A27004:561
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.
London: printed by R. White for Fran. Titon, 1667
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. The Perfect Goodness of the Will of God, though it contain Benignity, and Mercy, yet is not to be measured by the good which he doth to us our selves▪ or to any Creature; But its highest excellency consisteth in its Essential Perfection, and the Perfect Love that God hath to himself, and in the conformity of his Will to his most perfect Wisdom, which knoweth what is to be willed ad extra; and in his complacency in all that is good as such.1
- 1If a man must love his Country better than himself, then God much more: And then self is not to be the highest in our Love. Respublica nomen universae civitatis est, pro qua mori, & cui nos totos dare, & in qua omnia nostra ponere, & quasi consecrare debemus. Cicer. 2. de leg.If a man must love his Countrey better than himself, then God much more: And then self is not to be the highest in our Love. Respublica nomen universae civitatis est, pro qua mori, & cui nos totos dare, & in qua omnia nostra ponere, & quasi consecrare debemus. Cicer. 2. de leg.
When self-love so far blindeth us, as to make our Interest the Standard to judge of the goodness of God, we do but show that we are fallen from God unto our selves, and that we are setting up our selves above him, and debasing him below our selves: As if we and our Happiness were that ultimate end, and he and his Goodness were the Means, and had no other Goodness but that of a means to us and our felicity! If he made us, he must needs have absolute Propriety in us, and made us for himself: To measure his Goodness by our own Interest, is more unwise than to measure the Sea in our hand, or the Sun and all the Orbs by our span. And to measure it by the Interest of the Universe, 1is to judge of that which is infinite, by that which is finite; betwixt which there is no proportion. As God is infinitely Better than the World, so he is infinitely more Amiable, and therefore must Infinitely more Love himself than all the World; and therefore so to do, is Infinite excellency and Perfection in his Will. But the out-going of his Will to the Creature, by way of causative volition, is free; and conducted by that Wisdom, which-knoweth what is fit, and what degrees of Communication are most eligible to God.