A26892:1321
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.
III. The Reasons why Love to God is so great, and high, and necessary a thing, and so much esteemed above other Graces, are: 1. It is the motion of the soul that tendeth to the End: And the End is more excellent than all the Means as such. 2. The Love, or Will, or Heart is the Man: where the Heart or Love is, there the Man is: It is the fullest resignation of the whole man to God, to Love him as God, or offer him the Heart. God never hath his Own fully, till we Love him. Love is the grand significant vital motion of the soul, such as the Heart, or Will, or Love is, such you may boldly call the man. 3. The Love of God is the perfection and highest improvement of all the faculties of the soul, and the End of all other Graces, to which they tend, and to which they grow up and in which they terminate their operations. 4. The Love of God is that Spirit or life of moral excellency in all other Graces in which (though not their form, yet) their acceptableness doth consist: without which they are to God as a lifeless Carrion is to us. And to prove any action sincere and acceptable to God, is to prove that it comes from a Willing Loving mind; without which you can never prove it. 5. Love is the commander of the soul: and therefore God knoweth that if he have our Hearts, he hath all: For all the rest are at its command: For it is as it were, the nature of the Will, which is the commanding faculty; and its Object is the Ultimate End which is the Commanding Object. Love settleth the mind on Thinking, the tongue on speaking, the hands on working, the feet on going, and every faculty obeyeth its command. 6. The obedience which Love commandeth participateth of its nature, and is a ready, cheerful, sweet obedience, acceptable to God, and pleasant to our selves. 7. Love is a pure, chaste and cleansing grace; and most powerfully casteth out all creature1 pollution from the soul: The Love of God doth quench all carnal sinful love; and most effectually carrieth up the soul, to such high delights, as causeth it to contemn and forget the toys which it before admired. 8. The Love of God is the true acknowledging and honouring him as good. That blessed Attribute, his GOODNESS, is denied or despised by those that Love him not. The Light of the Sun would not be valued, honoured or used by the world, if there were no eyes in the world to see it.
III. The Reasons why Love to God is so great, and high, and necessary a thing, and so much esteemed above other Graces, are: 1. It is the motion of the soul that tendeth to the End: And the End is more excellent than all the Means as such. 2. The Love, or Will, or Heart is the Man: where the Heart or Love is, there the Man is: It is the fullest resignation of the whole man to God, to Love him as God, or offer him the Heart. God never hath his Own fully, till we Love him. Love is the grand significant vital motion of the soul, such as the Heart, or Will, or Love is, such you may boldly call the man. 3. The Love of God is the perfection and highest improvement of all the faculties of the soul, and the End of all other Graces, to which they tend, and to which they grow up and in which they terminate their operations. 4. The Love of God is that Spirit or life of moral excellency in all other Graces in which (though not their form, yet) their acceptableness doth consist: without which they are to God as a lifeless Carrion is to us. And to prove any action sincere and acceptable to God, is to prove that it comes from a Willing Loving mind; without which you can never prove it. 5. Love is the commander of the soul: and therefore God knoweth that if he have our Hearts, he hath all: For all the rest are at its command: For it is as it were, the nature of the Will, which is the commanding faculty; and its Object is the Vltimate End which is the Commanding Object. Love setleth the mind on Thinking, the tongue on speaking, the hands on working, the feet on going, and every faculty obeyeth its command. 6. The obedience which Love commandeth participateth of its nature, and is a ready, chearful, sweet obedience, acceptable to God, and pleasant to our selves. 7. Love is a pure, chaste and cleansing grace; and most powerfully casteth out all creature