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. But come yet nearer the heart of the case, and tell me plainly, 1. Whether the difference of Effects be more from the will and action of God, or from mens different Receptive dispositions. And 2. Whether all these different Receptivities be not of God.

B. Order bids me begin with the latter. 1. The different Dispositions are of two sorts, Good and Bad. God is not the cause of the Indisposition ⟨p. 185⟩or ill-disposition of any. And as to the good disposition or Preparation of Souls, no doubt but he is the principal Cause of it all: but not the sole Cause, nor (always at least) the necessitating Cause; but oft giveth men that necessary help by which they might have been prepared for more, when yet they are not through their wilful resistance or neglect. For few men will deny that men have sufficient uneffectual Grace for some preparatory acts, though not for faith. Ad. Q. 2. I told you that the difference in the effects, resulteth from the Causes in both Subjects, and not in one only: That which maketh one a believer, and the other an unbeliever, maketh them differ. And I have told you what these Causes are. But further; I suppose as aforesaid, a certain established order and degree of universal help, external and internal, by Christ to the Soul, as the Sun affordeth to inferior Bodies: This stablished order of Grace, universally affordeth such a degree of Divine Influx and help, as will cause faith in a prepared Soul, and will not cause it in some much unprepared Souls: (For if as little help would serve the unprepared as the prepared, to what use is preparation, & quomodo recipitur ad modum recipientis;) In this case now the efficient of Grace is God, and not Man; but ^*the Ratio proxima of the difference in the event and effects is the Diverse disposition of the Recipients. But here, mark well, that it is not the good disposition or preparation of one party, that is, the only, and I think, not the chief reason of the difference; but the Privative and Positive indisposition of the other party, is as much, if not, the chiefest reason. If one man shut his eyes against the light, when another doth not, the Ratio discriminis why one man differeth from another in seeing and not seeing, is on both parts, but principally on his part that shutteth his eyes; because the other doth but what he was made to do, and all living creatures should do: But the other absurdly crosseth nature. So that under an universal Influx and help, the said Influx is the efficient of the action or effect; but the disposition of the Recipients are the Occasions and Reasons to be assigned of the various effects;