given nor can the natures whence they are propagated convey them a better title of being then themselves have This as the seale communicates his fashion to the waxe so doth the limited force or vertue of causes alwayes imprint bounds and limits upon their effects If further it be demanded why the Elements having the opportunity of mutuall vicinity to wreake their naturall enmities or hostilities doe not each trespasse more grievously upon other as why the restlesse or raging water swallowes not up the dull earth which cannot flye from any wrong or violence offered or why the Heavens having so great a prerogative by height of place largenesse of compasse and indefatigable motion do not dispossesse the higher Elements of their seat The naturalist would plead the warrant of Natures Charter which had set them their distinct bounds and limits by an everlasting undispensable law Yet is nature in his language alwaies an internall or essentiall part of some bodies within which it is necessarily confined As the nature of the Heavens hath not so much as liberty of egresse into neighbour Elements nor the proper formes of these upon what exigence or assaults soever made against them in their territories so much as right of removall or flitting into lower Elements Or in case it be pretended that these particular natures have a nature more generall for their president yet this whether one above the rest or an aggregation onely of all the rest is still confined to this visible world and both so hidebound with the utmost sphere that they cannot grow greater or enlarge their strength So that nature taken in what sense the Naturalist lists cannot be said so properly to set bounds or limits to bodies naturall as to bee bounded or limited in them Or to speake more properly Nature her selfe did not make but is that very domestique law by which they are bounded and therefore in no case can dispense with it And in that she is a law for the most part but not absolutely indispensable shee necessarily supposeth a Lawgiver who if he have no Law set him by any superiour as we must of necessity come in fine to some one in this kinde supreame hee can have no such limits or bounds as he hath set to nature and things naturall He neither is any part of this visible frame which we see nor can he be inclosed within the utmost sphere And thus by following the issue of the former fountaine we are arived in the latter which fully discovered opens it selfe into a boundlesse Ocean Whatsoever hath no cause of being can have no limits or bounds of being 4 And Being may bee limited or illimited two wayes Either for number of kindes and natures contained in it or for quantity and intensive perfection of every severall kinde Of things visible we see the most perfect are but perfect in some one kinde they possesse not the entire perfection of others and that perfection whereof they have the just propriety is not actually infinite 〈◊〉 finite and limited Whatsoever thus is it was as possible for it not to have beene and is as possible for it not to be as to be but of this or that kinde not all that is or hath being Even those substances which we call immortall as the heaven of heavens with all their inhabitants be they Angels or Archangels Principalities or Thrones enjoy the perpetuall tenour of their actuall existence not from their essence but from the decree of their Maker Manent cuncta non quia aeterna sunt sed quia defenduntur curâ regentis Immortalia tutore non egent haec conservat artifex fragilitatem materiae vi sua vincens Seneca Epist 58. All things continue in being not because they are eternall but because they are defended by the providence of their Governour Things immortall need no guardian or protector But the maker of all things preserveth these things which we see continue in being overmatching the frailty of the matter by his power In this mans philosophy nothing which is made can be by nature immortall though many things be perpetually preserved from perishing Nothing which is immortall can bee made He grossely erred if hee were of the same opinion with some others of the Ancient that God had a desire to make things immortall but could not by reason of the frailty or untowardlinesse of the matter But that things made out of the matter or made at all could be immortall by nature he rightly affirmed For to be immortall in his language is to be without beginning without dependance And what so is hath an eternall necessity of existence Absolute necessity of existence or impossibility of non-existence or of not being alwayes what it is and as it is implies an absolute necessity of being or of existence infinite which cannot reside save only in the totality or absolute fulnesse of all being possible The greatest fulnesse of finite existence conceiveable cannot reach beyond al possibility of non-existence nor can possibility of non-existence and perpetuall actuall existence be indissolubly wedded in any finite nature save only by his infinite power who essentially is or whose essence is to exist or to be the inexhaustible fountaine of all being The necessary supposall or acknowledgement of such an infinite or essentially existent power cannot more strongly or more perspicuously be inferred than by the reduction of known effects unto their causes of these causative entities whose number and ranks are finite into one prime essence whence al of them are derived it self being underivable frō any cause or essence conceivable In that this prime essence hath no cause of being it can have no beginning of being And yet is beginning of being the first prime limit of being without whose precedence other bounds or limits of being cannot follow 5 If that which Philosophers suppose to be the root of incorruption in the heavens can brooke no limits of duration but must bee imagined without end or beginning why should it content it selfe with limits of extension seeing duration is but a kinde of extension seeing motion magnitude and time by their rules in other cases hold exact proportion Things caused as induction manifesteth are alwayes limited and moulded in their proper causes Nor are there two causes much lesse two causalities one of their being another of their limitation or restraint to this or that set kinde of being For whatsoever gives being to any thing gives it the beginning of being As Sophroniscus was the true cause why Socrates was in that age wherein he lived not before or after why he was a man not a beast an Athenian not a Barbarian Quicquid dat formam dat omnia consequentia formam whatsoever gives forme of being to any thing gives all the appurtenances to the forme is a Physicall Maxime which supposeth another Metaphysicall Quicquid dat esse dat proprietates esse That which gives being unto any thing gives likewise the properties of such being as
danger doe willingly drinke it And the lesse suspitious or more charitably affected hee is to his professed Physitian the greater wrong he hath in being thus uncharitably dealt with It would little boote the malefactor in this kinde to plead Albeit I gave it him hee might have chosen whether he would have drunke it because I did not inforce him with a drawen Dagger or other weapon to be his owne executioner In many cases one may be the true cause of anothers death and deserve death himselfe although he be not any necessarie cause of his death or plot his destruction without possibilitie of avoidance But if our willing choyse of those waies which lead to death be necessarie in respect of the Almighties decree so that there be no possibilitie left to escape it hee is a more necessarie and more immediate cause of all their deaths that thus perish then any man can be of his death whom he poisons And if the case stood thus with any their miserie were greater by how much they did lesse suspect his goodnesse However most miserable because most desperate Reason and knowledge the two ornaments of the humane nature should be to them a curse He that neither knowes nor doth his Masters will shall be beaten because it was possible for him to have known it but w th fewer stripes because not knowing it there was no possibility left for him to doe it But he that knowes it and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes because the knowledge of his will to punish sinners and reward the righteous did include a possibilitie to avoyd death and to be made partaker of life If otherwise there bee no possibilitie left for him that knowes Gods displeasure against sinne to avoid the wayes of sinne those are death his case before and after death is much more miserable than his whom God in just judgement hath deprived of knowledge And the Praeserver of men should be accounted much more favourable to stocks and truncks than unto many men upon whom hee bestoâ—es his best gifts in great plentie if these be bestowed upon the Conditions now mentioned or be charged with remedilesse miserie 4 But admitting their miserie to be fatall and inevitable by divine decree is it not possible to acquit this decree or the Author of it from being the Author of evill did the Stoick condemne all Iudges of injustice that sentenced malefactors unto violent death whereto by their opinion all that suffered it were inevitably destinated Perhaps the feare of censure in publique Courts did make them silent in this point But was not this care to keepe themselves harmelesse or feare not to offend Magistrates altogether fatall Galen 〈◊〉 my remembrance in his Stoicall discourse quòd mores animi sequuntur temperamentum corporis hath framed this answer to the question proposed We doe not offend in killing Snakes or Toades or other like venemous creatures albeit their naturall temper or disposition be unaltrably harmefull unto men And if nature or temper of bodie make some of our owne stamp and ranke more noysome than these creatures are unto their neighbours to fit the one sort with the same measure of punishment which is due unto the other is no injustice no inequality And Lipsius a man not too much abhorrent from any opinioÌ„ that was fashionable to his new stile or might serve to set forth the point which for the present he much affected gives this briefe placet in favour of the Stoicks opinion Fatali culpae fatalis paena punishment is fatall to fatall crimes But this is principium petere to take that for granted which is questioned For if the harmes which malefactors do and suffer be truly fatall the one is no true crime the other is no just punishment To Galen I answer that if we could by any skill in physick or complexions discerne some men to bee as naturally disposed to mischiefe all that come in their way or by chance offend them as are the Snake the Sloworm or other serpent it would be the wisest way for such as love their lives to rid the world of these fatally mischievous reasonable creatures as fast as they met with them or to appoint some certaine daies for hunting them as wee do noysome beasts But to examine their suspitious intentions to question their actions to arraign their persons or put them upon a formall or legall tryall of their