obligation to hinder their commission of sin. Ceasing to act, whereby
to prevent a crime or mischief, brings not a person permitting it under
guilt, unless where he is under an obligation to prevent it; but God,
in regard of his absolute dominion, cannot be charged with any such
obligation. One man, that doth not hinder the murder of another, when
it is in his power, is guilty of the murder in part; but, it is to be
considered, that he is under a tie by nature, as being of the same kind,
and being the other’s brother, by a communion of blood, also under
an obligation of the law of charity, enacted by the common Sovereign
of the world: but what tie was there upon God, since the infinite
transcendancy of his nature, and his sovereign dominion, frees him from
any such obligation (Job ix. 12)? “If he takes away, who shall say,
What dost thou?” God might have prevented the fall of men and angels;
he might have confirmed them all in a state of perpetual innocency; but
where is the obligation? He had made the creature a debtor to himself,
but he owed nothing to the creature. Before God can be charged with
any guilt in this case, it must be proved, not only that he could, but
that he was bound to hinder it. No person can be justly charged with
another’s fault, merely for not preventing it, unless he be bound to
prevent it; else, not only the first sin of angels and man would be
imputed to God, as the Author, but all the sins of men. He could not
be obliged by any law, because he had no superior to impose any law
upon him; and it will be hard to prove that he was obliged, from his
own nature, to prevent the entrance of sin, which he would use as an
occasion to declare his own holiness, so transcendent a perfection of
his nature, more than ever it could have been manifested by a total
exclusion of it, _viz._ in the death of Christ. He is no more bound,
in his own nature, to preserve, by supernatural grace, his creature
from falling, after he had framed him with a sufficient strength to
stand, than he was obliged, in his own nature, to bring his creature
into being when it was nothing. He is not bound to create a rational
creature, much less bound to create him with supernatural gifts; though,
since God would make a rational creature, he could not but make him
with a natural uprightness and rectitude. God did as much for angels
and men as became a wise governor: he had published his law, backed it
with severe penalties, and the creature wanted not a natural strength
to observe and obey it. Had not man power to obey all the precepts
of the law, as well as one? How was God bound to give him more grace,
since what he had already was enough to shield him, and keep up his
resistance {b153} against all the power of hell? It had been enough to
have pointed his will against the temptation, and he had kept off the
force of it. Was there any promise past to Adam of any further grace
which he could plead as a tie upon God? No such voluntary limit upon
God’s supreme dominion appears upon record. Was anything due to man
which he had not? anything promised him which was not performed?
What action of debt, then, can the creature bring against God?
Indeed, when man began to neglect the light of his own reason, and
became inconsiderate of the precept, God might have enlightened his
understanding by a special flash, a supernatural beam, and imprinted
upon him a particular consideration of the necessity of his obedience,
the misery he was approaching to by his sin, the folly of any
apprehension of an equality in knowledge; he might have convinced
him of the falsity of the serpent’s arguments, and uncased to him the
venom that lay under those baits. But how doth it appear that God was
bound to those additional acts when he had already lighted up in him a
“spirit, which was the candle of the Lord” (Prov. xx. 27), whereby he
was able to discern all, if he had attended to it. It was enough that
God did not necessitate man to sin, did not counsel him to it; that
he had given him sufficient warning in the threatening, and sufficient
strength in his faculties, to fortify him against temptation. He gave
him what was due to him as a creature of his own framing; he withdrew
no help from him, that was due to him as a creature, and what was not
due he was not bound to impart. Man did not beg preserving grace of
God, and God was not bound to offer it, when he was not petitioned for
it especially: yet if he had begged it, God having before furnished
him sufficiently, might, by the right of his sovereign dominion, have
denied it without any impeachment of his holiness and righteousness.
Though he would not in such a case have dealt so bountifully with his
creature as he might have done, yet he could not have been impleaded,
as dealing unrighteously with his creature. The single word that God
had already uttered, when he gave him his precept, was enough to oppose
against all the devil’s wiles, which tended to invalidate that word:
the understanding of man could not imagine that the word of God was
vainly spoken; and the very suggestion of the devil, as if the Creator
should envy his creature, would have appeared ridiculous, if he had
attended to the voice of his own reason. God had done enough for him,
and was obliged to do no more, and dealt not unrighteously in leaving
him to act according to the principles of his nature. To conclude, if
God’s permission of sin were enough to charge it upon God, or if God
had been obliged to give Adam supernatural grace, Adam, that had so
capacious a brain, could not be without that plea in his mouth, “Lord
thou mightest have prevented it; the commission of it by me could not
have been without thy permission of it:” or, “Thou hast been wanting
to me, as the author of my nature.” No such plea is brought by Adam
into the court, when God tried and cast him; no such pleas can have
any strength in them. Adam had reason enough to know, that there was
sufficient reason to overrule such a plea.
