Mayhew:
1) 4. From God’s permitting free Agents thus to act, the Things in this Way brought to pass, will as certainly have a Being as if God decreed to bring them about by a positive Act of his Power. For if he himself does, or decrees to do all that is necessary in order to their Futurition, giving his Creatures all the Power and Aid that is necessary thereunto, administering also the Occasions leading to such Actions or Events, when he knows that his Creatures being put into such a State, and then left to their own free Will, will assuredly act after such a Manner; he does by Consequence will or decree such Actions or Events, as they, not he, are the immediate Efficients and formal Causes of. I say, he that wills to do that on which he certainly knows such an Event will follow, does by Consequence will that Event, tho’ he himself neither does the Thing, nor is properly the Cause of another’s doing it; and tho’ the Agent by whom such an Agent is done, or such an Effect produced, be at perfect Liberty whether he will do so or not. In this Case the Event will assuredly happen, or the Effect be produced, as if the Agent acting had no Liberty; because God has determined to do, and actually does, that which he knows will be an Occasion (not Cause) of that Agent’s so acting.
The certain Futurition of any Events thus necessarily, or rather certainly, consequent on God’s permissive Decree, relating to them, does not at all infer a Want of Power or Liberty in the Agents immediately concerned in them, of not acting as they do. If God decrees to do that, on which he knows such an Event will follow, that is. That his Creature having Power so to act, will of its own Accord do so, the Consequence of this is not, that his Creature has not Power to do otherwise. I think this is as plain as any Thing can be. How should God’s Decree to suffer a free Agent to act after such a Manner, infer that Agent’s not having Power to forbear so acting? Experience Mayhew, Grace Defended in a Most Plea For an Important Truth; Namely, That the offer of Salvation made to Sinners in the Gospel comprises in it an Offer of the Grace given in Regeneration (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and Company, for D. Henchman, in Cornhil, 1744), 187-189. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.] 158-159
2) As God neither will, nor ever designed to torment Men in another Life, save for their Sins, whereby they well deserve the fame; so he never is, nor intended to be, the Cause of those Sins for which he resolved to punish those who he ever knew would deserve it. If God should himself cause Men to commit Sin, it would not stand with his Justice to punish them for it. But no Man can prove, that God was ever the Author of any Sin. To affirm he ever was, is to blaspheme his holy Name. If any have let fall Expressions implying that God is the Author of Sin, they have certainly erred therein: And they who accuse Men with this (as I think, is frequent) when they are not guilty of it,, are guilty of grievously wronging them.
They who affirm. That God has from Eternity decreed to permit those Sins to be committed, which he certainly knew would be committed, if he prevented them not, and that he accordingly does permit them, do not hereby make him the Author of Sin. God’s suffering his Creatures to Sin, when it is in his Power to hinder them, is not to be the Author of Sin. Nor is God in Justice obliged to exert his Power in hindering Persons from sinning, tho’ he knows they will Sin if he does not, and that their Sinning will bring Ruin on them.
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