life would be as ridiculous as to produce witnesses against a Snake to empannell a Iury upon a mad Dog or to take bale for a Wolfes appearance before a Butcher in an assembly of Mastives 5 The common notions of good and evill the ingraffed opinion of contingency in humane actions have taught the Lawgivers of every nation to put notorious malefactors unto more exquisite tortures than we do harmfull creatures either to enforce them to utter what no destiny nor complexion makes them voluntarily confesse or else to deterre others that are as naturally disposed to evill as they were from doing the like Scarce any malefactor unless he be poysoned with this opinion of absolute necessity but will acknowledge that it was possible for him to have done otherwise theÌ„ he hath done possible for him to have avoided the doome which is passed upon him by man which to have avoided had been absolutely impossible if it were to be awarded upon him by Gods eternall decree or which is all one if in respect of this decree it had been necessary As ignorance of the true God and his saving truth makes the former error more excusable in the Stoicks than in such Christians as shal maintain it so might impotency exempt that God which the Stoicks worshipped whether Nature Fate or some other distinct celestiall power from those imputatioÌ„s unto which omnipotency makes the God of Christians lyable if all things were by vertue of his decree absolutely necessary It was a received opinion among many Heathens that the gods themselves were subject unto Fate for this reason when any thing fell out in their judgement amiss Fates commonly did either intirely bear the blame or the greatest part of it And their gods indeed had deserved pity rather than blame if they could do no better than they did as being over-mastered by Fates But for a Christian to inveigh against Fates is to accuse or deny his God If Fates be nothing hee hath no reason to complaine of them if any thing they bee they are of the true Gods making who made all things who cannot possibly be subject to any thing that he hath made Nor can it stand with our allegiance to say when any disasters befall us that our God could no otherwise choose that our mischances were the absolutely necessary effects of his Omnipotent decree One speciall cause of this error and of some mens adherence to it is a jealousie or zealous needlesse feare lest they should grant God to be impotent or not so omnipotent but that
aeternall decree The distinction is God is the cause of every action but he is not the cause of the obliquitie which accompanies sinfull actions nor of sinne as it is sinne This is their last Apologie for avoyding that imputation of making God the author of sinne Herein wee both agree The coexistence of the all-working decree or divine cooperation is necessarily required to every action or effect Every action includes a motion and in him wee move wee live and have our beeing But hee that will grant this cooperation or actuall coexistence of the all-working decree to be the necessarie cause of every action unto which it is most necessarily required must upon the same tearmes grant God to bee not the necessarie onely but the onely cause of all and every obliquitie of all and every sinne of all that hath beene is or can be blame-worthy in men or devills from their creation to euerlasting The demonstration of this inconvenience or absurdity wherewith we charge the adverse opinion but no maintainer of it must be referred unto the discussions of the state of Innocency and the manner of sinnes entring into the world we are now engaged to extract a better meaning out of their other words than they themselves expresse or can truely be contained in them untill they abandon the opinion of absolute necessity in humane actions as they have reference to the aeternall decree Seeing it is agreed vpon that God and man are joynt agents in every sinfull action or in effects essentially evill such questionlesse was mans desire to be like God or his lusting after the forbiden fruite The Probleme remaines why both should not be aequall sharers in the sinne or how it is possible justly to condemne men of iniquitie without some imputation unto God who is the principall agent in all actions Shall wee bee partiall for him or seeke to excuse him by his greatnesse Shall wee say hee cannot doe amisse because he is supreame Lord over all and may doe with his creatures what hee list To such as count the donative of robbers a true boone or reall curtesie to such as can magnifie their owne integrity whereof they give no proofe save onely as he did by negatives non hominem occidi I am no murtherer The Poet hath shaped an answere as fit as pertinent non pasces in cruce corvos Thou shalt not feede Ravens upon a Gibbet To say God is the Author of sinne were hideous blasphemie yet to say he is no tempter no seducer of mankind to evill is not to offer praise unto him Let my spirit vanish with my breath and my immortall soule returne to nothing rather then suffer her selfe to be overtaken with such a dead slumber as can rest contented to set forth His Glory by bare negatives or by not being the Author of sinne who is most highly to be praised in all his works whose goodnesse is infinitely greater in concurring to sinfull actions then the goodnesse of his best creatures in the accomplishment of their most syncere intentions 4 The truth of this conclusion is necessarily grounded upon these assertions hereafter to bee discussed That mans possibilitie or hopes of attaining everlasting happinesse was of necessitie to bee tempered with a possibilitie of sinning or falling into miserie To permit or allow man this possibility of sinning to bestow upon him the contrary possibility of not sinning and hope of happines was one the same branch of divine goodnesse One the selfe same branch of Gods goodnesse it was to allow this possibilitie of sinning and to afford his concourse for reducing of it into Act. For unlesse he had decreed to afford his concourse thereto it had beene impossible for man actually to have sinned And if for man to sinne had beene made impossible by Gods decree it had been alike impossible for him to have done well or ill or to become truly happy Briefly God in that hee decreed a mixture of contrary possibilities decreed withall a concourse or cooperation sutable unto and sufficient for the actuall accomplishment of both To the probleme propounded the answere from these grounds is easie Albeit God and man bee joynt agents in every action or effect essentially evill yet the whole sinne is wholy mans because the nature of sinne consists either in mans using the possibility of sinne allowed of God for his good to accomplish such acts as God disallowes or in not using the contrary possibilitie unto such acts as he not onely alloweth and approveth but requireth and commandeth such as he most bountifully rewardeth and unto whose accomplishment hee affordeth not his ordinarie concourse onely but his speciall furtherance and assistance In every sin of commission we approve and make choice of those acts which his infinite goodnesse disalloweth In every sinne of omission we do not approve those acts which he approveth although perhaps it may be questioned whether there can be any sinne of pure omission or not mixt with commission that is any sinne wherein we doe not either like what God dislikes or reject and contemne what he likes cōmends unto us for good 5 From these resolutions we may finde some truth in an usuall position which without this truth presupposed is palpably false Every action or effect as it is an effect or action or as it proceeds from God is good The best meaning whereof it is capable must be this Gods goodnesse is seene in every action even in those which are most sinfull To vouchsafe his cooperation to them is a branch of his goodnesse because man could not be happy without a possibility of deserving to be miserable But humane actions or effects in their owne nature indefinitely considered or in the abstract as they are actions are neither morally good nor morally bad When it is said that every action as an action is good this must be understood of transcendentall goodnes only of which kind of goodnes moral evill or sin it selfe is partaker If every action as it is an actiō were morally good it were impossible any action shold be morally evill If we consider humane actions not indefinitely or with this reduplication as they are actions but descending unto particulars some are good some are bad and some perhaps positively indifferent but of this hereafter CHAP. 16. The former contingency in humane actions or mutuall possibility of obtaining reward or incurring punishment proved by the infallible rule of faith by the tenour of Gods covenant with his people 1 THough manifest deductiōs of ill sounding Consequences from their positiōs which we refute and more commodious explanations of other tenents common to both may somewhat move the Favourers of universall necessity to a dislike of their owne opinions in part incline them to the opposit truth yet is it positive proofe of Scriptures that must strike the maine stroak fasten their assents unto it And God forbid they should bee so uncharitable as to think that we or any sonnes of
many perish 200 19 How God of a most loving Father becomes a severe inexorable Iudge 207 20 Whilest God of a loving Father becomes a severe Iudge there is no change or alteration at all in God but onely in men and in their actions Gods will is alwayes exactly fulfilled even in such as goe most against it How it may stand with the Iustice of God to punish transgressions temporall with torments everlasting 213 21 How Anger Love Compassion Mercy or other affections are in the Divine Nature 226 A TREATISE OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE AND ATTRIBVTES SECTION I. Of the one absolutely infinite and incomprehensible Essence in generall THe originall of Atheisme of errours or misperswasions concerning the Beeing or Attributes of the Divine Nature being in a former Treatise at large discussed the next enquiries which exact Method would in this Argument make are First how this truth of Gods being most certainly known by internall experience unto some may by force of speculative Argument bee made manifest unto others Secondly how his nature and attributes may be fitliest resembled My first resolution professed in the beginning of the discussing of the originall of Atheisme as yet restraines me for adventuring too farre in the former For whilest I view the progresse which I have purposed to debate this point upon my first entry into that Paradise of contemplation within whose territories I now encampe by syllogisticall force of argument seemeth to me as great an oversight as to entertaine an enemy more desperate then potent with a pitched battaile when as all his forts might by constant prosequution of advantages gotten be orderly taken each after other without possibility of any great losse or apparent danger Now the Atheists chiefe strength lying in a preconceived impossibility