A26905:328
The crucifying of the world
The crucifying of the world by the cross of Christ with a preface to the nobles, gentlemen, and all the rich, directing them how they may be richer / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons, 1658
The Crucifying of the world, BY The Cross of CHRIST. › Part 1 › Section 10
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.
SECT. X.
IV. I Am next to give you the Reasons of the Necessity of this Crucifixion, the most of which also, for brevity sake, I shall reserve to the Application, and at present only lay down these two or three briefly.
1. The world is every carnal mans Idol, and God cannot endure Idolatry: To see his creature set up in his stead, and rob him of his Esteem and Interest, and be loved, honoured and served before him: and to see such contemptible things be taken as Gods, while God himself stands by neglected, he will not, he cannot endure this. Either Grace shall take down the Idol, or ⟨p. 61⟩Judgement and Hell shall plague the Idolator, for he hath Resolved that he will not give his glory to another, Isa. 42. 8. & 48. 11. All sin is hateful to God, and none but the cleansed perfect soul shall stand before him, in the presence of his glory; nor any in whom iniquity hath dominion shall stand accepted in the presence of his Grace: But yet no particular sin is so hateful to him as Idolatry is. For this is not only a trespassing against his Laws, but a disclaiming or rejecting his very Sovereignty it self. To give a Prince unreverent language, and to break his Laws, is punishable; but to pull him out of his throne, and set up a scullion in it, and give him the honour and obedience of a King, this is another kind of matter, and much more intolerable. The first Commandment is not like the rest, which require only obedience to particular Laws in a particular action; but it establisheth the very Relations of Sovereign and Subject, and requires a constant acknowledgement of these relations, and makes it high Treason against the God of heaven in any that shall violate that command. Every Crime is not Treason: Its one thing to miscarry in a particular case, and another thing to have other Gods before and besides the Lord, the only God. Now this is the sin of every worldling: He hath taken down God from the throne in his own soul, and set up the flesh and the world in his stead: These he valueth, and magnifieth, and delighteth in: These have his very heart, while God that made it and redeemed him, is set light by. And do you think that this is a sin to be endured? It is a more horrid thing to wish that God were not God, then to wish that Heaven and Earth were destroyed or turned again to Nothing. He that would kill a man deserveth death; What then deserveth he that would destroy all the world? that would pull the Sun out of the firmament, or set all the world on fire, if it were in his power? Yet is not all this so bad as to wish that God should lose his God-head: