Secondly. It denieth God to l^e the author of all moral goodness, for an action is good inasmuch as it is such an action in particular;^ which that any is so, according to this opinion, is to be attributed merely to the will of man. The general influence of God moveth him no more to prayer than to evil communications tending to the corruption of good manners.
Thirdly, It maketh all the decrees of God, whose execution de- pendeth on human actions, to be altogether uncertain, and his fore- knowledge of such things to be fallible and easily to be deceived; so that there is no reconciliation jDOSsible to be hoped for betwixt these following and the like assertions: —
• " Qui !ili(juid boni a Deo non cffici aifirmat, ille Peum osso iiogftt : si namquc vcl tantillum boni a Deo non est : jam non omnia boni effector est eoque nee Deus." — liucer. in eap. ix. ad ]iom.
WHETHER THE WILL OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED.
43
S. S. " In him we live, and move, and have our being," Acts xvii. 28.
" He uphold eth all things by the word of his power," Heb. i. 3.
"Thou hast wrought all our works in us," Isa. xxvi. 12. " My Father worketh hitherto," John V. 17.
" The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord," Prov. xvi. 1. " The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water : he turneth it whithersoever he will," Prov. xxi. 1.
" Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetous- ness," Ps. cxix. 36. " Unite my heart to fear thy name," Ps. Ixxxvi. 11. "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified," Dan. v. 23.
See Matt, xxvii. 1, compared with Acts ii 23, and iv. 27, 28; Luke xxiv. 27; John xix. 31-36. For the necessity of other events, see Exod. xxi. 17; Job xiv. 5; Matt. xix. 7, etc.
Lib. Arbit.
" God's sustaining of all things is not an affirmative act of his power, but a negative act of his will."
" Whereby he will not
destroy them," Rem. Apol.
" God by his influence be- stoweth nothing on the creature whereby it may be incited or helped in its actions," Corvinus.
"Those things God would have us freely do ourselves ; he can no more effectually work or will than by the way of wishing," Yorstius.
"The providence of God dotli not determine the free-will of man to this or that particular, or to one part of the contradiction," Arminius.
" The will of man ought to bo free from all kind of internal and external necessity in its actions," Rem. That is, God cannot lay such a necessity upon any thing as that it shall infallibly come to pass as he intendeth. See the contrary in the places cited.
CHAPTER V.
AVhether the will and purpose of God may be resisted, and he he frustrate of his
intentions.
By the former steps is the altar of Ahaz set on the right hand of the altar of God, — ^the Arminian idol, in a direct opposition, exalted to an equal pitch with the power and will of the Most High. I
44 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
shall now present unto you the Spirit of God once more contending with the towering imaginations of j^oor mortals, about a transcendent privilege of greatness, glory, and power : for having made his decrees mutable, his prescience fallible, and almost quite divested him of his providence, as the sum and issue of all their endeavours, they affirm that his will may be resisted, he may fail of his intentions, be fnistrate of his ends, — he may and doth propose such things as he neither doth nor can at any time accomplish, and that because the execution of such acts of his will might haply clash against the free- dom of the will of men ; which, if it be not an expression of sphitual pride above all that ever the devil attempted in heaven, divines do not well explicate that sin of his. Now, because there may seem some difficulty in this matter, by reason of the several acceptations of the will of God, especially in regard of that whereby it is affirmed that his law and precepts are his wall, which, alas ! we all of us too often resist or transsress, I will unfold one distinction of the will of God, which will leave it clear what it is that the Arminians oppose, for which we count them worthy of so heavy a charge.
" Divinum velle est ejus esse," say the schoolmen,^ " The will of God is nothing but God willing;" not differing from his essence "se- cundem rem," in the thing itself, but only "secundem rationem," in that it importeth a relation to the thing willed. The essence of God, then, being a most absolute, pure, simple act or substance, his Avill consequently can be but simply one; whereof we ought to make neither division nor distinction. If that whereby it is signified were taken always properly and strictly for the eternal vn\l of God, the diffi^rences hereof that are usually given are rather distinctions of the signification of the word than of the thing.