Catholic Theology Plain Pure Peaceable

is commanded us by God, and yet at the same time men's death decreed: Because the thing indeed commanded, is not Preservation as it signifieth the effect and success, but only Preservation as it signifieth our true endeavor. So the Jews were forbidden to kill Christ, and yet God decreed that Christ should be killed: For the thing forbidden them was their own Consent and wicked act: But the thing that God willed and decreed was only the effect, without any Will of their Act that caused it (unless in genere actus,) but only a permission of it. Men of gross brains that cannot distinguish and judge accurately, may blaspheme God in their ignorance, in a case that to a discerning judgment is very plain.

355. The next distinction of God's Will, is into Absolute and Conditional; which some Divines use and others condemn, and say that God hath no Conditional Will. The common answer which most Schoolmen and other Papists agree with the Protestants in, is, that there are Conditions rei volitae of the event of the thing Willed, but no Conditions of the act of Volition in God. As Aquinas saith of Causes, Deus vult hoc esse propter hoc; non autem propter hoc vult hoc. 1. There are both Causes and Conditions of the event willed of God. 2. Denominatione extrinseca ex connotatione objecti his Will is hence called Conditional; meaning but a Volition of Conditionals.

356. That God willeth Conditions, and Conditional Propositions, and Grants, is past all controversies. For he willeth his own word, which is his work: But his word hath conditional promises and threats: And as his word also may be called his will, he hath a Conditional will, because a Conditional word.

357. God's eternal Omniscience proveth, that at no instant he had a will properly Conditional quoad actum: Because he that at the same instant fore-knoweth whether the Condition would be done or not, must needs have his will to be thereby absolute. But yet if it had pleased God to suspend the Act of his own Volition, upon a human Condition, it would not have exposed him at all to the charge either of mutability or dependence: which is very clear. For 1. It is presupposed his Will as Voluntas & Essentia is unalterable, and is not that of which we speak. 2. But only his Volition as terminated on this or that object, and so as haec volitio ab objecto denominata. 3. And his efficient Volition, and Power is terminated on objects in time, without mutation in God. 4. And N. B. that God doth suspend his own Possible Volitions in many cases; As he doth Not will to make more Worlds, more Men, more Suns, more Laws, &c. than de facto he will make. 5. And it is no more defectiveness in God to suspend a Volition for a time, than thus to do it forever. 6. And it is no more Dependence on the Creature to Terminate his Volition only on a qualified subject (performing the Condition) than to terminate his Efficient Power and will on such or such a qualified subject. As e. g. He terminateth his Omnipotent Concurse for Generation only on the materia seminalis recte disposita; He concurreth to burn by fire, &c. And if his Acts effectively Transient may be terminated only and temporarily on disposed objects, If he did so in acts Objectively Transient, and did freely not-will the damnation of man till he had actually sinned, but suspended his will freely till then, and then de novo terminated it on the said qualified object, I see no show of Dependence or Mutability. For I oft cleared it before, that the termination of God's Knowledge, Will or Power on any particular Object, is in him no addition to its estence; And doing it de novo, is no change in him but in the Creature only; no more than it would be a change in the Sun or its active Emanations, if a thousand new creatures newly receive its Influx and are moved by it variously according to their several Conditions. Yet I have before given reasons why incipere jam praedestinare is more incongruous language.

358. I put in this only to deprecate the blind uncharitable censures of dissenters in this point, who think that God's Volitions are New and Conditional and suspended, quoad actum hunc ad hoc objectum; and cry out, It is blasphemy, and maketh God mutable and dependent. I am against their opinion as well as you as to Conditional Acts: But false charges prove you not to have more truth, but less love and sobriety than others.

359. XI. The next distinction of God's Will is into Effectual and Uneffectual. And here he that would see a great deal said on the question, Whether God have any ineffectual Will, and whether man's will can frustrate it, may see too much in a multitude of Schoolmen on 1 Sent. q. 45. & 46. Some answer (as D'Orbellis, &c.) that the Voluntas Beneplaciti is ever effectual, but not the Vol. signi; which yet seeing he well explaineth to be only the making of Duty, he might well have said is still effectual to its proper primary effect. Greg. Arimin. (and many others) distinguish of the will of Complacency and Displicency, and that Prosecutionis & fugae; and say the latter is effectual, and not the former: which others say of the Absolute Will as distinct from the Conditional. The plain truth I have oft opened before: God's Will is the first Efficient, the chief Dirigent, and the Final Cause; (in which the three Principles, Power, Wisdom and Goodness are eminet.) 1. His efficient will is ever effectual, and never frustrate. Whatsoever pleased the Lord (to do) that he did, in Heaven and in Earth, in the Sea and in the depths, Psal. 135. 6. And who hath resisted (this) his will? Rom. 9. 19. 2. His Directing will is ever effectual as to the making of the Law or Rule, and of Due or Right thereby: For so far it is efficient of that effect: But it is too oft violated by our sin. 3. His final will or Complacency is God's being pleased with the Being, or Action, or relation of the Creature, and supposing it, is not efficient, and therefore not effectual. And I know no need of more upon this question.

360. XII. The last now to be named is, The Antecedent and Consequent. will. This also is handled by many Schoolmen, and much used by the Jesuits and Arminians. To pass by others, Pennottus handleth it propugn. l. 4. c. 21. having first shown, c. 20. p. 225. that Chrysostom and Damascene first used it. His explicatory Propositions are, 1. Vol. Antec. & Cons. non est in Deo respectu omnium Volitorum, sed solum respectu • orum quae aliquo modo pendent ex lib. arbitrio creaturae. 2. Voluntas antecedens est illa qua Deus vult hominis salutem quantum in ipso est, & qua illum ad salutem ordinat, & media ad salutem necessaria praeparat, quibus nisi per ipsum hominem steterit, salutem assequatur. 3. Non semper Voluntas antecedens & Consequence circa objecta contraria versantur, sed potest idem objectum esse Volitum à Deo Voluntate tum antecedente tum consequente. 4. Voluntas antecedens in Deo est Voluntas beneplaciti, & non solum voluntas signi. 5. Voluntas antecedens est formaliter & proprie in Deo existens, & non solum per metaphoram ad eum modum, quo Voluntas signi.

361. I tell you their sense, that I may the better open the plain truth to you, which is as followeth. 1. This distinction of Vol. antec. & cons. is not applied to God as he is our Creator, or End, nor as he is mere Proprietor or Benefactor; but only as he is Rector, or Moral Ruler of man. 2. As Government hath an Antecedent and Consequent part, viz. Legislation and Judgment (with Execution) so God's Antecedent will is nothing but his Legal will, or his Will as Rector signified by his Laws: And his Consequent will, is his Judicial will, or expressed in Judgment; One Antecedent to Mans part (obedience or disobedience) and the other Consequent to it. 3. It is most certain that God willeth Antecedently all that is in his Law, that is, that all that believe and repent shall be saved: And that he willeth Consequently that Judas e. g. and every finally impenitent unbeliever shall be damned. For what God doth, that he willeth to do: But God doth himself make such a Law, and pass such a judgment: Ergo he is willing of it.

SECT. XV. Of the Order of God's Decrees by way of Intention and Execution.

362. THere is no part of this Controversy more contentiously and I fear presumptuously and too audaciously handled, than this of the Intentional order of God's Decrees. Of which many have said much, but no man hath laid so great a stress on it as those two very good men Dr. Twisse and his follower Samuel Rutherford. But on this supposition we have had many very bold Schemes of God's Intentional Decrees given us; of which you may see some in worthy. Mr. Perkins Golden Chain, and in Beza, and out of him in English his Tractate published with Mr. Gilbies of Predestination, and in Piscator, and others.

363. By this way the Anti arminians are fallen into the distinct parties, of Sublapsarians, and Supralapsarians; And these into two parties; one making man as not existent in esse cognito, the other man in innocence, the object of Predestination.

364. 1. The common way is to distribute the Means among themselves, as any of them are subservient to others, as their end, and so to make a great many of Decrees or parts of the Decree, first of the ultimate end, and then of the next, and the next to that, and so on, till you come to the first means which is no end; as the Writer imagineth them to lie.

365. 2. The second way is invented as Conciliatory by Dr. Twisse (and so it is) viz. that God hath but two Decrees, one de fine, and the other de mediis, and that all the media are the objects but of one Decree, and so that we need not trouble the Church with disputing which of them is first or last.

366. 3. A third opinion I have long ago read in a MS. of Animadversions on Dr. Twisse by a Learned Judicious and Godly Doctor (yet living) who proveth that God hath but one Decree de fine & de mediis, which casteth away all the matter of the Controversies about the priority and posteriority. And it were well if the Controversy were so ended.

367. 4. Many Arminians write as if the order of Intention and of Execution were the same, and so begin at the other end, and give us a Scheme just contrary to the first sort, (Beza, Perkins, &c.)

368. 5. Some hold that Intendere finem is proper to the imperfect creature, and not belonging to God; and therefore that he hath no order of Intention in his decrees at all, because no proper end.

369. 6. Some hold that the whole business of the order of Intention is utterly beyond our reach: And therefore that we should meddle only with the order of Execution: Thus saith the most judicious Bishop Davenant soundly, Dissert. de Praedest. & Reprob. cap. 9. pag. 209. Haec argumentatio (Corvini) vocat nos ad speculationem valde difficilem & dogmaticae Theology fundandae minime accommodatam. Nititur enim consideratione Prioritatis & Posterioritatis in illis duobus Voluntatis Divinae decretis de dando Mediator & de Electis servandis, quae utraque ab aeterno fuere concepta & constituta. Ad me quod attinet, scio ordinem Executionis, secundum quem Deus voluit beneficia ad homines pervenire, nullo negotio poss • delineari: At quo ordine Deus consignata ea tenuit ab aeterno in mente ac voluntate sua, is solus enarrare praesumat, qui se Deo ab arcanis & aternu consiliis etiam affirmare audeat. Fatemur Deum ab aeterno constituisse, ut omnibus salvandis Christus primo in loco proponeretur, dein per fidem apprehenderetur, hinc ut eorundem justificatio sequeretur, tum sanctificatio, & demum Glorificatio. Sed siquis minime contentus hoc ordine exequutionis velit etiam nobis describere seriem Decretorum Divinorum ordine conceptionis in mente & Voluntate Dei quasi distinctam, atque urgeat cum Arminio Divinam justitiam impugnari nisi hoc consideretur ut illo prius, is mihi videtur nimium ingenio suo fidere.

And he citeth Gabr. Biel in 3. d. 2. q. dub. 3. saying Prioritates illas in Divinis hisce decretis non esse ponendas, sicut nec pluralitates actuum ordinatorum. Ac proinde siquis considerare velit talem ordinem horum decretorum ut ponat Christi incarnationem electione priorem, vel e contra, hanc considerationem esse falsam specnlationem.

370. Dr. Twisse who reduceth them to two, excludeth man's salvation from the Decree de fine, and thus enumerateth the decreed Means: [1. The Permission of sin (of which more anon.) 2. The gift of a Savior. 3. The grace of Vocation, Faith, Repentance and Perseverance. 4. The Salvation of persevering penitent believers.] And so as to the ultimate end only [quod Prius est intention, posterius est executione.] But that the order of execution only is to be observed among the Means.

371. The matter itself (or at least my thoughts of it) I shall open as plainly as I can with brevity. First premising that their own doctrine should take them off their confidence and contention about this order of intention. For, 1. They oft tell us that all God's Decrees are eternal without any order of Time. And should we not then be afraid of boldness about any other order?

372. 2. They oft tell us, that Prescience and Science, Predestination and Destination are all one in God, and not to be thought of as acts past and ceased.

373. 3. They oft tell us, that God is one, and his Will is himself; and his Decrees are his Will, and therefore are all but one.

374. 4. They cannot deny but that all our conceptions of God are improper, and analogical or metaphorical more or less; and that what Knowledge and Will in God is formally, no mortal knoweth. And should we dispute then audaciously about this Order?

375. 5. None can deny, but that these Mysteries require the highest reverence, and that it's dreadful to take God's Name in vain, and dally with the Consuming fire. And yet shall we presume?

376. 6. They all confess that our Lord Jesus, his Prophets, Apostles, or Scriptures, lead them not this way, and decide not these Controversies, so as that they can stand to their decision alone.

377. 7. They cannot deny, but that desiring arrogantly to be as God's in Knowledge, was our first Parents sin, that ruined them and us, and that this was Satan's first successful game. And that our disease is like to be such as its original.

378. 8. Lastly, They cannot choose but know, that it is the troubling of the Church with new Articles, and new practices, and leading them from the simplicity that is in Christ, even as the Serpent beguiled Eve, (with the promise of more knowledge,) which hath been the great plague and divider of the Churches in all Ages; though the Apostle foretold them that It was this that he feared of them. And are we not self-condemned, if after all this, we will censure and reproach one another, and foment divisions for that which most certainly no mortal understandeth?

379. I. And first your very foundation is uncertain, that God doth properly Intendere finem. Nay, it is certain that (as Aquinas afore-cited saith) though Vult hoc esse propter hoc, non tamen propter hoc vult hoc. He prescribeth Ends to Man, and setteth Ends to Means which are fi • es operis; But that he Intendeth an End Himself, must be said very improperly, or very uncertainly, or not at all. The truth is, that we must say that God doth finem intendere, because we must speak of him after the manner of men, or not at all. But it is not true in the same sense as we speak it of man, and as the word properly signifieth; but equivocally.

380. For, 1. To Intend an End, is to make that End a Cause why we choose the means (as most say:) But God's Election or Actions have no Cause. All deny that there is in God Cause and Effects; or that propter hoc vult hoc.

381. 2. In man to Intend an End, doth imply that a man yet wanteth his end; and that it is somewhat that he needeth, or at least doth not yet obtain. But God needeth nothing, and hath no end that is desired or wanting, nor but what he continually possesseth or enjoyeth, as well now as hereafter.

382. 3. We know no such thing as Intendere finem where the Act and the End are the same. Intendere is not the same with Finis. But in God they are the same: He that is most simple hath no Intention, which is not Himself, and no End which is not Himself, and so both are one.

383. 4. Our Intendere finem is not the same really with Electio mediorum. But God hath no Intention but what is really the same with Election, though not denominatively, connotatively and relatively.

384. 5. Divines usually say, that Nothing below God himself can be his End. But where there is no means, there is no End or intention of it. But to God there is no Means. He is not a Means of himself; And no creature can be a means of him: If we say, that anything can be a means ut Deus sit, vel ut sit Maximus, Sapientissimus, Optimus, it were no better than Blasphemy. God then hath not an End like man.

385. Yet necessity constraineth us to use the phrase, but these things must still be understood when we use it. 1. That no creature can be God's End; unless you will call an object as terminative, an End; or else an Effect.

386. 2. That it is not God's Essence and perfections that is an end as to any medium; But it is his Will: For his Free Will is the Beginning, and the Complacency of that Will is the End of all things. But if you call God his own Object, and so call the final Object an End, so we must consider God as Loving Himself; and Himself is the End or final object of his own Love or Complacency; and he himself as Loving himself, is said to Act on that End or Object. And indeed eternal self-knowledge and self-love (which some of old ventured to call the second and third Persons) are the Great Immanent Acts of the Divine Essence, (with the sibi vivere.) And it seemeth the chief Notion of Holiness in God, that he Loveth Himself in primo instanti, and that he is most Amiable to his Creatures in secundo instanti, and that he is the Cause and End of all that is good in them. Thus a final object of his own and our Love or Complacency, God is past all doubt. And secondarily his Will is pleased and fulfilled in all his works.

387. 3. Yet by that Complacency we mean not that God is passive, or receiveth any Delight from the Creature, or hath any addition by it to his felicity: But as he is a Communicative Good by way of Efficiency as the first efficient Cause, so is he a felicitating Good to the Creature as its End, and he is Love taking the creature into its nearest Communion with him: which is his Complacency, and the End of all things. And hence it is that God is said when he had finished his works, to Rest complacentially in all as very Good.

388. 4. As the Complacency of God's Will is his End, in the formal notion (so far as it may be said of God) so his Glory is his End in the Material notion.

