A26872:13
A Call to the Unconverted
A call to the unconverted to turn and live and accept of mercy while mercy may be had as ever they would find mercy in the day of their extremity from the living God / by his unworthy servant, Richard Baxter ; to be read in families where any are unconverted.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1658
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.
THE Eternal God that made you for a life Everlasting, and hath Redeemed you by his only Son, when you had lost it and your-selves, being mindful of you in your sin and misery, hath indited the Gospel and sealed it by his Spirit, and commanded his Ministers to preach it to the world, that ⟨image 9⟩pardon being […] offered you, and Heaven b•ing •ot before you, he might call you off from your fleshly pleasures, and from following after this deceitful world, and acquaint you with the life that you were Created and Redeemed for, before you are dead and past remedy. He sendeth not you Prophets or Apostles, t•at receive their message by immediate Revelation; but yet he calleth you by his ordinary Ministers, who are Commissioned by him to preach the same Gospel which Christ and his Apostles first delivered. The Lord standeth over you, and seeth how you forget him and your latter end, and how light you make of Everlasting things, as men that understand not what they have to do or suffer: He seeth how bold you are in sin, and how fearless of his threatenings, and how careless of your souls, and how the works of Infidels are in your lives, while the ⟨image 9⟩belief of Christians is in your mouths. He seeth the dreadful day at hand, when your sorrows will begin, and you must lament all this with fruitless cries in torment and desperation, and when the remembrance of your folly will tear your hearts, if true Conversion now prevent it not; in comparison of your sinful miserable souls, the Lord that better knows your case then you can know it, hath made it our duty to speak to you in his name, (2 Corinth. 5.19.) and to tell y•u plainly of your sin and misery, and what will be your end, and how sad a change you'll shortly see, if yet you go on a little longer. Having bought you at so dear a rate as the blood of his Son Jesus Christ, and made you so free and general a promise of pardon, and grace, and everlasting glory, he commandeth as to tender all this to you, as the gift of God, and to entreat you to consider ⟨image 10⟩