A44687:109
The reconcilableness of God's prescience of the sins of men with the wisdom and…The reconcileableness of God's prescience of the sins of men with the wisdom and…
The reconcilableness of God's prescience of the sins of men with the wisdom and sincerity of his counsels, exhortations, and whatsoever other means he uses to prevent them / in a letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq.The reconcileableness of God's prescience of the sins of men with the wisdom and sincerity of his counsels, exhortations, and whatsoever other means he uses to prevent them / in a letter to the Honorable Robert Boyle Esq.
London: printed for Brabazon Aylmer, 1677
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.
This being premised; It is now further to be considered, that howsoever one end oftentimes is not attained, unto which the publicly extant declarations of the Divine Will have a visible aptitude, viz. the obedient compliance of men with them; another, more noble end was, however, attainable, not unbecoming the designment of the Divine Wisdom, and which ⟨p. 61⟩it was every way most worthy of God to be more principally intent upon.
It is fit the mention of this be prefaced with an obvious remark; That the misapprehension of the state of things between God and Man doth, in great part, owe it self, to our aptness to compare unduly, the Divine Government with that of Secular Rulers; and our expectation to find them in all things agreeing with each other. Whereas there cannot but be a vast difference, between the constitution, and end of God's Government over (his Creatures, and more especially) Mankind, and that of Man over his fellow Creatures of the same kind.
It is fit the mention of this be prefac't with an obvious remark; That the misapprehension of the state of things between God and Man doth, in great part, owe it self, to our aptnes to compare unduly, the Divine Government with that of Secular Rulers; and our expectation to find them in all things agreeing with each other. Whereas there cannot but be a vast difference, between the constitution, and end of God's Government over (his Creatures, and more especially) Mankind, and that of Man over his fellow Creatures of the same kind.
The Government of secular, humane Rulers, can never be, in the constitution of it, altogether ⟨p. 62⟩