A26919:766
The divine life in three treatises
The divine life in three treatises ... by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Francis Tyton, 1664
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.
9. Do you so highly value your friends for God, or for them, or for your selves, in the final consideration? If it was for God, what reason of trouble have you, that God hath disposed of them, according to his wisdom and unerring will? should you not then be more pleased that God hath them, and employeth them in his highest service, than displeased that you want them?
9. Do you so highly value your friends for God, or for them, or for your selves, in the final consideration? If it was for God, what reason of trouble have you, that God hath disposed of them, according to his wisdome and unerring will? should you not then be more pleased that God hath them, and employeth them in his highest service, than displeased that you want them?
But if you value them and love them for themselves, they are now more lovely when they are more perfect; and they are now fitter for your content and joy, when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy, than they could be in their sin and sorrows.
But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only, it is just with God to take them from you, to teach you to value men to righter ends, and upon better considerations: and both to prefer God before your selves, and better to understand the nature of true friendship, and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any creature, but of God alone.