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
of Heart For * Rev. 13.8 The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the World tho' not actually yet so as to be the Object of Divine Prescience unless you will say he was slain from the foundation of the World and yet God knew not of it It was then foreknown unto God that the Lamb would he actually slain before they that slew him had done good or evil So that if God do enforce whatever he foreknows then they who crucified our Saviour were under a necessity of doing it from the foundation of the World and they who shall be seduced by Antichrist to believe a Lye and so be damned have been about sixteen hundred years under a satal Decree of Damnation And even Adam who all Men grant to have had Free-will must have been under a necessity of falling unless we shall suppose that when God foreordained his dear Son for a * 1 Pet. 1.20 Sacrifice he did not know to what End But the Lamb slain doth suppose Sin to be attoned and that implies Sinners Now there could not be Sinners but some Body must sin first and that being the first Man Adam must by this Argument have sinned not out of choice but unavoidable necessity which is a most horrid and impious absurdity Thus we have at hand three pregnant Instances which do mightily expose the weakness of the Objection The Sin of Adam the Death of Christ the Destruction of Jerusalem The first of these appears to have been certainly foreknown unto God and yet none denies that Adam had power to have stood innocent The second was so particularly foretold by our Saviour himself that the very Persons were pointed out who were the chief Actors in it yet Had they known they would not have cruoified the Lord of Glory The third likewise was largely and punctually prophecied yet had * Mat. 23.36 Jerusalem known in her day the things which belonged to her peace Christ says †Luke 19.42 He would have gathered her Children together as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings but she would not So that in these great Events we may easily discern a reserv'd condition and an evident possibility of having been otherwise tho' they were all known unto God from the Foundation of the World For in case of right Judgment and Information possible enough to have been attain'd Adam had not sinned Christ had not suffered Jerusalem had not been ruin'd They were all indeed foreseen in their Causes and those Causes were sure to produce their proper Effects so far as they were permitted that is God foresaw that Men left to their Liberties and their Lusts would make a false Estimate of things and would be sure to act accordingly but yet such foresight had no Causality upon such Actions as hath been said nor could there be any inforcement from God upon such Events whereby the Liberty of free Agents was in the least diminished if the Scriptures be admitted for truth But here I would not be misunderstood as if I thought God to be an unactive beholder of all those Transactions which are foretold by Prophecy Surely he is too much a Cause of all things to be a Nude Spectator of any one Action and certain Events I grant to have been as well predetermin'd as prophecy'd of which I shall give Instance presently When God purposeth to have any thing brought about he can easily set Agents at work and remove Impediments he can turn Mens Hearts like Rivers of Water yet never so as to put any preternatural force upon the Will to do evil For the course of Divine Providence tho' invisible to us I conceive to be so laid and things dependent by God's disposal in such a Series and Concatenation that various Causes and Contingents shall concur to operate upon Mens Faculties in such sort as to make them willing to act their Parts unknown oft-times unto themselves in order to effect the Almighty's Purpose Upon which Account I am apt to believe that even in reference to those Events that are under a peremptory Decree most of the Actors that bring them about are as much free Agents as is the Husband man in his choice of a fit season to plow his ground But however the things I mainly insist upon are these that since Men derive that strength from God by which they Blaspheme his Name and violate his Laws God must be the primary Cause of those Actions but not of the Will wherewith they are done That he doth not Enforce the Volitions unto Evil and yet he fore-knows them And that in divers Instances it doth appear that those Events and Actions have been foreknown unto God of which the immediate Instruments have been free and voluntary Agents as hath already been made evident There is yet another part of the Objection to be considered namely That future contingents are not knowable I confess they are inscrutable to us to whom they are contingent but to God there can be no such thing for he that makes any thing contingent unto God leaves him obnoxious to Surprize and Disappointment and consequently under great Difficulty of Governing the World For the clearing of this point let us lay down for a ground-work what I hope is not denied by any that I am concerned with namely that God Almighty knows most perfectly all things present and let us see whether this will not both infer the knowledge of things to come and take away all contingency with respect unto God And by the way let us observe the knowledge of Mankind which tho' very dim and imperfect even in things now existent and before our Eyes yet extends in some degree to things both past and future The Historian is acquainted with many revolutions of former Ages and from a parity of Reason may foresee some that are to come The Physitian that understands in any competent Measure the Nature of a Medicine knows from whence it derives it's Original what are it's constitutent Principles and how it will operate The Mechanist that understands an Engine knows how it was made the parts of which it is composed and what Feats it will perform The Philosopher that enquires into the Reasons of Things and the Agency of Bodies with the various Affections of Matter and Motion can tell before hand the success of divers Experiments and Undertakings which are in the dark to other People And the Astronomer can tell the future Appearances of Heaven as was noted before Now if all this and much more result from Man's imperfect knowledge of a few things we must sure conclude something further from God's most perfect knowledge of all things especially if we add hereunto the consideration of his Dominion and Soveraignty over all Creatures The World is a great Machine or Engine which God made at first and still upholds its Being and Motion by the Word of his Power Not so much as an Atome can stir but by Vertue derived from him Shall we then
