10.  Here now are the neutral passages, according to Mr. Hobbes.  These are those where Holy Scripture says that man has the choice to act if he wills, or not to act if he wills not.  For example Deut. xxx. 19:  ’I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing:  therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’  And Joshua xxiv. 15:  ’Choose you this day whom ye will serve.’  And God said to Gad the prophet (2 Sam. xxiv. 12), ’Go and say unto David:  Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.’  And Isa. vii. 16:  ’Until the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good.’  Finally the passages which Mr. Hobbes acknowledges to be apparently contrary to his opinion are all those where it is indicated that the will of man is not in conformity with that of God.  Thus Isa. v. 4:  ’What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?  Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?’ And Jer. xix. 5:  ’They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.’  And Hos. xiii. 9:  ’O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.’  And I Tim. ii. 4:  ’God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’  He avows that he could quote very many other passages, such as those which indicate that God willeth not iniquity, that he willeth the salvation of the sinner, and generally all those which declare that God commands good and forbids evil.

11.  Mr. Hobbes makes answer to these passages that God does not always will that which he commands, as for example when he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, and that God’s revealed will is not always his full will or his decree, as when he revealed to Jonah that Nineveh would perish in forty days.  He adds also, that when it is said that God wills the salvation of all, that means simply that God commands that all do that which is necessary for salvation; when, moreover, the Scripture says that God wills not sin, that means that he wills to punish it.  And as for the 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