PART [Universals nothing according to T. H. posed to acting; "to permit barely," is opposed to disposing. There are many things which God doth not act, there is nothing which God doth not dispose. He acteth good, permitteth evil, disposeth all things both good and evil. He that cutteth the banks of a river, is the active cause that the water floweth out of the channel: he that hindereth not the stream to break the banks when he could, is the permissive cause; and if he make no other use of the breaking out, it is "nuda permissio"-"bare permission;" but if he disposeth and draweth the water that floweth out, by furrows, to water the meadows, then, though he permit it, yet he doth not "barely permit" it, but disposeth of it to a further good. So God "only permitteth" evil, that is, He doth it not; but He doth not "barely permit" it, because He disposeth it to good. Here he would gladly be nibbling at the question, whether but words, universals be nothing but only words;-"Nothing in the world," saith he, "is general, but the significations of words and other signsd:" hereby affirming unawares, that a man is but a word, and by consequence, that he himself is but a titular and not a real man. But this question is altogether impertinent in this place. We do not by a general influence understand some universal substance or thing, but an influence of indeterminate power, which may be applied either to good or evil. The influence is a singular act; but the power communicated is a general, that is, an indeterminate power, which may be applied to acts of several kinds. If he deny all general power in this sense, he denieth both his own reason, and his common sense. Eternity is no succes tion. Still he is for his old error,-that eternity is a successive sive dura- everlasting duration". But he produceth nothing for it, nor answereth to any thing which I urged against it :-that the eternity of God is God Himself; that if eternity were an everlasting duration, then there should be succession in God; then there should be former and latter, past and to come, 830 and a part without a part, in God; then all things should not be present to God; then God should lose something, namely, that which is past, and acquire something newly, II. namely, that which is to come; and so God, Who is "with- DISCOURSE out all shadow of change," should be mutable, and change every day. To this he is silent, and silence argueth 17.] consent. [James i. show of He saith, those "many other ways which are 'proposed by [T. H.'s divines for reconciling eternal prescience with liberty and conficontingency,' . . are proposed in vain, if they mean the same dence.] liberty and contingency" that I do," for truth and error can never be reconcileds." I do not wonder at his show of confidence. The declining sun maketh longer shadows; and when a merchant is nearest breaking, he maketh the fairest show, to preserve his reputation as long as may be. He saith, he "knoweth the loadstone hath no such attractive power." I fear shortly he will not permit us to say, that a plaster or a plantain-leaf draweth. What doth the loadstone then, if it doth not draw? He "knoweth, that the iron cometh to it, or it to the iron." Can he not tell whether? This is worse than "drawing," to make iron come or go. By "potentiality" he understandeth "power" or might; others understand possibility or indetermination. Is not he likely to confute the Schoolmen to good purpose? is said to Whereas I said, "God is not just but justice itself, not eter- Why God nal but eternity itself1;" he telleth me, that "they are un- be justice seemly words to be said of God," he "will not say blasphe- itself, &c. mous and atheistical, that God is not just,' that 'He is not eternalm.'" I do not fear, that any one scholar, or any one understanding Christian in the world, should be of his mind in this. If I should spend much time in proving of such known truths, approved and established by the Christian world, I should shew myself almost as weak as he doth shew himself, to talk of such things as he understandeth not in the least, to the overthrowing of the nature of God, and to make Him no God. If his God have accidents, ours hath none. If his God admit of composition and division, ours is PART III. a simple essence. When we say, "God is not just but justice," not wise but wisdom, doth he think that we speak of moral virtues? or that we derogate or detract from God? No, we ascribe unto him a transcendental justice and wisdom, that is not comprehended under our categories, nor to be conceived perfectly by human reason. But why doth he not attempt to answer the reasons which I brought?