A27016:710
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.
O that you would all but stand to this, in the choosing of your course, and in your daily practice! Will you all agree upon a Holy life, if I prove it past all doubt to be the Honestest? ⟨p. 206⟩O that you would! Yea, if I prove that there is no man truly Honest in the world, that is not truly Godly? If you would stand to this, you would soon be changed. Indeed it is nothing but but Dishonesty that we would have you changed from. And if you will not stand to this, but will refuse Honesty when you know it, for shame lay by the Name of Honesty, and wish not men to call you Honest any more. Either be what you would be called; or give men leave to call you as you are. Let us come then to the trial, and see who is indeed the Honest man; the Godly or the ungodly.
O that you would all but stand to this, in the choosing of your course, and in your daily practice! Will you all agree upon a Holy life, if I prove it past all doubt to be the Honestest? ⟨p. 206⟩O that you would! Yea, if I prove that there is no man truly Honest in the world, that is not truly Godly? If you would stand to this, you would soon be changed. Indeed it is nothing but but Dishonesty that we would have you changed from. And if you will not stand to this, but will refuse Honesty when you know it, for shame lay by the Name of Honesty, and wish not men to call you Honest any more. Either be what you would be called; or give men leave to call you as you are. Let us come then to the tryal, and see who is indeed the Honest man; the Godly or the ungodly.
1. I have already told you, that God who is the most infallible Judge, hath given his sentence on his peoples side. If you will think your selves that it is not those that Thieves and Harlots call Honest that are so likely to be Honest, as those that wise men and virtuous men call so: We have then far greater Reason to conclude, that it is not those that you call Honest, that are so fit to be judged such, as those that God calls so. How say you? will you not freely give us leave to take Gods judgements or Word before yours? If not, we will take leave. And God calls all the ungodly by the name of Evil and Wicked men! and the godly are they that he calleth Upright, Good, and Honest. The whole Scripture, you know, if you know any thing of it, speaketh in this language.