A30248:447
The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians,…The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians,…
The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, and more especially Antinomians in XXX lectures preached at Lawrence-Jury, London / by Anthony Burgess ...The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, and more especially Antinomians in XXX lectures preached at Lawrence-Iury, London / by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by A. Miller for Tho. Underhill, 1651
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Now in handling of this, I shall not trouble you with that perplex Question so much vexed by the Schoolmen, Whether ⟨p. 165⟩a transient action be in the Agent, or in the Patient, but lay down some differences between an immanent action, and a transient action;1 only you must take notice that we are in mere darkness, and not able to comprehend how God is said to act or work. For on the one side, we must not hold that there are any accidents in God; or that he can be a subject recipient of such, because of his most pure and simple Essence;2 so that whatsoever is in God is God. And yet on the other side, the Scripture doth represent God doing and working such mercies and judgements as seemeth good to him. Only this some conclude of, wherein others with some probability dissent, that Gods knowledge and will is the cause of all things that are done; so that there is not an executive power besides them, whereby he doth this or that; As we see there is in man, though an Artificer wills such a thing to be done, yet that is not existent till he hath wrought it, but now God worketh all things by a mere command of his will, as appeareth Gen. 1. God said, Let there be light, and there was light; Here was Gods will to have it so, no executing power distinct from that will. Therefore it is a sure truth, De Deo etiam vera dicere periculosum est. It is dangerous to assert things though true of God; and Tunc dignè Deum aestimamus cum inaestimabilem dicimus, then do we rightly esteem of him, when we judge him above our thoughts or esteem. We must not therefore apprehend of God,3 as having a new will to do a thing in time, which he had not from eternity (as Vorstius and others blaspheme) but his will was from all eternity, that such a thing be in time accomplished by his wisdom. As for example, in Creation, God did not then begin to have a will to create: but he had a will from all eternity, that the world should exist in time; and thus it is in Justification and Sanctification; not that these effects are from eternity, but Gods will is: And if you ask, Why, seeing Gods will to create or justify is from eternity, Creation and Justification are not also from eternity?