A26883:2431
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.
God worketh so constantly by Natural Inclinations of second causes, as fully proveth to us, that ut prima Causa Naturae, he hath decreed so to work. And how is that then but by his Influx into Nature as Nature?
If my house cannot fall when the foundations and pillars are gone, unless God otherwise thrust it down; If I cannot fall though I leap down from the house top, unless God otherwise thrust me down; If the Town cannot be fired unless God predetermine it or concur, besides his continuation of Nature; why should we fear it; when we know not that God decreeth any more than the continuation of natural causes and that action which is by them, and by him as the upholder of them?
If my house cannot fall when the foundations and pillars are gone, unless God otherwise thrust it down; If I cannot fall though I leap down from the house top, unless God otherwise thrust me down; If the Town cannot be fired unless God predetermine it or concurr, besides his continuation of Nature; why should we fear it; when we know not that God decreeth any more than the continuation of natural causes and that action which is by them, and by him as the upholder of them?
II. And the case of Free-agents is here confessed to be the same. The Influx into their Natures and Virtues is it that continueth them in esse substantiali and in esse movente & moto: An Act is but the modus substantiae. And it surpasseth my understanding to conceive what it is, for ⟨p. 78⟩God physice influere in actum immediate, & non in potentiam seu virtutem agentem: nor how he can be said to move the faculties to act, that doth cause the act and not meddle with, (and therefore not move) the faculty. Nor know I how an Act immediately (and not the agent) can be the terminus of a physical motion. Though it's easy to conceive how God should cause an act by moral and extrinsic objective means. Therefore, as God moveth things Natural by his Influx into their moving Virtues, or into the moving Virtues of second Causes, which being Active operate on passive matter; so as the Soul and its Will is quadam natura inclined to Action in genere, and to will good in special, God as the cause of nature moveth it by his Influx into the faculty, as he doth other natural agents: But having made it a Free self-determining Agent, his Influx upholdeth and moveth it as such: And the same Influx is upholding and moving, and moving as upholding; seeing God as Motor also, doth influere in naturam vitalem & liberam. Besides which supporting and moving Influx, no other predetermining premotion is necessary to an Act as an Act, (that I know of.)