power of determining the Events foreseen as well as Divine and what 's the reason that this foresight has not the least causality upon these Effects I suppose it will be answered because they depend upon certain regular and constant Motions of the Celestial Bodies which have been ever since the World began and the like Appearances that are now have been heretofore and will be again so long as the World shall continue so that this Fore-knowledge is little more than Recollection of what is past For as it would have been a rare thing to have foretold an Eclipse before ever there was any so would it be an easie matter for a Man of ordinary Skill to predict those that shall happen unto the Worlds end provided he were furnished with an exact History of all those that have been from the Begining Let us now examine whether these or the like Reasons may not be of force in the business of Divine Prescience and in order thereunto let us suppose some point of time like that of the Julian Period before the Creation wherein the World was not yet in being There was then in God 1. The Power and Vertue of educing this same World out of Non-existence into Being 2. A Will to do it in such time and manner as seemed good unto himself 3. A perfect Idea or Prospect of this great Work in all its parts and Succession and all this from Eternity This Idea or Eternal View of all Things and Actions that have been or ever shall be is what we call Divine Prescience it was antecedent to the actual Existence of the World but subsequent in order of nature unto God's Eternal Purpose of creating it Now I appeal to the Reason of Mankind whether it is the Platform that builds the House or whether we ought to refer the cause of the Worlds production unto this Idea or rather to the Concurrence of Divine Will and Power If it be still urged That God's Fore-knowledge of Events must of necessity produce the same since what he foreknows is sure to come to pass It may easily be answered that what God foresees is indeed certain but such certainty doth not consist in the foresight but in the causes foreseen and tho' the effect will surely come to pass yet not without its proper causes of which causes foreknowledge can be none at all unless it could be both the Cause and Effect of the same thing which is impossible Obj. But how can God's Fore-knowledge be called an Effect which doth ever suppose an antecedent Cause For since you grant it to have been from Eternity if it be an Effect it must be an Eternal One whose antecedent Cause must therefore be fetcht from beyond Eternity Nor have you yet sufficiently explained how far or whether you admit there may be such a thing as Fore-knowledge of what is already past which was objected before To this last part of the Objection I have already said if it be considered what amounts to a sufficient Answer but yet I shall endeavour to be a little plainer First then that God did foreknow the things that are now past as well as what are to come is by no means to be doubted but to say that he does now foreknow what is already past is Non-sense because it inmplies the futurity of what is elapsed as if I should say God fore knows the Deluge or the Building of Babel this would be contradiction in point of time as though the things were yet to come which are long since past but it 's proper to say God did foreknow them But Secondly the Notion I aim at will best be apprehended by remembring always to distinguish between the real and the vertual Existence of things the former is brought forth in time and therefore I say God did foresee from Eternity but I cannot say so of the latter which being it self Eternal can admit no priority in point of time As for instance 10000 years ago the World was not extant and something doubtless will be hereafter which is not now but there never was nor ever will be any thing extant but what is or was Virtually existant in God and clearly visible to his all-seeing Eye from all Eternity therefore God's Omniscient View or Idea of all things being antecedent to the Creation but subsequent in order of Nature to the Vertual Existence of the World is Foreknowledge with respect to the one but Contemplation or Intuition in respect of the other If we look forward to the Creation it is Prescience but if we look back upon Eternity it is the result of Divine Will and Power or it is God's beholding in himself the Platform of his Design which as I said before is an effect of the Divine Purpose to build a world which Purpose is the highest Link in the Chain of Causality even as the first step of Solomon towards building of the Temple was this * â— Rings 5.5 Behold I purpose to build an House unto the Name of the Lord my God It is true that God is infinite and Eternal in all his Attributes and so there can be no Precedence amongst them in order of time yet in order of Nature there must be Priority since God cannot be said to behold a pure Nothing to see know and behold are Relative Terms and do ever suppose something to be seen known or beheld Thirdly As for the other part of the Objection against an Eternal Effect it will lye as hard against our Blessed Saviour who is the Eternal Son of God the brightness of his Fathers Glory the Express Image of his Person and the Effect of his Love to Mankind These also are relative Terms a Son supposes a Father an Image or Copy supposes an Original yet none surely doubts the Eternity of him who laid the foundations of the Earth and whose Throne is for ever and ever I put the Question even now what the reason was that the Astronomers Skill and Fore-knowledge of the Celestial Phenomema had not the least influence to cause the same and I gave this Answer because these Phenomena did depend upon certain Motions of the Heavenly Bodies which were regular and had been from the beginning of the World and so it was but enquiring into these Motions and the Fore-knowledge of Eclipses Conjunctions and the like would follow by consequence Let it be now demanded why Divine Prescience had not any causality or influence upon the Creation * Hebr. 1. v. 3 8 10. and I shall answer this Question just after the same manner namely because the Creation did depend upon the Will and Purpose of God which is the first Mover the Fountain-Cause of all things and was from Eternity Omnipotence it self and even infinite Goodness would seem barren and unfruitful without a Will to Act for whatever God made in Wisdom and ruleth by his Power were wrought after the * Eph. 1.11 Counsel of his own Will nor is there any thing in
