without a meritorious Cause deserving Damnation it doth no way follow that he doth save and glorify the Elect upon foresight of a meritorious Cause in them God's Independence cannot exclude the consideration of the Object of his Decree as it must be considered in his Decree He cannot decree to give Mercy but to a Creature that is in some measure miserable He cannot decree to relieve a Creature unless he consider it as distress'd He hath clearly declared and consequently decreed that he would never pardon the Sin against the Holy Ghost Therefore he behoved to foresee who would commit that Sin for he doth nothing in vain and would never decree any thing relating to a Case that were never to exist he could not decree to elect any Creature but upon Foresight and Consideration that he was to create that Creature and that he was never to suffer it to have Hatred and Despight against him In that Golden Chain Whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate to be conform to the Image of his Son and whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified The first Link is Foreknowledg of the Object to be predestinated which with congruity to the Divine Natural Perfections were predestinable prior in order of Nature to Predestination Yet in none of these is the Independence of God incroached on Could a miserable or distressed Creature be so impudent as to pretend that its Misery or Distress were the cause of God's Mercy or Relief but only the Object or Occasion thereof the true Cause being God's Mercy and Goodness and so God's Decree to inflict eternal Punishment upon his rational Creature that he foresaw would hate him or be obstinate in Sin is his own Justice and Purity 2dly It is said In God we live we move and have our being And therefore all the Motions of our Minds and Bodies must be his Motions acted by him which Inference is no better than this in him we have our Being therefore our Being is his Being but the true meaning is cleared by those Things which are frequently said of Christ That they are in him and yet are the Creatures importing no more but that they are by Virtue and Power derived from Christ and so we move in God that is by Virtue and Power derived from him 3dly It is objected That if in the worst of Actions God were not Actor he could not be the first and universal Cause but thence it will not follow that the first and universal Cause must still be the immediate and total Cause which is necessary to an universal Predetermination 4thly The main Reason against universal Predetermination is to vindicate the Purity of God which it doth not for whosoever permitteth Evil that he could hinder is accessary thereto and guilty thereof And so God judgeth his Creatures which will not conclude against God because Creatures are not only subject to the moral and unchangeable Laws of God but to his positive Laws neither are Creatures universally obliged to hinder all evil Acts that they were able to hinder For God having set up Civil Authority thereby obligeth Subjects to suffer the Legal Executions thereof though unjust albeit they have sufficient Strength to hinder the same This Reason hath been the chief Inducement of the Error of those who to maintain the Purity of God incroach upon his Power and Wisdom holding that the Will of a free Creature is essentially undeterminable by any other than by it self and therefore God can do no more but perswade and bring Motives into the Mind and so is blameless having done all he could do to hinder Sin For certainly God could have been so powerful a Perswader as to make Prophets and Preachers go to all Nations which he hath not done and this Ground encroacheth on God's Omnipotence that he cannot effectually over-rule his Free Creatures and encroacheth on his Wisdom who having no need of any Creature created such which he could not govern but behoved only to supplicate and perswade The 5th Reason assign'd for universal Predetermination is brought from the accurate arguing of that Case by the Apostle Paul in the 9th of the Romans where it is said of Esau and Jacob That the Children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil that the Purpose or Decree of God according to Election might stand not of Works but of him that calleth Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated Against which he brings this Objection Is there Vnrighteousness with God To which he answers with a strong Denial God forbid For be saith to Moses I will have Mercy on whom I will have Mercy And thence concludeth That it is not of him that runneth or of him that willeth but of God that sheweth Mercy Whence he doth conclude Therefore hath he Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and whom he will he hardeneth Against which Conclusion he brings a new Objection thus Thou wilt say then unto me Why doth he yet find fault For who hath resisted his Will To which he answereth thus Nay but O Man Who art thou that replies against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter Power over the Clay of the same Lump to make one Vessel unto Honour and another unto Dishonour Thence the Authors of universal Predetermination or Excitation of God to the worst Acts think they have unanswerable Grounds to infer That God is not only the Permitter but the Actor of Hardening as well as of Mercy Yea that he hath no more Consideration of what the Creatures were to act in Reprobation and