A26883:929
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.
Moreover, God is Good and doth good. And though he made Man freely, yet supposing that he will make him Man (a Rational free agent in his Image to Know and Love him)▪ it necessarily followeth that he must make him Holy. God cannot make a man in the Image of the Devil, and call it his own: As Parents generate Children in their own likeness, so God doth regenerate his own in his Image: He that thought it a good argument, [What Communion hath light with darkness, Christ with Belial, &c.] would sure have taken our part in this, that God cannot be the Author or Cause of the Image of the Devil, and of the works of darkness.
611. Therefore where he addeth, that God Willeth Malum esse that sin be, as the Matter of exercising his mercy and justice, not as his sin, but tantum vult fieri malum alterius, I deny it with horror as a reproach of Gods holiness. The terminus à quo is not the Materia misericordia vel ⟨p. 101⟩justitiae exercendae. God willeth the glory of his Mercy and Justice, in pardoning and punishing foreseen presupposed sin: But he willeth not the sin, but only our deliverance from it, or punishment for it. Suppose (per impossible) that the King had power to restrain all men from offending him, and yet saith, [I will do only what is Congruous to the Rational free nature of my subjects as such, and not all that I can do, and therefore will restrain them only by Laws, except some few beloved ones; but I will honour my Mercy and Justice on offenders.] Can you hence prove, that he willeth, decreeth or loveth ut appetibilia all the Treasons, Rebellions, Murders and Blasphemies that are committed? It is not these that he willeth ut Materiam, but deliverance from these as from the malum à quo. If your prodigal Son be addicted to Robbing, and you could lock him up, but you resolve that you will try him once more, and if he ro• you will let him suffer imprisonment and come to the Gallows, and then beg his Pardon, that suffering may hereafter be his warning; Here if you choose rightly it is not his Robbing that you will, no not ut sit vel fiat (for you had rather he would forbear:) But only his forsaking it, and his suffering to that end, on supposition that he rob again.