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and Salvation of his Creatures, muft be call'd a Velleity or a fimple Complacency, and not the primary and chief Will of God; nor why his refolution to punish fuch as neglect the Salvation he offers, may not be called his fecondary or less defirable Will; for these two may well ftand and remain together: As in a Tempeft, the will of the Merchant to fave his Goods, abideth in him as his chief defire, though now, as the cafe ftands, he, by another will, cafteth them into the Sea. Neither are they contrary one to the other, feeing they have two Objects diverfly qualifyed; a Man as he is God's Creature, and as he is an impenitent Sinner; as he was the one, God would have faved him, as he is the other, he Wills his Perdition.

I

There are many other diftin&tions of the Will of God, which do not avail to the opening of the Doctrine of Predeftination; and fome of them ferve not to the clearing of any Doctrine, but rather to the obfcuring of Truth, which we will omit. will fhut up this Head with this Sentence: There is nothing in the World that did not pass under the Cenfure of the Will of God, of fome fort or kind, or other, before it was, as it paffed under Profp. Ep. the View of his Knowledge; The will of God is the 48. Aug. prime and highest cause of all Spiritual and Corporal de Trin. Motions: for there is nothing visible or fenfible, which L. 3. cap.is not from the more fecret, invisible, and intelligible

court of the King of Kings, either commanded or permitted, according to the ineffable Justice of Rewards and Punishments, of Thanks and Retributions, in that most ample and immenfe Republick of the whole Cre

ation.

CHAP.

Of Providence and Predeftination.

WHE Decree of the Will of God determining all other things, befides those about Man, is called by the general name of Providence.

The Decree of God whereby he determined concerning Man, as a Special and Principal part of his Providence, is called by a peculiar name Predeftination.

Predeftination is an A&t of God's Will from all Eternity, decreeing the Ends of all Men, and the Means which he Foreknew would bring them to thofe Ends. The Ends are, Life or Death Eternal; the Means are, the Government of every particular Man in this Life, under more or lefs of the Goodnefs or of the severity of God.

* The Predeftinating to fome Men those means, which God doth Foreknow will bring them unto Life, is the Electing of them to Life.

The Predeftinating to fome Men, only thofe means, which God foreknows, through their own fault, will not bring them to Life, is the Reprobating of them, namely, with that Reprobation which is negative.

That thofe means bring them not to Life, is not even from their infufficiency to do it, for by the fame, others in the Church of God come to Life: but from the perfonal fault, and difobedience of them who ufe not the means, or their fault that have charge of them. But that better means are not given them, even fuch as God's knowledge un

* Deus Pradeftinatos non alia ratione in vitam aternam elegit, quàm complacendo fibi in mediis, ac fine ipfo beatorum pravifis. Molina. Q. 23. Art. 1. Difp. 2. Pag. 305. G 2 derstood

derftood would fave them, if they were given, arifeth only from the juft Will and Pleasure of God.

Neither can this be difgraced by a Nick-name of Poft deftination, because it is after the Knowledge of God's fimple Understanding; for that Knowledge is not of things abfolutely to be, but only conditionally, if God pleafe to fay, they shall be; feeing therefore these things are not known by the Knowledge of Vifion, it is Predeftination properly that gives them being.

CHA P. IV.

Of Election and Reprobation.

ECAUSE in thefe acts God ufeth both his Knowledge and his Will, therefore the Holy Scriptures name the Elect fometimes from one Head, fometimes from the other; fometimes those whom Rom. 11. God forcknew; fometimes those whom he did PredeRom. 8. ftinate according to purpofe. Whence Election and 28. c. 30. Reprobation may be defined either of thefe ways;

2.

1. Election is the Foreknowledge of those benefits of God, whereby a Man will be faved, if they be given him, and the Will to give them unto him. Or thus:

2. Election is the purpose, or Will of God, to give to one Man thofe benefits, whereby he knoweth the Man will be faved, if they be given him.

Thefe agree with the old definition; Pradeftinatio eft præfcientia, & præparatio beneficiorum Dei quibus certiffimè liberantur quicunque liberantur.

1. Reprobation is the foreknowledge of those benefits of God, under which a Man through his own ingratitude will perish, if no other be given unto him; and the Will to give him no other. Or thus:

2. Reprobation is the Decree of God to give to a

Man

Man no other benefits, than those under which he doth foreknow the Man, through his own ingratitude, will perifh, if no other be given him.

the

Here foreknowledge looketh dire&ly upon ingratitude of the Man neglecting Benefits, and the Will denyeth to give any new, or more Benefits than thofe, ineffectual to Salvation only by the abuse or neglect of the ungrateful.

18.

Thus God hath Mercy on whom he will, and whom Rom. be will be hardneth; not altogether by taking one and not another from the Mafs of Original Sin; (which yet I think is his manner of dealing with fuch as die in their Infancy to whom his Providence grants or denys the laver of Baptifm;) not by giving to one Man the Grace of moft certain Repentance, and leaving another in his corruption without relief able to fave him: but by granting, in the difpenfations of his Benefits, and means of Grace outward and inward, unto one those Benefits which he infallibly knows will fave him, and denying another thofe graces which he likewife knows would fave him, if they were granted. Not that he gave him no Grace at all fufficient unto Life, for he gave him much, which the Man received in vain through his own fault, but more God pleafed not to give. For to harden, is not to deny all Grace fufficient to Salvation, but to deny that high, fecret Grace, hidden in the Treafury of God's Power, which God knoweth would speed, convert, and fave, if it were given.

Thus doth Man firft harden his own Heart, difo- Pfal. 95.8. beying the Grace which God doth offer; and God doth harden Man's Heart, in not adding or increafing a stronger Grace to the former, which would overcome all the hardness and disobedience of Man, if it were the Pleasure of God to give it which if it were fo to all, he fhould permit no Man to perifh: but it is his pleasure

rather

Book. 5. Far. 56.

rather to exercise his Juftice upon the defpifers of his fufficient Grace, and to make them Veffels of his Wrath: to teach the Creature how mad a Prefumption it is to expect, that the Creator fhould put forth the uttermoft of his Wifdom and Power to fave the Slothfull and Ungratefull,

CHA P. V.

The Tranfition to the third Part.

THU

HUS have I fpoken fparingly, and with reverence of these high things conceived by us as Eternal, and before all time: Next I am to declare the things done in time, opening and revealing of thofe Eternal counfels, which two parts I think good to unite, as it were by a ftrong joint fet between them, tranfcribed out of that judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker, Wherein let the ingenuous Reader judge, whether I do not fhew him fair Prints of my fifth Opinion: and for his greater eafe in doing fo, I have by the change of the Letter marked what I would have him more attentively to observe.

"That which moveth God to work is Goodness, and that which ordereth his Work is Wifdom, and that "which perfecteth his Work is Power. All things which God in their times and feafons bath brought forth, were Eternally and before all times in God, "as a work unbegun is in the Artificer, which af

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terward bringeth it unto Effect. Therefore whatfo"ever we do behold now in this present World, "it was inwrapped within the bowels of Di"vine Mercy, written in the Book of Eternal "Wisdom, and held in the Hands of omni"potent Power, the firft foundations of the "World being as yet unlaid. So that all things

"that

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