Damnation than in Election and Glorification but that of the same Lump or Mass of Mankind he doth as indifferently make the Vessels of Dishonour that is the Reprobate as the Vessels of Honour that is the Elect. But the Context sufficiently cleareth the Mistakes of these Inferences for it inferreth nothing as to Reprobation that the Children being not yet born had done nothing of Good or Evil the Inference is only that Election might not be of foreseen Works But where it is said that God loved Jacob and hated Esau tho they had yet done nothing it doth not infer That as there is no foreseen Merit or cause of Love of the Elect fo that God hates the Damned without a meritorious Cause deserving his Hatred there is no Consequence from the Freedom of God's Election and Love which are Acts of Bounty to infer the Freedom of his Hatred and Reprobation which are Acts of Justice for Bounty and Mercy are absolutely free but so is not Justice But the main Mistake is that the Vessels of Dishonour are supposed to be the Reprobate and the Vessels of Honour the Elect As if God as indifferently reprobates and elects as the Potter doth of the same Lump make one Vessel to Honour and another to Dishonour
in this present Life he continues to overrule them by his Providence in all these Relations for in some Measure he is good to all in this Life The Providence of God useth to be handled apart by Divines as it doth not only comprehend his Dominion and Government of his rational Creatures but his Wisdom and Goodness in his Preservation Provision and Direction of every Creature towards the End which he designed I have chosen rather to consider the Wisdom and Dominion of God apart as being thereby the more able to apprehend them distinctly and clearly The Dominion of God reacheth unto all his rational Creatures even unto the damned Spirits not only as they are Executioners of his Justice against Men as he sends them out wherein tho their End be always wicked the Act it self is ever just and good so an evil Spirit from the Lord vexed King Saul when he had forsaken the Rules of his Government but these Spirits are only permitted while they tempt to Acts which no Intention can make good or indifferent but most of all God doth overrule these Spirits by restraining their Malice from tempting or troubling Men and even in the Permission of their Temptations he puts no Man under an inevitable Necessity of being overcome but those that voluntarily or habitually have rendered themselves weak whether by positive Choice or by Neglect and Inadvertence It is a needless Curiosity to enquire how God doth over-rule damned Spirits who are scarce capable of farther Punishments being already condemned and in a continual Torment of Mind nor can they expect Rewards It would be no Punishment to them to annihilate them yet they have some Diversion by compassing the Earth going to and fro therein and endeavouring to bring Men unto the like Condition with themselves and they are still capable of greater Torment and therefore they tremble Men are much more governable in this Life being far more passable than Spirits and being seldom in absolute Despair but ever capable of Rewards and Punishments and the greater they are the more are they capable Single Persons that have no near Relations are far less liable to Shame or Suffering than the Masters of Families or Rulers of States and the Noble than the Ignoble who are liable to Shame Affront and Disgrace which they regard more than their Lives There are three sorts of Men the Godly the Honest and the Prophane the Godly are governed by the Love of God which is the Principle of true Piety and Religion reaching not only to Divine Worship but even to the Acts of Honesty and their own Happiness In all which the chief Reason and Motive is the Love of God whereby they determine themselves in every thing towards his Glory and Pleasure These are governed by eternal Rewards and Punishments after this Life and by internal Rewards in the Peace of a good Conscience and Joy in the Holy Ghost and internal Punishments in the Doubts and Disquiets of their Souls beside the other ways of Rewards and Punishments common to the rest Those that are only Honest are governed by the Love to Mankind which for that very End God hath placed in the Nature of Man whereby till they be depraved they are inclinable in every Case to do that which if it were done by all Men they would live happily And therefore the Wicked are ashamed to profess that in things in their Power they would prefer the Interest of a single Person to the Interest of their Family or the Interest of a Family to the Interest of a Nation or any of these Interests to the common Interest of Mankind Those that are prophane and wicked God overrules even by their Self-love for tho they would subordinate all things to their Selfinterest if securely they could and when with probability they can yet supposing others to be of the same Inclination their own Interest obligeth them to profess if not Piety in Hypocrisy at least common Honesty wherein God's Wisdom and Goodness is eminently seen for otherwise most Men would be as malicious and openly wicked as the damned Spirits God hath Rewards and Punishments sufficient and suted to the Condition of all Men tho their Rewards be not by exact Justice Prosperity and Peace are the common Encouragements to Good Trouble and Affliction are the common outward Punishments