think that the great Operator knows not the parts of * Acts 15.18 his own Work or can be ignorant of its Motions or of the Influence that one part hath upon another It is possible a Curious Artist may make a piece of Watch work to represent all the visible Motions of the Heavens and to measure out time to an incredible degree of Exactness The Maker of such a piece must needs know it's Numbers how long it will go how one Motion depends upon another and one Wheel drives on another nor can he be ignorant that if he suffer the springs to run down and Wind them up no more the Motions will cease and his Contrivance will become altogether useless Or if by any other means he stop some of the Motions for a time they cannot stir till he gives them liberty tho' the rest are going in the mean while Thus the Divine Architect that framed the World knows all it's Parts and Influences all it's hidden Springs of Motion all the Causes of every Effect with their Connexion and Dependence and the Agency of every particle of matter throughout the Universe He knows for what duration he design'd it's Motion and Existence and the time when * Mat. 24.36 Heaven and Earth shall pass away Nor can he be ignorant that if he withdraw the Springs of Life his supporting providence from any Creature or from the whole World it must sink into a state of Inactivity or Annihilation Now as it would be an idle Fancy to think that in such a Watch there should start up some new Motion not design'd and unexpected by the Maker So it is far more extravagant to talk of any thing contingent in respect of God in as much as his Work is perfect and he can command a punctual observance of those Laws and Rules which he himself hath given to the Creation whilst * Psalm 148.8 Fire and Hail Snow and Vapour Stormy Wind fulfil his Word The Sum is this God Almighty knows most persectly all things present that is the hidden springs of Action and all the latent causes now operating the Nature and Vertues of all things in being with the utmost extent of their powers and influence are all manifest in his sight but since natural things do not work in an instant their force and efficacy must extend to suture time if I may not say till time shall be no more for one part of Matter will still operate upon another whilst Sun and Moon endures Now since God cannot know perfectly the force of any Agent but at the same time he must know also the Effect it will have upon it's Patient and how far again that Patient will become active upon other things it will follow that if God did not know things to come he must of necessity be ignorant of a thousand things present for as the knowledge of Causes implies the knowledge of Effects so doth the not knowing of Effects unavoidably infer the ignorance of Causes And as he that draws one Link of an extended Chain draws the whole and the Motion of one of the Globuli moves those that are contiguous and those again others indesinitely So it is impossible to know any one thing perfectly without the knowledge of more and God's most perfect knowledge of all things present must imply the knowledge of all things future It may be said That all this is true with respect unto inanimate Creatures but Man acts from an internal Principle and being left to the Liberty of his Will may either act or suspend his Action and besides there are so many things may happen to influence his Will that 't is very uncertain whether of the two he will choose until he have effectually chosen Uncertain doubtless it is to other Men and oft-times to a Man's self what he will do in some cases but unto God it cannot be so for these two Reasons especially First The Heart indeed is so deceitful that for a Man to find out the Subtilties of his own * Jer. 17.9 10. is no easie disquisition and it must be yet harder to know another Man's But * 1 Sam. 16.7 God sees not as Man sees he not only looks upon the heart but he looks into it †Heb. 4.12 13. He searches and tries it He knows the most intimate Secrets of the Soul and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents all Creatures are manifest in his sight all naked and open before his Eyes It is impossible then they should deceive him or act beyond or contrary to his Expectation For since words and actions flow as streams from a Fountain out of the abundance of the Heart it would be strange that God should know so exactly what the Fountain-contains and yet be ignorant what Streams must issue thence Secondly Since the Principles from whence all humane Actions do proceed may be reduced to two namely those of Nature and Grace and God must know the Efficacy of them both in as much as the one proceeds from the work of his Hands and the other from the operation of his Spirit it must follow that God cannot be ignorant how far Truth or Errour Vertue or Vice Equity or Injustice Reason or Fallacy Religion or Interest will prevail upon any Man either in his Natural Capacity or under such a Measure of Grace as he bestows upon him for that purpose For as he knows the force of natural Agents and the disposition of every Patient to receive or to repel their Agency so can he not be ignorant of the Efficacy of that Vertue which proceeds more immediately from himself All which amounts to thus much in short that God Almighty is the Fountain Cause and Soveraign Ruler of all things both in the Kingdom of Nature and that of Grace and therefore must know the whole Series of Causality from the beginning to the End And since that which is an