A27016:529
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.
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, ⟨p. 147⟩and make it an Argument for your Infidelity. But stay a little till the Assizes come. It follows not that there is no Government or Justice, because the Thief or Murderer is not hanged before the Assizes, or as soon as he hath done the fact. Eternity is long enough for their punishment. If God then be the Governor of the world as most certainly he is, then is there a Reward and Punishment hereafter; and Gods Day will come, when Mans is past.