He cannot peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no
essay will admit; -supposing myself herein to have to do with such as own the truth of the Bible.
Arg. I. My first argument shall be taken from God's prediction of such events. Here I would, in the first place, lay down these two things as axioms. 1. If God does not foreknow, He cannot foretell such events; that is, He cannot peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain guess concerning events of this kind, then he can declare no more than an uncertain guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or declare positive Foreknowledge.
If God does not certainly foreknow the future Volitions of moral Agents, then neither can he certainly foreknow those events which are dependent on these Volitions. The existence of the one depending on the existence of the other, the knowledge of the existence of the one depends on the knowledge of the existence of the other; and the one cannot be more certain than the other.
Therefore, how many, how great, and how extensive soever the consequences of the Volitions of moral Agents may be; though they should extend to an alteration of the state of things through the universe, and should be continued in a series of successive events to all eternity, and should in the progress of things branch forth into an infinite number of series, each of them going on in an endless chain of events; God must be as ignorant of all these consequences, as he is of the Volition whence they first take their rise: and the whole state of things depending on them, how important, extensive, and vast soever, must be hid from him.
These positions being such as, I suppose, none will deny, I now proceed to observe the following things. 1. Men's moral conduct and qualities, their virtues and vices, their wickedness and good practice,
things rewardable and punishable, have often been foretold by God.- - Pharaoh's moral conduct, in refusing to obey God's command, in letting his people go, was foretold. God says to Moses, Exod. iii. 19. " I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go." Here. God professes not only to guess at, but to know Pharaoh's future disobedience. In chap. vii. 4. God says, " but Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that I may lay mine hand upon Egypt," &c. And chap. ix. 30. Moses says to Pharaoh, " as for thee, and thy servants, I Know that ye will not fear the Lord." See also chap. xi. 9.-- The moral conduct of Josiah, by name, in his zealously exerting himself to oppose idolatry, in particular acts, was foretold above three hundred years before he was born, and the prophecy sealed by a miracle, and renewed and confirmed by the words of a second prophet, as what surely would not fail, (1 Kings xiii. 1 -- 6, 32.) This prophecy was also in effect a prediction of the moral conduct of the people, in upholding their schismatical and idolatrous worship until that time, and the idolatry of those priests of the high places, which it is foretold Josiah should offer upon that altar of Bethel. Micah foretold the foolish and sinful conduct of Ahab, in refusing to hearken to the word of the Lord by him, and choosing rather to hearken to the false prophets, in going to RamothGilead to his ruin, (1 King's xxi. 20 -- 22.) The moral conduct of Hazael was foretold, in that cruelty he should be guilty of; on which Hazael says, "what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing!" The prophet speaks of the event as what be knew, and not what he conjectured, 2 Kings viii. 12. "I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: Thou wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child." The moral conduct of Cyrus is foretold, long before he had a being, in his mercy to God' people, and regard to the true God, in turning the captivity of the Jew's, and promoting the building of the temple, (Isa. xliv. 28. and lxv. 13. compare 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. and Ezra i. 1 -- 4.) How many instances of the moral conduct of the kings of the North and