as Animal Life; fo he gave him Means to communicate of his Living Spirit, whereby to fupport and improve his faid Lives in a Terreftrial Paradife (which he had given him for an Exemplar or Type of the Heavenly) till he fhou'd have been found worthy to have been Tranflated to that true Paradife in Heaven. In the mean Time,

As Man was Free, fo he cou'd not but be liable to Fall; as he was the one, he must neceffarily be the other: For, every Creature, Rational or Spiritual, confider'd as a Creature made for fome degree of Happiness, muft be dependant upon, and fubject to the Creator, under fome kind of Trial, for the fame: Moreover, every fuch Creature, Rational or Spiritual, and fubject to the Creator under fome Trial, as aforefaid, must be subject to fuch Trial, under fome Rational or Spiritual Law: And, finally, every fuch Creature confider'd as fubject to fuch Law, must be Free, by obferving or tranfgreffing the fame, either to keep his faid Degree of Happiness, or to fall from it. So, every Free Creature, as Free, muft have been liable to Fall. Thus, we are inform'd that the Angels (who excel in Strength) were made fubject under fome Trial, whereby they were liable to Fall, as also that some of them actually did Fall: And thus Man had his Trial, and was thereby liable to Fall alfo; and God, who gave him his Trial, and is Omniscient, fore-faw that he wou'd Fall: In

the

the mean Time, as he had made him a Free Agent, fo he left him (only with proper Inftructions and Cautions firft given him) to his own Agency: Yet providing him a Remedy on a fecond Trial graciously decreed to be indulg'd him after his Failure in his first. And, Here (tho' it be fomewhat anticipating my Argument) it may alfo be obferv'd, that, according to this Order of the Divine Difpenfations to Man; I mean, as the Decrees of God were all feverally difpos'd, in View to the Behaviour of Man under his firft, fecond, and every fucceeding Trial, PROVISIONALLY, as aforefaid; fo howfoever the Decrees of God, with refpect of his own Prefcience, were, and are, certain; yet, with Refpect of that Divine Provifion in fuch View of Man's Behaviour, as alfo with refpect of Man and his Choice it is to be faid, that the fame were, and are, contingent; and Man (as to his Acceptance of the Means of Grace offer'd) ftill left Free. For, thus the order of this Affair is fince defcrib'd to us in Holy Scripture, viz. That in the Chain of God's Predeftination, his Foreknowledge is the firft Link. Even as it is worded by the Apostle exprefly whom he did Fore-know, he also did Predeftinate, and, fo on, thro' all the fucceeding Acts of his Divine Grace, as high up as to Glorification. Rom. viii. 29. Thus the fame Apoftle fays again, of the Chriftians of his own Time, that God had Bleed, and Chofen, and PredeftinaH 2

;

ted,

ted, them, to be his Sons by Adoption, and to be to the Praife of his Glory: How? Not abfolutely and fimply; no, but Respectively, and Conditionally, even as they were (in his faid Fore-knowledge) the FIRST who trufted in Chrift. Eph, i. 12.

So St. Peter calls the Converts of the Circumcifion in Afia--Elect according to the Foreknowledge of God the Father, &c. Pet. i. 2. And,

The fame, as appears in the Apocryphal Book of Judith, was the Sense of the Ifraelites before Chrift came. For, fo that pious Heroine expreffes herself. Chap. ix. 6. What things thou didst determine, were ready at Hand, and faid, lo, we are here; and thy Judgments are in thy FORE-KNOWLEDGE.

But, here it may be fuppos'd, that as Knowledge in the Deity is an active Principle, with extraordinary Influences and Powers upon the Perfon known; fo is his Fore-knowledge with a Fore-decree of the fame Influences and Powers. I fhall not ftand, at prefent, to state this. But, however this be, it is ftill to be remember'd, that whatsoever we do receive of gracious Influence at the Hand of God, it is all of Gift, and Gift is Free. Then, if Man alfo has a Power, which was given him at his Reftoration after the Fall, for ordinary Ufes which for the Prefent we will fuppofe) even a Power to Believe, and Confefs, to Wish and Afpire to Reconciliation with God, together

with

with a Power to common Moral Actions (of which also more hereafter) I fay, if Man has fuch Powers, as aforefaid, to fuch ordinary Ufes; then God's Gift extraordinary (howfoever it enables the Man in the certainty of the Divine Prefcience to attain to Salvation) does by no means extinguifh and fet afide his ordinary Freedom by thofe Powers; but, the fame is confiftent with it; nay, it extends and perfects it, as affifting the Freedom of Man's ordinary Difpofition, with Powers and Abilities to that which fhall be taken, and allow'd to him, for a fulness of Performance. But here on the other Hand,

It is not to be faid, that, as if the Divine Fore-knowledge, with a Fore-decree of fome active Power upon the Elect, furthering his Salvation; fo, on the other Hand, is the Divine Fore-knowledge of Reprobation, with fome active Power, in like manner, upon the Reprobated, furthering his Reprobation. By no Means: For, in this latter Cafe, God does nothing to the Man: He only with-holds fomething from him, which he is in no fort of Juftice bound to give him. Here is no Neceffity laid upon the Man, no Influence on the Part of God; but the Man is left to the inward Workings of his own Mind: fo that, his natural and ordinary Liberty, as to any Act of God about him, remains ftill intire with him. At the fame Time, it is here again to be faid, as in the former Cafe of the Elect, that Gift

ts

is free; and therefore, as God may to whom he pleases communicate Good, fo from whom he pleases he may with-hold it. He is in no fort of Juftice bound, to the Evil and to the Wicked to communicate Good; and he cannot, by the Purity and Perfection of his Effence, communicate Evil. Every good Gift, and every perfect Gift, is from above, as the Apostle hath told us, and cometh down from the Father of Lights. But Man is then tempted to Evil when he is drawn away, and inticed to it, of his own Luft. Fam. i. 14, 17. wherefore, in either Cafe; whether God gives, where he does give to all alike; or, whether he makes a Difference, and gives to fome more, to others lefs; or, whether he gives to fome, what he totally with-holds from others (which, however, is but what those others have made themselves incapable of receiving) I fay, in each of thefe Inftances, it is ftill to be faid, as in the Parable,-may not God do what he will with his own? Is Man's Eye evil, because he is good? Or, may Man draw Conclufions of Evil, becaufe on the one Hand Good has been given where before undeferv'd? Because, on the other, Evil has been permitted, where already felf-chofen? Or, is Man both ways abridged of his ordinary Freedom, if he hath the extraor dinary Gift of God, and alfo if he hath it not? Whereas, the Truth is, that neither if he bath it, is he the lefs Free, nor if he hath it not. Because, if he hath it, he lofes nothing of

what