A26892:1593
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.
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.
75. Yet is it not a sin to Love God for our selves and our own felicity, so be it we make him not a mere Means to that felicity as our absolutely ultimate End. For as God indeed is 1. The efficient of all our Good: 2. The Dirigent Cause that leadeth us to it: 3. The End in which our felicity truly consisteth, so is he to be Loved on all these accounts.
75. Yet is it not a sin to Love God for our selves and our own felicity, so be it we make him not a meer Means to that felicity as our absolutely ultimate End. For as God indeed is 1. The efficient of all our Good: 2. The Dirigent Cause that leadeth us to it: 3. The End in which our felicity truly consisteth, so is he to be Loved on all these accounts.
76. If God were not thus to be Loved for our selves (subordinated to him) Thankfulness would not be a Christian duty.
77. Our Love to God is a Love of Friendship, and a desire of a kind of Union, Communion, or Adherence. But not such as is between creatures where there is some sort of equality: But as between them that are totally unequal; the one infinitely below the other, and absolutely subject and subordinate to him.