A27016:486
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Francis Tyton, 1662
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
9. He is possessed of actual fears of Everlasting Punishment▪ and shall never perfectly overcome these fears by his greatest Unbelief.
10. He is capable of fetching his highest Pleasures from the fore-thoughts of Everlasting. Happiness, and receiving from hence his encouragement in well doing and foretaste of the Reward. Now this being the Natural frame of man, as is past denial (when Brutes have no such thing at all,) let Reason judge whether the God of Nature have made this nature of man in vain that we see hath suited every other creature to its use: our horses to carry us, and our Ox to draw for us, and the earth to bear its several▪ fruits for them and us: And hath he mistaken only in the making of man, and gone beyond his own Intention, and fitted him for those uses and enjoyments that he was never meant for? These are not Imputations to be cast upon the most wise and gracious God.
10. He is capable of fetching his highest Pleasures from the fore-thoughts of Everlasting. Happiness, and receiving from hence his encouragement in well doing and foretast of the Reward. Now this being the Natural frame of man, as is past denyal (when Brutes have no such thing at all,) let Reason judge whether the God of Nature have made this nature of man in vain that we see hath suited every other creature to its use: our horses to carry us, and our Ox to draw for us, and the earth to bear its several▪ fruits for them and us: And hath he mistaken only in the making of man, and gone beyond his own Intention, and fitted him for those uses and enjoyments that he was never meant for? These are not Imputations to be cast upon the most wise and gracious God.
Quer. 10. Moreover I demand of you, What is the End of man and all these special faculties, if there be no life for him after this? Either he hath an End which he is to intend, or he hath one. If none, then he hath nothing to do in the world. For all actions of man are nothing else but the Intending of some End,