A26951:248
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.
We are all sure that this life is short and vain: No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us: And if this be so, reason commandeth us to prefer the possibilities of such a life to come, before the certain vanities of this life: So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer, that the preferring of the world to come is our duty: And if it be our duty, then the thing in it self is true: For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature, to seek an Utopia, and pursue a shadow; and to spend their days and chiefest cares for that which is not; Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk.
We are all sure that this life is short and vain: No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us: And if this be so, reason commandeth us to prefer the p•ssibilities of such a life to come, before the certain vanities of this life: So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer, that the preferring of the world to come is our duty: And if it be our duty, then the thing in it self is true: For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature, to seek an Ʋtopia, and pursue a shadow; and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not; Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk.
Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness, than of their sin, and of their seeking Heaven, than of wallowing in their lusts.
Nay then, these heavenly desires would be themselves our sins, as being the following of a lye, the aspiring after a state which is above us, and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time: And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue, as being natural to us, and a seeking of our most real felicity.