To the Godly Reader

TO THE GODLY READER.

This subject of divine influences (Christian Reader) is most obvious to daily practice, but a path untrodden (I conceive) to the travels of the pens of the godly and experienced divines who have written practical divinity, that is called the pillar of predetermination, which is indeed new and wild divinity to some. But it's no other way new, than the new trust which the Lord has put upon the Mediator Christ, whose it is to lose none, to bring many children to glory, to cast none away who comes to him, for grant an efficacious and strong, but sweet and none compelling, yet a mighty drawing and love-forcing violence and dominion to Christ Jesus over the proudest piece of the six days works of creation, to wit, over man's free-will, so as insuperably, and without a miss, he must drive his flock to their eternal green pastures, and overdrive none. And modest spirits, and such as are in love with truth, need not contend; for me, I shall desire none to be farther in love with the Lord's strong flection, bowing and turning of man's will whithersoever God will, than we may save the holy and strong dominion of the sovereign Lord, that he may have a more powerful mastery over the entrance of the free and contingent acts of the will of men and Angels than the creatures themselves have. And reason would say that sovereign and independent former of all, of whom, through whom, for whom are all things (Romans 11), should be above the clay. Hence these introductory considerations by way of preface.

1. There cannot be a knocking without but there must be hearing within (Canticles 5:1), for the Lord's knocking internal, whether at first or renewed conversion, has something peculiar, as hearing and learning of the Father (John 5:45), has something of which a natural man is not capable, and so has instructing with a strong hand (Isaiah 8:11). If Christ had spoken to the graves and corpse near to Lazarus's corpse, Come forth, as he speaks indefinitely to all in the Gospel, Come to me, believe in Christ; and rebuke such as will not come (John 5:40), yet all should not be raised out of the grave, as Lazarus.

2. It's the same letter and sound of gracious word that comes to all the hearers (Acts 16) and to Lydia, but the same heart opening of the spirit goes not along; as many externally hear the noise of the report of Gospel-tidings, to whom the arm of the Lord is not revealed (Acts 16:13, 14). It's better experiencedly to feel, than literally to search how the word is the chariot, the Spirit the driver of the chariot.

2. Such as receive the ingrafted word, or the word and Spirit, shall not much dispute how or by what cleft quâ rimâ the Lord came in, here he is now, the word is the instrument: the blind man's word (John 9:25), one thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see: is enough, though some cannot write a chronicle, or tell the history, or aim, how place, manner of their conversion.

3. Some are troubled how sovereignty of quickening influences in the gracious Lord, who quickens hic & nunc, in every duty, and withdraws his sovereign concurrence as he best pleases, can consist with our debt of duty. It's safest to look to duty and the commanding will to rise up and be doing, and not to dazzle the wit with disputing the sovereignty of God, nor to enquire into his latent decreeing will.

4. A gracious heart is so taken up with care to pay the rent of commanded duties, as he has no leisure to argue why? and if the Lord had decreed to give me quickening influences I should not thus decline. The thesis of a heart of unbelief is a more edifying theme to dispute against, and to weep over, than to quarrel with, and agitate the question concerning the Lord's withdrawing of his congruous applying of the word to the heart, or his prescience and permissive decrees: duty is mine, sovereignty is his.

5. Faith supposes this truth, though saving influences be wanting, and holy sovereignty withdraw them for reasons far above the reach of Angels and men's capacities, yet it is my sin that I lay under unresisted deadness. It may be asserted that it is a sinful inclination in us to make the high decree of God our Bible, and to be unwilling to be ruled by the revealed will of God. So Eve was less willing to believe the revealed threatening (in the day you eat you shall die) and most bent to climb up to a knowing state with God; which the Lord in his latent purpose and decree did deny to man. So the devils' quarrel is not with their own apostasy, but with the holy Lord's dispensation; are you come [illegible] to torment us? and (which is another fault) before the time (Matthew 8:29). Nor can we move questions concerning the decrees and deep dispensations of God, but we must fall upon the Almighty to defend our own sin; the damned in hell eternally rail against the decrees of holy and spotless justice, and his decrees of giving to them life and being, and denying to them the benefit of death (Revelation 6:15, 16). But as they blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains, so they never repent of their deeds (Revelation 16:11).