Since the permission of sin casts no dirt upon the holiness of God,
{b154} as I think hath been cleared, we may under this head consider
two things more.
1. That God’s permission of sin is not so much as his restraint or
limitation of it. Since the entrance of the first sin into the world
by Adam, God is more a hinderer than a permitter of it. If he hath
permitted that which he could have prevented, he prevents a world more,
that he might, if he pleased, permit: the hedges about sin are larger
than the outlets; they are but a few streams that glide about the world,
in comparison of that mighty torrent he dams up both in men and devils.
He that understands what a lake of Sodom is in every man’s nature,
since the universal infection of human nature, as the apostle describes
it (Rom. iii. 9, 10, &c.), must acknowledge, that if God should cast
the reins upon the necks of sinful men, they would run into thousands
of abominable crimes, more than they do: the impression of all natural
laws would be rased out, the world would be a public stew, and a more
bloody slaughter house; human society would sink into a chaos; no
starlight of commendable morality would be seen in it; the world would
be no longer an earth, but an hell, and have lain deeper in wickedness
than it doth. If God did not limit sin, as he doth the sea, and put
bars to the waves of the heart, as well as those of the waters, and
say of them, “Hitherto you shall go, and no further;” man hath such a
furious ocean in him, as would overflow the banks; and where it makes a
breach in one place, it would in a thousand, if God should suffer it to
act according to its impetuous current. As the devil hath lust enough
to destroy all mankind, if God did not bridle him; deal with every man
as he did with Job, ruin their comforts, and deform their bodies with
scabs; infect religion with a thousand more errors; fling disorders
into commonwealths, and make them as a fiery furnace, full of nothing
but flame; if he were not chained by that powerful arm, that might let
him loose to fulfil his malicious fury; what rapines, murders, thefts,
would be committed, if he did not stint him! Abimelech would not only
lust after Sarah, but deflour her; Laban not only pursue Jacob, but
rifle him; Saul not only hate David, but murder him; David not only
threaten Nabal, but root him up, and his family, did not God girdle in
the wrath of man:[918] a greater remainder of wrath is pent in, than
flames out, which yet swells for an outlet. God may be concluded more
holy in preventing men’s sins, than the author of sin in permitting
some; since, were it not for his restraints by the pull‑back of
conscience, and infused motions and outward impediments, the world
would swarm more with this cursed brood.
2. His permission of sin is in order to his own glory, and a greater
good. It is no reflection upon the Divine goodness to leave man to his
own conduct, whereby such a deformity as sin sets foot in the world;
since he makes his wisdom illustrious in bringing good out of evil,
and a good greater than that evil he suffered to spring up.[919] God
did not permit sin, as sin, or permit it barely for itself. As sin
is not lovely in its own nature, so neither is the permission of sin
intrinsically good or amiable for itself, but for those ends aimed at
in {b155} the permission of it. God permitted sin, but approved not
of the object of that permission, sin; because that, considered in its
own nature, is solely evil: nor can we think that God could approve
of the act of permission, considered only in itself as an act; but as
it respected that event which his wisdom would order by it. We cannot
suppose that God should permit sin, but for some great and glorious
end: for it is the manifestation of his own glorious perfections he
intends in all the acts of his will (Prov. xvi. 4), “The Lord hath
made all things for himself”――פעל hath wrought all things; which is not
only his act of creation, but ordination: “for himself,” that is, for
the discovery of the excellency of his nature, and the communication
of himself to his creature. Sin indeed, in its own nature, hath no
tendency to a good end; the womb of it teems with nothing but monsters;
it is a spurn at God’s sovereignty, and a slight of his goodness: it
both deforms and torments the person that acts it; it is black and
abominable, and hath not a mite of goodness in the nature of it. If it
ends in any good, it is only from that Infinite transcendency of skill,
that can bring good out of evil, as well as light out of darkness.