such causes were operating could not foresee the effects But the case is not so with God it is not yet come to that pass that because Men cannot foresee contingent Events that therefore we must conclude that God cannot do it neither For as Wind and Weather are in his Hands and obey his Will so Voluntary good Actions flow originally from the Holy Spirit and evil Actions are permitted as the Devils were to enter into the Swine Nor can wicked Agents go one hair's breadth beyond their appointed limits And even permission it self doth imply Fore-knowledge for how can any one be said to have permitted what he knew not of before it was done I hope that to evade this Argument there 's none will say that God gives to wicked men a general Licence to do what they please whilst he in the mean time knows not in particular what wickedness they will commit until they have acted it For besides that this Character is exactly suited unto Satan in his Kingdom of Darkness it destroys Divine Providence root and branch for how can God limit or over-rule to his own good Ends and Purposes those Events whereof he hath no particular foresight or how can he be said in such a case to govern the World at all But as concerning the Nature of a Voluntary Action I have spoken before I shall only add in this place that since God knows most perfectly the heart of Man and what causes are interested in forming of his Judgment how far the Will follows the Dictate of the Understanding and of right Reason or whether it is captivated by Senfual Appetite and by the lusts that war in his Members Since God I say doth infallibly know the Springs of all Actlons whether from Sense from Reason or from Grace and to what degrees any kind of External or Internal force can bend those Springs he must of necessity know what Man purely lest to his own Faculties will do upon any occasion I have insisted longer upon this Objection as also upon the Non-causality of Divine Prescience than some perhaps will think to have been necessary but because the sence of the Objection is said to come from Persons of very great Learning and Reason and I did my self hear it strongly urged that Prescience must needs cause the things Foreseen I thought it not amiss to enlarge a little upon both the Points in order to clear them up to common Understandings but whether I have done it to Satisfaction I must leave to the Readers Judgment The sum of what I have said in reference to this last mentioned which I discoursed of before is this that to affirm Divine Prescience to have a Causality in such sort that the Events foreseen could not possibly have fallen out otherwise is Abusurd and it is false It is Absurd because it puts the Cart before the Horse and makes that to be a cause which is purely an effect and it is False because it is contrary to the word of Truth contained in the Scriptures I shall now conclude this part of my Essay with the words of the Schoolman * Suarez Neque hinc eriam fit ut per hanc Praescientiam Deus imponat necessitatem aliquam rebus sic cognitis quia haec Scientia ut sic non est earum causa It doth not follow from hence that God by his Fore-knowledge imposeth any necessity upon the things so known because this knowledge as such is not the Cause of them But before I come to the last part of my Design I must make a short Digression to prevent an Objection that may arise from what I said not long ago namely That the Divine Will was the fountain Cause of all things as being the first Mover for no doubt God is the first cause of all Motion tho' he never determines any exerted by a free Agent to a wrong Object and all things being wrought as the Apostle says after the Counsel of his Will From hence it may be urged That tho' Divine Prescience have no causality yet since we grant that the Divine Will is the first cause of all things nor can we deny that whatever God wills he certainly foresees doth it not follow from hence that all things must come to pass according to the fixed Purpose and Preordination of God in such sort that the Will of Man must needs be over-rul'd and predetermin'd and consequently the free-agency of rational Creatures wholly evacuated I answer this will by no means follow as may appear from the consideration of the following particulars 1. Though God foresees whatever he will have brought to effect yet we cannot say on the contrary that he wills every thing he foresees God 't is true wills even the sinful Actions which he foresees but with a will permissive of them not effective perfectly knowing as a Wise Man would shrewdly guess what Persons so and so inclined will do in such and such Circumstances being only Inabled not Impelled to act and being left to follow their own Inclinations And so he may certainly foresee many things which he never wills by a positive and effectively determinative will He equally foresees all things that come to pass otherwise he would be deficient in point of Knowledge but we must not say he wills them Equally For that would be to approve of evil and so he would be deficient in point of Goodness For instance he predetermin'd Israel's Deliverance from Egyptian Bondage and he likewise foretold it So that herein his Purpose and Foresight run Parallel But then he foretold Pharaoh's Obstinacy in detaining the People at the same time when he will'd him to let them go and herein his Foresight and express Will are quite contrary He wills that Men should fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and not only so but that they should do it out of * Josh 24.14 15. free choice arising from a true Judgment of things yet he soreknows that some will be Disobedient and Iniquity shall abound †Mat. 24.12 He wills that his chosen People be with him and see his Glory ‖ Jo. 17.24 and he knows it shall be so he knows that others will dye in their Sins but he hath sworn he wills it not (a) Mat. 19.28 Whatever God hath proclaim'd is an undoubted Object of Divine Prescience but every Object of Divine Prescience is not therefore preordain'd nor agreeable to his Will Good things are equally the Objects of Divine Pleasure and Foresight but we cannot say the like of Evil. We may say indeed that God foresees an Evil Action but we cannot say he would have it done nor that he hath power to do it for both these would imply a contradiction since 't is purely inconsistent with the Divine Nature to have either Will or Power to do evil A second Consideration is this That tho' the Divine Will be truly and unchangeably one and the same yet is it distinguishable