The divine life in three treatises

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, ⟨p. 81⟩and as an universal Cause to concur with the agent to the Act as such. But Philosophers indeed are at a loss, and are fain to tell us of Privations, Modes, Relations, Denominations, Entia Rationis and I know not what, that they say are neither Beings nor Nothing, but between both they know not what!

I answer, That among the subtilest 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 controversie, 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 controversie that here remains. If the form be Relative, and the Foundation be but a meer Prevation, (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 controversie; 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,