We assert, that the decrees of God are not only immutable as to himself, it being inconsistent with his nature to alter in his purposes, or change his mind; but that they are immutable likewise with respect to the objects of those decrees; so that whatsoever God hath determined concerning every individual person or thing, shall surely and infallibly be accomplished in and upon them. Hence we find, that he actually sheweth mercy on whom he decreed to shew mercy, and hardeneth whom he resolved to harden, Rom. ix. 18. "For his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure," Isa. xlvi. 10. Consequently, his eternal predestination of men and things must be immutable as himself, and, so far from being reversible, can never admit of the least variation.

Pos. 3." Although," to use the words of Gregory, "God never swerves from his decree, yet he often varies in his declarations :" That is always sure and immoveable; these are sometimes seemingly discordant. So, when he gave sentence against the Ninevites by Jonah, saying, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown, the meaning of the words is not that God absolutely intended, at the end of that space, to destroy the city; but that, should God deal with those people according to their deserts, they would be totally extirpated from the earth and should be so extirpated, unless they repented speedily.

Likewise, when he told King Hezekiah, by the prophet Isaiah, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; the meaning was, that with respect to second causes, and considering the king's bad state of health and emaciated constitution, he could not, humanly speaking, live much longer. But still, the event shewed that God had immutably determined that he should live fifteen years more ; and, in order to that, had

put it into his heart to pray for the blessing decreed just as in the case of Nineveh, lately mentioned, God had resolved not to overthrow that city then; and in order to the accomplishment of his own purpose in a way worthy of himself, made the ministry of Jonah the means of leading that people to repentance. All which, as it shews that God's absolute predestination does not set aside the use of means; so does it likewise prove, that however various the declarations of God may appear, (to wit, when they proceed on a regard had to natural causes) his counsels and designs stand firm and immoveable, and can neither admit of alteration in themselves, nor of hindrance in their execution. See this farther explained by Bucer, in Rom. ix. where you will find the certainty of the divine appointments solidly asserted and unanswerably vindicated. We now

come,

IV. To consider the Omnipotence of God.

Pos. 1. God is, in the most unlimited and absolute sense of the word, Almighty. Jer. xxxii. 17. Behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. Mat. xix. 26. With God all things are possible. The schoolmen very properly distinguish the omnipotence of God into absolute and actual; by the former, God might do many things which he does not; by the latter, he actually does whatever he will. For instance; God might by virtue of his absolute power, have made more worlds than he has. He might have eternally saved every individual of mankind, without reprobating any: on the other hand, he might, and that with the strictest justice, have condemned all men, and saved none. He could, had it been his pleasure, have prevented the fall of angels and men, and

thereby have hindered sin from having footing in and among his creatures. By virtue of his actual power, he made the universe; executes the whole counsel of his will, both in heaven and earth; governs and influences both men and things, according to his own pleasure; fixes the bounds which they shall not pass; and, in a word, worketh all in all, Isa. xlv. 7. Amos iii. 6. John v. 17. Acts xvii. 26. 1 Cor xii. 6.

Pos. 2. Hence it follows that, since all things are subject to the divine control, God not only works efficaciously on his elect, in order that they may will and do that which is pleasing in his sight; but does likewise frequently and powerfully suffer the wicked to fill up the measure of their iniquities, by committing fresh sins. Nay, he sometimes, but for wise and gracious ends, permits his own people to transgress: for he has the hearts and wills of men in his own hand, and inclines them to good, or delivers them up to evil, as he sees fit, yet without being the author of sin; as Luther, Bucer, Austin and others, have piously and scripturally taught.

This position consists of two parts; (1.) That God efficaciously operates on the hearts of his elect, and is thereby the sole author of all the good they do. See Eph. iii. 20. Phil. ii. 13. 1 Thess. ii. 13. Heb. xiii. 21. St. Austin* takes no fewer than nineteen chapters, in proving that whatever good is in men, and whatever good they are enabled to do, is solely and entirely of God; who, says he, "works in holy persons all their good desires, their pious thoughts, and their righteous actions; and yet these holy persons, though thus wrought upon by God, will and do all these things freely for it is he who rectifies their wills,

* De Grat. & lib. Arb. a c. 1. usque ad c. 20.

which, being originally evil, are made good by him; and which wills, after he hath set them right and made them good, he directs to good actions and to cternal life; wherein he does not force their wills, but makes them willing." (2.) That God often lets the wicked go on to more ungodliness: which he does, 1. Negatively, by withholding that grace, which alone can restrain them from evil. 2. Remotely, by the providential concourse and meditation of second causes; which second causes, meeting and acting in concert with the corruption of the reprobate's unregenerate nature, produce sinful effects. 3. Judicially, 3. Judicially, or in a way of judgment. Prov. xxi. 1. "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of waters; he turneth it whithersoever he will:" And if the king's heart, why not the hearts of all men? Lam. iii. 38. "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?" Hence we find, that the Lord bid Shimei curse David, 2 Sam. xvi. 10. That he moved David himself to number the people, compare 1 Chron. xxi. 1. with 2 Sam. xxiv. 1. Stirred up Joseph's brethren to sell him into Egypt, Gen. 1. 20. Positively and immediately hardened the heart of Pharaoh, Ex. iv. 21.

Deli

vered up David's wives to be defiled by Absakom, 2 Sam. xii. 11. and xvi. 22. Sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab, 1 Kings xxii. 20-23. And mingled a perverse spirit in the midst of Egypt, i. e. made that nation perverse, obdurate and stiffnecked, Isai. xix. 14. To cite other instances would be almost endless, and, after these, quite unnecessary; all being summed up in that express passage, Isai. xlv. 7. I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.' See farther, 1 Sam. xvi. 14. Psalm cv. 25. Jer. xiii. 12, 13. Acts ii. 23. and iv. 28. Rom. xi. 8.

2 Thess. ii. 11. Every one of which implies more than a bare permission of sin. Bucer asserts this, not only in the place referred to below, but continually throughout his works; particularly on Mat. vi. s. 2. where this is the sense of his comments on that petition, lead us not into temptation; "It is abundantly evident, from most express testimonies of scripture, that God, occasionally in the course of his providence, puts both elect and reprobate persons into circumstances of temptation by which temptation are meant, not only those trials that are of an outward, afflictive nature, but those also that are inward and spiritual; even such as shall cause the persons so tempted actually to turn aside from the path of duty to commit sin, and involve both themselves and others in evil. Hence we find the elect complaining. Isa. lxiii. 17. "O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our hearts from thy fear?" But there is also a kind of temptation, which is peculiar to the nonelect; whereby God, in a way of just judgment, makes them totally blind and obdurate: inasmuch as they are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." See also his exposition of Rom. ix.

Luthert reasons to the very same effect: some of his words are these; It may seem absurd to human wisdom, that God should harden, blind and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing, spiritual man sees no absurdity at all in

* Vid Augustin, de Grat. & lib. Arbitr. c. 20. & 21. & Bucer in Rom. i. sect. 7.

De Serv. Arb. c. 8. & 146. & 147. usq. ad. c. 165.