e rest, Mr.
Hobbes ascribes it to the forms of expression used among men. But one will
answer him that it would be to God's discredit that his revealed will [402]
should be opposed to his real will: that what he bade Jonah say to the
Ninevites was rather a threat than a prediction, and that thus the
condition of impenitence was implied therein; moreover the Ninevites took
it in this sense. One will say also, that it is quite true that God in
commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son willed obedience, but did not will
action, which he prevented after having obtained obedience; for that was
not an action deserving in itself to be willed. And it is not the same in
the case of actions where he exerts his will positively, and which are in
fact worthy to be the object of his will. Of such are piety, charity and
every virtuous action that God commands; of such is omission of sin, a
thing more alien to divine perfection than any other. It is therefore
incomparably better to explain the will of God as I have explained it in
this work. Thus I shall say that God, by virtue of his supreme goodness,
has in the beginning a serious inclination to produce, or to see and cause
to be produced, all good and every laudable action, and to prevent, or to
see and cause to fail, all evil and every bad action. But he is determined
by this same goodness, united to an infinite wisdom, and by the very
concourse of all the previous and particular inclinations towards each
good, and towards the preventing of each evil, to produce the best possible
design of things. This is his final and decretory will. And this design of
the best being of such a nature that the good must be enhanced therein, as
light is enhanced by shade, by some evil which is incomparably less than
this good, God could not have excluded this evil, nor introduced certain
goods that were excluded from this plan, without wronging his supreme
perfection. So for that reason one must say that he permitted the sins of
others, because otherwise he would have himself performed an action worse
than all the sin of creatures.

12. I find that the Bishop of Derry is at least justified in saying,
article XV, in his Reply, p. 153, that the opinion of his opponents is
contrary to piety, when they ascribe all to God's power only, and that Mr.
Hobbes ought not to have said that honour or worship is only a sign of the
power of him whom one honours: for one may also, and one must, acknowledge
and honour