A26921:398
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.
§ 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.
§ 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 shaddow 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.