A26883:2382
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,…
Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
4. To permit is Nothing: no act of God; but a non-agency: not to hinder. And how prove you, that God must of necessity have a Positive Decree, for every Nothing or non-agency? Is not the not-willing or not decreeing to hinder a lye, e. g. (supposing natural concurse,) or to make more worlds, enough to the production of that lye by an ill inclined nature? or to the not-being of more Worlds? We are in the dark, and God is infinitely above us, and these tremendous mysteries are not to be so presumptuously handled by unproved assertions.
4. To permit is Nothing: no act of God; but a non-agency: not to hinder. And how prove you, that God must of necessity have a Positive Decree, for every Nothing or non-agency? Is not the not-willing or notdecreeing to hinder a lye, e. g. (supposing natural concurse,) or to make more worlds, enough to the production of that lye by an ill inclined nature? or to the not-being of more Worlds? We are in the dark, and God is infinitely above us, and these tremendous mysteries are not to be so presumptuously handled by unproved assertions.
XI. There is on our part no Cause, Reason or Condition assignable, for which Gods supernatural providence, in comparison of this or that hath the formal reason of predestination, or retaineth the common reason of providence: but predestination is to be reduced into the sole free-will of God.
Answ. Most of this is about mere words. The word Predestination connoteth various effects and objects: and so is called various Acts. There is no efficient Cause in the Creature of any act of God: But there are objects without which Gods Acts have not their special denominations; and these objects are the termini, and called Material Constitutive Causes of those various acts as denominated various, specially or numerically: And so Gods Decree or Will to Justify and Glorify man, hath something