A26951:1282
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
Part 3 › Chapter 7: How to exercise Faith about Pardon of sin and Justification.
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.
1. It must be a sensible, awakening, practical knowledge of our own great necessity, which must teach us to value Christ as a Saviour, and to come to him in that empty, sick and weary plight, as is necessary in those who will make use of him for their supply and cure, Matth. 9.12. & 11.28, 29. A superficial speculative knowledge of our sin and misery, will prepare us but for a superficial opinionative faith in Christ, as the remedy. But a true sense of both, will teach us to think of him as a Saviour indeed.
2. Original sin, and actual, the wickedness both of the heart and life, even all our particular sins of omission and commission, and all their circumstances and aggravations, are the first reason of our great necessity of pardon: And therefore it cannot but be a duty to lay them to heart as particularly as we can, to make that necessity, and Christs redemption the better understood, Acts 2.37. Acts 2•.8, 9, &c.
3. The wrath of God, and the miseries of this life, and the everlasting miseries of the damned in Hell, being the due effects or punishment of sin, are the second cause of our necessity of pardon: And therefore these also must be thought on seriously, by him that will seriously believe in Christ.