A26892:368
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.
§. 33. Direct. 16. Go into the Sanctuary, yea, go into the Church-yard, and see the End: And1 judge by those Skulls, and Bones, and dust, if you cannot judge by the fore-••••ings of God, what prosperity is! Judge by the experience of all the world! Doth it not leave them •••• in sorrow at last? Woe to the man that hath his portion in this life. O miserable health, and wealth, and honour, which procureth the death, and shame, and utter destruction of the soul! Was not he in as prosperous a case as you, Luke 16. that quickly cried out in vain, for a drop of water to cool his Tongue? There is none of you so senseless as not to know that you must dye? And must you dye? Must you certainly dye? and shall that day be no better prepared for? Shall present prosperity make you forget it, and live as if you must live here for ever? Do you make so great difference between that which is, and that which will be? as to make as great a matter of it as others, when it comes; and to make no more of it▪ when it is but coming? O man, what is an inch of hasty time! How quickly is it gone? Thou art going hence apace, and almost gone! Doth God give thee the mercy of a few days or years of health to make all thy preparations in for eternity, and doth this mercy turn to thy deceit, and dost thou turn it so much contrary to the ends for which it was given thee? Wilt thou surfeit on Mercy, and destroy thy soul with it? Sense feeleth and perceiveth what now is, but thou hast Reason to foresee what will be? Wilt thou play in Harvest, and forget the Winter?
§. 33. Direct. 16. Go into the Sanctuary, yea, go into the Church-yard, and see the End: And1 judge by those Skulls, and Bones, and dust, if you cannot judge by the fore-••••ings of God, what prosperity is! Judge by the experience of all the world! Doth it not leave them •••• in sorrow at last? Wo to the man that hath his portion in this life. O miserable health, and wealth, and honour, which procureth the death, and shame, and utter destruction of the soul! Was not he in as prosperous a case as you,