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,…

638. But the plausiblest argument is Cap. 20. p. 261. viz. God willeth sin as it is a Punishment of sin: ^*ergo he willeth that the sin come to pass or be. And indeed Augustine saith much contr. Julian. to assert Gods willing of sin as a Punishment of sin. But I answer this, 1. Even these men themselves oft say that God willeth not the formale peccati, but the materiale: And forma dat nomen: ergo he willeth not sin as a punishment, in proper sense.

638. But the plausiblest argument is Cap. 20. p. 261. viz. God willeth sin as it is a Punishment of sin: ^*ergo he willeth that the sin come to pass or be. And indeed Augustine saith much contr. Julian. to assert Gods willing of sin as a Punishment of sin. But I answer this, 1. Even these men themselves oft say that God willeth not the formale peccati, but the materiale: And forma dat nomen: ergo he willeth not sin as a punishment, in proper sence.

1. *Vid. Aureol. in 2. d. 37. p. 300, 301. showing six ways how sin is a punishment of sin, without God's willing the sin: But if we make it sin, he will make it be a punishment.Vid. Aureol. in 2. d. 37. p. 300, 301. shewing six wayes how sin is a punishment of sin, without God's willing the sin: But if we make it sin, he will make it be a punishment.

2. Sin it self (though denied by many Arminians) is verily a Punishment, and more to the Sinner himself than to any other. ^†And it is the most difficult part of the question, how God maketh sin a Punishment to the sinner himself; which yet I have plainly opened before, and here repeat it. To be sin or disobedience and to be Punishment are no absolute entities, but are two Relations of one and the same Act; but not as referred to one and the same correlate. God is not at all the Cause of the Act which is sinful, in its forbidden mode and circumstances (as Claudicatio equi before said) but only in genere actus, or hujus actus when two sins are compared: But that the Act when done is sin and is punishment, God is the Cause of both: That is, he maketh mans nature first, and in that and by revelation, his Law: by which he first maketh mans duty, and telleth him what shall be sin if he do it: And next he doth by his threatening tell him, that this sin it self shall be the sinners own misery if he do it: As if (as aforesaid) God first made man of such a nature as that poison would torment him ex natura rei: And then commandeth him to avoid it; And then threateneth that it shall torment and kill him if he eat it. Here now God maketh the Man and the Law: God maketh not the Act of sin as modified or oblique, or as that circumstantiated act. But when the act is caused by Man, God by his Law causeth two Relations to result,