A26919:713
The divine life in three treatises
The divine life in three treatises ... by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Francis Tyton, 1664
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
10. And some of them may think when you are in a low and suffering state, and in danger of worse, that it is part of their duty of self-preservation to be strange to you (though in heart they wish you well.) They will think they are not bound to hazard themselves upon the displeasure of superiors, to own or befriend you or any other: Though they must not desert Christ, they think they may desert a man for their own preservation.
10. And some of them may think when you are in a low and suffering state, and in danger of worse, that it is part of their duty of self-preservation to be strange to you (though in heart they wish you well.) They will think they are not bound to hazard themselves upon the displeasure of superiours, to own or befriend you or any other: Though they must not desert Christ, they think they may desert a man for their own preservation.
To avoid both extremes in such a case, men must both study to understand which way is most serviceable to Christ, and to his Church, and withal to be able to deny themselves, and also must study to understand what Christ meaneth in his final sentence [In as much as you did it (or did it not) to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it (or did it not) to me.] As if it were to visit the contagious, we must neither cast away our lives to do no good, or for that which in value holdeth no proportion with them; nor yet must we deny to run any hazard when it is indeed our duty: So is it in our visiting those that suffer for the cause of Christ: (but that here the owning them being the confessing of him, we need more seldom to fear being too forward.)
To avoid both extreams in such a case, men must both study to understand which way is most serviceable to Christ, and to his Church, and withall to be able to deny themselves, and also must study to understand what Christ meaneth in his final sentence [In as much as you did it (or did it not) to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it (or did it not) to me.] As if it were to visit the contagious, we must neither cast away our lives to do no good, or for that which in value holdeth no proportion with them; nor yet must we deny to run any hazard when it is indeed our duty: So is it in our visiting those that suffer for the cause of Christ: (but that here the owning them being the confessing of him, we need more seldome to fear being too forward.)