and more particularly Disquiet and Anguish of Spirit when the special Cause thereof is not known These are dispensed to particular Persons but the Punishments of Societies use not to be inflicted but upon atrocious common and avowed Vices for which God sendeth common Calamities as Plague Famine Inundation Sterility Shipwrack and the Destruction by ravenous Beasts which was more frequent when the World was less planted The Scripture doth frequently mention God's four sore Judgments God exciteth War about which there is no doubt when it is for just Causes and overrules it when upon unjust but rather uses the other Plagues God exercises his Dominion partly by the Law of Nature written in Man's Heart partly by Diyine Institutions revealed to Men. By the Law of Nature is the Government of Parents over their Children by the natural Affection of the Parents to the Children whereby they take Pleasure to preserve direct and provide for them and by the natural Affection of the Children to reverence and obey their Parents which Affections arise in both from their belief of these Relations even where they are mistaken and by the Law of Nature the Contracts and Pactions of Parties to govern and to obey as between Masters and Servants between Rulers and Subjects for the Force of these Pactions is by the Law written in Man's Heart by which his Conscience convinces him that he is obliged to perform God exerciseth his Dominion not only by the Laws of Nature but by positive Laws and Institutions which are not known by the Light of Nature but by Revelation such is the Government of the Husband over the Wife by the Divine Institution of Marriage and the Government of Common Wealths by God's Institution of a publick Judgment to order and determine all Controversies concerning such as should unite themselves in Civil Societies The former was propagated by an universal Tradition to all Nations from Adam till the Flood and from Noab and his Posterity after the Flood But Civil Government was only instituted after the Flood when Mens Lives became short God allowed the Fathers of Families to unite themselves and their Families into Civil Societies and to transmit the Power and Burden of the Government of their Families in most things upon the Governours of those Societies So that tho there be mutual Pactions in Marriage and Government yet the Essentials of both are by Divine Institution which cannot lawfully be altered Persons may choose whether they will marry or not and with whom but the Degrees within which they may marry are instituted The Power of the Husband and the Indurance and Dissolution of the Marriage are instituted
called intrinsically evil God may excite these Acts where the Intention or Direction only is evil God's Intention being quite different so he may excite the giving of Alms intending thereby the relief of the Poor but the directing of the Alms to be seen of Men is a distinct separate Act. There is no ground inferring that God excites to that end much less that he excites to Acts intrinsically evil which no Intention can make good and where there are not different Parts or different Acts Therefore God doth not foreknow Acts intrinsically evil or the evil Intention of Acts that otherwise might be good or indifferent in his Decree to excite them but only in his permissive Decree not to hinder the free Creatures in acting them wherein I am convinced by many pregnant Reasons First God's foreseeing such Acts in his purpose to excite the Creature to them and his being an immediate and total Actor of them appears to me inconsistent with his immaculate Purity but thereby he behoved to be the Author of Sin I know many good Men perceive not this Consequence and are far from acknowledging it and are forced to harsh Concessions to shun it as that God is the immediate Cause of the Act but not of the Vitiosity of the Act which is only Privative and requires no Cause nor any Efficiency but Deficiency which importeth nothing as to evil Intention or Acts intrinsically Evil but only as to Acts that would be Good if right directed and is well illustrated by riding of a Lame Horse where the Rider is the cause of the Riding but the Lameness of the Horse is the cause of the Halting but this cannot be applicable to an indivisible Act whence Sin necessarily results and so the whole Act or the Act of Intention is totally Evil And thereby there cannot be one part attributed to God and another to the Creature if God be not the immediate and total Actor but that the Creature hath a different Act the forefight of that Act could not be by the Decree of God to act it and so all free Acts could not be foreseen that way The more Ingenuous are forced to recur to this Evasion that God is under no Law and so the same Act may be Sin in the Creature and no Sin in God but this overturns the Being of Acts morally Good or Evil in congruity to the Nature of God which are not so because God willeth them to be or not to be but he so willeth them because they are absolutely and immutably Good and not alone by the Will or Decree of God God is above his positive Law but he is neither above nor under his moral Law but is a Law to himself else God could make Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue for whatever depends upon Acts of the Will can be altered by another Act of the same Will So God hath altered many of his positive Laws and Precepts because they