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 am sorry that unwillingness and willingness can do so much with you about these matters. But I pray tell me, Quest. 4. What is it that you mean by Nature?

C. I mean that fixed order of being and operation which God put all things in at their Creations at the beginning.

B. You have done as the Incendiaries of the Church have done from the beginning of contentious Disputes: you have chosen a word unexplained ¹to make a ma•ter of reproach of, which hath so many significations, and is so uncertainly used, that Philosophers themselves, even in their greatest accurateness, know not what to fix upon; though there are few words which they are more concerned to be agreed in, if they could. But where the thing is unknown, no wonder if there be discord about the Name. Fortun, Licetue alone de natura primo movest may suffice to evince this. But I perceive you take not Nature for Principium motus et quietis, &c. nor for the essence of things, matter or form, or both▪ nor with Scotus de potentia for the passive power, nor in other senses usually intended by various Writers: But for the created status & ordo rerum, and the motus thereby alone caused. And if this he NATURE with you, you cast your self into inextricable difficulties to know what you say. For 1. We are very much ignorant of second Causes, and their concatenation and co-operations; who ever took in pieces this great Engine of the Universe (as men do a Clock or Watch) to find out the form and compagination of each part? or ever understood it. 2. Who can tell certainly what is done by this compagination of Causes and ²