would have been their duty, and so that it was a true proposition from eternity, (had propositions been then framed,) that such duty would be due from such creatures. But, in time, the bare creation of man in such a world doth constitute these principal, natural duties, without any further constituting will of God; and duties they will be, while man is man; so that God could not continue man in his nature and place in the world, and yet cause these duties to cease: it being a contradiction. And so as to all the approbatory, exhortatory, remunerative will of God, it may truly be said that he wills these natural duties because they are good, and not that they are good because he wills them, As, also, that there is no further free act of his will necessary to make them good, or duty, besides this making man and the nature of creatures; but as to God's creating will, which laid the foundation of this duty, it may truly be said, that all such duties are duties because he willeth them; for he might have chosen to have made man, or have made him not man, but somewhat else. On the contrary, we may see how to judge of evil, and how to understand those passages of the ancients, that God nilleth evil because it is evil. As Athenagoras de Resurrect. Mort. For what God willeth not, he therefore willeth not, either because it is unjust or because it is unmeet. 16. Duty being once constituted, the dueness of punishment to the sinner resulteth from the sin and law, and the nature and relation of God and man, by unavoidable necessity. It cannot be ne per divinam potentiam, that there should be a sin which makes not punishment naturally due to the sinner; or a sin which deserveth not punishment. Every law doth oblige aut ad obedientiam, aut ad pœnam; and this is so essential to a law, that if duty only were expressed without any penalty, yet, by the law of nature, penalty would be due to the offender. The common light of nature manifested in correcting children and servants, and punishing subjects, and in all government through the world, doth put this out of doubt, besides the law of God. 17. It is not, therefore, to the breach of natural precepts only, but to the breach of positive precepts also, that punishment is naturally due. For though God do freely make positive laws, yet punishment necessarily is due to the breach of them: nothing in morality is more clear to the light of nature, than that all sin against God deserveth some punishment. 18. Law doth not, as such, or by its essential act, preceptive, or comminatory, determine that the duty shall eventually be performed, or the punishment on the disobedient eventually executed. Nor doth it so oblige the law-giver to punish as that he may in no case dispense with it; but obligeth the offender to suffer, if he executeth it, by constituting the dueness of the penalty. 19. Yet two ways do such laws speak de eventu, as well as de debito pœnæ. First in that they are given as norma judicii, as well as officii: this is one of the known ends and uses of the law. So that when God made his first laws for mankind, in the promulgation of them he did as much as say to the world of mankind, 'According to these laws shalt thou live; and according to these laws will I judge you:' which comprehendeth in it two assertions de eventu. 1. That God will so ordinarily execute his own laws, that the people to whom they are given have great cause to expect it. 2. That he will not at all miss of the ends of them in respect of such execution; and therefore, though he have not parted with his supra legal power; yet will he never relax his laws, but upon valuable considerations in political respects; that is, on such terms as the ends of those laws (or of the legislator in making them) may be as well, or better, attained, as by the proper execution of them. So that some prediction de eventu is implied in the very nature and end of the law, in that it was made to be norma judicii. Secondly, and to the law of grace there is also affixed a peremptory commination, which doth not only constitute, as all laws, the debitum pœnæ, but also doth predict the certain execution, and foretel that there shall never be any remedy; and so the legislature is, in point of veracity, as it were, obliged to execute; that is, he hath revealed that he will so do. 20. As God, having thus necessarily made the law of nature, on supposition of nature itself, doth, by that law, also necessarily determine of the dueness of punishment to every sinner, and that this shall be the course of judgment, so this justice will give to all their due, and will make a difference by rewards and punishments between them that differ as righteous and unrighteous; and his wisdom cannot suffer the frustration of his legislation, or the missing of the ends of government, nor those great evils that would follow the non-execution of justice according to its evident natural tendency. 21. If God, having necessarily given man a law agreeable to his nature, should permit him, without punishment, to violate that law, it would naturally produce, or necessarily tend to, these sad effects. 1. It would be an apparent occasion to draw men to further sin, when they see that the law is not executed. 2. It would draw men to contemn the law as a mere shadow, and a thing not to be feared or regarded. 3. It would draw them to accuse the law-giver of levity, mutability, or oversight and imprudence, in making his laws, or insufficiency to attain his ends. 4. It would draw men to think that God in his law did dissemble, and, in some sort, lie; for the purpose of the threatening is to awe sinners, by telling them what they must expect if they transgress, and how they shall be judged; therefore, if ordinarily there should no such evil befal them, they are put into false expectations, and scared with a shadow of deceiving words. And so it would be a great breach on God's part in the frame of morality or policy, and plain imprudence, if not injustice in government, to cause such inconveniences, and lay such impediments in the subjects' way, to turn them from obedience, and cross his own ends and the nature of government. 22. Legislation, judgment, and execution, are proper parts of government. He, therefore, that must necessarily govern, must necessarily make laws, and cause them to be executed. 