A26883:2641
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.
§. 25. 7. If he could prove, that there is one First, Best, Universal created Intelligence, or super-Angelical Spirit, which God made the chief of all second causes, by which he created and governeth all the rest, and that this is Christ in his second Nature, we would not deny, but that Christ as the Mediator of Nature (as Mr. Sterry calleth him) is in all other Creatures as the Cause is in the being of the effect; But it would not follow, that the Essence of Christ (or this Universal Intelligence) is any Constitutive Cause (or part) of each creature: For as God causeth them by Creative Emanation, and not as a Constitutive part of them; so we should rather hold, that (under God, by a Power of producing Entities received from him) this Universal Spirit did the same in a subordinate second place.
§. 26. But his Opinions which I am now most concerned to renounce, are those about Gods Moral Government, his Laws, Justice, our free-will, sin, guilt, and Gods Redemption, Judgement and Punishment of man; all which I think he much subverteth.
§. 27. And I. I take the root of his error to be, his overlooking and undervaluing Gods Design in Making and Governing free Intellectual agents, by his Sapiential Moral Directive way: He supposeth this way to be so much below that of Physical Motion and Determination, as that it is not to be considered but as an instrument thereof: As if it were unworthy of God to give any creature a Mere Power, Liberty, Law, and Moral Means alone, and not to Necessitate him Positively or Negatively to Obey or Disobey. And this looking only at Physical Good, Being and Motion, and thereby thinking lightly of Sapiential Regency, is the sum; as of his, so of Hobbes, Spinosa's, Alvarez, Bradwardines, Twisses, Rutherfords, and the rest of the Predeterminants errors herein: And had not I other thoughts of this one thing, I should come over to their Opinion: For I confess the case to be of very great difficulty.