Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT763 .B35 1655

'The Preface to the Readers. Two things are requifite to make man to be Amiable in the eyes of God, anda fit Object for the moil; Holy to take plea- fure in : One is in his fuitablenefs to the Holinefs ofGods Na- ture: The other refpedeth his Governing Juftice. We muff in this life fee God in the Glafs of the Creature, and fpecially in Man that bearethhis Image. If a good man be the Ruler of a Common-wealth, as he is Ethically Good, he cannot but loath the Evil, and love the Good : And ashe is a Wife and Righteous Governour,he muff preferve the honorofhis Laws, and thereby his own, by doing Juftice on them that violate them,and prefervingand encouraging thoie that doobey them. As man is firft confiderable as Man, before he be to be conli, dered as a Governour; and as a good Man,beforeas a good Go-' vernour,the firft beinghis Natural GoocInefs,commonly called his univerfal Juftice, the other his Redoral Gooch-leis, com- monly called his particular Juftice, flowing out from the firft : fo muff we ( through the neceffity of our prefent weaknefs ) conceive of God. Were we Holy, he would loveus as a Holy God: andwere we Innocent, he would encourage us as a Righ- teous and Bounteous Governour. But as there is no particu- lar Governing Juftice, without that univerfal Natural Juftice, which it prefuppofeth, and floweth from; fo can there be no fuch thing as Innocency in us as Subjeds ' which floweth not froma Holinefs ofour Natures as Men. We muff Be Good, - before wean Live as the Good. In both thefe refpeds man was Amiable in the eyes of his Maker, till fin depraved him, and deprived him of Both. To Both thefe muff the Saviour again Reftore him : and this is the work that he came into the World to do, even to feek and to fave that Which was doubly loft, and todeftroy that two-fold work of the Devil, who had drawn us to bebothUnholy and Guilty. As in the Fall the na- tural Real Evil was Antecedent to the Relative (Guilt); fo is it in the Good conferred in the Reparation. We muff inorder ofnature be firft Turned by Repentance unto, God , through Faith

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