A27016:465
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.
And by this time I come somewhat nearer to the Infidel, and am ready to answer his fore-going Question, [Where shall I find the Judgement or Testimony of the Lord?] O, saith the Unbeliever, if I were but sure that there were a life hereafter, where the godly and the wicked shall be differently Rewarded, as the Scripture speaks, then I must confess he were no better then a ••• man that would prefer this world, or wilfully live in sin and Would not seek Heaven with all his might, and be as earnest i• Holy ⟨p. 131⟩the strictest Saint! But I am not sure that this is true, and that there is any such difference after death, to be expected.
ANd by this time I come somewhat nearer to the Infidel, and am ready to answer his fore-going Question, [Where shall I find the Judgement or Testimony of the Lord?] O, saith the Unbeliever, if I were but sure that there were a life hereafter, where the godly and the wicked shall be differently Rewarded, as the Scripture speaks, then I must confess he were no better then a ••• man that would prefer this world, or wilfully live in sin and Would not seek Heaven with all his might, and be as earnest i• Holi• ⟨p. 131⟩the strictest Saint! But I am not sure that this is true, and that there is any such difference after death, to be expected.
Answ. Alas poor wretch! Art thou at that pass! Hast thou so far lost the Knowledge of God, and of thy self, and of thy end and business here, and of the word and works of God, as to turn worse then Jew, or Turk, or Heathen, even to think thy self a beast, that hath no life nor happiness but this? If this be thy case, I cannot now stand to deal with thee according to thy necessity. I am now dealing with them that confess a Life hereafter: And because we cannot in all our writings repeat over the same things, I desire thee to peruse what I have already written for such as thee, in the Second Part of The Saints Rest, and in a Treatise called The unreasonableness of Infidelity; and at present take only some brief advertisements for thy conviction.