A26883:4243
Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…
Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1675
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.
But every Scripture Metaphor hath its reason; And the reason of this is evident. Though God cannot be Profited, he can be Pleased. And his Will or Pleasure is the End of all his Government and Works: And he is Pleased most in that which doth the World, the Church and our selves the most good, for in that he is most glorified: Now he so maketh his Laws and Promises, as if our own and other mens good were his, and his Reward for our Pleasing by Order, Justice and Goodness, he calleth wages metaphorically, being instead of profiting him. XV. By all which it is most obvious that we are not at all the less, but the more beholden to God, for the Merit or Rewardableness of our actions: For as all the Benefit is free Gift, so it is of his Grace that we do any thing that is good, and that he accepteth it as Rewardable: And if it be any honour to a man to be good rather than bad, and the Righteous be more excellent than his neighbour, it is an addition of mercy, that God will honour those that honour him, and commandeth others so to do, Psal. 15. 4. XVI. And now the case is very plain, both that Reward and Rewardableness (called Merit) there is, and why it is and must be so. 1. How can God be a Governor, and have a Law, and be a Judge, and Righteous in all this, if faith and godliness be not Rewardable? It is the second Article in our faith, and next believing that There is a God, that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, Heb. 11. 6. And when you would extirpate all faith and godliness on pretence of crying down Merit, you may see what over-doing tends to. 2. The very nature of all Gods Laws and Promises evidently infer a Reward: Without it there were no such thing as Faith, Hope, Desire, Joy, Content, forsaking all: Psal. 19. 11. In keeping them there is great reward. 58. 11. Verily there is a Reward for the righteous.— 3. There is notoriously a Reward even in this life, Matth. 19. 29. Who would change the profit and pleasure of a holy life here, for that of the unholy? 4. Reward and Rewardableness are found in the very Law of Nature it self: In that we are made for God as our end, and it is God himself who is our Reward: And holiness hath a natural tendency to happiness, yea, is the beginning of it it self: