S. Paul says, “Christ has loved me.” O Paul, the benefit that is common to all, thou uses as peculiar to thyself! “Yea verily,” (says S. Paul) “for albeit that sacrifice were offered for all mankind, yet for the love that I bear towards him, the thing that was done for all, I account as proper and several to myself alone.” Thus the manner of the Prophets is to do and to say, “O God my God,” notwithstanding he is the God or all the world. But this is the special and all only office of live, of things common to make things peculiar. Thou says, “Christ has loved me.” What say thou? Has Christ loved thee only? & no man else? “No,” (says Paul) “he has loved all mankind, but I owe him thanks, as if he had loved me alone, and had given himself only for me.” By all these testimonies then, both Scriptures and Fathers, you see, the nature of true faith in God’s children, how it does particularize and apply things general to the most nearest comfort.
Gervase Babbington, An Explanation of the Catechism Contained in the Book of Common Prayer,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Gervase Babington, Late Bishop of Worcester (London: Printed by Miles Flesher, 1637), 172. [Some spelling modernized.]
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