A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certain doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…A treatise of Mr. Cottons clearing certaine doubts concerning predestination together with an examination…

It doth not follow, that if we were not created for Christ, but Christ for us, then Christ should be brought into the world as Ens per accidens; for the heavens and the earth, together with the fights of the one, and herbs and trees of the other, and brute beasts, were created for man and not man for them; yet neither of them all were brought forth as Ens per accidens: yet, had they been brought forth per accidens, never-a-whit the more had they been Entia per accidens; Entia per se may be brought forth per accidens: to be Ens per accidens is one thing, and to be brought forth per accidens is another thing.

It doth not follow, that if we were not created for Christ, but Christ for us, then Christ should be brought into the world as Ens per accidens; for the heavens and the earth, together with the fights of the one, and herbes and trees of the other, and bruit beasts, were created for man and not man for them; yet neither of them all were brought forth as Ens per accidens: yet, had they beene brought forth per accidens, never-a-whit the more had they been Entia per accidens; Entia per se may be brought forth per accidens: to be Ens per accidens is one thing, and to be brought forth per accidens is another thing.

It had been more tolerable to argue thus; If Christ had been brought forth into the world only upon occasion of Adams fall, then he had been brought forth per accidens; yet no truth had ⟨p. 16⟩been found in it; for upon occasions wise-men do work, and proceed deliberately and with counsel, not temerariously; only man, not foreseeing the events of things, doth many times (upon emergent occasions which himself could not foresee) alter his former counsels, and cast himself upon new deliberations. It is otherwise with God, as who infallibly foreseeth all things, and not only fore-seeth them, but ordaineth they shall come to pass as well as he ordaineth causes and effects. For, not the things themselves are ordained by God, but also the very order of them; some to be effects, some causes, some occasions. And so the very fall of Adam was both fore-seen and fore-ordained by God to come to pass; but how? Not as good things which he ordaineth to come to pass, ipso faciente, himself working them; but as all evil things which are ordained also to come to passe, but Deo tantummodo permittente qua mala sunt, God only permitting them as they are evil; according to that of Austin, Non aliquid fit nisi Omnipotens fieri velit, vel sinando ut fiat, vel ipse faciendo. Enchirid. 95. And according to the 11. article of Ireland, God did from all eternity ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass.