A26892:1666
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Object. 6. Holiness is but an Accident, and the person is the substance, and Better than the Accident: And Dr. Twi•s •ppugneth on such accounts the saying of Arminius, That God loveth Justice better than just men, because it is for Justice that he loveth them.
Object. 6. Holiness is but an Accident, and the person is the substance, and Better than the Accident: And Dr. Twi•s •ppugneth on such accounts the saying of Arminius, That God loveth Iustice better than just men, because it is for Iustice that he loveth them.
Answ. 1. Aristotle and Porphyry have not so clearly made known to us the nature of those things or modes which they are pleased to call Accidents, as that we should lay any great stress upon their sayings about them. Another will say, that Goodness it self is but an Accident, and most will call it a Mode; and they will say, that the substance is better than the Mode or Accident, and therefore better than Goodness it self: And would this, think you, be good arguing? Distinguish then between Physical Goodness of Being, in the soul, both as a Substance, and as a Formal Virtue; and the Perfective, or Modal, qualitative or gradual Goodness: And then consider, that the later alway presupposeth the former: where there is Holiness, there is the substance, with its Physical Goodness, and the perfective, Modal or Moral Goodness too: But where there is no Holiness, there is only a substance deprived of its Modal Moral Goodness. And is not both better than one, and a perfect being, than an imperfect?
Answ. 1. Aristotle and P•rphyrie have not so clearly made known to us the nature of those things or modes which they are pleased to call Accidents, as that we should lay any great stress upon their sayings about them. Another will say, that Goodness it self is but an Accident, and most will call it a Mode; and they will say, that the substance is better than the Mode or Accident, and therefore better than Goodness it self: And would this, think you, be good arguing? Distinguish then between Physical Goodness of Being, in the soul, both as a Substance, and as a Formal Vertue; and the Perfective, or Modal, qualitative or gradual Goodness: And then consider, that the later alway presupposeth the former: where there is Holiness, there is the substance, with its Physical Goodness, and the perfective, Modal or Moral Goodness too: But where there is no Holiness, there is only a substance deprived of its Modal Moral Goodness. And is not both better than one, and a perfect being, than an imperfect?