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,…

B. That is to be the work of a Disputation on that Point. It shall now suffice to mind you, that it seemeth to me very plainly to subvert Christianity, if not all Religion. For when Adam's sin, and all the sin in the World of Men or Devils, is resolved into the absolute unresistible Will and efficiency of God, as the first total Cause, and that it had been as impossible to have done otherwise as to be Gods, or to Conquer God; it's easy to perceive whether God •ate such sin, and whether Christ died to signify his hatred of it; and whether he will damn men for not being Gods; and whether he that is said unresistibly to predetermine by immediate efficiency the thought, will and tongue of every Liar to every lye that ever was spoken, can have any word, delivered by man, which we can be sure is true. In a word, if this Opinion hold, it will allow no other Religion in the World, but this much, [To believe that moral Good and Evil are but like natural Good and Evil, which God doth cause a• a free Benefactor, differencing his Gifts in various proportions, as he seeth meet; as he differenceth Stars from Stones, and Men from Dogs, and equally causeth the wisdom of Man, and the poison of the Toad or Serpent; and so will make such differences in this World, and the next (if there be any) as pleaseth him, as he doth here between one Horse that's pampered, and another that is tired out with labour.] Well may they cry down the Doctrine of Merit and Demerit that go this way. It hath pleased God, by permitting Hobbs to reduce this Principle of the Wills necessitation unto its proper practice, thereby to cast more shame upon it in our Times for this Authors sake, than we could have expected, if none but such excellent persons as Alvarez ^*and his Brethren, Dr. Twice and Rutherford had maintained it. But as Davenant well saith, It is an Opinion of the Dominicans, which Protestants have no mind to own. And there are two sorts that thus subject the Will to absolute caused necessity: 1. Those aforesaid, the Dominicans, who assist the predetermining premotion of God, as necessary to every act natural and free. 2. Those that make the Will as much necessitated by a train of natural second Causes, which is Hobbs his way, (and alas, the way of great and excellent healing C•mero).

B. That is to be the work of a Disputation on that Point. It shall now suffice to mind you, that it seemeth to me very plainly to subvert Christianity, if not all Religion. For when Adam's sin, and all the sin in the World of Men or Devils, is resolved into the absolute unresistible Will and efficiency of God, as the first total Cause, and that it had been as impossible to have done otherwise as to be Gods, or to Conquer God; it's easie to perceive whether God ate such sin, and whether Christ died to signifie his hatred of it; and whether he will damn men for not being Gods; and whether he that is said unresistibly to predetermin by immediate efficiency the thought, will and tongue of every Lyar to every lye that ever was spoken, can have any word, delivered by man, which we can be sure is true. In a word, if this Opinion hold, it will allow no other Religion in the World, but this much, [To believe that moral Good and Evil are but like natural Good and Evil, which God doth cause a a free Benefactor, differencing his Gifts in various proportions, as he seeth meet; as he differenceth Stars from Stones, and Men from Dogs, and equally causeth the wisdom of Man, and the poyson of the Toad or Serpent; and so will make such differences in this World, and the next (if there be any) as pleaseth him, as he doth here between one Horse that's pampered, and another that is tired out with labour.] Well may they cry down the Doctrine of Merit and Demerit that go this way. It hath pleased God, by permitting Hobbs to reduce this Principle of the Wills necessitation unto its proper practice, thereby to cast more shame upon it in our Times for this Authors sake, than we could have expected, if none but such excellent persons as Alvarez