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,…

C. Yet it sticks with me, that God should be the Omnipotent Governor of the World, and all Sin which is the common work of the World, should be without or against his Will: Providence is wronged by this.

B. You mistake the matter: 1. That he decreed to leave any men ordinarily to their Free-will, under moral Government, was not from impotency, as if he could have made man no better, or more necessary an Agent: But of his Wisdom and Freedom, by which he made the Brutes without Reason, and Stones without Sense. 2. All sin is done against the Law or commanding Will of God, which determineth only of Duty, and not directly of Event. But it is not done against his absolute Will de eventu: For God is not overcome nor frustrate of his Decrees. 3. I pray you once for all remember what I have told you in the first •ook, that Gods Providence doth about mans sin, and then you will •ot say that he is Idle, or neglecteth his Government, unless he cause Sin. I. It is God that made man an Intellectual free Agent in his own Image, and the Lord of his own Acts, as a Creature morally governable by Laws: And so all his free power is of God, who still upholdeth it. II. As God is the Fons Naturae he is the Principium motus, and he concurreth as the first cause to all Action as Action in genere, and so to all that hath a physical entity and reality in sin: And I do not believe that Aureol••, Dura•d, or Lud. à Dola thought otherwise, though they differ in expressing the mode of concurse. III. God giveth men all the mercies which they turn to sin, and is the cause of all those Objects which they inordinately love and abuse. IV. God himself concurreth with Sinners, in causing the same effects which they cause also by prohibited Volitions and Actions (as in generation, &c.) even when custom giveth one name to the sin and the effect: And that by all the ways fore-named, and many more. V. God as the Worlds Governor and Benefactor, maketh mens sins the occasions of much good, and ordereth and over-ruleth all Wills and Events, so as not to miss of any of his ends: But will attain all his ends, while the Sinner seeketh his own. VI. All this that God doth he decreeth to do. And all that Sinners do he fore-knew. And neither his Wisdom, Goodness, or Power, is ever over-come by sin, or defective in any thing about it. And is not all this enough for you, but yet God must be the chief willer of sin.