A26917:308
Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…
Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace with motives opening the lamentable effects of their weaknesses and distempers / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1669
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE CHARACTER OF 1 A Sound Confirmed Christian, 2 And of the Weak C… › The Characters.
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. The weak Christian also hath more love to God and holiness than to the world and fleshly pleasure: But yet his fear of punishment is greater than his Love to God and Holiness. To have no Love to God is inconsistent with a state of Grace, and so it is to have less love to God than to the world, and less love to holiness than to sin: But to have more Fear than Love is consistent with sincerity of Grace: Yea, the weak Christians love ⟨p. 16⟩to God and Holiness is joined with so much backwardness and averseness, and interrupted with weariness, and with the carnal allurements and diversions of the Creature, that he cannot certainly perceive whether his love and willingness be sincere or not: He goeth on in a course of duty, but so heavily, that he scarce knoweth, whether his love or loathing of it be the greater. He goeth to it as a sick man to his meat, or labour: All that he doth is with so much pain or undisposedness, that to his feeling his averseness seemeth greater than his willingness, were it not that necessity maketh him willing. For the habitual love and complacency which he hath towards God and Duty, is so oppressed by fear, and by averseness, that it is not so much felt in act as they.
2. The weak Christian also hath more love to God and holiness than to the world and fleshly pleasure: But yet his fear of punishment is greater than his Love to God and Holiness. To have no Love to God is inconsistent with a state of Grace, and so it is to have less love to God than to the world, and less love to holiness than to sin: But to have more Fear than Love is consistent with sincerity of Grace: Yea, the weak Christians love ⟨p. 16⟩to God and Holiness is joyned with so much backwardness and aversness, and interrupted with weariness, and with the carnall allurements and diversions of the Creature, that he cannot certainly perceive whether his love and willingness be sincere or not: He goeth on in a course of duty, but so heavily, that he scarce knoweth, whether his love or loathing of it be the greater. He goeth to it as a sick man to his meat, or labour: All that he doth is with so much pain or undisposedness, that to his feeling his aversness seemeth greater than his willingness, were it not that necessity maketh him willing. For the habitual love and complacency which he hath towards God and Duty, is so oppressed by fear, and by aversness, that it is not so much felt in act as they.