A26892:1619
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.
15. In this case above all others, it is manifest that every conviction of the understanding doth not accordingly determine the Will. For in this new convert the understanding saith plainly, God is to be Loved as God, above my self: But the Will saith, I cannot do it, though I would. I am so captivated by self-love, and so void of the true Love of God, that I can say no more, but that Propter me vellem amare Deum propter se; I love my own felicity so well, that I love God as my felicity and Love him under the notion of God the perfect Good, who is infinitely better than my self; and desire a heart to Love him more than my self; but I cannot say, that I yet do it, or that I love him best or most, whom I acknowledge to be best, and as such to be loved.
16. Yet in all this there is not only semen amoris, a seed of divine love to God as God, but the foundation of it laid, and some obscure secret conception of it beginning, or in fieri, in the soul. For while the understanding confesseth God to be most Amiable, and the Will desireth that felicity which doth consist in loving him above my self, and experience telleth me, that he is Good to me, and therefore good in himself, it can hardly be conceived, but that in all this there is some kind of secret love to God, as better than my self.
87. In all this note, that it is one thing to Love God under the notion of the Infinite Good, better than my self and all things, and another thing for the will to Love him more, as that notion obligeth.