness cannot properly be charged upon God as the Author of it for it was not the term of God's creating act but did necessarily result from the Nature of the Creature as unchangeableness doth result from the Essence of God The brittleness of a Glass is no blame to the Art of him that blew up the Glass into such a fashion that imperfection of brittleness is not from the Workman but the Matter So though changeableness be an Imperfection yet it is so necessary a one that no Creature can be naturally without it Besides though Angels and Men were mutable by Creation and capable to exercise their Wills yet they were not necessitated to evil and this mutability did not infer a necessity that they should fall because some Angels which had the same root of changeableness in their Natures with those that fell did not fall which they would have done if capableness of changing and necessity of changing were one and the same thing 2. Though God made the Creature mutable yet he made him not evil There could be nothing of evil in him that God created after his own Image and pronounced good Gen. 1.27 31. Man had an ability to stand as well as a capacity to fall He was created with a principle of acting freely whereby he was capable of loving God as his chief Good and moving to him as his last end there was a beam of Light in man's Understanding to know the Rule he was to conform to a harmony between his Reason and his Affections an original Righteousness So that it seem'd more easie for him to determine his Will to continue in Obedience to the Precept than to swerve from it to adhere to God as his chief Good than to listen to the Charms of Satan God created him with those advantages that he might with more facility have kept his eyes fixt upon the Divine Beauty than turn his back upon it and with greater ease have kept the Precept God gave him than have broken it The very first thought darted or impression made by God upon the Angelical or Human Nature was the knowledge of himself as their Auhtor and could be no other than such whereby both Angels and Men might be excited to a love of that adorable Being that had framed them so gloriously out of nothing And if they turned their Wills and Affections to another Object it was not by the direction of God but contrary to the impression God had made upon them or the first thought he flasht into them They turned themselves to the admiring their own Excellency or affecting an advantage distinct from that which they were to look for only from God 1 Tim. 3.6 Pride was the cause of the Condemnation of the Devil Though the Wills of Angels and Men were created mutable and so were imperfect yet they were not created evil Though they might sin yet they might not sin and therefore were not evil in their own Nature What reflection then could this Mutability of their Nature be upon God So far is it from any that he is fully cleared by storing up in the Nature of Man sufficient Provision against his departure from him God was so far from creating him evil that he fortified him with a knowledge in his Understanding and a strength in his Nature to withstand any Invasion The Knowledge was exercised by Eve in the very Moment of the Serpents assaulting her Gen. 3.3 Eve said to the Serpent God hath said ye shall not eat of it And had her thoughts been intent upon this God hath said and not diverted to the motions of the Sensitive Appetite and Liquorish Palate it had been sufficient to put by all the Passes the Devil did or could have made at her So that you see though God made the Creature Mutable yet he made him not evil This clears the Holiness of God 3. Therefore it follows That though God created man changeable yet he was not the cause of his change by his fall Though Man was created defectible yet he was not determin'd by God influencing his Will by any positive act to that change and apostacy God placed him in a free posture set life and happiness before him on the one hand misery and death on the other As he did not draw him into the Arms of perpetual Blessedness so he did not drive him into the Gulph of his Misery * Amyral Mâ—â—aâ— Tom. 1. p. 615 616. He did not incline him to Evil. It was repugnant to the Goodness of God to corrupt the Righteousness of those Faculties he had so lately beautified him with It was not likely he should deface the beauty of that Work he had compos'd with so much Wisdom and Skill Would he by any Act of his own make that had which but a little before he had acquiesced in as good Angels and Men were left to their liberty and conduct of their Natural Faculties and if God inspir'd them with any Motions they could not but be Motions to good and suted to that righteous Nature he had endued them with But it is most probable that God did not in a Supernatural way act inwardly upon the Mind of Man but left him wholly to that Power which he had in Creation furnisht him with The Scripture frees God fully from any blame in this and lays it wholly upon Satan as the Tempter and upon Man as the Determiner of his own Will Gen. 3.6 Eve took of the Fruit and did eat and Adam took from her of the Fruit and did eat And Solomon Eccl 7.29 distinguisheth God's Work in the Creation of Man upright from Man's Work in seeking out those ruining inventions God created Man in a righteous state and Man cast himself into a forlorn state As he was a Mutable Creature he was from God as he was a changed and corrupted Creature it was from the Devil seducing and his own pliableness in admitting As Silver and Gold and other Metals were created by God in such a form and figure yet capable of receiving other forms by the industrious Art of Man When the Image of a Man is put upon a piece of Metal God is not said to create that Image though he created the Substance with
torments the Person that acts it 't is black and abominable and hath not a mite of Goodness in the Nature of it If it ends in any good 't is only from that Infinite Transcendency of skill that can bring Good out of Evil as well as Light out of Darkness Therefore God did not permit it as Sin but as it was an occasion for the manifestation of his own Glory Though the Goodness of God would have appear'd in the Preservation of the World as well as it did in the Creation of it yet his Mercy could not have appear'd without the Entrance of Sin because the Object of Mercy is a Miserable Creature but Man could not be Miserable as long as he remained Innocent The Reign of Sin opened a door for the Reign and Triumph of Grace Rom. 5.21 As sin hath reigned unto death so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life Without it the Bowels of Mercy had never sounded and the ravishing Musick of Divine Grace could never have been heard by the Creature Mercy which renders God so amiable could never else have beam'd out to the World Angels and Men upon this occasion beheld the stirrings of Divine Grace and the Tenderness of Divine Nature and the glory of the Divine Persons in their several Functions about the Redemption of Man which had else been a Spring shut up and a Fountain sealed the Song of Glory to God and Good will to Men in a way of Redemption had never been Sung by them It appears in his dealings with Adam that he permitted his Fall not