are only Good in that they are willed and commanded Secondly God hath expresly declared that he hath hindered many Acts of his Creatures which must necessarily import that they would have been acted if they had not been hindered for it is inconsistent to say that God decreed to be an Actor with the Creature and yet decreed to hinder that same Act Thus God declareth that he had hindered Abimelech to touch Sarah whom he had taken on design to make her his Concubine but God disabled him that he could neither meddle with her nor any other Thirdly There are many Sins of Omission wherein the Sinner doth not resolve to omit but by Carelesness and Inconsideration omits here there is no Act of the Creature And if God hinder the Creature to consider he must be sole Actor in these Sins and if not there is no positive Act or Excitation in them and so no Decree for such Acts and therefore they cannot be foreseen in that Decree and yet they are certainly foreseen Fourthly If it were sufficient to clear the Divine Purity that Sin is only a Privation requiring no Efficiency but Deficiency that could not but also vindicate the Creature albeit a total Actor of the same Act. Fifthly If God decree without foresight of what the Creature using its proper Power would act then he behoved to decree the torment of his Creatures without consideration of their future Sins voluntarily to be acted by them which is very inconsistent with his Justice and forces the Authors of this Opinion to acknowledg That God might eternally torment his innocent Creatures and that it is greater Goodness to give them a miserable Being than no Being at all which is neither consistent with his Justice nor his Goodness and gives a most unlovely Representation of him Sixthly There is nothing more inculcated in Scripture than the Efficacy of Prayer for it is said That the fervent Prayer of the Righteous availeth much But if God did determine all future things without Foresight and Consideration of the Prayers of his People Prayer were of no value but a meer Formality without any Efficacy For to what purpose should any pray to an unchangeable God who had already determined all things without consideration of Prayer I know no Evasion can be made but that God hath determined not only the Matter but the Manner of what was to come to pass and so determined many things to be after antecedent Prayer but then Prayer were a meer antecedent Formality and no efficacious Mean availing much But if God did determine many things upon the foresight and consideration of the earnest Prayer of his People they might with as much Confidence pray as if he were undetermined when they prayed I know there are many specious Reasons accustomed to be brought for God's being the immediate total Actor in all the Acts of his Creatures which I consider as Objections 1st It is objected If God decreed any thing upon Foresight and Consideration of any thing in his Creatures he were not altogether independent but behoved to depend upon such Considerations and be pedissequous to his Creatures This Reason can conclude nothing against God's Foresight and Consideration of what he foresaw in the Creature as given by himself above their natural Strength for thereby he depended on nothing but on his own Supernatural Grace It is true that if God's Election were upon the foresight of the Creatures Faith or good Works by that common Power all Men had by their Birth they might glory in themselves and the Election could not be said to be of Free Grace and God might be thought pedissequous to the Creatures and therefore that Opinion of Papists and Arminians is justly rejected But God cannot be said to be pedissequous to the Creatures he foresees would maliciously or obstinately and finally reject the offer of Grace because he decrees to let them follow their own Ways and in Justice to punish them whom he doth not follow but crosseth And though God doth not decree to damn the Reprobate
can comprehend them distinctly altogether Therefore it is that glorified Creatures will have an excellent and eternal Exercise of their Minds by apprehending distinctly the several Perfections of God and his manifold Decrees and Dispensations which will yield fresh and renewed Pleasures for ever We find by Experience that our Thoughts turning upon a few delightful Objects give a fresh continuance of Pleasure albeit the Perfection of the Objects be but low How fresh then and how great must that Pleasure be that hath the Variety of God's Existence and Nature in being a pure immaterial Spirit and all his Divine Perfections natural and moral and all his Decrees and Dispensations brought to an unalterable Condition Secondly The Delight and Pleasure of God in himself is infinite and is capable of no higher Degree but Creatures are incapable of any infinite Perfection therefore their Delight might by the Power of God be made still greater yet it is fully satisfactory in the degree that God freely gives it and tho there be different degrees of glorified Angels and Saints yet all of them are satisfied without Envy Emulation or desire of more than what they do receive after the Resurrection and Union of the Souls of Men and their glorified Bodies Thirdly The Delight of glorified Creatures is not upon Grounds from themselves but from the free Gift of God nor from Perfections wholly in themselves but in the Power and Love of God preserving them from falling