6. It's safe sailing in declining of rocks; when we adore the Lord's withdrawing of influences, and justify him, and bewail our own sinful choice, and condemn ourselves: in Psalm 51 David, and in the confession Daniel chapter 9, Ezra 9, the humbled people of God do not hint at any heart wrestling with the decree of God, but only bewail their own rebellion, and not hearkening to the voice of the prophets, and desire to sit patiently and in silence in their lot of suffering, and reproach and shame. It is true, they complain (Lamentations 3:13), He has caused the arrow of his quiver to enter into my reins; but yet they believe (verse 24), the Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in him. And they check unbelieving complaining (verse 39), Therefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin.

7. It cannot be conceived how a soul in guiltiness must be in a case of invincibly necessitated despair, if he conceive and believe the Lord gave me a power to will or not to will free from all divine determination, and before any act of his foreknowledge or decree, I was finally and wilfully to reject the Physician Christ, and this the Lord did foreknow, but could not efficaciously hinder; what place can be left for consolation in God, or submission to the holy will of God, for this was invincibly to come to pass, before any act of his will or prescience.

8. Nor can I pray in faith, Lord, incline my heart to your testimonies: if the voluntary determination of my own heart to his holy testimonies, or the wicked vital refusing to yield to, or to be led by his testimonies, go before the act of the Lord's knowledge or will, or before any efficacious, congruous, internal and victorious drawing of me to Jesus Christ.

9. It cannot be denied but this very way which the Lord has taken in denying of his influences to the eternal standing of Adam, and to law-doing and law-living is the most excellent course, and that flesh and blood dare not to appear to countermand herein either infinite wisdom, or admirable sovereignty.

For 1. The law-heaven the garland, the crown and reward of law-merit should have been a paradise where there is no tree of life (Revelation 2:7), no river of water of life, no Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, to feed and to lead them to the fountain of living waters (Revelation 7:17); yes, it should be darker and a less glorious heaven than the gospel-heaven.

For 2. There should have been there no new heaven nor new earth, no chair of estate, no high lifted up throne for the power of the kings of the earth, who has loved us, and washed in his blood.

Nor 3. Should there have been any new song, nor any such redeemed musicians, who sing with a loud voice (Revelation 5:12), "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing": and what a heaven should that be that wants the fairest rose in that garden? It should be only the heaven of God Creator, which though glorious, yet not so kindly nor so desirable to us, wanting the savour and delicious smell of the man Christ, head of men and Angels.

4. Nor can there be more lovely Christians than that great and fair mystical body of the ransomed of the Lord; the lovely company that are before the throne, clothed in white with palms in their hands, in sign of eternal victory; who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and with them their glorious head, so that here shall be completed and perfected Christ mystical.

It is boldness to weave a web of carnal difficulties against the Lord's holy providence; he hated the first sin as he does all sin, but to say he was weak and impatient about its entrance in the world, blames his omnipotency, to say the watchman of Israel was; as to all care and vigilance of holy providence, sleeping or slumbering, and was thoughtless and drowsy, not valuing whether his noble sons of creation, Angels and men, should fall, and irrecoverably and eternally be broken, and become fuel for everlasting fire, or stand and be eternally happy, is injurious to infinite wisdom, and the perfection of his holy will, to say that the Lord loved such a guest as sin, must blame his spotless holiness: but if any say,

Obj. But did man by any necessity of a divine decree sin?

Answ. A compelling necessity everting the creature's liberty there was none, but a necessity by which the man was determined to one distinctively to stand or fall, not copulatively both to stand and not to stand, to obey and disobey, there was in created free-will, if we suppose there had been no decree. Now the holy decree brought no necessity, 1. Compelling, such as is of a man bound hand and foot. 2. No natural necessity, such as that of the Sun to give light, the fire to cast out heat. Nor 3. No brutish necessity void of a discoursing faculty, such as that of the swallow building her nest, the bee making honey; but we must say there was some eminent, holy and spotless necessity of decree in Christ's three times rather than seven times praying: why King Joash smites the ground three times and stays, and smites it not six times (2 Kings 13:19), why the Lord writes in his book (Psalm 139:16) such a number of drops of rain, such a number of drops of snow to make up such a treasure; and God determined (Job 38:22) such a number of pound weights of mountains (Isaiah 40:12), and it was necessary the Lord should determine the names and number of the stars (Psalm 147:4), and why ten acres of a vineyard should yield one bath, not two; why every man's number of his months should be determined by the statute of a divine decree (Job 14:4, 5).

