Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…

1. To dream of meriting from God by any Creature, Man, or Angel, in point of Commutative Justice, is blasphemy and madness; that is, That we can give him any thing that shall profit him, or which is not absolutely his own, as a compensation for what he giveth us. He maketh himself a God that asserteth this of himself. 2. To say that any since Ad•• save Christ, doth merit of God in point of Governing Justice, according to the Law of Innocency, is a falsehood: And he that saith, He b••• no sin, is a liar. 3. To say that we can merit pardon, or Justification, o• Salvation merely by observing Moses Law, was the Jews pernicious error. 4. To say that our faith and performance of the conditions of the new Covenant, doth merit by the retributive Sentence of the old Covenant; or that it is in whole or part any meritorious Cause that God gave the world a Saviour, or that Christ freely pardoneth and justifieth us all conditionally by the new Covenant, or that it supposeth not Christ's Righ•• ousness to be the total sole meritorious Cause of that pardoning Covenant, and all the benefits as thereby conditionally given; All this is gross contradiction. 5. To deny subordinate Comparative Merit, or Rewardabl• ness, as from Gods Governing distributive paternal Justice according to the Covenant of Grace, consisting in the performance of the condition of that Covenant, and presupposing Christs total merits as aforesaid, i• to subvert all Religion and true Morality, and to deny the scope of all the Scriptures, and the express assertion of an Evangelical worthiness, which is all that this [Merit] signifieth: To say nothing of contradicting Catholic antiquity, and hardening the Papists against the truth.

1. To dream of meriting from God by any Creature, Man, or Angel, in point of Commutative Justice, is blasphemy and madness; that is, That we can give him any thing that shall profit him, or which is not absolutely his own, as a compensation for what he giveth us. He maketh himself a God that asserteth this of himself. 2. To say that any since Ad•• save Christ, doth merit of God in point of Governing Justice, according to the Law of Innocency, is a falshood: And he that saith, He b no sin, is a lyar. 3. To say that we can merit pardon, or Justification, o Salvation meerly by observing Moses Law, was the Jews pernicious erro. 4. To say that our faith and performance of the conditions of the new Covenant, doth merit by the retributive Sentence of the old Covenan; or that it is in whole or part any meritorious Cause that God gave the world a Saviour, or that Christ freely pardoneth and justifieth us all conditionally by the new Covenant, or that it supposeth not Christ's Righ ousness to be the total sole meritorious Cause of that pardoning Covenant, and all the benefits as thereby conditionally given; All this is gross contradiction. 5. To deny subordinate Comparative Merit, or Rewardabl ness, as from Gods Governing distributive paternal Justice according to the Covenant of Grace, consisting in the performance of the condition of that Covenant, and presupposing Christs total merits as aforesaid, i to subvert all Religion and true Morality, and to deny the scope of all the Scriptures, and the express assertion of an Evangelical worthiness, which is all that this [Merit] signifyeth: To say nothing of contradicting Catholick antiquity, and hardening the Papists against the truth.