IL I am to state the efficiency and concurrence of God about sin. All that God doth in it may be given you in these propositions : —
1, It is certain that without God sin would never be ; without his prohibition an action would not be sinful. The apostle saith, ' Where is no law, there is no transgression ; ' but I mean chiefly without his per- mission and fore-knowledge, yea, and I may add, without his will and concurrence, without which nothing can happen and fall out ; it can- not be beside the will of God, for then he were not omniscient ; or again.st his will, for then he were not omnipotent. There is no action of ours but needeth the continued concurrence and snpportation of his providence ; and if he did not uphold us in being and working, we could do nothing.
2. Yet God can by no means be looked upon as the direct author of it, or the proper cause of that obliquity that is in the actions of the creatures ; for his providence is conver.sant about sin without sin, as a sunbeam lighteth upon a dunghill without being stained by it. This is best cleared by a collection and summary of all those actions where- by, from first to last, providence is concerned in man's sin ; which are briefly these : —
[l.J Fore-knowledge and pre-ordination. God intended and ap- pointed that it should be. Many that grant i)rcscience deny pre- ordination, lest they should make God the Jiuthor of sin ; but tliese fear where no fear is. The scripture speaketh roundly, ascribing both to God: ' Him being delivered by the fore-knowledge and deter- rninato counsel of God,' Acts ii. 23. Mark, Peter saith, not only TTJ Trpoyvcoaei, ' by the fore-knowledge,' but wpiaixevrj (3ov\fj, ' deter- minate counsel,' which implieth a positive decree. Now that cannot
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infer any guilt or evil in God, for God appointed it, as he meant to bring good out of it. Wicked men have quite contrary ends. Thus Joseph speaketh to his brethren, when they were afraid of his revenge, Gen 1. 19, 'Am I in the place of God?' that is, was it my design to bring these things to pass, or God's decree? and who am I, that I should resist tlie will of God? And then again, ver. 20, ' But as for you, ye thought evil ; but God meant it for good, to bring it to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive ; ' that is, God decreed it otherwise than you designed it : your aim was wholly evil, his good.
[2.] There is a permission of it. God's decrees imply that sin shall be, but they do not impel or enforce ; for he leaveth us to the liberty of our own hearts, and our own free choice and work ; he is resolved not to hinder us : Acts xiv. 16, ' He suffered them to walk in their own ways.' God was not bound to hinder it, therefore permission in God can- not be faulty ; ' Who hath given him first ? ' Were grace a debt, it were injustice to withhold it ; and did God act out of a servile necessity, the creatures might reject the blame of their miscarriages upon the faintness of his operation : but God being free, neither obliged by necessity of nature, nor any external rule and law, nor by any fore- going merit of the creatures, may do with his own as it pleaseth him ; and it is a shameless impudence in man to blame God because he is free, when himself cannot endure to be bound.^
[3.] There is a concurrence to the action, though not to the sinful- ness of it. It is said, Acts xvii. 28, ' In him we live, rtiove, and have our being.' When God made the creatures, he did not make them independent and absolute: we had not only being from him, but still we have it m him ; we are in him, we live in him, and we move in him, Kivov^ieOa — we are moved or acted in him. All created images and appearances are but like the impress of a seal upon the waters : take away the seal, and the form vanisheth ; subtract the influence of providence, and presently all creatures return to their first nothing ; therefore to every action there needeth the support and concurrence of God : so that the bare action or motion is good, and from God ; but the de-ordination, and obliquity of it, is from man ; it cometh from an evil will, and therein is discerned the free work of the crea- tures.
[4.] There is a desertion of a sinner, and leaving of him to himself. God may suspend, yea, and withdraw, grace out of mere sovereignty ; that is, because he will: but he never doth it but either out of justice or wisdom ; out of wisdom, for the trial of his children, as, in the busi- ness of the ambassadors, ' God left Hezekiah, that he might know what was in his heart,' 2 Chron. xxxii. 31. So sometimes injustice, to punish the wicked ; as Ps. Ixxxi. 12, ' I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.' When grace is withdrawn, which should moderate and govern the affections, man is left to the sway and impetuous violence of his ow^n lusts. Now God