2. Nor wrong we the Lord, or free-will either, to say God decreed that Joseph should be sold by his brethren: David cursed and reproached by Shimei: Judah carried away captive by the Babylonians: Israel oppressed by the rod of God, the Assyrians: Job spoiled by the Chaldeans and Sabeans: Christ Jesus crucified by Herod, Pilate, and the Jews. Otherwise the Lord could yield no comfort in his word to the godly, when oppressed by the wicked, but the like, "Comfort not yourselves, my dear people, under persecutions from the wicked, for I permitted these evils, but these calamities befall you before I knew them, contrary to my will and holy determination, I cannot without forcing of wicked will hinder them, or safely and indeclinably secure and save you; therefore stay your prayers to me, and believe not that I can avert these evils." Here is a most cursed necessity which our adversaries lay on God, while as they would eschew a holy, harmless, and most wise necessity of providence.

Obj. 2. But by the adversaries' way it follows that there is a foregoing reason why the will of Adam made choice of that sinful act because God predeterminated the will thereunto, and the reason of the first omission, or not consideration in Adam, or his sleepiness, is ob defectum praedeterminationis divinae, because of the defect of divine praedetermination. Therefore because (2.) God withdrew his actual influence of praedetermination, it was no more in the dependent power of Adam to obey that, "Eat not," than the Sun can move when God draws away his actual influence, so must the original of sin be reduced on God. So strange.

Answ. 1. A reason ratio why any man sins, is, in good grammar, a moral motive inducing a man to sin, and that works by way of persuasion. Let not the reader be persuaded that we teach that the real influence of God, or that his holy concourse any way is a moral motive of obedience, or of sin, as if Adam had been persuaded to sin because he saw and felt the Lord did first withdraw his concourse or influence whether it praedeterminate or move by praedetermination, or collateral joining, therefore Adam was morally induced to sin; this is a goodly dream.

2. Ratio, a reason here must be taken for a physical and a real, not a moral cause; now the adversary abstained from the word cause.

And 1. we say Adam not through defect or want of the Lord's holy praedetermination, as if therefore, ideo, for that cause he sinned, because the Lord did withdraw his influences; but the adequate, culpable moral cause of Adam's sinning, and of his choosing of a vicious action (for Adam in sinning is only and properly a moral cause under a law) is his own free-will, freely declining from the rule; there is no defect or moral want of God's praedetermination, because the sovereign Lord, who is above a law, was not obliged to join his praedeterminating influence to Adam, but rather obliged to withdraw his praedetermination from the man, who in the same moment of time was willing to want that praedetermination; for God out of holy sovereignty withdraws in the same moment his influence, in which Adam sinfully rejects the same influence.

