A55305:149
The divine will considered in its eternal decrees, and holy execution of them. By…
The divine will considered in its eternal decrees, and holy execution of them. By Edward Polhill of Burwash in Sussex Esquire
London : printed, and are to be sold by Thomas Shelmerdine, at the sign of the Rose-Tree in Little-Britain, 1695
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.
If there were any thing extra Deum moving him to the Decree of Preterition and Permission, it must needs be sin, either Original or Actual, or final Impenitency and Infidelity therein; but none of all these moved God thereunto: Not Original sin; for this is the common blood wherein all men, Elect as well as Reprobate, lie by nature. And this is St. Ambrose's Mirum, touching Infants; Ubi actio non offendit, ubi arbitrium non resistit, ubi eadem 1miseria, similis imbecillitas, causa communis est, non unum esse de tanta parilitate judicem; quales reprobate abdicatio, tales adoptat Electio. Indeed Original Sin makes all men reprobable; for all are by nature Children of wrath, Transgressors from the womb, an unclean and corrupt Seed, lying in bloody and abominable pollution; fit and worthy to be put away from the holy One as dross, and for ever to be cast out into utter darkness: but it makes no man a Reprobate; for the Elect are as deep in this filthy mire as others. Nor yet doth Actual sin do it; for Jacob was loved and Esau hated before they had done good or evil. Artaxerxes decreed that Jerusalem should ⟨p. 120⟩not be built again, because upon search of his Records he found that it had been a rebellious City, Ezra 4. 19, 21. Should God have founded his Decree of Preterition and Non-election on a Prescience of humane Rebellion, the holy City of the Church had never been built, nor the divine Image ever repaired therein: All men had eternally lay as Sodom and Gomorrah in the dust and rubbish of Adam's Fall, with a line of spiritual confusion stretched upon them. Who is there that lives and sins not? What man on earth hath not rebelled, and vexed God's holy Spirit? Even little Infants rebelled in voluntate Adae; and besides, Imbecillitas membrorum infantilium innocens est, non animus infantium. Neither yet doth final Impenitency and Infidelity do it; for there is no final Impenitency and Infidelity but such as is permitted; and permitted it is not, but out of the Decree of Preterition and Permission; wherefore that Decree cannot be caused thereby. Final Impenitency and Infidelity may be considered two ways; either as being in actual existence, or else as foreseen by the divine Prescience: but neither way doth it cause the Decree of Preterition and Permission, ⟨p. 121⟩