A26917:519
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.
And thus I have showed you from the Word of God, and the Nature of Christianity, the true Characters of the confirmed Christian, and of the weak Christian, and of the seeming Christian.
And thus I have shewed you from the Word of God, and the Nature of Christianity, the true Characters of the confirmed Christian, and of the weak Christian, and of the seeming Christian.
The Uses for which I have drawn up these Characters, and which the Reader is to make of them, are these.
The Vses for which I have drawn up these Characters, and which the Reader is to make of them, are these.
I. Here the weak Christian and the Hypocrite may see what manner of persons they ought to be. Not only how unsafe it is to remain in a state of Hypocrisy, but also how uncomfortable, and unserviceable, and troublesome it is, to remain in a state of weakness and diseasedness; what a folly (and indeed a sign of Hypocrisy) is it to think, If I had but ⟨p. 171⟩grace enough to save me, I would desire no more, or I would be well content. Are you content if you have but Life here, to difference you from the dead? If you were continually Infants, that must be fed, and carried, and made clean by others, or if you had a continual Gout, or Stone, or Leprosy, and lived in continual want and misery, you would think that Life alone is not enough: and that non vivere tantum sed valere vita est: that Life is uncomfortable, when we have nothing but Life, and all the delights of life are gone. He that lieth in continual pain and want, is weary of his life, if he cannot separate it from those calamities. He that knoweth how necessary strength is, as well as life, to do any considerable service for God, and how many pains attend the diseases and infirmities of the weak, and what great dishonour cometh to Christ and Religion, by the faults and childishness of many that shall be pardoned and saved, would certainly bestir him with all possible care to get out of this sick or infant state.