whom those precepts were given was then incapable, without that assistance, of doing the good required, or avoiding the forbidden evil, especially if we consider that, in the nature of the thing, and in the opinion of philosophers, causa deficiens in rebus necessariis, ad causam per se efficientem reducenda est, 'in things necessary, the deficient cause must be reduced to the efficient;' and in this case the reason of it is evident, because the not doing what is required, or not avoiding what is forbidden, being a defect, must follow from the position of the necessary cause of that deficiency.

Thirdly. Is it consistent with the justice of providence, to aggravate the sins of reprobates on this account,—that they knew their Lord's will and did it not,' provided that knowledge rendered them no more able to do it than the most ignorant of men, or to make it such an aggravation of the sins of christians,—that they are committed against greater light, and stronger mótives to perform their duty than ever was vouchsafed to the Heathen world; if, after this, they of them who lie under God's decree of preterition, are as unable to perform that duty as the worst of Heathens?

Fourthly. Is it suitable to the holiness of providence, or to that purity which is essential to the divine nature, and makes it . necessary for him to bear a strong affection to, and to be highly pleased with, the holiness of all that are thus like unto him, and to reward them for it with the enjoyment of himself, notwithstanding, absolutely to decree not to afford, to the greatest part of them to whom he hath given his holy commandments, that aid which he sees absolutely necessary to enable them to be holy, and without which they lie under an absolute incapacity of being holy?

Fifthly. Is it reconcilable to the goodness of providence, or to the kindness, philanthropy, the mercy and compassion of our God in all his providential dispensations, so highly magnified in holy scripture, to deal with men according to the tenor of these doctrines? Can we conceive he is a God full of compassion, and one whose tender mercies are over all his works,' who seeing many millions of millions of precious souls which he had made and sent into the world, equally wanting, and equally capable of his favour, (he having also equal reason to afford it as well to them as any other souls which were his offspring) passed an absolute decree to vouchsafe his favour only to a little remnant of them, leaving the far greatest part of them under a sad necessity of per

ishing everlastingly for the offence of their fore-father Adam, committed long before they had a being; so that they must be as sure to be damned eternally, as they are to be born in time? Can he be truly styled 'a God of great goodness, or of rich mercy' to such men? Or a true lover of their souls? Can he uprightly declare he used all his dispensations to recover them from a perishing condition, because he had compassion on them;' and yet have determined from all eternity to leave them in a remediless condition? Can he ask in good earnest, 'what he could have done more to make them fruitful' in good works than he had done? Can he declare he was 'long-suffering towards them, because he was not willing they should perish but rather by his patience should be led unto repentauce;' and yet, from all eternity, decree to leave them under a sad necessity of perishing, and to deny them that assistance which could alone produce within them repentance unto life?

Sixthly. Doth it comport with the wisdom of providence, to promise or to threaten upon impossible conditions; an impossible condition being, in true construction, none at all? How much less will it comport with the same wisdom to tender the covenant of grace to all mankind to whom the gospel is vouchsafed upon conditions which the most part of them, before that covenant was established, were utterly unable to perform, and who by God's decree of preterition were inevitably left under that disability; or to declare he exercised such providences towards his people to try them, thus disabled, whether they would obey his commandments or not, that is, whether they would exercise those faculties which, under that disability, they could not exercise? Is it agreeable to this wisdom to be still soliciting, entreating, chastising, punishing, alluring, and sending prophets, preachers, messengers to engage them to do what his decree, de non dando auxilium necessarium, ' of not affording the aid necessary for those ends,' had rendered it impossible for them to do? Surely these dealings must import this, that God saw they might have done what, through want of due attention, consideration, and reflection, they did not; or that he passionately desired that might be done, which only was not done because he did not unfrustrably work the change in them? That is, he seriously desired and wished they had been of the number of his elect, when he himself, by an absolute decree from all eternity, had excluded them out of that number.

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Seventhly. On the other hand, can it accord with the same wisdom of providence to threaten the severest judgments to them, if "they repented not, or if they turned away from their righteousness, or fell away from their own stedfastness, or endured not to the end, whom he had absolutely decreed to give repentance to, and by continuance in well-doing' to preserve them to a blessed immortality; or to caution them not to do so, or to enquire whether temptations had not prevailed upon them so to do, or bid them fear lest they should do so?

