66 And, to cite no more places upon this account, which readily might be done to a far greater number, in the next verse save one to the words in hand, the same speakers express themselves thus: καὶ σημεῖα, καὶ τέρατα γίνεσθαι διὰ τῷ ὀνόματος, &c. i. e. " And that signs and wonders may be done by the name," &c. So that whereas in the scripture in debate, we have the original, yevio@a, translated, to be done, as if the meaning were, that the hand and counsel of God had positively and conclusively determined, that all those things should be done, which now were done by Herod, Pilate, &c., about the crucifying of Christ; it might, as properly, with as much consonancy to the Scripture dialect and phrase elsewhere, and, questionless, with far better agreement with the truth, be rendered might be done. And then the sense of the whole passage imports no more but this, that Herod, Pilate, &c., were gathered together to do the uttermost of what God had long before, even from eternity, graciously and sapientially determined to permit and suffer them to do, in and about the death and crucifying of Christ. So then here is nothing in this Scripture to prove, that God peremptorily decreed or determined beforehand the crucifying of Christ by Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, or the Jews, or by any other persons; but only that in order to his great and blessed design of saving the world, he thus decreed, that either these, or any other, in case these had not done it, should be at liberty to perpetrate this great wickedness, and that he would not by his hand or power interpose to hinder them, in case they should attempt it, which he from eternity foresaw, and certainly knew that they would. 66 This sense of the place is fully confirmed from all these and such like expressions in Scripture: "Who was delivered up" (meaning by God) "for our offences," Rom. iv. 25. So again, "He that spared not his own Son, delivered him up for us all," &c., Rom. viii. 32. And again, "Him being delivered" (kdorov, given out, viz., out of the protecting or rescuing hand of God,) by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified," &c. Acts ii. 23. Such passages as these evidently show that God went no further in any of his determinations or decrees about the actual crucifying of Christ, but only to a delivering of him up, i. e. to a leaving of him unguarded, unprotected, for wicked men to do with him, thus far, even what they list; not to any necessitating of any person or persons whatsoever to lay violent hands upon him. If it be objected, But how doth it stand with the wisdom of God to determine events beforehand, without determining means or instruments which shall infallibly produce, or give being unto them? or, doth he determine any thing, the effecting whereof he leaveth in the liberty and power of men, so that they may choose whether it shall be effected or no? I answer, 1. In the general, that God never determineth any thing but what he either provideth means himself, or else knoweth himself sufficiently provided otherwise to bring to pass; viz., according to the tenor, manner, and form of his determination. But, 2. Whatsoever God determineth to do, or to be done, in case or upon such or such a supposition, though his determination itself be absolute and independent upon any condition whatsoever, yet the event, or the thing determined upon such terms, is suspended upon the condition included in the determination. As for example, it cannot be denied but that God had determined to destroy Nineveh within forty days after warning given hereof by the preaching of Jonah, Jonah iii. 4. For doubtless if he had not purposed or determined the thing, he would not have engaged his prophet to preach and assert it in his name. But because the tenor and form of this his determination was conditional, importing only a purpose in him to inflict the judgment determined, in case they humbled not themselves within so many days after the denunciation of this judgment as determined by him, their humiliation and repentance intervening within the time limited in the determination or decree, the judgment determined was not executed; nor did the tenor of the determination import any other, than the non-execution of the judgment determined in such a case. A like instance we have, 1 Sam. ii. 30, "Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed" i. e. I purposed, or determined, "that thy house, and the house of thy father should walk before me," (viz., in the office and dignity of the priesthood,) "for ever. But now the Lord saith, be it far from me: for them that honour me I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." The purpose or determination of God for vesting the priesthood for ever, i. e. during the use and continuance of it in the world, in Eli's house, was absolute, not alterable or changeable, by any intervention, one or more, of what nature or kind soever. But what, then, was the tenor or form of this determination or purpose? not categorical, or simply assertive, as, viz., that the priesthood should remain in this house or family for ever, how much soever it should at any time degenerate from itself in sin and wickedness; but hypothetical and provisional, thus: the priesthood shall remain for ever