A27004:649
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.
How easy a matter is it to prove Holiness to be naturally mans greatest duty, when love to God, which is the sum of it, is so easily proved to be so. All the reason in the world, that is not corrupted, but is reason indeed, must confess without any tergiversation, that it is the most great and unquestionable duty of man to love God above all; yea, with all our heart and soul and might. And he that doth so, shall never be numbered by him with the ungodly, for those are inconsistent.
How easie a matter is it to prove Holiness to be naturally mans greatest duty, when love to God, which is the summ of it, is so easily proved to be so. All the reason in the world, that is not corrupted, but is reason indeed, must confess without any tergiversation, that it is the most great and unquestionable duty of man to love God above all; yea, with all our heart and soul and might. And he that doth so, shall never be numbred by him with the ungodly, for those are inconsistent.
§. 38. The exercises of love to God in complacency, desire, seeking, &c. should be the chief employment of our thoughts.
For the thoughts are the exercise of a commanded faculty, which must be under the power of our will: and the ultimate end, and the exercises of love to it, should daily govern ⟨p. 110⟩them.1 And what a man loveth most, usually he will think of, with his most practical powerful thoughts, if not with the most frequent.
- 1When the Oracle of Delphos adjudged the Tripos to the wisest, it was sent to Thales, and from him to another, till it came to Solon, who sent it to the Oracle, saying, None is wiser than God. Laert. in Thalet. So should we all send back to God the glory and praise of all good which is ascribed to us.