A27016:201
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.
Do you believe this now, or do you not? If you do, will you yet go on? If you do not believe it, show me now what you have gotten by all the stir that you have made in the world, that will follow you one step further then the grave, and that you can say shall be your own to morrow? If you were to die this hour, will it be any lasting comfort to you, that you have laboured to be Rich or Honourable, or that you have attained it? or that you had your glut of sensual delights; and a merry life as to the fleshly pleasure as long as it would last? Will you dye the more comfortably for any of this? or much the less? That yet you are alive, is the great mercy of God, and not to be ascribed to any of these: And when you cease to live, then these will be your grief and torment.
Do you believe this now, or do you not? If you do, will you yet go on? If you do not believe it, shew me now what you have gotten by all the stir that you have made in the world, that will follow you one step further then the grave, and that you can say shall be your own to morrow? If you were to die this hour, will it be any lasting comfort to you, that you have laboured to be Rich or Honourable, or that you have attained it? or that you had your glut of sensual delights; and a merry life as to the fleshly pleasure as long as it would last? Will you dye the more comfortably for any of this? or much the less? That yet you are alive, is the great mercy of God, and not to be ascribed to any of these: And when you cease to live, then these will be your greif and torment.
Beloved Hearers, I have no desire the Lord knows to discompose your minds, or to disquiet you with any molesting unnecessary scruples; nor causelessly to dishonour either you or your employments: But I must needs say, that it is a doleful case, that men in their wits, should spend a life of precious time, and also a great deal of care and labour, in doing▪ Nothing, and much worse then Nothing, when they have a work of everlasting consequence to do, and they know that the Devils chiefest hopes do consist in the success of these diversions! ⟨p. 28⟩