A26923:787
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.
§. 20. Quest. What if a man that was sanctified by believing, should retain his Holiness, or Love and Obedience, and lose his Faith in Christ?
Answ. It is a thing that never was nor will be; and not to be disputed of.
§. 21. Moral Virtue in the proper sense of the word, is the same thing as Holiness taken comprehensively, as containing our Love and Duty to God, and to man for God's sake: But as Holiness is taken narrowly for our Love and Duty to God, as distinct from our Love and Duty to Man, so Moral Virtue is the genus, and Holiness the chief species of it. And thus we take Moral Virtue and Moral Action, and so all Morality, as contradistinct from Physics or things merely natural, not falling under the genus morris: And so Virtue and Vice (or Sin) are all that is Moral, that is, Moral Good and Moral Evil: And this is the first and most notable sense of the word.
§. 21. Moral Virtue in the proper sence of the word, is the same thing as Holiness taken comprehensively, as containing our Love and Duty to God, and to man for God's sake: But as Holiness is taken narrowly for our Love and Duty to God, as distinct from our Love and Duty to Man, so Moral Virtue is the genus, and Holiness the chief species of it. And thus we take Moral Virtue and Moral Action, and so all Morality, as contradistinct from Physicks or things meerly natural, not falling under the genus moris: And so Virtue and Vice (or Sin) are all that is Moral, that is, Moral Good and Moral Evil: And this is the first and most notable sence of the word.