A44687:200
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.
§. XXV.
It is moreover to be considered, that innumerable congruities lie open to the Infinite Wisdom, which are never obvious to our view or thought. As to a well-studied Scholar, thousands of coherent notions, which an illiterate person never thought of. To a practised Courtier, or well-educated Gentleman, many decencies and indecencies in the matter of civil behaviour, and conversation, which an unbred rustic knows nothing of. And to an experienced States-man, those ⟨p. 129⟩importancies, which never occur to the thoughts of him who daily follows the plough. What Government is there that hath not its arcana, profound mysteries and reasons of State that a vulgar wit cannot dive into? And from whence, the account to be given, why this or that is done or not done, is not, always, that it would have been unjust it should be otherwise, but it had been imprudent. And many things are, hereupon, judged necessary not from the exigency of Justice, but reason of State. Whereupon, men of modest and sober minds, that have had experience of the wisdom of their Governors, and their happy conduct, thorough a considerable tract of time; when they see things done by them, the leading reasons whereof they do ⟨p. 130⟩not understand, and the effect and success comes not yet in view, suspend their censure; while as yet all seems to them obscure, and wrapped up in clouds and darkness. Yea tho the course that is taken have, to their apprehension, an ill aspect. Accounting it becomes them not, to make a Judgment of things so far above their reach, and confiding in the tried wisdom of their Rulers, who, they believe, see reasons for what they do, into which they find themselves unable to penetrate.
It is moreover to be considered, that innumerable congruities lie open to the Infinite Wisdom, which are never obvious to our view or thought. As to a wellstudied Scholar, thousands of coherent notions, which an illiterate person never thought of. To a practic't Courtier, or welleducated Gentleman, many decencies and indecencies in the matter of civil behaviour, and conversation, which an unbred rustic knowes nothing of. And to an experienced States-man, those