Chapter 5: The Power and Will of the Almighty

By the former steps, is the Altar of Ahaz, set on the right hand of the Altar of God: the Arminian Idol, in a direct opposition exalted to an equal pitch, with the power, and will of the most high. I shall now present to you, the spirit of God once more contending, with the towering imaginations of poor mortals, about a transcendent privilege of greatness, glory and power: for having made his decrees mutable, his prescience fallible, and almost quite divested him of his providence; as the sum and issue of all their endeavors, they affirm that his will may be resisted, he may fail of his intentions, be frustrated of his ends, he may, and does propose, such things, as he neither does, nor can at any time accomplish: and that, because the execution of such acts of his will, might haply clash against the freedom of the wills of men: which if it be not an expression of spiritual pride, above all that ever the devil attempted in heaven, divines do not well explicate that sin of his. Now because there may seem some difficulty in this matter, by reason of the several acceptations of the will of God: especially in regard of that whereby it is affirmed that his law and precepts, are his will, which alas we all of us too often resist or transgress, I will unfold one distinction of the will of God, which will leave it clear, what it is, that the Arminians oppose, for which we count them worthy of so heavy a charge.

*Divinum velle est eius esse*, say the Schoolmen, the will of God is nothing but God willing, not differing from his essence, *secundum rem*, in the thing itself, but only *secundum rationem*, in that it imports a relation to the thing willed. The essence of God then, being a most absolute pure simple act or substance: his will consequently can be but simply one, whereof we ought to make neither division, nor distinction: if that whereby it is signified, were taken always properly and strictly for the eternal will of God: the differences thereof, that are usually given, are rather distinctions of the signification of the word, than of the thing.

In which regard, they are not only tolerably, but simply necessary; because without him, it is utterly impossible to reconcile some places of Scripture, seemingly repugnant. In the 22nd Chapter of Genesis (v. 2) God commands Abraham, to take his only son Isaac; and offer him for a burnt offering in the land of Moriah. Here the words of God are declarative of some will of God to Abraham: who knew it ought to be, and little thought, but that it should be performed: but yet, when he actually addressed himself, to his duty in obedience to the will of God: he receives a countermand (v. 12) that he should not lay his hand upon the child, to sacrifice him. The event plainly manifests, that it was the will of God that Isaac should not be sacrificed: and yet notwithstanding, by reason of his command; Abraham seems before bound to believe, that it was well-pleasing to God, that he should accomplish what he was enjoined. If the will of God in the Scripture be used but in one acceptation, here is a plain contradiction. Thus God commands Pharaoh to let his people go: could Pharaoh think otherwise, no, was he not bound to believe, that it was the will of God, that he should dismiss the Israelites at the first hearing of the message: yet God affirms, that he would harden his heart, that he should not suffer them to depart, until he had showed his signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. To reconcile these, and the like places of Scripture, both the ancient Fathers, and Schoolmen, with modern divines, do affirm that the one will of God, may be said to be divers or manifold, in regard of the sundry manners, whereby he wills those things to be done, which he wills, as also in other respects: and yet taken in its proper signification, is simply one and the same. The vulgar distinction of God's secret and revealed will, is such, as to which all the other may be reduced: and therefore I have chosen it to insist upon.

The secret will of God, in his eternal, unchangeable purpose, concerning all things which he has made, to be brought by certain means to their appointed ends: of this himself affirms, that his counsel shall stand and he will do all his pleasure (Isaiah 46:10). This some call the absolute efficacious will of God, the will of his good pleasure always fulfilled: and indeed this is the only proper, eternal, constant, immutable will of God, whose order can neither be broken, nor its law transgressed, so long as with him there is neither change, nor shadow of turning.

The revealed will of God contains not his purpose and decree, but our duty, not what he will do according to his good pleasure, but what we should do if we will please him: and this, consisting in his word, his precepts and promises, belongs to us and our children, that we may do the will of God. Now this indeed is rather [in non-Latin alphabet], than [in non-Latin alphabet], that which God wills, than his will, but termed so, as we call that the will of a man which he has determined shall be done. This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son and believes on him, may have everlasting life, says our Savior (John 6:40), that is, this is that which his will has appointed. Hence it is called voluntas signi, or the sign of his will, metaphorically only called his will, says Aquinas: for inasmuch as our commands are the signs of our wills, the same is said of the precepts of God. This is the rule of our obedience, and whose transgression makes an action sinful, for [in non-Latin alphabet], sin is the transgression of a law, and that such a law as is given to the transgressor to be observed. Now God has not imposed on us the observation of his eternal decree and intention, which as it is utterly impossible for us to transgress or frustrate, so were we unblameable if we should. A master requires of his servant to do what he commands, not to accomplish what he intends, which perhaps he never discovered to him. No, the commands of superiors are not always signs that the commander will have the things commanded actually performed, as in all precepts for trial: but only that they who are subjects to this command shall be obliged to obedience, as far as the sense of it does extend, & hoc clarum est in praeceptis divinis, says Durand, &c., and this is clear in the commands of God: by which we are obliged to do what he commands, and it is not always his pleasure that the thing itself, in regard of the event, shall yet be accomplished: as we saw before in the examples of Pharaoh and Abraham.

