A26892:1309
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Part 1 › Chapter 3 › Direction 11 › Directions for Loving God as our Father and Felicity.
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.
Directions for Loving God as our Father and Felicity.
§. 2. Here I shall first give you these General Preparatives, (and then give you Directions for the exercise of holy Love.) 1. You must understand the Nature of Love to God: 2. You must understand the differences of this Love: 3. You must understand the Reasons of it: 4. And the Contraries of it: 5. And the Counterfeits of it.
§. 3. I. For the understanding of its Nature, observe these things: 1. It is not the Love of a particular1 good, but of the infinite Universal Good. The creature is a particular good, and our Love to it is a particular limited Love, confined as to a point. God is the Universal Good, and our Love to him is not limited by the object, but by the narrowness and imperfection of our faculties themselves. As suppose you had variety of Candles in your Room, and you had Diamonds and other refulgent things: You love each of these with a particular love, for their splendour and usefulness: and you more easily observe and feel the motion of this confined Love: But Light it self as Light, you love with a more Universal Love; which is greater, but not so sensibly observed. (Not as we speak of notional Universals in Logic, which have no existence but in particulars; but of the Natural, transcendent, infinite good, eternally existent, and arbitrarily appearing in some created particles) As the love of an infinite Light would differ from the Love of a Candle, and the love of an infinite Heat, from the love of a Fire, and the love of infinite Wisdom it self, from the love of a wise man; and the love of infinite Goodness it self from the love of a Good Man: So doth the love of God from the Love of a particular created good.
§. 3. I. For the understanding of its Nature, observe these things: 1. It is not the Love of a particular