A26892:1322
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.
And the Goodness of God is to them that Love him not, as the Light to them that have no eyes. If God would have had his Goodness to be thus unknown or neglected, he would never have made the Intellectual creatures. Those only give him the glory of his Goodness, that truly Love him. 9. Love (in its attainment) is the Enjoying and delighting Grace: It is the very content and felicity of the soul: Both as it maketh us capable to receive the most delightful communications of Gods Love to us; and as it is the souls delightful closure with its most amiable felicitating object. 10. Love is the Everlasting Grace, and the work which we must be doing in Heaven for ever. These are the the Reasons of Loves preeminence.
And the Goodness of God is to them that Love him not, as the Light to them that have no eyes. If God would have had his Goodness to be thus unknown or neglected, he would never have made the Intellectual creatures. Those only give him the glory of his Goodness, that truly Love him. 9. Love (in its attainment) is the Enjoying and delighting Grace: It is the very content and felicity of the soul: Both as it maketh us capable to receive the most delightful communications of Gods Love to us; and as it is the souls delightful closure with its most amiable felicitating object. 10. Love is the Everlasting Grace, and the work which we must be doing in Heaven for ever. These are the the Reasons of Loves preheminence.
§. 12. IV. The Love of Creatures hath its Contraries on both extremes; in the excess and in the Defect: But the Love of God hath no contrary in excess: For infinite Goodness cannot possibly be Loved too much (unless as the passion may possibly be raised to a degree distracting or disturbing the brain.) The odious Vices contrary to the Love of God, are 1. Privative: Not loving him: 2. Positive: Hating him: 3. Opposite: Loving his creatures in his stead. All these concur in every unsanctified soul. That they are all void of the true Love of God, and taken up with creature Love, is past all doubt: But whether they are all Haters of God, may seem more questionable. But it is as certain as the other: Only the hatred of God in most, doth not break out into that open opposition, persecution or blasphemy, as it doth with some that are given up to desperate wickedness: Nor do they think that they hate him. But the Aversation of the Will, is the Hatred of God: And if men had not a great aversation to him, they would not forsake him, and refuse to be converted to him, notwithstanding all the arguments of Love that can be used to allure them. Displicency, Nlitin and Aversation are Hatred.