3. This adversary, if he would turn the word ratio, reason, into the word cause, or concurrence, would see himself at a loss; it will follow that the cause why Adam sinned, is because God denied his causative concurrence, and so the argument shall hurt his cause; for the concurrence of God is causative, then must the Lord's withdrawing of his concurring influence be the collateral cause of Adam's sinning, except he say that man has in his power the concurrence of God, and if so, Adam and all men's free-will must be Lord of omnipotency and omnipotent concurrences, and then why but God must rather make prayers and requests to our free-will to incline and move his omnipotency to concur to acts of obedience, then free-will should make prayers to God that he should by his grace incline our hearts to his testimonies. 2. Must not the created free-will of man by this be placed in the royal seat and throne of divine providence, to domineer over and dispose of all free acts of obedience and disobedience as it seems good to the creature? And (3.) so must the sovereign King be Lord of all free acts at the second hand, with the good leave of created free-will. And (4.) the number of all free actings of final obedience and disobedience, and of the saved and damned, must be in the hand of created free-will, and that primarily, and so in the creature's power must be the Book of Life; first by way of free determination, and with the Lord and the Lamb the Book of Life is but as a second copy, and a conditional roll, containing so many as the creature first determines. (5.) And so must our Immanuel, God manifested in the flesh, ere he can get entrance in the world, have a pass subscribed by free-will, and God shall come in the flesh and be Mediator and King absolutely, as man will, it's not then eternal love who foreordained the medicine, and the physician before ever the man was sick; and if free-will had so pleased, Christ God man should have been holden out of the world, and the gates for ever closed on him, so as knock as he pleases, free-will might have refused to open and let him in. (6.) Experimental grace and pardoning mercy might have stood afar off, and lost man never have tasted thereof, yes such riches of grace should never have been in the world. (7.) Man's free-will, if it be the only determiner of itself and his own free acts; and if the strong dominion of grace, for fear of strangling of liberty created, had no determining power, might well have sent that saving Redeemer back to heaven again to his Father, and none of mankind should ever have received Christ, tasted of his precious love, his sweet promises, and the offered salvation; for created free-will is such as may nill, will, refuse, let God decree and allure, draw, move, determine as he can or will, yet omnipotency of grace cannot ravish free-will. (8.) Yes, such is free-will's nature that by its independent self-determination, the holy Ghost in all his sweetest attractions, in the emanations and flowings of love, which is stronger than death, his strong and powerful breathings, and mighty drawings, by a power not inferior to that which raised Christ from the dead, may be frustrated and broken, for free-will may stand out as a rock of iron and adamant against the strong actings of omnipotent grace, and be not a whit moved at the perfume and sweet smelling ointments of Christ, his beauty, the refreshments of the house of wine, his tenderest consolations. (9.) For if free-will say not Amen, though Christ work completely his work, make his soul an offering for sin, yet shall not Christ see his seed, nor be satisfied with his wages, for free-will may refuse to yield the redeemed over to God, as captives overcome by his soul delighting, and powerful drawings. (10.) Nor shall it be in the power of the Almighty to be faithful and true in fulfilling his promise of giving a new heart to the elect (Jeremiah 31:31; Ezekiel 36:26; Hebrews 8:8-10), for though the Lord of free grace give, wicked free-will may refuse to receive the new heart. (11.) The faithfulness and power of God, interposed in the promise of perseverance (1 John 4:4; John 10:27-28; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude v. 24; Ephesians 5:25-27; Isaiah 54:10; Isaiah 59:20-21; Jeremiah 32:39-40), must be broken, if free-will may resile from God, and disannul and resist all the actings of God in bringing many sons to glory. 12. There can be no place to infinite wisdom, free grace, pardoning mercy; to the merits of Christ in dying to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18), in delivering and redeeming us from a present evil world (Galatians 1:4), from all iniquity (Titus 2:14), from our vain conversation (1 Peter 1:18), that we should live to righteousness (1 Peter 2:24), as wisdom, grace, mercy, are effectually experienced in sinners, if it be in free-will's independent power to admit or reject the saving actings of God in these, let any teach and show a midst between the Lord's granting of effectual grace to any one rather than to another, from his absolute dominion, will, and differencing grace and predeterminating grace.

Since the Adversaries grant that the concurrence of God to the entitative act of sinning is causative, they are obliged to roll away the stone, and to clear to us how the Lord is not as well by their way the joynt and collateral cause of sin (hallowed be his Name) as he is the praedeterminating cause (as is pretended) by our way; for Francis. Silevias, Lo. Meratins, Schoolmen not to be despised, with reason say, If he be the cause of theft who concurs, and consents, and helps a man to climb in at a window to steal, no less then he who praedetermines the man to steal by either command or counsel, or then by reall efficiency, then must the holy Lord be judged the cause of Adam's first act of sinning, as it is an act, both the one way and the other.

Neither does the concurrence or non-concurrence either way hurt the natural way of free-wills working, though the Author make out-crys, O here be three necessities; what if there be four or ten? The Author well knows the learned of both ways teach there be divers necessities that hurt not free will.

