be it that these decrees were made from eternity, yet seeing God's fore-knowledge of the events of all men was also from eternity, must he not know what would be the condition of all men when he made these decrees? And what need then could there be of a decree for that event which was infallible, by virtue of his foreknowledge without that decree? Either he foresaw these events independently on, and in the same moment that he made these decrees; and then seeing the objects of both these decrees are the same individual persons which he saw then would certainly be saved, or perish independently upon them, what need could there be of these decrees to ascertain that event which his own prescience had rendered certain and infallible? Or else it must be said, that "God only foresaw these future contingences, by virtue of his decrees, that they should come to pass;" and then his decrees must be before his knowledge and the reason of it; and so, as this argument doth not at all lessen the horror of them, so is it obnoxious to these dreadful consequences,

First. That it plainly renders God the author of sin; for to say with Calvin, Dr. Twiss, and Rutherford, Deum non aliâ ratione providere quæ futura sunt, quam quia ut fierent decrevit, ' God only doth foresee things future, because he hath decreed they should be so,'" is," saith Le Blanc, "to say God moves and predetermines the wills of men to those things which are evil. Now, who can affirm," saith he, "that God antecedently decrees and determines the wills of men to hate and blaspheme him, and therefore foresees that they will do so, and not make God the author of those sins?" Nor is this less evident from the way that Alvarez and many other School-men take to salve this matter, viz. that "God foresees the evil men will do, in decreto suo de non dando efficax auxilium ad vitandum peccatum; quoniam Deo deferente, aut non adjuvante peccatorem ne cadat, infallibiliter est peccaturus, 'in his decree not to give them efficacious help to avoid sin; for God thus deserting them, or not thus assisting the sinner, that he may not fall, he infallibly will sin':" for either God did not foresee the sin of fallen angels, or of falling Adam; or else, according to this doctrine, must render their sin necessary by his decree not to afford them efficacious assistance to avoid it, and so their sin will be no sin at all, according to St. Austin's definition of it, that "it is the will to do that from which we have

freedom to abstain." (ii.) Prescience thus stated must be attended with a fatal necessity, though in this case it is not God's foreknowledge, but his decrees, which creates that necessity; all things, upon this supposition, being necessary, that is, such as cannot otherwise be, not because God foreknows them, but because by his immutable decrees he hath made them necessary, that is, he foreknows them because they are necessary, but doth not make them necessary by foreknowing them. Consider,

Secondly. That if there were any strength in this argument, it would prove that we should not deny the liberty supposed in all the arguments we have used against these decrees, but rather prescience itself; for if those two things were really inconsistent, and one of them must be denied, the introducing an absolute necessity of all our actions, which evidently destroys all religion and morality, would tend more of the two to the dishonour of God, than the denying him a fore-knowledge.

Thirdly. Observe that if these Decretalists may take sanctuary in the fore-knowledge God hath of things future, the Hobbists and the Fatalists may do the same. For as I cannot know how God's foreknowledge is consistent with the freedom of the will of man, so am I as little able to discern how it is consistent with any freedom in his actions, or how God can foreknow them whilst they are future, without foreknowing that there are such causes as certainly and necessarily shall and must produce them. And it is very worthy of their observation that the Hobbists having knowledge of christianity, found their doctrine of the necessity of all things, and the no freedom of the will to will, upon the ninth chapter to the Romans. Thus when Bishop Bramhall had objected against Hobbs, that from his doctrine of the necessity of all events, it follows that 'praise and reprehension, rewards and pu'nishments are all vain and unjust, and that if God should openly 'forbid, and secretly necessitate the same action, punishing men 'for what they could not avoid, there would be no belief among 'them of heaven or hell;' Mr. Hobbs replies thus, 'I must borrow an answer from St. Paul, Rom. ix, 11, to the 18th verse: ' for there is laid down the very same objection in the case of 'Esau and Jacob, &c. for the same case is put by St. Paul; and 'the same objection in these words following, 'thou wilt ask me

a

a P. 668, 669.

