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,…

626. Cap. 15. pag. 186. To Annatus charging Twice as denying Gods permission of sin, because he maketh him the ^*Cause of the Act, the Liberty and the Prohibition, and to Cause is not to Permit; he hath no better answer than to say, that God doth not permit the Act, nor the Evil of the Act, but he permitteth the evil act: and 2. To say that the Dominicans and Jesuits hold the same as he. Which is to jest with holy things, and not to argue. As if he said, God made neither the soul nor the body, and yet he made the man. What! is it (as it's said, that non animased unio est vita) so Doth God permit the Union of Actum and Mal•m? No, that he pretendeth not.

626. Cap. 15. pag. 186. To Annatus charging Twisse as denying Gods permission of sin, because he maketh him the ^*Cause of the Act, the Liberty and the Prohibition, and to Cause is not to Permit; he hath no better answer than to say, that God doth not permit the Act, nor the Evil of the Act, but he permitteth the evil act: and 2. To say that the Dominicans and Jesuits hold the same as he. Which is to jest with holy things, and not to argue. As if he said, God made neither the soul nor the body, and yet he made the man. What! is it (as it's said, that non animased unio est vita) so Doth God permit the Union of Actum and Mal•m? No, that he pretendeth not.

1. *Nec omnino negari potest Voluntatem Dei esse Causam rerum omnium quas fieri velit. Twiss. recitante etiam Rutherf. de Prov. c. 15. p. 186. See all their Reasons for Gods causing sin, or willing its existence answered by Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp. 26. p. 262, 263, 264, 265. As also against Gods predetermining to the immediate materiale peccati: disp. 27. p. 270, &c. disp. 28, & 29, & 30, &c. usque ad p. 580. As to the common saying that God willeth not sin as sin; all men will confess (Dr. Twiss. often) that neither doth a wicked man do so. Peccans ut sic non intendit peccatum quoad illud quod est formale in peccato, seu carentiam conformitatis; sed intendit actum ut est in genere morris, inquit Aureolus in 2. d. 42. a. 3. pag. 319. I will not conceal a more difficult argument than most of theirs, which may occur to others: God caused (e. g. in Nathanael, Peter, &c.) this act of saith before Christs coming; [the Messiah is to come hereafter.] When Christ was come, this was false, and so evil: God still caused the faith which he gave them. Therefore he caused an untrue belief and evil, and that supernaturally. But I answ. 1. God caused the habit of their faith, and the act. The nature of the habit was in general A belief of all divine revelations: and in special A belief in the promised Messiah. The termination of the act on the Messiah as future rather than as Incarnate, required nothing positive in the Habit: The same Habit served to both acts, unless the latter being for the nobler act had some addition; but the former needed none. 2. And that this Habit might bring forth the act in that circumstance, no more was necessary but 1. Gods word [Christus venturus est.] 2. And Gods influx on the habited faculty to cause it to act according to that habit: So that when God had reversed that word [Christus venturus est] he was no longer the cause determining the mind to believe that word; but only the cause that the habit of faith was still towards Christ: But not at all sub ratione venturi. For the determining word was called in, and it was an imperfection not to know so much, where it was not a sin.