A26951:591
The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…
The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb. 11, 1, formerly preached before His Majesty, and published by his command, with another added for the fuller application : the second is instructions for confirming believers in the Christian faith : the third is directions how to live by faith, or how to exercise it upon all occasions / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1670
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. They have false thoughts of Gods Goodness, who make it to consist only or chiefly, in a communicative inclination ad extra, which we call Benignity: For he was as Good from Eternity, before he made any creature, as he is since: And his Goodness considered as essential in himself, and as his own perfection, is infinitely higher than the consideration of it, as terminated on any Creature. Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God, and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man. And they ⟨p. 179⟩do therefore debase God, and deify his creature, who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and it self; and not God the ultimate end of the creature. And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of it self and God: (And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age, who account themselves the men of ingenuity.)
2. They have false thoughts of Gods Goodness, who make it to consist only or chiefly, in a communicative inclination ad extra, which we call Benignity: For he was as Good from Eternity, before he made any creature, as he is since: And his Goodness considered as essential in himself, and as his own perfection, is infinitely higher than the consideration of it, as terminated on any Creature. Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God, and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man. And they ⟨p. 179⟩do therefore debase God, and deifie his creature, who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and it self; and not God the ultimate end of the creature. And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of it self and God: (And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age, who account themselves the men of ingenuity.)
And they have also false thoughts of the Goodness of God, who think that there is nothing of communicative Benignity in it at all. For all the good which God doth, he doth it from the Goodness of his Nature: Thou art good, and doest good,