A26923:762
An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication without much disputing. Written by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for John Salusbury, 1691
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.
§. 2. It is our Separation to God as the Creator of our Nature, and our Redeemer, and the Author of Grace, and our Felicity, and the Cause of Glory: As the first Efficient, supreme Dirigent, and ultimately final Cause.
§. 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation, as our Ruler by Obedience, and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love, in the acknowledgement of his infinite power, wisdom and goodness, as essential to himself, and related to his works.
§. 3. It is our separation to God as our Owner by Resignation, as our Ruler by Obedience, and as our Benefactor and ultimate End by Thankfulness and Love, in the acknowledgment of his infinite power, wisdom and goodness, as essential to himself, and related to his works.
§. 4. Holiness is our dispositive, actual, and relative separation to God; 1. When our Souls are habitually inclined to God and to his Will. 2. When we actually give up our selves to God and to his will; by Consent first, and Obedience and Love after. 3. It signifieth the relation of the Person as thus ⟨p. 204⟩habitually and actually separated. (A holy Priesthood, 1 Pet. 2. 5, 9, 11.)
§. 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul; viz. 1. Of the vital Active Power by1 Quickening and Strength. 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination. 3. Of the Will by Conversion, Love or Complacency.
§. 5. Holiness is the Habit and Act of all the three Faculties of the rational Soul; viz. 1. Of the vitael Active Power by1 Quickening and Strength. 2. Of the Intellect by Illumination. 3. Of the Will by Conversion, Love or Complacency.
§. 6. The Soul as sensitive, and the body it self, are said to be sanctified, so far as they are dispositively and actually subject and subservient to a holy Soul in Holiness, and related accordingly as separate to God.
§. 7. Our Holiness is no alienation from the Creature as a Creature, in its due place and subordination to the Creator, but contrarily containeth our Honour of, and Love to, all God's Creatures for his sake and impress, and a devoting of all that is ours to his use: But it containeth a renunciation of that which is against1 his Honour and Government and Love, as such.
§. 8. As God communicateth Holiness really and relatively to Man, so holy persons communicate such Holiness to Creatures below them, as consisteth in the use and relation of things separated to God, by a due separation of them by their dedication and holy use: and that in various degrees.
§. 9. True Holiness is the Health, the Rectitude, the Honesty, the Justice of man's1 Soul; and therefore necessary, as his Duty by God's Law, even ⟨p. 205⟩of Nature, and to his Happiness both in the very nature of the thing, and by the determination of God's Law. It is a contradiction to be happy and unholy, Rev. 20. 6.
§. 10. Holiness is the end or perfection of our Nature, and God's chief Interest in man, and is begun by Grace and perfected in Glory.1
§. 11. The Fear of God and his Judgments, and a Care of our own Souls, and a Sorrow for Sin, and a desire of Happiness, may be not only Preparatives, but lower parts of Holiness; but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness, and a Will addicted to obey his Will, or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him*: This is Holiness.
§. 11. The Fear of God and his Iudgments, and a Care of our own Souls, and a Sorrow for Sin, and a desire of Happiness, may be not only Preparatives, but lower parts of Holiness; but the true formal specifying nature of it consisteth in a love of God's infinite goodness, and a Will addicted to obey his Will, or a Pleasedness in pleasing Him*: This is Holiness.
§. 12. Because a man is denominated according to the predominant bent of his Will (or Soul) he is not to be called Holy who hath some slight inclination to please God, and more to please his own carnal Appetite and Will; or greater love to the Creature than to God.
§. 13. Christ himself came into the World to recover sinful Man by Holiness †to God, and disdained not to be a means of Man's Sanctification, and to make this the notable operation of his Holy Spirit on us.
