The divine life in three treatises

2. God being the Maker and first Cause of all things, that is of all substantial Beings, commonly called Creatures, we must conclude that Sin is no such Being, because it is most certain that he is not the Creator or the cause of it. Scripture assureth us, and all Christians are agreed that God is not the ⟨p. 80⟩Cause or Author of sin. How odious then should that be to us, that is so bad as not to come from God? If God disclaim it, let us disclaim it. Let us abhor that it should come from us, seeing God abhorreth that it should come from him. Own not that which hath nothing of God upon it.

2. God being the Maker and first Cause of all things, that is of all substantial Beings, commonly called Creatures, we must conclude that Sin is no such Being, because it is most certain that he is not the Creatour or the cause of it. Scripture assureth us, and all Christians are agreed that God is not the ⟨p. 80⟩Cause or Author of sin. How odious then should that be to us, that is so bad as not to come from God? If God disclaim it, let us disclaim it. Let us abhor that it should come from us, seeing God abhorreth that it should come from him. Own not that which hath nothing of God upon it.

If you say, that it is an Accident though not a substance, and therefore it must needs come from God; because even Accidents have their Being.

I answer, That among the subtlest Disputers it is granted, that it hath no Created Being, or no Being that is caused by God; of this they are agreed. Its granted by all Christians that sin hath no other kind of Being, but what the will of man can cause. And if that be so, the Philosophical trifling controversy, whether it be only a Privation, or a Relation, or Modus Entis, which the will thus causeth, must be handled as Philosophical, and valued but as it deserveth: For this is all the controversy that here remains. If the form be Relative, and the Foundation be but a mere Privation, (the Disconformity being founded in a defect) then the case is soon resolved, as to the rest. He that erreth, understandeth amiss: that he understandeth, is of God: that he erreth, that is, is defective, and so false in his understanding, is of himself: that he willeth when he chooseth sin, is of God the Universal cause: But that he willeth a forbidden object rather then the contrary, and faileth in his understanding and his will, this is not of God, but of himself. If others say, that the very Fundamentum of that Disconformity which is the Form of sin, is sometime an Act, they must also say that it is not an Act as such, but This Act comparatively considered, or as circumstantiated, or as exercised on the forbidden object rather then another, or a Volition instead of a Nolition, and choosing that which should be refused, or a refusing that which should be chosen: And whether this comparate specifying foundation, be a Privation, or a Mode, is a Philosophical controversy; and in Philosophy, and not in Theology is the difficulty; Divines being agreed as aforesaid, that what ever you Name it, Being, or Privation, or Mode, it is but such as must be resolved ultimately into the will of man as its Original, or first cause, supposing God to be the Creator and Conserver of that free Power that is able to choose or to refuse,