389. That his Glory is not Formally his End, is confessed by all Divines who say that nothing below God can be his End. But by his Glory is meant something below himself; some creature, or action of the creature. Ergo, &c. For if by his Glory be meant Himself, there is no Means to such an end.

390. Therefore by God's Glory is meant the shining luster of his Image; or the Appearance of God in his Works: And not only man's Praising and Glorifying thoughts and words of him: which though they are our highest duty, are unfit to be God's End, alone. Yet are they part of that Glory which is materially his End, though not the whole.

391. This Glory or Appearance of God, which is materially his End, is, 1. The perfection of the whole Creation. 2. Next that the Glory of the Celestial Kingdom, containing Christ and all the holy ones. 3. Next that the Glory of Christ's own person alone. 4. Next that the Glory of the Holy ones alone, &c.

392. Because this perfection of the Universe is not yet accomplished, but shall be, improperly we may say that God hath not yet attained his End, that is, his Material End.

393. 5. But properly and formally God's End is never unattained: Because his Will is never unfulfilled, though the things willed be not yet perfected. For when e. g. the first days work was made, all was done which he then willed to be done, and so for the second day, &c. And now all is done which he would have now done: And his Will is ever perfectly pleased; And he wanteth nothing. So that an End not attained, is not to be ascribed to God, except materially.

394. Thus God is said to have made all things for himself, Prov. 16. 4. Because for His Pleasure they are, and were created, Rev. 4. 11.

395. For his Decreeing disposing Will is fulfilled by all, even the wicked that are for the day of Evil: Though his Commanding Will being not fulfilled by sinners, according to that he is said to have no pleasure in them, but to hate them, Psal. 5. 5. Heb. 10. 38. Mal. 1. 10. Ezek. 18. 32. 23. & 33. 11. Jer. 22. 28. & 48. 38. Eccles. 5. 4. Psal. 5. 4, &c.

396. And lest any think that thus God misseth of his End, let it be well noted, 1. That this phrase of God's taking no pleasure, is objectively both Positive, Privative and Oppositive, that is, It signifieth that God will deprive the wicked of felicity, or the Communion of his Love, and will load them with sorrows, and will set himself against their Comforts. But 2. As to God's own Complacency of will, it is but equal to a negative: His felicity lieth not in theirs: And so as God's will hath no actual Complacency in Nothings (as in more Worlds, or Creatures, than ever will be) and yet his Complacency is perfect; so though he have no Complacency in the Holiness or Salvation of those that are never Holy or Saved, yet his Complacency is perfect.

397. There is no doubt but Man hath Ends and Means, because God hath so appointed it, and made him not in a state of perfection, but in via: Yea, Angels have an End and every creature, because defective dependent beings; even in a formal sense.

398. God is this Ultimate End of man, as he is to be perfectly Loved and Pleased; to which all are means: And the means are ordered as Ends to one another.

399. Usually where the Scriptures and Preachers do speak of God as the End, and of Intention of Ends, they mean Mans Intention and End, prescribed him by God. But if they speak of God's, they mean only, formally the fulfilling of his will, and materially his Glory, or the perfecting of his works.

400. The finis operis as distinct from the finis operantis is nothing but the aptitude and tendency of the work to the Authors Intended End, or to some effect: Not that the opus quà opus finem intendit.

401. If all these difficulties lie in the way, Whether and how far God intend an End at all, judge how far it is fit to contend about the Mental Order of his Intentions, and whether Judicious Davenant was not in the right.

402. II. If it were granted, that Quod prius est Intentione, posterius est executione, nothing would follow to gratify either party in these Controversies. For all would be but this, that [God Intended Himself, and the Fulfilling or Complacency of his own Will, before he willed anything else that ever cometh to pass.] And what's this to the business?

403. But they say, It is his Glory that he first intended: I answered before, His Glory is, 1. Himself (and then it's the same which I asserted:) or 2. a Creature (and then it is not formally his End.) 2. His Glory as it is his Compleat Image on the whole perfected World, is his End indeed Materially: But that is but to be the Compleat Means: The perfected means may improperly be called his End: But forma denominat.

404. When they say, that it is the Glory of his Mercy and Justice, 1. They say but the same and need no other answer. 2. They speak very defectively: For it is to ascribe to God a defective Decree or Intention, which is not for the glory of all his revealed perfections: Doubtless whatever is materially the perfect means of glorifying God, must glorify his Greatness and Active Power or Life, his Wisdom and his Goodness, and therein his Veracity or fidelity, his Justice and his Holiness, his Benignity and mercy, his Immutability, Independency, &c. All this must be in the means itself.

405. If Mr. Perkins, Beza, Gilbie and many other good men had well considered this, they had never made the glorifying of God's Mercy and Justice in the salvation of some and the damnation of others, God's ultimate end; Thereby committing many palpable errors. 1. Making quid Creatum vel Creaturae to be formally or properly God's end, which is but a Means. 2. Making one little parcel of that means, to be the end. 3. Inserting two acts or parts only of that which they themselves confess to be but Means. For what should the names of Salvation and Damnation do in the description of the end? Are they any part of the end? Why is not Redemption, Justification, Sanctification, Preservation, Resurrection, &c. as well put in? Is he not Glorified in them as well as in final salvation or damnation? Yea and in Creation and the fr • me of nature too? Yea why is not the glory of Angels, and all the world put in, as part of the same means to his end?

406. If it be said that it is only God's Glory of Mercy and Justice in men • salvation and damnation which is the end of Redemption, Conversion, Preaching, Ordinances, Sanctification, Adoption, &c. 1. I deny it: His Power, Wisdom and Goodness, and his forementioned subordinate attributes are thereby Glorified also. 2. It is an injury to God unworthy of a Divine, to make God to have as many distinct ultimate ends, as they think there are particular aptitudes or tendencies in the means.

407. For undoubtedly we must feign in God no more ultimate ends than one. And undoubtedly the means consisting of innumerable parts, make up one perfect whole, in which God's Glory shineth so, as it doth not in any part alone. And he that will cut God's frame into scraps and shreds, and set up the parts as so many wholes, will more dishonor him than he that would so mangle a Picture, or a Watch, or Clock, or House, or the pipes of an Organ, or the strings of a Lute, and tell you of their beauty and Harmony only distinctly. Well therefore did Dr. Twisse reduce all the Decrees de mediis to one: But they are one in their apt composition for one end: And the Glory of Sun, and Stars, and Angels, and the whole Creation is a part, and the Glory of our salvation and damnation is but another part.

408. The order therefore of God's Decrees in respect of the Execution is on • y fit for our debate: (Any farther than that we may moreover say that God's will or Himself is all his ultimate end, and his Glory shining in the perfection of his entire works is the perfect means.) And there is nothing else that we can reasonably controvert. And about this our Controversy is next to none at all. Here we may well inquire what is prius vel posterius, quid superius, quid inferius, &c. and that to our edification.

409. Seeing then that we are agreed (as is said) with Aquinas that Deus non propter hoc vult hoc, sed vult hoc esse propter hoc, that which we have to do is but to inquire, 1. De re, how one thing is a Cause or other means of another; 2. And so how God Decreed it to work and be.

410. And 1. It is agreed that the Creation was God's first work (that we know of or have anything to do with:) This had (as to the first part) no Antecedent Object, but produceth its effect, which some call its object. But the latter days works had an antecedent object, and also a produced effect. And accordingly God Decreed from Eternity that this should be his first work. From whence by connotation that may be called, his first Decree.

411. That sin or the Permission of sin, or other mere Negatives, are not to have place among the asserted Means and Decrees, I am anon in due place to manifest.

412. 2. God having made man, did give him a Law both Natural and Positive: This was next done, and therefore decreed to be next done.

413. 3. Man having broke this Law, God judged him, and laid on him some indispensible penalties. This was decreed to be done in the third place.

414. 4. At the same time God promised Man the victory by the Woman's Seed, and giving him pardon of the destructive penalty, became his Redeemer, and put him under a Covenant of Grace; first given to mankind in Adam, and afterwards in Noah. And this was decreed to be so done.

415. 5. Though all were thus put under this Covenant, and God forsook none that first forsook not him, yet did he give more Grace to some, than to others, to Abel, e. g. than to Cain, so that those that did actually repent and believe and live to God, were justified and adopted and made heirs of life. And thus he decreed to do.

416. 6. Perseverance also was the effect of his special Grace, which accordingly is Decreed to be given.

417. 7. The Cainites, Canaanites and others that were the wicked Seed of wicked Parents, who forsook him and his Grace, he accordingly judged, punished and forsook: And so decreed.

418. 8. The Seed of the faithful he eminently blessed, especially of Abraham; whom he took (by reward) into a further special Covenant, superadded to the common Covenant of Grace, taking his Seed into a peculiar political and gracious relation to him, promising the multiplication and prosperity of them, and that the Savior should come out of them: All which was so decreed to be done.

419. 9. The Messiah came in the fullness of time, and did and suffered all that is mentioned in the Gospel: And gave us a more perfect Edition of the Covenant of Grace, and greater grace with it, even more of the Spirit, with a better Ministry, Ordinances and Church-state: Which were so decreed to be done.

420. 10. To some Nations of the Earth this second Edition of the Covenant of Grace, (that is, the Gospel) is freely promulgate or Preached, who deserved it no more than others, while others for sin are left under the first darker Edition, and under desertions and grievous punishments, for their forefathers and their own violation of it.

421. 11. Where the Gospel cometh among many that all deserve rejection for the resisting of grace, God giveth to some that grace which infallibly Converteth them, and consequently justifieth, adopteth and sanctifieth them. All which he decreed.

422. 12. Giving also Perseverance as aforesaid, he finally justifieth all such in Judgment, and Glorifieth (Christ first, and) them with Christ: singly and conjunctly at the final consummation. And he Decreed to do all this accordingly.

423. If the Decree of God be called but One, for the Reasons before given, the Controversy is then at an end: But if it must be distinguished and called Many Decrees or parts, it must be either from the Effects o • from the supposed objects.

424. 1. If from the Effects, there will be no Controversy about the Decrees but what is first about the Effects themselves. And most of them now named are uncontroverted.

425. 2. And we cannot well denominate and distinguish the Decrees from anything else but the Effects, (even as we do his operations, as Creation, Redemption, &c.) But the objects then are past doubt such as follow.

426. Viz. 1. The object of the Decree of Creation as such (distinct from the Effect) is Nothing: that is, There is no object.

427. 2. The object of the Decree of Legislation is man considered merely in his Being and Naturals as such.

428. 3. The object of the Decree of the first Judgment, was man newly fallen.

429. 4. The object of the Decree of the giving of the Promise of Christ, the New Covenant in the first Edition and pardon and grace by it, was fallen man first judged.

430. 5. The object of the Common grace of that Covenant from first to last, is fallen judged man brought under that Covenant of grace (ut norma officii, judicii & beneficii.)

431. 6. The object of the Special grace of God (at first) viz. for effectual Conversion, to men under that Covenant, was the same as last mentioned, Man brought under the Covenant of grace; of whom 1. Some were prepared and disposed by Common grace for Special. 2. And it's like some not, but suddenly surpirzed by mercy.

432. 7. The object of Abraham's special promise, (besides the Common Covenant of grace) was Abraham eminent in faith and self-denying obedience to God: And afterward his Seed for his sake.

433. 8. The Object of the actual gift of Christ incarnate, and the perfect Edition of the New Covenant by him, was the sinful world that had transgressed both the Law of Innocency and the first Edition of the Covenant of grace, and the Jews that had broken Moses 's Law.

434. 9. The object of the gift of the Gospel as promulgate or published is the same, adding, the world as now Redeemed by the Actual sacrifice, Merits and Resurrection of Christ incarnate.

435. 10. The object of the Commonest grace of the Gospel Covenant, is Redeemed man brought under this Covenant as the Norma officii, judicii & beneficiorum (quoad jus;) or, subditi obligati.

436. 11. The object of the grace of this Covenant proper to the Visible Church, and common to its members, are Visible Christians, or Baptized Professors.

437. 12. The object of the first effectual grace of saving Conversion (saith and repentance) is certain persons Redeemed and brought under the obligation of this new Covenant; Of whom some are prepared by common grace, and (it's like) some are not.

438. 13. The object of the gift pardon, justification, adoption, the spirit of sanctification and right to life, (and all this in Christ by union) is a Penitent Believer, and the seed of such dedicated in Covenant to God.

439. 14. The object of many acts of auxiliary grace, and of higher degrees of grace is (ordinarily) such as have well used former degrees of special grace: But also, who God is freely pleased to give it to.

440. 15. The object of the grace of Perseverance is the same last mentioned: If not all the Justified; which I reserve as almost our only real Controversy to handle in its proper place in the next Chapter.

441. 16. The object of the Act of Raising the dead is all the world, as appeareth in Joh. 5. 22. to 32.

442. 17. The object of the Justification of the soul alone at the first appearance is, the soul of a member of Christ, or one faithful and persevering in his Covenant: or a Saint.

443. 18. The object of the final justification of the whole man, is a Saint • isen from the dead.

444. 19. The object of Glorifying Grace, is a member of Christ, or a Saint thus finally Justified (either in soul first, or in soul and body after as is said.)

445. 20. The object of God's greatest felicitating complacency is the Glorified Church of all the holy ones: And the object of his utmost universal complacency in the Creature, is the Glory of his image shining on the whole Universe in perfection: (As the object (as we may call it) of his Essential Volition, Love or Complacency, is Himself.)

And as these are the objects of the grace thus distinguished by the effects, so are they of the will or Decree of giving it, as denominated according to the order of Execution. Besides which Davenant on one account, and Twisse on another grant that quoad media there is no other for man to know.

446. By this it appeareth that the Corrupted Mass simply considered was the object of no one of all these graces. But the Corrupted Mass as Judged first, and after as Redeemed, and after as under Covenant, &c. Much less was it any effect of God, as corrupt.

447. The corrupted Mass judged, was not as such the object of God's discrimination by Election of some, and rejection of others: For they were commonly brought all under the Covenant of Grace, and had a common sort of grace, before the discrimination.

SECT. XVI. Of the Order of the Decrees called Reprobation. And of Election and Reprobation in themselves.

448. ACcordingly in the order of execution we must reckon the objects of that which some call Reprobation, answerable to what is before said of Election: But order requireth that I first speak of Election and Reprobation as in themselves, what they are.

449. Election as to the etymology I need not explain. It is taken 1. For a Temporary actual Taking one rather than another by way of Choice. Which is 1. By mere Volition, or Election of the will. 2. Or also by manual Apprehension or Executive Election (As a man taketh a woman to wife.) 2. Or it is taken for An Eternal Electing Decree of God.

450. God's Executive Election in Time is twofold 1. By giving one man converting effectual Grace which he giveth not to another. 2. By taking confequently that Converted person to be one of his Adopted and Justified ones, as his choice peculiar treasure.

451. God's Mental Election being an Act of his will, is either his mere Decree of the Event, 2. Or his Decree as efficient, 3. Or else his complacency. The first is eternal. The second is eternal ex parte Dei, but not ex parte effectus. The third is eternal as it is God's essence, but is denominated Temporary by connotation of the object; as also may the second be: About these there needs no quarrel.

452. All the special grace which God giveth in Time, he decreed from Eternity to give: And though some decrees have special objects in esse cogni •• supposed, none of them have a proper exterior cause.

453. It is not possible that any Creature can have any good which is not a pure gift of God, however he may require of man Conditions of Reception, in the order of Collation. Therefore the Decree must nee • s be free.

454. As to the question whether God elect men upon foresight of any good in them, enough is said before to answer it. If the question mean whether God's Knowledge or Volition be first in themselves? I answer, neither; For nothing in him is before or after other. But if God might be spoken of as man, we must say that his Understanding is the first specifying primiciple, and the will the first quoad exercitium actus. And therefore that the Divine understanding represented to his will, the object i • its Eligibility. If the question be what is the objects represented eligibility in esse cognito vel Ideali, it is answered, 1. We must distinguish of the Divine Volitions called Elections by the divers effects: 1. (To pass by the rest) It is one thing to Elect to Glory, or Velle Glorificare; And here the object of Actual Glorification, is a persevering Saint: And you must distinguish God's Volitions by his executions, or not at all (which you had rather.) 2. It is another thing to choose one to the first grace of faith or true Conversion. And here the object of the execution is, as is aforesaid, sometime one prepared by common grace (though without merit,) sometime one extraordinarily wicked: Look over what I said of the objects, and the question of foresight is answered, as far as it belongeth to our enquiry.