in, Eli's house, provided that his house remains faithful, and observant of the law of their God concerning this dignity. This purpose or determination of God I call absolute and unchangeable, because “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," by any interposition whatsoever, could, or should have hindered the said duration or continuance of the priesthood in Eli's house, in case it had remained faithful. The Scriptures abound with instances of like consideration with these. See 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10; Gal. v. 21, &c. 3. God may leave the execution or fulfilling of his determinations, such as they may be, at the free liberty and in the power of men, and yet have assurance and certainty enough that they will be executed and fulfilled. For being infinite in wisdom, and so able to discern and comprehend the most secret, subtile, and tickle proportions and connexions between causes and effects,* such as are altogether undiscernible both unto men and angels, as between the will of a man, attended with such and such principles and notions of things in the understanding, for her guide in her elections, and again with such and such objects, circumstances, and occasions about her, and between all possible or imaginable elections or actions in such a case; God, I say, through the infiniteness of his wisdom, being able to penetrate, calculate, and compute all and all manner of relations and aspects, between all and all manner of causes and effects whatsoever, is able infallibly, without all possibility of error or mistake, to foresee not only all men's actions and ways, what they will be from the beginning of the world to the end thereof, being conscious to his own model, platform, and intentions for the government of the world, but likewise what they would have been, had himself been pleased to have carried the government of the world, I mean, in circumstances and occasions relating to it, otherwise. He did not only foresee that Saul would come down to Keilah, which he did; but also that the lords of Keilah would have delivered David into Saul's hand, in case he had staid there till Saul's coming and demanding of him, which they did not, because they were prevented of the opportunity by David's departure from them before, 1 Sam. xxiii. 11, 12. So that in this sense God may be said to determine what will or shall be done in the world by men; not by determining or decreeing to bow or bend their wills by any immediate or physical influx or acting of his power upon them, much less by necessitating or compelling them to their respective elections; but by determining or decreeing, either to suffer them to remain so and so affected or inclined, and under the power and guidance of such and such principles, which he certainly foreseeth that they will drink in; or else to put new principles of light into them, by the influence whereof he also clearly foreseeth that the tenor and frame of their wills and affections will freely alter and change; and withal to give being to such and such circumstances, providences, and occasions, which have such or such an aspect upon or reference unto them in such or such a posture. Upon these terms, the hand and counsel of God might and did absolutely determine the giving up of his Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross, and yet not determine either that Herod, Pontius Pilate, or any other person or persons by name should have acted in this his determination; knowing certainly, 1. That these men would act it freely and without being any ways determined, yea, or in the least degree excited by him hereunto. Cognitio illa Dei sapientialis omnino certa est, et infallibilis; sed non infallibilitate scientiæ quæ sumitur ab objecto, sed ab intellectu Divino, perfectissime et infallibiliter judicante etiam de fallibilibus et contingentibus.-Arrib. Op. Conciliat. lib. i. ca. 9. Effectus causarum creatarum videt quidem Deus in ipsis causis, multo melius quam nos. Aqu. Sum. part i. Qu. 14. Art. vii. Quæcunque igitur possunt per creaturam fieri, vel cogitari vel dici; et etiam quæcunque ipse facere potest, omnia cognoscit Deus, etiamsi actu non sunt, Ibid. Art. 9. Divina essentia est ratio cognoscendi intuitive quodcunque intelligibile, etiamsi nullum existeret in se.-Rada. Contr. 30. Art. 3. 2. That in case these had not acted it, there were enough in the world besides that would. But, 4. Concerning those actions of men, with their consequences, productions, and events, which are so emphatically and signally, as hath been said, attributed unto God; the reason of this attribution, I conceive, is, partly because the conjunction of such principles in men, and providences about men, between which the actions we speak of are begotten and produced, is somewhat particular and rare; partly also, and chiefly, because the event and consequence of such actions, are some special design and intendment of God, as is clearly to be seen in the instances already pointed at. Deut. ii. 27, compared with ver. 30; Josh. xi. 20; 2 Sam. xvii. 14; 1 Kings xii. 15; and Acts iv. 28, compared with Rom. iv. 25, and viii. 32, &c. Therefore, 5. Concerning the ordinary and constant motions and actions of other creatures in the world, though the least of them