An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 13. Therefore as the Church of God hath ever abhorred to make God the Cause of Sin, and kept up the sense of the Evil of Sin, (for our hatred of it, and departing from it, and our Humiliation) as a necessary part of our Religion, so must we resolutely do still; or else we shall be worse than the Light of Nature teacheth Heathens themselves to be.

§. 13. Therefore as the Church of God hath ever abhorred to make God the Cause of Sin, and kept up the sence of the Evil of Sin, (for our hatred of it, and departing from it, and our Humiliation) as a necessary part of our Religion, so must we resolutely do still; or else we shall be worse than the Light of Nature teacheth Heathens themselves to be.

§. 14. God hath many ways to cause the Effects of Sin, without causing the Sin it self; as by impediments to other ways, by altering Recipients, Objects, Concauses, and many others, which I have elsewhere enumerated: He can will and procure, that Christ shall die by the sinful malice and action of the Jews, without willing or causing their malice, will or action as bad: As he can procure a man to be in the way where a Murderer cometh with a disposition to murder, and can direct the Bullet, &c.

§. 14. God hath many waies to cause the Effects of Sin, without causing the Sin it self; as by impediments to other waies, by altering Recipients, Objects, Concauses, and many others, which I have elsewhere enumerated: He can will and procure, that Christ shall die by the sinful malice and action of the Iews, without willing or causing their malice, will or action as bad: As he can procure a man to be in the way where a Murderer cometh with a disposition to murder, and can direct the Bullet, &c.

§. 15. When one and the same word doth signify both the Sin and the Effect of the Sin, it occasioneth the error of men that cannot distinguish: And so if the Scripture should say, That God is the Cause of it, they think it includeth the Sin with the Effect. So Murder signifieth both the will and action of the Murderer, and the death of the man murdered as the effect: Absalom's Constuprations signifieth both his sinful will and action, and the effect of both: The revolt of the Israelites from Jeroboam; the giving up of Kingdoms to the Beast, and many such-like, in Scripture are ascribed to God as the Cause, not as the words signify the sinful will and action of the Malefactor, but only