ᎪᎡᎢ. This is the image of God that is ftamped upon his nature; and though he feels himself often hurried on fo impetuously, that he may feem to have loft his freedom in fome turns, and upon fome occafions; yet he feels that he might have restrained that heat in its firft beginnings; he feels he can divert his thoughts, and mafter himself in moft things, when he fets himself to it: he finds that knowledge and reflection, that good company and good exercises do tame and foften him, and that bad ones make him wild, loofe, and irregular. From all this they conclude that man is free, and not under inevitable fate, or irresistible motions either to good or evil. All this they confirm from the whole current of the Scripture, that is full of perfuafions, exhortations, reproofs, expoftulations, encouragements, and terrors; which are all vain and theatrical things, if there are no free powers in us to which they are addreffed: to what purpose is it to speak to dead men, to perfuade the blind to fee, or the lame to run? If we are under an impotence till the irrefiftible grace comes, and if, when it comes, nothing can withstand it, then what occafion is there for all thofe folemn discourses, if they can have no effect on us? They cannot render us inexcufable, unless it were in our power to be bettered by them; and to imagine that God gives light and bleffings to those whom he before intended to damn, only to make them inexcufable, when they could do them no good, and they will ferve only to aggravate their condemnation, gives fo ftrange an idea of that infinite goodness, that it is not fit to express it by those terms which do naturally arife upon it. It is as hard to fuppofe two contrary wills in God, the one commanding us our duty, and requiring us with the most folemn obteftations to do it, and the other putting a certain bar in our way, by decreeing that we fhall do the contrary. This makes God look as if he had a will and a will; though a heart and a heart import no good quality, when applied to men: the one will requires us to do our duty, and the other makes it impoffible for us not to fin: the will for the good is ineffectual, while the will that makes us fin is infallible. These things feem very hard to be apprehended; and whereas the root of true religion is the having right and high ideas of God and of his attributes, here fuch ideas arife as naturally give us ftrange thoughts of God; and if they are received by us as originals, upon which we are to form our own natures, fuch notions may make us grow to be fpiteful, imperious, and without bowels, but do not feem proper to infpire us with love,.mercy, and compaffion; though God is always pro- ART. posed to us in that view. All preaching and instruction XVII. does alfo fuppofe this: for to what purpose are men called upon, taught, and endeavoured to be perfuaded, if they are not free agents, and have not a power over their own thoughts, and if they are not to be convinced and turned by reafon? The offers of peace and pardon that are made to all men are delufory things, if they are by an antecedent act of God reftrained only to a few, and all others are barred from them. It is farther to be confidered, say they, that God having made men free creatures, his governing them accordingly, and making his own adminiftration of the world fuitable to it, is no diminution of his own authority: it is only the carrying on of his own creation according to the feveral natures that he has put in that variety of beings of which this world is composed, and with which it is diverfified therefore if fome of the acts of God, with relation to man, are not fo free as his other acts are, and as we may fuppofe neceffary to the ultimate perfection of an independent Being, this arifes not from any defect in the acts of God, but because the nature of the creature that he intended to make free is inconfiftent with fuch acts. : The Divine Omnipotence is not leffened, when we obferve fome of his works to be more beautiful and ufeful than others are; and the irregular productions of nature do not derogate from the order in which all things appear lovely to the Divine Mind. So if that liberty, with which he intended to endue thinking beings, is incompatible with fuch pofitive acts, and fo pofitive a Providence as governs natural things and this material world, then this is no way derogatory to the fovereignty of his mind. This does alío give fuch an account of the evil that is in the world, as does no way accufe or leffen the purity and holinefs of God; fince he only fuffers his creatures to go on in the free use of thofe powers that he has given them; about which he exercises a fpecial Providence, making fome men's fins to be the immediate punishments of their own or of other men's fins, and reftraining them often in a great deal of that evil that they do defign, and bringing out of it a great deal of good that they did not defign; but all is done in a way fuitable to their natures, without any violence to them. It is true, it is not easy to fhew how thofe future contingencies, which depend upon the free choice of the will, fhould be certain and infallible. But we are on other accounts certain that it is fo; for we fee through the whole Scriptures ART. Scriptures a thread of very pofitive prophecies, the accomXVII. plishment of which depended on the free will of man; and thefe predictions, as they were made very precifely, fo they were no lefs punctually accomplished. Not to mention any other prophecies, all those that related to the death and fufferings of Chrift were fulfilled by the free acts of the priests and people of the Jews: they finned in doing it, which proves that they acted in it with their natural liberty. By thefe and all the other prophecies that are in both Teftaments, it must be confeffed, that these things were certainly foreknown; but where to found that certainty, cannot be easily refolved; the infinite perfection of the Divine Mind ought here to filence all objections. A clear idea, by which we apprehend a thing to be plainly contrary to the attributes of God, is indeed a just ground of rejecting it; and therefore they think that they are in the right to deny all fuch to be in God, as they plainly apprehend to be contrary to juftice, truth, and goodness: but if the objection against any thing supposed to be in God lies only against the manner and the unconceivableness of it, there the infinite perfection of God anfwers all. 1 Sam. xxiii. 