in all occasions of Danger MEDITATION X. Upon God's Holiness or Godlikeness HAving meditated upon the glorious Divine Perfections of God which are natural necessary and immanent so far as my narrow Capacity doth reach and apprehend and in that natural Order whereby the Antecedent doth always make way for the distinct apprehension of the Subsequent the first and absolute Attribute being a Spirit all the rest being relative supposing a Subject to which they relate of which the nearest to the purely immaterial Spirit of God is Omniscience and next thereto Activity by his Will choosing and effectuating according to his Pleasure and then his Omnipotence extending not only to what he chooseth or willeth but to all that is possible and consistent all which are in himself without any Caufe whereby he is self-existent and eternal self-sufficient infinitely delighting in himself and thereby blessed and as to all transient Acts absolutely free and fully independent in his Being Power Choice or Operations I come now to apply my most serious and humble Thoughts to his voluntary Perfections the Effects whereof are terminate upon Creatures and I have earnestly endeavoured to find the natural Order of these as of the former which I perceive not only to be antecedent and consequent but that they are as Causes and Effects which doth not import that any thing in God hath an extrinsick Cause or a real Multiplicity or Difference I do conceive that God alone doth act immediately by his Being some have extended that to Creatures but if without Injury I think not without Error Supposing for instance that the Soul of Man perceiveth judgeth reasoneth chooseth by its own Substance as it is a Spirit and that it is but Mens Fancy that imagine superadded Powers such as the Understanding or Will wherein they seem as much to err in the Defect as the common course of the Schoolmen do in the Excess multiplying real Entities as they imagine as the eternal Essences and Attributes of these things that have existed or do exist and of the real being of things possible that do not never did nor never shall exist And supposing a multitude of Accidents really distinct from any-Substance and that the same individual Accidents are separable from one individual Substance in which they are subjected unto another and which consequently could subsist without any Substance and so not differ from a Substance by subsisting without a Subject but are differenced by having a fitness to perfect a Subject by actual inhering in it and differing also from Modes that these imply an individual Subject from which they are inseparable yet they durst not be so gross as to attribute such Accidents to God which indeed cannot escape to infer a Composition of separable things It seems inconsistent with a created Substance to act by its Substance or immediately It is true that if we suppose all the multitude of Species to differ by Substantials and consequently by separably subsistent Parts and so should conceive the Intellect and the Will to be such then the Soul would substantially comprehend the Intellect and the Will and must act immediately but tho the Capacity to Reason and Choice be no substantial Parts separable from the Soul they may still be essential tho not substantial Differences and then the Soul acts not immediately but by the addition of these and I conceive it an abusive Speech and if properly taken derogatory to God that he could not withdraw the Power of Reasoning or free Choice from the Soul of Man without annihilating its Substance but only changing it unto another kind which yet might essentially differ from a Brute which cannot judg nor compare no more than reason but only perceive by Sense and act by Instinct It doth much more quadrate to the Glory of God that he freely gave these Powers by which the Soul hath the special Nature of Man and not of Necessity That such Powers must be freely superadded to the Substance of Creatures I satisfy my self with this Reason that there are no Substances but Spirits and Matter that all the Species of Creatures are by superadded Powers or Modes which are not separable Beings and therefore if a Spirit by its Substance can reason choose worship or adore then all Spirits behoved necessarily so to do or if Matter as such could move or act all Bodies behoved so to do therefore something must be superadded to make the difference which is neither Body nor Spirit therefore it is the incommunicable Property of God to act immediately That the transient Acts of God's Perfections are Causes and Effects it doth sufficiently satisfy me that I do not unsutably think of God when I enquire Why doth God punish Sin and resolve that it is because he is just And if I yet further inquire Why is God unchangeably just I cannot but think it is either because it is congruous to his glorious Nature to be unchangeably just or that he is unchangeably just only because he will be so I see no reason for any third Ground or Rise whence all God's Decrees and Dispensations do flow I know there be some who think that it would be derogatory to the Freedom and Absoluteness of God if all his Dispensations did not arise only from his Will but that very Reason infers the contrary Conclusion because it brings a Reason why all must flow from God's Will to wit his Freedom and Absoluteness which yet are not his Will nor from his Will nor are they moral but natural Perfections