455. Those that deny all special arbitrary Election, must deny all special arbitrary effectual differing grace: which I shall prove elsewhere by itself; And now refer such to Davenants Dissertation de praedest. where it is fully proved, and defended.

456. One thing which deceiveth such men is, that they forget that God standeth to man, not only in the Relation of a Rector per Leges, (for so he dealeth equally with all that make not the inequality themselves:) But also as a Proprietor and a Benefactor, in both which Relations he is free to do with his own as he pleaseth. And free Lord's and Benefactors use not to distribute equally their gifts. Nor do they consider that de facto God visibly maketh wonderful inequalities; He maketh not men as great or good as Angels, nor Stars as glorious as the Sun: The whole showeth us admirable variety, arbitrarily made by the great Benefactor, who giveth not to us a Reason of his will.

457. The word [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] Reprobus, in Scripture is used nowhere that I remember, but Rom. 1. 28. 1 Cor. 9. 27. 2 Cor. 13. 5, 6, 7. 2 Tim. 3. 8. Tit. 1. 16. Heb. 6. And the word [Reprobation] is not used at all, as any act of God. But predestination and election are oft used on the better side, and rejecting, hating, forsaking on the other side. And electing implieth that some are not elect.

458. About the object of that which many call Reprobation, be sure to distinguish, between a true object of any Act, circa quod versatur, and which is subjectum inhaesionis, and a mere object of speech, or subjectum praedicationis: Else you will with many be ensnared to think that every subject or object of a predication which in the series of God's judgments you meet with, is the object of some positive act of God.

459. And though we would quarrel with no man about mere words, yet lest words deceive you I add, that as the word Reprobation seemeth to signify a positive Act, and yet a great part of the desertion of the Reprobates is by God's preteritions and not-acting and privations; therefore it is not the whole series that the word Reprobation aptly expresseth, but only some particular Acts.

460. The word Predestinate used Rom. 8. 29, 30. and Ephes. 1. 5. 1 Cor. 2. 5. (it's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 though not spoken of persons) Act. 4. 28. (translated [fore-determined]) when applied to persons is ever taken in Scripture as an act of mercy: And the ancients Augustine, Prosper and Fulgentius use the words [Praedestinati & Praesoiti, the predestinate and the fore-known] as of late men use among us the words Elect and Reprobate.

461. Though men differ as their opinions lead them in the exposition of such texts as Rom. 8. 28, 29, 30. Ephes. 1. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. and some take them to speak of predestinating Individuals, and others only of species, that is, of believers, sufferers, Lovers of God, &c. yet as to the matter itself none that is judicious can or doth deny but that God eternally Predestinateth Individuals; The Jesuits commonly confess it, though they differ on the question, how far it is on fore-sight of faith: But that foreseen Believers individually are eternally elected to salvation, thev cannot deny. And the Learnedst Jesuits maintain that God giveth faith in time, and electeth Individuals to faith itself from eternity: That is, eternally decreed to give them faith, or to give them that Grace by which he fore-knew that in the advantageous circumstances in which he decreed to put them, they would freely, and he deereed should infallibly, believe.

462. The conceit and supposition of many, that Election and Reprobation are such perfect contraries, as that they run pari passu, and that God willeth in the one just as he doth in the other, End and means, for matter and order, is a gross mistake. Augustine, Prosper, Eulgentius and Davenant of late, with many more have shown, that God predestinateth men to Faith, and perseverance, and to Glory, and not only to Glory upon the foresight of faith and perseverance: But that he p • edestinateth or decreeth men to damnation, only on the foresight of final impenitence and infidelity, but not to Impenitence or Infidelity itself.

463. The Grand difficulty that occasioneth all our Controversies herein is, How to discern that God is the Author of all our Good, and yet not the Author of Sin, nor of Damnation saving for sin. And both parties are very desirous to hold and see that both these are true: Nay, both believe them: But they differ only in the way and method of manifesting it.

464. There are three opinions about Reprobation: 1. One is, that • od Positively decreed from eternity to glorify his Justice in the damnation of the most, and to that end to occasion and permit their hardening and unbelief: so that Reprobation is Positive both as to the Act and Object. 2. The other is the opinion of the Synod of Dort (as expressed) defended at large by Davenant and many others, that Reprobation is God's Positive Decree not to give saith and and repentance to the same men, and to damn them for impenitence and infidelity: and so is Positive quoad Actum, but Negative quoad Objectum, (as to the first part, not giving faith.) 3. The third is the Opinion of subtle Scotus and his followers, that in primo instanti Reprobation is Negative quoad Actum & Objectum; that is, It is no Act of God at all, but only a Non-election or preterition: which is I suppose the meaning of Dr. Sterne of Dublin Co • ledge, who hath written a Latin Tractate maintaining that God Reprobateth none, that is, by any Act.

465. The method laid down by Scotus is this, [Offertur Voluntati s •• hunc peccaturum vel peccare: Primo voluntas ejus circa hunc non habet Velle: Velle • nim ipsum habere peccatum non potest. 2. Potest intelligere Voluntatem suam non volentem hoc: & tunc potest velle Volunt • tem suam non velle hoc: & ita dic •• ur Volens sinere, & v • luntarie permittere: sicut ex alia parte praesentato sibi Judah, primo Deu • habet non Velle sibi Gloriam, & non primo Nolle—& potest tun • secundo reflectere super istam negationem actus & Velle eam: & ita V • lens sive voluntary non eligit Judam finaliter peccaturum, & non nolitione • gloriae, sed non-volitionem gloriae.

466. It is notable that both Dr. Twisse and Bishop Davenant, do disclaim this opinion of Scotus without offering us any one argument against it; which is so unusual a course with one of them, as would persuade one to think that they had not much to say against it, but (what they intimate) the harsh sound of the words, that God should be here a non-agent.

467. The truth seemeth to me, that as Davenant saith, Scotus was the first artifex of this ordering of various Acts in the mind of God: So here he saith too much, and is too bold, and feigneth a subsequent Volition of a former non-volition without cause or proof, merely to scape the censure which yet he now incurreth, of making God too little active.

468. So far was Scotus from being the first Author of this Opinion, of a Negatio volendi peccatum in God, that their common Master Lombard most expressly asserteth it, and that more plainly and soundly than these over-subtle men. Upon which his Commentators copiously dispute An in Deo p • ssit esse pur • omissio absque volitione & nolitione positiva? of which besides the Scotists and Nominals, you may see Aquin. 16. a. 2. Durand. 1. • . 47. q. 1. Ruiz de Volunt. disp. 8. sect. 3. concl. 2. Albertin. To. 1. princip. 4. q. 4. dub. 2. Vasquez 2. p. 1. disp. 79. num. 17, &c. Suarez Metaph. disp. 30. sect. 9. n. 59. Fonsec. Metap. li. 7. c. 8. q. 5. sect. 3. Aluiz Tract. 2. disp. 6. sect. 3. Montepil. 1. p. disp. 33. a. 8. c. 1. & 3. Durand distinguisheth of contra & praeter Voluntatem, and saith that Voluntas etiam beneplaciti antecedens, quae est solum quaedam Velleitas, may be such as many things are praeter & contra eam. But Voluntas beneplaciti consequence is such as nothing is contra eam, but sin is praeter eam; etiam mala fieri. Neque enim vult fieri, nec vult non fieri. I like not what he addeth: Idem forte diceret aliquis de quibusdam bonis quae fiunt mere à libero arbitrio, sed non de omnibus, viz. quae fiunt à praedestinatis, &c.

469. And it is to be noted, that Durand with other Schoolmen argue, that if sin were willed by God, God would be the Author of it: God's Volition, say they, being efficient. And Estius (a yet plainer Schoolman than Durand) saith, Quicquid sit Deo Volente, fit Deo author: who also citing Aquinas 's consent, saith, Omnimode tenenda est in hac parte doctrina magistri, mala nec esse nec fieri Deo Volente. And against the vain distinction of [Deus non vult malum, sed vult malum fieri sen eventre] he saith that [Velle mala, & velle mala esse seu fieri] idem est. Voluntas enim adrem simpliciter, est ad rem ut sit.—Qui vult virtutem, vult virtutem esse; Qui vult peccatum, vult peccatum esse—neque aliud sit velle mala, & velle mala esse aut fieri. 1. d. 47. sect. 7. pag. 228. (It seemeth there were some then of Dr. Twisses and Rutherfords opinion.)

470. And that you may see Estius mind further in this, and also see all the Objections now used answered, I will here annex (though out of place) his answer to them.

Obj. 1. Sin is not committed Deo nolente: ergo Deo volente fit.

Resp. Neque nolente, neque volente Deo fiunt, sed permittente.

471. Obj. 2. Mala esse aut fieri bonum est 1. Ad perfectionem universi, 2. Ad decorem, &c. Ita August. Enchir. 10. & 11. & c. 96. Bonum est ut sint mala.

Resp. Neg. Major: Et 1. Mala sunt Universi non ornatus & perfectiones, sed id deformant, &c. 2. August. non dliud vult, quam Bonum esse mala permitti.

472. Obj. 3. They cannot be, unless God will them to be. August. Enchir. 95. Non fit aliquid nisi Omnipo • ens fieri velit.

Resp. The reason assumeth a falsehood. And Augustine is interpreted as speaking only of the Permission as willed, and not the Event.

473. Obj. 4. Omne verum est à Deo: esse & fieri mal •• verum est: Ergo.

Resp. Non Hugonis sed sophistarum est: Nam verum qua verum est à Deo: De rebus malis sunt conceptus mentis veri. (Indeed malum qua objectum scientiae non est malum.)

474. Obj. 5. Aug. Enchir. 100. Peccatum non fit praeter Dei voluntatem, quod fit contra.

Resp. Loquitur de permissionis voluntate, non ipsius mali.

Albertinus words To. 1. Princip. 4. q. 4. dub. 2. pag. 297. I cited before for a Negation of Will.

475. Suarez distinguisheth of God's Will Voluntarily determining to go no further, and a will suspended without such a determination: And the first he denieth not, but the latter he denieth in God as imperfection: But upon reasons so weak, likening God to man, that I think them not worth the reciting.

476. No mortal man can prove, that God must needs have actual Volitions of Nothings as such. And consequently that he hath any such: And that his perfection excludeth them not.

477. Yet I grant that he willeth the Truth of human Negative Propositions: For those are something, though about Nothing.

478. That such Decrees or Volitions de nihilo are not necessary, appeareth, in that 1. Either they are necessary in All instances de nihilo, or only in some. Not in All: Ergo, not qua tales: For if only in some, it must be from some singular accidental reasons: A quatenus ad omne valet consequentia. That they are not necessary in all, is granted in that no man (that I know of) ever asserted it. And to assert it, is great presumption: For then there must be infinite Negative-Positive Decrees: As e. g. that there shall not be innumerable more Worlds, more Suns, more Atoms, that this and that and every particular atom or sand shall not be a Sun, a Star, an Earth, a Man, a Dog, a Fish, &c. And infinite Decrees, about every Stone; as many about every pile of grass, and as many about every creature, what they shall not be. And infinite Decrees about infinite (or innumerable) Possibles, that they shall not be existents, that they shall not be thus or thus named, &c. Who can prove or dare affirm, that all these Infinite Nothings, have Positive acts of Decretive Nolition from Eternity in God?

479. 2. We must not feign unnecessary Acts in God: But such Positive Nolitions of Nothings seem unnecessary: For Nothing will be nothing, without a Nolition, as well as with it: What need God Nill the Being of more Worlds, more Creatures, more Names, &c. when it is not possible that ever they should be, unless he positively will and make them. Yea, if (per impossible) there were no God, Nothing would be Nothing still. To feign or call for a Divine Nolition to keep Nothing from becoming something, is too presuming.

480. 3. All those Schoolmen and Divines who tell us, that every Will of God, except his complacency and displicence, is effective, must needs be against a Positive Nolition of Nothings: For that effecteth nothing. If they say that they mean it only of Volitions and not of Nolitions, I answer, 1. Is not God's Nolition a Velle non? What is it, but a Will that this or that shall not be? 2. And in man as Volitions are for some Good, so Nolitions are for the depulsion of some Evil: But Indifferent-Nothings, that are in esse imaginato neither Good nor Evil, have no Volitions or Nolitions even in man.

481. 4. God's Will is his Essence, variously denominated as variously terminated on the objects: But Nothing is no object, and so no termination of God's Will; and so no object to constitute an act in specie velindividuo by connotation or extrinsic denomination: Therefore God is not to be said to Will it, or Decree it. If you say, that it is something in the Idea of God's Intellect; I answer, It is presumptuously asserted: Who can prove, or ought to feign that there is in God Idea's or Conceits of such nothings as never will be anything, in the forms of some things? For Nothing as nothing, hath no form to be conceived of.

482. Object. Thus you deny Nothings as such to be known of God. For if they cannot be the objects of his Nolitions, then neither of his Knowledge.

Answ. Properly Nothing as such, is not an object of Knowledge at all. But a Proposition de nihilo is: But of this more anon.

483. 5. Certainly God doth freely suspend or limit the Acts of his Power: Therefore he may for ought we know (that I say not, It is certain that he doth) suspend or limit the Acts of his Will. God doth not make more Worlds, nor more Men, Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants, Stones, Sands, Atoms, Names, &c. than are and will be. He doth not sanctify more than are and will be sanctified; nor give more grace to the sanctified than ever they will have: when he Could if he Would. And when the Principles of the Divine Nature are Co-equal, why should we say, that he who undeniably suspendeth the possible acts of one, freely, suspendeth not the acts of the Free Principle (the Will) itself? or is it like that one should be here active, and not the other?

484. 6. Positive Nolitions of Evil do seem in man to come from the Imperfection of his created nature; As being Passive, and Capable of, or obnoxious to evil, or in danger of it, and so needeth defense against it, and his Nolitions are the defensive and depulsive principle. And though we must speak of God according to our mode, we must say nothing needlessly which importeth weakness or passiveness or danger in him.

485. They that are against this, are moved with a fear, lest we make God an Idle Spectator, and not the Governor of the World. But they consider not, 1. That the suspension of his Powerful Operation inferreth no such thing: God is not Idle, because he Causeth not, or maketh not infinite Nothings (or possibles to exist:) Not is he the less Governor of the World: And yet Idleness and Government are words that more directly signify non-operation and operation, than any mere Volitions or Nolitions. Men may thrust out words, but no rational answer against this argument.

486. 2. And note well, that God's not knowing, or not-nilling nothing is from his Perfection; and not any privative Ignorance or Negligence: For he knoweth all that is an object of Knowledge; and willeth all that his Wisdom judgeth meet to will (or nill respectively): So that to tell God that he is Ignorant if he know not an unintelligible object, or Idle if he Will or Nill not at our direction, is as much blasphemy, as to tell him that he is Impotent if he cannot sin, or cause Contradictions to be true: The case is the very same.

487. Object. But Scripture oft ascribeth both Nolitions of Nothings, and Knowledge of them unto God.

Answ. And so must we in that sense as the Scripture doth: We will say, and must say of some Nothings, that God Nilleth them. I hope the Learned will not take it amiss, if I speak where the Schoolmen are too silent, as well as desire silence where they unprofitably speak, as long as the case is, 1. Weighty, 2. And made plain, 3. And I go the middle healing way.

488. In all these cases and respects we ascribe Nolitions unto God • I. He that by a Positive operation causeth a limited cause, may be said to cause the limitation of effects by consequence. And he that positively willeth realities with such limitations, from whence the consequence necessarily followeth [Nothing else will ever be] is said Morally, or • reputatively or by Consequence to Will that Nothing else shall be. And he that knoweth all things that belong to the perfection of knowledge, is improperly said to know all Nothings, in that he knoweth that Nothing more is or will be. And so as knowing Beings is by consequence reputatively or morally called the knowing of Nothings by men, we are sain to use such terms of imperfection even of God, lest we seem to make him Idle or Ignorant. When we say, that God is the Cause that th • re is no more creatures, we mean but that he causeth not more creatures. And so to say, that God willeth that there shall be no more Worlds, meaneth but that God willeth not that there shall be more.

