A26919:349
The divine life in three treatises
The divine life in three treatises ... by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Francis Tyton, 1664
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.
CHAP. XVI.
15. There are yet divers subordinate Attributes of God, that being comprised in the forementioned, may be passed over with the briefer touch. And the next that I shall speak of, is, his Freedom. And God is Free in more senses than one; but for brevity, I shall speak of all together.
15. THere are yet divers subordinate Attributes of God, that being comprized in the forementioned, may be passed over with the briefer touch. And the next that I shall speak of, is, his Freedome. And God is Free in more senses than one; but for brevity, I shall speak of all together.
1. And first, God hath a Natural Freedom of Will, being Determined to Will by nothing without him, nor liable to any Necessity, but what is consistent with perfect Blessedness and Liberty. His own Being, and Blessedness, and Perfections, are not the objects of his Election; and therefore not of that which we call Free Will: But all his works without, as Creation, Providence, Redemption, &c. are the effects of his Free Will: Not but that his Will concerning all these, hath a Necessity of existence: For God did from Eternity Will the Creation, and all that is done in time; and therefore from Eternity that will existing, had a Necessity of existence: But yet it was Free, because it proceedeth not Necessarily from the very Nature of God: God was God before he made the world, or Redeemed it, or did the things that are daily done. And therefore one part of the Schoolmen maintain, not only that there is Contingency from God, but that there could be no Contingency in the Creature, if it had not its Original in God: the Liberty of God being the fountain of Contingency.