A26870:250
A breviate of the life of Margaret, the daughter of Francis Charlton ... and…
A breviate of the life of Margaret, the daughter of Francis Charlton ... and wife of Richard Baxter ... : there is also published the character of her mother, truly described in her published funeral sermon, reprinted at her daughters request, called, The last work of a believer, his passing-prayer recommending his departing spirit to Christ, to be received by him.
London: printed for B. Simmons, 1681
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.
§. 13. And it tells you, that our greatest good or evil is nearest us. Next God, the best is in our souls, and there is the worst; and next in our bodies, and next in our nearest friends: And it may teach all to expect their greatest sorrows from those, or that which they most excessively love, and from whom they have the highest expectations: Only God cannot be loved more than he deserveth. Sorrow beginneth in inordinate love, and joy in good.
§. 14. And it tells us, that Gods service lieth more in deeds than in words. My dear Wife was faulty indeed in talking so little of Religion in company (expect it were unresistibly to confute in few words an opposer, or reviler of Religion). But her Religion lay in doing more than talk.
§. 15. Yet her example tells us, that it is one of Satan's wiles to draw us to one sin to avoid another; and to make us think that nothing is a due that hath great inconveniences, or which we can fore-see some men will receive hurt from; and so to be unrighteous by being righteous over-much, and leave much undone for fear of doing it amiss; by which Rule we should scarce ever do any thing that God commands; He that observeth the winds shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap, Eccles. 11. 4. I speak this on her (at last confessed) error of omitting seasonable speech and duty to avoid hypocrisy and ostentation (which my great friend, Judg Hale, was just so guilty of, as I know, and the Writers of his Life confess; He would make no great show of zeal in Religion, lest if he did any thing amiss, Religion should be reproached for his sake). Cardinal Richelieu was wont to say (as is written of him), that he hated no Counsellor more than those that were alway saying, Let us do it better; by that hindering the doing of much at all.