489. II. This Interpretative consequential Act, which is but morally so called, is fitlier expressed in the gross of universal Nothings, than of millions of imaginary particulars. It is fitter to say, that by willing a limited or finite World, God willed that there should be nothing more, than to say, He willed that there should not be a Sun in every man's pocket, or Heaven and Earth in every man's fist, &c. Though as to the truth all is one.

490. III. When God positively willeth the Positive hindering of a thing, he may morally be said to Nill the thing, or to Will that it shall not be. That there are Positive Impeditions of God (by Dr. Twisses leave) I have elsewhere proved: But then you must suppose that as the fountain of Nature, as it were by a Decree, he hath resolved to continue the Nature of things and his natural Concurse: which supposed, their Natures may incline them to such Action as needeth Positive Impedition. So God hindered the fire from burning, and the Lions from killing Daniel (it's like) Dan. 3. & 6. Certainly if a man can stop a Cart-wheel with a Stone, or bind a man in chains, God can do the same. And men's Inclination to sin needeth a Positive Impedition. Now though non-agere is nothing, and hath no cause, yet he that destroyeth or hindereth the Cause of Action, is morally said to be the Cause that there is no Action: Though strictly it be but destroying the Cause of Action, and so preventing further action. And this moral language even of God is the fitter, because it is of Moral things.

491. IV. And here God's Law being called his Will, though it be formally but de debito, yet being materially de re ipsa, a double reason will thence arise. For when God forbiddeth and condemneth sin, &c. 1. He doth very much to hinder it, and that positively (and so he doth by his grace), 2. And his prohibition may be called his Nolition signified.

492. V. And God properly willeth the Being and Truth of Negative propositions, [viz. This or that will not be.] and knoweth them (as made by man at least). And as I said, sin as the subject of a proposition is not sin, or hath no harm in it. As sin repented of, or the object of repentance and hatred maketh up a Virtue, and is not sin indeed, but the knowledge of it: So here. But yet hence the phrase may be borrowed, and it may be said, that God Nilleth the existence of such Possibles, because he willeth the truth of the proposition, They shall not be.

493. VI. But here note, that when God is Morally and most fitly said to Nill such Nothings, it is not as Nothings, but as Possible Evils: For only Evil is the proper object of Positive Nolition: so that it may be spoken fullier of sin, than of other Nothings, even fitly in a Moral sense.

494. VII. Lastly, Acts of Will are ordinarily ascribed to God, when it is mere operations or privations that are meant; and so the phrase is as they say ab effectu ad affectum. When a man 1. Denyeth his aid, 2. And actually hindereth, it is a sign of nolition. And so from God's 1. Not causing, 2. And his hindering, he is said to Nill that Nothing (that never shall be.) So much of the phrase.

495. Now for application. 1. Non-dare fidem, aut gratiam, not to convert, is Nothing; Therefore it is not Positively willed or decreed of of God: or at least no man can prove it so to be: So not-to give the Gospel, the Spirit, &c.

496. Yet note, that when man's sins have so forfeited such gifts that they are penally withheld, this non-agency hath the denomination of a Moral Act. And also that the making of the Penal Law, which maketh this Privation due as a punishment, was a positive act of God, and had a positive Volition. But Negations not-penal are not so.

497. 2. Not to hinder sin, or to Permit sin (barely as permission) is Nothing: (As elsewhere I have proved.) Therefore it hath no Positive Decree or Will: save that when it is penal, and the execution of a Law, that Law being a real natural being, and the Jus thence resulting a real relation and the executive Privation quid Morale, they are Willed and Decreed answerably as they are. To permit a man to be spiritually Dead is [not-to make him alive:] To permit his Darkness or Ignorance, [is not-to give him Light or Knowledge:] To permit his unbelief is [not-to cause him to believe.] To permit his want of Love, is [not-to give him Love.] To permit his positive sins of Malignity or Carnality, is but [not-to cure and hinder them by Grace or Providence,] supposing the Natural support and concourse, with the Author of Nature giveth to all things.

498. Therefore when God's Acts in themselves are his Essence and all one, and are diversified but by connotation of divers objects, relatively and denominatively; when he knoweth all things uno intuitu, and willeth all that he willeth unica Volitione; when nihil physicum is no denominating terminus, of a physical act, (though so far as it may be called Moraliter, id est, Reputative aliquid, as a Privation, it may be said to denominate reputatively, as a quasi aliquid;) and that which is moraliter vel imputative nihil, cannot morally denominate; when both Non dare spiritum, gratiam, fidem, vitam, &c. and permittere infidelitatem; peocatum, &c. are truly Nothing, and even in Reputative Moral sense, are wihil morale, when they are not penal; (And as antecedent to sin, they are not penal;) Judge now impartially whether 1. Those men deal not presumptuously with God, 2. And troublesomely with his Church, who assert the Being of Positive Decrees and Volitions in God about such Nullities, and raise Controversies about the Reasons and the Order of them, yea, unto dangerous inferences; when as 1. They can prove no such thing in God as they assert. 2. Nay, when we say so much to prove the contrary.

499. And here consider, whether Scotus himself assert not without all need or proof, that God hath a positive knowledge and reflexive Volition of his own Non-Volition? and so that a Nullity as to his own act, must be the terminus of a positive act? When that Nullity is neither God, nor a Creature, nor aliquid vel Dei vel Creaturae; and so seemeth to be no denominating terminus of a distinct act. Yet no doubt, God is not to be called Ignorant of such Nullities or Idle; for those are terms of privation: If God be said either not to Know nothings or not to Will • or Nill them, it is because it signifieth his Perfection: And no part of perfection is wanting to him. But we must not place his perfection in a conformity to our imperfect mode of knowing or willing.

500. For we dare not here presume peremptorily to determine Negatively, that God doth not positively Will his own non-agency or non-volitions; because we know how dark we are and distant from God, and unfit to say anything but certainties of him, as certain truth: But we abstain from the contrary assertion, as utterly unproved, and we will impute no needless acts to God as his Perfection: Though we yield to reputative moral denominations.

501. And so I contradict not the language of Aquinas 1. q. 14. 9. who saith, that God knoweth such non-entities as never will be, ut possibili • . And esse in potentia quamvis non in actu is more than nothing. But remember that esse in potentia speaketh the esse Potentiae, but the possibile is a pure nothing. So that this is but to know the Potentia, and not any thing else. Yet no doubt but God knoweth all things as they are in himself; that is, he knoweth that he can do all things, and knoweth what he knoweth and willeth; but this is no esse creatum but God himself, at least as to that which never will be. But if any will call it a knowing of things possible which are nothings, when God knoweth his own Power to make them, we quarrel not with words, while the sense is known.

502. But remember that it is not the Knowledge, but Decrees and Volitions of God that our enquiry now is about: And Aquinas and his followers commonly say, that God's will goeth not so far as his knowledge; and that he knoweth indeed mala ex bon • of which they are the privation (as no doubt he doth so far as it is not imperfection to be said to know them, or as they are objects of knowledge) but yet that Mala neque vult, neque •• lit, sed tantum non-vult, as Lombard said.

503. Ockam Quodlib. 3. q. 6. hath the question, Utrum Cognitio intu • tiva potest esse de objecto cognito? And he 1. concludeth that per potentiam divinam potest esse de object • non existente; but he meaneth only quod fuit vel fuerit. 2. That naturally it cannot be. And faith that Contradictio est quod vis • o sit, & tamen illud quod videtur, non sit in effect • nec esse possit: Ideo contradictio est quod chimaera videatur intuitive: fed non est contradictio quod illud quod videtur nihil sit in actu extra ca • some suam, dummodo possit esse in effectu, vel aliquando fuerit in rerum natura—Unde Deus ab aeterno videt omnes res factibiles, & tamen • unc null • fuerunt— By which it is plain, that he meaneth as Aquinas, that it is not as Nothings, but as Possibles and Futures they are known even by God, saving that Aquinas and his followers judge that they are from eternity fore-known in their proper existence, by reason that all times and things are present in Eternity. Now to know a Possibility of a thing, is not to know the Thing: But to know the Power. For Possibile is nihil. And as Ockam proveth, that Universale is qualitas mentis, and is nothing else, nor anywhere else existent, so we may much more clearly say de Possibili that besides Potentia it is nothing but the Conceptus mentis what that Power can do.

504. And if an Artificer get the Idea of a fabric or frame which never was in the World, and Resolve to make such a real thing, that which is in his mind, is but his own Thought or Imagination, and nothing else: And to call it Domus vel Navis Possibilis, signifieth nothing else, or it is delusory.

505. Holkot Quodlib. li. 2. qu. 2. lit. C. D. E. ad primum dicit [Dico plane quod aliae res à Deo nullum esse habuerunt ab aeterno distinctum à Deo: Neque esse quidditativum, neque esse Potentiale, neque esse repraesentativum, secundum quod diversi antiquit us opinati sunt.] Quod probat. Ad art. secundum he saith, that the Creatures had no being in God from eternity, but improperly good men have so spoken, because he knoweth them, and can produce them.

And ad art. 3. q. Whether it be true, that Rosa e. g. non existens, concipitur aut intelligitur? he reciteth twelve arguments for the affirmative, and then reciteth the negative as the opinion of others: And though he say not which side he taketh, yet he confuteth the arguments for the affirmative, and bringeth nine arguments for the negative, which he saith nothing against.

Thomas 's opinion of the question you may see in his Interpreters in 1. d. 36. & 1. q. 14. ar. 9. Ruiz de Scient. d. 17. Valent. 1. q. 14. punct. 7. Tanner. 1. d. 2. qu. 8. dub. 8. Gran. 1. p. Cont. 2. d. 5. Aluiz. tr. 2. d. 9.

506. Yet let it be still remembered that all this Controversy is not properly de re, but de modo loquendi; or of the extrinsic denomination of God's Will, and not of his Will as in itself, which is his Essence, and but One. But yet here denominations must be carefully used.

507. And by the way, that you may understand what I mean by denominations, from connotation and relation to the terminating object, note what Ockam saith in Quodlib. 5. q. 25. that Conceptus est vel 1. Absolutus e. g. hominis, 2. Connotativus, e. g. albi, 3. Relativus, ut patris: & differunt in hoc: 1. Conceptus absolutus omnia sua significata significat aeque, primo, & uno modo,—in recto— 2. Nomen Connotativum proprie significat primo unum, & aliud secundario, & unum in recto & aliud in obliquo— 3. Conceptus relativus maxim concretus habet omnes praedictas conditions quas habet connotativus: sed differunt in hoc quod quandocunque conceptus connotativus vere praedicatur de aliquo, convenienter potest sibi addi suum absolutum, in aliquo solum: quia nihil est album nisi sit album albedine: sed Relativo potest addi casus obliquus qui non est ejus absolutum—ut servi dominus—Omnis Conceptus Relativus est Connotativus: at non e Converso.

508. If any shall think that he hath any advantage against what I have said by Scotus his opinion, that Voluntatis objectum non est Bonum tantum, sed & E • s; & Voluntas potest Velle Malum qua Malum; and that the Will hath other objects, praeter finem & media, viz. Entia absoluta not so related in the apprehension, and consequently that there may be a Nolition of Non Enti • , and not only as Mala; And the like of Ockam in 3. d. 13. qu. 13. ad dub. 3. Gabr. Gregor. &c. Let him remember that the greater part of the Schoolmen are against this opinion; And that the owners of it, assert not this consequence of Divine Nolitions, commonly, but say as Guil. Camerar. ibid. p. 1. q. 2. pag. 158. that between Volitions and Nolitions there is this order, that Volitions go first, and we nill things only, because they consist not with what we first Willed. And God's will need not to rise up with an actual opposition especially against its own acts or suspensions, where a non-agency will do the same thing.

An Additional Explication of Divine Nolitions.

LEst all this seem not clear enough in so mysterious a business, and because I have oft insisted on it, I will yet add this further explication of my thoughts in these following Theses.

1. Understanding and Will in God being not the same thing as in man, we must not think that we have any other conceptions or expressions of them than Metaphorical or Analogical.

2. Therefore we must not say, Thus and Thus God understandeth and willeth, but After the manner of men we must thus conceive of it.

3. But there are several degrees of impropriety of speech: and in a greater degree repentings, wrath, hating, grief, &c. are in Scripture spoken of God; but in strict disputes the lesser degree must be chosen, that is, such conceptions as have least of imperfection.

4. In man the Will is an Appetite, and essentially connoteth the want of what we have an appetite to, or a self-insufficiency: but so it doth not in God.

5. And Nolitions in man yet signify greater imperfection, viz. that there is some evil or hurtful thing which is at enmity to him, or against his good, and which he would be delivered from, or overcome: and it is in the will the beginning of a war, or resistance: But it is not so in God.

6. That which is Good we Will, and that which is Evil we Nill, and that which is neither, we neither Will nor Nill. Accordingly we must after the manner of men ascribe to God, 1. Volitions of Good, 2. Nolitions of Evil, 3. A Non-velle and Non-nolle of that which is neither.

7. Nothing is Good, but 1. God himself simply and primitively, and 2. The works of God secondarily and derivatively as the glory or splendor of his perfections is found in them, and as they are the products of his will: 3. And the Acts or Works of his creatures in a third degree.

8. The Goodness of the creature being essentially relative to God's will, that is, Its conformity to it as its product, the creature is eo nomine Good because it is that which God willeth.

9. Hence the grand difficulty is resolved, Whether God could have made the World Better? No: not in the first and properest sense of created Goodness, because he cannot make it any other than what he willeth it to be: But he might make it otherwise and might diversify it, and make particular creatures Better to themselves and one another, which is a lower sense of Goodness: But in all diversifications they would be still perfectly Agreeable to his Will, and so be still equally Good or Best.

10. The Goodness of the third rank of beings (The Acts of Free-Agents) is their Conformity to his Law or Governing Regulating Will.

11. God hath as Creator and Motor become the Voluntary Root or Spring of Nature and natural motion, and accordingly stablished all second causes as natural agents under him, and doth by them operate in a natural necessitating and constant way: And this is antecedent to his Laws to free agents: And this natural course of agency we must not expect that he should alter, but rarely by miracles.

12. Nothing is at enmity and Actively opponent to God's natural agency or motion: for else there should be something besides God and his works which he must overcome: Though some natural motions may oppose each other, yet all concur to one end.

13. Non-entity or Nothingness, is not contrary to God as an opponent.

14. Therefore seeing Nolle is not a mere Non velle, but a Velle-non, which is the war of the will against an opponent, and the root of opposition ad extra, it is an unmeet phrase to say that God doth Nil any Non-entity, or any mere Natural opposition to him: or that he Willeth any natural entity or motion which he effecteth not.

15. But God being secondarily the Rector of free-agents, and making them Laws to Rule their own Volitions and actions, he doth by those Laws oblige their reason and will, to restrain and resist some natural or sensitive appetites and inclinations, and so to resist some natural motions of God in nature, in which he is pleased to operate by second causes but in tantum and resistibly (as a stronger natural motion may resist a weaker.)

16. And God doth by his grace and help internal and external, assist them in that resisting agency which he obligeth them to.

17. Therefore God may two ways be said to resist his own natural motion, by his Laws, and by his assisting grace: (But his Laws contradict not one another.)

18. To God as mere Rector therefore two things may be said to be opponent, 1. Such sensitive and natural inclinations and actions as are by Grace to be resisted; 2. And all moral evil.

19. And therefore as God may be said to Resist these, so also first to Nill them: And so to have Decrees against them.

20. God's Volitions and Nolitions here are his essential will denominated from the effects and objects. And that effect of God from which he is said to Nill both these, is as is said, 1. His Laws, 2. His grace or help. And in this we are agreed, 1. That he forbiddeth sin and commandeth us the restraint of appetites and senses, &c. 2. And that he helpeth us so to do: Therefore the rest of the School-Controversies here that trouble the world, are but logomachies, about the Names of Nolitions and Nolitive Decrees.