Therefore God did not permit it as sin, but as it was an occasion for
the manifestation of his own glory. Though the goodness of God would
have appeared in the preservation of the world, as well as it did in
the creation of it, yet his mercy could not have appeared without the
entrance of sin, because the object of mercy is a miserable creature;
but man could not be miserable as long as he remained innocent. The
reign of sin opened a door for the reign and triumph of grace (Rom.
v. 21), “As sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace reign through
righteousness to eternal life;” without it, the bowels of mercy had
never sounded, and the ravishing music of Divine grace could never
have been heard by the creature. Mercy, which renders God so amiable,
could never else have beamed out to the world. Angels and men upon this
occasion beheld the stirrings of Divine grace, and the tenderness of
Divine nature, and the glory of the Divine persons in their several
functions about the redemption of man, which had else been a spring
shut up, and a fountain sealed; the song of glory to God, and good will
to men in a way of redemption had never been sung by them. It appears
in his dealing with Adam, that he permitted his fall, not only to show
his justice in punishing, but principally his mercy in rescuing; since
he proclaims to him first the promise of a Redeemer to “bruise the
serpent’s head,” before he settled the punishment he should smart under
in the world (Gen. iii. 15‒17). And what fairer prospect could the
creature have of the holiness of God, and his hatred of sin, than in
the edge of that sword of justice, which punished it in the sinner;
but glittered more in the punishment of a Surety so near allied to
him? Had not man been criminal, he could not have been punishable, nor
any been punishable for him: and the pulse of Divine holiness could
not have beaten so quick, and been so visible, without an exercise of
his vindicative justice. He left man’s mutable nature, to fall under
righteousness, that thereby he might commend the righteousness of his
own nature (Rom. iii. 7). Adam’s sin in its nature tended to the ruin
of the world, and God takes an occasion {b156} from it for the glory of
his grace in the redemption of the world; he brings forth thereby a new
scene of wonders from heaven, and a surprising knowledge on earth; as
the sun breaks out more strongly after a night of darkness and tempest.
As God in creation framed a chaos by his power, to manifest his wisdom
in bringing order out of disorder, light out of darkness, beauty out
of confusion and deformity, when he was able by a word to have made
all creatures stand up in their beauty, without the precedency of a
chaos; so God permitted a moral chaos to manifest a greater wisdom
in the repairing a broken image, and restoring a deplorable creature,
and bringing out those perfections of his nature, which had else been
wrapt up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom. It was therefore very
congruous to the holiness of God to permit that which he could make
subservient for his own glory, and particularly for the manifestation
of this attribute of holiness, which seems to be in opposition to such
a permission.[920]
_Prop. V._ The holiness of God is not blemished by his concurrence
with the creature in the material part of a sinful act. Some to free
God from having any hand in sin, deny his concurrence to the actions of
the creature; because, if he concurs to a sinful action, he concurs to
the sin also: not understanding how there can be a distinction between
the act, and the sinfulness or viciousness of it; and how God can
concur to a natural action, without being stained by that moral evil
which cleaves to it. For the understanding of this, observe,
1. There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the creature (Acts
xvii. 28); “in him we live, and move, and have our being.” We depend
upon God in our acting as well as in our being: there is as much an
efficacy of God in our motion as in our production; as none have life
without his power in producing it, so none have any operation without
his providence concurring with it. In him, or by him, that is, by his
virtue preserving and governing our motions, as well as by his power
bringing us into being. Hence man is compared to an axe (Isa. x. 15),
an instrument that hath no action, without the co‑operation of a
superior agent handling it: and the actions of the second causes are
ascribed to God; the grass, that is, the product of the sun, rain, and
earth, he is said to make to grow upon the mountains (Ps. cxlvii. 8);
and the skin and flesh, which is by natural generation, he is said
to clothe us with (Job x. 5), in regard of his co‑working with second
causes, according to their natures. As nothing can exist, so nothing
can operate without him; let his concurrence be removed, and the being
and action of the creature cease; remove the sun from the horizon, or
a candle from a room, and the light which flowed from either of them
ceaseth. Without God’s preserving and concurring power, the course
of nature would sink, and the creation be in vain. All created things
depend upon God as agents, as well as beings, and are subordinate to
him in a way of action, as well as in a way of existing.[921] If God
suspend his influence from their action, they would cease to act, as
the fire did from {b157} burning the three children, as well as if God
suspend his influence from their being, they would cease to be. God
supports the nature whereby actions are wrought, the mind where actions
are consulted, and the will where actions are determined, and the
motive‑power whereby actions are produced. The mind could not contrive,
nor the hand act, a wickedness, if God did not support the power of the
one in designing, and the strength of the other in executing a wicked
intention. Every faculty in its being, and every faculty in its motion,
hath a dependence upon the influence of God. To make the creature
independent upon God in anything which speaks perfection, as action
considered as action is, is to make the creature a sovereign being.
