A27016:386
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.
If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn, I had done my work: I needed not to go any further: You would be now resolved, that Heaven and Holiness is best, and would set your hearts and lives to seek it; and so it would be your own for ever. But this Text hath long stood in the Gospel, and men have heard and read it often, and yet the most are not persuaded; and therefore I must try to open it a little farther to you, and plead it with you, and work the Reason of it upon your minds.
If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn, I had done my work: I needed not to go any further: You would be now resolved, that Heaven and Holiness is best, and would set your hearts and lives to seek it; and so it would be your own for ever. But this Text hath long stood in the Gospel, and men have heard and read it often, and yet the most are not perswaded; and therefore I must try to open it a little farther to you, and plead it with you, and work the Reason of it upon your minds.
Reader, our business is but to enquire, What it is that is Best for Man to set his heart on and seek after in his Life, and Enjoy for ever? I say, it is the Everlasting Enjoyment of God in Heaven: For Christ saith so. If thou think otherwise, let us debate the case. If thou believe as I do, Live as thou professest to believe. If men did but deeply and soundly know what it is that is best for them, it would set right their hearts and lives, and make them happy. But not knowing this, is it that keepeth them from God and Holiness, and everlastingly undoes them.
Though I have often opened this heretofore on other occasions, yet my present subject now requireth, 1. That I tell you, What that is that here is called [The Good part.] 2. What it is that is set against it, and by fleshly minds, preferred before it? And having briefly opened these two things, I shall come to the Comparison, and show you which is the better part.