A26939:56
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.
But as all motion and action is first upon the nearest object, so must ours; and doing Good must be in order: First we must begin at home with our own Souls and lives, and then to our nearest Relations, and Friends, and Acquaintance, and Neighbours, and then to our Societies, Church and Kingdom, and all the world. But mark that the order of execution, and the order of estimation and intention differ. Tho God set up Lights so small as will serve but for one room, and tho we must begin at home, we must far more esteem and desire the good of multitudes, of City and Church and Commonwealth; and must set no bounds to our endeavours, but what God and disability set.
II. But What is that Good that we must do? Good is an attribute of Being; and is its perfection, or well-being: Gods Goodness is perfection it self: And as he is the fountain of being, so also of Goodness; and therefore his Goodness is called Love, whose highest act is his essential self-love, which is infinitely above his love to the world; But yet it is Communicative Love; which made all things good, and rested in seeing them all good. And as he is the fountain, so the same Will or Love is the measuring Rule, and the end of all derived good. The prime notion of the Creatures goodness is its Conformity to the Will of God: But the second is its own perfection as its own, which indeed is but the same Conformity.
Therefore the true good which we must do men, is to make them conformable to the Regulating Will of God, that they may be happy in the Pleased Will of God; and to help them to all means for soul and body necessary hereunto: And this for as many as possibly we can.