then, Why doth Cod complain, for who hath resisted his will? "To this therefore the apostle answers, not by denying it was God's will, or that the decree of God concerning Esau was not before ' he had sinned, or that Esau was not necessitated to do what he did; but thus, who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? "Shall the work say unto the workman, Why hast thou made me 'thus? Hath not the potter power over his clay, to make one ves"sel to honour, another to dishonour? To say then that "God can so order the world that a sin may be necessarily caused in a man," I do not see how it is any dishonour to him; I hold nothing in all this question between us, but what seems to me not 'obscurely, but most expressly said in this place by St. Paul.' It also deserves to be observed by them, that the Fatalists of old founded their doctrine upon the certainty of divine prescience and predictions, which, they said, "could not be certain, nisi omnia quæ fiunt, quæque futura sunt, ex omni æternitate definita essent fataliter, ‘if all things done, or to be done, had not been certainly determined from all eternity'." "It was the fear of this," saith Origen, "which made the Greeks embrace this impious doctrine, that God did not foreknow things future and contingent, οιόμενοι κατηναγκάσθαι τὰ πράγματα, καὶ τὸ ἐφ' ἡμῖν μηδα μῶς σώζεσθαι, εἰ ὁ θεὸς προγινώσκει τὰ μέλλοντα, 6 they supposing that if God foreknew things future, all things would be necessary, and so the liberty of man's will could not be preserved;' which," saith Origen, "will not follow, because it must be owned, r πρόγνωσιν αἰτίαν τῶν γινωμένων, τὸ δὲ ἐσόμενον αἴτιον τῇ τοιὰν δὲ εἶναι Tùv zégì durỡ agóyywow, 'not that God's prescience is the cause of things future, but that their being future is the cause of God's prescience that they will be'." "And this," saith Le Blanc, "is the truest resolution of this difficulty,-that prescience is not the cause that things are future, but their being future is the cause they are foreseen;" whence it must follow, that man's perishing by his own wilfulness, when he might not have done so, must be the cause that God foresees that he will do so; the reason is, because God's foreknowledge neither makes nor changes its object, but sees it as it truly is, and so must see that action to be freely and contingently future, which indeed is so, and that necessarily to be future which is so. This is so c Apud Euseb. Præpar. Ev, L. 6, c. 11, p. 286; 287.

Cic. de Divin. I. 2, n. 14.

Gg

evident, that it is owned by Mr. Hobbs in these words, that "the foreknowledge of God should be the cause of any thing," 'cannot be truly said, for fore-knowledge is knowledge, and 'knowledge depends on the existence of the things known, and not they on it.' And therefore let it be observed,

Fourthly. That God's prescience hath no influence at all upon our actions. This Mr. Baxter proves thus; the word future and possible, applied to things is terminus diminuens;* for to say this is futurum possibile, is only to say "this may be;" and to say this is futurum, is only to say "it will be." Now to say "a thing will be," or "may be hereafter," is to say that "now it is not in being," that is, it is nothing; now nothing is no effect, and therefore can have no cause; therefore God is no cause of the eternal futurity, or possibility of things. But if this way of arguing seem too nice and subtle, I enquire farther,—should God by immediate revelation give me the knowledge of the event of any man's state or actions, would my knowledge of them have any influence upon his actions? Surely none at all, and yet my knowledge, as far as it is thus communicated, would be as certain and infallible as is that of God's. To illustrate this in some measure by the comparison of our own knowledge, we know certainly that some things are, and that some things will be, as that the sun will rise to-morrow; and when we thus know they are, or will be, they cannot but be; yet manifest it is that our knowledge doth not at all affect the things we thus know, to make them either more certain, or more future than they would be without it. Now foreknowledge in God is knowledge; as therefore knowledge has no influence on things that are, so neither has foreknowledge on things that shall be, and consequently the foreknowledge of any action that would be otherwise free, cannot alter or diminish that freedom: whereas God's decree of election is powerful and active, and comprehends the preparation and exhibition of such means as shall unfrustrably produce the end; and his decrce of reprobation is active, as far as action is required to render any man deficient, and therefore sinful of necessity, it being a decree of with-holding, from the objects of it, that grace which can alone enable them to do what God commands, or to avoid what God

d Br. p. 665,

*Diminishing boundary or term.' ED.

forbids on the severest penalty. Now sin having no efficient, but only a deficient cause, it consisting only in not doing what is commanded, and not avoiding what is forbidden, that which renders it necessary for me to be thus deficient must lay me under a necessity of siuning.

COROLLARY. Hence (Secondly,) ariseth another signal difference betwixt God's prescience and his decrees,—that God's prescience renders no actions necessary, though it sees some are in their own natures so, since otherwise it would lay a necessity on his own actions, he fore-knowing both what he can and will do; and from all eternity fore-knowing what he did, and will do in time. For example, he fore-knew that he would create a world, angels, and men in time, that he would send his Son into the world to die for sinners, and many things of a like nature; but this did not make it necessary that he should create the world, angels, or men, or send his Son into the world, or do all this then only when he did so. And if his fore-knowledge lays no necessity upon himself to act, nor any way impairs the freedom of his own actions, why should it be conceived that it lays any necessity upon human actions, or impairs the freedom of them? Now if this prescience doth not impair the freedom of our actions any more than if God had no such prescience, and it be reasonable to give precepts, and tender exhortations and motives to men free to perform what is required, and what they are exhorted, and thus moved to, it must be reasonable thus to deal with men, notwithstanding God's fore-knowledge of their actions. But it is not so with respect to God's decrees, his decree of election comprehending not only the end, but the means to it, as to be wrought by his especial grace, and his unfrustrable operation, which I cannot resist, if I cannot have the will to resist it; and that I cannot have, if this operation determines my will to act in compliance with it, and where the sin consists in a defect, that is, the not doing what is required, and the not avoiding what is forbidden, the decree of withholding that grace without which that effect is necessary, is a decree that the sin shall be inevitable, and to the objects of it necessary. Fifthly. God's knowledge reaches not only, rà μéλλovra, tỏ 'future contingencies;' but also, rà dúvara, ' future possibilities,' viz. He knows that such things may be, though they never will be, that I might will and do what I neither do nor will, and ab