An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 6. They that will denominate God's Volitions or Decrees according to the Order of Intention, must not mean that Ex parte Volentis, God hath really many thoughts, Volitions or Decrees, and that the first is de fine, and the next de mediis. But only that in the order of real Causation, one of God's Gifts or Effects is made to be a Cause or Means to the production or attainment of another; and so the latter is to be Man's End intended in the use of the former; and so Man is first to intend the End before he useth the Means: But no Gift, Work or Creature is to be called God's End, except when we speak Vulgarly after the manner of Men, that which we will not defend as proper Speech.

§. 7. Yet God may be said to will and n•• One thing to produce or Cause another; which importeth only that it is a second Efficient Caus• of that Other, and the other an intended Effect; and also that the other is to man to have ration•• finis, and so may be called finis operis, & operan••• secundarii.

§. 7. Yet God may be said to will and n•• One thing to produce or Cause another; whic• importeth only that it is a second Efficient Caus• of that Other, and the other an intended Effect; and also that the other is to man to have ration•• finis, and so may be called finis operis, & operan••• secundarii.

§. 8. God is not an Efficient Cause of Himself, or any thing in Himself, and therefore not properly an End to Himself, because there is nothing in Him Caused. But if any will speak otherwise, as if there were in God himself Eternal Causation Efficient and final, and Eternal Effects, and thereby explain the Doctrine of the Trinity, let them remember that they venture on singular Expressions, and such as favour of Imperfection; but we hope that they differ from the Commoner way, but in a Logical Notion, rather than in a real Conception.