21. The thing properly willed by God in a Law, is but the debitum, the duty of the subject to do what is commanded, and not to do what is forbidden.

22. It is not a mere non-agency that is meant by a prohibition, but a positive nolition of the subject, restraining him from the forbidden act: And all proper moral obedience or disobedience, Good or Evil, is primarily in the will, and no further secondarily in the exterior act or restraint, than as they are Voluntary; and in non-agency but in a third sense or instance as the consequent of nolition and the refraining act.

23. If any therefore will say in this sense, that God doth positively Nil the forbidden Act, and so will a non-entity sub ration mali moralis in this remote sense, we will not contradict him but say as he.

24. And accordingly we may say that God hath a positive Decree of non-entities, or against moral evil; where non-agency is loco materiae, that is, in tantum, so far as to do all that he doth against it; but not absolute ne eveniat, ubi evenit.

25. But we may not therefore speak so unaptly as to say that he willeth positively all or any non-entity or non-futurity of mere naturals that are non-futura.

26. Therefore we may much less say it of his own Natural Impeditions, that he positively willeth non-impedire ubi non impedit: For he is not to be thought of as a restrainer of himself by Law or self-opposition. It is enough to say that non-vult impedire.

27. Much less may we say that positively vult non velle-impedire, lest we make another Velle necessary to that Velle, and so in infinitum.

28. It is proper to say that Deus non vult permittere peccatum, ubi id non permittit; and that vult permittere aliquid indifferens quod per legem positive permissum est: quia permissio ista est quid positivum.

29. After the manner of men it may be said that consequentially he willeth or decreeth a thing, when he willeth or decreeth that from which it necessarily followeth, though it could not be proved that the will of God is directly terminated on that consequent thing itself: And so it may be said, that Qui vult quid majus, consequenter vult minus illud quod in majore includitur. And so as when God commandeth duty he doth more than politically permit it, he may be said eminenter to permit it, and so he may be said to will or decree his own permission of it: But that is not formaliter as permission, or a negative non-impedition, but eminenter, because he formally willeth the quid majus, viz. the command.

30. So God may be said eminenter to will his non dare gratiam, aut Gloriam, when he penally as a Judge, denieth it to a sinner. But here the thing formally willed is a positive judicial denial, rejection or exclusion of the sinner, which the privation followeth.

And now for the application of all this to our case it may be perceived, 1. That the very Controversy is such, as a sober Christian should be afraid to resolve on either side. It is a tremendous thing to poor sinful worms, who know not the nature of one arenula or pile of grass, or the soul of an insect, nor how the perceptions of a poor Be is ordered in gathering her Honey and Wax, and making her Combes, &c. to determine insolently and contentiously in what order God conceiveth of things, or willeth them? which first and which second, and what reasons move him? and for what use and end each thing is willed? and whether he have positive Volitions of every non-entity that it shall not exist then? &c. I am afraid lest my very opposing and rebuking of this presumption should be found guilty of bold profaneness, while I so much meddle with so unsearchable a thing; which I should avoid, had not disputers and railing censurers made it necessary.

2. That though while we talk together familiarly and popularly, men may leave each other to liberty to say that God Decreeth non-entities, or willeth that Infinite species and individual nothings shall never be, yet to make this the matter of a Church-dispute, and censure those that say not as they say, and calumniate them as favoring some perilous error, seemeth to me no better than diabolical.

3. All men that have the brains, hearts and faces of Christians who hold that all these distinctions signify no true diversity in God's will exparte sui, should openly tell the world in the beginning, middle and end of such disputes, that It is but about words that we dispute, even what Logical terms Artists must use in distinguishing of that which hath no real diversity? even about the dreadful Majesty of God and what Names to put on his simple volition?

4. And they should well bethink them how far it is safe, to think of that as divers which is not divers; and to multiply conceptions and distinctions of God's simple essence beyond true necessity: and whether then to contend about the priority of such conceptions be more holy or profane?

5. For all the reasons before given, If they will say that God Decreeth penally to deny or not to give Grace or Glory or any good thing to them that forfeit it, there is reason for the expression according to Scripture, after the manner of man: But if they will fly higher and say that God's Simple essential will, is to be called A positive Decree or Volition that Judas, e. g. shall not be named John, Thomas, &c. that there shall be millions of distinct non-entities, &c. or that any positive Volition is of necessity to non-futurities or non-existences in mere physical respects, where no positive action is necessary, (save only that by consequence he that decreeth and willeth to make such and such finite creatures, may consequentially and improperly be said to will that there shall in general be no more, in that he willeth not that there shall be more, and they cannot be without his will,) I fear such are over-bold with God. And so are they that say that he hath a Positive Decree or Will, non dare Christum ante lapsum Adami, non dare fidem, non impedire peccatum, in such instances or cases wherein the [dare] is no Act of a Rector, nor the [negare] the positive Law, judgment or penal denial of a Judge, but only the dare belongeth to a free Dominus-benefactor.

Penal permission or non-impedition of sin, and denying or not-giving grace, may be said to be decreed or willed, because God threatened them antecedently by a Positive Law, which should make them due, and that Law was the product of God's will. Though strictly it is but the Positive Law and the Debitum poenae here that God willeth, which the non-impedire & non-dare gratiam follow.

But God's not making men Angels, or Stars, or Suns, and his making us men, free and defectible, and his permitting the first sin, and his giving men no more grace antecedently (before forfeiture) as free benefactor & dominus suorum, none of these have the same reason on which to found such denominations of God's will and essence.

And seeing Nolitions in man are the results of his Insufficiency and war against noxious evils, we must not ascribe such Imperfections to God; but only such Nolitions as his Actions as Rector per Leges & Judicia have made to signify no imperfection, as being not contra nocumenta, but only contra injurias as against himself, & contra nocumenta as against his creatures, i. e. contra peccatum.

And now I may answer the solitary argument of Vasquez, mentioned in the Margin (that non entia, non dare gratiam, non impedire peccatum, &c. may have aliquam rationem boni & amabilitatis, and so may be Willed, Loved or Decreed.)

Answ. 1. In mere Naturals, Negations are not properly any way good or evil; but Privations are Natural Evils, and not good.

2. To be occasio sine qua non of good, (as sickness is of the Physicians honor, and sin of God's,) is not any true ratio boni vel amabilis: The bonum & amabile is only the good that on that occasion is done: The occasion is neither efficient, constitutive or final cause of any good, nor any causal proper medium.

3. In Morals, mere Negations are neither good nor evil, nor have any Morality, but only Positives and Privations.

4. In morals God judicially doth that whence Penal privations follow, and he may penally non agere, non dare gratiam, to execute his Law, and demonstrate his truth and Justice on sinners, and occasion the perception of his mercy to others. And here the non-agere, non-dare, permittere, being loco materiae volitae, may after our mode be said to be Volita seu decreta, & bona. But properly it is not the non-entity, that is bonum or Volitum, but the positive Law and Judgment, and the relatio debiti p • nae, and the ratio poenae in the privation, and the demonstration of truth, justice, holiness, &c. therein.

5. But sinful privations, that is, sinful Volitions, nolitions, or non-V • litions of the Creature, are not properly per se or per accidens, propter se vel propter aliud good or amiable, or willed or decreed of God. And they that prove that God cannot be the Author of sin, because he cannot be Causa deficiens, must mean as much, or speak impertinently and deceitfully.

It is not impertinent which Judicious Strangius saith, Lib. 3. c. 13. p. 677, 678. If Scientia Media be an useless conceit, how much more cum extenditur ad ejusmodi infinitas & vanissimas connexiones rerum disparatarum quae nunquam futurae sunt? (He instanceth in many, and addeth [De hac re Ariaga disp. to. 1. d. 21. sect. 7. —dicit, non sibi videri in Deo esse scientiam harum, quia talis scientia videtur plane impertinens: Ad quid enim nosceret Deus quid Chimaera esset factura sub tali conditione impossibili, &c.] Et ipse D. Twissus de Scient. Med. p. 472. Si plures Angelos Deus condidisset certe decrevisset ut etiam illi agerent aliquid in Gloriam Dei: Nec tamen decretum aliquod hujusmodi Deo decenter tribui potest, &c.

I know the case is not just the same with that before us: but the reason is the same for both.

But still I profess that If it be not an injurious imputing imperfection to God to assign him positive Volitions of every negative, I shall concur with them that do, and extend God's Volitions as far as ever the object and his perfection will allow; And say of them as Judicious Blank doth of God's knowledge (De Concord. lib. cum decret. 1. n. 64.) [Saltem ill minus periculose errat qui putat Deum scire ea quae forte scibilia non sunt, quam qui negat Deum scire quae revera scit, & quae intra Divinae omniscientiae objectum continentur.] So here; so be it that God be not feigned to will sin, I contend the less against them that say He positively willeth Infinite numerical Nothings, and his own non-acting.

509. BEing afraid of wearying the Reader I pass by other School-controversies here, and only propound to each man's Conscience, whether 1. He that is the affirmer of unproved acts of God, 2. And that about his secret unsearchable Volitions, 3. And of such acts as make the difficulties inextricable about God's being the Cause of sin, be not on the far unsafer side, than he that only saith, Quae supra nos nihil ad nos? If these be not certainly false, they are certainly unproved, and therefore not to be here received.

510. And I say here as Buridane saith about the forementioned nature of Liberty, Ethic. li. 3. qu. 1. p. 152. Simpliciter & firmiter credere volo—quod Voluntas caeteris omnibus eodem modo se habentibu • , potest in actus oppositos—Et nullus debet de via communi recedere propter rations sibi insolubiles, specialiter in his quae fidem tangere possunt aut mores: Qui enim credit se omnia scire, & in nulla opinionum suarum decipi, fatuus est. De festuca enim tibi sensibiliter praesentata, formabuntur centum rations, vel quaestiones, de quibus contraris sapientissimi doctores opinabuntur: propter quod in qualibet harum deceptus erit alter ipforum vel ambo: Ideo non miror si in hac altissima materia non possum per rations & solutiones satisfacere mihi ipst.]

511. To proceed in the application, Reprobation is commonly looked at in the two most notable parts (as called,) 1. God's Reprobating men to unbelief and impenitency; 2. His Reprobating men to final damnation. The last of these also is considered in the execution, 1. As Privative. 2. As Positive, called Poena damni & sensus. And both (especially the Privative part) are considerable, 1. As executed by man himself on himself freely. 2. Or as executed by God: Concerning each of these observe,

512. 1. Not to Believe and Repent is no real entity: And not to Give faith and Repentance (as is said) is no real entity: And to Permit Infedelity and Impenitency is no real entity (as is proved:) And not to Decree the Giving of saith, and the hindering of unbelief is nothing: And (most clearly) besides these four nothings, nothing can be proved either existent or needful. All that cometh to pass, will come to pass without anymore ado. Therefore.

513. As far as any mortal man can prove God hath no such Act of Reprobation at all, as is, 1. Either a Decree that a man shall not eventually Repent. 2. Or a Decree not to give him Repentance. 3. Or a Decree to Permit his Impenitence. 4. Nor can we prove an after Volition of his own former non Volition which is asserted by Scotus. But the three first we have great reason to lay by; and so not only to say as Davenant that this part of Reprobation is an Act negative quoad objectum, but that it is no Act, and there is no other Reprobation as to this part save, 1. God's not decreeing to give faith, 2. And his not giving it.

514. 2. And as to Damnation, so much of it as consisteth in sin itself, God no otherwise causeth than as he doth all sin, which is properly, not at all; It being but the Act as an act which he causeth as the Cause of Nature, and not as sinfully qualified: and so no more decreeth this than other sin.

515. And most men little think how much of damnation lieth in sin itself, and the privative consequents which need no other cause. 1. To be ignorant of God and Goodness. 2. To be void of the Love of God and Holiness, and Holy persons, and all the Holy employment of Heaven. 3. To be thereby void of all the Delights of Holy ones, which consist in such Knowledge, Love and Employment, Praise, Obedience, and holy Communion. 4. To be uncapable of the Reception of Divine complacency; as he that maketh himself blind is uncapable of the light, or he that maketh himself unlovely is uncapable of immediate Love. 5. To be defiled and diseased with all kind of sinful lusts, and malignity, and made like the Devil. 6. To have all sorts of Lusts in violence when they can have no fuel or satisfaction, and so to be tormented with these lusts. To have extreme selfishness and Pride, when they have cast themselves into the utmost shame and misery. 7. To see that no Creature can deliver them, and to despair of ever being better, as having no hope from God or any other. 8. To see or know that others enjoy the Glory and everlasting felicity which they have lost. 9. To think how easily once they might have attained it; and how it was offered freely to their choice. 10. To think of all the solicitations of mercy that importuned them, and all the time and means they had. 11. To think for how base a vanity they lost it, and that misery was their willful choice. 12. To be tormented with envy and malice against God that forsaketh them, and against his Saints; And to feel conscience awakened setting home all their former folly; All this is nothing but sin and its own effects, which hath no Causation at all from God, but to continue the nature which he gave them, and is not bound to destroy. And how great a part of hell is this?

516. Nay we know not how much sensible Pain may be the consequent of their own sin, without any other Act of God, than his common continuation of nature itself: As a man that eateth Arsnick, or unwholesome meat, is tormented by it, without any other act of God, than as the universal Cause of Nature.

517. All this much of Damnation then being merely the work of the sinner himself, so far as there is no Act of God in the execution, so far no man can prove any Positive Act of Volition or Decree.

518. But 1. As God in these is the universal cause of Nature, and so of natural acts, 2. And as in other instances he actually further punisheth them, 3. And as he actually made that Law which made these penalties the sinners due; so far God hath a Positive Decree and Volition, that these persons shall be damned: And moreover, as improperly or morally his not sanctifying them, and not saving them is called his Act, and is really their penalty, even so may his not-willing to save or glorify them be called his Decree and will to damn them, if you will.

519. By this time we are ready to answer our first question, What are the objects of these several acta of God, so far as connotatively we must call them several.

And 1. God's not giving the Gospel to any persons, is no Act, and so hath no object. But reductively or improperly the object is, Man sinning against the grace of the first edition of the Law of Grace: that is, These are the subject de quo, of which it is truly said, They are without the Gospel.

520. 2. God's not converting effectually some that have the Gospel, is no Act, and hath no object: But the subject of the Privation, called the Object, is, Some part of those men who have forfeited the helps of special Grace by their abuse or neglect of the Gospel and the Commoner grace which was given them.

521. 3. God's not Pardoning, Justifying, Adopting and Sanctifying men, is no Act and hath no object: But the subject of the Privation, and object of the Laws contrary sentence, is, Impenitent, Unbelievers, or the non-performers of the condition of Justification, &c. in the Covenant.

522. 4. God's not Glorifying men, is no Act, nor the damnation which consisteth in sin as aforesaid, is none of God's act: But the sentence of condemnation is God's Act, and no doubt some other Positive Execution. And the object of these is, All finally Impenitent Unbelievers, and unholy ones, that is, who performed not the Condition of that Edition of the Covenant of Grace which they were under.

523. And it being past all denial that these are the objects of the Executive Acts, we must say that these also are the objects of the Decrees accordingly, where a Decree is proved, and when we speak of them only juxta ordinem executionis, and not Intentionis, which I laid by before.

