A26883:2929
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.
B. Here are a multitude of Errors or Ineptitudes together. 1. That the name of the means (Salvation and Damnation) is put into the end. 2. That one little parcel of the means only is put, as if it were the whole. If we must speak so low, as to ascribe an End to God, we must say, that Ultimately he hath but one: And that one must needs be more than the glory of his Mercy and Justice towards man. Is all the rest of the world Angels and Men, Heaven and Earth, and Christ himself, no means in which he will be glorified? 3. That quid creatum is made Gods Ultimate End: For this Glory of his Mercy and Justice is no other, but a created demonstration or apprehension of it. 4. And why are Mercy and Justice only named, as though the glory of his Power, Wisdom and Goodness it self were here no part?
C. If you like none of this, tell me your own sense of it.
B. 1. I suppose that Intendere finem is spoken of God only in a transcendent sense, and not at all as it is of man. And, 2. I suppose that Gods Being hath no Beginning or End, nor any thing in him. 3. I suppose that Gods Free-will, by communication of Essence, and of Perfections, is the Original free Cause of all things. He necessarily is what he is: but he freely made what he made. 4. Therefore I suppose that the same Will which is the Beginning of all, is the End of all: So that Gods Will as efficient is the Beginning, and Gods Will as fulfilled and pleased is the end of all his Works. 5. This may be called finis Dei improperly after the manner of men, but tolerably and with the least impropriety, and such as we must use. 6. This is more properly the commanded and appointed end of the Intellectual Creature, and analogically the end that all things tend to. 7. God is never without his end: For his Will is ever fulfilled and pleased; For pro hic & nunc he willeth nothing but what is. 8. But there are degrees of Perfection in Gods Works, and ⟨p. 43⟩