A27016:354
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.
2. But suppose them as bad as malice doth imagine: Is that any reason why both they and you should not be better? It is Holiness and not sin that I am pleading for. Is their godliness and care of their salvation necessary, or not? If it be, why do you not ⟨p. 97⟩imitate them in that? and if you know any fault in them, take warning and avoid it: But be not so mad as to run into Hell, because some fall in the way to Heaven, or some miss the way that seemed to go thither. Imitate not the Judas in Christs family, but the rest of his Disciples, and that not in their falls, but in their faith and piety. All that shall be saved, have both Holiness towards God, and Justice and Charity to men. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, Jam. 3. 17. If you want the first, you are ungodly; if the later, you are hypocrites: And if the hypocrite and the ungodly will stand snarling here at one another, they shall perish together, in that misery that will convince them that neither of them were the heirs of life: when Saints indeed, and none but they, shall live with Christ.
2. But suppose them as bad as malice doth imagine: Is that any reason why both they and you should not be better? It is Holiness and not sin that I am pleading for. Is their godliness and care of their salvation necessary, or not? If it be, why do you not ⟨p. 97⟩imitate them in that? and if you know any fault in them, take warning and avoid it: But be not so mad as to run into Hell, because some fall in the way to Heaven, or some miss the way that seemed to go thither. Imitate not the Judas in Christs family, but the rest of his Disciples, and that not in their falls, but in their faith and piety. All that shall be saved, have both Holiness towards God, and Justice and Charity to men. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easie to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, Jam. 3. 17. If you want the first, you are ungodly; if the later, you are hypocrites: And if the hypocrite and the ungodly will stand snarling here at one another, they shall perish together, in that misery that will convince them that neither of them were the heirs of life: when Saints indeed, and none but they, shall live with Christ.