A26883:868
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.
576. Let the Reader remember, that what the Author saith of Gods Willing, he also in the point of Predetermination saith of his working: viz. that he Causeth as much as he willeth: But I pass that by now because I have largely confuted it elsewhere. And to speak to One is to speak to both.
577. 1. All sober Christians are agreed, on what side soever, that God is not the Cause of sin, except some odd presumers who are condemned by the generality: One or two spoke some hard words that way in Belgia, whom the Synod of Dort rejected: Mr. Archers Book was burnt for it by the Parliament or Westminster Synod. Beza himself (in Rom. 8. 28. & passim) abhorreth it as intolerable blasphemy. But this Doctrine in question plainly maketh God the Willer and Cause of sin: Yea more, very much more than wicked men or Devils are: which is not true.
578. For they make Men and Devils to be but a second pre-moved predetermined Cause of the Act (of Volition and Execution) whence the formal obliquity necessarily resulteth: But 1. God is certainly the Cause of the Nature which is the Agent: 2. He is the Cause of the Law which maketh the act in specie to be sin: His saying, Thou shalt not commit Adultery or Murder, maketh Adultery and Murder to be sin, when they are committed, which they would not be without the Law. 3. God causeth and ordereth all the objects and occasions. 4. And now they also say that God willeth ut peccatum fiat, (and is the first predetermining Cause, even the total Cause, of all that is in the act and all its circumstances, without which predetermination it could not be.) So that man doth but will what God first willeth, and act what God first moveth him unavoidably to act, as the pen in my hand. 5. And the Law and the Act being put in being, the Relative obliquity is but the necessary result, and hath no other cause.