to the most exprefs and moft folemn words of Scripture. ART. Befides, what can we think of the truth of God, and of XVII. the fincerity of thofe offers of grace and mercy, with the obteftations, the exhortations, and expoftulations upon them, that occur fo often in. Scripture, if we can think that by antecedent acts of God he determined that all thefe fhould be ineffectual; fo that they are only fo many folemn words that do indeed fignify nothing, if God intended that all things fhould fall out as they do, and if they do fo fall out only because he intended it? The chief foundation of this opinion lies in this argument as its bafis, that nothing can be believed that contradicts the juftice, holiness, the truth, and purity of God; that these attributes are in God according to our notions concerning them, only they are in him infinitely more perfect; fince we are required to imitate them. Whereas the doctrine of abfolute decrees does manifeftly contradict the clearest ideas that we can form of juftice, holiness, truth, and goodnefs. From the nature of God they go to the nature of man; and they think that fuch an inward freedom by which a man is the mafter of his own actions, and can do or not do what he pleases, is fo neceffary to the morality of our actions, that without it our actions are neither good nor evil, neither capable of rewards or punishments. Mad men, or men asleep, are not to be charged with the good or evil of what they do; therefore at least fome degrees of liberty must be left with us, otherwise why are we praised or blamed for any thing that we do? If a man thinks that he is under an inevitable decree, as he will have little remorfe for all the evil he does, while he imputes it to that inevitable force that constrains him, fo he will naturally conclude that it is to no purpofe for him to ftruggle with impoffibilities: and men being inclined both to throw all blame off from themselves, and to indulge themfelves in lazinefs and floth, these practices are too natural to mankind to be encouraged by opinions that favour them. All virtue and religion, all difcipline and industry, must arise from this as their first principle; that there is a power in us to govern our own thoughts and actions, and to raise and improve our faculties. If this is denied, all endeavours, all education, all pains either on ourselves or others, are vain and fruitlefs things. Nor is it poffible to make a man believe other than this; for he does fo plainly perceive that he is a free agent; he feels himself balance matters in his thoughts, and deliberate about them fo evidently, that he certainly knows he is a free being. ART. This is the image of God that is ftamped upon his na ture; and though he feels himself often hurried on so impetuoufly, 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 himfelf 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, loose, and irregular. From all this they conclude that man is free, and not under inevitable fate, or irrefiftible 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 purpofe is it to speak to dead men, to perfuade the blind to fee, or the lame to run? 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 lo ftrange an idea of that infinite goodness, that it is not fit to exprefs it by thofe terms which do naturally arife upon it. : If It is as hard to fuppofe two contrary wills in God, the one commanding us our duty, and requiring us with the moft 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. Thefe 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 spiteful, imperious, and without bowels, but do not feem proper to infpire us with XVII. love, mercy, and compaffion; though God is always pro- ART., poled to us in that view. All preaching and inftruction 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, fay 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 compofed, 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 observe some 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 such 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 alfo 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 ufe of thofe powers that he has given them; about which he exercifes 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 eafy to fhew how thofe future contingencies, which depend upon the free choice of the will, thould 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 thofe 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 thefe 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 goodnefs: 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. II, 12. It is farther to be confidered, that this prefcience does not make the effects certain, because they are foreseen; but they are forefeen, because they are to be; fo that the certainty of the prefcience 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 thews on fome occafions a conditionate prefcience: 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 those 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 fome nations and perfons the means of falvation, and the denying thefe 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 muft be inferred, that all men are inexcufable in his fight; and that God is always just and clear when he judges; fince Pfal. li. 4. every man had that which was fufficient, if not to fave him, yet at leaft 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 pleafes. And thus the great defigns of Providence go on according to the goodnefs and mercy of God. None can complain, though fome have more caufe 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 fuch affiftances given them as God forefees will become effectual, and not only thofe, 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 circumftances, which they cannot unriddle; but ftill juftice, goodness, and truth are faved; though we may imagine a goodnefs 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 those paffages in the New Teftament, concerning the purpose, the election, the foreknowledge, and the predeftination of God, fo often mentioned. All thofe, they say, 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 feveral of the Prophets; fo it was a mystery; but it was then revealed, when according to Chrift's commif a 2 fion |