A26883:403
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.
158. Though Pre-determination belong to Gods Execution, and be after his Volitions in order, yet because I am now only to speak of it, as a pretended medium of his knowledge of sin, and as quid decretum, I shall touch it here. It is confessed that there is no substance which God is not the Maker of (besides himself); Nor any Action of which he is not the first Cause.
158. THough Pre-determination belong to Gods Execution, and be after his Volitions in order, yet because I am now only to speak of it, as a pretended medium of his knowledge of sin, and as quid decretum, I shall touch it here. It is confessed that there is no substance which God is not the Maker of (besides himself); Nor any Action of which he is not the first Cause.
159. God may well be called the perfect first Cause of humane Actions, in that he giveth man all his Natural faculties, and a Power to Act or not act at this time, or to choose this or that, and as the Fountain of Nature and Life and Motion, doth afford his Influx necessary to this free agency. So that when ever any Act is done, as an Act in genere, God is the first Cause of it: For it is done by the Power which he giveth and continueth, and by his Vital Influx; And there is no Power used to produce it which is not given by God.
160. An Act as such, hath no Morality in it, but is quid naturale; And so it is from God as he is fons naturae. But the Morality of an Act is formally the Relative Rectitude or obliquity of it, referred to Gods Governing Will or Law, and to his amiable Goodness or Will as it is mans End. And Materially it is (not the Act as such, but) the Act as exercised on an unmeet object rather than on a meet one, or to an undue End rather than a due End, or else the Omission of the Act as to the due End and Object, which is the sin, and the fundamentum of the sinfulness; and so è contra.