A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian PoliticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Direct._ III. Consider that to think ill of God, is to think him
to be a devil; and to think ill of godliness, is to take it to be
wickedness: and can man be guilty of a more devilish crime? Nay, is it
not worse than the devil that tempteth you to it can commit. To be God
is to be good, even the infinite, eternal, perfect good, in whom is no
evil, nor none can be. To be a devil, is to be evil, even the chief
that do evil, and would draw others so to do. It is not an ugly shape
in which a painter doth represent the devil, which showeth us his
ugliness indeed: an enemy of godliness is liker to him than that
picture: it is his sinfulness against God, which is his true
deformity. Therefore to suspect God to be evil, is to suspect him to
be the devil, so horrid a blasphemy doth this sin partake of. And if
godliness be bad, then he that is the author and end of it cannot be
good.
_Direct._ IV. Consider what horrible blindness it is to impute
men's faults to God, who is the greatest adversary to sin in all the
world, and who will most severely punish it, and to godliness, which
is perfectly its contrary. There is no angel in heaven so little to be
suspected to be the friend of sin as God. Creatures are mutable in
themselves; angels have the innocent imperfection of creatures; saints
on earth have a culpable imperfection through the remainder of sin. If
you had only suspected these, you might have had some pretence for it;
but to quarrel with God or godliness, is madder than to think that
light is the cause of darkness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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