objections, according to their various principles, one cannot
avoid touching on the differences which prevail among them. One may say in
general that some look upon God more metaphysically and others more
morally: and it has already been stated on other occasions that the
Counter-Remonstrants took the first course and the Remonstrants the second.
But to act rightly we must affirm alike on one side the independence of God
and the dependence of creatures, and on the other side the justice and
goodness of God, which makes him dependent upon himself, his will upon his
understanding or his wisdom.

78. Some gifted and well-intentioned authors, desiring to show the force of
the reasons advocated by the two principal parties, in order to persuade
them to a mutual tolerance, deem that the whole controversy is reduced to
this essential point, namely: What was God's principal aim in making his
decrees with regard to man? Did he make them solely in order to show forth
his glory by manifesting his attributes, and forming, to that end, the
great plan of creation and providence? Or has he had regard rather to the
voluntary movements of intelligent substances which he designed to create,
considering what they would will and do in the different circumstances and
situations wherein he might place them, so as to form a fitting resolve
thereupon? It appears to me that the two answers to this great question
thus given as opposites to one another are easy to reconcile, and that in
consequence the two parties would be agreed in principle, without any need
of tolerance, if all were reduced to this point. In truth God, in designing
to create the world, purposed solely to manifest and communicate his
perfections in the way that was most efficacious, and most worthy of his
greatness, his wisdom and his goodness. But that very purpose pledged him
to consider all the actions of creatures while still in the state of pure
possibility, that he might form the most fitting plan. He is like a great
architect whose aim in view is the satisfaction or the glory of having[165]
built a beautiful palace, and who considers all that is to enter into this
construction: the form and the materials, the place, the situation, the
means, the workmen, the expense, before he forms a complete resolve. For a
wise person in laying his plans cannot separate the end from the means; he
does not contemplate any end without knowing if there are means of
attaining thereto.

79.