effect of one thing becomes the Cause of another he must equally know the things to come as those present unless there be some Effects which proceed not from any Cause at all Let us now consider the Nature of a Contingent and what it is that should make Men think it cannot be soreknown A Contingent besides the stricter Notion as it signifies the effect of a voluntary cause may be as I apprehend more strietly taken for the encountring or meeting together of sundry Effects whose Causes do not appear to have had any Connexion As when a Spring-tide a Land-flood and a Storm from the Sea happening at once do make an Inundation Or when a Traveller in his Journey meets with a shower Or two Friends setting out from sundry Ports meet in a far Country without designing it or knowing one of another Now a high wind and a Spring Tide a Journey and a Shower have each of them Causes sufficient to produce them but they are contingent each to other as also in respect of us who not knowing that
charge concerning thee †Psalm 91.8 Now as the ground of that Security against Dangers and sundry Evils mentioned in the 91st Psalm at ver 8. is omitted in the Devil's Quotation So the ground of God's Foresight and cause of the Event foreseen is omitted in the Objection namely a prudent care to preserve life And as the Son of God was never like to fall down and worship the Devil so any sober Man that lives to a full Age is not like to attempt desperate ways to destroy himself The Answer too given by our Saviour is proper in this Case * Mat. 4.7 Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God For if he foresees the End he foresees also the means conducing thereunto which means God having graciously put into thine own hands why shouldst thou tempt him to save thy life by Miracle when thou may'st preserve it by thy own Discretion Thus we see the Devils Argument and that of the Objection run exactly Parallel Secondly The Fallacy of this reasoning consists partly in joining a Truth and a Falsity together and make the one to infer the other tho' there be no Connexion between them and partly in leaving out the consideration of that which must be suppos'd to make the sence compleat whether the inference be true or false For instance let this be the Argument in short God foresees the End therefore it will so come to pass I say here the Proposition is true but the inference without something else supposed is false for if the illative Particle therefore refer only to the word foresees there is no good consequence since Forelight hath not any Causality as hath I hope been proved That Divine Prescience doth ascertain the End is true upon this Account * Necessitas consequentiae in ordine probandi non est necessitas rei ipsius in ordine causandi Baxt. Meth. part 1. pag. 45. that it beholds the Causes wherein the certainty doth consist but that it doth so meerly of it self without supposition of Causes and proper means to effect that end is false God by his Foresight lays no necessity upon the Event but he foresees it in it's causes of which humane Endeavours ordinarily are no small part Therefore the sence of the Argument must in this manner be compleated before it can be made to conclude any thing God foresees the causes productive of such Effects therefore such Effects will follow not from the foresight but from the causes foreseen Thirdly Let us suppose that God foresees some strong Man vigorous and healthful shall dye within a year who according to the Course of Nature might live twenty If this be true it must be true also that intemperance neglect of means or the like must bring him to it Some cause there must be but naked Foresight is no cause at all Again suppose God foresees that such a person will live twenty years If that be true then that he should attempt every day to destroy himself must be false for if God foresees the one he foresees nor the other because they are inconsistent He doth not foresee contradictions to be true or things to be that will never be as once a wise Critick would needs maintain that when Jonah was sent to preach unto Nineveh God then foresaw that City would be destroy'd in forty days tho' it stood many years after But God doth not foresee that Causes will produce such Effects as are improper and impossible not that Repentance will produce Destruction nor that Poison Drowning or Debauchery will produce length of days and vertuous prudence an untimely End In a word Divine Prescience beholds not things in parcels but altogether in one View Sees the Issues and Periods of all things not without but in conjunction with the proper causes conducible thereunto Fourthly It may not be amiss to remember that as there are some true Propositions which by leaving out a word or two may be made false So there are others and those of Divine Authority which without something understood cannot be made out to be true Of the first sort is this * Jo. 7.16 Jo. 12.44 My Doctrine is not mine and again He that believeth on me believeth not on me But this is the Devil's way of quoting Scripture leaving out the Context that should explain it and in this manner too frequently do some Persons deal with those Writings they have a mind to cavil at Of the other sort is this †Jon. 