A26923:346
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
Chapter 7: Of God's Providence, and predetermining Premotion and Miracles.
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.
And it would follow that no second Cause, no not the noblest in the World (as the Sun) and God as acting by it, hath and exerciseth à vis adequata to the smallest motion even of a Leaf: Whereas God in Nature maketh natural Power, with his own, as he is fons naturae, adequate to its Actions.
And let unbiased Reason judge, Whether if a Rock should be held up in the Air, if God continue the natural Gravity of it, with all the rest of the frame of Nature, could not that Rock fall, without another motion of God which is without any second Cause, to thrust it down? If He continue the nature of Fire, was it not a greater Miracle, that it burnt not the three Witnesses, Dan. 3. than to have burnt them, or than its ordinary Action? Why else should there need ten thousand fold more natural Power to hold up the said Rock, or to quench a City on fire, or to stop a River, or the Winds; than to move them supposing natural Causes, if there need an Infinite Power moreover to the act, and none to the cessation? And by this Rule it would follow, that all Motion in the World is supernatural: For if God cause it ut sons naturae, he causeth it in the natural course: if he do not, it's all supernatural and miraculous.
And let unbyassed Reason judge, Whether if a Rock should be held up in the Air, if God con•inue the natural Gravity of it, with all the rest of the frame of Nature, could not that Rock fall, without another motion of God which is without any second Cause, to thrust it down? If He continue the nature of Fire, was it not a greater Miracle, that it burnt not the three Witnesses, Dan. 3. than to have burnt them, or than its ordinary Action? Why else should there need ten thousand fold more natural Power to hold up the said Rock, or to quench a City on fire, or to stop a River, or the Winds; than to move them supposing natural Causes, if there need an Infinite Power moreover to the act, and none to the cessation? And by this Rule it would follow, that all Motion in the World is supernatural: For if God cause it ut sons naturae, he causeth it in the natural course: if he do not, it's all supernatural and miraculous.