A89737:315
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few…
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perilous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begetting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perillous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begeting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.
London: printed by John Macock for Henry Cripps, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Created Liberty is in respect of the Acts themselves: so ⟨p. 58⟩men are said to be free Agents, because they are free to act, or not to act.
But Increated Liberty is in respect of the Objects, not of the acts: that is, There is no necessary connection between the being of the creature, and the Being of God. He might have been without the creature, he had been God blessed for ever, although that had been nothing for ever. Each possibility, which yet shall never be, is equally founded in the Sufficiency of God, with those things that have an actual being. And the things that have an actual being, might (had God so pleased) have remained in their nothing, and possibilities that never shall be, have had their actual beings. God can do whatsoever he will, though he will not do whatsoever he can. He is Omnipotent, but not Omnivolent.
But Increated Liberty is in respect of the Objects, not of the acts: that is, There is no necessary connexion between the being of the creature, and the Being of God. He might have been without the creature, he had been God blessed for ever, although that had been nothing for ever. Each possibility, which yet shall never be, is equally founded in the Sufficiency of God, with those things that have an actual being. And the things that have an actual being, might (had God so pleased) have remained in their nothing, and possibilities that never shall be, have had their actual beings. God can do whatsoever he will, though he will not do whatsoever he can. He is Omnipotent, but not Omnivolent.
2. God is free in respect of any moral obligation, so as that he had done the creature no wrong, if he had never willed it to be: he cannot become a debtor unto the creature, otherwise then as he makes himself a debtor of his mere good pleasure.