Part 3

And for the arguments derived from the attributes of God, so far forth as those attributes are argumentative, that is, so far forth as their significations be conceivable, I admit them for arguments; but where they are given for honour only, and signify nothing but an intention and endeavour to praise and magnify as much as we can Almighty God, there I hold them not for arguments, but for oblations; not for the language, but (as the Scripture calls them) for the calves of our lips; which signify not true nor false, nor any opinion of our brain, but the reverence and devotion of our hearts; and therefore they are no sufficient premises to infer truth or convince falsehood.

The places of Scripture that make for me are these. First, (Gen. xlv. 5): Joseph saith to his brethren that had sold him, Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. And again (verse 8), So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God.

And concerning Pharaoh, God saith, (Exod. vii. 3): I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. And concerning Sihon King of Heshbon, Moses saith, (Deut. ii. 30): The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate.

And of Shimei that did curse David, David himself saith, (2 Sam. xvi. 10): Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, curse David. And (1 Kings, xii. 15): The King hearkened not to the people, for the curse was from the Lord.

And Job, disputing this very question, saith, (Job xii. 14): God shutteth man, and there can be no opening: and verse 16: The deceived and the deceiver are his: and verse 17: He maketh the Judges fools: and verse 24: He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way: and verse 25: He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

And of the King of Assyria, God saith, I will give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. (Isaiah x. 6.)

And Jeremiah saith, (Jer. x. 23): O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

And to Ezekiel, whom God sent as a watchman to the house of Israel, God saith thus: When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin. (Ezek. iii. 20.) Note here, God lays the stumbling block, yet he that falleth dieth in his sin: which shows that God’s justice in killing dependeth not on the sin only.

And our Saviour saith, (John vi. 44): No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.

And St. Peter, concerning the delivering of Christ to the Jews, saith thus, (Acts ii. 23): Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, &c.

And again, those Christians to whom Peter and John resorted after they were freed from their troubles about the miracle of curing the lame man, praising God for the same, say thus: Of a truth against the holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. (Acts iv. 27, 28.)

And St. Paul, Rom. ix. 16: It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy: and verse 18, 19, 20: Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say unto me, why doth he yet find fault; for who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that disputest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?

And again, (1 Cor. iv 7): Who maketh thee differ from another? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? and 1 Cor. xii. 6: There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God that worketh all in all: and Eph. ii. 10: We are his workmanship created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them: and Philip. ii. 13: It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do, of his good pleasure.

To these places may be added all the places that make God the giver of all graces, that is to say, of all good habits and inclinations; and all the places wherein men are said to be dead in sin. For by all these it is manifest, that although a man may live holily if he will, yet to will is the work of God, and not eligible by man.

A second sort of places there be, that make equally for the Bishop and me; and they be such as say that a man hath election, and may do many things if he will, and also if he will he may leave them undone; but not that God Almighty naturally or supernaturally worketh in us every act of the will, as in my opinion; nor that he worketh it not, as in the Bishop’s opinion; though he use those places as arguments on his side.

The places are such as these, (Deut. xxx. 19): I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: and (Ecclesiasticus xv. 14): God in the beginning made man, and left him in the hand of his counsel: and verse 16, 17: He hath set fire and water before thee, stretch forth thy hand to whither thou wilt. Before man is life and death, and whether him liketh shall be given him.

And those places which the Bishop citeth: If a wife make a vow, it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it, or to make it void, (Numb. xxx. 13): and (Josh. xxiv. 15): Chuse ye this day whom you will serve, &c. But I and my house will serve the Lord: and (2 Sam. xxiv. 12): I offer thee three things, choose which of them I shall do: and (Isaiah vii. 16): before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. And besides these very many other places to the same effect.

The third sort of texts are those which seem to make against me. As Isaiah v. 4: What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?

And Jeremiah xix. 5: They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.

And Hosea xiii. 9: O Israel, thy destruction is from thyself, but in me is thy help.

And 1 Tim. ii. 4: Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of truth.

And Eccl. xv. 11, 12: Say not thou, it is through the Lord I fell away; for thou oughtest not to do the things that he hateth. Say not thou, he hath caused me to err; for he hath no need of thee, sinful man. And many other places to the like purpose.

You see how great the apparent contradiction is between the first and the third sort of texts, which being both Scripture, may and must be reconciled and made to stand together; which unless the rigour of the letter be on one or both sides with intelligible and reasonable interpretations mollified, is impossible.

The Schoolmen, to keep the literal sense of the third sort of texts, interpret the first sort thus; the words of Joseph, It was not you that sent me hither, but God; they interpret in this manner: It was you that sold me into Egypt, God did but permit it; it was God that sent me and not you; as if the selling were not the sending. This is Suarez; of whom and the Bishop I would know, whether the selling of Joseph did infallibly and inevitably follow that permission. If it did, then that selling was necessitated beforehand by an eternal permission. If it did not, how can there be attributed to God a foreknowledge of it, when by the liberty of human will it might have been frustrated? I would know also whether the selling of Joseph into Egypt were a sin? If it were, why doth Joseph say, Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither? Ought not a man to be grieved and angry with himself for sinning? If it were no sin, then treachery and fratricide is no sin.

Again, seeing the selling of him consisted in these acts, binding, speaking, delivering, which are all corporeal motions, did God will they should not be, how then could they be done? Or doth he permit barely, and neither will nor nill corporeal and local motions? How then is God the first mover and cause of all local motion? Did he cause the motion, and will the law against it, but not the irregularity? How can that be, seeing the motion and law being existent, the contrariety of the motion and law is necessarily coexistent?

So these places, He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, he made Sihon’s heart obstinate, they interpret thus: “He permitted them to make their own hearts obstinate.” But seeing that man’s heart without the grace of God, is uninclinable to good, the necessity of the hardness of heart, both in Pharaoh and in Sihon, is as easily derived from God’s permission, that is, from his withholding his grace, as from his positive decree. And whereas they say, He wills godly and free actions conditionally and consequently, that is, if the man will them, then God wills them, else not; and wills not evil actions, but permits them; they ascribe to God nothing at all in the causation of any action either good or bad.

Now to the third sort of places, that seem to contradict the former, let us see if they may not be reconciled with a more intelligible and reasonable interpretation, than that wherewith the Schoolmen interpret the first.

It is no extraordinary kind of language, to call the commandments and exhortations and other significations of the will, by the name of will; though the will be an internal act of the soul, and commands are but words and signs external of that internal act. So that the will and the word are diverse things; and differ as the thing signified, and the sign. And hence it comes to pass, that the Word and Commandment of God, namely, the holy Scripture, is usually called by Christians God’s will, but his revealed will; acknowledging the very will of God, which they call his counsel and decree, to be another thing. For the revealed will of God to Abraham was, that Isaac should be sacrificed; but it was his will he should not. And his revealed will to Jonas, that Nineveh should be destroyed within forty days; but not his decree and purpose. His decree and purpose cannot be known beforehand, but may afterwards by the event; for from the event we may infer his will. But his revealed will, which is his word, must be foreknown, because it ought to be the rule of our actions.