A26928:13
Faithful souls shall be with Christ the certainty proved and their Christianity described, and…
Faithful souls shall be with Christ the certainty proved and their Christianity described, and exemplified in the truly Christian life and death of that excellent saint, Henry Ashhurst, Esq ... : briefly and truly published for the conviction of hypocrites and the malignant, the strengthening of believers, and the imitation of all, especially the masters of families in London / by Richard Baxter.Faithful souls shall be with Christ the certainty proved and their Christianity described, and exemplified in the truely Christian life and death of that excellent saint, Henry Ashhurst, Esq ... : briefly and truly published for the conviction of hypocrites and the malignant, the strengthning of believers, and the imitation of all, especially the masters of families in London / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1681
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.
You have seen what it is to be a Christian indeed, and how your affairs, your conversations, and your families should be ordered. And you have seen how the best may suffer and must die, and therefore what need we all have to be prepared with strong and well exercised Faith, Hope and Patience, and by daily conversing in the heavenly regions, to get sweeter thoughts of Heaven than of the most prosperous state on Earth, that we may die like serious believers, and joyfully commit our departing souls to Christ, when we leave these corruptible bodies to the grave. O dear Friends, the day is at hand; the change is of unspeakable importance; the work ⟨image 4⟩of Faith and Hope is high and difficult: Set to it speedily with heart and might, and let not flesh and the world entangle and deceive you.
The great love which your Father had to me, and much more which he had to Christ, his Church, and all the Faithful, obliged me to be the larger in describing his example, for your use and comfort: For as Christ gone to Heaven hath left here his servants, called his Brethren, that men in them may show their Love and thankfulness to him, which he will reward as done unto himself; so the way which I must take to express my Love and gratitude to your deceased Father, is by desiring and endeavouring the true felicity of his Wife and Children whom he so dearly loved. And that must be, by taking God for your God and Father, Christ for your Saviour, the Holy Spirit for your Sanctifier, the Holy Scriptures for your Rule, the Church for the Body of which you are Members; true Pastors for your Teachers, the Faithful for your most beloved ⟨image 5⟩Companions, (especially each other who are by so many bonds obliged to more than ordinary endearedness and Love) and Christ for your chief pattern, and such as your Father in following him; Heaven for your felicity, home and hope; and this short life for the day of your preparation and salvation; and the world, flesh and Devil so far as they are against any of this, for the Enemies which with all vigilancy and resolution must be overcome.