A27006:294
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
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. 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.
2. And it helped me much to discern that this God must needs be related to us as our Owner, our Governour, 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 shew 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 discernable by Reason it self, that nothing but unreasonableness can contradict it.
3. And then it seemed utterly improbable to me that this God should see us to be Losers by our Love and Duty to him, and that our Duty should be made to be our Snare, or make us the more miserable by how much the more faithfully we ⟨p. 23⟩perform it! And I saw that the very Possibility or Probability of a Life to come, would make it the Duty of a Reasonable Creature to seek it, though with the loss of all below.