A26915:335
Directions and persuasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation…
Directions and persuasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation of souls, and of those scandals, heresies, and desperate apostasies that are the consequents of a counterfeit, or superficial change / by Richard Baxter.Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation of souls, and of those scandals, heresies, and desperate apostasies that are the consequents of a counterfeit, or superficial change / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by A.M. for Nevil Simmons, 1658
Directions to Sinners that are purposed to Turn, and are under the… › Direction 6
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.
DIRECT. VI. The next Direction which I would give you for a through Conversion is this; See that the flesh be throughly mortified, and your hearts be throughly taken off the world, and all its pleasures, and profits, and honours, and that the Root of your fleshly Interest prevail not at the heart, and that you think not of reconciling God, and the world, as if you might secure your Interest in both.
DIRECT. VI. The next Direction which I would give you for a through Conversion is this; See that the flesh be throughly mortified, and your hearts be throughly taken off the world, and all its pleasures, and profits, and honours, and that the Roote of your fleshly Interest prevaile not at the heart, and that you think not of reconciling God, and the world, as if you might secure your Interest in both.
This is a very common cause of the deceit, and destruction, of such as verily think they are converted. It is the ⟨p. 300⟩very Nature, and business of true Conversion, to turn mens hearts from the flesh, and from the world to God, and from an earthly and seeming happiness, to a Heavenly Real Everlasting Happiness▪ And when men are affrighted into some kind of Religiousness, and yet never learnt to deny themselves, and never mortified their fleshly mind, but the love of this world, is still the chiefest principle at their hearts; and so go on in Profession of godliness, with a secret reserve, that they will look as well as they can to their outward prosperity, whatever become of their Religion, and they will have no more to do with the matters of another world, then may stand with their bodily safety in this world; these are the miserable deluded Hypocrites, whose hopes will prove, as the giving up of the ghost; whom Christ will disown in their greatest extremities, after all their seeming Religiousness. O Sirs, look to this as ever you would be happy. Its an easy, its a common, its a most dangerous thing, to set upon a course of outward Piety, and yet keep the world next your hearts, and take it still as a great part of your felicity, and secretly to