A26915:391
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 8
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.
2. Keep company, if it be possible with the most Sober, Spiritual, and Heavenly professors, that will be drawing you to the observation of your own heart, and life, and opening to you the riches of the Love of Christ, and winning up your affections to God, and Heaven: And be not the companions of unexperienced wranglers, that have no other Religion, but a Zeal for their Opinions, and will endeavour rather to make you like Satan, then like God, by possessing your minds with malice, and bitter thoughts of your brethren, and employing your tongues in reproaches, and vain strivings, and making you fire-brands in the places where you live: Neither be companions of them that hold the Truth no deeper then Opinion: For ⟨p. 349⟩though some such may be useful to you in their places, yet if you have not more edifying familiars, your danger will be very great, lest you should let go the life of Religion, and take up with mere notions, and formalities as they.
2. Keep company, if it be possible with the most Sober, Spiritual, and Heavenly professours, that will be drawing you to the observation of your own heart, and life, and opening to you the riches of the Love of Christ, and winning up your affections to God, and Heaven: And be not the companions of unexperienced wranglers, that have no other Religion, but a Zeal for their Opinions, and will endeavour rather to make you like Satan, then like God, by possessing your minds with malice, and bitter thoughts of your brethren, and employing your tongues in reproaches, and vaine strivings, and making you fire-brands in the places where you live: Neither be companions of them that hold the Truth no deeper then Opinion: For ⟨p. 349⟩though some such may be usefull to you in their places, yet if you have not more edifying familiars, your danger will be very great, lest you should let go the life of Religion, and take up with meer notions, and formalities as they.
3. When you have considered, that every Truth of God is a Message to your Hearts, as well as to your Heads, and hath a work of God to do upon them, look after that work; and when you have heard, or read a Truth, go down into your Hearts, and see what it hath done there: And if you find not in your Will, and Resolutions, and Affections, the Image, and fruits of the Truth you have heard, fetch it up again, and ruminate upon it, and do not think you have received it, or done with it, till this be done; yea take it but as lost, and sinfully rejected, if it have not done you some good at the very Heart.