A27061:182
Two treatises the first of death, on I Cor. 15:26, the second of judgment…
Two treatises the first of death, on I Cor. 15:26, the second of judgment on 2 Cor. 5:10, 11 / by Rich. Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1672
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.
O What a brutish thing is flesh? What an unreasonable thing is unbelief? Shall we believe, and fly from the end of our belief? Shall we hope, and be loath to enjoy our hopes? Shall we desire and pray, and be afraid of attaining our desires, and lest our prayers should be heard? Shall we spend our lives in labour and travel, and be afraid of coming to our journeys end? Do you love life, or do you not? If not, why are you afraid of death? If you do, why then are you loath to pass into everlasting life? You know there is no hope of immortality on earth: Hence you must pass whether you will or not, as all your Fathers have done before you; it is therefore in Heaven or no where, that endless life is to be had. If you can live here for ever, do. Hope for it, if any have done so before you. Go to some man of a thousand years old, and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long: But if you know that man walketh here in a vain show, and that his life is a shadow, a dream, a post; and that all these things shall be dissolved, and the fashion of them passeth away; is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance, than where there is none? and where we must live for ever, than where we must be but for so short a time?
O What a brutish thing is flesh? What an unreasonable thing is unbelief? Shall we believe, and fly from the end of our belief? Shall we hope, and be loath to enjoy our hopes? Shall we desire and pray, and be afraid of attaining our desires, and lest our prayers should be heard? Shall we spend our lives in labour and travel, and be afraid of comming to our journeys end? Do you love life, or do you not? If not, why are you afraid of death? If you do, why then are you loath to pass into everlasting life? You know there is no hope of immortality on earth: Hence you must pass whether you will or not, as all your Fathers have done before you; it is therefore in Heaven or no where, that endless life is to be had. If you can live here for ever, do. Hope for it, if any have done so before you. Go to some man of a thousand years old, and ask him how he made shift to draw out his life so long: But if you know that man walketh here in a vain shew, and that his life is a shadow, a dream, a post; and that all these things shall be dissolved, and the fashion of them passeth away; is it not more reasonable that we should set our hearts on the place where there is hopes of our continuance, than where there is none? and where we must live for ever, than where we must be but for so short a time?