Now the will of God in the first acceptation is said to be hid or secret, not because it is so always, for it is in some particulars revealed and made known to us two ways.

First, by his word, as where God affirms that the dead shall rise, we neither doubt but that they shall rise, and that it is the absolute will of God that they shall do so. Secondly, by the effects, for when any thing comes to pass, we may cast the event on the will of God as its cause, and look upon it as a revelation of his purpose. Jacob's sons little imagined that it was the will of God, by them to send their brother into Egypt: yet afterward, Joseph tells them plainly, it was not they, but God that sent him there (Genesis 45). But it is said to be secret for two causes. First, because for the most part it is so, there is nothing in divers issues declarative of God's determination but only the event: which while it is future is hidden to them who have faculties to judge of things past and present, but not to discern things to come. Hence Saint James bids us not be too peremptory in our determinations, if we will do this or that, not knowing how God will close with us for its performance. Secondly, it is said to be secret, in reference to its cause, which for the most part is past our finding out: his paths are in the deeps and his footsteps are not known.

It appears then that the secret and revealed will of God are diverse in sundry respects, but chiefly in regard of their acts and their objects. First, in regard of their acts, the secret will of God is his eternal decree and determination concerning any thing to be done in its appointed time: his revealed will is an act whereby he declares himself to love or approve any thing, whether ever it be done or no.

Secondly, they are diverse in regard of their objects; the object of God's purpose and decree is that which is good in any kind, with reference to its actual existence, for it must infallibly be performed: but the object of his revealed will is that only which is morally good (I speak of it inasmuch as it approves or commands), agreeing to the Law and the Gospel, and that considered only inasmuch as it is good: for whether it be ever actually performed or no is accidental to the object of God's revealed will.

Now of these two differences, the first is perpetual in regard of their several acts, but not so the latter; they are sometimes coincident in regard of their objects. For instance, God commands us to believe; here his revealed will is that we should so do: withal he intends we shall do so, and therefore ingenerates faith in our hearts that we may believe. Here his secret and revealed will are coincident, the former being his precept that we should believe, the latter his purpose that we shall believe. In this case, I say, the object of the one and the other is the same, even what we ought to do, and what he will do.

And this inasmuch, as he has wrought all our works in us (Isaiah 26:12): they are our own works, which he works in us: his act in us, and by us, is oftimes our duty towards him: he commands us by his revealed will to walk in his statutes, and keep his laws, upon this, he also promises that he will so effect all things, that of some this shall be performed (Ezekiel 36:26, 27): "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh: And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgements and do them:" so that the self same obedience of the people of God, is here the object of his will, taken in either acceptation. And yet the precept of God, is not here as some learned men suppose, declarative of God's intention, for then, it must be so to all, to whom it is given, which evidently it is not, for many are commanded to believe, on whom God never bestows faith: it is still to be looked upon, as a mere declaration of our duty, its closing with God's intention, being accidental to it. There is a wide difference between, do such a thing, and you shall do it: if God's command to Judas to believe, imported as much as it is my purpose, and intention that Judas shall believe, it must needs contradict that will of God, whereby he determined that Judas for his infidelity should go to his own place: his precepts are in all obedience of us to be performed, but do not signify his will, that we shall actually fulfill his commands. Abraham was not bound to believe, that it was God's intention that Isaac should be sacrificed, but, that it was his duty; there was no obligation on Pharaoh to think, it was God's purpose the people should depart, at the first summons, he had nothing to do with that: but there was one, to believe that if he would please God, he must let them go. Hence divers things of good use in these controversies may be collected.

