A26921:396
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness.
London: printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts. › Part 4: IV. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will.
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.
§ 7. II. And as from the nature of that act, so much more from the nature of the Object, my love will appear to be my happiness: The Objects (which are as the Matter of the act) will be these.
1. GOD himself will be the full and everlasting Object of my Love. And he that could but understand as well as those in Heaven do, what this word signifieth ⟨p. 169⟩[to LOVE GOD and be BELOVED of him] would say that there needs no other description of perfect happiness! Perfect joyful Complacency in God is the Heaven which I desire and hope for. This is my Felicity, and much more. As I am the Agent of Love to God, and the Object of God's Love to me, it is my Felicity: As God is the ultimate Object of my Love, and the Agent of his Love to me (that is, of the effects of it,) so it is unspeakably more high and excellent than to be my felicity: Love is the closure of the Wills of God and Man: And as it is God's part or interest (efficiently or objectively) it is infinitely more excellent, than as it is my part and interest.
§ 8. In GOD there is all that Love can desire for its full everlasting Feast. 1. He is Infinitely good in himself, that is most amiable: And the nature of Man's will is to love Good as Good: Could we love God with a Love that is adequate to the Object, we should be God our selves which is impossible; none but God can adequately know God or Love him: In God's Love to Himself, both the Act and Object are Infinite, and indeed are both one, there being not that formally which we know by the name of Act and Object; but [Act and Object] are our analogical inadequate conceptions of that Act of God which is his Essence. But in our Love to God, the Act is finite and infinitely below the Object: Yea, the Object which in reality […] itself infinite, yet proximately as the esse Cognitum is the Object of our Love, is finite there: It is the Conception or Idea of God in the Intellect, which is the proper and nearest Object of the Will: And this is as a Face in a Glass, a shadow; even the finite little shadow of an infinite Being. The same Infinite good is a felicity to diver Persons in divers degrees according as they diversly love him, and are receptive of his Love.