Indeed, we cannot imagine the concurrence of God to the good actions
of men since the fall, without granting a concurrence of God to evil
actions; because there is no action so purely good but hath a mixture
of evil in it, though it takes its denomination of good from the better
part (Eccles. vii. 20), “There is no man that doth good, and sins not.”
2. Though the natural virtue of doing a sinful action be from God, and
supported by him, yet this doth not blemish the holiness of God; while
God concurs with them in the act, he instils no evil into men.
(1.) No act, in regard of the substance of it, is evil. Most of the
actions of our faculties, as they are actions, might have been in the
state of innocency. Eating is an act Adam would have used if he had
stood firm, but not eating to excess. Worship was an act that should
have been performed to God in innocence, but not hypocritically. Every
action is good by a physical goodness, as it is an act of the mind or
hand, which have a natural goodness by creation; but every action is
not morally good: the physical goodness of the action depends on God,
the moral evil on the creature. There is no action, as a corporeal
action, is prohibited by the law of God; but as it springs from an evil
disposition, and is tainted by a venomous temper of mind.[922] There
is no action so bad, as attended with such objects and circumstances;
but if the objects and circumstances were changed, might be a brave
and commendable action: so that the moral goodness or badness of an
act is not to be esteemed from the substance of the act, which hath
always a physical goodness; but from the objects, circumstances, and
constitution of the mind in the doing of it. Worship is an act good
in itself; but the worship of an image is bad in regard of the object.
Were that act of worship directed to God that is paid to a statue, and
offered up to him with a sincere frame of mind, it would be morally
good. The act, in regard of its substance, is the same in both,
and considered as separated from the object to which the worship is
directed, hath the same real goodness in regard of the substance; but
when you consider this action in relation to the different objects, the
one hath a moral goodness, and the other a moral evil. So in speaking:
speaking being a motion of the tongue in the forming of words, is an
excellency belonging to a reasonable creature; an endowment bestowed,
continued, and supported by God. Now, if the same tongue {b158} forms
words whereby it curseth God this minute, and forms words whereby it
blesses and praises God the next minute, the faculty of speaking is the
same, the motion of the tongue is the same in pronouncing the name of
God either in a way of cursing or blessing (James iii. 9, 10); it is
the “same mouth that blesseth and curseth;” and the motion of it is
naturally good in regard of the substance of the act in both; it is the
use of an excellent power God hath given, and which God preserves, in
the use of it. But the estimation of the moral goodness or evil is not
from the act itself, but from the disposition of the mind. Once more:
killing, as an act is good; nor is it unlawful as an act; for if so,
God would never have commanded his people Israel to wage any war, and
justice could not be done upon malefactors by the magistrate. A man
were bound to sacrifice his life to the fury of an invader, rather than
secure it by dispatching that of an enemy; but killing an innocent,
or killing without authority, or out of revenge, is bad. It is not the
material part of the act, but the object, manner, and circumstance,
that makes it good or evil. It is no blemish to God’s holiness to
concur to the substance of an action, without having any hand in the
immorality of it; because, whatsoever is real in the substance of the
action might be done without evil. It is not evil as it is an act,
as it is a motion of the tongue or hand, for then every motion of the
tongue or hand would be evil.
(2.) Hence it follows, that an act, as an act, is one thing, and
the viciousness another. The action is the efficacy of the faculty,
extending itself to some outward object; but the sinfulness of an act
consists in a privation of that comeliness and righteousness which
ought to be in an action; in a want of conformity of the act with the
law of God, either written in nature, or revealed in the Word.[923] Now,
the sinfulness of an action is not the act itself, but is considered in
it as it is related to the law, and is a deviation from it; and so it
is something cleaving to the action, and therefore to be distinguished
from the act itself, which is the subject of the sinfulness. When
we say such an action is sinful, the action is the subject, and the
sinfulness of the action is that which adheres to it. The action is not
the sinfulness, nor the sinfulness the action; they are distinguished
as the member, and a disease in the member, the arm and the palsy in
it: the arm is not the palsy, nor is the palsy the arm; but the palsy
is a disease that cleaves to the arm: so sinfulness is a deformity that
cleaves to an action. The evil of an action is not the effect of an
action, nor attends it as it is an action, but as it is an action so
circumstantiated, and conversant about this or that object; for the
same action done by two several persons, may be good in one, and bad
in the other; as when two judges are in joint commission for the trial
of a malefactor, both upon the appearance of his guilt condemn him.
