A27038:381
A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen…A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen…
A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1655
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.
THE ninth Direction. Let it be the daily care of thy soul, to mortify thy fleshly desires, and overcome this world; and live as in a continual Conflict with Satan, which will not be ended till thy life do end. If any thing destroy thee ⟨p. 271⟩by drawing away thy heart from God, it will be thy carnal self, thy fleshly desires, and the allurements of this world, which is the matter that they fed upon. This therefore must be the earnest work of thy life, to subdue this flesh and set light by this world, and resist the Devil, that by these would destroy thee. It is the common case of miserable hypocrites, that at first they list them selves under Christ as for a fight, but they presently forget their state and work; and when they are once in their own conceit Regenerate, they think themselves so safe, that there is no further danger; and thereupon do lay down their Arms, and take that which they miscall their Christian Liberty, and indulge and please that flesh, which they promised to mortify, and close with the ⟨p. 272⟩world which they promised to contemn, and so give up themselves to the Devil whom they promised to fight against. If once you apprehend that all your Religion lieth in mere Believing that all shall go well with you, and that the bitterness of death is past, and in a forbearance of some disgraceful sins, and being much in the Exercise of your Gifts, and in external ways of Duty, and giving God a Cheap and plausible obedience in those things only which the Flesh can spare; you are then fallen into that deceitful hypocrisy, which will as surely condemn you, as open profaneness, if you get not out of it. You must live as in a fight, or you cannot overcome. You must live loose from all things in this world, if you will be ready for another. You must not live after ⟨p. 273⟩the flesh, but mortify it by the Spirit, if you would not dye but live for ever.