Part 12

“Thirdly, God is said to harden the heart permissively, but not operatively, nor effectively, as he who only lets loose a greyhound out of the slip, is said to hound him at the hare. Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardening? Read Rom. ix. 22, 23: What if God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known (that is, by a consequent will, which in order of nature follows the prevision of sin), endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, &c. There is much difference between enduring and impelling, or inciting the vessels of wrath. He saith of the vessels of mercy, that God prepared them unto glory. But of the vessels of wrath, he saith only that they were fitted to destruction, that is, not by God, but by themselves. St. Paul saith, that God doth endure the vessels of wrath with much long-suffering. T. H. saith, that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad, that he necessitateth them, and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evil, and for which he punisheth them. If doing willingly, and enduring, if much long-suffering, and necessitating, imply not a contrariety one to another, reddat mihi minam Diogenes, let him that taught me logic, give me my money again.

“But T. H. saith, that this distinction between the operative and permissive will of God, and that other between the action and the irregularity, do dazzle his understanding. Though he can find no difference between these two, yet others do; St. Paul himself did (Acts xiii. 18): About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And (Acts xiv. 16): Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. T. H. would make suffering to be inciting, their manners to be God’s manners, their ways to be God’s ways. And (Acts xvii. 30): The times of this ignorance God winked at. It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act. And (1 Cor. x. 13): God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. To tempt is the devil’s act; therefore he is called the tempter. God tempts no man to sin, but he suffers them to be tempted. And so suffers, that he could hinder Satan, if he would. But by T. H.’s doctrine, to tempt to sin, and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it, is all one. And so he transforms God (I write it with horror) into the devil, and makes tempting to be God’s own work, and the devil to be but his instrument. And in that noted place, (Rom. ii. 4, 5): Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God? Here are as many convincing arguments in this one text against the opinion of T. H. almost as there are words. Here we learn that God is rich in goodness, and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act; secondly, that he suffers and forbears sinners long, and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve. Thirdly, that the reason of God’s forbearance is to bring men to repentance. Fourthly, that hardness of heart and impenitency is not causally from God, but from ourselves. Fifthly, that it is not the insufficient proposal of the means of their conversion on God’s part, which is the cause of men’s perdition, but their own contempt and despising of these means. Sixthly, that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion, but an act of righteous judgment, whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds, wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves, and eternal life to those who continue patiently in well-doing. If they deserve such punishment who only neglect the goodness and long-suffering of God, what do they who utterly deny it, and make God’s doing and his suffering to be all one? I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is, out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture. Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter, (1 Peter iii. 20): The long-suffering of God waited once in the days of Noah. And 2 Peter iii. 15: Account that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation. This is the name God gives himself, (Exod. xxxiv. 6): The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, &c.

(b) “Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true, that he who doth permit any thing to be done, which it is in his power to hinder, knowing that if he do not hinder it, it will be done, doth in some sort will it. I say in some sort, that is, either by an antecedent will, or by a consequent will, either by an operative will, or by a permissive will, or he is willing to let it be done, but not willing to do it. Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done, which otherwise he would not suffer. So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den, to make good his rash decree; so Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded, to make good his rash oath. How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God, and his fidelity in keeping his word, draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners, though antecedently he willeth their conversion? He loveth all his creatures well, but his own justice better. Again, sometimes a man suffereth that to be done, which he doth not will directly in itself, but indirectly for some other end, or for the producing of some greater good; as a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body, to save the life of the whole. Or as a judge, being desirous to save a malefactor’s life, and having power to reprieve him, doth yet condemn him for example’s sake, that by the death of one he may save the lives of many. Marvel not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruin, so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory, and for the greater benefit of his faithful servants. This is a most certain truth, that God would not suffer evil to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evil. Yet this ought not to be understood, as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God, but only of nature. Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another; because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted, the other respects him as he is lapsed. The objects are the same, but considered after a diverse manner. Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God; for they are the same with the divine essence, which is one. But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed. Nor, lastly, do we make this permission to be a naked or a mere permission. God causeth all good, permitteth all evil, disposeth all things, both good and evil.

