A26917:352
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.
He feeleth no great force in such temptations, as would draw him to win the world and lose his soul. His eye and heart are, where his God and treasure is, above; and worldly wealth and greatness are below him, even under his feet: He thinketh not things temporal worth the looking at, in comparison of things eternal, 2 Cor. 4.18. He ⟨p. 49⟩thinketh that their money and riches do deservedly perish with them, who think all the money in the world, to be a thing comparable with grace. Act. 8.20.
He feeleth no great force in such temptations, as would draw him to win the world and lose his soul. His eye and heart are, where his God and treasure is, above; and worldly wealth and greatness are below him, even under his feet: He thinketh not things temporal worth the looking at, in comparison of things eternal, 2 Cor. 4.18. He ⟨p. 49⟩thinketh that their money and riches do deservedly perish with them, who think all the mony in the world, to be a thing comparable with grace. Act. 8.20.
2. And the weak Christian is of the same judgement and resolution in the main: But yet the world retaineth a greater interest in his heart: It grieveth him more to lose it: It is a stronger temptation to him: To deny all the preferments and honours and riches of it, seemeth a greater matter to him: and he doth it with more striving and less ease: and sometimes the respect of worldly things prevaileth with him in lesser matters, to wound his conscience, and maketh work for repentance; and such are so entangled in worldly cares, and prosperity tasteth so sweet with them, that grace even languisheth and falleth into a consumption, and almost into a swoon. So much do some such let out their hearts, to the world which they renounced, and scrape for it with so much care and eagerness, and contend with others about their commodities and rights, that they seem to the standers by to be as worldly as worldlings themselves are; and become a shame to their profession, and make ungodly persons say, Your godly professors are as covetous as any,