23. It is commonly through their own imperfection that lawgivers are fain to dispense with their own laws, or may fitly do it; but God hath no imperfections. 24. If some cases may fall out (as in case of small or secret sin, &c.) that God might dispense with his laws without any of the fore-mentioned inconveniencies, yet ordinarily he cannot do it without changing the course of nature first. Nor in case of the first great breach of his laws: so that we need not (to our purpose) dispute whether God can pardon no sin without satisfaction; but whether he could in wisdom and justice pardon Adam's sin, or the ordinary course of sin in the world, without satisfaction. 25. It was not only the positive law, but also the law of nature, which Adam did transgress by inconsiderateness, unbelief, adhering to the creature, and apostasy from God: and so do all the sinners in the world. Nor is it possible to sin against a particular, positive law, but we shall also sin against a natural law, particular, or general, or both. 26. From all this it seems clear to me, that after man's sin, there was a necessity of his punishment, or of satisfaction instead of it. And this necessity is a moral necessity ad finem regimi nis resulting from, 1. The nature of man, as the subject governed. 2. The ends of government, viz., God's glory, and man's obedience, and the common good. 3. The nature of the law, which is the instrument of government, making punishment due to sinners, and being the rule of judgment. 4. From the nature of sin. And, 5. From the nature of that rectorship, or governing office or work, which God assumed. And, 6. From the most wise, holy, just nature of God, thus governing. So that it is not from any of these alone, but from them all conjunctly, as related among themselves: and the necessity appeareth in the contradictions which would follow on the contrary doctrine. For if sin, and such sin, shall go unpunished, and such laws be unexecuted, without a valuable consideration or satisfaction, then God, as Rector, must miss the great ends of government itself, (which enter its very definition,) and that through his own defect; and so shall be an imprudent, or unjust, or impotent governor. - 27. The reason why Christ's satisfaction is a valuable consideration for the relaxing of the threatening, as to the sinner himself, is, because that it is at least as excellent a means for the attainment of the said ends of government as the punishment of the sinner would have been; seeing in this there is as full a demonstration of governing justice, wisdom, and power, and of God's holy, sin-hating nature, and as full a vindication of the law from contempt, and as full a warning to sinners that they presume not, as if themselves had suffered; and that because Christ did not satisfy for their final impenitency, infidelity, or rebellion, or final, reigning, unmortified sin, and so took them not from under government, nor made them lawless for the future, by his satisfaction or merits. And moreover, here is a further demonstration of wisdom and inconceivable mercy, and a preservation of sinners from perishing, to the everlasting praise of God, their Redeemer. 28. This necessity of punishment was not absolute before the creation, but only hypothetical de futuro, on supposition of creation for God might have chosen (for aught we know, without any ill consequents) to have made no such creatures as men or angels; and if there had been no such world, there would have been no need of punishment: or, he could have prevented it, by such confirming grace as should have prevented the sin. 29. But this is not like their opinion that make no necessity hereof, but only on supposition of God's decree that Christ should satisfy. For if we overlook his decree, yet supposing but these two things: 1. The creation of man, and such a man. 2. And his wilful sinning, there is then a necessity ex parte rei, by unavoidable resultancy from the aforesaid particulars, as related together. Any man may see, that if God should have made mankind perfect, and given him a perfect law, and have told him, that if he broke it, he should not be punished, that this would have been such imprudence and injustice, as the holy, wise, and righteous God, as Rector of mankind, to such determined ends, could not be guilty of; and God need not rule us by delusory, vain fears. 30. It is said by some very learned and reverend men, that God freely made the world, though he necessarily made it good; he freely made positive laws, though he necessarily made them wisely and just; he freely annexeth threatenings to his laws, though necessarily they are just threatenings; he freely sentenceth or judgeth, though he necessarily judge justly; he freely executeth his sentence by punishing, though he necessarily punish justly. And the reasons given, are, 1. Because God executeth his sentence as Dominus. 2. Because his threatening's bind him not to punish, but man to suffer. To all this I answer briefly and distinctly: 1. The great dispute wherein the nature of liberty lieth, we here pretermit, supposing that they who thus oppose it to necessity do not mean any of that liberty which Dr. Twiss, Herebord, and others, have maintained to be consistent with necessity; that is, with such a necessity as we have now in hand. 2. I contradict not the two first assertions, that God freely made the world, and positive laws. 3. I find not the contrary-minded affirming that he freely made natural laws. 4. I deny all the following assertions, viz.: that he doth freely, 1. Annex penalties to positives; 2. Or to natural precepts; 3. Or that he freely judgeth; 4. Or freely executeth, unless in the sense as freedom is consistent with the foresaid necessity. 5. When it is here confessed that God doth necessarily make his laws, penalties, sentence, and execution just, either the meaning is, that however he do them it is therefore just because he doth them, or else that he necessarily doth that which is ex natura rei, first considerable, as good and just before he doth it. If the first be the sense, then here is no necessity of God's doing one thing rather than another; as that he should rather make a law to punish the disobedient, than the |