Neither is it to be forgotten that the Lord's saving concurrence to bring the Elect to glory, is of an higher and more excellent nature then the influence of God to Adam. For that influence to Adam was 1. connatural, and not the fruit of Christ's merit, as are saving influences in Christ. 2. That influence to Adam, was not given to Adam as praedestinated to obtain the Law-reward of life. I judge Adam was not praedestinate to any such Law-life, but to obtain life and pardon in the satisfactory death of Christ. Nor 3. was that influence given to Adam in order to perseverance, for perseverance was commanded indeed to Adam, but it was neither promised of God to him, nor was it ever in the purpose or decree of God to bestow it on him; therefore God's influence to Adam's obedience must be a far lower and weaker causality then the saving influences of Christ. It was said by me, that God withdrew his influence from A[illegible]am, who in the same moment was willing to want it; not that Adam formally refused it, but that materially, interpretatively, and in his actual consenting to sin he refused it. The Adversary crys out, but soft words and strong and hard Arguments were best. It is questioned (says he) whether Adam's will to eat was before the Lord's denial of his influence, or posterior and later then the denial, or at once (it is of no moment whether they were at once in time) they dare not say before, because then Adam had sinned before he sinned; if his will to eat be posterior to the want of God's influence, there is manifestly an antecedent necessity: therefore Doctor Tuiss. says they were coexistent in the same moment of nature; and so the necessity yet stands.

Ans. Armini. in his collation with Junius could have made this Argument stronger. But 1. The Lord by order of nature withdraws his influence, and in the same moment of time (which is of great moment) Adam sins and refuses the influence: And it follows not that Adam sins before he sins, nor follows it that Adam sins by any necessity destructive to the liberty of the will; yes, it is a necessity helping and aiding freedom, because the Lord withdraws no influence from Adam against his will, but in the same moment of time that the Lord withdraws his influence from Adam to the act, Adam withdraws his consent to the act, & virtually subscribes to the wanting of the influence of God. The Adversary is most angry at the distinction, as dark and not intelligible, and says it cannot be taught the people: why? The want of the influence of God by order of nature is before the virtual and interpretative merit of wanting that influence; if the virtual merit be an evil merit, malum meritum, or a sin, so it must be posterior, and later then the want of God's influence, and not before it; but it is like a fiction, that there be two demerits in Adam's sin, one culpable, another unculpable. Ans. 1. It is still said by me, that the want of divine influence, by order of nature is before Adam's sin. 2. It is not theologically spoken, that the merit of sin reatris penae is sin or evil; it's a fiction that the merit of sin is either culpable or unculpable, it's rather good, and an obligation to wrath, and a consequent of sin, and is not sin. No merit of reward is either formally obedience, but posterior to obedience; nor is a merit or demerit of punishment is formally sin, but posterior to sin. Christ is liable to punishment for our sins, and as an ingaged surety debet puniri ought to be punished for our sins that were laid on him (Isaiah 53:6; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13) but there was formally and inherently no sin in Christ, nor any evill, or any thing culpable in Christ. 3. Adam's virtual consenting to want the influence of God was his very first sin formally; he who refuses to stand, and wilfully falls, he virtually refuses a staff or a pillar to lean upon; he who formally wanders, he virtually hates his guide and leader; he who formally loves darkness, and practically walks therein, he virtually hates light, and desires virtually that the light should not have shined on him; and so he who willingly falls, and willingly shu[illegible]s his eyes, virtually deserved the staff should have been taken from him, and that the Sun should not have shined on him; he who willingly wanders out of the way, does virtually deserve to be depraved of his guide; and who so wanders are said to despise the word of the Lord their guide and rule. So here is no fiction, but evident truth, Adam in the very act of sinning deserved, because he sinned, that God should have withdrawn his influence, but it was a virtual deserving, and formally a sin.

Ob. If for this reason Adam interpretatively put away divine influence, so that the fault is imputed to him, not to God; it would seem by that same reason Adam should interpretatively will and desire the predeterminating influence of God to a godly act of obedience; and so a godly and pious work should be ascribed to man and not to God.