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown And ‖ 1 Cor. 6.9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Now the Divine Purpose for the Destruction of that City and for excluding (a) v. 10. Fornicators Idolaters Thieves Drunkards Extortioners and the like out of the Kingdom of Heaven is denounced absolutely without any annexed Condition and yet all acknowledge that such Threatnings are Conditionally to be understood and to be executed only in case of Impenitency And thus it is in our present case That God Foresees the End is true but it is not the whole Truth nor to be understood exclusive of the Means It is undoubtedly true that Christ foresaw the Destruction of Jerusalem yet we must not thence infer that he foresaw it without any respect to Sin for thus he complains How often would I have gathered your Children together c. and ye would not How could it be matter of Complaint that they would not if the Peoples choice be not imply'd Either God Foresees that Men will abuse their Liberty or he doth not if not then neither is he Omniscient nor are the Scriptures true if he doth then such Foresight is so far from taking away Mens Liberty that it confirms it for Men cannot abuse their Liberty unless they have it nor can they use it if the Objection have any force which supposeth Mens endeavours and the use of Means to be in vain Thus then I Summ up what hath been said in Answer to the Objection * Acts 17.24 25 26. God that made the World made all things therein seeing he is Lord of Heaven and Earth and giveth unto all Life and Breath and all things and hath made of one Blood all Nations of Men to dwell upon the Earth and Determined the Times before appointed and the Bounds of their Habitation We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto Stones or stupid Earth that he should be ignorant either of his own Off-spring or of the Work of his Hands or the Bounty of his Goodness And having gratiously endued Mankind with the Light of Knowledge and with a Faculty of choosing things for his good and avoiding things hurtful he doth not extinguish that Sight nor take away such power of Election unless it be as a Punishment for some grievous and long-continued Provocation But forasmuch as he beholds at once in his Omnisciency the Nature Vertue and Activity of all Creatures with the Causes
God in the best manner that may be thought and most worthy of so glorious a Being cloathed with all Perfection Beauty and Amiableness not to render him Monstrous like armed Power without Benignity nor Contemptible as an ignorant or defective Deity but especially to think of him according to the Notices he has given of himself in his revealed Will and not to imagine that either his Essence or many times his Operations can stoop to my little understanding And if I were fit to give Advice to others it should be this that no Man presume to demolish the Divine Attributes and out of the ruins thereof to erect unto himself some groundless Fancy which like a Castle in the Air hath nothing Solid to support it as if God could not be just to his Creatures without being imperfect in himself Neither let any Man stand dismayed at the Consideration of the Fatal Period as if God could not foreknow the Events of things but either Divine Justice must be Arraign'd or Man Degraded to a Machine for as he that doth Righteousness is Righteous and by perseverance therein shall undoubtedly be happy so he that wilfully persisteth in evil doing is Wicked and without Repentance must expect to be miserable But as the former of these will look upon Divine Prescience as the Cause of his Happiness so neither can the latter blame it as any occasion of his Misery Let no Man think to arrest Judgment by absurdly charging his own Prevarications upon Divine Perfection as if a Man should urge that because God is perfect in all his Attributes he was therefore obliged to be wicked in all his Actions Who would not blush at the Impudence and Absurdity of such a Plea Prescience is a Perfection which God cannot want and preserve his Divinity but to make it a Cause of Mans Misery were to make it an imperfection It is no less essential to the Divine Nature than Omnipresence and those that will dare to Retort their wickedness upon God may make this Attribute as Criminal as the other For if Men will not trust God with the Foreknowledge of evil Actions lest that should infer a necessity of sinning the next thing and with equal reason will be to seclude Divine Presence from the inspection of wickedness lest God should that way become accessary thereunto If a naked Foreknowledge of Evil be any cause of it why not actual Presence at the Evil committed But the Scripture doth better inform us concerning the Causes of good and evil and of Mans Happiness and Infelicity than the shallow reasonings of some Persons who yet pretend to be wise above others There we are taught that Man's happiness depends upon the Grace of God in Christ Jesus freely offered to reasonable Creatures and willingly accepted by them That the Soul not by any blind fatality but by rational inducements and the use of proper Means being convinced of the Evil and Danger of Sin and directed the way to Salvation is brought to such a Belief of the Gospel and such a voluntary Obedience thereunto as may render the Person acceptable with God through the merits of our Blessed Saviour * Eph. 1.7 In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of his Grace And then the cause of Man's Sin and Misery doth consist not in Divine Prescience but in the Prevalency of Corruption and Temptation arising partly from an Original Taint and partly from a wilful Pursuit of irregular Appetite after the pleasures of sense by which means the Affections being besotted and the heart hardened against Reasons without and Motions within there is at last an inveterate and habitual Malignity brought upon the Soul * But let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with Evil neither tempteth he any man But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own Lust and enticed Jam. 1.13 14. These are such causes of Good and Evil that a diligent observer may easily see and feel their Efficacy but how a naked Prescience should operate what others do I know not I can by no means understand But this I conclude for certain that God is Righteous in all his ways both with respect unto the causes of Good and Evil and their Rewards or Consequents His Judgments will one day appear to be according to Truth without the least diminution of his other perfections namely †Vnto them that are contentious and obey not the Truth but obey Vnrighteousness Indignation and Wrath but to them who by patient continuance in in well doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Eternal Life Rom. 2.7 8. FINIS