only to shew his Justice in punishing but principally his Mercy in rescuing since he proclaims to him first the Promise of a Redeemer to bruise the Serpents head before he setled the Punishment he should smart under in the World †Gen. 3.15 16 17. And what fairer prospect could the Creature have of the Holiness of God and his Hatred of Sin than in the edge of that Sword of Justice which punished it in the Sinner but glitter'd more in the Punishment of a Surety so near Allied to him Had not Man been Criminal he could not have been Punishable nor any been punishable for him And the Pulse of Divine Holiness could not have beaten so quick and been so visible without an exercise of his Vindicative Justice He left Mans mutable Nature to fall under Vnrighteousness that thereby he might commend the Righteousness of his own Nature * Rom. 3.7 Adams Sin in its Nature tended to the ruine of the World and God takes an occasion from it for the glory of his Grace in the Redemption of the World He brings forth thereby a new Scene of Wonders from Heaven and a surprizing Knowledge on Earth As the Sun breaks out more strongly after a Night of Darkness and Tempest As God in Creation framed a Chaos by his Power to manifest his Wisdom in bringing Order out of Disorder Light out of Darkness Beauty out of Confusion and Deformity when he was able by a Word to have made all Creatures stand up in their Beauty without the precedency of a Chaos So God permitted a Moral Chaos to manifest a greater Wisdom in the repairing a broken Image and restoring a deplorable Creature and bringing out those Perfections of his Nature which had else been wrapt up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom †But of the Wisdom of God in the permitting Sin in order to Redeâ—ption I have handled in the Attribute of Wisdom It was therefore very congruous to the Holiness of God to permit that which he could make subservient for his own glory and particularly for the manifestation of this Attribute of Holiness which seems to be in opposition to such a permission 5. Proposition The Holiness of God is not blemisht by his concurrence with the Creature in the material part of a sinful Act. Some to free God from having any hand in Sin deny his concurrence to the Actions of the Creature because if he concurs to a sinful Action he concurs to the Sin also Not understanding how there can be a distinction between the Act and the Sinfulness or Viciousness of it and how God can concur to a Natural Action without being stain'd by that Moral Evil which cleaves to it For the understanding of this observe 1. There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the Creature Acts 17.28 In him we live and move and have our being We depend upon God in our Acting as well as in our Being There is as much an efficacy of God in our Motion as in our Production as none have life without his Power in producing it so none have any operation without his Providence concurring with it In him or by him that is by his Virtue preserving and governing our Motions as well as by his Power bringing us into Being Hence Man is compared to an Ax Isai 10.15 an Instrument that hath no action without the cooperation of a Superiour Agent handling it And the Actions of the Second Causes are ascrib'd to God the Grass that is the product of the Sun Rain and Earth he is said to make to grow upon the Mountains Psal 147.8 and the Skin and Flesh which is by Natural generation he is said to cloath us with Job 10.5 in regard of his co-working with Second Causes according to their Natures As nothing can exist so nothing can operate without him let his Concurrence be removed and the Being and Action of the Creature cease Remove the Sun from the Horizon or a Candle from a Room and the Light which flowed from either of them ceaseth Without Gods preserving and concurring Power the course of Nature would sink and the Creation be in vain ‖ Suarez Metaph part 1. p. 552. All Created things depend upon God as Agents as well as Beings and are subordinate to him in a way of Action as well as in a way of Existing If God suspend his Influence from their Action they would cease to act as the Fire did from burning the Three Children as well as if God suspend his Influence from their Being they would cease to be God supports the Nature whereby Actions are wrought the Mind where Actions are consulted and the Will where Actions are determin'd and the Motive power whereby Actions are produced The Mind could not contrive nor the Hand act a Wickedness if God did not support the Power of the one in designing and the Strength of the other in executing a wicked Intention Every faculty in its Being and every faculty in its Motion hath a dependance upon the Influence of God To make the Creature Independent upon God in any thing which speaks Perfection as Action considered as Action is is to make the Creature a Soveraign Being Indeed we cannot imagine the Concurrence of God to the good Actions of Men since the Fall without granting a Concurrence of God to evil Actions because there is no Action so purely
Will because there was a flaw contracted in that Nature that came right and true out of his hand And as he that winds up his disordered Watch is in the same manner the cause of its motion then as he was when it was regular yet by that act of his he is not the cause of the false motion of it but that is from the deficiency of some part of the Watch it self So though God concurs to that Action of the Creature whereby the Wickedness of the Heart is drawn out yet is not God therefore as Unholy as the Heart 5. God hath one End in his Concurrence and Man another in his Action So that there is a Righteous and often a gracious End in God when there is a base and unworthy End in Man God concurs to the substance of the Act Man produceth the circumstance of the Act whereby it is Evil. God orders both the Action wherein he concurs and the Sinfulness over which he presides as a Governour to his own Ends. In Josephs case Man was sinful and God merciful his Brethren acted Envy and God design'd Mercy Gen. 45.4 5. They would be rid of him as an Eyesore and God concurr'd with their Action to make him their Preserver Gen. 50.20 Ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good God concur'd to Judas his action of betraying our Saviour he supported his Nature while he contracted with the Priests and supported his Members while he was their Guide to apprehend him God's end was the manifestation of his choicest love to Man and Judas his end was the gratification of his own Covetousness The Assyrian did a Divine Work against Hierusalem but not with a Divine end * Isa 10.5.6 â— He had a mind to enlarge his Empire enrich his Coffers with the Spoil and gain the Title of a Conqueror he is desirous to Invade his Neighbours and God employs him to punish his Rebels but he means not so nor doth his heart think so He intended not as God intended The Axe doth not think what the Carpenter intends to do with it But God used the rapine of an Ambitious Nature as an Instrument of his Justice As the exposing Malefactors to wild Beasts was an ancient Punishment whereby the Magistrate intended the execution of Justice and to that purpose used the natural fierceness