A44687:164
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.
Nor is it reasonably to be doubted, (such a will being all that can be pretended to be the visible meaning of the passages before noted) whether there be such a Will in God or no. And so somewhat really corresponding (the next thing promised to be discoursed) to the aspect and appearance hereof, which is offered to our view. For what should be the reason of the doubt? He, who best understands his own Nature, ⟨p. 106⟩having said of himself what imports no less; why should we make a difficulty to believe him? Nor indeed can any notices we have of the Perfections of the Divine Nature be less liable to doubt, than what we have of his unchangeable veracity; whence, as it is impossible to him to lye, it must be necessary, that he be really willing of what he hath represented himself so to be.
I must here profess my dislike of the terms of that common distinction the voluntas beneplaciti, et signi in this present case. Under which, such as coined, and those that have much used it, have only rather, I doubt not, concealed a good meaning, than expressed by it an ill one. It seems, I confess, by its more obvious aspect, too much to countenance ⟨p. 107⟩the ignominious slander, which profane and atheistical dispositions would fasten upon God, and the course of his procedure towards men; and which it is the design of these Papers to evince of as much absurdity and folly, as it is guilty of impiety and wickedness: As tho he only intended to seem willing of what he really was not; That there was an appearance to which nothing did subesse. And then why is the latter called voluntas? unless the meaning be he did only will the sign, which is false and impious; and if it were true, did he not will it with the will of good pleasure? And then the members of the distinction are confounded. Or, as if the evil actions of men were, more truly, the objects of his good Pleasure, than