A27006:295
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his…
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully published from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1696
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.
3. And then it seemed utterly improbable to me that this God should see us to be Losers by our Love and Duty to him, and that our Duty should be made to be our Snare, or make us the more miserable by how much the more faithfully we ⟨p. 23⟩perform it! And I saw that the very Possibility or Probability of a Life to come, would make it the Duty of a Reasonable Creature to seek it, though with the loss of all below.
4. And I saw by undeniable Experience, a strange Universal Enmity between the Heavenly and the Earthly Mind, the Godly and the Wicked, as fulfilling the Prediction Gen. 3. 15. The War between the Woman's and the Serpent's Seed, being the daily Business of all the World. And I saw that the wicked and haters of Godliness are so commonly the greatest and most powerful and numerous, as well as cruel, that ordinarily there is no living according to the Precepts of Nature and undeniable Reason, without being made the Derision and Contempt of Men (if we can scape so easily).
5. And then I saw that there is no other Religion in the World which can stand in competition with Christianity: Heathenism and Mohammedanism are kept up by Tyranny, and Beastly Ignorance, and blush to stand at the Bar of Reason: And Judaism is but Christianity in the Egg or Bed. And mere Deism, which is the most plausible Competitor, is so turned out of almost all the whole World, as if Nature made its own Confession, that without a Mediator it cannot come to God.
5. And then I saw that there is no other Religion in the World which can stand in competition with Christianity: Heathenism and Mahometanism are kept up by Tyranny, and Beastly Ignorance, and blush to stand at the Bar of Reason: And Judaism is but Christianity in the Egg or Bed. And meer Deism, which is the most plausible Competitor, is so turned out of almost all the whole World, as if Nature made its own Confession, that without a Mediator it cannot come to God.