Archive for August 13th, 2008
Of the Cause of Sin.
Sin properly is nothing formally subsisting or existing (for then God should be the author of it) but it is an ataxy or absence of goodness and uprightness in the thing that subsists, Psalm 5:4; John 2:16; 1 John 1:5; Habakkuk 1:13; Job 34:10.
The Manichees think that God can be no means be said to will sin, therefore they held two principles, summum bonum, from which all good things, and summum malum, from which all both sins and punishments. They thought it absurd and impossible for any evil to proceed from the chief good. But there can not be a summum malum, as there is a summum bonum, because evil in its own nature is nothing else but a privatio boni, sin a privation of justice and rectitude and an aberration from the Law, and every privation must necessarily be in some subject.
The Church of Rome slanders the Protestants, and says, that they maintain God to be the cause of sin, but we hold that the Devil and man’s corrupt will are the cause of it. Sin in man at first came from Satan, John 3:8 and 8:44; John 6:17; Matthew 16:23, the cause of sin now man is fallen, is from ourselves, Matthew 15:19.
God has no hand in the acting and approving of sin, Romans 3:5, 6, & 9:14. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity with approbation; He is the wise permitted, powerful disposer, and eternal avenger of it.
God cannot sin, or cause others to sin:
1. Because as he is subject to no Law which he can transgress, so his will is most holy and pure, and the rule of perfection, Isaiah 6. He is holy in his Nature, Actions, he has so confirmed his Angels in holiness that they cannot sin, 1 John 1:4.
2. To sin is to turn away from the chief and last end, therefore he cannot sin: The Scriptures always attribute it to the Devil and man, Romans 9:14.
3. God threatens sinners in his Word, and punishes them, therefore he allows it not.
4. All deservedly hate the Libertines, who would make that sacred and dreadful Majesty the cause of their detestable enormities, Quicquid ego & tu facimus Deus efficit, nam in nobis est. Calv. Advers. Libert. cap 12. Therefore Bellamine does wickedly in imputing to Protestant Divines that which they detest with the greatest loathing.