A27042:65
A sermon of repentance preached before the honourable House of Commons, assembled in Parliament…
A sermon of repentance preached before the honourable House of Commons, assembled in Parliament at Westminster, at their late solemn fast for the settling of these nations, April 30, 1660 / by Richard Baxter.A sermon of repentance preached before the honourable House of Commons, assembled in Parliament at Westminster, at their late solemn fast for the setling of these nations, April 30, 1660 / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. and A.M. for Francis Tyton and Jane Underhil, 1660
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.
How near is the time when my departing soul must look back on all the pleasures and profits that ever I enjoyed, as a dream when one awaketh; as delusory vanities, that have done all for me that ever they will do, and all is but to bring my flesh unto corruption (Gal. 6. 8.) and my soul to this distressing grief and fear! Add then I must sing and ⟨p. 28⟩laugh no more! I must brave it out in pride no more! I must know the pleasures of the flesh no more! but be levelled with the poorest, and my body laid in loathsome darkness, and my soul appear before that God whom I so wilfully refused to obey and honour. O wretch that I am! where was my understanding, when I plaid so boldly with the flames of hell, the wrath of God, the poison of sin! when God stood by and yet I sinned! when conscience did rebuke me, and yet I sinned! when Heaven or hell were hard at hand, and yet I sinned! when to please my God and save my soul I would not forbear a filthy lust, or a forbidden vanity of no worth! when I would not be persuaded to a holy, heavenly, watchful life, though all my hopes of Heaven lay on it. I am ashamed of my self: I am confounded in the remembrance of my wilful self-destroying folly! I loath my self for all these abominations: O that I had lived in beggary and rags, when I lived in sin: and O that I had lived with God in a prison or in a wilderness, when I refused a holy heavenly life, for the love of a deceitful world! Will the Lord but pardon what is past, I am resolved through his grace to do so no more, but to loath that filth that I took for pleasure, and to abhor the sin that I made my sport; and to die to the glory and riches of the world, which I made my idol; and to live entirely to that God that I did so long and so unworthily neglect; and to seek that treasure, that Kingdom, that delight, that will fully satisfy my expectation, and answer all my care and labour, with such infinite advantage. Holiness or nothing shall be my work and life; and Heaven or nothing shall be my portion and felicity.
How neer is the time when my departing soul must look back on all the pleasures and profits that ever I enjoyed, as a dream when one awaketh; as delusory vanities, that have done all for me that ever they will doe, and all is but to bring my flesh unto corruption (Gal. 6. 8.) and my soul to this distressing grief and fear! Add then I must sing and