524. And lest you recurr to it, once more I will recite (more of) Davenants words de ordine Intentionis. De Praed. & Reprob. cap. 1. p. 107. [1. Sciendum & tenendum est si Dei naturam & perfectionem in se consideremus, illum non prius unum videre, deinde aliud, neque prius hoc decernere aut velle, deinde illud; sed unico & simplicissimo actu, &c.—2. Ex parte tamen Rerum quae decrevit signa quaedam prioritatis & posterioritatis distingui possunt,—Hic tamen observandum est, inter ipsos Scholasticos non admodum certam & constantem esse hanc doctrinam de hisce signis seu instantibus prioritatis—Scotus, qui primarius est ad haec signa fabricanda artifex, videtur non-nullis non solum eadem posuisse priora & posteriora secundum nostrum intelligendi modum, sed etiam statuisse unum esse in ipso Deo prius naturâ alio. (But from this he vindicateth him.) Ex adversa parte Occamus noster haec signa quocunque modo considerata negavit, in 1. d. 9. q. 3. Et Biel ejus sententiam amplexus haec signa oppugnavit. in 3. d. 2. q. 1. dub. 3. [Prioritates, in Divinis non sunt ponendae, sicut nec pluralitates actuum ordinatorum. Unus est enim Actus in Divinis, re & ration indistinctus, qui est ipsa essentia Divina.—ne secundum nostram quidem considerationem talem ordinem Prioritatis & posterioritatis concipi posse in decretis Divinis, ut talis consideratio non sit falsa speculatio.] If this hold, our Controversy of the order is at an end.

525. And he added the words even of a rigid Thomist [Domin. Banns, quamvis non omnino explodat haec signa cum Biele, perpendens tamen discordiam Theologorum in his assignandis [Animadvertendum est, inquit, quam pro libito in negotio praedestinationis & reprobationis multiplicentur instantiae à Theologis, & quam parum illa conferant ad assignandam rationem differentiae inter praedestinatos & reprobos. Liceat itaque hic paucis monere, non esse nimis confidendum, aut certo dogmati adhaerendum, ulli certo ordini decretorum divinorum, sive à Protestantibus, sive à Pontificiis assignato, cum difficile sit duos reperire, sive inter nostros, sive inter adversarios, qui ad amussim per omnia consentiant in hac serie decretorum divinorum describenda. Caveat it aque un • squisque ne talem considerationem praedestinationis & reprob inducat quae vel Divinae justitiae, vel gratiae gratuitae adversetur, & t • m non multum refert quo ordine prioritatis, &c.]

SECT. XVII. Of God's Causing, and Decreeing Sin.

526. BUt because it is the avoiding of God's Causing and Willing sin which is a great reason of these Controversies, I shall say somewhat more particularly of that. About which there are various Opinions.

1. Some think (as Hobbes) that no acts of the will are so free as not to be necessitated, as the motions in an Engine, though unobserved by ourselves, who see not the Concatenation of Causes.

527. 2. Some Dominicans, and our Dr. Twisse and Rutherford held, that no act natural or free can be done by any creature, without the Predetermination of God's Physical efficient immediate Premotion, as the first total Cause of that act: But yet that this standeth with Liberty, because God causeth contingentia contingenter fieri. And that he so causeth every Act of sin in all its circumstances; and the totum material peccati; and all that the sinner causeth: But yet that he is not the Author of sin, nor causeth the form; Because 1. They say, that sin hath no efficient cause, but a deficient, which God is not, being not obliged to act: And sin is nothing, but a privation. 2. Because God is under no Law: and therefore though he do the same things that man doth, it is sin in man, but not in him: And saith Holkot, he is the cause of sin, but not the Author, because he commandeth it not by his Law. 3. At other times they say, that sin is formally a Relation of disconformity to the Law of God, and God causeth the whole act as circumstanced, but not the relation, which resulteth from it. 4. And God causeth not sin as sin, but as a means to his Glory, or as a punishment of former sin.

528. 3. Others say, as Cameron, that the Intellect necessitateth the will, and the Objects and temptations necessitate the Intellect, and God causeth the Objects and Laws, and permitteth the Tempter.

529. 4. Others say, that God only as the Cause of Nature, 1. By Support and Concurse necessary to all agents, causeth the Act as an Act in general, 2. And giveth Power also to act or not act freely, 3. And as Governor of the World doth that which he knew men would make an occasion of their sin, 4. And also by his Providence causeth many effects, of which men's sins are also a cause, 5. And after bringeth good out of their evil: 6. But as to the sin itself he is no cause of it, either as sin or punishment, either of the form, or of the Act as morally specified, that is, as it is about this Forbidden object (or End) rather than another. And this opinion I take to be the undoubted truth.

530. Let it here be noted, 1. That the five things here granted are all certain truths, 2. And that they are as much as is necessary on God's part, in respect to the events which we see; And unnecessaries are not to be asserted; 3. That they fully show God to be the perfect Governor of the World, and all therein; 4. And yet to be no Author of sin: Let us consider of the particulars.

531. I. It is certain that God as Creator hath made man a Vital Agent, and therefore a self-actor (under him); and an Intellectual Agent, and therefore is not tied to follow the perceptions of sense alone; And a Free-willing Agent, and therefore hath a Power to Act or not Act hic & nunc, or to choose or refuse, or to choose this rather than that as far as consisteth with his Necessary Volitions (which I acknowledged and enumerated before: which is part of Gibieufs and Guil. Camerarius Scot. meaning by their servato ordine finis: Though I think that Annatus doth not unjustly accuse Gibieuf of confusion and unskillfulness in the managing of that matter.)

532. II. It is certain that as Motus vel Actio is quid Naturale, it is of God as the first Cause of Nature: And so when a sinner acteth, it is not without this Universal first Cause: Whether God do it only, as Durand thought, by the mere continuation of the nature of all things, Active and Mobile, or by any superadded concourse besides, is nothing to our present business; which only showeth that God is the Cause.

533. III. It is certain that Governing Providence by doing good doth set before men that which they make an occasion of all their evil: Every thing is turned into sin by sinners, and to the unclean all things are unclean, through the uncleanness of their own minds and consciences: As to the pure and holy all things are pure and sanctified. Bad stomachs corrupt the wholesomest food. All God's mercies are abused to sin.

534. It is certain that God fore-knew this: And yet that he is no way obliged to deny men life, or take it away, lest they abuse it, or deny men all those mercies, or remove them, which he foreseeth that they will turn to sin.

535. IV. It is certain that God often concurreth to the causing of the very same effect which sin also causeth; and so is as a concause of it with sin: And this effect is so near to the Act of sin, as that the sin itself is ost called by its name as if it were its nearest matter (which it is not.) And this is the occasion of the Great mistake of men in this case, that canno • distinguish. Of which more anon in the instances.

536. V. And it is certain, that God as the Governor of the World, doth do much good by the occasion of men's sin. But this is not to turn the sin itself into good.

537. VI. And to these five operations of God, I add, as to his Volitions, that all this which he doth, he willeth or decreeth to do. And he hath no contrary will at all.

538. But that which we deny is, that He is any proper cause of the sin itself, efficient or deficient, culpable or not culpable, Physical or Moral; For the opening of which we must inquire what sin is, and what goeth to its being or constitution.

539. All grant that God is our Ruler by a Law, and also our ultimate End as he is Optimus & Amabilissimus, and that he is our absolute Owner: And that as rational free agents we that are his own, are also his Subjects and Beneficiaries, and made capable of Loving him as our ultimate end, and of obeying his Laws: And that sin is our Disobedience to these Laws, with our denying God ourselves as his Own, and withholding or perverting the Love which we owe him as our End.

540. As Logic hath confounded us in most other cases by arbitrary unsuitable second notions (making us a Shoo not meet for the Foot,) so that it's easier to know Things without those unfit notions than with them; so hath it done here. Men may more easily know what sin is, and what it is to disobey a Law, and that either by doing what we should not, or by not doing what we are commanded, than they can know by what Logical or Metaphysical name it should be called: Whether a privation, or a relation, an act or no act, &c. But it is not only for Logicians that God made his Laws; nor is it only a Metaphysical Conscience that will accuse men or condemn them, and torment them for their sin.

541. No Act merely as an Act in genere is forbidden of God. For the soul is an Active nature, and can no more cease all action, than to be: though it can forbear a particular act as to this object, and at this time. And God is the Cause of Acts as such.

542. I have shown before that as Action itself is no substance, but the mode or motion of a substance, so to choose this object rather than that, hath no more of Action in it than to have chosen the other, or than the general nature of action when existent hath: So that this Moral specification addeth not to the natural generical entity.

543. It is therefore 1. Acting, 2. Not acting, 3. Moral disposition, which are Commanded and Forbidden by God: And not any one only: and these not in themselves, but about the Materials commanded or forbidden Objectively, in the Law. To Act on a forbidden object; Not to Act on an object when commanded, and to be viciously disposed to either, is a sin.

544. You may see then, that sin is a Connotative notion, yea, and a Relative notion; It connoteth a Ruler, a Law, and End, a Subject, and is thus variously Related.

545. As Subjection is the Root of Obedience, and all obedience Virtually, being A Consent to obey, and Love is the Root of benefits; so to forsake God simply as our Rector or our End, or our Owner, is Atheism practical, and all sin in one: But to violate only a particular precept de mediis, is but a particular sin.

546. God is the Cause of the Law which commandeth and forbiddeth, and God is the Cause of Nature, and Objects, and Action as Action: That therefore which he hath made man's part is to Love God and Holiness, and not to over-love the creature, nor to love it as our End or in his stead: and to do all that he commandeth, and not to do the particular acts about such particular objects as he forbiddeth.

547. The remote subject or relatum then of sin, is the person sinning; But the nearest is the Act, Omission or disposition; The fundamentum or ratio referendi is the said Acts, Omissions or dispositions, as such or such, about such or such objects, commanded or forbidden; which is a Relation; And the form of sin is the Moral Relation of Disobedience, or Disconformity to the Law. So that if you must needs have it in Logical notions, Sin is a Moral Relation, resulting from a Physical relation of Actions, Omissions or dispositions of God's subjects, which are modified contrary to his Law.

548. It is a Moral Relation as it is Disobedience, found in a Moral agent against a Law and Rector as such. It is a Physical Relation as the Act, &c. is prius naturâ quid natural, about an object that is quid natural. Its fundamentum (of both relations: And one Relation may be sounded in another) is the Mode of the Act, Omission or disposition, as to an undue object, &c. as it is forbidden by the Law. Of the subjects and relatum I have spoken before.

549. So that the form of sin being Relative can have no Cause but that which causeth its fundamentum: and cannot possibly but result when that is laid.

550. It were an injury to God to feign him to make such a Law as should say, [Though thou hate me, see that that hatred be not Related formally as a breach of my Law,] or [I forbid thee not to commit Adultery, but only forbid that thy Adultery be quid prohibitum or a sin.] For if God forbid not the act, it cannot be a sin: and if he forbid it, it must needs be sin; And so of omissions.

551. They therefore that tell us, that sin is nothing, but a Privation, speak not satisfactorily, nor altogether truly. It is no substance indeed; nor any such Reality as Man cannot Cause without God's Causing it (supposing his Universal Natural Support and Concurse.) But the thing forbidden is often Acts and Dispositions as well as Omissions: and the form of sin, is a Moral Relation, which hath so much reality as a Relation hath (if that be any). And that Relation hath a positive name; It is not only a mere Non-conformity, but also a Disconformity, becaused founded in Actual Volitions and Nolitions as forbidden, and not only in Omissions.

552. Subtile Ockam Quodl. 3. q. 15. disputing Utrum rectitudo & deformitas actus differant à substantia actus? denieth it; and after a Confutation of the common saying, that Deformitas est carentia rectitudinis debitae, & distinguitur ab actu, quod in peccato Actus est material, & carentia justitiae debitae inesse est formal, concludeth, [Quod deformitas non est carentia justitiae vel rectitudinis debitae inesse actui, sed est carentia rectitudinis debitae inesse voluntati: Quod non est aliud dicere, nisi quod voluntas obligatur aliquem actum elicere secundum praeceptum Divinum quem non elicit; & ideo rectitudo actus non est aliud quam qui debuit elici secundum rectam rationem.] But I conceive, 1. That the rectitude of the Will can be nothing else but the rectitude of its acts, suspensions and dispositions; 2. That Ockam here describeth only sins of omissions, whereas the Rectitude of the Will is ofren also materially in not doing or willing what is forbidden. And with these two animadversions I am reconciled to Ockam: who addeth, [Ad aliud dico, Quod illud dictum de Materiali & Formali est falsum; Quia aut est peccatum commissionis aut omissionis: si primo modo, est Material sine formali: quia ibi non est carentia rectitudinis, debitae inesse actui: si secundo modo, tunc est ibi carentia quae est formal sine materiali.] Resp. 1. To the first I add, that It had been true, if it had been the Act as an act that had been forbidden, or else the species of the act as quid natural; But it being the Act not as an act in genere, but as this act thus modified or specified by an undue object, that Act with its Relation as quid physicum are presupposed as the relatum to the moral relation of Pravity or Disconformity. And to the second I say, that it's true that Omission is not Materia Physica; but it is an inadequate first conception of sin, and so is materia moraliter dicta vel loco materiae. And the Omission being considerable, 1. Quatenus Non-agere, 2. Qua privatio naturalis, 3. Qua & Privatio & disconformitas moralis, these three inadequate conceptions take up the whole nature of the sins of omission.

553. The same Ockam Quodl. 1. qu. 20. Utrum actus exterior habeat propriam bonitatem vel malitiam moralem? even as dependent on the Will? And he denieth it against Scotus who affirmeth it: I will not trouble the Reader with their reasonings; not doubting but Ockam erred, and that it's true, 1. That no exterior act is Morally good or evil primarily, 2. But that secondarily and participatively as it is voluntary, there is a morality in the acts. Words, and deeds, and passions are under Law next to the Will, and in dependence on it. As the body conjunct with the soul is a secondary part of the man, so are our exterior acts of sin.

554. The conceit that making sin a mere nothing, doth seem to justify God as not Causing it, is a mere vanity. For, 1. It justifieth the sinner more; who no more is the Cause of nothing than God. 2. Either man is able to do that Something or Act which sin is the privation of, without any other Power than he hath, or not. If he be, then even the Act of sin is not imputable to God: If he be not, then every sin is like our not making of a Sun, or Moon, or World: which if it be a culpable defect, they make God the first deficient.

555. He that would see more of this question of the essence of sin, may read Rada lib. 2. contr. 16. (who first ingenuously confesseth that Tho. and Scotus differ but in words and not in sense, and then layeth down eleven conclusions of little use.) And Marius Scribonius Cosmo. disp. 18. Scotus in 2. d. 37. Bonavent. in 2. d. 35. dub. 6. Henric. Quodl. 1. qu. 25. Alm • in. Moral. tract. 3. cap. 17. Richard. in 2. d. 34. ar. 1. qu. 7. Alex. Ale • s. 2. q. 94. memb. 2. Durand. 2. dis. 31. q. 2. Medin. 12. q. 71. ar. 6. Specially Vasquez 12. disp. 95. cap. 9. Guil. Camerar. Scot. Dispute. Philos. Part. 1. Mor. q. 3. pag. 162, &c. Argent. in 1. d. 35. q. 1. ar. 2. Gabriel Biel 2. d. 36. q. unica. Valent. 1. 2. d. 2. q. 14. p. 3, &c. Suarez 1. 2. tract. de act. hum. d. 2. sect. 2. Azor. li. 4. c. 24. Tanner. 1. 2. disp. 2. q. 5. dub. 2. & 3. & disp. 4. q. 1. dub. 1. Vega in Trident. 6. c. 39. & li. 14. c. 13. Cordub. l. 3. q. 10. & Cajet. Zumel. Curiel, & alios in 1. 2. q. 19. ar. 4. & q. 71. ar. 6. And, who is usually sounder than most of them, Lombard himself Dist. 35. & Ripalda opening him and citing others dist. 34, 35.

But the ordinary Christian that understandeth but what Disobedience signifieth, needeth none of them all.

556. Though the five acts of God forementioned about sin, are as far as we need to go, to the common Ends which we agree in, yet many objections are made against this much as not sufficient, but God must have a greater hand in sin: And 1. They object, that to make God but an Universal Cause, is to put something in being, viz. the Act in specie morali, which God is not the Cause of; And so, 1. To make Him idle and unactive as to that: 2. To defy man by making him a first Cause of that moral species. To which I shall lay down such answers as I think will satisfy the considerate, to this Objection which is indeed their All: But I am sorry that the subject occasioneth me to repeat what I said before.

557. 1. Remember that even an Act in genere is not a substance; And that the moral specification is less as to natural entity than it; indeed making no addition of Entity to it, as was shown. And Dr. Twisse asserteth, that this moral specification is not a proper specification of acts.

