A26883:404
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.
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.
161. This Comparative mode of exercise addeth no proper Physical Entity at all to the General nature of the Act as such. In Omissions (of Loving, Trusting, Fearing, Serving God) there is no Natural Act, but a privation of it. In committed sins, to Love this Object rather than that, hath no more Natural Entity than to Love that rather than this; and no more than is in the general nature of Love as such. A modus Entis is not Ens: But this Comparative choice, is but the Modus Modi entis: For an Action is but Modus Entis, and this is but a modus actionis.