A27016:670
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.
13. And little cause have we to believe you, when we have present experience that your words are false. We see that those are the best, that are most Godly. He is blind that seeth not an exceeding difference betwixt them and such as you that speak against them. Do not we see that they are sober, when some of you are drunken? and that they are seeking heaven when you are seeking the world? and that they are providing for their souls and pleasing God, and employed in the most sweet and heavenly works, while you are pampering the flesh, or making provision to satisfy its lusts? Do we not hear their speeches are of God, and their salvation, and things that edify, while you curse or swear, or talk filthily, or idly and unprofitably like dreaming or distracted men? And yet would you make us believe that you are as good as they, and that Religion makes men worse?
13. And little cause have we to believe you, when we have present experience that your words are false. We see that those are the best, that are most Godly. He is blind that seeth not an exceeding difference betwixt them and such as you that speak against them. Do not we see that they are sober, when some of you are drunken? and that they are seeking heaven when you are seeking the world? and that they are providing for their souls and pleasing God, and imployed in the most sweet and heavenly works, while you are pampering the flesh, or making provision to satisfie its lusts? Do we not hear their speeches are of God, and their salvation, and things that edifie, while you curse or swear, or talk filthily, or idly and unprofitably like dreaming or distracted men? And yet would you make us believe that you are as good as they, and that Religion makes men worse?
But you say, that for all this they are secretly as bad as others. Foolish malice! If it be secret, how do you know it? If you know it, how is it secret? and its marvel that you do not make it known! Is it not easy to say so by a Job, or a Samuel, or by Christ himself, if saying so may serve turn, and a wicked tongue may pass for proof? You may say that in secret I commit all the sins imaginable: and how can I disprove you, when I have no witness, but only by desiring you to prove it if you can? But O happy are the servants of the Lord, that are even in secret always in the presence of their Judge, who will bear witness for them, and justify them against malignant tongues!