of a Creation and Resurrection the conquest of the whole truth will easily bee compassed after those weake holds bee as in due time they shall be utterly demolished Or in case after their overthrow he be of force to bid us battaile we shall be most willing to try our intended quarrell with him by dint of argument in the Article of the last Iudgement In the meane time wee may without danger of his checke proceed upon those advantages which the grounds of nature give us CHAP. I. How far we may seeke to expresse what by light of Nature or otherwayes may be conceived concerning the incomprehensible Essence or his Attributes FIrst if every particular man or bodie generable have precedent causes of their beings their whole generations must of necessity have some cause otherwise all should not be of one kinde or nature Now this progresse from effects unto their causes or betwixt causes subordinate cannot be infinite but as all progressive motion supposeth some rest or stay whence it proceedeth so must this progresse whereof I speake take beginning from some cause which hath no cause of its being And this is that incomprehensible Essence which wee seeke 2 But whereunto shall wee liken him Things compared alwayes agree in some one kind or have at least a common measure Is then this cause of causes contained in any predicamentall ranck of being Or can our conceipt of any thing therein contained be truly fitted unto him Or may his infinite and incomprehensible nature be rightly moulded within the circumference of mans shallow braine One thing it is to represent the infinite Essence another to illustrate this truth that he cannot be represented Though nothing can exactly resemble him yet some things there be which better notifie how farre he is beyond all resemblance or comparison then others can doe By variety of such resemblances as his works afford may our admiration of his incomprehensiblenesse bee raised higher and higher and with our admiration thus raised will our longing after his presence still be enlarged The nature of things finite and limited no Philosopher can so exactly expresse as Painters may their outward lineaments But as some sensible objects besides their proper shape or character imprint a kinde of dislike or pleasance in creatures sensitive so have our purest and most exact conceipts intellectuall certaine symptomaticall impressions annexed which inwardly affect us though we cannot outwardly so expresse them as they may imprint the like affection in others Hence it is that the more right resemblances we make to our selves of any thing the greater will be the symptomaticall impression of the latent truth some part or shadow whereof appeareth in every thing whereto it can truly be compared And though we cannot in this life come to a cleare view of that nature which we most desire to see yet is it a worke worthy our paines to erect our thoughts by varietie of resemblances made with due observance of decorum unto an horizon more ample then ordinary in whose skirts or edges wee may behold some scattered rayes of that glorious light which is utterly set unto men whose thoughts soare not without the circumference of this visible world for all we see with ouâ— bodily eyes is but an hemisphere of midnight darknesse to the habitation of Saints and seat oâ— blisse 3 The rule of decorum in all resemblances of things amiable or glorious is that as well the simple termes of comparison be sightly and handsome as the proportion betweene them exact Supposing the ods of valorous strength betweene Aiax and ordinary Trojanes to have beene as great as Homer would have us beleeve it was the manner of this Champions retreat being overcharged with the multitude of his Enemies could not more exquisitely be resembled than by a company of children driving an hungry hard-skinned Asse with bats or staves out of a corne-field or meadow The Asse cannot by such weaklings be driven so hard but he will feed as he goes nor could Aiax be charged so fiercely by his impotent foes but that he fought still as he fled The proportion is approved as most exact by a teacher of Poetry that was his Arts Master who notwithstanding with the same breath disallows the invention as no way applyable unto Turnus at least in the courtly censure of those times wherein Virgil wrote Be the congruity betweene the termes never so exquisite or pleasant the Asse notwithstanding is no amiable creature nor can wisedome or valour for his many base properties willingly brook comparison with him in any More fitly as this Author thinketh might Turnus his heroicall spirit have beene paralleld by a Lion which though unable to sustaine the fierce pursuit of many hunters yet cannot be enforced to any other march then Passant gardant 4 But wee must allow the Poet whose chiefe art is to please his Readers appetite with pleasant sauces more then with solid meates to bee more dainty and curious in this kinde than it is requisite the School-divine or Philosopher should be albeit neither of them need much to feare lest their discourses be too comely so solidity of truth bee the ground of their comelinesse No courtly Poet is more observant
of the former rule of decorum in their comparisons than the holy Prophets are Thus hath the Lord spoken unto mee saith Esaias cap. 31. vers 4. Like as the Lion and the young Lion roring on his prey when a multitude of shepheards is called forth against him hee will not bee afraid of their voice nor abase himselfe for the noise of them so shall the Lord of hosts come downe to fight for mount Sion and for the hill thereof Saint Austin hath noted three sorts of errors in setting forth the divine nature of which two go upon false grounds the other is altogether groundlesse Some saith he there be that seeke to measure things spirituall by the best knowledge which they have gotten by sence or art of things bodily Others doe fit the Deity with the nature and properties of the humane soule and from this false ground frame many deceiptfull and crooked rules whilest they endeavour to draw the picture or image of the immutable Essence A third sort there be which by too much straining to transcend every mutable creature patch up such conceipts as cannot possibly hang together either upon created or increated natures and these rove further from the truth then doe the former As to use his instance He which thinkes God to be bright or yellow is much deceived yet his errour wants not a cloke in as much as these colours have some being from God in bodies His errour againe is as great that thinkes God sometimes forgets and sometimes cals things forgotten to minde yet this vicissitude of memorie and oblivion hath place in the humane soule which in many things is like the Creator But hee which makes the Divine nature so powerfull as to produce or beget it selfe quite misseth not the marke onely but the Butt and shoots as it were out of the field for nothing possible can possibly give it selfe being or existence 5 But though in no wise wee may avouch such grosse impossibilities of him to whom nothing is impossible yet must we often use fictions or suppositions of things scarce possible to last so long till we have moulded conceipts of the Essence and Attributes incomprehensible more lively and semblable then can be taken either from the humane soule alone or from bodies naturall To maintaine it as a Philosophical truth that God is the soule of this universe is an impious errour before condemned as a grand seminary of Idolatry Yet by imagining the humane soule to be as really existent in every place whereto the cogitations of it can reach as it is in our bodies or rather to exercise the same motive power over the greatest bodily substance in this world that it doth over our fingers able to weild the Heavens or Elements with as great facility and speed as we doe our thoughts or breath We may by this fiction gaine a more true modell or shadow of Gods infinite efficacy then any one created substance can furnish us withall But whilest we thus by imagination transfuse our conceipts of the best life and motion which we know into this great Sphere which we see or which sute better to the immutable and infinite essence into bodies abstract or mathematicall we must make such a compound as Tacitus would have made of two noble Romanes Demptis utriusque vitiis solae virtutes misceantur The imperfections of both being sifted from them their perfections onely must be ingredients in this compound Yet may we not thinke that the divine nature which we seeke to expresse by them consists of perfections infinite so united or compounded We must yet use a further extraction of our conceits ere wee apply them to his incomprehensible nature CHAP. 2. Containing two philosophicall Maximes which lead us to the acknowledgement of one infinite and incompreâ—ensible Essence VNto every Student that with observance ordinary will survey any Philosophicall tract of causes two maine springs or fountaines doe in a manner discover themselves which were they as well opened and drawne as some others of lesse consequence are wee might baptize most Atheists in the one and confirme good Christians in the other The naturall current of the one directly caries us to an independant cause from whose illimited essence and nature the later affords us an ocular or visible derivation of those generall attributes whereof faith infused giveth us the true taste and relish The former wee may draw to this head Whatsoever hath limits or bounds of being hath some distinct cause or author of being As impossible it is any thing should take limits of being as beginning of being from it selfe For beginning of being is one especiall limit of being 2 This Maxime is simply convertible Whatsoever hath cause of being hath also limits of being because it hath beginning of being for Omnis causa est principium omne causatum est principiatum Every cause is the active beginning or beginner of being and an active beginning essentially includes a beginning passive as fashionable to it as the marke or impression is to the stampe Or in plainer English thus Where there is a beginning or beginner there is somewhat begunne Where the cause is praeâ—xistent in time the distinction or limits of things caused or begun are as easily seene as the divers surfaces of bodies severed in place But where the cause hath onely precedence of nature and not of time as it falleth out in things caused by concomitance or resultance the limits or confines of their being seeme confounded or as hardly distinguishable as the divers surfaces of two bodies glued together Yet as wee rightly gather that if the bodies be of severall kindes each hath its proper surface though the point of distinction bee invisible to our eyes so whatsoever we conceive to have dependance upon another wee necessarily conceive it to have proper limits of being or at least a distinct beginning of being from the other though as it were ingrafted in it But whether we conceive effects and causes distinctly as they are in nature or in grosse so long as wee acknowledge them this or that way conceived to be finite and limited wee must acknowledge some cause of their limitation which as we suppose cannot be distinct from the cause of their being 3 Why men in these dayes are not Gyants why Gyants in former were but men are two Problems which the meere naturalist could easily assoyle by this reason for substance one and the same The vigour of causes productive or conservative of vegetables of man especially from which he receiveth nutrition and augmentation is lesse now then it hath beene at least before the Flood though but finite and limited when it was greatest Why vegetables of greatest vigour ingrosse not the properties of others lesse vigorous but rest contented with a greater numericall measure of their owne specificall vertues is by the former reason as plaine For in that they have not their being from themselves they can take no more then is
