A26883:3573
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. Corvinus and others of you ordinarily confess, that Faith it self is the Gift of God, and that Faith is more than a power to believe. And we denominate Gods Grace by the various effects: Therefore I may say that a man that hath Grace sufficient to believe, yet hath not Grace sufficient to Justification, till he have, 1. The Grace of Faith. 2. And so the Grace of the moral donation of the Covenant, which is the justifying, pardoning Instrument.
A. You seem then to deny sufficient Grace your self.
B. I assert, 1. That godly men have power or sufficient Grace to many acts of Faith, Love and Duty which they never do. 2. And that all men by common Grace, or sufficient, are able to do better than they do, in preparation for special Grace. 3. And that they are bound so to do, in order to their Salvation. And so that all men have some helps and Grace in its kind sufficient to enable them to seek Salvation, and that God will not forsake them till they forsake him.*
- *But I am not able to prove what Vasqu. asserteth in 1. Tho. q. 23. disp. 98. c. 4. Nunquam occurrere nobis obligationem praecepti, aut tentationem sine sufficienti cogitatione qua & hanc vincere, & illud observare possimus. Loquor de praecept• affirmativ•, cui non solum tempu• adest quo solet obligare, sed etiam cujus obligatio memoriae occurrit. And he addeth a great untruth, [Nam si nulla illius in mentem subiret cogitatio, nulla nobis ejus obligatio in•umberet,] unless by [sufficient Grace] he meant mere natural power, and by cogitation the natural power of cogitation, this is odious. As if a man were bound by no. Law of God or Man, if he could but make himself ignorant, contemptuous and wicked enough, never so much as to think of i.