Secondly, The Mecrees of God, being conformable to his nature and essence, do require eternity and immutability as their insepar- able properties. God, and he only, never was, nor ever can be, what noAV he is not. Passive possibility to any thing, which is the foun-
1 Author of " God's Love to Mankind," p. 4, [a treatise -writteu by Hoard. Davenant, professor of divinity in Cambridge, and afterwards bishop of Salisbury, wrote in reply his "Animadversions" on it. Dr Hill, in his Lectures on Divinity, pronounces thi.s work of Davenant to be " one of the ablest defences of the Calvinistic system of pre- destination. ' ' — Ed. ]
2 "Quicquid operatur, operatur ut est."
20 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
tain of all change, can have no place in him who is " actus simplex," and purely free from all composition ; whence St James affirmeth that " with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," James i. 17; with him, — that is, in his will and purposes: and him- self by his prophet, " I am the Lord, I change not ; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed," Mai. iii. 6; where he proveth the not changing of his gracious purposes, because he is the Lord. The eternal acts of his will not really differing from his unchangeable essence, must needs be immutable.
Thirdly, Whatsoever God hath determined, according to the coun- sel of his wisdom and good pleasure of his will, to be accomplished, to the praise of his glory, standeth sure and immutable; for "the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent ; for he is not a man, that he should repent," 1 Sam. xv. 29. " He declareth the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure," Isa. xlvi. 10; which certain and infallible execution of his pleasure is ex- tended to particular contingent events, chap, xlviii. 14. Yea, it is an ordinary thing with the Lord to confiim the certainty of those things that are yet for to come from his own decree; as, "The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass; and as I have purposed, it shall stand, that I will break the Assyrian," etc., chap. xiv. 24, 25 ; — " It is certain the Assyrian shall be broken, because the Lord hath purjDosed it;" which were a weak kind of reasoning, if his purpose might be altered. Nay, " He is of one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, that he doeth," Job xxiii. 13. " The Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?" Isa. xiv. 27. So that the purpose of God and im- mutability of his counsel (Heb. vi. 1 7) have their certainty and fii-m- ness from eternity, and do not depend on the variable lubricity of mortal men ; which we must needs grant, unless we intend to set up impotency against omnipotency, and arm the clay against the potter.
Fourthly, If God's determination concerning any thing should have a temporal original, it must needs be either because he then perceived some goodness in it of which before he was ignorant, or else because some accident did affix a real goodness to some state of things which it had not from him ; neither of which, without abomi- nable blasphemy, can bo affirmed, seeing he knoweth the end from the beginning, all things from everlasting, being always the same, the fountain of all goodness, of which other things do participate in that measure which it pleaseth him to communicate it unto them. Add to this the omnij)otency of God : there is " poAver and might in his hand," [so] that none is able to withstand him, 2 Chron. xx. 6 ; which will not permit that any of his purposes be frustrate. In all our
OF THE DECREES OF GOD.
21
intentions, if the defect be not in the error of onr understand in s's, which may be rectified by better information, when we cannot do that which we would, we will do that which we can : the alteration of our purpose is for want of power to fulfil it ; which impotency cannot be ascribed to Almighty God, who is " in heaven, and hath done whatso- ever he pleased," Ps. cxv. 8. So that the immutability of God's nature, his almighty power, the infallibility of his knowledge, his immunity from error in all his counsels, do show that he never faileth in accom- plishing any thing that he proposeth for the manifestation of his glory. To close up this whole discourse, wherein I have not discovered half the poison contained in the Arminian doctrine concerning God's decrees, I will in brief present to your view the opposition that is in this matter betwixt the word of God and the patrons of free-will : —
S. S.
" He hath chosen us in him be- fore the foundation of the world," Eph. i. 4.
" He hath called us according to his own purpose and grace, be- fore the world began," 2 Tim. i. 9.
" Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts XV. 18.