-that that which is infinitely perfect, cannot be further perfected by accidents; that God is a simple essence, and can admit no kind of composition; that the infinite essence of God can act sufficiently without faculties; that it consisteth not with Divine perfection to have any passive or receptive powers". I find nothing in answer to these, but deep silence. Attributes are names; and justice and wisdom are moral virtues : but the justice, and wisdom, and power, and eternity, and goodness, and truth of God, are neither names nor moral virtues, but altogether do make one eternal essence, wherein all perfections do meet in an infinite degree. It is well, if those words of our Saviour do escape him in his John xiv. 6. next Animadversions,-"I am the truth;" or St. Paul, for making "Deum" and "Deitatem"-"God" and "the GodProv. viii. head" or Deity, to be all one; or Solomon, for personating God under the name of "Wisdom" in the abstract. Acts xvii. 29. and ix. God is indivisible. To prove eternity to be no successive duration but one indivisible moment, I argued thus,-"the Divine substance is indivisible, but eternity is the Divine substance"." In answer to this, in the first place, he denieth the major, -that "the Divine substance is indivisible"." If he had not been a professed Christian, but a plain Stoic, I should not have wondered so much at this answer; for they held, that God was corporal". If the Divine substance be not indivisible, then it is material, then it is corporal, then it is corruptible, then the Anthropomorphites had reason to attribute human members to God. But the Scriptures teach us better, and John iv. 24. all the world consenteth to it; that "God is a Spirit,"1 Tim.i.17; that He is "immortal and invisible,”—that He "dwelleth in [and vi.16.] II. light which no man can approach unto, Whom no man DISCOURSe hath seen nor can see." It is inconsistent with the nature of God to be finite; it is inconsistent with the nature of a body to be infinite. The speculations of philosophers, who had only the light of reason, were not so gross; who made God to be a most simple essence or simplicity itself. All matter, which is the original of divisibility, was created by God; and therefore God Himself cannot be material nor divisible. 831 Secondly, he denieth the minor,-that the "eternity" of God God is eter"is the Divine substances." I proved it from that generally nity itself. received rule, "whatsoever is in God, is God." His answer is, that "this rule hath been said by some men, thought by no man; for whatsoever is thought is understood."—" Said by some men?" Nay, said and approved by all men, that ever had occasion to discourse upon this subject, and received without contradiction as a received principle of theology. They who say against it, do, wittingly or unwittingly, destroy the nature of God. That which followeth is equally presumptuous, "thought by no man, for whatsoever is thought is understood." It was too much to censure all the Schoolmen for pies or parrots, prating what they did not understand; but to accuse all learned Christians, of all communions, throughout all ages, who have either approved it or not contradicted it, of not understanding themselves, is too high an insolence. God, being an infinite essence, doth intrinsecally include all perfection, and needeth not to have His defects supplied by accidents. a" nunc Where I say, "To-day all eternity is coexistent with this [Eternity day, and to-morrow all eternity will be coexistent with to- stans."] morrow"," he inferreth, "It is well, that his eternity is now come from a 'nunc stans' to be a 'nunc fluens,' flowing from this day to" to-morrow". It were better, if he would confess that it is a mere deception of his sight; like that of fresh-water passengers when they come first to sea, "terræque urbesque recedunt,”—who think the shore leaveth them, when they 14. PART leave the shore. It is time that floweth and moveth, not III. eternity. "Non tellus cymbam, tellurem cymba relinquit." To conclude this point of eternity, and this section, God Exod. iii. gave Himself this name, "I am that I am," to shew the truth, the simplicity, the independence, and immutability of His essence; wherein there is neither "fuit" nor “erit”"hath been" nor "shall be," but only present, "I am." Eternity, only eternity, is, truly, simply, independently, immutably. What a judge judg. eth to be indeliberate, is im CASTIGATIONS OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER XXV. His first contradictions have been handled before, whither I refer the reader'; but because he expresseth his sense more rate is clearly here than there, I will take the liberty to add a few pertinent. words. I charged him with contradictions, in making vo And his assertion false. luntary to presuppose deliberation, and yet making many voluntary acts to be without deliberation. He distinguisheth "between deliberation and that which shall be construed for deliberation by a judge ;"-some voluntary acts are "rash and undeliberate" in themselves, yet the judge judgeth them to be deliberate, "because they ought to have deliberated, and had time enough to deliberate, whether the action were lawful or not." First, this answer is a mere subterfuge. The question between us is not, what actions are punishable by law, and what are not, but what is deliberation in its own nature, and whether all voluntary actions be deliberate or not; not in order to a trial before a judge, but in order to the finding out of the truth. Secondly, many of these rash actions do imply no crime; nor are cognoscible before a judge, as tending only to the agent's particular prejudice, or perhaps no prejudice but advantage. In all these cases, the sentence of the judge cannot help to reconcile his contradiction. Thirdly, the ground of his distinction is not true. The judge doth not always judge of such rash acts to be de |