A27016:1109
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Francis Tyton, 1662
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Dir. 4. Study the greatness of the mercy which you have received: You abound with mercies; and yet undervalue them, and over look them, and sweeten not your souls with the serious observation and remembrance of them: you study principally your afflictions and your wants: And thus when you live in a land that floweth with milk and honey, you will not feed on the prepared feast, but keep still the gall and wormwood in your mouths; and how then should you be acquainted with the pleasures of a holy life.
Dir. 4. Study the greatness of the mercy which you have received: You abound with mercies; and yet undervalue them, and over look them, and sweeten not your souls with the serious observation and remembrance of them: you study principally your afflictions and your wants: And thus when you live in a land that floweth with milke and honey, you will not feed on the prepared feast, but keep still the gall and wormwood in your mouths; and how then should you be acquainted with the pleasures of a holy life.
Yea you must use to look more to the spiritual part of all your ⟨p. 379⟩mercies; and see the love of God that appeareth in them; and taste the blood of Christ in them; and lose not the kernel: and take not up with the common carnal part, which every wicked man can value and enjoy. Consider in all your mercies, what there is in them for the benefit of your souls, much rather then how they accommodate your flesh. Could you do thus, you would find the benefit of afflictions; and that the denial of what you have accounted your necessary mercies, is not the smallest of your mercies. And thus judging truly by the spirit, and not by the flesh, there is no condition (except that of sin) in which you might not find cause of joy.
Yea you must use to look more to the spiritual part of all your ⟨p. 379⟩mercies; and see the love of God that appeareth in them; and taste the blood of Christ in them; and lose not the kernel: and take not up with the common carnal part, which every wicked man can value and enjoy. Consider in all your mercies, what there is in them for the benefit of your souls, much rather then how they accommodate your flesh. Could you do thus, you would find the benefit of afflictions; and that the denyal of what you have accounted your necessary mercies, is not the smallest of your mercies. And thus judging truly by the spirit, and not by the flesh, there is no condition (except that of sin) in which you might not find cause of joy.