A26939:170
How to do good to many, or, The public good is the Christians life…How to do good to many, or, The publick good is the Christians life…
How to do good to many, or, The public good is the Christians life directions and motives to it, intended for an auditory of London citizens, and published for them, for want of leave to preach them / by Richard Baxter.How to do good to many, or, The publick good is the Christians life directions and motives to it, intended for an auditory of London citizens, and published for them, for want of leave to preach them / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Rob. Gibs, 1682
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.
IV. Yet they that will do good neither Living nor Dying are ⟨p. 40⟩worst of all. Surely the last Acts of our Lives, if possible, should be the best; And as we must live in health, so also in sickness, and to the last in doing all the good we can; and therefore it must needs be a great sin, to leave our Estates to those that are like to do hurt with them, or to do no good, so far as we are the free disposers of them.
The Case, I confess is not without considerable difficulties, how much a man is bound to leave to his Children, or his nearest Kindred, when some of them are disposed to live unprofitably, and some to live ungodlily and hurtfully. Some think men are bound to leave them nothing, some think they ought to leave them almost all: And some think that they should leave them only so much as may find them tolerable food and raiment. I shall do my best to decide the case in several propositions.
The Case, I confess is not without considerable difficulties, how much a man is bound to leave to his Children, or his neerest Kindred, when some of them are disposed to live unprofitably, and some to live ungodlily and hurtfully. Some think men are bound to leave them nothing, some think they ought to leave them almost all: And some think that they should leave them only so much as may find them tolerable food and raiment. I shall do my best to decide the case in several propositions.
1. The Case is not with us as it was with the Israelites, who might not alienate their Inheritances from the Tribes. Yet even they had power to prefer a younger Son, that was more deserving, before an Elder that was worse.