Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…

How ordinarily when they have first neglected this great duty of their own for their fortification, do they plead a necessity of thrusting them out on these temptations, though utterly unarmed from some Punctilio of Honour or Conformity to the World, to avoid the Contempt of worldly men, or to adorn their (yet naked) Souls, with some of the Plumes or painted Trifles, Ceremonies or Complements, which will never serve instead of heavenly Wisdom, Mortification, and the Love of God and Man: As if they were like to learn that fear of God in a crowd of diverting and tempting Company, Baits and Business, which they never learnt under the teaching, nurture and daily oversight of their religious Parents in a safer station: Or as if for some little reason they might send them as to Sea without Pilot or Anchor, and think that God must save them from the Waves: Or as if it were better to enter them into Satan's School or Army, and venture them upon the notorious danger of Damnation, than miss of Preferment and Wealth, or of the Fashions and Favour of the Times? And then when they hear that they have forsaken God, and true Religion, and given up themselves to Lust and Sensuality, ⟨p. 243⟩and perhaps as Enemies to God and good men, destroy what their Parents laboured to build up, these Parents wonder at God's Judgments, and with broken Hearts lament their infelicity, when it were better to lament their own misdoing, and it had been best of all to have prevented it.

How ordinarily when they have first neglected this great duty of their own for their fortification, do they plead a necessity of thrusting them out on these temptations, though utterly unarmed from some Punctilio of Honour or Conformity to the World, to avoid the Contempt of worldly men, or to adorn their (yet naked) Souls, with some of the Plumes or painted Trifles, Ceremonies or Complements, which will never serve instead of heavenly Wisdom, Mortification, and the Love of God and Man: As if they were like to learn that fear of God in a croud of diverting and tempting Company, Baits and Business, which they never learnt under the teaching, nurture and daily oversight of their religious Parents in a safer station: Or as if for some little reason they might send them as to Sea without Pilot or Anchor, and think that God must save them from the Waves: Or as if it were better to enter them into Satans School or Army, and venture them upon the notorious danger of Damnation, than miss of Preferment and Wealth, or of the Fashions and Favour of the Times? And then when they hear that they have forsaken God, and true Religion, and given up themselves to Lust and Sensuality,