Id. 2. 10.
Psal. 119. 91.
Greg. 16. mor. 4.
Thom. de Christ. Religion. 133.
De Caus. Dei, p. 171.
2. It is as improper to attribute permission unto God in respect of the Physical agency of second causes, because he not only worketh all in all, and by his Divine concourse and conservative power sustaineth all things by the word of his power, and Job tells us: If he gather unto himself his spirit and breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again into dust. Upon which place of the Hebrews S. Chrysostome saith thus: Feratq; inquit omnia, hoc est, gubernet omnia. Siquidem cadentia, & ad nihilum tendentia continet. Non enim minus est continere mundum quàm fecisse: Sed si oportet aliquid quod admireris dicere, adhuc amplius est. Nam in faciendo quidem, ex nullis extantibus rerum essentiæ productæ sunt: in continendo verò, ea quæ facta sunt, ne ad nihilum redeant continentur. Hæc ergo dum reguntur, & ad invicem sibi repugnantia coaptantur, magnum & valdè mirabile, plurimæq; virtutis judicium declaratur: But also because he hath set all natural things their bounds, and ordered, decreed and determined their ends in acting. Now what he hath appointed, ordered and decreed to be the agency of every creature, and determinated its end in acting, cannot properly be called permission, but his will, ordination and providence. As if one should say he suffereth and permitteth the Sun and Moon to run their course, it is an improper expression and injurious to his wisdom and power in his providential government of the creatures, seeing that it is a certain truth, Deus operatur in omni operante: And he hath appointed the Moon for seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down. And it is absurd to say he suffereth the Sea to Ebb and Flow, when he hath set it a bound that it cannot pass over. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. And said, hitherto shalt thou come and no further: And here shall thy proud waves be staid. And again, Will ye not tremble at my presence saith the Lord, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it, and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it. And therefore we may conclude that the whole Creation in respect of Physical agency is ruled according to those orders, and not by a fortuitous chance, or a bare passive permission. 1. For first all creatures have their Physical agency, and the affections and properties thereof ordained by God in the Creation, and according to this they constantly act, except they be turned, altered, or suspended by the Creator himself, and he doth immediately act in them all, and they cannot properly be said to be permitted. 2. They are upholden, sustained and conserved in their several conditions, by the word of his mighty power, his continual concourse and divine emanation, which if it should but cease one minute, the whole Creation would fall into that nothing, from whence his Eternal and Omnipotent Fiat did raise and call them forth, so that we dare affirm with profound Bradwardine, Quod necesse est Deum servare quamlibet Creaturam immediatiùs quacunq; causa creata. 3. When he pleaseth he doth suspend the effects and agency of natural causes, as in making the Sun stand still in the victory of Joshua, and of the three Children in the fiery Furnace. Sometimes he causeth them to act contrary to their innate powers and qualities, as in making the shaddow go ten degrees back in Ahaz sun-dial: and in causing the waters of the red sea, contrary to their natures, which are to tend downwards, to be divided, and to go backward, and to be as a wall on the right hand, and on the left, until Moses, and the children of Israel were passed through. And by many other wayes and means doth he alter and change the course of natural agents, to serve his will and good pleasure in his mercy, or in his justice, and yet here is no bare or passive permission. 4. Besides these he ordereth all the particular acts of natural agents, to be subservient unto his will: So when Jonah fled to Tarshish, the Lord sent forth a great wind into the sea, and raised a mighty tempest to overtake Jonah; and when he was cast into the Sea, the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow him up, and also the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited up Jonah upon the dry land. Now the wind was not carried nor the storm raised, by a permissive power, but by the will and order of the Lord Jehovah, who sent them, and directed them either by his immediate power, or by the ministry of his Angels; and though they wrought according to their natural agency, yet the special ordering as to the particular act was not by permission, but by the will and appointment of his providence. Neither did the great fish come by chance or permission, but God in his merciful providence had prepared him for the preservation of Jonah, and caused him to be vomited on the dry land; so that all creatures do not only continue according to his ordinances, but also all elementary, and irrational creatures do praise the Lord by fulfilling his word, will and providence. And lest we be either censured to wrest the Scriptures, or to be single in this opinion, take the judgment of some few others. S. Gregory (as he is quoted by learned Bradwardine) tells us thus much: Quis de Deo ista vel desipiens suspicetur, qui nimirùm dum sit semper omnipotens, sic intendit omnibus, ut assit singulis; sic adest singulis, ut simul omnibus nunquam desit; sic itaq; exteriora circundat, ut interiora impleat; sic interiora implet, ut exteriora circundet; sic summa regit, ut ima non deserat; sic imis præsens est, ut à superioribus non recedat. And Thomas Aquinas their great Schoolman (as the same author cites him) saith: Quòd Deus immediatè ordinat omnes effectus per seipsum, licet per causas medias exequatur, sed in ipsâ executione quodammodò immediatè se habet ad omnes effectus, in quantum omnes causæ mediæ agunt in virtute causæ primæ, ut quodammodo ipse in omnibus agere videatur, & omnia opera secundarum causarum ei possunt attribui, sicut artifici attribuitur opus instrumenti. Therefore we will conclude this with that of S. Augustine: Proculdubio nullus est locùs ab ejus præsentia absens; super omnem creaturam quippè præsidet regendo, subtus est omnia sustinendo, non pondere laboris, sed infatigabili virtute, quoniam nulla creatura ab eo condita per se subsistere valet, nisi ab illo sustentetur, qui eam creavit. Extra omnia est, sed non exclusus, intra omnia, sed non conclusus. And these places need no fiction of an Hebraism to expound them, nor no device of a verb of an active termination, and a permissive signification to evade the pressure of this truth. And therefore in respect of Physical agency we are bold with Bradwardine to assert these three Corollaries.
1. Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere, sine Deo. 2. Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere, nisi Deus per se & immediate facit illud idem. 3. Quod nulla res potest facere aliquid, nisi Deus faciat illud idem immediatiùs quolibet alio faciente.
Amos 3. 6.
4. So that however permission may be understood, it must properly relate to intellectual and rational creatures, and that only and especially in respect of those actions which we call moral, that is, in regard of sin, evil or malum culpæ; for whatsoever is malum pœnæ, God is the author, causer and inflicter of, according to the Text: Shall there be evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it? To understand aright the nature of permission, we are to consider the affections, properties and adjuncts of it, both in regard of the person permitting, the creature permitted to act, and the thing permitted to be done, with all the circumstances about them, and these we shall take from their Ring-leader and great Champion Arminius himself in these points.
Vid. Twisse Vindic. grat. de permiss. p. 341.