A26862:187
Aphorisms of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of…Aphorismes of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of…
Aphorisms of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of the covenants, satisfaction, righteousness, faith, works, &c. : published especially for the use of the church of Kidderminster in Worcestershire / by their unworthy teacher Ri. Baxter.Aphorismes of justification, with their explication annexed wherein also is opened the nature of the covenants, satisfaction, righteousnesse, faith, works, &c. : published especially for the use of the church of Kederminster in Worcestershire / by their unworthy teacher Ri. Baxter.
Hague: printed by Abraham Brown, 1655
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.
7. The very nature of affliction is to be a loving punishment, a natural evil sanctified, and so to be mixed of evil and good, as it proceedeth from mixed causes: Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the curse and evil, but not the suffering, is a contradiction, because so far as it is a suffering it is to us evil, and the execution of the curse. What reason can be given, why God should not do us all that good without our sufferings, which now he doth by them, if there were not sin, and wrath and Law in them? Sure he could better us by easier means.
7. The very nature of affliction is to be a loving punishment, a natural evil sanctified, and so to be mixt of evil and good, as it proceedeth from mixt causes: Therefore to say that Christ hath taken away the curse and evil, but not the suffering, is a contradiction, because so far as it is a suffering it is to us evil, and the execution of the curse. What reason can be given, why God should not do us all that good without our sufferings, which now he doth by them, if there were not sin, and wrath and Law in them? Sure he could better us by easier means.
8. All those Scriptures and Reasons that are brought so the contrary do prove no more but this, That our afflictions are not the rigorous execution of the threatening of the Law, that they are not wholly or chiefly in wrath; but as the common Love of God to the wicked is mixed with hatred in their sufferings, and the hatred prevaileth above the love, so the sufferings of the godly proceed from a mixture of love and anger, and so have in them a mixture of good and evil; but the Love overcoming the Anger, therefore the good is greater then the evil, and so death hath lost its sting, 1 Cor. 15. 55, 56. There is no unpardoned sin in it, which shall procure further judgment, and so no hatred, though there be anger.
8. All those Scriptures and Reasons that are brought so the contrary do prove no more but this, That our afflictions are not the rigorous execution of the threatning of the Law, that they are not wholly or chiefly in wrath; but as the common Love of God to the wicked is mixt with hatred in their sufferings, and the hatred prevaileth above the love, so the sufferings of the godly proceed from a mixture of love and anger, and so have in them a mixture of good and evil; but the Love overcoming the Anger, therefore the good is greater then the evil, and so death hath lost its sting,