A26923:430
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.
§. 8. The MEDIATOR himself being purely the Gift of the Divine Love and Mercy, it was no inconvenience, that God then had all the Glory, and that Faith then acknowledged no other existent Saviour, but God himself the infinite Good.
§. 9. It troubleth men much to open, how Christ was any true Cause of our Pardon and Salvation as a Mediator, before his Incarnation? And what his merits, sacrifice and intercession could do, before they did exist? And the common Answer is, That Moral (though not Physical) Causes may cause before they exist, and so operate as foreseen, foredecreed or willed. But these Logical notions must not be used to put off the Question, instead of satisfactorily answering it. This tells us not whether by a Moral Cause they mean a True Cause of some moral Being, or something morally called a Cause which indeed is not so, but quasi causa: Nor yet whether they mean a Cause efficient, final or constitutive: Nor yet whether they mean a Cause of any thing in God, or only of some following effect.
§. 10. It must be concluded that Christ's merits, sacrifice and Intercession make no real Change in God, his Understanding or Will, and therefore have no such Causality.