A27048:151
A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed showing wherein its enmity…A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed shewing wherein its enmity…
A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed showing wherein its enmity consisteth and how it is destroyed : part of it was preached at the funerals [sic] of Elizabeth, the late wife of Mr. Joseph Baker ... / by Rich. Baxter ; with some few passages of the life of the said Mrs. Baker observed.A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed shewing wherein its enmity consisteth and how it is destroyed : part of it was preached at the funerals [sic] of Elizabeth, the late wife of Mr. Joseph Baker ... / by Rich. Baxter ; with some few passages of the life of the said Mrs. Baker observed.
London: printed by R.W. for Nev. Simmons, 1660
Sermon › Section 9 › Application 7 › Direction 9: DIRECTION IX.
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.
Alas, how we are continually here annoyed, by the presence, and the motions, and the success of sin in our selves and others! It dwelleth in us night and day; we cannot get it stay behind, no not when we address our selves to God, not in our public worship, or our secret prayers: not for the space of one Lords Day, ⟨p. 145⟩or one Sermon, or one Sacrament, in ordinary or extraordinary duty. O what a blessed day and duty would it be, in which we could leave our sin behind us, and converse with God in spotless innocency, and worship and adore him without the darkness, and strangeness and unbelief, and dullness, and doubtings, and distractions, that are now our daily, miseries? Can we have grace and not be weary of these corruptions? Can we have life, and not be pained with these diseases? And can we live in daily pain and weariness, and not be willing of release? Is there a gracious soul, that groaneth not under the burden of these miseries? yea, in every prayer, what do we else but confess them, and lament them, and groan for help, and for deliverance? And yet shall we fear our day of freedom, and be loth that death ⟨p. 146⟩should bring us news, that our prayers are heard, and our groans have reached up to heaven and that the bonds of flesh and sin shall be dissolved, and we shall have need to watch, and strive, and fear, and complain, and sigh, and weep no more? Shall the face of death discourage us from desiring such a blessed day? When we have so full assurance, that at last this enemy also shall be destroyed? The Lord heal and pardon the Hypocrisy of our complaints, together with the unbelief and cowardliness of our souls! Do we speak so much, and hear so much, and seem to do so much against sin, and yet had we rather keep it still, then be stripped of it, together with the rags of our mortality? and yet had we rather dwell with sin, in tempting, troubling, corruptible flesh, then lay them by, and dwell with Christ? O Lord ⟨p. 147⟩how lamentably have we lost our wisdom, and drowned our minds in flesh and folly, by forsaking thee our light and life! How come our reasonable souls to be so bewitched, as after all our convictions, complaints and prayers, to be still more willing of our sickness then of the remedy, and more afraid of this bitter Cup, then of the poison that lodgeth in our bowels, which it would expel!