Eighthly. Is it suitable to the sincerity of his providential dispensations, of which his dealings with men, by his revealed will towards them, make so great a part, to move them to the performance of their duty only by motives which he knows cannot work upon them without that farther aid he from eternity hath determined to deny them; or to call heaven and earth to witness* that he had set before them life and death, good and evil, and therefore required them to chuse the good, and refuse the evil,' when he beforehand knew it was impossible for most of them to do either; and after all to enquire what could he have done more to render them obedient, to ask why they would not be made clean? Or when this would once be? And to wonder at their unbelief, and upbraid them for their impenitence,' and to complain that, after such engaging, dispensations, and such judgments, they repented not, they turned not to him,' or only did this feignedly? Or lastly, to send his messengers to them with this encouragement, it may be they will consider, it may be they will return from their evil ways, it maybe they will reverence my Son? For what room can there be for any of these suppositions, where the effect depends on God's own immediate acting upon the heart, and not upon any hearing, or consideration of man without it, or upon any dispositions in' them, or any means that they can use to move him to enable them to do it?

Or, lastly, Is it suitable to the same wisdom and sincerity to move such persons by promises to repent and believe, and to require them, 'having such promises to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? For seeing to call men to faith and repentance, is to call mento believe to the salvation of their souls,' and to repent that they may live and not die, and therefore to be seriously willing they should

be saved and not perish, and to pass antecedently a decree of preterition on the same men, is seriously to will they shall not be saved, but shall inevitably perish; what wit of man can shew how God can be serious in calling such men to faith and repentance, much less in his concern that they might do so, or in his trouble that they have not done so, and yet be serious and in good earnest in his antecedent decree to deny them that aid without which they never can believe or repent?

CHAP. II.

THE third and last objection respecting the state of Heathens, to whom the gospel either never hath been tendered, or who for many ages have been deprived of the knowledge of it, being off more importance, requires a more large consideration, and therefore in this chapter I shall offer what I can produce in the dis cussion of it.

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OBJECTION. The difficulty, as it is abstracted from this controversy, is propounded by Dr. Sherlock, thus: "that since all. men have immortal souls, and must be happy or miserable for ever. God should for so many ages suffer the whole world, excepting the Jews, to live in ignorance, and in Pagan idolatry and superstition; that Christ came so late into the world to reveal the true God, and to publish the gospel to them; and that so great: a part of the world still are Pagans and Mahometans, and thatə so little a part of the christian world retain the true faith and worship, of Christ, This is ten thousand times a greater difficulty than any present evils and calamities; because the consequen ces of it reach to eternity."

ANSWER. "But then the whole difficulty is no more than this,→→→ that, we know not what the condition of such men is in the other world, who lived in invincible ignorance of the true God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ in this. This we confess we do not know; but believe so well of God, that we are verily persuaded, could we see what their state will be in another world, we should

e Disc. of Providence, p. 120, &c.

see no reason to quarrel with God only because we know not how he deals with the ignorant Heathens in the other world. If we knew how God dealt with these men, and knew that he dealt hardly by them, as far as we could judge, this would be a difficulty: but what difficulty is there in knowing nothing of the matter? For if we know nothing of it, we can judge nothing of it. Now seeing we cannot look into the world to come, and cannot otherwise know any thing of the future state of ignorant Heathens but by revelation, that scripture which containeth all our revelations saying nothing of it; it follows that we can judge nothing of it certainly.

"Some men, indeed, but without any authority from scriptnre, confidently affirm that ignorant Heathens shall suffer the same condemnation which Christ has threatened against wilful infidels and wicked christians; and then it may well be thought a great difficulty that God should as severely punish men for not knowing Christ, when he was never preached to them, and they had no other possible way of knowing him, as he will punish those who have had the gospel of Christ preached to them, but refused to believe in him, or have professed the faith of Christ, but lived very wickedly. But this is a difficulty of their own making, and it would be much more safe for themselves, and much more honourable for God, to confess their own ignorance of such matters, as they have no possible way to know, and to refer all such unknown cases to the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, than to pretend to know what they cannot know, and thence to raise such objections as they cannot answer."

I. As this objection respects this controversy, it run thus: "that God seems to have dealt as severely with the Heathens, to whom the knowledge of his will and gospel hath never been revealed, as we can imagine him to have dealt with men according to the doctrine of absolute election and reprobation, and of special grace vouchsafed only to some few christians, whilst others are left to the defective rule of their own wills without sufficient grace to enable them to turn to God and to do works meet for repentance." For,

First. It may be said, that we are "forced to grant that the grace of conveying the gospel to any persons, and calling them to be his church and people, when other nations were left in darkness,