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,…

1. Some think (as Hobbs) that no acts of the will are so free as not to be necessitated, as the motions in an Engine, though unobserved by our selves, who see not the Concatenation of Causes.

527. 2. Some Dominicans, and our Dr. Twice and Rutherford held, that no act natural or free can be done by any creature, without the Predetermination of Gods Physical efficient immediate Premotion, as the first total Cause of that act: But yet that this standeth with Liberty, because God causeth contingentia contingenter fieri. And that he so causeth every Act of sin in all its circumstances; and the totum materiale peccati; and all that the sinner causeth: But yet that he is not the Author of sin, nor causeth the form; Because 1. They say, that sin hath no efficient cause, but a deficient, which God is not, being not obliged to act: And sin is nothing, but a privation. 2. Because God is under no Law: and therefore though he do the same things that man doth, it is sin in man, but not in him: And saith Holkot, he is the cause of sin, but not the Author, because he commandeth it not by his Law. 3. At other times they say, that sin is formally a Relation of disconformity to the Law of God, and God causeth the whole act as circumstanced, but not the relation, which resulteth from it. 4. And God causeth not sin as sin, but as a means to his Glory, or as a punishment of former sin.

527. 2. Some Dominicans, and our Dr. Twisse and Rutherford held, that no act natural or free can be done by any creature, without the Predetermination of Gods Physical efficient immediate Premotion, as the first total Cause of that act: But yet that this standeth with Liberty, because God causeth contingentia contingenter fieri. And that he so causeth every Act of sin in all its circumstances; and the totum materiale peccati; and all that the sinner causeth: But yet that he is not the Author of sin, nor causeth the form; Because 1. They say, that sin hath no efficient cause, but a deficient, which God is not, being not obliged to act: And sin is nothing, but a privation. 2. Because God is under no Law: and therefore though he do the same things that man doth, it is sin in man, but not in him: And saith Holkot, he is the cause of sin, but not the Author, because he commandeth it not by his Law. 3. At other times they say, that sin is formally a Relation of disconformity to the Law of God, and God causeth the whole act as circumstanced, but not the relation, which resulteth from it. 4. And God causeth not sin as sin, but as a means to his Glory, or as a punishment of former sin.