1 " Qufficunque possunt per creaturam fieri, vel cogitari, vel ciici, et etiam quaecunque ipse facere potest, omnia cognoscit Deus, etiamsi neque sunt, neque erunt, neque fuerunt, scientia simplicis intelligentise." — Aquin. p. q. 14, a. 9, c. Ex verbis apostoli, Rom. iv., " Qui vocat ea qute non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt." Sic scholastici onines. Fer. Scho- last. Orthod. Speci. cap. iii., alii passim. Vid. Hieron. Zanch. dc Scientia Dei, lib. diatrib. iii., cap. 2, q. 5.
' Vid. Sam. Pihastorfort. Exercit. de Grat., ex. i. cap. 4.
* " Res ipsa3 nullo naturse momento possibiles esse dicendffi sunt priusquam a Deo in- telliguntur, scientia quse dicitm- simplicis intelligentise, ita etiam scientia quae dicitur visionis, et fertiu- in res futuras, nullo natui-se momento, posterior statuenda videtur, ista futuritione, rerum ; cum scientia," etc. — Dr Twiss. ad Errat. Vind. Grat.
* " Scientia visionis dicitur, quia ea qu£e videntur, apud nos habent esse distinctum extra videntem." — Aq. p. q. 14, a. 9, c.
5 '■ In eo differt prgescientia intuitionis, ab ea, quae approbationis est, quod ilia prse- sciat, quod evenire possibile est ; hoc vero quod impossibile est non evenire." — Ferrius. Orthod. Scholast. Speci. cap. xxiii. C'ajtenmi posterior ista scientia non proprie dicitur a Ferrio scientia appi-obationis, ilia enim est, qua Deus dicitur nosse quaj aniat et ap- probat ; ab iitraque altera distiucta. Matt. vii. 23 ; Rom. xi. 2 ; 2 Tim. ii. 1 9. " Quamvis infinitorum numerorum, nuUus sit numerus, non tamen est incomprcliensibilis ei, cujus scientise non est numerus." — Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xii. cap. 18.
24! A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
it is possible may come to pass; by the other, only what it is im- possible should not come to pass. Things are possible in regard of God's power, future in regard of his decree. So that (if I may so say) the measure of the first kind of science is God's omnipotency, what he can do ; of the other his purpose, what certainly he will do, or permit to be done. With this prescience, then, God foreseeth all, and nothing but what he hath decreed shall come to pass.
For every thing to be produced next and under him, ^God hath prepared divers and several kinds of causes, diversely operative in producing their effects, some wliereof are said to work necessarily, the institution of their nature being to do as they do, and not other- wise; so the sun giveth light, and the fire heat. And yet, in some regard, their effects and products may be said to be contingent and free, inasmuch as the concurrence of God, the first cause, is required to their operation, who doth all things most freely, according to the counsel of his will. Thus the sun stood still in the time of Joshua, and the fire burned not the three children ; but ordinarily such agents working " necessitate naturse," their effects are said to be necessary. Secondly, To some things God hath fitted free and contingent causes, which either apply themselves to operation in particular, according to election, choosing to do this thing rather than that; as angels and men, in their free and deliberate actions, Avliich they so perform as that they could have not done them; — or else they produce effects xara rh tfu/xCsCjjxo^, merely by accident, and the operation of such things we say to be casual ; as if a hatchet, falling out of the hand of a man cutting down a tree, should kill another whom he never saw. Now, nothing in either of these ways comes to pass but God hath determined it, both for the matter and manner, ^even so as is agree- able to their causes, — some necessarily, some freely, some casually or contingently, yet also, as having a certain futurition from his decree, he infallibly foreseeth that they shall so come to pass. But yet that he doth so in resj)ect of things free and contingent is much questioned by the Ai-minians in express terms, and denied by consequence, not- withstanding St Jerome affirmeth ^that so to do is destructive to the very essence of the Deity.
First, Their doctrine of the mutability of God's decrees, on whose firmness is founded the infallibility of this prescience, doth quite overthrow it. God thus foreknowing only what he hath so decreed shall come to pass, if that be no firmer settled but that it may [be] and
' " Quibusdam effcctibus proopnravit causas ncccssarias, \it ncccssario cvcnirct, quibiis- dam vcro causas contingontcs ut cvcnircnt contingontcr, secundum conditioucm proxi- marum causarum." — Aquin. p. q. 23, a. 4, in Cor. Zauch. de Natur. Dei, lib. v., qu. 4, tlies.
2 " Res ct inodos rcrum." — Aquin.
' " Cui pi-jcscientiam tollis, aulcrs divinitatcm." — Ilicrou. ad Pelag., lib. 7.
OF THE PRESCIENCE OF GOD. 25
is often altered, according to the divers inclinations of men's wills, which I showed before they affirm, he can have at best but a con- jectural foreknowledge of what is yet for to come, not founded on his own unchangeable purpose, but upon a guess at the free inclination of men's wills. For instance, ^God willeth that all men should be saved. This act of his will, according to the Arminian doctrine, is his conditionate decree to save all men if they will believe. Well, among these is Judas, as ^ equal a sharer in the benefit of this decree as Peter. God, then, will have him to be saved, and to this end allows him all those means which are necessaiy to beget faith in him, and are every way sufficient to that purpose, and do produce that effect in others ; what can God foresee, then, but that Judas as well as Peter will believe ? He intendeth he should, he hath determined nothing to the contrary. Let him come, then, and act his own part. Why, he proves so obstinately malicious, ^that God, with all his omnipo- tency, as they speak, by any way that becomes him, which must not be by any irresistible efficacy, cannot change his obdurate heart. Well, then, he determinetii, according to the exigence of his justice, that he shall be damned for his impenitency, and foreseeth that accordingly. But now, suppose this wretch, even at his last moment, should bethink himself and return to the Lord, which in their conceit he may, not- withstanding his former reprobation (which, *as they state it, seems a great act of mercy), ^God must keep to the rules of his justice, and elect or determine to save him; by which the varlet hath twice or thrice deceived his expectation.