A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian EconomicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Arg._ II. The solemn worship of God in and by families as such,
is required by the very law of nature, therefore it is of divine
institution. The consequence can be denied by no man that renounceth
not reason and nature itself; denying the law of nature to be God's
law, which is indeed partly presupposed in the law supernatural, and
partly rehearsed in it, but never subverted by it. Positives are more
mutable than naturals are.
The antecedent is thus manifested. 1. Natural reason (or the law of
nature) requireth that all men do faithfully improve all the talents
that God hath intrusted them with, to his honour; therefore natural
reason (or the law of nature) doth require, that God be solemnly
worshipped in families, he having given them such advantages as
aforesaid thereunto. 2. The law of nature requireth, that all
societies that have God for their founder or institutor, should, to
their utmost capacities, be devoted to him that founded and instituted
them: but that God is the founder and institutor of families, is known
by the light of nature itself; therefore the law of nature requireth,
that families be to the utmost of their capacities devoted to God; and
consequently, that they solemnly worship him, they being capable of so
doing. I need not prove the major, because I speak only to men that
are possessed of the law of nature mentioned in it; and therefore they
know it themselves to be true. Yet let me so far stay on the
illustration, as to tell you the grounds of it. And, 1. God is the
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the principal efficient and
ultimate end of all; and therefore of families. And therefore they
should be for him, as well as they are from him: for "of him, and
through him, and to him are all things." This argument I draw from
nature, which can have no beginning but God, nor any end but God. The
2. I draw from the divine intention, in the fabrication and ordination
of all things. God made all things for himself, and can have no
ultimate end below himself. The 3. I draw from his _jus dominii_,
his right of propriety which he hath over all things, and so over
families as such; they are all absolutely his own alone. And that
which is solely or absolutely a man's own, should be for his use, and
employed to his honour and ends: much more that which is God's, seeing
man is not capable of such a plenary propriety of any thing in the
world, as God hath in all things. 4. I argue _a jure imperii_,
from God's right of government. If he have a full right of government
of families, as families, then families as families must honour and
worship him according to their utmost capacities. But he hath a full
right of absolute government over families as families; therefore--The
consequence of the major is grounded on these two things: 1. That God
himself is the end of his own government: this is proper to his
regimen. All human government is said by politicians to be terminated
ultimately in the public good of the society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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