A27016:259
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.
It may be you are Ignorant and cannot learn many things; but God hath set you but this One thing to learn as of Absolute Necessity: And he is dull indeed that cannot learn one thing, and such a thing too. If you cannot understand the depths of Sciences, nor reach the height of learning that others do attain, yet learn this One thing, to know God in the Redeemer; and if you know this, you know all. Paul was not only contented with this knowledge, but resolved to know nothing else but Christ and him crucified; that ⟨p. 58⟩is, Nothing that is wholly alien to this: Nothing but what doth keep its due subordination to this, and so may be reduced to the knowledge of Christ, 1 Cor. 2. 2 He would not own any other knowledge as knowledge, but disclaimeth it as Ignorance and Foolishness, though it seemed wisdom in the eyes of the world, 1 Cor. 3. 19. This seeming knowledge and wisdom of the world, that is totally disjunct from Christ, is part of the [all] that we must sell to buy the Pearl, if we will obtain it. Matth. 13. 46. and part of the [all things] which Paul accounted dung and loss, that he might win Christ and be found in him. Phil. 3. 7, 8, 9, 10. For they that know not this One thing, know nothing, whatsoever they may seem to know: and they that would go beyond the knowledge of Christ, and think it too low for them, and trouble their brains and the Church with their speculations, they do not know indeed, but dream. And if they would see their faces in the glass of Scripture. 1 Tim. 6. 4. They are proud knowing nothing, but doting about Questions and strifes of words; whence cometh envy, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the Truth.
It may be you are Ignorant and cannot learn many things; but God hath set you but this One thing to learn as of Absolute Necessity: And he is dull indeed that cannot learn one thing, and such a thing too. If you cannot understand the depths of Sciences, nor reach the height of learning that others do attain, yet learn this One thing, to know God in the Redeemer; and if you know this, you know all. Paul was not only contented with this knowledge, but resolved to know nothing else but Christ and him crucified; that