A27053:825
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 64: Enemy to all Morality: Faith: Prayer: Obedience.
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. LXIV. Enemy to all Morality: Faith: Prayer: Obedience.
2. Moreover, this Self is the Enemy as of God himself, so also of all the frame of Morality: Of Every Article of your Belief, and Every Petition in the Lords Prayer, and of every one of the ten Commandments, and of the whole Word of God.
2. MOreover, this Self is the Enemy as of God himself, so also of all the frame of Morality: Of Every Article of your Belief, and Every Petition in the Lords Prayer, and of every one of the ten Commandments, and of the whole Word of God.
1. For your Belief, it advanceth your own Reason against it, as to the Truth of it: so that you cannot discern these things of God, because they are spiritually discerned. It shutteth up your understandings against ⟨p. 357⟩the Meaning of it; so that when you know the Grammatical sense of the words, you know not ha• the meaning yet for all that. The words are written to signify the spiritual apprehensions and affections which the holy inditers had of the matter signified by them: And till you come by the help of those words to have the same impress upon your souls, the same apprehensions and affections which the inditers had, and intended to express by them, you have not the perfect understanding of the Scriptures; And therefore while you are wholly without their spiritual Apprehensions and Affections, you do not so much as sincerely or truly understand them; however you may be able to speak as good Grammarians, and true Expositors in the explaining of them to others. And also selfishness in the Will doth make you disrelish the Doctrine which you should believe, because that being Practical, either the Doctrine, or its consequence, or the Practice that it puts you on, is against your carnal self and interest.