A26915:462
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 11
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. Ye Consider, that it is God that is the Giver, and you that are the miserable beggars, and receivers: And therefore ⟨p. 414⟩it is fitter that you should wait on God and call on him for his Grace, when he seemeth to delay, and not that he should wait on you. He can live without your receiving, but you cannot live without his giving. The beggar must be glad of an alms at any time; and the condemned person, of a pardon at any time: but the giver may well expect that his gift be received without delay, or else he may let them go without it.
33. Ye Consider, that it is God that is the Giver, and you that are the miserable beggars, and receivers: And therefore ⟨p. 414⟩it is fitter that you should wait on God and call on him for his Grace, when he seemeth to delay, and not that he should waite on you. He can live without your receiving, but you cannot live without his giving. The beggar must be glad of an alms at any time; and the condemned person, of a pardon at any time: but the giver may well expect that his gift be received without delay, or else he may let them go without it.
34. And me thinks you should not deal worse with God, when he comes to you as a Physician to save your own Souls, then you would do with a neighbour, or a friend, when it is not for your own good, but for theirs. If your neighbour lay a dying, you would go and visit him without delay: If he fell down in a swoon, you would catch him up without delay: If he fell into the fire, or water, you would pluck him out without delay: Yea you would do thus much by a very beast. And yet will you delay when it is not another, but your selves, that are sinking, and drowning, and within a step of death, and desperation? If a woman be but in travail, her neighbours will come to her without delay: ⟨p. 515⟩And yet when their own Souls are in bondage to sin, and Satan, and a state of death, they will let them lie there, year after year, and when we desire them to be Converted, here's nothing but delays.