(c) “T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action. I answer, because he concurs to the doing of evil by a general, but not by a special influence. As the earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants, as well to hemlock as to wheat; but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance, the other poison to our destruction, is not from the general nourishment of the earth, but from the special quality of the root. Even so the general power to act is from God. In him we live, and move, and have our being. This is good. But the specification, and determination of this general power to the doing of any evil, is from ourselves, and proceeds from the free-will of man. This is bad. And to speak properly, the free-will of man is not the efficient cause of sin, as the root of the hemlock is of poison, sin having no true entity or being in it, as poison hath; but rather the deficient cause. Now no defect can flow from him who is the highest perfection. (d) Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken, to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God. The general power to act is from God, but the specification of this general and good power to murder, or to any particular evil, is not from God, but from the free-will of man. So T. H. may see clearly if he will, how one may be the cause of the law, and likewise of the action in some sort, that is, by general influence; and yet another cause concurring, by special influence and determining this general and good power, may make itself the true cause of the anomy or the irregularity. And therefore he may keep his longer and shorter garments for some other occasion. Certainly, they will not fit this subject, unless he could make general and special influence to be all one.

“But T. H. presseth yet further, that the case is the same, and the objection used by the Jews, (verse 19): Why doth he yet find fault; who hath resisted his will? is the very same with my argument; and St. Paul’s answer, (verse 20:) O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over his clay? &c., is the very same with his answer in this place, drawn from the irresistible power and absolute dominion of God, which justifieth all his actions. And that the apostle in his answer doth not deny that it was God’s will, nor that God’s decree was before Esau’s sin.

“To which I reply, first, that the case is not at all the same, but quite different, as may appear by these particulars; first, those words, before they had done either good or evil, are not, cannot be referred to those other words, Esau have I hated. Secondly, if they could, yet it is less than nothing, because before Esau had actually sinned, his future sins were known to God. Thirdly, by the potter’s clay, here is not to be understood the pure mass, but the corrupted mass of mankind. Fourthly, the hating here mentioned is only a comparative hatred, that is, a less degree of love. Fifthly, the hardening which St. Paul speaks of, is not a positive, but a negative obduration, or a not imparting of grace. Sixthly, St. Paul speaketh not of any positive reprobation to eternal punishment, much less doth he speak of the actual inflicting of punishment without sin, which is the question between us, and wherein T. H. differs from all that I remember to have read, who do all acknowledge that punishment is never actually inflicted but for sin. If the question be put, why God doth good to one more than to another, or why God imparteth more grace to one than to another, as it is there, the answer is just and fit, because it is his pleasure, and it is sauciness in a creature in this case to reply, (Matthew xx. 15): May not God do what he will with his own? No man doubteth but God imparteth grace beyond man’s desert. (e) But if the case be put, why God doth punish one more than another, or why he throws one into hell-fire, and not another, which is the present case agitated between us; to say with T. H., that it is because God is omnipotent, or because his power is irresistible, or merely because it is his pleasure, is not only not warranted, but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place. So many differences there are between those two cases. It is not therefore against God that I reply, but against T. H. I do not call my Creator to the bar, but my fellow-creature; I ask no account of God’s counsels, but of man’s presumptions. It is the mode of these times to father their own fancies upon God, and when they cannot justify them by reason, to plead his omnipotence, or to cry, O altitudo, that the ways of God are unsearchable. If they may justify their drowsy dreams, because God’s power and dominion is absolute; much more may we reject such phantastical devices which are inconsistent with the truth and goodness and justice of God, and make him to be a tyrant, who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation. The unsearchableness of God’s ways should be a bridle to restrain presumption, and not a sanctuary for spirits of error.