11, 12. It is farther to be confidered, that this prefcience does not make the effects certain, because they are foreseen; but they are foreseen, because they are to be; fo that the certainty of the prescience is not antecedent or caufal, but fubfequent and eventual. Whatsoever happens, was future before it happened; and fince it happened, it was certainly future from all eternity; not by a certainty of fate, but by a certainty that arifes out of its being once, from which this truth, that it was future, was eternally certain therefore the Divine Prefcience being only the knowing all things that were to come, that does not infer a neceffity or caufality. The Scripture plainly fhews on fome occafions a conditionate prescience: God anfwered David, that Saul was come to Keilah, and that the men of Keilah were to deliver him up; and yet both the one and the other was upon the condition of his ftaying there; and he going from thence, neither the one nor the other ever happened here was a conditionate prefcience. Such was Chrift's Mat. xi. 21, faying, that thofe of Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, would have turned to him, if they had feen the miracles that he wrought in fome of the towns of Galilee. Since then this prefcience may be fo certain, that it can never be mistaken, nor mifguide the defigns or providence of God; and fince by this both the attributes of God are vindicated, 23. vindicated, and the due freedom of the will of man is af- ART. ferted, all difficulties feem to be eafily cleared this way. XVII. As for the giving to some nations and perfons the means of falvation, and the denying these to others, the Scriptures do indeed afcribe that wholly to the riches and freedom of God's grace; but ftill they think, that he gives to all men that which is neceffary to the state in which they are, to answer the obligations they are under in it: and that this light and common grace is fufficient to carry them fo far, that God will either accept of it, or give them farther degrees of illumination: from which it must be inferred, that all men are inexcufable in his fight; and that God is always juft and clear when he judges; fince Pfal. li. 4. every man had that which was fufficient, if not to fave him, yet at least to bring him to a state of falvation. But befides what is thus fimply neceffary, and is of itself sufficient, there are innumerable favours, like largeffes of God's grace and goodness; these God gives freely as he pleases. And thus the great defigns of Providence go on according to the goodness and mercy of God. None can complain, though fome have more cause to rejoice and glory in God than others. What happens to nations in a body may also happen to individuals; fome may have higher privileges, be put in happier circumftances, and have such affiftances given them as God forefees will become effectual, and not only those, which though they be in their nature fufficient, yet in the event will be ineffectual: every man ought to complain of himself for not using that which was fufficient, as he might have done; and all good men will have matter of rejoicing in God, for giving them what he forefaw would prove effectual. After all, they acknowledge there is a depth in this, of God's not giving all nations an equal measure of light, nor putting all men into equally happy circumstances, which they cannot unriddle; but ftill juftice, goodness, and truth are faved; though we may imagine a goodness that may do to all men what is abfolutely the beft for them: and there they confefs there is a difficulty, but not equal to thofe of the other fide. From hence it is that they expound all thofe paffages in the New Teftament, concerning the purpofe, the election, the foreknowledge, and the predeftination of God, fo often mentioned. All thofe, they fay, relate to God's defign of calling the Gentile world to the knowledge of the Meffias: this was kept fecret, though hints of it are given in several of the Prophets; fo it was a mystery; but it was then revealed, when according to Chrift's commif Q 2 fion ART. fion to his Apoftles, to go and teach all nations, they went XVII. preaching the Gofpel to the Gentiles. This was a ftumbling-block to the Jews, and it was the chief subject of controverfy betwixt them and the Apostles at the time when the Epistles were writ: fo it was neceffary for them to clear this very fully, and to come often over it. But there was no need of amufing people in the beginnings of Christianity, and in that firft infancy of it, with high and unfearchable fpeculations concerning the decrees of God: therefore they obferve, that the Apoftles fhew how that Abraham at firft, Ifaac and Jacob afterwards, were chosen by a difcriminating favour, that they and their posterity fhould be in covenant with God: and upon that occafion the Apofile goes on to fhew, that God had always defigned to call in the Gentiles, though that was not executed but by their miniftry. 22. Exod. viii. With this key one will find a plain coherent fense in all St. Paul's difcourfes on this fubject, without afferting antecedent and fpecial decrees as to particular perfons. Things that happen under a permiffive and directing Providence, may be alfo in a largeness of expreffion ascribed to the will and counfel of God; for a permiflive and directing will is really a will, though it be not antecedent Exod. vii. nor caufal. The hardening Pharaoh's heart may be afcribed to God, though it is faid that his heart hardened it15, 19, 32. Self; because he took occafion, from the ftops God put in thofe plagues that he fent upon him and his people, to encourage himself, when he faw there was a new refpite granted him and he who was a cruel and bloody prince, deeply engaged in idolatry and magic, had deferved fuch judgments for his other fins; fo that he may be well confidered as actually under his final condemnation, only under a reprieve, not fwallowed up in the firft plagues, but preserved in them, and raised up out of them, to be a lasting monument of the juftice of God against fuch hardened Rom. ix. impenitency. Whom he will he hardeneth, must be still reftrained to fuch perfons as that tyrant was. 18. It is endless to enter into the difcuffion of all the paffages cited from the Scripture to this purpofe; this key ferving, as they think it does, to open most of them. It is plain these words of our Saviour concerning those John xvii. whom the Father had given him, are only to be meant of a difpenfation of Providence, and not of a decree; fince he adds, And I have loft none of them, except the Jon of perdition for it cannot be faid, that he was in the decree, and yet was loft. And in the fame period in which God is Phil. ii. 13. laid to work in us both to will and to do, we are required to 12. work |