This action in both, considered as an action, is good; for it is an
adjudging a man to death, whose crime deserves such a punishment. But
this same act, which is but one joint act of both, may be morally good
in one judge, and morally evil in the other: morally good in him that
condemns him out of an unbiassed consideration {b159} of the demerit
of his fact, obedience to the law, and conscious of the duty of his
place; and morally evil in the other, who hath no respect to those
considerations, but joins in the act of condemnation, principally moved
by some private animosity against the prisoner, and desire of revenge
for some injury he hath really received, or imagines that he hath
received from him. The act in itself is the same materially in both;
but in one it is an act of justice, and in the other an act of murder,
as it respects the principles and motives of it in the two judges; take
away the respect of private revenge, and the action in the ill judge
had been as laudable as the action of the other. The substance of an
act, and the sinfulness of an act, are separable and distinguishable;
and God may concur with the substance of an act, without concurring
with the sinfulness of the act: as the good judge, that condemned
the prisoner out of conscience, concurred with the evil judge, who
condemned the prisoner out of private revenge; not in the principle and
motive of condemnation, but in the material part of condemnation. So
God assists in that action of a man wherein sin is placed, but not in
that which is the formal reason of sin, which is a privation of some
perfection the action ought morally to have.
(3.) It will appear further in this, that hence it follows that the
action, and the viciousness of the action, may have two distinct causes.
That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other,
and hath no hand in the producing of it. God concurs to the act of the
mind as it counsels, and to the external action upon that counsel, as
he preserves the faculty, and gives strength to the mind to consult,
and the other parts to execute; yet he is not in the least tainted
with the viciousness of the action. Though the action be from God as
a concurrent cause, yet the ill quality of the action is solely from
the creature with whom God concurs. The sun and the earth concur to the
production of all the plants that are formed in the womb of the one,
and midwifed by the other. The sun distributes heat, and the earth
communicates sap; it is the same heat dispersed by the one, and the
same juice bestowed by the other: it hath not a sweet juice for one,
and a sour juice for another. This general influx of the sun and earth
is not the immediate cause that one plant is poisonous, and another
wholesome; but the sap of the earth is turned by the nature and quality
of each plant: if there were not such an influx of the sun and earth,
no plant could exert that poison which is in its nature; but yet the
sun and earth are not the cause of that poison which is in the nature
of the plant. If God did not concur to the motions of men, there could
be no sinful action, because there could be no action at all; yet this
concurrence is not the cause of that venom that is in the action, which
ariseth from the corrupt nature of the creature, no more than the sun
and earth are the cause of the poison of the plant, which is purely the
effect of its own nature upon that general influx of the sun and earth.
The influence of God pierceth through all subjects; but the action of
man done by that influence is vitiated according to the nature of its
own corruption. As the sun equally shines through all the quarrels in
the window; if the glass be bright and clear, there is a {b160} pure
splendor; if it be red or green, the splendor is from the sun; but the
discoloring of that light upon the wall, is from the quality of the
glass. But to be yet plainer: the soul is the image of God, and by the
acts of the soul, we may come to the knowledge of the acts of God; the
soul gives motion to the body and every member of it, and no member
could move without a concurrent virtue of the soul; if a member be
paralytic or gouty, whatsoever motion that gouty member hath, is
derived to it from the soul; but the goutiness of the member was not
the act of the soul, but the fruit of ill humors in the body; the
lameness of the member, and the motion of the member, have two distinct
causes; the motion is from one cause, and ill motion from another.[924]
As the member could not move irregularly without some ill humor or
cause of that distemper, so it could not move at all without the
activity of the soul: so, though God concur to the act of understanding,
willing, and execution, why can he not be as free from the irregularity
in all those, as the soul is free from the irregularity of the motion
of the body, while it is the cause of the motion itself? There are
two illustrations generally used in this case, that are not unfit; the
motion of the pen in writing is from the hand that holds it, but the
blurs by the pen are from some fault in the pen itself: and the music
of the instrument is from the hand that touches it, but the jarring
from the faultiness of the strings; both are the causes of the motion
of the pen and strings, but not the blurs or jarrings.