A27016:528
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.
10. Hereby they destroy all humane Laws, that must receive their strength from Gods Laws, or have none: and so they absolve all subjects in the world from conscientious obligations to obedience. If God have no proper Governing Laws but Physical motions, then we are no further obliged to obey men, by any Law of God, then we are effectually moved to it, and then we do obey them. And if so, then we can owe no more obedience to Parents, Masters, or Princes then they force us to! If they can make us obey them, well and good: If not, we break no Law of God by disobedience.
These and many such like are the consequents of that horrid doctrine that denieth God to be the Sovereign Ruler of the world. In a word, it dasheth out at once all Government, Laws, Justice, Obedience, Good Works, and all Morality, dissolving the whole frame of the Universal Monarchy of the world, and denying God to be our God, and man to be man and his subject.
These and many such like are the consequents of that horrid doctrine that denyeth God to be the Soveraign Ruler of the world. In a word, it dasheth out at once all Government, Laws, Justice, Obedience, Good Works, and all Morality, dissolving the whole frame of the Universal Monarchy of the world, and d•nying God to be our God, and man to be man and his subject.
But if you yield that God is the Governor of the world, it is then most evident that there's a life to come. For if he Govern us, it is by Laws, and Judgement: And if by Laws, which are they? There is nothing known among Rational men, by the name of a Law of God, which containeth not Promises and Threatenings of Rewards and Punishments hereafter. He hath no Laws for the Governing of this world, that contain no Motives but from Temporal things. And I showed you before, that he need not, he cannot Govern the world by falsehood and deceit. And we see here by experience, that there is no such Execution in this life, of the Laws of God, as are sufficient to the ends of Government. The wicked prosper, and destroy the just: The best do most deny their flesh, and are oppressed by others. You see this your selves,