Rutherford: the real question is indeclinable predetermination, not the word 'physical'
In his Exercitationes apologeticae pro divina gratia Rutherford maintains that in all acts, of nature and of grace alike, God determines the will by a truly real impulse, in the manner of a physical cause. He adds, though, that the main dispute is not whether this predetermination should be called physical, but whether God predetermines free acts in a way that cannot be turned aside.
'The question,' he says, 'is whether God does not so move the will that, under that motion, once moved it cannot fail to be fully moved; or whether God's action on the will does not so bend it that it cannot fail freely to bend itself where God inclines it. We, for our part, prove from Scripture that the will is necessitated by God's motion, by which it is moved beyond turning aside.' If anyone grants this, he adds, he is ready to bid farewell to physical predetermination, although in reality God does determine the will in the manner of a physical cause (Exercitation 3, chapter 1).
Latin
XLIII. In Exercitationibus autem Apologeticis pro divina gratia asserit, Deum in omnibus actibus tum naturae, tum gratiae, voluntatem determinare per impulsum vere realem ad modum causae Physicae; quanquam subjungit litem praecipuam non esse an praedeterminatio ista Physica dicenda sit, sed an Deus actus liberos praedeterminet indeclinabiliter: Quaestio enim, inquit, est, Annon ita moveat voluntatem Deus, ut sub illa motione non possit mota non permoveri, vel annon Actio Dei in Voluntatem ita ipsam flectat, ut non possit non libere se flectere illuc quo Deus ipsam inclinat: nos vero ex Scripturis probamus necessitationem Voluntatis a Dei motione qua indeclinabiliter permoveatur. Quod si quis concedat, addit se Physicae praedeterminationi valedicere paratum esse: quamvis revera Deus ad modum causae Physicae Voluntatem determinet. Exercit. 3. cap. 1.