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,…

XVIII. His judgement of the Matter of the Reward (that it is but God himself seen and perfectly loved for himself) is of great use: But yet it is both lawful and ex individuationis principiis & ex natura humana necessary that we take and desire this as our own felicity, and so under God intend our selves. And quoad rationem praemii it is the Reward of a Rewardable state or work, and therefore of the free act of a creature not merely necessitated: It may be a gift without Respect to our Liberty and Obedience, but not a reward: But it is both a gift and a Reward.

XVIII. His judgement of the Matter of the Reward (that it is but God himself seen and perfectly loved for himself) is of great use: But yet it is both lawful and ex individuationis principiis & ex natura humana necessary that we take and desire this as our own felicity, and so under God intend our selves. And quoad rationem praemii it is the Reward of a Rewardable state or work, and therefore of the free act of a creature not meerly necessitated: It may be a gift without Respect to our Liberty and Obedience, but not a reward: But it is both a gift and a Reward.

XIX. That Fear and its effects are good, and yet not of Christs grace; that they are of Gods Spirit, but not the Spirit given by Christ, but the grace of some other Providence; All this I take for unsound and injurious to Christ and grace. Where doth the Scripture tell us since the fall, of any grace given to the World but by the Redeemer, who is Head over all things to his Church? If you say, that God can give men the grace to fear him and depart from evil without a Saviour or Mediator▪ how can you prove, that he may not do so by the rest? Either he giveth this grace as Rector according to his Laws or not: If not, then on the same reason you may feign that most men are not his subject;, nor under any Law of God; and so sin not, nor are punishable: If yea, then it is according to the Law of Innocency, or of Grace, (For if Moses Law as Jewish be called a third, it is nothing to our case.) If it be by a Law of grace, it is Christs Law, either of the first Edition, called the Promise, or of the second, called the Gospel: The Spirit and grace (in various measures) given by both, are of Christ. It's a dangerous assertion, that there is any, yea, so much grace, which is not Christs: It prejudiceth me against Jansenius's Opinion, that it should cast him on such absurdities, as to deny so much of the grace of Christ, while he pretendeth to honour it, and to set up such a feigned way and sort of grace without a Saviour, and yet speak so hardly of the Pelagians as he doth for wronging grace.