First, that God may command many things by his word, which he never decreed that they should actually be performed: because, in such things, his words are not a revelation of his eternal decree and purpose: but only a declaration of some thing wherewith he is well pleased, be it by us performed or no. In the forecited case, he commanded Pharaoh, to let his people go, and plagued him for refusing to obey his command: hence we may not collect, that God intended the obedience and conversion of Pharaoh by this his precept, but was frustrated of his intention, for the Scripture is evident and clear, that God purposed by his disobedience, to accomplish an end far different, even a manifestation of his glory by his punishment: but only that obedience to his commands is pleasing to him, as (1 Samuel 15:22).

Secondly, that the will of God to which our obedience is required, is the revealed will of God, contained in his word, whose compliance with his decree is such, that hence we learn three things tending to the execution of it. First, that it is the condition of the word of God, and the dispensation thereof, instantly to persuade to faith and obedience. Secondly, that it is our duty, by all means to aspire to the performance of all things by it enjoined, and our fault if we do not. Thirdly, that God by these means, will accomplish his eternal decree of saving his elect, and that he wills the salvation of others, inasmuch as he calls them to the performance of the condition thereof. Now our obedience is so to be regulated by this revealed will of God, that we may sin, either by omission, against its precepts: or commission against its prohibitions: although by our so omitting, or committing of any thing, the secret will or purpose of God be fulfilled. Had Abraham disobeyed God's precept, when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac: though God's will had been accomplished thereby, who never intended it: yet Abraham had grievously sinned against the revealed will of God, the rule of his duty. The holiness of our actions consists in a conformity to his precepts, and not to his purposes: on this ground (Gregory affirms) that many fulfill the will of God (that is his intentions) when they think to change it, (by transgressing his precepts) and by resisting, imprudently obey God's purpose. And to show how merely we in our actions are tied to this rule of our duty, Saint Augustine shows how a man may do good in a thing cross to God's secret will: and evil in that which complies with it: which he illustrates by the example of a sick parent having two children, the one wicked, who desires his father's death, the other godly, and he prays for his life: but the will of God is he shall die, agreeably to the desire of the wicked child: and yet it is the other, who has performed his duty, and done what is pleasing to God.

Thirdly, to return from this unnecessary digression: that which we have now in agitation, is the secret will of God, which we have before unfolded, and this it is that we charge the Arminians for affirming, that it may be resisted: that is, that God may fail in his purposes, come short of what he earnestly intends; or be frustrated of his aim and end: as if he should determinately resolve the faith and salvation of any man: it is in the power of that man, to make void his determination, and not believe, and not be saved: now it is only in cases of this nature, wherein our own free wills have an interest, that they thus limit and circumscribe the power of the most high: in other things, they grant his omnipotence to be of no less extent than others do: but in this case, they are peremptory and resolute, without any coloring or tergiversation, for whereas there is a question proposed by the Apostle (Romans 9:19), Who has resisted his will? Which that none has or can, he grants in the following verses: Corvinus affirms, it is only an objection of the Jews rejected by the Apostle: which is much like an answer young scholars usually give to some difficult place in Aristotle, when they cannot think of a better, loquitur ex aliorum sententia: for there is no sign of any such rejection of it by the Apostle, in the whole following discourse. Yes, and it is not the Jews, that Saint Paul disputes withal here, but weaker brethren concerning the Jews; which is manifest from the first verse, of the next chapter, where he distinguishes between brethren to whom, and Israel of whom he spoke. Secondly, he speaks of the Jews in the whole treatise in the third person, but of the disputer in the second. Thirdly, it is taken for a confessed principle, between Saint Paul, and the disputer as he calls him; that the Jews were rejected, which surely themselves would not readily acknowledge: so that Corvinus rejects as an objection of the Jews, a granted principle of Saint Paul, and the other Christians of his time. With the like confidence, the same author affirms, that they nothing doubt but that many things are not done which God would have to be done: Vorstius goes further, teaching that not only many things are done, which he would have done, but also that many things are done, which he would not have done. He means not our transgressing of his law, but God's failing in his purpose; as Corvinus clears it, acknowledging, that the execution of God's will, is suspended or hindered by man: to whom Episcopius subscribes; as for example: God purposes and intends the conversion of a sinner, suppose it were Mary Magdalen: can this intention of his be crossed and his will resisted? Yes, say the Arminians; for God converts sinners by his grace; but we can resist God when he would convert us by his grace; say six of them jointly in their meeting at the Hague. But some one may here object, say they, that thus God fails of his intention, does not attain the end, at which he aims: we answer, this we grant: or be it the salvation of men, they say they are certain that God intends that for many, which never obtain it; that end he cannot compass.