“Secondly, this objection contained ver. 19, to which the apostle answers ver. 20, is not made in the person of Esau or Pharaoh, as T. H. supposeth, but of the unbelieving Jews, who thought much at that grace and favour which God was pleased to vouchsafe unto the Gentiles, to acknowledge them for his people, which honour they would have appropriated to the posterity of Abraham. And the apostle’s answer is not only drawn from the sovereign dominion of God, to impart his grace to whom he pleaseth, as hath been shewed already, but also from the obstinacy and proper fault of the Jews, as appeareth verse 22: What if God, willing (that is, by a consequent will) to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. They acted, God endured; they were tolerated by God, but fitted to destruction by themselves; for their much wrong-doing, here is God’s much long-suffering. And more plainly, verse 31, 32: Israel hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. This reason is set down yet more emphatically in the next chapter (Rom. x. 3): They (that is, the Israelites) being ignorant of God’s righteousness, (that is, by faith in Christ), and going about to establish their own righteousness, (that is, by the works of the law), have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And yet most expressly (chap. xi. 20): Because of unbelief they were broken off, but thou standest by faith. Neither was there any precedent binding decree of God, to necessitate them to unbelief, and consequently to punishment. It was in their own power by their concurrence with God’s grace to prevent these judgments, and to recover their former estate; verse 23: If they (that is, the unbelieving Jews) abide not still in unbelief they shall be grafted in. The crown and the sword are immovable, (to use St. Anselm’s comparison), but it is we that move and change places. Sometimes the Jews were under the crown, and the Gentiles under the sword; sometimes the Jews under the sword, and the Gentiles under the crown.

“Thirdly, though I confess that human pacts are not the measure of God’s justice, but his justice is his own immutable will, whereby he is ready to give every man that which is his own, as rewards to the good, punishments to the bad; so nevertheless God may oblige himself freely to his creature. He made the covenant of works with mankind in Adam; and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own covenant, but for the transgression of his duty. And divine justice is not measured by omnipotence or by irresistible power, but by God’s will. God can do many things according to his absolute power, which he doth not. He could raise up children to Abraham of stones, but he never did so. It is a rule in theology, that God cannot do anything which argues any wickedness or imperfection: as God cannot deny himself (2 Timothy ii. 13); he cannot lie (Titus i. 2). These and the like are the fruits of impotence, not of power. So God cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked (Genesis xviii. 25.) He could not destroy Sodom whilst Lot was in it, (Genesis xix. 22); not for want of dominion or power, but because it was not agreeable to his justice, nor to that law which himself had constituted. The apostle saith (Hebrews vi. 10), God is not unrighteous to forget your work. As it is a good consequence to say, this is from God, therefore it is righteous; so is this also, this thing is unrighteous, therefore it cannot proceed from God. We see how all creatures by instinct of nature do love their young, as the hen her chickens; how they will expose themselves to death for them. And yet all these are but shadows of that love which is in God towards his creatures. How impious is it then to conceive, that God did create so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in hell, without any fault of theirs except such as he himself did necessitate them unto, merely to shew his dominion, and because his power is irresistible? The same privilege which T. H. appropriates here to power absolutely irresistible, a friend of his, in his book De Cive, cap. VI., ascribes to power respectively irresistible, or to sovereign magistrates, whose power he makes to be as absolute as a man’s power is over himself; not to be limited by any thing, but only by their strength. The greatest propugners of sovereign power think it enough for princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power, but acknowledge that the law hath a directive power over them. But T. H. will have no limits but their strength. Whatsoever they do by power, they do justly.

“But, saith he, God objected no sin to Job, but justified his afflicting him by his power. First, this is an argument from authority negatively, that is to say, worth nothing. Secondly, the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins, (whereof we dispute), but probatory chastisements to make trial of his graces. Thirdly, Job was not so pure, but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him, than those afflictions which he suffered. Witness his impatience, even to the cursing of the day of his nativity (Job iii. 3). Indeed God said to Job, (Job xxxviii. 4): Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? that is, how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born, or comprehend the secret causes of my judgments? And (Job xl. 9): Hast thou an arm like God? As if he should say, why art thou impatient; dost thou think thyself able to strive with God? But that God should punish Job without desert, here is not a word.

“Concerning the blind man mentioned John ix, his blindness was rather a blessing to him than a punishment, being the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul with the blessed angels. We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul. Again, neither he nor his parents were innocent, being conceived and born in sin and iniquity (Psalm li. 5). And in many things we offend all (James iii. 2). But our Saviour’s meaning is evident by the disciples’ question, John ix. 2. They had not so sinned, that he should be born blind; or they were not more grievous sinners than other men, to deserve an exemplary judgment more than they; but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God, for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight. So his instance halts on both sides; neither was this a punishment, nor the blind man free from sin. His third instance of the death and torments of beasts, is of no more weight than the two former. The death of brute beasts is not a punishment of sin, but a debt of nature. And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man, yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell; between the mere depriving of a creature of temporal life, and the subjecting of it to eternal death. I know the philosophical speculations of some, who affirm, that entity is better than non-entity, that it is better to be miserable and suffer the torments of the damned, than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether. This entity which they speak of, is a metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter, which is better than non-entity, in respect of some goodness, not moral nor natural, but transcendental, which accompanies every being. But in the concrete it is far otherwise, where that saying of our Saviour often takes place, (Matthew xxvi. 24): Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been good for that man, that he had not been born. I add, that there is an analogical justice and mercy due even to the brute beasts. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, a just man is merciful to his beast.