558. 2. Note that few dare say, that God is not Able to make a free agent with Power to choose or refuse without God's further predetermining premotion. And if God can do it, we have no reason to debase his work, and think he did not.

559. 3. Note, that for God to make a self determining agent that shall act without his predetermination, is but to put forth his own Active Power with limitation or suspension, that is, To Will and Act or Operate, so far and no further.

560. 4. And note, that this restriction of the Divine operation is not from any finiteness of his power, as if he could do no more, but from the freedom of his Will, and the Conduct of his Wisdom, who seeth it good to do no more.

561. 5. Above all note, that as all Divines agree, that God doth not Act ad ultimum posse, as natural agents do, so the truth is most evident in the finiteness of the World, and the effects of his Power: For God doth not make as many men or other creatures as he could do: He doth not make every man as strong, or wise, or good, or long-lived as he could do: He doth not make every Stone, or Clod, or Tree as Active as he could do, nor move everything as swiftly as he could do. Now all that is undone which God could do, all possibles which are not existent or future, do tell us plainly that God doth freely suspend the action or operation of his Power, totally as to them: which is much more than to suspend it but in part with free agents, and to give them a Natural self-determining power, without further pre-moving predetermination of them. If all the World tell us, that he hath the far greater suspension, why should we think the less absurd?

562. 6. And Reason telleth us (what the Schoolmen oft say) that God who showeth us that he delighteth in wonderful variety of his creatures, doth very fitly thus beautify the Universe by a middle rank of creatures, that stand between Confirmed Angels, and the Brutes, viz. Intellectual-free-agents, left to a natural Power of free choosing or refusing, without necessitation, in the midst of various objects, to prepare them by trial for a better state.

563. 7. And note too, that we say not that God's predetermination of man's will destroyeth its best Liberty: God can predetermine the will to Good as he doth the Angels, as a great blessing and felicity: To predetermine the will physically, is to end that Liberty to that particular act, which consisted partly in being undertermined: But that Liberty which consisteth in deliverance from all true evil, is increased by such a Gracious predetermination: And therefore Jansen pleadeth only for the necessity of predetermination to Good by medicinal Grace, and not to Evil, or mere Natural actions. Yet we say, that even to Good, God can procure the will to determine itself, by moral means, which infinite Wisdom can sufficiently improve. But it is only 1. A natural power to act without predetermination from God or Others, 2. And a Liberty of Condition, from all predetermination ab extra, to evil (from God or Creatures) which I here assert and plead for in this cause.

564. 8. Much less do we take the Will from under the Power and Government of God: For, 1. It could have no self-determining Power but of God, one moment. 2. He giveth it this power, to make us capable subjects of Moral Sapiential Government. 3. He giveth us Governing Laws accordingly. 4. And he attaineth all his Ends and fulfilleth all his Will, as perfectly in consistency with our power and freedom as if we had none such at all: so that God hath his proper Will, whether men Will or not.

565. But the turning point of difficulty here is, Whether God is ever Causa partialis? and if we so make him, is it not injurious to his perfect operations? All our Controversies turn upon the decision of this one question. For if we may conceive of God, as Scotus speaketh, like one that draweth at the same Ship with another; and the act of both must concur to the effect; then all is easy, and we may say when men Love not God, repent not, believe not, &c. that God did his part, but the sinner did not his, and so the effect failed. As if a Father did resolve that he will help his little Child to lift up a weight, and will put to nine hundred ninety nine parts of the strength that is necessary, but no more, because the Child shall do something (one part) to show his willingness and obedience; Here if the thing be done, it is the Father that deserves nine hundred ninety nine parts of the praise: If it be undone, the Child only doth deserve the blame. But we have more to say.

566. Note therefore, 1. That here the Child hath in himself a Power independent on his Father, and therefore the whole effect is not to be ascribed to the Father. But man hath no Power but of God, and what he holdeth, yea, and useth in dependence on him. And therefore the praise of all his Power and his Acts as Acts are due to God. 2. And all the good Inclinations of his will, and all the Laws, promises, persuasions, threatenings, mercies, afflictions, examples, convictions, which tend morally to turn his will, are from God; so that in every good Volition or action man doth no more than God did both enable him, command him, persuade him and help him to do, and so procure the actual determination of his will. So that de re we see how much God doth always (besides that Grace may sometimes for ought I know otherwise predetermine:) And we see what man doth: And all that you can desire more is, that no man that doth any good act, should be able at that instant not to do it, or to do otherwise; and then it must follow that no man that omitteth a good act, or that sinneth, could do otherwise: which are false. So that here is only the lis de nomine left, An Deus sit Causa partialis? I think it fittest to say, that he is Causa totalis of his own Act, and of the effect as it is an Act, and of all that is laudable in it too, for the reasons aforesaid. But yet he is not the Causa sola, nor in that sense totalis of the Moral specification, as if when he giveth his Creature a Power of choosing or refusing freely, it could not be done, without his further physical predetermination.

567. And (under favor) I take the name Causa partialis, to be improper, and that it should properly be called Pars Causae: For when divers concur in efficiency, all make but one proper efficient Cause. Now I suggest to the Learned Reader that is against me, How he will decide the forementioned hard question, Whether there be more Entity in God and the Creature than in God alone? It is dangerous saying Yea or Nay: and we know not well what to say: But for my part, as I said, I will not say that God is Pars Entitatis, nor yet that the Creature is not Ens, nor yet that it is God: But the solution must be either from the Equivocation of Entity, or from the Creatures Inexistence in God, or from somewhat rather which I know not. And just so here; the question is, Whether God's Causation and Mans be more than God's alone? And I will not say that God's is a Part; nor yet that Mans is none, nor that it is the same with God's: But that God's acting and concourse are quite above the reach of Mortals.

568. But here again note what I said even now, 1. That it is no more sign of finiteness in God, nor dishonor to him, to be a limited or Partial Cause, than to be no Cause, and limited totally by suspension of the whole act: And yet so he is as to all Possibles which he doth not make or move. 2. And that it is his own free will only that thus limiteth him; As it doth from giving all men more grace, &c. So that really here is matter of satisfaction.

569. Though he offend me by making God the Cause of sin, I will here cite the words of our Country-man, Holkot Quodl. lib. 2. qu. 1. [Est sententia omnium Theologorum quod Deus est Causa immediata omnis rei productae, sic quod omni creaturae agenti, sive sit Natura sive Voluntas, Deus coagit: & sic imaginandum est quod in omni action creaturae qua aliquid producit, Deus & Creatura sunt duae causae Partiales illius producti: Non sic imaginando quod Deus producit unam partem effectus, & creatura aliam, & ob hoc dicatur Causa partialis—sed ideo quia concurrunt in agendo vel causando—Unde tam causa universalis quam particularis dicitur communiter causa partialis: & ideo etiam Sol & Hom • sunt duae causae partiales hominis generandi; & similiter Vir & Mulier: Quia ad hoc quod aliquid dicitur causa partialis sufficit quod sit tale quod propter ipsum & quoddam aliud vel quaedam alia res ponatur in esse, sit quod illis positis res est, & aliquo istorum ablato res non fiet.]

570. Further I desire that it may be specially noted, that God is our Creator in order of Nature before he is our Ruler; And that Nature is before Morality, (obedience or sin.) And that God as Creator first settled the order of Nature so, as that the Alteration of that Law or settled Order should not be ordinarily expected by us, though he can alter it: And therefore that man is man, and hath a Natural Power of Self-determination, and that God upholdeth him, and concurreth as an Universal Cause, belongeth to this fore-settled natural order, and is presupposed to moral determinations and specifications, either as from God or man.

571. And note, that to Good Acts we have need of more Help from God, than this mere Natural Causality and Concurse. And therefore God affordeth us more accordingly; but not to all alike.

572. It is further objected, against this way, that our making Reprobation to Infidelity, Permission of sin, not-giving faith, &c. to be no Acts of God, cometh all to one as to men's sin and damnation; because man cannot believe, nor avoid sin, without those Acts of Grace which God withholdeth?

Answ. I confess it were all one if the supposition were true, as it is not: For we have proved after, that man hath power without those acts of Grace which God suspendeth, by that Common Grace which he giveth, to do more good and forbear more evil than they do: Of which in due place.

573. It is objected also, that while we make God's Providence to fill the World with occasions of sin, which he fore-knoweth men will take to their damnation, yea, as long as God could prevent all sin, and save all souls, and yet will not, it cometh all to one which way soever you go in these Controversies.

I answer, 1. Undoubtedly God's Judgments are unsearchable. But when we come into his Light, we shall be perfectly reconciled to them all. 2. And undoubtedly God doth whatsoever he will, and all that he thought meet to Decree or Will, shall come to pass in despite of sin. 3. And when we have said all, flesh and blood will be unsatisfied, till faith and the will of God do satisfy us. 4. But yet be it known to you, that there is a great difference between God's permitting sin (after great means against it) and his causing it: Between the making of a free agent, and putting life or death in his choice; and his causing men unavoidably to sin, and then to damn them for it. The Holiness of God's Nature will stand with the Being of sin, by man's causing; but not with God's causing it. And the Truth of God's Word must be considered.

574. If this were all one (to Damn men unavoidably, and to give them their free choice of Heaven or Hell, in the means) it is strange that so many Learned men as among the Jesuits, Arminians, Lutherans and Greeks, do hold no other Grace at all, but what leaveth man to such a free Choice, could ever be so satisfied: (when others hold that the Elect have more.)

SECT. XVIII. A Confutation of Dr. Twisse 's Digr. 5. l. 2. sect. 1. Vind. Grat.

575. I Come now to consider of what is said by them that go further about God's will or Causality as to sin. And because Dr. Twisse hath a peculiar Digression (Vindic. Grat. li. 2. p. 1. Digr. 4.) I will somewhat animadvert upon it. He beginneth [Sententia nostra haec est, Deum hactenus dici posse Velle peccatum quatenus vult ut peccatum • iat— viz. ipso permittente: And so he maketh the question, An Dens Velit ut peccatum eveniat ipso permittente? Arminius thought God willed only his own Permission of the sin: Twisse saith, that he willed that sin should come to pass, God permitting it. Arminius his concession cannot be proved (as I have shown;) But Twisses must be disproved. And 1. I will give you our Reasons against it.

576. Let the Reader remember, that what the Author saith of God's Willing, he also in the point of Predetermination saith of his working: viz. that he Causeth as much as he willeth: But I pass that by now because I have largely confuted it elsewhere. And to speak to One is to speak to both.

577. 1. All sober Christians are agreed, on what side soever, that God is not the Cause of sin, except some odd presumers who are condemned by the generality: One or two spoke some hard words that way in Belgium, whom the Synod of Dort rejected: Mr. Archers Book was burnt for it by the Parliament or Westminster Synod. Beza himself (in Rom. 8. 28. & passim) abhorreth it as intolerable blasphemy. But this Doctrine in question plainly maketh God the Willer and Cause of sin: Yea more, very much more than wicked men or Devils are: which is not true.

578. For they make Men and Devils to be but a second pre-moved predetermined Cause of the Act (of Volition and Execution) whence the formal obliquity necessarily resulteth: But 1. God is certainly the Cause of the Nature which is the Agent: 2. He is the Cause of the Law which maketh the act in specie to be sin: His saying, Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Murder, maketh Adultery and Murder to be sin, when they are committed, which they would not be without the Law. 3. God causeth and ordereth all the objects and occasions. 4. And now they also say that God willeth ut peccatum fiat, (and is the first predetermining Cause, even the total Cause, of all that is in the act and all its circumstances, without which predetermination it could not be.) So that man doth but will what God first willeth, and act what God first moveth him unavoidably to act, as the pen in my hand. 5. And the Law and the Act being put in being, the Relative obliquity is but the necessary result, and hath no other cause.

579. And note here what Estius before cited (after Aquinas) saith that to Will that peccatum sit vel fiat, is all that the Sinner himself doth, when he willeth sin. And therefore it's a vain thing here to distinguish between willing sin, and willing the event, futurity and existence of it, ut peccatum fiat vel eveniat: (Though I confess I was long detained in suspense if not deceived by that distinction.) For he willeth sin, who willeth the existence of it, or that it be or come to pass.

580. And note, that it is both matter and form, Act and obliquity which they say God willeth ut fiat: For it is sin: And forma dat nomen. It is not sin, but by the form of sin. But if they had said otherwise, it had been all one: For he that willeth the fundamentum, relate and correlate, willeth the Relation.

581. There is nothing left to be said then, but that God willeth that sin be done, but not as sin, or because it is sin; But this is nothing. For, 1. Either none or few of the Reprobate do will sin because it is Sin, but because of the pleasure of sense or imagination, or for seeming good. 2. And if a man or Devil do maliciously Will sin as sin because it is against God, so doing is but one of their sins, which they say God willeth ut fiat before they willed it (and predetermined them to it:) so that here is nothing in it but what is first and chiefly of God.

582. If they say that God willeth it for the Glory of his Justice, and so do not wicked men, but for wicked ends or in enmity to God; I answer, That proveth that God hath a will which the wicked have not, but not that the wicked have any will which God hath not: For that Will and that Enmity to God still is but one of their sins which they say God first willeth ut fiat.

583. Obj. But it is only ut fiat ipso permittente, non faciente.

Answ. The hypocrisy of that addition maketh it but the worse in the assertors. For 1. They usually make God's will effective of the thing willed. 2. They maintain that there is nothing in the act as circumstantiated which God is not the total first efficient Cause of. 3. They confess that the formal relation necessarily resulteth from the act and Law: And why then do they put in the word [permittente?] Would not that deceitfully insinuate to the Reader that the sinner doth something which God doth not do, but only permit, when they mean no such thing? For that is my second reason against them.

584. 2. By their doctrine God never permitteth sin (which is false:) For that which he Willeth and Causeth as the first total Cause, he cannot be said to Permit: To do a thing, and move another to do it, will not stand with proper permission.

585. Obj. But God preserveth our own Liberty in acting.

Answ. 1. By Liberty you mean nothing but Willingness as such, that God doth not make men's Nilling to be a Willing or contra in the same act. Which is but to say that God causeth me to Will sin, and not to Will-nill-it? 2. If you mean more, I deny that ever God gave Power to the Will, to Will or Nill contrary to the Volition and ph • sical premoving predetermination of the first cause. 3. But if all this were so, it's nothing to the present case; and doth not prove that God is not the Cause of the sin, but only that man is a Cause also, caused by the first Cause; and that God Willeth and Causeth us to sin willingly and freely.

586. 3. By this means they make God equally to Will and Cause our Holiness and our sin: For they cannot possibly tell us what he doth more to Cause our Holiness, than to Will it, and to predetermine the will of man to it, (besides commanding it, which is a moral act, and we speak only of proper efficiency.) He doth but will that Holiness be, and cause all that hath any entity in it; And so they say he doth about sin.

587. Obj. He loveth our Holiness for itself, and so he doth not sin.

Answ. The first is denied by themselves, if you speak of God's end: For they confess that God only is his own end, for which he loveth all things: 2. And his Love is either his efficient or complacential Volition. 1. The efficient which is all that is now in question they must confess is equal to both, if he equally will the existence of both.

Object. But he hath a Complacence in Good only.

Answ. 1. He hath a Complacence in the fulfilling of his own will as efficient. Therefore if sin be the fulfilling of his Will, he hath a complacency in it. The formal reason of a pleasing object to God is, as it is the fulfilling of his own Will; And to break his Law they make to be such: ergo, pleasing. 2. But if it were not so, that's nothing to our Case, of the efficient Will.

