A26915:590
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 12
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.
O Sirs, did we not come upon this great disadvantage to you, that we speak to dead men, that have indeed a natural life, which doth but take pleasure in their spiritual death; how confidently should we expect to prevail with you all. But while you think lightly of your disease, we can expect no better, but that you think as lightly of Christ and holiness, and all the means that tend to your recovery, and think of the new man, as the Poets fabled ⟨p. 528⟩of the Promethean race, that it grows out of the earth (of your own poor, sorry purposes and performances) like ordinary plants.
O Sirs, did we not come upon this great disadvantage to you, that we speak to dead men, that have indeed a naturall life, which doth but take pleasure in their spirituall death; how confidently should we expect to prevaile with you all. But while you think lightly of your disease, we can expect no better, but that you think as lightly of Christ and holiness, and all the meanes that tend to your recovery, and think of the new man, as the Poets fabled ⟨p. 528⟩of the Promethean race, that it grows out of the earth (of your own poor, sorry purposes and performances) like ordinary plants.
Truly Sirs, I have led you even as far as I can; and what more to say to you, or what more to do for you to procure your Conversion I do not know. If it had been in my power to have showed you Heaven and Hell it self, that you might better have known the matters that we speak of, I think I should have done it. But God will not have men live by sense in this life, but by Faith. If I could but help you all to such a knowledge and apprehension of these in visible things, as the worst of you shall have as soon as you are dead, then I should make but little doubt of your Conversion and Salvation. Sure if you had but such a sight, the force of it would so work upon you, that before I went out of the Congregation, you would all cry out that you are resolved to be new Creatures. But though this be beyond my power, and though I cannot show you your great and wonderful things that every eye here must shortly see; yet I come not to you without a glass of Gods own making, and in