A26923:361
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
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.
§. 2. To say, that God is the principal determining Cause of every sinful act with all its Objects and Circumstances (called the materiale peccati) and also the Cause of the Law that forbiddeth it, and the Person that committeth it, is to make him ⟨p. 83⟩the chief Cause of Sin, as far as it is capable of a Cause, even of the formal Cause.
§. 3. To say, That such a Cause is the Cause only of the Act, but not of the Obliquity, is absurd; because the obliquity is a Relation necessarily resulting from the Law and Act with all its modes and circumstances: And the obliquity can have no other Cause.
§. 4. To say, That God willeth and loveth and causeth Sin, not as Sin, but for good ends and uses, is, to say no more for God than may be said for wicked men, if not for Devils; save only that God's Ends are better than theirs.
§. 5. To say, That God willeth not Sin, but the Existence and Futurity of Sin, is but as aforesaid, to say, that He wills not Sin as Sin, or sub ratione •ali, but that it exist for better ends; or else it is a contradiction: For to will or cause Sin is nothing else but to will and cause the existence of Sin.