A26917:354
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.
3. But seeming Christians are the servants of the world: when they have learnt to speak hardliest of it, it hath their hearts: Heaven (as I said before) is valued but as a reserve, when they know they can keep the world no longer. They have more sweet and pleasing thoughts and speeches of the world, than they have of God and the world to come: It hath most of their ⟨p. 50⟩hearts, when God is most preferred by their tongues: there it is that they are daily laying up their treasure, and there they must leave it at the parting hour, when they go naked out as they came naked in: the love of deceitful riches choketh the word of God, and it withereth in them, and becometh unfruitful, Mat. 13.22. They go away sorrowful because of their beloved riches, when they should part with all for the hopes of heaven. Luk. 18.23. yea though they are beggars that never have a days prosperity in the world, for all that, they love it better than heaven, and desire that which they cannot get: because they have not an eye of faith, to see that better world which they neglect, and therefore take it for an uncertain thing: nor are their carnal natures suitable to it, and therefore they mind it not. Rom. 8.7. When an Hypocrite is at the best, he is but a Religious worldling: The world is nearer to his heart than God is, but pure Religion keepeth a man unspotted of the world: Jam. 1.27.
3. But seeming Christians are the servants of the world: when they have learnt to speak hardliest of it, it hath their hearts: Heaven (as I said before) is valued but as a reserve, when they know they can keep the world no longer. They have more sweet and pleasing thoughts and speeches of the world, than they have of God and the world to come: It hath most of their ⟨p. 50⟩hearts, when God is most preferred by their tongues: there it is that they are daily laying up their treasure, and there they must leave it at the parting hour, when they go naked out as they came naked in: the love of deceitful riches choaketh the word of God, and it withereth in them, and becometh unfruitful,