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,…

305. Of all these difficulties, I have no better solution (besides what is aforesaid) than as followeth. 1. That a Dispositive Inclination of the Will to God and actual Holiness, is like to the Inclinatio naturalis ad bonum & foelicitatem, saving that it is not ours ab origine in our lapsed state, and that it is more moveable and separable from the Soul; And so is quiddam naturae though not quaedam natura, called, The Divine and new nature in us; and is to the Soul what Health is to the man; And is the great Moral Principle within us; and is acceptable to God as being ⟨p. 109⟩the Rectitude of his noble creature, ^*and virtually containing all good actions; and being the operation of the Spirit, by which he is said to dwell in believers.

1. *As to the Papists continual calumnies, that we call men just, whose continued wickedness is but hid and not imputed, and without inherent justice, we abhor both their confusion and their calumny, and distinctly give them this short account. 1. We hold a conditional universal pardon of all. 2. But no actual pardon of the destructive punishment, nor non-impuration of Sin, till men are truly converted from a wicked heart and life to the love of God, by Faith and Repentance. 3. And then all Sin inconsistent with the prevalent love of God, and a holy, just, and sober life is mortified and ceaseth. 4. But such infirmities as you call Venial Sins continue, and all our Goodness is culpably imperfect. 5. Though the destructive punishment be pardoned, the Reatus culpae in se continueth for ever: that is, It is an everlasting truth that we once sinned. 6. Our pardon and our Renovation are freely given us by Grace for the sake of the satisfaction, merits, and intercession of Christ, whose perfect Righteousness fulfilled that Law that man had broken. 7. In which sense his perfect Righteousness is said by Protestants to be Imputed to us because he did it and suffered for us, in the person of a Mediator; and so it was the Meritorious cause of all our Justification, Grace and Glory. And what hath any Papist or other wrangler against any of this? Ye•, we reject their loose Doctrine that say as Pot. as. Joseph. Theol. Spec. l. 4. c. 10. p. 511. [De potentia absoluta Gratia habitualis potest simul esse i eode subjecto (meaning in a predominant degree) cum peccato mortali sive actuali sive habituali: For as I said before against Okam and Scotus on that point, they are inconsistent contraries, as life and not-living, light and darkness; and their proofs of the contrary are frivolous. See Scot. in 4. d. 16. Aliac. in 1. 99. Greg. Armin. in 1. d. 17. q. 1. . 2. Gabr. ibid. Rad 2. p. Cont. 19. Suarez. in 3. p. To. 4. Disp. 9. Sect. 3. n. 8. all for this opinion. And against it Aureol: in 1. d. 1. Ruard. a. Sect. 5. That a man cannot be just sine Justitia inherent por potentiam Dei absolutam: Pet. de Lora saith. in 2. 2. q. 24. a. 12. d. 22. as the Protestants do, that Peocatum Mortal actual (meaning some one act of a heinous Sin) may consist with Grace and the Habit of Charity, but not the Habit of such a Sin (that is in predominancy). See Malderus opinion, 1. 2. q. 113. a. 2. & 8. p. 574, &c. who saith, that Dus remitendo offersam delet peccati maculam] and that [Macula is but the privation of Grace quatenus facit hominem Do gratum] that is, of Acceptability or Loveliness: And accordingly he expoundeth the nature of Remission of Sin, as I said before. And Brianson in 4. q. 8. fol. 115. C. D. diligently enquiring what it is that remaineth after the Sin committed, can find nothing but 1. The Habit or privation of a good habit. 2. And the Guilt which he calleth Reatum culpae, quae est qdam obligatio ad poenam debitam illi culpae. Illa (n) obligatio est qudam Relatio realis, non fundata super actum culpae, sed super essentiam aim non nisi ut culpae actualis est praevia; which is just the Protestant opinion, who say that the Guilt is done away by forgiveness, and the Habit by Renovation, calling one Justification, and the other Sanctification: But we better distinguish Reatum cspae in s, & Reatum pae su culpae ut ad poenam: One is the Reality of my being a Sinner, or one that did Sin. (This is never done away). The other is the obligation to punishment for that Sin. This is remitted.