of the Beasts to an end different from what those ravaging Creatures aim'd at God concur'd with Satan in spoiling Job of his Goods and scarifying his Body God gave Satan license to do it Job 1.12 21. and Job acknowledges it to be God's act But their ends were different God concurred with Satan for the clearing the Integrity of his Servant when Satan aim'd at nothing but the provoking him to Curse his Creator The Physician applies Leeches to suck the superfluous blood but the Leeches suck to glut themselves without any regard to the intention of the Physician and the welfare of the Patient In the same act where men intend to hurt God intends to correct so that his concurrence is in a holy manner while men commit unrighteous actions A Judge commands the Executioner to execute the Sentence of Death which he hath justly pronounced against a Malefactor and admonisheth him to do it out of love to Justice the Executioner hath the Authority of the Judge for his Commission and the protection of the Judge for his Security The Judge stands by to countenance and secure him in the doing of it but if the Executioner hath not the same intention as the Judge viz. a love to Justice in the performance of his Office but a private hatred to the Offender the Judge though he commanded the fact of the Executioner yet did not command this Error of his in it and though he protects him in the Fact yet he owns not this corrupt disposition in him in the doing of what was enjoyn'd him as any act of his own To Conclude this Since the Creature cannot act without God cannot lift up a Hand or move his Tongue without God's preserving and upholding the Faculty and preserving the power of Action and preserving every Member of the Body in its actual Motion and in every circumstance of its Motion we must necessarily suppose God to have such a way of concurrence as doth not intrench upon his Holiness We must not equal the Creature to God by denying its dependence on him Nor must we imagine such a concurrence to the sinfulness of an act as stains the Divine Purity which is I think sufficiently salv'd by distinguishing the matter of the act from the evil adhering to it For since all evil is founded in some good the evil is distinguishable from the good and the deformity of the action from the action it self which as it is a created act hath a dependance on the will and influence of God And as it is a sinful act is the product of the will of the Creature 6. Proposition The holiness of God is not blemisht by proposing Objects to a man which he makes use of to sin There is no Object propos'd to man but is directed by the Providence of God which influenceth all motions in the World and there is no Object propos'd to man but his active Nature may according to the goodness or badness of his disposition make a good or an ill use of That two men one of a charitable the other of a hard-hearted disposition meet with an indigent and necessitous Object is from the Providence of God yet this indigent person is relieved by the one and neglected by the other There could be no action in the World but about some Object there could be no Object offer'd to us but by Divine Providence the active Nature of man would be in vain if there were not Objects about which it might be exercis'd Nothing could present it self to man as an Object either to excite his Grace or awaken his Corruption but by the conduct of the Governour of the World That David should walk upon the Battlements of his Palace and Bathsheba be in the Bath at the same time was from the Divine Providence which orders all the affairs of the World * 2 Sam. 117. and so some understand Jer. 6.21 Thus saith the Lord I will lay stumbling blocks before this People and the Fathers and Sons together shall fall upon them Since they have offered Sacrifices without those due qualifications in their hearts which were necessary to render them acceptable to me I will lay in their way such Objects which their Corruption will use ill to their further sin and ruin so Psal 105.25 He turned their heart to hate his people that is by the multiplying his People he gave occasion to the Egyptians of hating them instead of caressing them as they had formerly done But God's Holiness is not blemisht by this for 1. This proposing or presenting of Objects invades not the liberty of any man The Tree of the Knowledge of Good
God is a Good which hath no taint of Evil nothing can be so Supream an Evil as God is Supream Goodness He is only Good without capacity of increase He is all Good and unmixedly Good none Good but God A Goodness like the Sun that hath all Light and no Darkness That is the second thing He is the Supream and chief Goodness 3. This Goodness is Communicative None so Communicatively Good as God As the Notion of God includes Goodness so the Notion of Goodness includes Diffusiveness without Goodness he would cease to be a Deity and without Diffusiveness he would cease to be Good The being Good is necessary to the being God For Goodness is nothing else in the Notion of it but a strong inclination to do Good either to find or make an Object wherein to exercise it self according to the Propension of its own Nature And it is an Inclination of Communicating it self not for its own interest but the good of the Object it pitcheth upon Thus God is good by Nature and his Nature is not without activity he acts conveniently to his own Nature †Ps 119.68 Thou art good and dost good And nothing accrues to him by the Communications of himself to others since his blessedness was as great before the frame of any Creature as ever it was since the Erecting of the World so that the Goodness of Christ himself encreaseth not the lustre of his Happiness †Psal 16.2 My Goodness extends not to thee He is not of a Niggardly and Envious Nature He is too Rich to have any cause to envy and too Good to have any will to envy He is as liberal as he is Rich according to the capacity of the Object about which his Goodness is exercised The Divine Goodness being the Supream Goodness is Goodness in the highest Degree of Activity Not an idle enclos'd pent up Goodness as a Spring shut up or a Fountain sealed bubling up within it self but bubling out of it self A Fountain of Gardens to water every part of his Creation He is an Oyntment powr'd forth †Cant. 1.5 Nothing spreads it self more than Oyl and takes up a larger space wheresoever it drops It may be no less said of the Goodness of God as it is of the fulness of Christ †Eph. 1.23 He fills all in all He fills Rational Creatures with Understanding Sensitive Nature with Vigor and Motion the whole World with Beauty and Sweetness Every Tast every Touch of a Creature is a Tast and Touch of Divine Goodness Divine Goodness offers it self in one spark in this Creature in another spark in the other Creature and altogether make up a Goodness inconceivable by any Creature The whole Mass and extracted Spirit of it is infinitely short of the Goodness of the Divine Nature imperfect shadows of that Goodness which is in himself Indeed the more excellent any thing is the more nobly it acts How remotely doth Light that excellent brightness of the Creation disperse it self How doth that glorious Creature which God hath set in the