A27016:533
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.
But be thou judge thy self whether his service would not make us losers, if there were no life but this (though I confess the loss would be small and short:) Who are so hated, and persecuted as they that serve God best? How many thousands of them have been fain to give up their bodies to Tormentors, and their lives to the devouring flames? The very work of God consisteth in flesh displeasing things: To deny our selves and contemn this world, and live soberly, and righteously and godly in the world, and to be for this the scorn of men, is the lot of the obedient.
If you say, This is not the Lot of any but those that are over-righteous, ⟨p. 148⟩I answer 1. We cannot be over obedient to God. 2. You contradict the experience of all ages. Even the form of Godliness is hated by the Profane; and temperance by the drunkard; and he shall be their scorn that runs▪ not with them to excesses of riot: Seneca tells us that it was so even at Rome among the Heathens, that he was their derision that would not be as bad as the rest. If therefore in this life only we had hope, we were of all men most miserable, 1 Cor. 15. 19. Not but that even here we have the far better life then wicked men: But that is because it savoureth of the life to come to which it hath relation. Otherwise we should lose our credit, ease, pleasure, profit in the world, and have nothing for it. Faithfully Labour for God, O my soul; and never fear being a loser by his work.
If you say, This is not the Lot of any but those that are overrighteous, ⟨p. 148⟩I answer 1. We cannot be over obedient to God. 2. You contradict the experience of all ages. Even the form of Godliness is hated by the Profane; and temperance by the drunkard; and he shall be their scorn that runs▪ not with them to excesses of ryot: Seneca tells us that it was so even at Rome among the Heathens, that he was their derision that would not be as bad as the rest. If therefore in this life only we had hope, we were of all men most miserable,