A27062:182
Two treatises tending to awaken secure sinners viz., 1. The terror of the day…
Two treatises tending to awaken secure sinners viz., 1. The terror of the day of judgment, from 2 Cor. 5. 10, 2. The danger of slighting Christ and his Gospel, from Matth. 22. 5 / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Jonas Luntley, 1696
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 eighteenth Excuse. It was God that made me of a sensual Nature: He gave me an Appetite to Meat, and Drink, and Ease, and Lust: he gave me that Flesh which •uled me; how then can he condemn me, for living according to the Nature which he gave me?
Answ. He gave that Appetite to be exercised moderately under the Rule of Reason, for the Preservation and Propagation of Mankind: But did he not also give you Reason to govern that Appetite? and the Revelation of his Will to guide that Reason? He gave you your Flesh to be a Servant, and not a Master. Your Beast hath fleshly Appetite without Reason; and therefore ⟨p. 54⟩God hath put him under you, who have Reason that you should rule him. Will you let your Beast do what he list, and madly run upon whom he list, and say, you do but let him live according to his Nature which God hath given him? Why God that gave him such a Nature, did intend him to be ruled by a higher Nature, even by the Reason which he gave to you: and so he did also by your Flesh and sensual Appetite.
The nineteenth Excuse. But I lived among so many Baits which enticed this Flesh, that I could not resist them. My Meat was a Snare to me, my Drink a Snare, my Clothes, my House, my Land a Snare, every Beauty that I saw was […] Snare: and the better all these were, the stronger was my Snare. If God would not have had my Heart ensnared and drawn from him, he should not have put so many Baits in my way. Yea and they were so near to me, and daily with me, that though I was resolved to forbear them before, yet whe• they were brought to my hand, I could not forbear.
The nineteenth Excuse. But I lived among so many Baits which enticed this Flesh, that I could not resist them. My Meat was a Snare to me, my Drink a Snare, my Clothes, my House, my Land a Snare, every Beauty that I saw was Snare: and the better all these were, the stronger was my Snare. If God would not have had my Heart ensnared and drawn from him, he should not have put so many Baits in my way. Yea and they were so near to me, and daily with me, that though I was resolved to forbear them before, yet whe they were brought to my hand, I could not forbear.