588. 4. To avoid tediousness, in sum, This opinion seemeth to me, to leave very little or no place for the Christian Religion. For 1. It overthroweth the formal objectum fidei, which is Veracitas Divina, and leaveth no certainty of any word of God: For if he do will and predetermine by premotion, ut fiat omne mendacium, quod fit, then we have no way to know that he did not so by the Prophets and Apostles. 2. It maketh the Scripture false, which saith so much of God's hatred and unwillingness of sin. 3. It obliterateth the notion of God's Holiness, which is made the great reason of our holiness. 4. It maketh man's Holiness to be no Holiness, but a common or indifferent thing. 5. It maketh sin, so little odious (as being a Divine offspring) as will destroy the hatred of it and care to avoid it. 6. It will thereby nullify all our Godly sorrow, repenting, confession, and all practice of means against any sin. 7. It will hardly let men believe that Christ came into the world, and did and suffered so much to save men from sin, and to destroy it. 8. Or that it is the work of the Holy Ghost to sanctify souls and mortify sin. 9. It will hardly let men believe that there is any Hell, and that God will damn men forever, for that which they did upon his prevolition and predetermination, unavoidably. 10. It seemeth to give Satan's description to God, and more. For Satan can but tempt us to sin, but they make God absolutely to will that it be, and physically to predetermine us to it. And so Christ that came to destroy the work of the Devil, the father of lies, malice and murder, should come to destroy the work of God. 11. It taketh away the reason of Church discipline, and purity, and of our loving the Godly and hating wickedness. 12. It would tempt Magistrates accordingly to judge of vice and virtue, good and bad in the Common-wealth.

589. Now to their arguments. 1. Rev. 17. 17. [God put it into their hearts to do his will, and to agree to give up their Kingdoms to the beast.]

Answ. 1. He that readeth Dr. Hammonds exposition applying this to Alaricus sacking Rome, with the effects, will see that the very subject is so dubious and dark as not to be fit to found such a doctrine on. 2. It was the effect of the sin that God willed, and not the sin. 3. He is not said to put the sin into their hearts, whether pride, covetousness, cruelty, &c. but only to do his pleasure and agree (or make one decree) to give up &c. which he could most easily do by putting many good and lawful thoughts into their hearts, which with their own sins, would have that effect which he willed: If a thief have a will to rob, God may put it into his heart to go such or such a way, where a wicked man to be punished will be in his way.

590. But for brevity, besides what is said, I shall farther direct the • mpartial Reader, how to answer all such objections: And withal let the • onfounding cavillers against distinguishing, see, what blasphemy and subversion of Religion may enter, for want of one or two distinctions which • onfused heads regard not.

1. Be sure to distinguish the name of sin, from the nature. 2. And • emember that no outward act is sin any further than it is Voluntary (by privation or position of Volitions.) 3. Distinguish between the Act as it • s Agentis, and as it is in Passo. 4. And between the Act and the effect. 5. Between the effect of a single cause and of divers causes, making a compound effect. 6. And between a forbidden object compared with the • ontrary, and one forbidden object compared with another.

591. And then all this satisfying Truth will lie naked before you. 1. That the same name usually signifieth the sin and the effect of sin; or the Act as Acted and as Received. Adultery, Murder, Theft, usually signify the Acts of the Adulterer, Murderer, Thief, as done and as received • n Passo, and as effecting.

2. That the former only is the sin, viz. first the Volition, Nolition, or Non-Volition, and secondarily the imperate act as animated by the Will: And no more. The reception of this act in Passo is not sin (as such;) nor the most immediate effect of this act: It is but the effect of sin.

3. And you will see that the same effect may have several causes: a Good and bad; And so God may be a cause of that effect, which man's sin also concurreth to cause: And God doth not therefore Will or Cause the sin.

4. And you will see that God may morally cause the effect as it is on this object rather than another forbidden, though both make the act sinful, and yet not Cause it as it is exercised on either of those objects compared with such as are not forbidden.

592. And you will here plainly see that God hath many ways to Cause the effect without willing or Causing the sin. As for instance, 1. He can do it by adding (as I said before) a good act to the sinners bad one. As when Caiaphas is willing to kill Christ, God can put into Caiaphas 's thoughts, the jealousy of the Romans over the Jews, and the visible danger they are in if they should be thought to have another King: which thoughts in themselves are true and good: So he can put into Pharaoh 's thoughts the loss of the Israelites service, which was not sinful of itself.

593. And 2. God can set that object before a sinner which he is most inclined to abuse: Which is not to Will his sin: But may proceed from God's Willing the Effect. As if Absalom be by Pride and Lust inclined to Adultery, his Fathers Wives may be in his eye and way. And God may will to punish David by their passive pollution, without willing his act of sin at all, interior or exterior.

594. 3. And God can remove other objects out of the way, so that this object shall be solitary, or most obvious to the sinner. As if a drunken man were resolved to kill the next he met, God can keep Peter, John, &c. out of his way, and so Judas shall be the next.

595. 4. Yea God can suspend his own intrinsic concourse as to someone sinful act by which it will follow that it will fall upon another object. Many other such ways God hath, which are unknown to us.

596. And if you suppose a man so inclined to Murder or Adultery as that he will exercise it on the next most provoking object, if God now did Cause the Act, as exercised on a forbidden object, compared with another it were to Cause the sin. But if he only be the moral Cause that he e. g. kill Judas rather than Peter, this is not to Cause sin: For to choose Judas rather than Peter for the object, is no sin: For, as I said, God c •• do it only by removing Peter, and Willing that he shall be preserved.

597. Suppose a King that hath made Laws against Murder forekno • that a Robber is waiting in such a Road for a prey, and that a Traitor broke out of Prison will go that way, and so will be robbed and killed, He may will or desire the Death of the Traitor as a punishment; He may restra •• some that would travail that way before him; and may restrain some that would lay hold on the Robber, or drive him away, that so this Traitor may be killed: And yet only Permit, and not Will at all, the Robbers Will or Ac • as it is Agentis, but punish him for it, and hate it, and Will only the effect.

598. The next Text cited is, 1 Pet. 2. 8. Whereunto also they were appointed (viz. to stumble on the rock of offense.) Resp. 1. This hath respect to Luke 2. 34. [he is set for the fall of many, &c.] and of Christ's own words, that he that falleth on this stone shall be broken in pieces. And no more can hence be gathered, but that God hath decreed that as a Punishing Judge, 1. He will leave the rejecters of Christ to go on i • their own sinful way, 2. And that their opposition to him shall be the •• ruin. So that 1. He doth not speak this of any but the rejecters of Christ that deserved it. 2. He speaketh not at all as willing their sin, but only as one that penally denieth them further grace. 3. But the thing that he is said to Ordain them to, is not sin, but Ruin the consequent of their sin: The word [stumbling and falling] signifying their destraction.

599. The next Text is, 2 Thes. 2. God shall send them strong delusions (or the acting of deceit) that they should believe a lie. Answ. Here is nothing signified, but 1. That God shall permit Magicians and false Teachers to vent deceits, 2. And permit wicked men to believe them: which is mentioned as a permitted consequent, and not as an end intended by God: And the word sending is used because the permission was Penal for their sin. And his punishing-providence might morally cause the deceivers rather to go towards these men than towards others.

600. The next is Rom. 1. 24, 26, 28. God gave them up to uncle •• ness, to vile affections, to a reprobate mind, &c.

Resp. Here is nothing at all said but a Penal desertion and permission, and no Will or Cause of sin in God.

601. The next is Act. 4. 28. To do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Answ. Here is nothing said of sin at all, but of the effect of it: All that was done on Christ, even all the effect in passo God fore-determined should be done: But the Act ut volentis & agentis he neither willed nor caused as on this forbidden object. And though elsewhere the Doctor deride this answer (that God decreed Christ should die, or be sacrificed, and yet decreed not that the Jews or any one else should do it,) It is a great and necessary truth: He that willed the effect, and did much himself to cause it, willed not the murderers sinful act: And permitting and foreseeing it was enough.

602. The next is Isa. 10. 6. and so Amos 16. 17. Prov. 22. 14. 2 Sam. 12. 11. 1 King. 11. 31. & 12. 24. God sends the Assyrian as his rod. Thy Wife shall commit Adultery, and thy Children fall by the sword.] They that are hated of God shall fall therein—] David was foretold his Wives should be vitiated: The ten Tribes fell from Rehoboam: It was of God that he took not good counsel: Pharaohs heart was hardened by God.

Answ. The first is only a Prophesy, and a penal effect of sin, and nothing of God's Willing or Causing sin. And so is the second: Though God can send afflictors by the ways before mentioned, without willing their sin. The third speaketh only of a penal permission of sin. And the rest all speak only of God's penal permission of the sin, and his decreeing and foretelling the effects of it, and his occasioning the sinner to take one sinful object (not as such, but) rather than another.

603. As the Wind hath its natural course, and so hath the Water, and the Miller Causeth neither of them, but supposing them, doth so set his Mill to Wind and Water that by the mere receptive qualification of the patient, they shall fulfil his will, and he is the Cause of the effect, viz. that they turn his Mill and grind his Corn: so is it easy for God to use men's sins (permitted) to his ends without willing them .

604. Next the Doctor cometh with Reasons: And the first is, because Permission is a sign of Willingness as well as command: And what is permitted (and that for good) infallibly cometh to pass.

Answ. All this is before confuted. It's false that non impedire efficaciter is a sign that one wills the thing. The King that only forbiddeth drunkenness or murder by a Law with penalties, could also lock up or guard some men, and effectually keep them from the sin. And doth he Will it because he doth not so? And it's false that all cometh to pass, that is not hindered.

605. His second argument is spoken very plainly and grossly, viz. [Both sides confess that the substrate act is done, God not only willing it, but effecting it, v. g. Absalom 's congress with his Fathers Concubines: Yea not only the congress as an exercised imperate act, but that the Volition of congress, the internal elicit act, was efficiently and Principally of God: why then should it be denied that the very evil and deformity of the act was done, God willing it, though not effecting it, or any way failing of his duty? Especially when the Malice and Deformity doth necessarily follow the substrate act, in respect of the Creature though not of God.]

Answ. Hobbes could desire little more. But we vehemently deny that the substrate act is of God as it is morally specified, that is, as it is exercised on this forbidden object rather than another lawful one ex parte eligentis: God did not as a principal efficient cause Absalom to Will that Congress with his Fathers Concubines, nor to Act it. The nature of the Wind and Water, and God as the Cause of Nature, cause the wind and water to act, and to act as they do, on their own part: But that they turn this wheel and millstone, and run in this Channel rather than another, is long of the Miller. Absalom 's Motus qua motus, and qua cupido ordinata, was natural from God: but not as acted hic & nunc towards this object: And the Reception of the Act by that Object supposing his lust and action, might be morally and penally from God.

606. If you here bring forth the common Medusa 's head, and tell me, that It is injurious to God that his act be determinable by a Creature, and so dependent; I confidently answer you for God, 1. No man is injurious to himself: And God did not wrong himself, when by making a Creature with free self-determining Power, he resolved so far (partially) to suspend his own operation, so as not to necessitate the will: no more than he wrongeth himself by a Greater suspension, in making no more Worlds or Creatures.

2. You quite mistake: We do not at all alter or limit God's Acts or influx, nor determine it, but terminate it, and determine of that effect which requireth both Causes, God and Man, and cannot be (ordinarily) by one alone, because God hath otherwise appointed. And again I beseech the adversaries to note, How great and innumerable changes are made in the world, by the various Disposition of Recipients? The Rose and Vine and Weed and Dunghill, do not at all Change the Action of the Sun: but their various Reception and co-operation is the Cause, that its Act hath such various effects. And it is the Millers work in making a various and special Receptivity in his Channel, Wheels, &c. which causeth the variety of effects. And God hath enabled men Variously and freely to Receive his Influx.

607. His third Argument is, God giveth not that effectual Grace, without which he fore-knoweth sin will not be avoided: ergo he is willing that it be done.

Answ. I deny the Consequent: It only followeth that he doth not Absolutely and effectually Nill it. If the King have several subjects inclined to eat a luscious poison; And his Children he effectually keepeth from it; one he locketh up, another he committeth to a Keeper, another he keepeth the poison from: But to a Traitor he saith, [I once forgave thee, and saved thy life, and I now command thee that thou avoid this poison, and if thou do not, it will torment and kill thee; but if thou wilt take no warning, take what thou gettest by it.] Can you prove that it is his Will that this man eat the poison prohibited?

608. Next he citeth Augustine's thread-bare sayings, and blameth Aquinas and Arminius for denying his Authority, and commendeth the greater reverence of Bellarmine: And so Anselm, Hugo, &c.

Answ. 1. We stick not on one man's Authority; God holdeth not his Holiness and the Church its Religion on Augustine's authority. 2. Augustine hath ten times more plain enough for what I hold: See the places cited in Paul. Eiren. Triad. Patrum. 3. He knew it's like that Estius and many more expound Augustine's words as terminating God's Volition on his own permission, and not on the sin, or fieri. 4. I think plainly that Augustine there spake not of inward Volitions, but outward Acts, and that not as Agentis but in passo or the effects. And so it is true, that no murder, theft, treason, or other effect is produced in the world, but what God positively decreeth shall be produced, either by doing some effects himself (as drowning the world,) or permitting sinners to do them, while he causeth not their act but the Receptivity of the Passum, and so the effect, &c.

609. Pag. 194. Retorting on Aquin. he thus argueth Because God doth will his own Goodness, therefore it is necessary that God will that sin be done, he permitting it. For it is not to will his essential Goodness, which needeth no acquisition, but he willeth to manifest his Goodness. But the evil of sin is not opposite to the manifesting of God's Goodness: Yea nothing is more conducible to it than this; I say to the manifesting of God's Goodness by way of mercy in sparing or by way of Justice in punishing.

Answ. Horresco recitans, 1. God's Volition of his Essential Goodness is his Necessary Volition. 2. God hath no End to acquire, but always hath his end, and is never without it. 3. If God had necessarily willed the particular way of manifesting his Goodness, then he doth all things necessarily, and could do no otherwise, and it seems by you could not manifest it without sin. 4. Doth he not manifest his Goodness as much to the Innumerable Glorious Angels, who never sinned? And would it not have been as much manifested to us if we had been as they? 5. The very indetermination of the will, and its mediate Liberty is not the highest excellency of his Creatures: It is better than the sensitive Necessity of Bruits, and lower than the confirmed Necessity of the blessed: It is our defectibility. And the excellentest or Best of his works most honor God's Goodness. 6. Is it not the strongest temptation that men have in this world to doubt of or dishonor the Goodness of God, to think how he permitteth the world to be drowned in wickedness, and be so like to hell? 7. Doth not Christ turn the Prayers of all Christians against your doctrine, viz. that God's name may be hallowed, his Kingdom come, and his will done on earth as it is in Heaven (which is not by any sin?) 8. Do not your words tempt men to be indifferent to sin, if not to love it, if nothing be more conducible to honor God's Goodness? 9. Is not that conclusion a great wrong to Christ, Scripture, Ministry and Holiness, as being no more conducible to manifest God's Goodness than sin is? 10. It is not true that sin is any Cause, or true Means at all of glorifying God or doing any good. It is but a presupposed Evil, by delivering us from which God is glorified. As your eating poison may occasion the honor of an Antidote and Physician: It is no Cause or proper medium of it, but only an occasion, and mischief sine quo non; But if God had not saved us from sin committed, he could have glorified himself in saving us from committing it: God loveth and is glorified most in that which is most like him as his Image, which is, the Holiest sinless soul. To be a medium to God's glory is to be good: To be as conducible to it as anything, is to be as good as anything save God and his glory. But sin hath no Good, much less such good. Why else doth not God equally delight in sin, and in the death of the wicked, as in holiness, repentance and our life? seeing all things are for himself, and that which glorifieth him most, is best. 11. Here also confusion causeth mischief: one distinction might have scattered this mist, viz. Between sin indeed and sin in notion. Sin indeed, or essence and existence never did good nor honored God. Sin in notion or in esse objectivo is no sin, but the Matter of Virtue and Holiness, and doth much good. When you say God knoweth sin from eternity, you will say with Scotus, that in esse cognito sin was in God from Eternity: But so sin is not sin. David saith, My sin is ever before me, Psal. 51. And we daily Repent of it, and confess it: But this is but to have the Idea or conception of it in the mind, and so it is not sin indeed but the notion of it, which is in esse objectivo. Else it would defile us to think of it, and repent of it; whereas thus sin objectively is the matter of the grace and duty of Repentance, Hatred, fear, watchfulness, prayer, confession, &c. And so sin in esse objectivo as a grace may glorify God.

610. To Aquin.