it hath Now limits of being are essentiall properties of that essence or being wherin they are found And distinct bounds or limits are included in the distinct forme of being which every thing hath from its cause Actuall essence or existence it selfe is distributed to every thing that hath cause of being as it were sealed up in its proper forme or kind of being It is as possible to put a new fashion upon nothing as for any thing that is to take limits or set forme of being from nothing That which hath nothing to give it being can have nothing to give it limits or bounds of being And as no entity can take its being or beginning of being from it selfe so neither can it take bounds or limits from it selfe but must have them from some other The prime essence or first cause of all things that are as it hath no precedent cause of existence nor can it be cause of existence to it self so neither can it have any cause of limits without it selfe nor can it be any cause of limits to it selfe It remaines then that it must bee an essence illimited and thus to be without bounds or limits is the formall effect or consequence of being it selfe or of that which truly is without any cause precedent to give it being or make it what it is 6 So essentially is the conceipt of being without bounds or limits included in our conceipt of being without cause precedent that if we should by way of supposition give any imaginary entity leave to take beginning or possession of being from it selfe without the warrant of any cause precedent to appoint or measure it out some distinct portion or forme of being thus much being once by imagination granted wee could not by any imagination possible debarre this entity from absolute necessity of being for ever after whatsoever it listed to be or from being all things rather than any one thing Of the Heathens many did hold an uncreated Chaos praeexistent to the frame of this Vniverse and Philosophers to this day maintaine an ingenerable matter which actually is not any body but indifferent to be made every body Let us but suppose First the one or other of them to be as Homogeneall in it selfe as the ayre or water Secondly to be able to actuate or Proteus-like to transforme it selfe into a better state than now it hath without the helpe of any agent or efficient and then as it could have no cause so can there bee no reason given to restraine it from taking all bodily perfection possible to it selfe And if it bee true which some teach that this prime matter hath neither proper quantity nor quality what should hinder it to take both without measure supposing it might bee its one carver of those endowments Or imagine there were such a vacuity where the world now is as we Christians beleeve there was before it was made and onely one of Democritus casuall Atoms or some meere possibility or appetite of the matter left free venire in vacuum to give it selfe full and perfect act without curbe or restraint of any superiour power or sharer to cry halfe mine with it or make claime to the nature of any actuall entity lost it being supposed to be able to take any one nature upon it what should either hinder or further it to assume the nature of earth rather than of water or of these two rather than of any other Element or of any simple bodies rather than of mixt or compounded substances or of bodily substances rather than spirituall or of all these rather than of their metaphysicall eminences and perfections Or whilst we imagine it without cause of existence or beginning no reason imaginable could confine it to any set place of residence or extension no cause could bee alledged why it should take possession of the center rather than of the circumference of this Vniverse as now it stands or of both these rather than of the whole sphere or of the whole sphere rather than of all extensive space imaginable Only the very supposition of taking beginning though without cause doth put a limit to its duration because this kinde of beginning being but imaginary depends upon our imagination as upon its true cause And yet even thus considered me thinks it should extend its existence both waies and draw a circular duration to the instant where it beginnes Or not imagining the beginning let us imagine it only to have true present being without any cause precedent to push it forward or superiour guide to appoint it a set course and it is not within the compasse of imagination why the duration of it should not reach as farre the one way as the other as farre beyond all imagination of time past as of time to come why it should not comprehend all duration imaginable by way of present possession or supereminent permanency without admission of any deflux division or succession for continuation of its existence 7 If it bee objected that any thing may follow from supposition or imagination of impossibilities the reply is easie The objection is either false or true in a sense which no way impeacheth but rather approves that kinde of arguing True it is there is almost nothing in nature so impossible as it may not be the possible consequent of some impossibility supposed or granted but of every particular impossibility supposed or imagined the possible consequences are not infinite neither such nor so many as we list to make them they are determinate by nature Now we cannot conceive it to be in nature more impossible for a meere logical possibility really and truely to take beginning of actuall being onely from it selfe then it is for that which is supposed imagined thus to take beginning to be restrained either to any determinat kind or part of being or to bee confined to any set place or residence Or if any mislike these imaginarie models let him now he hath givē us leave to make them and vouchsafed to looke upon them utterly cancell or deface them The everlasting edifice to whose erection they are destinated is this Such as we cannot cōceive that not to be which we conceive to take beginning of being from it selfe without any cause precedent such of necessity must we conceive and beleeve him to bee indeed who neither tooke beginning from himselfe nor had it given by any but is the beginning of being the sole maker of all things that bee being himselfe without beginning without dependance o◠any cause without subordination to any guide to appoint his kinde to limit his place or prescribe his time of being He is in all these and whatsoever branch or portion of being imaginable truely and really infinite the quintessence or excellency of all perfections whether numericall or specifical incident to al sorts or degrees of Beings numerable CHAP. 1. Of infinity in Beeing or of absolute infinitie and the right definition of it by the ancient
unquestionable earnests of thy everlasting love since more fully manifested For thou so lovedst the world not Israel onely that thou gavest thine onely begotten son to the end that who so beleeved in him should not perish but have everlasting life What further argumeÌ„t of Gods infinite love could flesh blood desire thaÌ„ the Son of Gods voluntary suffring that in our flesh by his Fathers appointment which unto flesh and blood seemes most distastfull That this love was unfaignedly tendered to all at least that have heard or hereafter may heare of it without exception what demonstration from the effect can be more certaine what consequence more infallible thaÌ„ the inference of this truth is froÌ„ a sacred truth received by all good Christians viz. Al such as have heard Gods love in Christ proclaimed and not beleeved in it shall in the day of Iudgement appeare guilty of greater sinnes than their forefathers could be endited of and undergoe more bitter death than any corruption drawne from Adam if Christ had never suffered could have bred I shall no way wrong the Apostle in unfolding his exhortations to the Athenians thus farre but they rather offer the spirit by which hee spake some kinde of violence that would contract his meaning shorter The times of this ignorance before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Because hee hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom hee hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that hee hath raised him from the dead Acts 17. 30 31. 3 Why all men in the world have not heard of Gods infinite love thus manifested many causes may hereafter bee assigned all grounded upon Gods infinite Iustice or Mercy Of Christs death many which heard not might have heard many which are not might have bin partakers save only for their free and voluntary progresse from evill to worse or wilfull refusall of Gods loving kindnesse daily profered to them in such pledges as they were well content to swallow foolishly esteeming these good in themselves being good onely as they plight the truth of Gods love to them which he manifested in the death of his Sonne With this manifestation of his love many againe out of meere mercy have not beene acquainted lest the sight of the medicine might have caused their discase to rage and make their case more lamentably desperate CHAP. 18. Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfeigned love to such as perish a principall meanes or occasion why so many perish 1 BVt if the most part of men as we cannot deny doe finally perish what shall it availe to revive this doctrine of Gods infinite love to all by whose fruitlesse issue he rather is made an infinit looser than men any gainers As for God he hath froÌ„ eternity infallibly forecast the entire redemption of his infinite love which unto us may seeme utterly cast away And of men if many dye whom he would have live for his will is that all should bee saved and come to the knowledge of the truth the fault is their owne or their instructers that seeke not the prevention of their miscariage by acquainting them with this coelestiall fountaine of saving truth whose taste we labor to exhibite unto all because the want of it in observation of the heathen is the first spring of humane misery Or in language more plaine or pertinent to the argument proposed most men reape no benefit from Gods unspeakeable love because not considering it to be his nature they doe not beleeve it to be as he is truly infinite unfeignedly extended to all that call him Maker But had the doctrines which those divine Oracles God is love and would have all men to bee saued naturally afford beene for these forty yeeres last past as generally taught and their right use continually prest with as great zeale and fervency as the doctrine and uses of Gods absolute decree for electing some and reprobating most in that space have beene the plentifull increase of Gods glory and his peoples comfort throughout this land might have wrought such astonishment to our adversaries as would have put their malicious mouths to silence Who would not be willing to be saved if hee were fully perswaded that God did will his salvation in particular because hee protests hee wills not the death of any but the repentance of all that all might live Or were the particulars of this doctrine unto whose generality every loyall member of the Church of England hath subscribed generally taught beleeved all would unfeignedly endeavour with fervent alacrity to be truely happy because none could suspect himselfe to bee excluded from his unfeigned and fervent love who is true happinesse Whose love and goodnesse is so great that hee cannot passe any act whereby any of his creatures should bee debarred either from being like him in love and goodnesse or being such from being like him in true happinesse But alas while the world is borne in hand that the Creator oft-times dispenseth the blessings of this life not as undoubted pledges of a better but deales with most men as man doth with beasts feeding them fattest which are appointed first to bee slaine the magnificent praises of his bounty secretly nurseth such a misperswasion in most men of his goodnesse at least towards them as the Epigrammâ—tist had of a professed Benefactor that shewed him as he thought little kindnesse in great Benevolence Munera magna quidem misit sed misit in hamo Et Piscatorem piscis amare potest Great gifts he sent but under his gifts there covered lay an hooke And by the fish to be belov'd can th'cunning Fisher looke 2 The frequency of sinister respects in dispensing of secular dignities or benevolences makes such as are truly kind to be either unregarded or mistrusted by such as stand in neede of their kindnesse And as fishes in beaten waters will nibble at the bait although they suspect the hooke so the world hath learned the wit to take good turnes and not to be taken by them as suspecting them to bee profered in cunning rather than in true kindnesse and cunning where it is discovered or suspected is usually requited with craft love onely hath just title unto love The most part indeed are so worldly wise that none but fooles will easily trust them howbeit our naturall mistrust of others makes all of us a great deale worse than we would be And as if we thought it a sinne or point of uncharitablenesse to prove other mens conjectures that measure our dispositions by their owne altogether false wee fit our demeanours to their misdeemings of us and resolve rather to do amisse than they should thinke amisse Howbeit even in this perfidious and faithlesse age the old saying is not quite out of date Ipsa fides habita obligat fideÌ„ Many would be more trusty than they are and do much
built unlesse the Lord doe afford not onely his concurrence but his blessing to the labours of the one and to the watchfulnesse of the other But in this argument wee may expatiate without impeachment of digression from the matter or of diversion from our ayme in the following Treatise of divine providence 6. This present Treatise requires an induction sufficient to prove that every visible or sublunarie substance aswell the common matter whereof all such things are made as the severall formes which are produced out of it have an efficient cause precedent to their making or production For the seuerall formes or bodies generable which are constituted by them the induction is as cleare to every mans sense or understanding as any mathematicall induction can bee The naturalist is neither able nor disposed to except against the universalitie of it or to instance in any sublunarie bodie which hath not a true efficient cause or an agent precedent from whose efficacie its physicall or essentiall forme was either made or did result The question onely remaines about the efficiencie or production of the prime or common matter Seeing it is the mother of generation wee will not vexe the Naturalist by demanding a generative cause efficient of its beeing but that it must have some cause efficient wee shall enforce him to grant from a generall Maxime most in request with men of his profession The Maxime is That the philosophicall progresse from effects to their causes or from inferiour to superiour causes is not like Arithmeticall or geometricall progressions it cannot bee infinite Wee must at length come to one supreme cause efficient which in that it is supreame is a cause of causes but no effect and being no effect nor cause subordinate to any other Agent it can have no limit of Beeing it can admit no restraint in working Whatsoever we can conceive as possible to have limited Beeing or beginning of such Beeing must haue both frō it by it Now if the perfect workes of nature bodies sublunarie of what kind soever suppose a possibilitie physicall included in the prime and common matter before they have actuall Being if it imply no contradiction for them to have beginning of Beeing it will imply no contradiction that the prime mater it selfe or imperfect masse whereof they are made should have a beginning of its imperfect beeing That Physicall beeing which it hath doth presuppose a logicall possibilitie of beeing as it is that is no contradiction for it sometimes to be and sometimes not to haue beene This supreame cause or agent which as we suppose did reduce the logicall possibilitie of the prime matter of sublunary bodies into Act cannot be the heavens or any part of the hoast of heavē neither the sun moon nor stars For albeit the Sun be the efficient cause by which most workes of nature in this sublunarie part of the world are brought to perfection yet is it no cause at all of that imperfect masse or part of nature on which it workes Vnlesse it had some matter to worke upon it could produce no reall or solid effect by its influence light or motion how ever assisted with the influence of other stars or planets Yet must this prime matter have some cause otherwise it should be more perfect than the bodily substances which are made of it For they all stand in neede both of this prime matter as a cause in it kinde concurrent to their production and of the efficiencie of the Sunne or other coelestiall Agents to worke or fashion the materialls or Ingredients of which they are made If either this common matter of sublunary substances or the Sunne which workes upon it had no superiour cause to limit their beeing or distinguish their offices both of them should bee infinite in Beeing both infinite in operation Now if the matter were infinite in beeing the Sunne or other coelestiall Agents could have no beeing but in it or from it For if the Sunne were infinite in operation the matter it selfe could bee nothing at all no part of nature unlesse it were a worke or effect of the Sunne Infinitie in beeing excludes all possibilitie of other Beeing save in it and from it And infinitie in operation supposeth all things that are limited whether in beeing or operation to bee its workes or resultances of its illimited efficacie CHAP. 7. Shewing by reasons philosophicall that aswell the physicall matter of bodies sublunary as the celestiall bodies which worke upon it were of necessitie to have a beginning of their Beeing and Duration 1 FOr further demonstration that as well the Sunne which is the efficient generall as the prime matter which is the common mother of bodies sublunary had a beginning of beeing there can be no meane eyther more forcible or more plausible then another Maxime much imbraced and insisted upon by the great Philosopher to wit that as well the efficient as the materiall cause derive the necessitie of their causalitie from the end or finall cause unto which they are destinated The Sunne doth not runne its daily course from East to West or make its annuall progresse from North to South to get it selfe heate or for the increase of its native force or vigour by change of Climates but for the propagation of vegetables for the continuance of life and health in more perfect sublunary substances If then wee can demonstrate that those vegetables or more perfect sublunarie bodies for whose continuall propagation for the continuance of whose life and well-fare the Sunne becomes so indefatigable in its course had a true beginning of beeing that the propagation is not infinitely circular the cause will be concluded that as well the common matter whereof they are made as the Sunne it selfe which produceth them had a beginning of beeing and operation from the same supreame cause which appointed the Sunne thus to dispense its heate and influence for the reliefe and comfort of this inferiour world To prove that these sublunarie more perfect bodies as vegetables c had a beginning of beeing or propagation no Argument can be more effectuall to the Naturalist or others that will take it into serious consideration than the discussion of that probleme which Plutarch hath propounded Whether the Egg were before the Hen or the Hen before the Egg. The state of the question will be the same in all more perfect vegetables or living Creatures which usually grow from an imperfect or weake estate to a more perfect and stronger Whether the Acorne were before the Oake or the Oake before the Acorne Whether the Lyon had precedencie of nature to the Lyons whelp or the Lyons whelp unto the Lyon The induction may be for eyther part most compleate in respect of all times and of all places if with the Naturalist wee imagine the world to have beene without beginning or without ending No Naturalist can ever instance in any more perfect feathered fowle which was not first covered with a shell or contained in
