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

tu disputa, ego credam. However I shall consider what the Author saith; and first he tells us, That such an ordaining is not consistent with Gods Holiness: To which I answer, I confess this Objection in the Remonstrants ⟨p. 66⟩looked to me, primâ facie, as a piece of Tenderness towards God, lest any blot should light on the holy One; they frame God's Decrees upon Prescience, and suffer Man's Will to go foremost in the Event of sinful Acts: But remembering, that even in the Event of good Actions, they frame Gods Decrees upon Prescience also, and let Man's Will take the Primacy, it appeared to me, that the great Centre of all was no other than the Will of Man; and from such a Centre, I despaired that any Divine Attribute should be truly glorified. Indeed, after the Scripture hath so often and pregnantly asserted a determining Providence over such Events, for man to say, That God is holier than so, is a piece of fondness like that of the Masoreths, who in the Hebrew Bible have put in some words in the Margin, as cleanlier than those in the Text: Nothing can be vainer than to imagine that Man should be able to draw the Picture of God's Holiness fairer than he himself hath done in Scripture; or that what is spoken there touching his Providence, should in the least reflect upon his Holiness. But for a fuller Answer, I say, Gods Providence, which in sinful Actions, is, as I take it, operative ⟨p. 67⟩of the Entity, permissive of the Malice, dispositive of the Order, & preordinative of the Event, doth in none of these cast any blot on his Holiness. As to the Entity, God acts but as becomes the First Cause; Arminius himself would have it, Ut totus act us ritè Providentiae subjiciatur, quà actus efficienti, quà peccatum permittenti Providentiae. As to the Malice, God is but a Permissor: Sin in the abstract hath only a deficient Cause, viz. the Creature, that, as defectible in it self, hath redire ad non esse à sel, and, as under a Law distinct from it self, may fall short of it: But God, who hath no other Law but his own Perfection, and can no more decline from his Rectitude than his Being, is a mere Permissor. As to the Order, God disposes it; here instead of a Blot, the Glory of God breaks forth, in that he hath his holy Line in the midst of the Ataxies of men; either an Order of Penalty, such as becomes him as the Prima Justitia;

tu disputa, ego credam. However I shall consider what the Author saith; and first he tells us, That such an ordaining is not consistent with Gods Holiness: To which I answer, I confess this Objection in the Remonstrants