The virtual demerit is not the adequate cause why the sin is ascribed to Adam, but the actual crooking and deviating of the mind, will and affections from God, as the true nearest cause, especially since Adam is under a law not to sin, nor to refuse virtually the Lord's influence. Because the Lord is under no law to give influences, his free withdrawing can never make the sin to be imputed to God, for God does nothing contra debitum in withdrawing his influence, but Adam against a law virtually rejects the influence, and formally sins. So there is no reason why the good work should not be ascribed to God for power to act, to wit, the image of God, and actual acting are his free gift; but a power of sin and actual sin are wholly from us, only not from God at all. I speak of the power formal to sins, which is a crookedness of power, such as is a power to blindness.

Whereas they say that Adam materially and interpretatively in the effect wants the praedeterminating influence of God, I ask whether they understand the effect and material and interpretative consent or the formal and direct actual consent. If the former be said, it is a ridiculous clavering, for they say that Adam desired interpretatively and materially to want the influence of God quatenus in se, as he desired to want the influence of God. If the latter be said, the necessity of sinning stands, for if God deny his influence to one of the opposites, and gives it to the other, it is a necessity. The strength of our argument is that that is not to be imputed to Adam as sin, which was both necessary and inevitable.

The argument is weak, for one and the same voluntary act of consenting to eat in Adam is referred to, directly to the law, you shall not eat (Genesis 2:17), and it is formally a sinful act contrary to the commandment.

Adam in this sinful act of consenting to eat did also interpretatively and virtually, and indirectly, not in another formal and distinct act, will and desire to want the influence of God. Now no precept or law is laid upon Adam, or upon any man, to have or to want the influence of God, whether it be predeterminative or collateral; only in acts of obedience, which cannot be performed without that influence; in sinful acts we are to want the influence of God requisite to the entitative act.

No necessity is or can be inferred from God's determining, either in his decree or in his actual bowing and praedetermining of the will to one of the opposites, but such whereby the holy praedetermination of God insinuates itself sweetly and connaturally in the bosom of the elective power, without any straining or forcing of the light of the mind, and its indifferency, or compelling the will to be carried to any other of the opposites than the will itself does connaturally embrace.

