intemperancy: Man therefore only Sinned, God is dishonored. The King made his Subject able to rebel against him, by delivering his Military Furniture unto him, the verier Miscreant he that did Rebel against him. So God made Adam indeed able to Sin, but he never intended that he should Sin with that Ability. God then is the Cause of all those things in which we Sin, and yet whatsoever he doth is exceding Good; he is not the Cause that we intend any Sin, but the Cause that we are able to commit those Sins we intend; and yet he intended not our Abilities for Sin, but for his Service. Of all our good Actions he is the first Cause, we are the second: of all our Sins we are the proper Cause, he is only the Conditio fine quà non. But here some Man may say, that Choice or Election of an unlawful Object, upon which we mifplace our Actions, is that which maketh us Sinners; now this being an Act of our Will, it must suppose alto the Concourse of God; how then doth our Opinion clear the point? The fame Answer abundantly sufficeth; God made Adam able to be Willing to Sin, but he made him not to Will Sin: God fet before him Life and Death; that he did choose Death, it was by the strength of Will given him of God; but God did not bind him to choose Death, for that were a contradiction, a Neceffitated Choice. Briefly, whatsoever we choose, we do it by the Power by which we are volumary Agents, yet if we choose Death, God is not to be blamed; for he made us voluntary, and therefore it was as poffible for us to have chofen Life. If the nature of a voluntary Agent be well observed, this point will be most evident. The laft Objection is this, God's Fore knowlege of all Futures is most Infallible and Necessary: Therefore, all all Futures in refpect of him fall out Neceffarily, otherwife it is possible God may be deceived; yea, if many things fall out Contingently, God's Fore-knowlege of them can be but Contingent, depending after a fort on Man's Free-will. This Argument is plausible at the first View, but if it be touched it falls to shatters. It is one thing to know that a thing will Neceffarily be done, and another to know Necessarily that a thing will be done. God doth Neceffarily and Certainly foreknow all that will be done, but he doth not know that those things which shall be done Voluntarily will be done Neceffarily: he knoweth that they will be done, but he knoweth withal, that they might have fallen out otherwise, for ought he had ordered to the contrary. So God Neceffarily knew that Adam would fall, and yet he knew that he would not fall Neceffarily, for it was as possible for him not to have fallen. It was the ancient, and is still the true, Opinion, that God's Prescience is not the Cause of Events; he Fore-knoweth all things because they will be done, things are not done because he Fore-knoweth them. The Infallibility of his Knowlege consisteth not in the Immutability of his Decree, but in the Prerogative of his Deity; it is impossible therefore that any Man by his Voluntary manner of working should delude God's Fore-fight; not because God doth Neceffitate his Will to certain Effects, for this were indeed to take it away, but because his Foreknowlege is Infinite. Let our hearts therefore be never so full of Mazes and Meanders, Turning and Winding, yet Πάντα εἴδων Δία ὀφθαλμός, to use the Poets Language, the All-feeing Eye of God cannot but espy them long before, not because he himself contrived them, for then it were no wonder if he were καρδιοςνώσης, but because to him, who is every way way Infinite, all things cannot be but present and τετραχηλισμένα, which is the significant word of the Author to the Hebrews, signifying open, by a Metaphor or fimilitude drawn from a word that fig. nifies, having the Faces laid upwards; because fuch as lye so have their Face exposed to the fight of all Men. |