besides those which the Omnipotent was willing should be so made nor these any better either for substance or qualitie than his will was they should be Nor could any creature be enabled by his will out of nothing to make any thing which was not eminently contained in the nature of that creature to whom this power of creating is supposed to be by his will delegated For albeit some efficient or productive causes bring forth effects for substance or qualitie more excellent then themselves yet this they never doe this they cannot doe unlesse they worke upon some advantage which the subject or matter whereon they worke doth afford them But this advantage cannot be supposed in the production of any substance out of no subject or matter praexistent All the excellency which any effect or substance so produced can have must be intirely derived from its efficient And that can be no greater excellency or perfection than the efficient it selfe hath not altogether so great because it must be eminently contained in the perfection of its efficient if so be the efficient have any perfection or being left after the production of such an effect So that every efficient cause which is or can be supposed as an instrumentall cause of creation or as enabled to produce something out of nothing is thus farre limited that it can produce no effect more excellent that it selfe and being thus limited in it selfe and by dependance on an higher cause as well in its being as in its operation it cannot be conceived to bee Omnipotent For that includes as much as to be illimited in operation or which is all one to bee the operative power of the incomprehensible Essence or of Being infinite 3 But though to be able to make something out of nothing be not formally aequipollent to the attribute of Omnipotency yet can it not hence be concluded that any agent besides the one Omnipotent is either able or can be enabled to produce the least substance that is the least portion or matter ingredient to any bodily substance out of meer nothing To lay the first foundation or beginning of being of any finite substance is the sole effect of being it selfe and therefore of that which is truly infinite in operation Whatsoever is finite or limited can have no other kind of being than borrowed or participated And this kinde of being must bee immediately derived without intervention of any instrumentall cause from being not participated or borrowed but from increated and authentique being To create is to give actuall being or existance without the help or furtherance of any Contributer or Confounder Now if this power of creating could possibly bee delegated to any created substance it were possible for that which is created by it to have its being extra infinitum esse that is it should not be immediately and intirely contained in the infinite and incomprehensible Essence or Being For in this very supposall That one created substance might by power delegated from Omnipotency create another it is necessarily implied that the substance created should have its being intirely or part of its being immediately from the other which by power delegated is supposed to create it And having such being as it hath either intirely or in part immediately from the other it could not be immediately and intirely contained in the first cause of all things And if the least substance possible could have its Being not immediately and intirely from the first cause or supreame Efficient he could not bee actually and absolutely infinite in Being or Omnipotent in working For that onely is absolutely infinite or infinite in Being in which all things possible are immediately contained without whose incomprehensible Being nothing can have existence without whose immediate operation nothing can begin to be or exist These agitatiōs discussions may notifie unto us the strength soundness of that treble rule or fundamentall principle layd by others and before touched by us First it is peculiar unto Art to turne bodies already formed and perfected by nature into another fashion It is the property of nature and of naturall and finite Agents to worke the unfashioned or confused matter into some determinate forme or set kinde of being It is the prerogative of the Omnipotent Maker to afford naturall Agents the intire matter and stuffe whereon they worke and to bestow on them such being as they have whether that be materiall or immateriall celestiall or sublunary spirituall or bodily and to bestow i◠intirely without the helpe of any Co-efficient without the contribution of any stuffe or matter of any reallitie praeexistent SECTION II. Of Divine Providence in generall and how contingency and necessity in things created are subject unto it CHAP. 9. Of the perpetuall dependance which all things created have on the Almighty Creator both for their beeing and their operations 1 BVt will it suffice us to beleeve that as Art hath its proper subject made or fitted by Nature or as more perfect substances praesuppose an imperfect state in Nature so this imperfect state of nature or the subject on which naturall efficients do work was made of nothing without any coagency of Nature or Art by the sole power of the Almighty Father To beleeve all this is but the first part of our beleefe of this Article of Creation For better apprehending the intire object of our beleefe in this point we are to observe the difference betwixt the dependance which Art hath on nature or which workes artificiall have on the Artificer or which more perfect naturall substances have on the imperfect substances whereof they are made or on their naturall efficients and the dependance which both naturall Agents Patients which efficient causes as wel artificiall as naturall with their severall matters or subjects have on the Almighty Creator and Maker of all things First then nature or causes naturall after they have finished their proper works and fitted them for Art to worke upon do not cooperate with the Artificer in fashioning them to his ends or purpose The Artificer againe after he hath finished his worke doth not continually support preserve or apply it to those uses unto which it serves but leaves this unto their care for whose convenience it was made The Clocke-maker doth not tye himselfe to keep all the Clocks which he makes nor doth he which undertakes to keepe them binde himselfe to watch their motions perpetually or to observe them as curiously as Physitians doe their sicke Patients Againe the most perfect works of nature as vegetables and living things depend upon their causes whether materiall or efficient for the most part onely in fieri not in facto whilest they are in making or in perfecting not after they be made and perfected The Lyonesse doth not perpetually nourish her whelps with her owne substance nor doth the Raven continually provide for her young ones or any other creatures more kinde than they perpetually support or direct their brood in
the earth and in the waters are as immediately and as intirely ascribed unto the operative power of the Creator as their first Creation out of nothing was Yet the reason of their ascribing all this unto the immediate and sole power of God will no way warrant the truth of their criticisme who teach that neither the fire doth truly heat or burne or the water really coole or moisten or that no visible creature hath any reall operation upon another but that our assigning of their motions or operations as true causes in their kind of the effects which we see daily produced is but a solaecisme of vaine Philosophy or of sciences falsly so called whereas the right resolution of this solaecisme into distinct and Christian phrase is but this God doth produce heat cold moisture vegetables and other living things ad praesentiam creaturarum the Fire Water Sunne Earth c. being but bare witnesses of the Creators power which is manifested in them or of its operation in their presence by which operation alone all those effects are produced which the Philosophers ascribe unto the Creatures And most true it is that the Creator doth daily worke all those effects which we attribute to naturall agents yet doth hee not worke such effects onely in them or where they are present but he truly worketh by them and with them And if the Omnipotent power be truly said to worke by and with natural meanes or causes they must truly worke with him in their kinde When the Apostle saith in him wee live and move and have our beeing this necessarily implies that wee have a life in its kinde distinct from his life a motive power different in its kinde from his power a kinde of beeing likewise distinct from his infinite Essence or from being-it-selfe But in as much as the life of all things living the motions of every thing that moveth the being of every numerable thing that is hath such an absolute dependance as hath been declared upon his creative power hence it is that the Prophets and Divine Philosophers ascribe all the visible effects or events which time presents or place accompanieth no lesse intirely to the Creator than the first production of their visible and naturall causes As for the former Critickes in whose language God onely worketh in his creatures or his creatures being present they might with as good reason affirme that the Sunne did not really move but that God did move the Sun being present yet could he not move or create motion ad praesentiam Solis unlesse the Sunne did truly move The truth is the Sunne doth move or is moved by Gods presence in it but he doth not move with it or by it But with the Sunne or other Creatures he truly worketh as they truly worke with him And by this concession of some true power and property of working unto naturall Agents more is ascribed to the Creator of all things than can bee ascribed by the contrary opinion which utterly denies al power or property of working to the Creatures For he that denyes any effects to be truly wrought by them cannot ascribe their abilities or operative force which in his opinion is none unto their Creator But Moses taugh the Israelites that it was God which gave them power to gather substance Nor were they more bound to praise God for the substance which they gathered or for the Manna which by miracle hee sent unto them than for the 〈◊〉 which he gave them to gather the one or other 2 Yeâ— is not this absolute and immediate dependance which every creature as well or its being as for its power or exercise of it hath oâ— the Almighty Creator the intire ground or reason why the effects which are in their kinde produced by the Creatures are by the Prophets wholly ascribed unto power Almighty For this dependance or the reason of ascribing all things to God which is grounded on it being for the present â—questred he hath a peculiar title to all the works or effects especially to all of greater and more publique consequence which the Creatures produce from his skill or wisedome in contriving the combination of second causes with their severall operations for the assequution of their last or utmost end Nor was the entitative goodnesse of every creature in his kinde albeit considered in that perfection wherein God made it the ground or reason of that approbation which hee bestowed upon them as they severally began to bee or after hee had accomplished them all God saith Moses saw all that he had made and loe it was exceeding good What goodnesse then was this which hee thus commends the goodnesse of order or of harmony betwixt them as they were parts of this Vniverse This harmony was the accomplishment of his severall workes the ground of his praises and the complete object of our beleefe of this Article of Creation Hence saith the Apostle Heb. 11 By faith we beleeve What Secula facta esse nay more then so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the worlds were harmonically made It was a double over-sight in some good Divines from one or both of these two principles Omne ens quâ—â—ens est bonum What soever hath being is good whatsoever is was made by God and all things which God made were good to infer that sinne or morall evill could have no positive entitie For the greater the entitative goodnesse of any creature is the greater measure of morall evill it alwayes includes unlesse its entitative goodnesse hold such harmony or correspondency with the rest as may helpe to make up or support that goodnesse of order that is that goodnesse of coordination amongst themselves or of that joint subordination unto their Creator which he first framed and placed in this Vniverse as it was his worke Vnlesse sinne or morall evill had some positive entitie or some positive degrees or measure all sinnes should be equall there could bee no different kinds of sinne no numericall difference or degrees betwixt particular sinnes of the same kind But of the nature of sinne or morall evill and how compatible this evill is with goodnes entitative more at large by Gods assistance in the Treatise of Originall sinne or the estate or condition of the sons of wrath which estate every child of Adam by participation of this first sinne doth inherit The peculiar title which the Almighty Creator by right of Creation or by the combination or contrivance of naturall and intellectuall agents hath to all the praises which either the Souldier or Statesman the Landlord the Husbandman or such as live by Merchandizing daily rob him of will come more fitly to be declared in some following Treatises of Divine speciall providence 3 If the Reader desire a briefe abstract or summe of what hath beene said of Gods power in creating the world or of the reservation of this free power unto himselfe to alter to innovate or amend the estate wherein he hath hitherto
