this ground, and both be set aside
as limiting the perfections of God. Indeed, it has been objected against
the scheme of Leibnitz, "that it seems to make something which I do not
know how to express otherwise than by the ancient stoical fate, antecedent
and superior even to God himself. I would therefore think it best to say,
with the current of orthodox divines, that God was perfectly free in his
purpose and providence, and that there is no reason to be sought for the
one or the other beyond himself."(150) We do not know what reply Leibnitz
would have made to such an objection; but we should be at no loss for an
answer, were it urged against the fundamental principle of the preceding
discourse. We should say, in the first place, that it was a very great
pity the author could not find a better way of expressing his objection,
"than by the ancient stoical fate, antecedent and superior even to God
himself." To say that God cannot work contradictions, is not to place a
stoical fate, nor any other kind of fate, above him. And if it is, this
impiety is certainly practised by "the current of orthodox divines," even
in the author's own sense of the term; for they all affirm that God cannot
work contradictions.

If such an objection has any force against the present treatise, it might
be much better expressed than by an allusion to "the ancient stoical
fate." Indeed, it is much better expressed by Luther, in his vindication
of the doctrine of consubstantiation. When it was urged against that
doctrine, that it is a mathematical impossibility for the same corporeal
substance to be in a thousand different places at one and the same time,
the great reformer resisted the objection as an infringement of the divine
sovereignty: "God is above mathematics," he exclaimed: "I reject reason,
common-sense, carnal arguments, and mathematical proofs."(151) There is no
doubt but the orthodox divines of the present day will be disposed to
smile at this specimen of Luther's pious zeal for the sovereignty of God;
and although they may not be willing to admit that God is above all reason
and common-sense, yet will they be inclined to think that, in some
respects, Luther was a little below them. But while they smile at Luther,
might it not be well to take care, lest they should display a zeal of the
same kind, and equally pleasant in the estimation of posterity?

In affirming that omnipotence cannot work contradictions, we are certainly
very far