(f) “But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power. Power doth not measure and regulate justice, but justice measures and regulates power. The will of God, and the eternal law which is in God himself, is properly the rule and measure of justice. As all goodness, whether natural or moral, is a participation of divine goodness, and all created rectitude is but a participation of divine rectitude, so all laws are but participations of the eternal law from whence they derive their power. The rule of justice then is the same both in God and us: but it is in God, as in him that doth regulate and measure; in us, as in those who are regulated and measured. As the will of God is immutable, always willing what is just and right and good; so his justice likewise is immutable. And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us, cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and determinative power of a just cause. See then how grossly T. H. doth understand that old and true principle, that the will of God is the rule of justice; as if by willing things in themselves unjust, he did render them just by reason of his absolute dominion and irresistible power, as fire doth assimilate other things to itself, and convert them into the nature of fire. This were to make the eternal law a Lesbian rule. Sin is defined to be that which is done, or said, or thought, contrary to the eternal law. But by this doctrine nothing is done, nor said, nor thought, contrary to the will of God. St. Anselm said most truly, ‘then the will of man is good, and just, and right, when he wills that which God would have him to will.’ But according to this doctrine, every man always wills that which God would have him to will. If this be true, we need not pray, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. T. H. hath devised a new kind of heaven upon earth. The worst is, it is an heaven without justice. Justice is a constant and perpetual act of the will, to give every one his own; but to inflict punishment for those things which the judge himself did determine and necessitate to be done, is not to give every one his own; right punitive justice is a relation of equality and proportion between the demerit and the punishment. But supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity, there is no demerit in the world. We use to say, that right springs from law and fact; as in this syllogism, every thief ought to be punished, there is the law; but such an one is a thief, there is the fact; therefore he ought to be punished, there is the right. But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished, neither upon law, nor upon fact, but upon the irresistible power of God. Yea, it overturneth, as much as in it lies, all law; first, the eternal law, which is the ordination of divine wisdom, by which all creatures are directed to that end which is convenient for them, that is, not to necessitate them to eternal flames; then the law participated, which is the ordination of right reason, instituted for the common good, to show unto man what he ought to do, and what he ought not to do. To what purpose is it, to show the right way to him who is drawn and haled a contrary way by adamantine bonds of inevitable necessity?

(g) “Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out, that God cannot sin, yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin. For he makes him to be the cause, not only of the law and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, and the difference between the action and the law, wherein the very essence of sin doth consist. He makes God to determine David’s will, and necessitate him to kill Uriah. In causes physically and essentially subordinate, the cause of the cause is evermore the cause of the effect. These are those deadly fruits which spring from the poisonous root of the absolute necessity of all things; which T. H. seeing, and that neither the sins of Esau, nor Pharaoh, nor any wicked person do proceed from the operative, but from the permissive will of God, and that punishment is an act of justice, not of dominion only, I hope that according to his promise he will change his opinion.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XII.

The Bishop had argued in this manner: “If there be no liberty, there shall be no last judgment, no rewards nor punishments after death.” To this I answered, that though God cannot sin, because what he doth, his doing maketh just, and because he is not subject to another’s law, and that therefore it is blasphemy to say that God can sin; yet to say, that God hath so ordered the world that sin may be necessarily committed, is not blasphemy. And I can also further say, though God be the cause of all motion and of all actions, and therefore unless sin be no motion nor action, it must derive a necessity from the first mover; nevertheless it cannot be said that God is the author of sin, because not he that necessitateth an action, but he that doth command and warrant it, is the author. And if God own an action, though otherwise it were a sin, it is now no sin. The act of the Israelites in robbing the Egyptians of their jewels, without God’s warrant had been theft. But it was neither theft, cozenage, nor sin; supposing they knew the warrant was from God. The rest of my answer to that inconvenience, was an opposing to his inconveniences the manifest texts of St. Paul, Rom. ix. The substance of his reply to my answer is this.

