1 " Dixit R. Juchanan : Omnia videntur uno intuitu. Dixit Rab. Nachman filius Isaaci : Sic etiam nos didicimus; quod scriptum est Ps xxxiii. 15, Formans simul cor eorum, bitdligens omnia opera eorum : quomodo intelligcndum est ? Dicendum est, dici, Deum adunare simul corda totius mundi ? Ecce, videmus non ita rem se habere : scd sic dicendum est, Formans sive Creator vidct simul cor eorum, et intelliget omnia opera eorum." — Talmud. Rosch. Hascbana : interpret. Joseph, de Voysin.
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a spear, when it was as possible, in the nature of the thing itself and of all secondary causes, that his head should be cut off. That, then, which gives any action a futurition is that determinate cause wherein it may be known, whereof we speak. Thus it may be said of the same thing that it is contingent and determined, without the least appearance of contradiction, because it is not spoken with re- spect to the same things or causes.
8. The determinate cause oi contingent things, that is, things that are future (for every thing Avhen it is, and as it is, is necessary),^ is the will of God himself concerning their existence and being; either by his efficiency and working, as all good things in every kind (that is, that are either morally or physically so, in which latter sense all the actions of men, as actions, are so) ; or by his permission, which is the condition of things morally evil, or of the irregularity and obli- quity attending those actions, upon the account of their relation to a law, which in themselves are entitative and physically good, as the things were which God at first created.^ Whether any thing come to pass beside the will of God and contrary to his purpose will not be disputed with any advantage of glory to God or honour to them that shall assert it.^ That in all events the will of God is fulfilled is a common notion of all rational creatures. So the accomplish- ment of his "determinate counsel" is affirmed by the apostle in the issue of that mysterious dispensation of the crucifying of his Son. That of James iv. 15, 'Eai/ 6 iLbpiog ^sXj^tf^, intimates God's will to be extended to all actions, as actions, whatever. Thus God knew be- fore the world was -made, or any thing that is in it, that there would be such a world and such things in it-; yet than the making of the world nothing was more free or contingent.* God is not a necessary agent as to any of the works that outwardly are of him. Whence, then, did God know this ? Was it not from his own decree and eternal purpose that such a world there should be ? And if the knowledge of one contingent thing be from hence, why not of all ? In brief, these future contingencies depend on something for their existence, or they come forth into the world in their own strength and upon their own account, not depending on any other. If the latter, they are God ; if the former, the will of God or old Fortune must be the principle on which they do depend.
' " Quicquid enim est, dum est, necessario est." — Aquinas 1. part, quoest. 19, art. 3.
' Vide Scot, in 1 lib. Sent. dist. 39, qusest. unica ; Durand ibid. dist. 38, qusest. 8; Jo. Major in l,dist. 38, 89, qutest. 1, art. 4; Alvarez deAuxiliis. lib. ii. disput. 10, p. 65, etc. ; et Scliolasticos in Lombardum ibid. dist. 88, 89 ; quos fuse enumcrat J oh. Martines de Ripalda in 1 Sent. p. 127 et 181.
3 " Quid mihi scire quoe futura sunt ? Qusecunque ille vult, hsec futura sunt." — Origcn. Horn. 6, in Jesum Nave. Vid. Freder. Spauheraium Dub. Evang. 88, p. 272, in illud Matth. "Totuni hoc factum est, "va. TXnpaSri to f,r,^i» i/a-o tow Kupiou." Paul. Fer- riuni Schol. Orthodoxi, cap. xxxi. ; et iu Vindiciis. cap. v. sect. 6.
* Vide Aquinat. 1, qusest. 83, art. 1, ad 8.
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4. God can work with contingent causes for the accomplishment of his own will and purposes, without the least prejudice to them, either as causes or as free and contingent. God moves not, works not, in or with any second causes, to the producing of any effect contrary or not agreeable to their own natures. Notwithstanding any predetermination or operation of God, the wills of men, in the production of every one of their actions, are at as perfect liberty as a cause in dependence of another is capable of. To say it is not in dependence is atheism. The purpose of God, the counsel of his will, concerning any thing as to its existence, gives a necessity of in- fallibility to the event, but changes not the manner of the second cause's operation, be [it] what it will.^ That God cannot accomplish and bring about his own purposes by free and contingent agents, without the destruction of the natures he hath endued them withal, is a figment unworthy the thoughts of any who indeed acknowledge his sovereignty and power.
5. The reason why Mr B.'s companions in his undertaking, as others that went before him of the same mind, do deny this fore- knowledge of God, they express on all occasions to be that the granting of it is prejudicial to that absolutely independent liberty of will which God assigns to men : so Socinus pleads, Prselect. Theol. cap. viii.; thus far, I confess, more accurately than the Arminians." These pretend (some of them, at least) to grant the prescience of God, but yet deny his determinate decrees and purposes, on the same pre- tence that the others do his prescience, namely, of their prejudicial- ness to the free-will of man. Socinus discourses (which was no difiScult task) that the foreknowledge of God is as inconsistent with that independent liberty of will and contingency which he and they had fancied as the predetermination of his will; and therefore rejects the former as well as the latter. It was Augustine's complaint of old concerning Cicero, that " ita fecit homines liberos, ut fecit etiam sacrileges."^ Cicero was a mere Pagan, and surely our complaint