Heavens spread its Wings over Heaven and Earth roul it self about the World cast its Beams upward and downward insinuate into all Corners pierce the Depths and shoot up its Rays into the Heigths encircle the higher and lower Creatures in its Arms reach out its Communications to influence every thing under the Earth as well as dart its Beams of light and heat on things above or upon the Earth Nothing is hid from it †Psal 19.6 not from its power nor from its sweetness How Communicative also is Water a necessary and excellent Creature How active is it in a River to nourish the living Creatures engendred in its Womb Refresheth every Shore it runs by promotes the propagation of Fruits for the Nourishment and bestows a Verdure upon the Ground for the delight of Man and where it cannot reach the higher Ground in its Substance it doth by its Vapours mounted up and concocted by the Sun and gently distilled upon the Earth for the opening its Womb to bring forth its Fruits †Tom. 2. p. 926. God is more prone to communicate himself than the Sun to spread its Wings or the Earth to mount up its Fruits or the Water to multiply living Creatures Goodness is his Nature Hence were there internal Communications of himself from Eternity Diffusions of himself without himself in time in the Creation of the World like a full Vessel running over He Created the World that he might impart his Goodness to something without him and diffuse larger measures of his Goodness after he had laid the first Foundation of it in its Being And therefore he Created several sorts of Creatures that they might be capable of various and distinct measures of his Liberality according to the distinct capacities of their Nature but imparted most to the Rational Creature because that is only capable of an Understanding to know him and Will to embrace him He is the highest Goodness and therefore a Communicative Goodness and acts excellently according to his Nature 4. God is necessarily good None is necessarily Good but God he is as necessarily Good as he is necessarily God His Goodness is as inseparable from his Nature as his Holiness He is Good by Nature not only by will as he is Holy by Nature not only by will he is Good in his Nature and Good in his Actions and as he cannot be bad in his Nature so he cannot be bad in his Communications He can no more act contrary to this Goodness in any of his actions than he can un-God himself 'T is not necessary that God should Create a World he was at his own choice whether he would Create or no But when he resolves to make a World 't is necessary that he should make it good because he is Goodness it self and cannot act against his own Nature He could not Create any thing without Goodness in the very act The very act of Creation or Communicating being to any thing without himself is in it self an act of Goodness as well as an act of Power Had he not been Good in himself nothing could have been endued with any Goodness by him In the act of giving Being he is Liberal the Being he bestows is a Displaying his own Liberality He could not confer what he needs not and which could not be deserved without being Pountiful Since what was nothing could not Merit to be brought into Being the very act of giving to nothing a Being was an act of choice Goodness He could not Create any thing without Goodness as the Motive and the necessary Motive His Goodness could not necessitate him to make the World but his Goodness could only move him to resolve to make a World He was not bound to erect and fashion it because of his Goodness but he could not frame it without his Goodness as the moving cause He could not Create any thing but he must Create
as his own peculiar for his own glory and service By this Redemption there results to God a right over our bodies over our Spirits over our services as well as by Creation and to shew the strength of this right the Apostle repeats it you are bought a purchase cannot be without a price paid but he adds price also bought with a price To strengthen the Title purchase gave him a new right and the greatness of the price established that right The more a man pays for a thing the more usually we say he deserves to have it he hath paid enough for it It was indeed price enough and too much for such vile Creatures as we are III. The third thing is The Nature of this Dominion 1. This Dominion is Independent His Throne is in the Heavens the Heavens depend not upon the Earth nor God upon his Creatures Since he is Independent in regard of his Essence he is so in his dominion which flows from the excellency and fulness of his Essence As he receives his Essence from none so he derives his dominion from none All other dominion except paternal Authority is rooted originally in the wills of men * Raynaud Theolog. Natural p. 760 761 762. The first Title was the consent of the People or the conquest of others by the help of those People that first consented And in the exercise of it Earthly dominion depends upon assistance of the Subjects and the Members being joyn'd with the head carry on the work of Government and prevent Civil dissentions in the support of it it depends upon the Subjects Contributions and Taxes The Subjects in their strength are the Arms and in their Purses the Sinews of Government But God depends upon none in the foundation of his Government he is not a Lord by the Votes of his Vassals Nor is it successively handed to him by any Predecessor nor constituted by the power of a Superior Nor forced he his way by War and conquest nor precariously attained it by suit or flattery or bribing promises He holds not the right of his Empire from any other he hath no Superior to hand him to his Throne and settle him by Commission He is therefore called King of Kings and Lord of Lords having none above him A great King above all Gods Psal 95.3 Needing no Licence from any when to act nor direction how to act or assistance in his action He owes not any of those to any person he was not ordered by any other to Create and therefore receives not orders from any other to rule over what he hath created He received not his power and wisdom from another and therefore is not Subject to any for the rule of his Government He only made his own Subjects and from himself hath the sole Authority his own will was the cause of their beings and his own will is the director of their actions He is not determined by his Creatures in any of his motions but determins the Creatures in all His actions are not regulated by any Law without him but by a Law within him the Law of his own Nature 'T is impossible he can have any rule without himself because there is nothing Superior to himself Nor doth he depend upon any in the exercise of his Government he needs no Servants in it when he uses Creatures it is not out of want of their help but for the manifestation of his wisdom and power What he doth by his Subjects he can do by himself The Government is upon his Shoulder Isaiah 9.6 To shew that he needs not any supporters All other governments flow from him all other Authorities depend upon him Dei Gratiâ or Dei Providentiâ is in the style of Princes As their being is deriv'd from his power so their Authority is but a branch of his dominion They