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,…

A. Not that I remember; what then?

B. The Act you confess is procured, and therefore not resisted (effectually.) 2. The privation resisteth but passively, and so hath no active power. And to say that the privation of Faith could have resisted the Grace that wrought Faith, implieth a falsehood, if you mean it of active power or resistance. 3. The contrary habit is not a power, but the ill disposition of a power. Therefore if it be de facto, overcome as to the act by actual Grace, or in it self by habitual Grace, it is on a false supposition to say, that it had power to have resisted, when as it hath no power, nor is a power. But if you speak of Logical possibility, its impertinent equivocation. 4. All that remaineth then is, that the natural faculty in the antecedent instant wanted not power or freedom to the contrary act; which is true, and none of them that are intelligent deny. For God by determining a free power, doth not destroy it, but use it, and determine it. And Gods change of the Mind and Will, is not by any diminution or fraction of the power of it, but by a sapiential and loving efficacy, acting it aright, and more advancing it. Even in our after lives, he doth not take away our natural power to will and do evil, but he taketh away the vicious disposition of it, that we may certainly will and do well. Tell me yet then where is the difference?

B. The Act you confess is procured, and therefore not resisted (effectually.) 2. The privation resisteth but passively, and so hath no active power. And to say that the privation of Faith could have resisted the Grace that wrought Faith, implyeth a falshood, if you mean it of active power or resistance. 3. The contrary habit is not a power, but the ill disposition of a power. Therefore if it be de facto, overcome as to the act by actual Grace, or in it self by habitual Grace, it is on a false supposition to say, that it had power to have resisted, when as it hath no power, nor is a power. But if you speak of Logical possibility, its impertinent equivocation. 4. All that remaineth then is, that the natural faculty in the antecedent instant wanted not power or freedom to the contrary act; which is true, and none of them that are intelligent deny. For God by determining a free power, doth not destroy it, but use it, and determine it. And Gods change of the Mind and Will, is not by any diminution or fraction of the power of it, but by a sapiential and loving efficacy, acting it aright, and more advancing it. Even in our after lives, he doth not take away our natural power to will and do evil, but he taketh away the vicious disposition of it, that we may certainly will and do well. Tell me yet then where is the difference?