(a) “Though punishment were an act of dominion, not of justice, in God; yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act, or why he should chide or expostulate with men, why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do.”

I never said that God denied his act, but that he may expostulate with men; and this may be (I shall never say directly, it is) the reason of that his expostulation, viz. to convince them that their wills were not independent, but were his mere gift; and that to do, or not to do, is not in him that willeth, but in God that hath mercy on, or hardeneth whom he will. But the Bishop interpreteth hardening to be a permission of God. Which is to attribute to God in such actions no more than he might have attributed to any of Pharaoh’s servants, the not persuading their master to let the people go. And whereas he compares this permission to the indulgence of a parent, that by his patience encourageth his son to become more rebellious, which indulgence is a sin; he maketh God to be like a sinful man. And indeed it seemeth that all they that hold this freedom of the will, conceive of God no otherwise than the common sort of Jews did, that God was like a man, that he had been seen by Moses, and after by the seventy elders (Exod. xxiv. 10); expounding that and other places literally. Again he saith, that God is said to harden the heart permissively, but not operatively; which is the same distinction with his first, namely negatively, not positively, and with his second, occasionally, and not causally. So that all his three ways how God hardens the heart of wicked men, come to this one of permission; which is as much as to say, God sees, looks on, and does nothing, nor ever did anything, in the business. Thus you see how the Bishop expoundeth St. Paul. Therefore I will leave the rest of his commentary upon Rom. ix. to the judgment of the reader, to think of the same as he pleaseth.

(b) “Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith, ‘that he who doth permit anything to be done, which it is in his power to hinder, knowing that if he do not hinder it, it will be done, doth in some sort will it;’ I say in some sort, that is either by an antecedent will, or by a consequent will; either by an operative will, or by a permissive will; or he is willing to let it be done, but not willing to do it.”

Whether it be called antecedent, or consequent, or operative, or permissive, it is enough for the necessity of the thing that the heart of Pharaoh should be hardened; and if God were not willing to do it, I cannot conceive how it could be done without him.

(c) “T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action, and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action? I answer, because he concurs to the doing of evil by a general, but not by a special, influence.”

I had thought to pass over this place, because of the nonsense of general and special influence. Seeing he saith that God concurs to the doing of evil, I desire the reader would take notice, that if he blame me for speaking of God as of a necessitating cause, and as it were a principal agent in the causing of all actions, he may with as good reason blame himself for making him by concurrence an accessory to the same. And indeed, let men hold what they will contrary to the truth, if they write much, the truth will fall into their pens. But he thinks he hath a similitude, which will make this permissive will a very clear business. “The earth,” saith he, “gives nourishment to all kinds of plants, as well to hemlock as to wheat; but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance, the other poison to our destruction, is not from the general nourishment of the earth, but from the special quality of the root.” It seemeth by this similitude, he thinketh, that God doth, not operatively, but permissively will that the root of hemlock should poison the man that eateth it, but that wheat should nourish him he willeth operatively; which is very absurd; or else he must confess that the venomous effects of wicked men are willed operatively.

(d) “Wherefore T. H. is mightily mistaken, to make the particular and determinate act of killing Uriah to be from God. The general power to act, is from God; but the specification of this general and good power, to murder, or to any particular evil, is not from God, but from the free will of man.”

But why am I so mightily mistaken? Did not God foreknow that Uriah in particular, should be murdered by David in particular? And what God foreknoweth shall come to pass, can that possibly not come so to pass? And that which cannot possibly not come to pass, doth not that necessarily come to pass? And is not all necessity from God? I cannot see this great mistake. “The general power,” saith he, “to act is from God, but the specification to do this act upon Uriah, is not from God, but from free-will.” Very learnedly. As if there were a power that were not the power to do some particular act; or a power to kill, and yet to kill nobody in particular. If the power be to kill, it is to kill that which shall be by that power killed, whether it be Uriah or any other; and the giving of that power, is the application of it to the act; nor doth power signify anything actually, but those motions and present acts from which the act that is not now, but shall be hereafter, necessarily proceedeth. And therefore this argument is much like that which used heretofore to be brought for the defence of the divine right of the bishops to the ordination of ministers. They derive not, say they, the right of ordination from the civil sovereign, but from Christ immediately. And yet they acknowledge that it is unlawful for them to ordain, if the civil power do forbid them. But how have they right to ordain, when they cannot do it lawfully? Their answer is, they have the right, though they may not exercise it; as if the right to ordain, and the right to exercise ordination, were not the same thing. And as they answer concerning right, which is legal power, so the Bishop answereth concerning natural power, that David had a general power to kill Uriah from God, but not a power of applying this power in special to the killing of Uriah from God, but from his own free will; that is, he had a power to kill Uriah, but not to exercise it upon Uriah, that is to say, he had a power to kill him, but not to kill him, which is absurd.

