A27016:846
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 if men have a malignant enmity to Godliness, no reason will persuade them that it is most pleasant, but what persuades them from that enmity. No Reason will persuade a slothful person that Labour is better then sleep and idleness; no Reason will persuade a drunkard, glutton, or voluptuous wretch, that abstinence and continence are the sweetest life. Could we change their Hearts, we should change their Pleasures. Such as men are, such are their delights But the thing that I undertake, is, to manifest to any competent discerner, that Holiness is the most ⟨p. 270⟩Pleasant course; and that all the Pleasures of the Earth are Nothing to the Pleasures which the Godly find in God, and in a Holy life: and if any be not of this mind, it is because his souls diseases have made him an incompetent judge. And that Godliness is the Pleasant State of life, will appear to you, 1. From the Nature of the thing it self. 2. From the encouragements and helps with which it is attended. 3. From the effects and fruits.
And if men have a malignant enmity to Godliness, no reason will perswade them that it is most pleasant, but what perswades them from that enmity. No Reason will perswade a sloathful person that Labour is better then sleep and idleness; no Reason will perswade a drunkard, glutton, or voluptuous wretch, that abstinence and continence are the sweetest life. Could we change their Hearts, we should change their Pleasures. Such as men are, such are their delights But the thing that I undertake, is, to manifest to any competent discerner, that Holiness is the most ⟨p. 270⟩Pleasant course; and that all the Pleasures of the Earth are Nothing to the Pleasures which the Godly find in God, and in a Holy life: and if any be not of this mind, it is because his souls diseases have made him an incompetent judge. And that Godliness is the Pleasant State of life, will appear to you, 1. From the Nature of the thing it self. 2. From the encouragements and helps with which it is attended. 3. From the effects and fruits.