cometh not to pass without the knowledge and foreknowledge of God (in such a sense as foreknowledge is attributable unto him), nor without his prudential disposal of them to their, or rather his, respective ends, yet can they not be said to be determined by him in any other sense, or consideration, than this, viz. as he was the Author of such and such determinate natures, properties, and beings in the creation, which, by his ordinary concurrence with them for support and action, are apt to move or to act after such or such a manner determinately. The regular and respective motions, shinings, influences of the sun, moon, and stars, the flowing of rivers from their fountains, together with the decurrency of their waters into the sea, with a thousand things besides of like consideration, are no otherwise determined by God than has been said. 6. Concerning the particular motions, actions, and exertions of such creatures, or causes, which though merely natural, do not move, act, or exert uniformly or without variation, but with a latitude and disproportion in their motions and effects, there is ground, I conceive, to judge that God doth, at least sometimes, though not so frequently as is commonly presumed, providentially interpose beyond his ordinary concurrence to occasion or bring to pass such a variation. As for example, that the same ground, with the same labour, cost, and skill of the husbandman bestowed on it, doth not yield a like proportion of increase one year which it doth another; so again, that the same fruit-bearing trees are barren one year, and well bearing another; that the seas are pacific and commodious for passage at one time, in such parts and places of them, as when such and such ships, with such and such persons in them, pass through them, where they are turbulent and dangerous at another time, when such and such other ships and persons in them pass the same way, with many more particulars of like consideration, the reason, doubtless, of the variety and diversity of occurrences or effects in this kind, is not always to be resolved, either divisim, or conjunctim, only into the native properties of the causes, whether me diately, or immediately producing them, or into the ordinary and standing concurrence of God, with these causes, for or in producing them; but there is somewhat a more particular hand of the great Ruler of the world, which forms and fashions them in such different shapes; and that in order to such and such ends, which though sometimes apprehensible enough, yet for the most part are very hard for men to call by their names. Only this remains true, that in such occurrences and events, as those now specified, notwithstanding that great diversity found between them, yet ordinarily all particular causes interested in the production of them, act in a regular and due conformity to their respective natures and properties, and are not forced or turned out of their way by any immediate power or interposal of God. And that which he doth in order to a diversification, when the difference is preternatural and signally from him, consists either in a multiplication of, or a subtraction from, the number of causes, which, according to the course of nature and ordinary providence, would have joined in raising the effect, or else in suspending either in whole or in part, or in augmenting the operating virtue of one cause or more present with those, which together raise and produce the effect; which suspension and augmentation, though in a sense they may be called miraculous, yet are they not direct or perfect miracles, partly because they are not so obvious to any of the outward senses, partly also because, though they be unusual and rare, compared with the course of ordinary providence, yet are they frequent in such kinds of dispensation, which are either signally penal or munificent. 7. Concerning such occurrences and casual events, wherein or whereby any creature suffers loss either of being or well-being, in what kind or degree soever, neither are these determined by God, though he takes special knowledge of them both before and when they come to pass, and contrives them accordingly to their most appropriate ends. When our Saviour teacheth his disciples that a sparrow shall not fall to the ground, i. e., be taken, killed, or hurt, without his heavenly Father, his meaning is not to assert a particular decree or determination in God concerning the death or hurt of every sparrow that either dieth or receiveth harm, but to show that God is vigilant and careful in his rule and government of the world, and taketh exact notice how his creatures suffer or are diminished. It is more proper of the two, and nearer to the truth, to say and hold that God determineth the preservation or keeping alive of these sparrows which fall not to the ground, than that he determineth the falling to the ground of every one that so falleth. The reason is, because the object of God's determinations or decrees is only that which is good, whereas things indifferent and things that are evil are the object of his knowledge as well as that which is good. But of this more hereafter. So when any man's person, house, or goods are consumed or hurt by fire, there is no competent ground to say or think that any of these |