A26955:452
The mischiefs of self-ignorance and the benefits of self-acquaintance opened in divers sermons at…
The mischiefs of self-ignorance and the benefits of self-acquaintance opened in divers sermons at Dunstan's-West and published in answer to the accusations of some and the desires of others / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R. White for F. Tyton, 1662
THE Mischief of Self-ignorance, AND Benefit of Self-acquaintance. › Part
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.
5. Another instance of the darkness even of a Heart that in part is sanctified, is in the successes of the temptations of Adversity. When we want nothing, we think we value not the world, and we could bear the loss of all. But when poverty or danger comes, what trouble and unseemly whining is there, as if it were by a worldling that is deprived of his Idol, and all the portion that ever he must have. And by the shameful moan and stir that we make for what ⟨p. 317⟩we want, we show more sinful overvaluing of it, and love to it, then before we observed or would believe. O how confidently and piously have I heard some inveigh against the Love of the world, as if there had been no such thing in them; who yet have been so basely dejected, when they have been unexpectedly stripped of their estates, as if they had been quite undone!
5. Another instance of the darkness even of a Heart that in part is sanctified, is in the successes of the temptations of Adversity. When we want nothing, we think we value not the world, and we could bear the loss of all. But when poverty or danger comes, what trouble and unseemly whining is there, as if it were by a worldling that is deprived of his Idol, and all the portion that ever he must have. And by the shamefull moan and stir that we make for what ⟨p. 317⟩we want, we shew more sinfull overvaluing of it, and love to it, then before we observed or would believe. O how confidently and piously have I heard some inveigh against the Love of the world, as if there had been no such thing in them; who yet have been so basely dejected, when they have been unexpectedly stript of their estates, as if they had been quite undone!
How patiently do we think we could bear affliction, till we feel it! And how easily and piously can we exhort others unto patience, when we have no sense of what they suffer! But when our turn is come, alas, we seem to be other men. Suffering is now another thing; and Patience harder then we imagined. And how inclinable are we to hearken to temptations, to use sinful means to come out of our sufferings! Who would have thought that faithful Abraham should have been so unbelieving as to equivocate in such a danger, and expose the chastity of his wife to hazard, as we read in