A44687:239
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.
Contents.
Sect. I. The Proposal of the difficulty to be discussed. Disquisition concerning the words Prescience, or Foreknowledge waved. pag. 1. Sect. II. Great care to be taken lest we ascribe to God inconsistencies, under the pretence of ascribing all Perfections. Equal care, lest we deny to him any Perfection, upon the first appearance of its not-agreeing with ⟨image 83⟩somewhat else, which we have found it necessary to ascribe. Our own Minds to be suspected. And endeavoured with to the utmost, before we conclude what is, or is not to be ascribed to God; if we meet with a difficulty. p. 5. Sect. III. Such Divine Attributes as agree to the Deity by the Common Suffrage of all considering men, to be distinguished from those that are only concluded to belong to him upon the subtle reasonings of but a few. Yet the danger to be carefully avoided, of mistaking any dictate of Corrupt affection, for a Common notion. p. 11. Sect. IV. His own Word, therefore, our surest measure, by which we are to ⟨image 83⟩judg what belongs to him, and what not. Which plainly asserts both his Wisdom, and Sincerity. As our own Minds do also naturally suggest to us. p. 16. Sect. V. It also seems plainly both to assert and prove his Universal Prescience. Particularly of such things from which he dehorts. Whence his dehorting is no proof of his not-foreknowing. p. 24. Sect. VI. These therefore to be reconciled. Which not so difficult as to reconcile his dehortations from sinful actions, with his predeterminative concurrence thereto. This undertaking waved as not manageable. p. 31. ⟨image 84⟩Sect. VII. Nor necessary. The principal Arguments that are brought for it, not concluding. That every thing of positive Being must be from God. That otherwise he could not foreknow such actions. The former considered. How we are to satisfy our selves about the latter. p. 34. Sect. VIII. The undertaken difficulty weighed. Nothing in it of contradiction. Nothing of indecorum. p. 50. Sect. IX. Gods supposed foreknowledge of contingent actions, alters not the natural goodness or evil of them. p. 54.