are governors by Divine Providence God is Governour by his sole nature All motions depend upon the first Heaven which moves all but that depends upon nothing The Government of Christ depends upon God's increated dominion and is by Commission from him Christ assum'd not this honour to himself But he that said unto him thou art my Son bestow'd it upon him He put all things under his feet but not himself 1 Cor. 15.27 When he saith all things are put under him he is excepted which did put all things under him He sits still as an independent Governour upon his Throne 2. This dominion is Absolute If his Throne be in the Heavens there is nothing to controul him If he be independent he must needs be â—bsolute since he hath no cause in conjunction with him as Creator that can share with him in his right or restrain him in the disposal of his Creature His Authority is unlimited in this regard the Title of Lord becomes not any but God properly Tiberius thoâ—ght none of the best though one of the subtilest Princes accounted the Title of Lord a reproach to him Since he was not absolute * Sueton. de Tiberio cap. 27. 1. Absolute in regard of Freedom and Liberty 1. Thus Creation is a work of his meer Soveraignty he Created because it was his pleasure to Create Rev. 4.11 He is not necessitated to do this or that He might have chosen whether he would have fram'd an Earth and Heavens and laid the foundations of his Chambers in the Waters He was under no obligation to reduce things from nullity to existence 2. Preservation is the fruit of his Soveraignty When he had called the World to stand out he might have ordered it to return into its dark den of nothingness ript up every part of its foundation or have given being to many more Creatures than he did If you consider his absolute soveraignty why might he not have devested Adam presently of those rational perfections wherewith he had endow'd him And might he not have metamorphos'd him into some Beast and elevated some Beast into a rational nature Why might he not have degraded an Angel to a Worm and advanc'd a Worm to the nature and condition of an Angel Why might he not have revokt that grant of dominion which he had passed to man over all Creatures It was free to him to permit sin to enter into the Earth or to have excluded it out of the Earth as he doth out of Heaven 3. Redemption is a fruit of his Soveraignty By his absolute Soveraignty he might have confirmed all the Angels in their standing by Grace and prevented the revolt of any of their members from him and when there was a revolt both in Heaven and Earth it was free to him to have call'd out his Son to assume the Angelical as well as the humane nature or have exercised his dominion in the destruction of Men and Devils rather than in the Redemption of any he was under no obligation to restore either the one or the other 4. May he not impose what terms he pleases May he not impose what Laws
breach of it He summons Adam to the Bar indicts him for his Crime finds him guilty by his own Confession and passeth sentence on him according to the rule he had before acquainted him with 4. The means whereby he punisheth shews his dominion Sometimes he musters up Hail and Mildew sometimes he sends regiments of wild Beasts so he threatens Israel Levit. 26.22 Sometimes he sends out a party of Angels to beat up the quarters of men and make a carnage among them 2 King 19.35 Sometimes he mounts his Thundring battery and shoots forth his Ammunition from the Clouds as against the Philistines 1 Sam. 7.10 Sometimes he sends the slightest Creatures to shame the Pride and punish the sin of man as Lice Froggs Locusts as upon the Egyptians the 8 9 10. chap. of Exodus 2. This Dominion is manifested by God as a proprietor and Lord of his Creatures and his own Goods And this is evident 1. In the choice of some persons from Eternity He hath set a part some from Eternity wherein he will display the invincible efficacy of his Grace and thereby infallibly bring them to the fruition of Glory Eph. 1.4 5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy and without blame before him in Love having Predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Why doth he write some names in the Book of Life and leave out others why doth he enroll some whom he intends to make Denizons of Heaven and refuse to put others in his register The Apostle tells us 't is the pleasure of his Will You may render a reason for many of God's actions till you come to this the top and Foundadation of all and under what head of reason can man reduce this act but to that of his Royal Prerogative Why doth God save some and condemn others at last Because of the Faith of the one and unbelief of the other Why do some men beleive Because God hath not only given them the means of Grace but accompanied those means with the efficacy of his Spirit Why did God accompany those means with the efficacy of his Spirit in some and not in others Bccause he had decreed by Grace to prepare them for Glory But why did he decree or choose some and not others Into what will you resolve this but into his soveraign pleasure Salvation and Condemnation at the last upshot are acts of God as the Judge conformable to his own Law of giving life to Believers and inflicting death upon unbeleivers for those a reason may be rendered but the choice of some and preterition of others is an act of God as he is a soveraign Monarch before any Law was actually transgrest because not actually given When a Prince redeems a Rebel he acts as a Judge according to Law but when he calls some out to pardon he acts as a soveraign by a Prerogative above Law into this the Apostle resolves it Rom. 9.13.15 When he speaks of Gods loving Jacob and hating Esau and that before they had done either good or evil It is Because God will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and Compassion on whom he will have Compassion Though the first scope of the Apostle in the beginning of the Chapter was to declare the reason of God's rejecting the Jews and calling in the Gentiles had he only intended to demolish the pride of the Jews and flat their opinion of merit and aim'd no higher than that Providential act of God he might convincingly enough to the reason of men have argued from the Justice of God provoked by the obstinacy of the Jews and not have had recourse to his absolute Will but since he asserts this latter * Amyrald dissert p. 101 102. the strength of his argument seems to lie thus if God by his absolute soveraignty may resolve and fix his love upon Jacob and estrange it from Esau or any other of his Creatures before they have done good or evil and man have no ground to call his infinite Majesty to account may he not deal thus with the Jews when their demerit would be a barr to any complaints of the Creature against him If God were considered here in the quality of a Judge it had been fit to have considered the matter of Fact in the Criminal but he is considered as a Soveraign rendring no other reason of his action but his own Will whom he will he hardens ver 18. And then the Apostle concludes Ver. 20. Who art thou O Man that replyest against God If the reason drawn from Gods Soveraignty doth not satisfie in this enquiry no