A26951:127
The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…
The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb. 11, 1, formerly preached before His Majesty, and published by his command, with another added for the fuller application : the second is instructions for confirming believers in the Christian faith : the third is directions how to live by faith, or how to exercise it upon all occasions / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1670
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.
Alas, corrupted reason is asleep, (with men that seem wise in other things) till it be awakt by faith or sight. And sleeping reason is as unserviceable as folly. I• doth no work: it avoids no danger. A Doctor that's asleep, can defend the truth no better than a waking child. But reason will be reason, and conscience will be conscience, when the dust is blown out of mens eyes, and sight and feeling have awakened, and so recovered their understandings; or Faith more seasonably and happily awaked them.
AND O that now we might all consent to addict ourselves to the Life of Faith: And
AND O that now we might all consent to addict our•selves to the Life of Faith: And
1. That we live not too much on visibles. 2. That we live on the things invisible.
1. One would think that worldliness is a disease that carrieth with it a cure for it self; and that the rational nature should be loth to love at so dear a rate, and to labour for so poor a recompense. It is pity that Gehezi's leprosy, and Judas's death, should no more prevent a succession of Gehezi's and Judas's in all generations. Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth: His Kingdom was not of this world. No men are more unlike him than the worldlings. I know necessity is the pretence: But it is the dropsy of Covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call Necessity: And therefore the cure is non addere opius, sed imminuere cupiditatem: The disease must not be fed but healed. Sas est divitiarum non amplius velle. It hath lately been a controversy, whether this be not the golden age? that it is aetas ferrea we have felt; our demonstrations are undeniable: that it is aetas aurata, we have sufficient proof: and while gold is the god that rules the most, we will not deny it to be aetas aurea, in the Poets sense, Aurea nunc vere sunt secula: plurimus auro Vaenit honos: auro conciliatur amor.