A26935:68
Gods goodness vindicated for the help of such (especially in melancholy) as are tempted…
Gods goodness vindicated for the help of such (especially in melancholy) as are tempted to deny it, and think him cruel, because of the present and future misery of mankind, with respect to the doctrine of reprobation and damnation / by Richard Baxter ... ; published and prefaced by a friend at whose desire it was written, and to whom it was committed.
London: printed for N. Simmons, 1671
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.
15. I conclude in general, that nothing is more sure than that God is most Powerful, Wise and Good, and that, All his works, to those that truly know them, do manifest all these in conjunction, and perfect Harmony, and that as to his Decrees and Providences, he is the Cause of all Good, and of no sin in act or habit, and that our sin and destruction is of our selves, and of him is our ⟨p. 87⟩Holiness and Salvation: And that he attaineth all his ends as certainly as if mans will had no liberty, but were acted by Physical necessitation: And yet that mans will hath as much natural Liberty, as if God had not gone before it with any Decree of the Event, and as much moral liberty as we have moral virtue or holiness.
And these Principles I have laid down in a little room that Tempted persons may see, that it is our dark and puzzled brains, and our selfish diseased hearts that are the cause of our quarrelling ⟨p. 87⟩with God, his Decrees, and Providences, and as soon as we come to our selves and are cured, these odious apprehensions vanish, and God appeareth, as the unclouded Sun, in the Lustre of his Amiable Goodness; And when we come to Heaven we shall see to our Joy and his Glory, that Heaven, Earth, and Hell declare him to be all perfectly Good, without any mixture of evil in himself, or in any of his word or works. And we shall find all our sinful suspicions and murmurings turned into a joyful consent to ⟨p. 88⟩the Angelical praises;