A27053:779
A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster
London: printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons, 1675
Treatise › Chapter 56: Q. Or Relieving Strangers before Kindred?
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.
CHAP. LVI. Q. Or Relieving Strangers before Kindred?
Quest 6. Whether self-denial require that we should relieve godly strangers, before our natural Kindred, especially that are ungodly? Or that we love them better?
Quest 6. WHether self-denial require that we should relieve godly strangers, before our natural Kindred, especially that are ungodly? Or that we love them better?
Answ. 1. Where our Natural Kindred are as holy and as needy as others, there is a double obligation on us, both natural and spiritual, to love and relieve them. 2. Where they are as Holy as others, but less needy, there may lie a double obligation on us, to love them, and yet not to give to them. 3. If they be more needy, or as needy as others, though withal they be ungodly, we are not thereby excused from natural affections or charitable relief. 4. We must distinguish between children, or such kindred as nature casteth upon our care for provision, and such kindred as are by nature cast upon others. If parents were not obliged to relieve and provide for their own children, they would be exposed to misery, and man should be more ⟨p. 341⟩unnatural than brutes. So that even when by ungodliness, they are less amiable than others, yet God hath bound men to provide for them more. 5. Natural love and spiritual are much different; you may have a stronger Natural Love to an ungodly child, than to a Godly stranger, but you must have a spiritual Love to that Godly stranger, more than to your child; And that spiritual Love must be (at least as to the Rational and Estimative part) much greater than the other Natural Love: And yet you may be bound to Give more, where you are not bound to Love more. For it is not Love only that is the cause of giving; but we are Gods Stewards, and must dispose of what we have as he prescribeth us: and his standing Law of Nature for the preservation of mankind, is, that parents take care of their children, as such.