A27004:591
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.
CHAP. XII. III. Of Man's Relation to GOD, as he is our FATHER, or our Chief Good; and of our Duty in that Relation.
§. 1. GOD being to Man Efficiently and finally, his Chief, yea, his Total Good, as is declared; it must needs follow that Man is by immediate resultancy related to Him as his Total Beneficiary, and Recipient of his benefits; and oweth him all that which Goodness conjunct with Sovereignty and Dominion can oblige him to.
§. 1. GOD being to Man Efficiently and finally, his Chief, yea, his Total Good, as is declared; it must needs follow that Man is by immediate resultancy related to Him as his Total Beneficiary, and Recipient of his benefits; and oweth him all that which Goodness conjunct with Soveraignty and Dominion can oblige him to.
Whether all Obligation, which is truly Moral, to a Duty, do arise from Sovereignty and Rule, and belong to us as Subjects only, in the nearest formal sense? Or whether Benefits simply without any respect to Government and Subjection, may be said to oblige to Moral Duty as such, is a Question that I am not concerned to determine; as long as God is both Governor and Benefactor, and his Government may give the formal moral obligation, as his Benefits provide the ⟨p. 102⟩greatest Materials of the Duty. Though this much I may say to it, that I cannot see but the Duty of a Beneficiary as such, may be called moral, as well as the Duty of a Subject as such: And if it were supposed that two men were absolutely equals as to any subjection, and that one of them should by kindness exceedingly oblige the other, all will acknowledge ingratitude to be an unnatural thing: and why that vice may not be called properly moral in a rational free agent, I am not yet convinced. You will say, It's true; but that is because that both those men are Subjects to God, whose Law obligeth them both to Gratitude, and therefore Ingratitude is a sin only as against the Law of God in Nature. To which I reply, that I grant Gods Law of Nature maketh Ingratitude a sin: and I grant that a Law is properly the instrument of a Governor as such: and so as Ingratitude is the violation of a Law, it is only a sin against Government as such. But I question whether as Love is somewhat different from Wisdom and Power, and as a Benefactor and an attractive good hath the highest and a peculiar kind of obligation, so there be not something put by God into our Nature, which though it be not formally a Law, yet is as obligatory, and as much if not more than a Law, which maketh it more than the Duty of a Subject, to answer love and goodness with gratitude and love: so that if per impossibile you suppose that we had no other obligation to God but this of love and goodness (or abstract this from the rest) I question whether it be not most eminently moral, and whether the performance of it do not morally fit us for the highest benefits, and felicity, and the violation of it merit not, (morally) the rejections of our great Benefactor, and the withdrawing of all his favours to our undoing. But this Controversy my Cause is not much concerned in, as I have said, because the same God is our Sovereign also.