And here methinks they place God in a most unhappy condition, by affirming that they are often damned, whom he would have to be saved, though he desires their salvation with a most vehement desire and natural affection, such I think, as crows have to the good of their young ones, for that there are in him such desires as are never fulfilled, because not regulated by wisdom and justice; they plainly affirm: for although by his infinite power perhaps, he might accomplish them, yet it would not become him so to do.

Now let any good natured man, who has been a little troubled for poor Jupiter in Homer, mourning for the death of his son Sarpedon, which he could not prevent: or has been grieved for the sorrow of a distressed father, not able to remove the wickedness and inevitable ruin, of an only son; drop one tear for the restrained condition of the God of heaven: who, when he would have all and every man in the world to come to heaven to escape the torments of hell, and that with a serious purpose and intention, that it shall be so: a vehement affection and fervent natural desire, that it should be so, yet being not in himself alone able to save one, must be forced to lose his desire, lay down his affection, change his purpose, and see the greatest part of them to perish everlastingly: yes, notwithstanding that he had provided a sufficient means for them all to escape, with a purpose and intention that they should so do.

In brief, their whole doctrine in this point is laid down by Corvinus, chapter 3, against Moulin, and the third section: where first, he allows of the distinction of the will of God, into that whereby he will have us do something, and that whereby he will do anything himself: the first is nothing but his law and precepts, which we with him affirm may be said to be resisted, in as much as it is transgressed: the latter he says, if it respect any act of man's, may be considered as preceding that act, or following it. If preceding it, then it may be resisted, if man will not co-operate: now this is the will of God whereby himself intends to do anything. The sum of which distinction is this, the will of God concerning the future being of anything, may be considered as it goes before the actual existence of the thing itself, and in this regard it may be hindered or resisted; but as it is considered to follow any act of man, it is always fulfilled. By which latter member, striving to mollify the harshness of the former, he runs himself into inexplicable nonsense, affirming, that that act of the will of God, whereby he intends men shall do anything, cannot be hindered after they have done it, that is, God has irresistibly purposed they shall do it, provided they do it. In his following discourse also, he plainly grants, that there is no act of God's will about the salvation of men, that may not be made void and of none effect, but only that general decree, whereby he has established an inseparable connection between faith and salvation, or whereby he has appointed faith in Christ, to be the means of attaining blessedness: which is only an immanent act of God's will, producing no outward effect: so that every act thereof, that has an external issue by human co-operation, is frustrable and may fall to the ground: which in what direct opposition it stands to the word of God, let these following instances declare.

First, Our God is in heaven, says the Psalmist, he has done whatever he pleased (Psalm 115:5), not only part, but all, whatever he pleased should come to pass by any means. He rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will (Daniel 4:23). The transposition of kingdoms, is not without the mixture of divers free and voluntary actions of men, and yet in that great work, God does all that he pleases. Yes, before him, all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he does according to his will, in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say to him, What do you? (verse 35). My counsel, says he, shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure (Isaiah 46:10). I have purposed I will also do it (verse 11). No, so certain is he of accomplishing all his purposes; that he confirms it with an oath, the Lord of Hosts has sworn, surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed so it shall stand (Isaiah 14:24). And indeed it were a very strange thing, that God should intend what he foresees will never come to pass. But I confess this argument will not be pressing against the Arminians who question that prescience. But yet, would they also would observe from the Scripture, that the failings of wicked men's counsels and intentions is a thing that God is said to deride in heaven, as (Psalm 2:4). He threatens them with it, Take counsel, says he, together and it shall come to nothing (Isaiah 8:10), speak the word and it shall not stand: see also Chapter 29:7, 8. And shall they be enabled to recriminate, and cast the like aspersion on the God of heaven? No surely, says Saint Augustine: Let us take heed we be not compelled to believe that Almighty God would have any thing done which does not come to pass. To which truth also that the schoolmen have universally consented is showed by Alvarez, disput. 32. pro. 3. And these few instances will manifest the Arminian opposition to the word of God in this particular.

S. S. Our God is in heaven and has done whatever pleases him (Psalm 115:3). I will do all my pleasure (Isaiah 46). Who can stay his hand or say to him, what do you? (Daniel 4:35). I have purposed, I will also do it (Isaiah 45). As I have purposed so it shall stand (Chapter 14:24). | Lib. Arbit. We nothing doubt but many things which God wills, or that it pleases him to have done, do yet never come to pass: Corvin. We grant that some of God's desires are never fulfilled, idem. It is in the power of man to hinder the execution of God's will, idem. It is ridiculous to imagine that God does not seriously will any thing but what takes effect: Episcopius. It may be objected that God fails of his end: this we readily grant: Remonstr. Synod. |