PAX ECCLESIAE. BY THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, ROBERT SANDERSON, LATE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN. LONDON: PRINTED FOR RICHARD MARRIOTT. 1678. PAX ECCLESIAE. ALL the Decrees of God are eternal, and His Counsels therein unsearchable. In eternals there is neither prius nor posterius; and therefore, 2 considered in themselves, and as they are3 in God, all the Decrees of God concerning the whole course of man's Salvation, are simul et semel; and because eternal, therefore 2 also coeternal. Yet considered either in regard of their objects, or respectively to our apprehensions, there must some order be conceived among them, 5 whereby one may be said to be before or after another7 ordine naturae, et ordine intelligendi. For, as in order of Nature the intention of the end is before the deliberation concerning the means, the cause before the effect, the subjects before the properties and accidents, &c, so we are not able to conceive of the Decrees 10 of God, unless we rank them in some such order as seemeth most agreeable to the condition of their proper objects: 11 as ex. gr. 12 those wherein the end, or cause, or subject is decreed, to be, ordine intelligendi, before those 13 wherein are decreed the means, effects, or accidents. 9 1 Of this Work I have been able to see five different copies in manuscript. Two in the Bodleian, Rawlinson, A. 419, and C. 167; one among the Barlow MSS. in Queen's College Library; and two in the Library of C. C. C. 2 therefore.' So in all four MSS. In previous Editions, ergo.' 3 and as they are.' Rawl. A. and Qu.as they are.' 4 'be some order.' Rawl. A. C. and Qu. 12 exempli gratia.' Rawl. C. 13before those.' So in Rawl. A., 5 'conceated amongst them.' in Qu., and C. C. C. In previous Rawl. C. Edd. 'these,' as in Rawl. C. But because the counsels of God herein are incomprehensible, and unsearchable1 to our weak and finite understandings, 2 it hence cometh to pass, First, That they who have the greatest serenity of natural3 understanding, and the largest measure of Divine Revelation withal, must yet confess the unfathomed 5 depth of the judgments and ways of God, which are abyssus multa, rather to be admired than searched into: so as they are not to hope or look after such a way of opening these mysteries as shall be quietativa intellectus, 10 so totally and absolutely, but that some difficulties will still remain, 11 to make us 12 cry out with St. Paul, O altitudo! Otherwise these 13 great and hidden mysteries of God should be no mysteries. Secondly, That men who cannot content themselves to be wise according to sobriety, whilst they have sought 14 by searching into the counsels of God, to bring the mysteries of faith within the comprehension of reason, have become vain in their imaginations, and enwrapped themselves unawares in perplexed and inextricable difficulties: for the unwinding of themselves wherefrom, they have been sometimes afterwards 15 driven to devise and maintain strange opinions, of very perilous and noisome consequence, which hath 16 been the original of most heresies and schisms in the Church. Thirdly, That men also of sober understandings, and keeping within 17 the due bounds of their gifts and callings, yet by reason of the great difficulties 18 of the things themselves, have much differed, and still will do 19 in their judgments |