A26883:651
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.
386. 2. That it is not Gods Essence and perfections that is an end as to any medium; But it is his Will: For his Free Will is the Beginning, and the Complacency of that Will is the End of all things. But if you call God his own Object, and so call the final Object an End, so we must consider God as Loving Himself; and Himself is the End or final object of his own Love or Complacency; and he himself as Loving himself, is said to Act on that End or Object. And indeed eternal self-knowledge and self-love (which some of old ventured to call the second and third Persons) are the Great Immanent Acts of the Divine Essence, (with the sibi vivere.) And it seemeth the chief Notion of Holiness in God, that he Loveth Himself in primo instanti, and that he is most Amiable to his Creatures in secundo instanti, and that he is the Cause and End of all that is good in them. Thus a final object of his own and our Love or Complacency, God is past all doubt. And secondarily his Will is pleased and fulfilled in all his works.
387. 3. Yet by that Complacency we mean not that God is passive, or receiveth any Delight from the Creature, or hath any addition by it to his felicity: But as he is a Communicative Good by way of Efficiency as the first efficient Cause, so is he a felicitating Good to the Creature as its End, and he is Love taking the creature into its nearest Communion with him: which is his Complacency, and the End of all things. And hence it is that God is said when he had finished his works, to Rest complacentially in all as very Good.
388. 4. As the Complacency of Gods Will is his End, in the formal notion (so far as it may be said of God) so his Glory is his End in the Material notion.