3. The way of Adversaries destroys all eternal decrees in God, under pretence of eschewing a necessity; for by this from eternity the will of God was loose, lubrick, potential, disjunctive, and fixed neither upon the breaking or not breaking the legs of Christ, that was left to the free-will and decree of the Souldiers. So God from eternity neither decreed nor determined the selling of Joseph, or the not selling of him; nor the crucifying of Christ, or the not crucifying of him; nor the believing of Jews and Gentiles, or the free not believing, for had he put a necessity of a decree on one of the opposites, on believing rather then on none-believing, he should (say the Adversaries) have fixed all free action, under a fatal and Adamantine Law of eternal and inexorable necessity, and so destroyed free-will; but so God should determine and order nothing in free and contingent events, but commit all to free-will, and to contingently working causes. 2. All Gods wise decrees of free and contingent events in every page almost of the Scripture, must be utterly destroyed. 3. He could foretel nothing by free agents; prophesies and predictions must perish, for God could not say from eternity, I shall afflict my people Judah by the Babylonians; I shall impoverish Job, and spoil him by the Sabeans; I will deliver to death my Son, to the death of the Cross by Herod, Pilate and the Jews: for that necessity should destroy all contingency of second causes, for God cannot (says Strangius) deny his influence to one of the opposites and give it to the other but he must destroy freedom, then must he decree to give his influences to both opposites, and so should nothing be determined from eternity which comes to pass in time, ah, providence, or fortune rather. 4. God should will and decree one of the opposites in time de novo, and every day, and he should will and do in time many things which he decreed not to do from eternity, because (say they) his will and decree was from eternity fixed upon no contingent acts. 5. No wise man governs so his family, no General his Army, no Prince his Subjects, if he be wise, and knowing (as the holy Lord is alknowing) he taketh no counsel in Arena, but he forecasteth and decreeth things within the compass of power to do, before he does things, for to will all of hand and of new, without eternal fore-fixing of the will, casts all the contingent acts of men and Angels upon loose uncertainties. 2. Make the only wise God rash and dubious. 3. Puts him to learn by experience new things to day, and to will and decree them fixedly in time, concerning which yesterday and before the world was, he was not fixed in his will to do determinatly any thing, for fear of fatal necessity. For 4. God had either fixed a decree concerning all things, as written in a book, before they were, as it is (Psalm 139:16) and of certain persons loved to salvation and healed (Romans 9:11, 12) and written in the book of life (Exodus 32:32; Psalm 69:28; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 20:15; Luke 10:20) and by head and name predestinate to glory, or then the will and decree of God was tottering, dubious and indifferent toward things and persons; if the former be said, the Lord wrote and ordained fixedly all single contingent things and actions to their ends, and he must have foreordained persons to glory, and to free acts of faith and holiness, and to the habit of free actions, for if God fixedly ordained persons to free acts, he must have fixedly ordained these free acts, and so there must be chains of necessity laid on free will and free acts as the Adversaries argue; if the latter be said, the decrees of election and reprobation must be fast and loose, as the free-will of men best pleases: and indeed this Author makes this a third necessity that overturns freedom, for if reprobation (says he) and the decree of declaring the Lords justice be before sin, then is there a strong and unwarrantable necessity of sinning laid on men and Angels. But Protestant Divines, the soundest of Papists, Augustine, Prosper, Hilarius, Fulgentius, and the soundest Fathers, maintain a decree of passing by of non-election, a purpose of denying such grace to multitudes; as if it had been granted Esau, Ismael, Pharaoh, Cain, should have believed and been saved as well as David and Peter; but this grace the Lord decreed to deny, because the Potter does and may dispose of the clay as pleaseth him; Because it is not in him that wills and runs, but in God that shews mercy. 2. Because he has mercy on whom he will, and hardens whom he will, and yet he is just, and justly is angry at sin; and that stands as the objection of the carnal Pelagian in Paul's time (Romans 9:19): You will say, why does he yet find fault? who has resisted his will? This is the very objection of this Author; if the Lord decreed to deny effectually renewing grace to the masses of reprobates clay, before they did good or ill, and before they could run and will, that is, ante & citra peccati provisione, before any consideration of sin in them, and decreed to give it to others because he will: why should God complain? For who has, who can resist his will? For his will and decree must be necessarily fulfilled and executed, and without the sin of men and Angels there could be no execution nor fulfilling of such a decree. Our Divines with the Fathers say, 1. The judgement and dispensation is hid and deep, but not unjust. 2. Paul and they say none have resisted his will, and the counsel of the Lord shall stand. 3. The decree of God compels no man to sin, nor lays on men any necessity destructive to liberty of sinning or obeying freely. 4. Gods decree is the cause of no mans falling or sinning. 5. The eternal ruine and final sinning of Angels and men fell out by order of nature and time, before the decree and will of God, how could he then help it? Here is a strong and a fatal necessity that God could not break, but since a sparrow falls not to the earth, and is snared without the will of the Father of Christ, how can men and Angels fall eternally without his will? O there is an absolute will of God, and a conditional will, without which sin fell not out (say they) but the conditional will is a name no more, for God so should have decreed such things good and evil should be, after they were and had being, not to say that it must be as unjust that God should will sins existence after it falls out as before it falls out, as to the Lords loving or any commanding or approving thereof, or as to the point of straining of the will to act sin; yes, the holy Lord no more strains by decree and actual influence the will in acts of holy and supernatural obedience, then in acts of sin; and there is a door opened to fatal necessity in neither, for the Lord trails violently no children to glory, and compels by decree or praedetermination none to the entitative acts in sin, nor violently drives he either divels or reprobate men to everlasting fire; it is safer to believe holy providence for the want of the faith of an all-governing Lord must bring perpetual trepidation and anxity of conscience, trembling and fainting of heart, and destroy and sulvert all solid consolation, lively hope, conquering patience. O that we could pray and believe more, and curiously dispute less, and sinfully fret not at all; but say, O the depth! and pray, your Kingdom come: even so come Lord Jesus.