Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…

1. That the Being and Attributes of God were so clear to me, that he was to my Intellect what the Sun is to my Eye, by which I see it self and all Things: And he seemed mad to me that questioned whether there were a God: that any Man should dream that the World was made by a Conflux of Irrational Atoms, and Reason came from that which had no Reason, or that Man, or any Inferior Being was independent; or that all the being, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness which we conversed with, had not a Cause which in Being, Power, Wisdom and Goodness, did excel all that which it had caused in the World, and had not all that formaliter vel eminenter in it self which it communicated to all the Creatures. These, and all the Suppositions of the Atheist, have ever since been so visibly foolish and shameful to my Apprehension, that I scarce find a Capacity in my self of doubting of them; and whenever the Tempter hath joined any thing against these, with the rest of his Temptations, the rest have been the easier overcome, because of the overwhelming cogent Evidences of a Deity, which are always before the Eyes of my Soul.

1. That the Being and Attributes of God were so clear to me, that he was to my Intellect what the Sun is to my Eye, by which I see it self and all Things: And he seemed mad to me that questioned whether there were a God: that any Man should dream that the World was made by a Conflux of Irrational Atoms, and Reason came from that which had no Reason, or that Man, or any Inferiour Being was independent; or that all the being, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness which we conversed with, had not a Cause which in Being, Power, Wisdom and Goodness, did excel all that which it had caused in the World, and had not all that formaliter vel eminenter in it self which it communicated to all the Creatures. These, and all the Suppositions of the Atheist, have ever since been so visibly foolish and shameful to my Apprehension, that I scarce find a Capacity in my self of doubting of them; and whenever the Tempter hath joyned any thing against these, with the rest of his Temptations, the rest have been the easier overcome, because of the overwhelming cogent Evidences of a Deity, which are always before the Eyes of my Soul.

2. And it helped me much to discern that this God must needs be related to us as our Owner, our Governor, and our Benefactor, in that he is related to us as our Creator; and that therefore we are related to him as his own, his Subjects, and his Beneficiaries; which as they all proceed by undeniable resultancy from our Creation and Nature, so thence do our Duties arise which belong to us in those Relations, by as undeniable resultancy; and that no show of Reason can be brought by any Infidel in the World to excuse the Rational Creature from Loving his Maker, with all his heart and soul and might, and devoting himself and all his Faculties to him from whom he did receive them, and making him his ultimate End who is his first Efficient Cause. So that Godliness is a Duty so undeniably required in the Law of Nature, and so discernible by Reason it self, that nothing but unreasonableness can contradict it.