other reason can be found wherein to acquiesce For the last condemnation there will be sufficient reason to clear the Justice of his proceedings But in this case of Election no other reason but what is alledg'd viz. The Will of God can be thought of but what is liable to such knotty exceptions that cannot well be untyed 1. It could not be any merit in the Creature that might determine God to choose him If the decree of Election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion as the procuring cause it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the corrupted mass The decree of sending Christ did not precede but follow'd in order of nature the determination of choosing some When men were chosen as the subjects for Glory Christ was chosen as the means for the bringing them to Glory Eph. 1.4 Chosen us in him and predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ The choice was not meerly in Christ as the moving cause that the Apostle asserts to be the good pleasure of his will but in Christ as the means of conveying to the chosen Ones the fruits of their Election What could there be in any man that could invite Gpd to this act or be a cause of distinction of one branch of Adam from another Were they not all hew'd out of the same Rock and tainted with the same corruption in blood Had it been possible to invest them with a power of merit at the first had not that venom contracted in their nature degraded all of power for the future What merit was there in any but of wrathfull punishment since they were all considered as Criminals and the cursed brood of an ungrateful Rebel what dignity can there be in the nature of the purest part of clay to be made a Vessel of Honour more than in another part of Clay as pure as that which was form'd into a Vessel for mean and sordid use What had any one to move his mercy more than another since they were all Children of wrath and equally dawb'd with Original guilt and filth Had not all an equal proportion of it to provoke his Justice What merit is there in one dry bone more than another to be inspir'd with the breath
of a spiritual life Did not all lie wallowing in their own filthy blood and what could the steam and noysomness of that deserve at the hands of a pure Majesty but to be cast into a sink furthest from his sight Were they not all considered in this deplorable posture with an equal proportion of poyson in their nature when God first took his pen and singled out some Names to write in the Book of life It could not be merit in any one peice of this abominable Mass that should stir up that resolution in God to set apart this person for a Vessel of Glory while he permitted another to putrifie in his own gore He loved Jacob and hated Esau though they were both parts of the common Mass the Seed of the same Loyns and lodg'd in the same Womb. 2. Nor could it â—e any foresight of works to be done in time by them or of Faith that might determine God to choose them What good could he foresee resulting from extream corruption and a nature alienated from him What could he foresee of good to be done by them but what he resolved in his own will to bestow an ability upon them to bring forth His choice of them was to a Holiness not for a Holiness preceding his determination Eph. 1.4 He hath chosen us that we might be Holy before him he ordained us to good works not for them Eph. 2.10 What is a Fruit cannot be a moving cause of that whereof it is a fruit Grace is a stream from the spring of electing love the branch is not the cause of the Root but the Root of the Branch nor the stream the cause of the spring but the spring the cause of the stream Good works suppose Grace and a good and right habit in the person as rational acts suppose reason Can any man say that the rational acts man performs after his Creation were a cause why God Created him This would make Creation and every thing else not so much an act of his will as an act of his Understanding God foresaw no rational act in man before the act of his will to give him reason nor foresees faith in any before the act of his will determining to give him Faith Eph. 2.8 Faith is the gift of God In the Salvation which grows up from this first purpose of God he regards not the works we have done as a principal motive to settle the top-stone of our happiness but his own purpose and the Grace given in Christ 2 Timothy 1.9 Who hath saved us and call'd us with a holy Calling not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and Grace which was given to us in Christ before the World began The honour of our Salvation cannot be challeng'd by our works much less the honour of the Foundation of it It was a pure gift of Grace without any respect to any spiritual much less natural perfection Why should the Apostle mention that circumstance when he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau when neither of them had done good or evil Rom. 9.11 if there were any foresight of mens works as the moving cause of his love or hatred God regarded not the works of either as the first cause of his choice but acted by his own Liberty without respect to any of their actions which were to be done by them in time If Faith be the fruit of Election the prescience of Faith doth not influence the Electing act of God Tit. 1.1 'T is called the Faith of Gods Elect. Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ according to the Faith of Gods Elect. i. e. Setled in this Office to bring the Elect of God to Faith If men be chosen by God upon the foresight of Faith or not chosen till they have Faith they are not so much God's Elect as God their Elect they choose God by Faith before God chooseth them by love It had not been the Faith of Gods Elect i. e. Of those already chosen but the Faith of those that were to be chosen by God afterwards * Dalle in loc Election is the cause of Faith and not Faith the cause of Election Fire is the cause of heat and not the heat of Fire the Sun is the cause of the day and not the day the cause of the rising of the Sun Men are not chosen because they beleive but they beleive because they are chosen The Apostle did ill else to appropriate that to the Elect which they had no more interest in by vertue of their Election than the veriest Reprobate in the World If the foresight of what works might be done by his Creatures was the motive of his choosing them why did he not choose the Devils to Redemption who could have done him better service by the strength of their Nature than the whole Mass of Adam's posterity Well then there is no possible way to lay the original Foundation of this act of Election and preterition in any thing but the absolute Soveraignty of God Justice or Injustice comes not into consideration in this case There is no debt which Justice or Injustice always respects in its acting If he had pleased he might have chosen all if he had pleased he might have chosen none It was in his supream power to have resolved to have left all Adam's posterity under the rack of his Justice if he determined to snatch out any it was a part of his dominion but without any injury to the Creatures he leaves under their own guilt Did he not pass by the Angels and take man And by the same right of Dominion may