make a conscience as well of their words as of their wayes herein perhaps especially faulty that they are too zealously sollicitous not to speake amisse make no scruple of entertaining these and the like inferences following as naturally descending from the former Maxime It is impossible ought should fall out otherwise than it doth all things in respect of God and his Omnipotent Decree are necessary Contingencie is but a solecisme of secular language or if any thing may without offence be termed contingent it must be reputed such onely with reference to second causes 2 Howbeit such good men as doe thus write and speake will give us leave I know to take it in the first place as granted that God is wiser than we are and knowes the nature of all things and their differences better than they or we doe This being granted we will in the second place suppose that Contingency is not a meere fictitious name of that which is not as Tragelaphus nor altogether Synonymall to Necessity The question about Contingency and of its difference from necessity is not such as one in merriment once proposed in schools An chimera calcitrans in vacuo terat calceos The very names of Contingency and Necessity to ordinary Latinists differ more than Ensis and Gladius than Vestis and Indumentum betwixt which perhaps the ancient Latine Artificers or Nomenclators knew some difference Yet was it impossible for them to know any thing which God knew not who out of all controversie knowes the true difference betweene Contingency and Necessity much better then we can doe For both of them are Entities of his making and serve as different Lawes to the diversity of his creatures or their different actions All the reasons that can be drawne from the immutability of Gods Decree to the contrary may with greater facility and strength of the same Decree be retorted than brought against us For God immutably decrees mutability Now who will say that things mutable are in respect of Gods decree or knowledge immutable The Heavens and other bodies moveable according to locall motion are truly moveable in themselves absolutely moveable not immoveable in respect of Gods decree or knowledge for he knowes them to bee moveable because he decreed them so to be hee doth not know them to be immoveable because he decreed them not to be such unlesse for a time by interposition of miracle It implies lesse contradiction to say Deus immutabiliter decernit mutabilia than to say which hath beene accounted an ancient orthodoxall Maxime Stabilis dat cuncta movere For Mobility is a branch of Mutability 3 Every thing in respect of Gods decree or knowledge is altogether such as God hath decreed it should be If then God hath decreed there should be contingency as well as necessity it is altogether as necessary that some events should be contingent as others necessary and as truly contingent as the other is necessary in respect of Gods decree Albeit to speake properly the natures of contingency and necessity consist not in meere relation or respect For in as much as both are immediate and reall effects of Divine Omnipotency both must have absolute being the being of neither is meerly relative Now if Contingency have a true and absolute being it is neither constituted in the nature of contingency by any respect or relation to second causes nor can any respect or relation to the first cause deprive it of that absolute nature which the Omnipotent efficacy of the cause of causes hath irrevocably bestowed upon it Briefly if Contingency be any thing it is that which it is by the Omnipotent Decree and being such it is altogether as impossible that some effects should not be absolutely contingent as that such effects as the Divine Decree hath appointed to bee necessary should not be at all Or if we would make impartiall inquiry into the originall of all things nothing without the precincts of the most glorious and ever blessed Trinity is absolutely necessary 4 By Contingency lest haply we might be mistaken we understand the possible meane betweene necessity of being and necessity of not being or of being such or of not being such or betweene necessity of doing and necessity of not doing or necessity of being done or necessity of being left undone This meane betweene necessity of doing and necessity of not doing is that which in agents intellectuall as in men and Angells wee call freedome of will or choice Vnto which freedome necessity is as contradictory as irrationability is to the nature of man and contingency as necessarily presupposed as life and sense are to reason Adde reason to contingency and we have the compleat definition of Free-will In those cases wherein the Creator hath exempted man from restraint of necessity his will is free The divine will it selfe is not free in those operations which are essentiall though most delectable God the Father is more delighted in the eternall generation of his Sonne so is God the Father and the Sonne in the eternall procession of the Holy Ghost than in the creation production or preservation of all the creatures Yet are not these or other internall operations of the blessed Trinity so free in respect of the divine nature as is the production of the world Whatsoever God decrees he decrees it freely that is so as he might not decree it Whatsoever he makes he makes it freely that is he so makes it as that it was not necessary for him to make it CHAP. 13. Contingency is absolutely possible and part of the object of Omnipotency as formall a part as necessity is 1 IT is an unquestionable rule in the Art of Arts that propositions for their forme not incompatible may from the necessity of their matter or subject become equivalent to propositions directly contradictory whose indispensable law or rule it is that if the one be true the other must needs be false they admit of no meane betwixt them Now there is no matter or subject in the world which is so absolutely necessary as the existence of the Divine Nature or the internall operations of the Trinity Whence it is that betweene these two propositions The generation of the Sonne is necessary the not generation of the Son is necessary there is no possible meane which can be capable of truth The first is so absolutely necessary and so necessarily true that the latter is eternally false But such is not the case or condition of these two propositions following The Creation or Existence of the World is necessary The not Creation or non existence of the World is necessarie These are not contradictories for their form nor equivalent to contradictories for their matter or subject and therefore may admit a meane betweene them To say the creation or existence of the world was absolutely necessary hath no truth in it for it had a beginning of existence and being and may have an end and the other extreame or contrary The not
his first sinne or appetite of the forbidden fruite to bee necessarie or necessitate his will in his sinister choyces This were all one as to say that God were the immediate and necessarie cause of sinne of death of all the evills that have befallen mankinde since Adam For he is the sole immediate and necessarie cause of all things which hee so decrees as they cannot possibly fall out otherwise For him to erre in decreeing or for the execution of his decree to bee defeated is impossible In respect of his proper and adaequate object and peremptorily intended effect his will is a more irresistible more powerfully necessitating cause than any other cause whatsoever Now if Gods will had beene to leave no possibility for Adams perserverance his fall had beene the compleat object of Gods decree concerning our first estate and by consequence Gods decree or will had beene the first cause of sinnes first entrance into the world CHAP. 14. The former conclusion proved by the consent of all the Ancients whether Christians or Heathens which did dislike the errour of the Stoikes THE incommodious or inconsiderate speeches which some of better note and antiquitie have let fall were as I perswade my selfe but symptomes of their provoked zeale or eager desire to salve those grosse absurdities which they had rightly espied in others But it is alwaies more easie to expugne an errour or salve a particular inconvenience then to provide that no more shall follow upon the cure or medicine Had those famous lamps of Gods Church by whose light many grosse opinions have beene discried and reformed seene the inconveniences which follow upon their owne positions as clearely as many of their friends since have done it would bee a foule slander in us to suspect that they would not wil-willingly have altered their dialect or taken advise for expressing their good meaning in tearmes more safe more proper and scholastique If otherwise we abstract their speeches from that respect and reverence which we owe unto their memorie or that good opinion which best men have had of their sinceritie I cannot see wherein the necescesarie consequences of their opinions as they are usually expressed comes short of the Manichees errors or wherein they differ at all from the Stoicks The Manichees held all evill and mischiefe in the world to fall out by inevitable necessity but this necessitie they derived from an evill Author from a prime cause or Creator of evill onely not of any thing that was good And better it is for it is more consonant to our Saviours advise to acknowledge the tree for evill where the fruite is evill then to justifie it for good when the fruite is apparently and of necessitie