Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

TOPLADT says,
NOTES.
NOTE I. p. 4.
If God had not willed tlie fall, He could
and no doubt would have prevented it ; but He did not.
prevent it, ergo He willed it; and if He willed it, He
certainly decreed it. Vol. v. p. 242. This is a philoso
phical argument proceeding upon the attribute of the
Divine Power; as is the following appeal to our intellectual
as believers in a (rod :
alone is entitled
consistency He
to the name of true (rod who governs all things, and
without whose will (either
efficient or permissive) nothing
is or can be done. And such is the God of the Scriptures,
against whose will not a sparrow can die, nor a hair fall
from our heads. Now, what is predestination but the
determining will of God? I defy the subtlest Semi-
Pelagian in the world to form or convey a just and worthy
notion of the Supreme Being without admitting Him to
be the Great Cause of all causes also Himself ;
dependent
on none who willed from ; eternity how He should act in
time, and settled a regular, determinate scheme of what
He would do and permit to be done, from the beginning
to the consummation of the world. A contrary view of
the Deity is as inconsistent with reason itself, and with
the very religion of nature, as it is with the decisions of
revelation Without predestination to plan, and
without Providence to put that plan in execution, what
becomes of God s omnipotence ? It vanishes into air ; it
becomes a mere nonentity. For what sort of Omnipotence
is that which is baffled or defeated by the very creatures
it has m&de. -^Topladyy vol. v. p. 293.
Y