he pick out some men from the common Mass and lay aside others to bear the punishment of their Crimes Are they not all his Subjects All are his Criminals and may be dealt with at the pleasure of their undoubted Lord and Soveraign This is a work of arbitrary power Since he might have chosen none or chosen all as he saw good himself 'T is at the liberty of the Artificer to determine his Wood or Stone to such a figure that of a Prince or that of a Toad and his materials have no right to complain of him since it lies wholly upon his own liberty They must have little sence of their own vileness and God's infinite excellency above them by right of Creation that will contend that God hath a lesser right over his Creatures than an Artificer over his Wood or Stone If it were at his liberty whither to redeem Man or send Christ upon such an undertaking 't is as much at his liberty and the prerogative is to be allow'd him what persons he will resolve to make capable of enjoying the fruits of that Redemption One Man was as fit a subject for Mercy as another as they all lay in their orginal guilt Why would not Divine Mercy cast its eye upon this Man as well as upon his Neighbour There was no cause in the Creature but all in God it
must be resolved into his own will Yet not into a Will without Wisdom God did not choose hand over head and act by meer Will without Reason and Understanding an infinite Wisdom is far from such a kind of procedure but the reason of God is inscrutable to us unless we could understand God as well as he understands himself the whole ground lies in God himself no part of it in the Creature Rom. 9.15 16. Not in him that Wills nor in him that Runs but in God that shews Mercy Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will we can resolve it into no other than his Soveraign Empire over all Creatures 'T is not without a stop to our curiosity that in the same place where God asserts the absolute Soveraignty of his mercy to Moses he tells him he could not see his face Exod. 33.19 20. I will be Gracious to whom I will be Gracious and he said Thou canst not see my face The rayes of his infinite Wisdom are too bright and dazling for our weakness The Apostle acknowledged not only a Wisdom in this proceeding but a riches and treasure of Wisdom not only that but a depth and vastness of those riches of Wisdom but was unable to give us an Inventory and Scheme of it Rom. 11.33 The secrets of his Counsels are too deep for us to wade into in attempting to know the reason of those acts we should find our selves swallowed up into a bottomless Gulf. Though the understanding be above our capacity yet the admiration of his Authority and Submission to it are not We should cast our selves down at his feet with a full resignation of our selves to his Soveraign pleasure * This was Dr. Goodwins Speech when he was in trouble This is a more comely carriage in a Christian than all the contentious endeavours to measure God by our line 2. In bestowing Grace where he pleases God in Conversion and Pardon works not as a natural Agent putting forth strength to the utmost which God must do if he did renew man naturally as the Sun shines and the fire burns which always act ad extremum virium unless a Cloud interpose to eclipse the one and water to extinguish the other But God acts as a voluntary Agent which can freely exert his power when he please and suspend it when he please Though God be necessarily good yet he is not necessitated to manifest all the Treasures of his Goodness to every Subject he hath power to distill his dews upon one part and not upon another If he were necessitated to express his Goodness without a liberty no thanks were due to him Who thanks the Sun for shining on him or the fire for warming him None Because they are necessary Agents and can do no other What is the reason he did not reach out his hand to keep all the Angels from sinking as well as some or recover them when they were sunk What is the reason he engrafts one man into the true Vine and lets another remain a wild Olive Why is not the efficacy of the Spirit always linkt with the motions of the Spirit Why doth he not mould the Heart into a Gospel frame when he fills the Ear with a Gospel sound Why doth he strike off the chains from some and tear the vail from the Heart while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Aegyptian darkness Why do some lie under the bands of death while another is rais'd to a spiritual life What reason is there for all this but his absolute Will The Apostle resolves the question if the question be askt why he begets one and not another Not from the Will of the Creature but his own Will is the determination of one James 1.18 Why doth he work in one to will and to do and not in another Because of his good pleasure is the answer of another Phil. 2.13 He could as well new create every one as he at first created them and make Grace as universal as Nature and Reason but it is not his pleasure so to do 1. 'T is not from want of strength in himself The power of God is unquestionably able to strike off the chains of unbeleief from all he could surmount the obstinacy of every child of wrath and inspire every Son of Adam with Faith as well as Adam himself He wants not a vertue superior to the greatest resistance of his Creature a victorious beam of light might be shot into their understandings and a flood of Grace might overspread their Wills with one word of his mouth without putting forth the utmost of his power What hinderance could there be in any created spirit which cannot be easily peirced into and new moulded by the Father of Spirits Yet he only breaths this efficacious vertue into some and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love and suffers them to continue in their benighting ignorance and consume themselves in the embraces of their dear though deceitful Dalilahs He could have conquered the resistance of the Jews as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles No doubt but he could over power the Heart of the most malicious Devil as well as that of the simplest and weakest man But the breath of the Almighty Spirit is in his own power to breath where he lists John 3.8 'T is at his liberty whither he will give to any the feeling of the invincible efficacy of his Grace He did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a Rock against the temptation of Satan and pour'd in such fortifying Grace as to have made him impregnable against the powers of Hell as well as he did secure the standing of the Angels against the Sedition of their fellows But it was his will to permit it to be otherwise 2. Nor is it from any prerogative in the Creature He converts not any for their natural perfection Because he seizeth upon the most ignorant Nor for their moral perfection Because he converts the most sinful Nor for their Civil perfection Because he turns the most despicable 1. Not for their natural perfection of knowledge He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant Were the nature of the Gentiles better manur'd than that of the Jews or did the Tapers of their understandings burn clearer No the one were skil'd in the Prophesies of the Messiah and might have compared the Predictions they own'd with the Actions and Sufferings of Christ which they were spectators of He let alone those that had expectations of the Messiah and expectations about the time of Christ's appearance both grounded upon the Oracles wherewith he had intrusted them The Gentiles were unacquainted with the Prophets and therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah Eph. 2.12 They were without Christ Without any Revelation of Christ because aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in