naught The pertinacie or stiffenesse in this common error Evils and mischiefe or wicked actions fall out by necessitie being presupposed aequall they adde lesse sinne or errour to it which hence acknowledge a prime cause of evill or a cause evill by fatall necessitie then those which hold evill to be necessary in respect of his Omnipotent decree who is infinitely good In fine the Manichees were grosse haeretiques in holding evill and mischiefe to fall out by inevitable necessitie but this heresie once admitted it was rather a consonancy of error then any addition of new heresie to admit two prime causes or Creators the one of good the other of evill They durst not slander goodnesse with any crime or for being the Author of any thing that was not good nor were they disposed to flatter greatnesse as if evill were no evill because it proceeded from it 2. That which the Ancients reprooved in the Stoicks opinion as most injurious to God and all good men was that they held all things and evill things amongst the rest to fall out by fate or unavoydable necessitie This foundation being once laied the rootes of vertue must utterly perish and that which we call vice should bee a meere name or matter of nothing there is no place left for just reward or punishment Whether by fate the Stoicks meant the influence of starres the course of nature or the decree of GOD who to them was all one with Nature all was one in respect of the former inconveniences which necessarily followed from admission of an inevitable necessitie in humane actions whence soever that be derived To say it comes from the first cause or from the second is meerly accidentall to the error or inconvenience so sharply justly reproved by the primitive Church In respect of a Tradesmans commoditie it is all one whether he be prohibited for setting up or trafiquing by the companie of his own profession or by some higher powers so the prohibition or restraint be as large peremptorie without hope of release or if he bee restrained upon his allegiance by the Prince or privy counsell his hopes of thriving will be much lesse then if he were tied onely by the locall statutes of some pettie Corporation Thus if the Stoick derived the necessitie of all things from the revolution of the Heavens or from other second causes as their supposed guides the impossibilitie of doing otherwise then we doe was in every Christians conceipt evidently much lesse then if we derive this necessitie from the Omnipotent decree Now the danger or incenvenience of their opinion did formally consist in nursing a conceipt in men that it was impossible for them to doe otherwise then they doe or to avoyd the evills and mischiefes into which they fall And these dangers or inconveniences are so much greater in Christians then they were in the Stoicks as the God which wee acknowledge is more Omnipotent then nature or the Stoicks god For the more Omnipotent he is the more impossible is it for any creature to avoid the necessitie which by his decree is layed upon him 3. In respect of the former inconveniences or of the opinion it selfe it is meerely accidentall whether this necessity bee layed upon us by coaction or willingly and cheerefully entertained by us whether it proceed from Gods power or impulsion or from his wisdome so our actions and their issues bee in respect of his Omnipotent power or will alike unavoidable If birds and fishes could speake I suppose the one would as much complaine of those that in hard frost or snow allure them with baites to come within the fall of the trappe as the other would doe of Fishers for driving them violently into their nets If the birds once taken be used as hardly their expostulations would be so much more just as their usage before their taking was more kinde To make a man willing to undoe himselfe upon faire promises made not with purpose to doe him good but to circumvent him is greater cruelty then can accompany open violence Hee that wittingly ministers poyson instead of Physick is in all mens judgement as true a Murderer as hee that kils with the sword albeit the partie to whom it is ministred having no reason to suspect any
others he derives from these originalls As there be divers kindes of proceedings in managing the affaires of peace or warre with whose diversities the dispositions of men by nature or custome much different suit some with one some with another so have different times their seasons and opportunities Some times require quick dispatch others delay of businesse some businesses speedy execution others maturity of consultation and long forecast Now seeing no one man is fitted for all kindes of proceedings nor no one kinde of proceeding can befit all or most times but all have their limits which without errour or danger they cannot transgresse Hence it is that those men least erre and become most fortunate in their atchievements which have the hap to be imployed in such times and seasons as best agree with their naturall and accustomed manner of projecting Statefortune then by Machiavels conclusion is no bastard brood no fatherlesse bratt but the true and legitimate ofspring of Time fitly matched with the peculiar disposition of experienced practickes On the contrary publique misfortune or ill successe is the naturall issue of mens endeavours when they are undertaken in an unfit time The onely question then remaining is whether there bee any or if any who is the chiefe author of all fit matches or disagreements betweene the severall dispositions of men and the opportunities of times It is a point unquestionable that the prime author of such matches is the first author of all successe be it good or bad in humane affaires The greatest amongst the sonnes of men cannot command what opportunities they please but must bee content with such as time affords them nor are the wisest of men alwaies able to make choyse of the best which time presents Time likewise though thus affording opportunities cannot appoint the men that are most fit to entertain them So that neither is time the fountaine or author nor can men bee their owne Carvers of good successe Doth this office then belong to Goddesse Fortune If shee could see this she might see all things and were no longer to bee reputed Fortune wisdome and prouidence should be her titles It is That wisdome by which all things were made which disposeth their operations It is that Providence which was before all times that dispenseth the times and opportunities that are These sit supreame scrutators in consultations of state and have more casting voyces then the world takes notice off They secretly sway every election other suffragants may freely declare their opinions and vent their breath which these tune and moderate as they please 13 That we may descend to Machiavels instance The Romanes appointed no generall without publick consultation Whether Fabius Maximus were chosen generall by unanimous consent of the Senate or with difficultie and contradiction we have not observed or doe not remember Even such as were most forward or factious for him did little thinke how well his peculiar temper did sute with the opportunitie of those times wherein he was appointed to cope with Hannibal The common rumors which run of him throughout Rome argue a generall dislike of his proceedings if lingring might in their censures be called proceedings rather then cowardly delay or detrectation The best proofe he gave for a long time of his courage was his constant contempt of others censures But after the event did as farre surpasse their hopes of his slow proceedings as these had come short of their first expectations their note was changed Fabius was now the onely man and as some of them make him more then a man in common esteeme the onely Author of their Cities preservation Howbeit to such as can resolve effects into their prime and native causes children might more justly be fathered upon the woman that beares them then this joyfull issue which was brought forth by his lingring can be upon his forecast or wisedome For this cunctation of which the peculiar opportunities of these times begat good successe was to Fabius as Machiavel well observes a disposition naturall he could not have changed with the times nor fashioned himselfe to new occasions Hee had held the same byas still though on another much different ground and so might he well have lost his late purchased fame and Rome her prize unlesse there had beene more skill used in playing the game than the supposed Roman Gamesters practised As suppose Fabius had beene sent to have bid Hannibal play in Africk and Scipio appointed to keepe the goale in Italie Rome and Carthage by the misplacing of these two men might have changed Fates and Fortunes Rome in all likelihood had beene taken when Fabius saved it and Carthage inriched with Romane spoiles at the time when Scipio ransacked it Rome could not have found a surer buckler to beare off Hannibals blowes in Italy then lingring Fabius nor a fitter sword to beat him in his native soile then forward Scipio And yet was Fabius the most forward man to oppose Scipio his expedition into Africk and it may be some of Scipio his friends had bandied as earnestly against Fabius Either of them liked his owne course best if haply either liked any other besides Neither of them knew what temper was fittest for every season nor is it possible for the wisedome of man to match these alwayes aright because albeit the temper or dispositions of men did never alter yeâ— the occasions or opportunities of times are more changeable than the Moone 14 The Aphorisme which Machiavel gathers from the former discussions is not so false as imperfit and it is this Seeing different times require different manners of proceedings and state-agents cannot easily change their manner whereto they have beene most accustomed it were most expedient for States to change their agents that their severall dispositions might more exactly sute with the alterations of times and opportunities The facilitie of observing or practising this rule in Aristocratis is in his judgement one speciall cause why that kinde of government is more durable then Monarchicall For Princes will hold their wonted wayes they will not change their resolutions much lesse will they give place to others that are better fitted for entertaining the opportunities or change of times Petrus Soderinus a man for his moderation and wisedome fit to have governed an Empire did as hee thinkes overthrow himselfe and the Florentine estate by continuing his authoritie being unable to put off his wonted lenitie and patience in times requiring austere imperious reformation Whereas Pope Iulius the second plaied the Lyon all his time with the Foxes luck the more he was cursed for his impetuous insolency the stronger hee grew no thankes to him or his witt but to the times which had they changed he must have fallen But was not Septimius Afer for his native severitie aswell fitted to the impetuous disposition of the Roman Empire when he undertook it as any medicine can be to the malady for which it is by art prepared And