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. I. The first sort are those few, whom I in the beginning renounced; of whom the Dominicans, and good Dr. Twice, and Rutherford his Follower (de providentia) are the chief. I easily confess to you, that God made the Law, and God made man, and God maketh the Objects, and God causeth the Act as a natural Act in genere, by a natural general concourse: And if it could be also proved, that God were the chief efficient Determiner of the Will, and that by necessitation to this Act or Object comparatively rather than to that, (e. g. that David willed the Acts which were Murder and Adultery,) I could never deny that God is the chief Author of the Sin. For the formal reason of Sin is Relative, viz. Its disconformity to the Law of God. And the Relation resulteth without any new Act or Agent, Posito fundamento & omni absoluto: And neither God nor Man do or can do more to cause the Relation. And Dr. Twice and Rutherford so far saw this, that the up-shot of all their Vindication is; 1. That God causeth not sin as sin, but as a means to his Glory. 2. That God is under no Law, (as we are) and therefore can be no Author of Sin. But, to the first I answer; ⟨p. 10⟩It's one thing to will Sin as Sin, and another thing to cause Sin as Sin. We charge them not, with inferring that God willeth Sin as Sin; but ¹if he will it and cause it for another end, he causeth the formal nature of Sin, (that we may not play with the ambiguity of Quatenus) and that's as much as man doth. For Sinners do not all, if any, will sin as sin under this formal notion, as it is a breach of the Law of God, and displeaseth him; but as it bringeth them some seeming good: And by doing evil for that good, they are Sinners. To the second, we do not charge the Dominicans with making God a Sinner: But with making him the chief cause of the sin of man, even in its form. II. But this is nothing to the Calvinists in general. Therefore, I say, that your selves hold the same that they do in this point. Q. 1. Do not all the Jesuits and Arminius hold, That God is the Decreer of what he is the Author of. And that God is the Author of the Act as an Act natural, in the general. See but Rob. Baronius his Metaphysics, and Bellarmine whom he followeth.

B. I. The first sort are those few, whom I in the beginning renounced; of whom the Dominicans, and good Dr. Twisse, and Rutherford his Follower (de providentia) are the chief. I easily confess to you, that God made the Law, and God made man, and God maketh the Objects, and God causeth the Act as a natural Act in genere, by a natural general concourse: And if it could be also proved, that God were the chief efficient Determiner of the Will, and that by necessitation to this Act or Object comparatively rather than to that, (e. g. that David willed the Acts which were Murder and Adultery,) I could never deny that God is the chief Author of the Sin. For the formal reason of Sin is Relative, viz. Its disconformity to the Law of God. And the Relation resulteth without any new Act or Agent, Posito fundamento & omni absoluto: And neither God nor Man do or can do more to cause the Relation. And Dr. Twisse and Rutherford so far saw this, that the up-shot of all their Vindication is; 1. That God causeth not sin as sin, but as a means to his Glory. 2. That God is under no Law, (as we are) and therefore can be no Author of Sin. But, to the first I answer;