(e) “But if the case be put why God doth punish one more than another, or why he throws one into hell fire, and not another, which is the present case between us; to say with T. H., that it is because God is omnipotent, or because his power is irresistible, or merely because it is his pleasure, is not only not warranted, but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place.”

I note first, that he hath no reason to say, the case agitated between us is, whether the cause why God punisheth one man more than another, be his irresistible power, or man’s sin. The case agitated between us is, whether a man can now choose what shall be his will anon, or at any time hereafter. Again, it is not true that he says, it is my opinion that the irresistible power of God is the cause why he punisheth one more than another. I say only that when he doth so, the irresistible power is enough to make it not unjust. But that the cause why God punisheth one more than another, is many times the will he hath to show his power, is affirmed in this place by St. Paul, Shall the thing formed, say to him that formed it, &c. And by our Saviour in the case of him that was born blind, where he saith, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of God may be made manifest. And by the expostulation of God with Job. This endeavour of his to bring the text of St. Paul to his purpose, is not only frustrate, but the cause of many insignificant phrases in his discourse; as this: “It was in their own power, by their concurrence with God’s grace, to prevent these judgments, and to recover their former estates,” which is as good sense, as if he should say, that it is in his own power, with the concurrence of the sovereign power of England, to be what he will. And this, that “God may oblige himself freely to his creature.” For he that can oblige, can also, when he will, release; and he that can release himself when he will, is not obliged. Besides this, he is driven to words ill-becoming him that is to speak of God Almighty; for he makes him unable to do that which hath been within the ordinary power of men to do. “God,” he saith, “cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked;” which nevertheless is a thing ordinarily done by armies: and “He could not destroy Sodom while Lot was in it;” which he interpreteth, as if he could not do it lawfully. One text is Genesis xviii. 23, 24, 25. There is not a word that God could not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Only Abraham saith (as a man): Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Another is Genesis 22): Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Which is an ordinary phrase, in such a case where God had determined to burn the city and save a particular man, and signifieth not any obligation to save Lot more than the rest. Likewise concerning Job, who, expostulating with God, was answered only with the explication of the infinite power of God, the Bishop answereth, that there is never a word of Job’s being punished without desert; which answer is impertinent. For I say not that he was punished without desert, but that it was not for his desert that he was afflicted; for punished, he was not at all.

And concerning the blind man, (John ix.), who was born blind, that the power of God might be shewn in him; he answers that it was not a punishment, but a blessing. I did not say it was a punishment; certainly it was an affliction. How then doth he call it a blessing? Reasonably enough: “because,” saith he, “it was the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul, with the blessed angels.” This is very well said; for no man doubts but some afflictions may be blessings; but I doubt whether the Bishop, that says he reads of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul, think that they did well. To that where I say that brute beasts are afflicted which cannot sin, he answereth, that “there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell.” As if the length or the greatness of the pain, made any difference in the justice or injustice of the inflicting it.

(f) “But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power.”

He would make men believe, I hold all things to be just, that are done by them who have power enough to avoid the punishment. This is one of his pretty little policies, by which I find him in many occasions to take the measure of his own wisdom. I said no more, but that the power, which is absolutely irresistible, makes him that hath it above all law, so that nothing he doth can be unjust. But this power can be no other than the power divine. Therefore let him preach what he will upon his mistaken text, I shall leave it to the reader to consider of it, without any further answer.

(g) “Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin, yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin. For he makes him to be the cause not only of the law, and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, &c. wherein the very essence of sin doth consist.”