A27048:56
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
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.
4. And thus the dismal face of Death, doth hinder the heavenliness of our Conversation. Our Thoughts will be diverted, when our complacency and desire is abated: Our minds will be willinger to grow strange to Heaven, when ⟨p. 21⟩Death still mingleth terror in our meditations: Whereas if we could have come to God in the way that was first appointed us, and could be clothed with glory, without being stripped of our present clothing, by this terrible hand, how familiarly should we then converse above? How readily would our Thoughts run out to Christ? meditation of that Glory would not be then so hard a work: Our hearts would not be so backward to it, as now they are.
4. And thus the dismall face of Death, doth hinder the heavenliness of our Conversation. Our Thoughts will be diverted, when our complacency and desire is abated: Our minds will be willinger to grow strange to Heaven, when ⟨p. 21⟩Death still mingleth terror in our meditations: Whereas if we could have come to God in the way that was first appointed us, and could be cloathed with glory, without being stript of our present cloathing, by this terrible hand, how familiarly should we then converse above? How readily would our Thoughts run out to Christ? meditation of that Glory would not be then so hard a work: Our hearts would not be so backward to it, as now they are.
5. Faith is much hindered, and Infidelity much advantaged by Death: Look either to the state of soul or body, and you will easily perceive the truth of this. The state of a Soul incorporated, we know, by long experience: what kind of apprehensions, volitions, and affections belong to a soul while it acteth in the Body, we feel or understand: But what manner of knowledge, will or Love, what Joy, ⟨p. 2⟩what sorrow, belong to souls that are separated from the Bodies, it is not possible for us now distinctly and formally to conceive. And when men find themselves at a loss about the manner, they are tempted to doubt of the thing it self. The swarms of irreligious Infidels, that have denied the Immortality and separated existence of the soul, are too full a proof of this: And good men have been haunted with this horrible temptation. Had there been no death, we had not been liable to this dangerous assault. The opinion of the sleeping of the soul, till the Resurrection, is but a step to flat Infidelity; and both of them hence receive their Life, because a soul in flesh, when it cannot conceive to its satisfaction, of the being, state, or action of a separated soul, is the easier drawn to question or deny it.