permitted (if permission be understood generally) had no place in the Angels nor _Adam_ before their first sinning, according to the Text, _God made man upright_, that is like a straight or right line that falling perpendicularly upon another right line, doth incline to neither end of the line upon which it falls, so _Adam_ was made upright without any propension or inclination to sin at all. And if this propension and disposition be understood, and applied to Angels in their condition after their fall, then it is true they have not only an inclination but a most strong will and desire to commit more evil and mischief than God in his goodness permits them to perform, for _the Devil goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour_, and it was Satan that not only had a disposition, but _desired to sift Peter as wheat_. And it is manifest that wicked Men have a strong will and desire to commit mischief; but that God hath an hook in their Nostrils, and a Bridle in their Jawes wherewith he curbs and restrains them, that they cannot act out all the mischief that they intend, as is manifest in the example of _Sennacherib_ and many others. [Sidenote: Twisse _de Permiss. ut supra_.] [Sidenote: _Fran. Jun. de peccat. prim. Adam._ _p._ 111, 114.] [Sidenote: _August. Enchir._ 75, 76.] 7. Permission must be referred and reduced to the will of God, for nolition is an act of his will as well as volition: and to speak properly and truly, permission is but an act of the Divine Will not to impede such or such particular actions of the creatures; and therefore the same things will follow from his volition or his will _non impediendi_, as from his volition to the acts of a free agent, seeing neither do put coaction upon the will of the Creature that is to act. And that permission is an act of the Divine will, and to be reduced unto it _Arminius_ confesseth in these words: _Permissionem ad genus actionis pertinere ex ipsa vocis flexione est notum, sive per se sive reductive, ut in Scholis loquuntur. Cessatio enim ab actu, ad actum quoq; est reducenda: causam autem proximam & immediatam habet voluntatem, non scientiam, non potentiam, non potestatem, licet & ista in permittente requirantur._ And when he defineth permission, he saith: _Permissio Dei, est actus voluntatis Divinæ_; than which nothing can be more clear. And not much different from this is the definition of permission, that is given by learned _Junius_ thus: _Est autem permissio actus voluntatis, quo is penes quem est alienas actiones inhibere, eas non inhibet, sed agentis voluntati permittit earum modum_. And again he saith: _Apud Deum verò Opt. Max. nulla est omnino permissio, nisi voluntaria: quandoquidem omnis divina permissio à principio interno est, id est, à voluntate ipsius, & movetur ad finem quem voluntas præfinivit ejus_. But we will conclude this with that of S. _Augustin_ thus Englished: “Not any thing cometh to pass, unless the Omnipotent will have it to be done, either