A26892:2146
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
§. 14. 10. Lastly consider, that there is scarce a sin in the world more unexcusable than this. The flesh-pleaser seeth the end of all his sensual delights, in the faces of the sick, and in the corps that are daily carried to the earth; and in the graves, and bones, and dust of those that sometime had as merry a life as he: His reason can say, all this is gone with them, and is as if it had never been; and so it will shortly be with me. He knoweth that all the pleasure of his life past, is now of no value to himself. His warnings are constant, close and sensible: And therefore he hath the greater sin.
§. 15. IV. Object. 1. What hurt is it to God, or any one else, that I please my flesh? I will not believe 1that a thing so harmless will displease him. Answ. Mecr•y as it is Pleasure, it hath no hurt in it: But as it is inordinate or immoderate pleasure; or as it is overloved, and preferred before God and your salvation; or as it is greater than your delight in God; or as it wants its proper end, and is loved merely for it self, and not used as a means to higher things; and as it is made a hinderance to the soul, and to spiritual pleasure, and the service of God; and as it is the brutish delight of an ungoverned rebellious appetite, that mastereth reason, and is not under obedience to God. Though sin can do God no hurt, it can do you hurt, and it can do him wrong: I think I have showed you what hurt and poison is in it already: It is the very rebellion of corrupted nature: The turning of all things upside down: The taking down God, and Heaven, and Reason, and destroying the use of all the creatures, and setting up Flesh-pleasing instead of all, and making a Brute your God and Governor. And do you ask what harm there is in this? So will your child do, when he desireth any play, or pleasure: and the sick when they desire to please their appetite. But your Father, and Physician, and Reason, and not Brutish Appetite must be Judge.
§. 15. IV. Object. 1. What hurt is it to God, or any one else, that I please my flesh? I will not believe