it This is a fruit of Gods soveraign Dominion 3. The Dominion of God is manifest in restraining the furious passions of men and putting a block in their way Sometimes God doth it by a remarkable hand as the Babel builders were diverted from their proud design by a sudden confusion of their Language and rendring it unintelligible to one another sometimes by ordinary though unexpected means as when Saul like a Hawk was ready to prey upon David whom he had hunted as a Patridge upon the Mountains he had another object presented for his arms and fury by the Philistines suddain invasion of a part of his Territory 1 Sam. 23.26 27 28. But it is chiefly seen by an inward curbing mutinous affections when there is no visible Cause What reason but this can be render'd why the Nations bordering on Canaan who bore no good will to the Jews but rather wished the whole race of them rooted out from the face of the Earth should not invade their Countrey pillage their Houses and plunder their Cattle while they were left naked of any humane defence the Males being annually employ'd at one time at Jerusalem in Worship what reason can be render'd but an invisible curb God put into their Spirits What was the reason not a man of all the Buyers and Sellers in the Temple should rise against our Saviour when with a high hand he began to whip them out but a Divine bridle upon them though it appears by the questioning his Authority that there were Jews enough to have chas'd out him and his Company John 2 15.18 What was the reason that at the publishing the Gospel by the Apostles at the first descent of the spirit those that had us'd the Master so barbarously a few days before were not all in a foam against the Servants that by preaching that Doctrine upbraided them with the late Murder Had they better sentiments of the Lord whom they had put to death Were their natures grown tamer and their malignity expell'd No but that soveraign who had loos'd the Reins of their malicious corruption to execute the Master for the purchase of Redemption curb'd it from breaking out against the servants to further the propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption He that restrains the roaring Lyon of Hell restrains also his Whelps on Earth he and they must have a Commission before they can put forth a finger to hurt how malicious soever their nature and Will be His Empire reaches over the Malignity of Devils as well as the nature of Beasts The Lions out of the Den as well as those in the Den are bridled by him in favour of his Daniel's His Dominion is above that of Principalities and Powers their Decrees are at his Mercy whither they shall stand or fall he hath a vote above their stiffest resolves His single word I will or I forbid outweighs the most resolute purposes of all the Mighty Nimrods of the Earth in their rendezvouses and Cabals in their Associations and Counsels Isaiah 8.9 10. Associate your selves O ye people and ye shall be broken in peices take Counsel together and it shall come to nought When the Enemy shall come in like a floud with a violent and irresistable force intending nothing but ravage and desolation the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against them Isaiah 59.19 shall give a sudden check and damp their Spirits and put them to a stand When Laban furiously pursued Jacob with an intent to do him an ill turn God gave him a Command to do otherwise Gen. 31.24 Would Laban have respected that command any more than he did the light of Nature when he Worshipped Idols had not God exercised his Authority in inclining his will to observe it or laying restraints upon his natural inclinations or denying his concourse to the acting those ill intentions he had entertain'd The stilling the principles of commotion in men and the noise of the Sea are arguments of the Divine Dominion neither the one nor the other is in the power of the most soveraign Prince without Divine assistance As no Prince can command a calm to a raging Sea so no Prince can order stillness to a tumultuous people they are both put together as equally parts of the Divine prerogative Psal 65.7 Which stills the noise of the Sea and tumult of the People And David owns Gods soveraignty more than his own in subduing the people under him Psal 18.47 In this his Empire is illustrious Psal 29.10 The Lord sitteth upon the flouds yea the Lord sitteth King for ever a King impossible to be depos'd not only on the natural floods of the Sea that would naturally overflow the World but the metaphorical flouds or tumults of the people the Sea in every wicked man's Heart more apt to rage morally than the Sea to foam naturally if you will take the interpretation of an Angel Waters and Flouds in the Prophetick stile signifie the inconstant and mutable people Revel 17.1.5 The Waters where the whore sits are people and multitudes and nations and tongues So the Angel expounds to John the Vision which he saw ver 1. The Heathens acknowledg'd this part of Gods soveraignty in the inward restraints of Men. Those Apparitions of the Gods and Goddesses in Homer to several of the great men when they were in a Fury were nothing else in the Judgment of the wisest Philosophers than an exercise of Gods soveraignty in quelling their passions checking their uncomely intentions and controuling them in that which their rage prompted them to And indeed did not God set bounds to the storms in mens hearts we should soon see the Funeral not only of Religion but Civility the one would be blown out and the other torn up by the Roots 4. The Dominion of God is manifest in defeating the purposes and devices of men God often makes a mock of humane projects and doth as well accomplish that which they never dreamt of as disappoint that which they confidently design'd He is present at all Cabals laughs at mens formal and studied Counsels bears a hand over every Egg they hatch thwarts their best compacted designs supplants their contrivances breaks the Engines they have been many years rearing diverts the intentions of men as a mighty Wind blows an arrow from the mark which the Archer intended Job 5.12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprize He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the Council of the froward is carried headlong Enemies often draw an exact scheme of their intended proceedings Marshal their Companies appoint their Rendezvous think to make but one morsel of those they hate God by his soveraign Dominion turns the scale changeth the gloominess of the oppressed into a Sun-shine and the Enemies Sun-shine into darkness When the Nations were gathered together against Sion and said Let her be defiled and let our Eye look upon Sion Micah 4.11 What doth God do in this case