An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

God's Mercy, Justice, Wisdom, Holiness, Power, break forth out of Man's Cruelty, Injustice, Folly, Filthiness and Weakness: In every Ataxy God hath a secret Order; either an Order of Penalty, Sin punishing Sin; or an Order of Conducibility, Good ⟨p. 62⟩coming out of Evil. Nullum est malum in mundo (saith profound Bradwardine) quod non est propter aliquod magnum bonum, & forsitan propter aliquod majus bonum. The Concerns being so great, sit down and consider; May such Events be casual? Did Angels and Man fall by chance, or could that Providence, which is waky over Hairs and Sparrows, sleep over such a Concern? Or if it could, must not the great work of Redemption, pendent on a casual Fall, be casual also? May Fortune ring the changes over Empires and Churches, or cast out Persecutions and Heresies, as roving Meteors to do her pleasure? May lots be cast upon the Genealogy and Passion of Christ, or the Acts of Gods Mercy, Justice, Wisdom, Holiness and Power shining out in such Events hang upon a Peradventure? May the All-wise and Almighty God sit, complicatis manibus & oculis conniventibus, as Amyraldus speaks, whilst such vast and wonderful Concerns are in agitation? Methinks no sober Man can in Reason think it credible. For my own part, did I once believe a Lottery of such Events, I should think that my next Fancy would be, That Epicurus his Atoms by a lucky Hit made up that ⟨p. 63⟩World, which is so fortuitously governed in the very great Concerns of it: He that allows not a determining stroke of Providence in such things, May, as Bishop Davenant saith, avoid the suspicion of Stoicism or Manicheism, but very hardly of Atheism. This is the first thing: These Events, if unordained, must needs be casual, and without a Providence. Neither is this to be salved by Divine Prescience; Prescience, as it is infallible, is of things future and of determinate Verity; and casual unordained Events, not being such, are no fit Object for it: This made Episcopius doubt, whether Prescience or at least the knowledge of it were necessary. But might such a thing be of mere Casuals, yet Prescience is not Providence. Had the Epicurean Atoms rallied themselves into a World, the Event, though foreseen, could not have been claimed by Providence as its own, but must have been left to those Ethnic Names of Chance or Fortune;

God's Mercy, Justice, Wisdom, Holiness, Power, break forth out of Man's Cruelty, Injustice, Folly, Filthiness and Weakness: In every Ataxy God hath a secret Order; either an Order of Penalty, Sin punishing Sin; or an Order of Conducibility, Good