A27065:208
The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue…
The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue (as against religion, rulers, or dissenters) described, in several sermons, preached at the Abby in Westminster, before many members of the Honourable House of Commons, 1660 ; and The fools prosperity, the occasion of his destruction : a sermon preached at Covent-Garden / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for F. Tyton, 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.
I shall dismiss this unhappy sort of men with these two requests. 1. You are the men that of all others have the most notable advantage for your conviction, of the misery of your present state: and therefore I beseech you take that advantage. One would think it should be the easiest matter in the world, for such as you to know that you are ungodly, that hate godliness and oppose it? you have ⟨p. 197⟩no plausible pretence for self-flattery or self-deceit. And therefore confess your misery, and look out to Christ, for help and pardon, while there is hope and time.
2. For the time to come, will you but try a serious holy life before you speak against it any more? For shame speak not evil of the things you know not, as those brutes described, Jud. 10. And holiness was never well known but by experience. O that you would be entreated but to yield to this most equal motion. Away with your worldly fleshly lives; and live in faith and holiness, a just, a spiritual and heavenly life, but one year, or one quarter, or one month, and then if by experience you find just cause for it, reproach a holy life, and spare not.
2. For the time to come, will you but try a serious holy life before you speak against it any more? For shame speak not evil of the things you know not, as those bruits described, Jud. 10. And holiness was never well known but by experience. O that you would be intreated but to yeild to this most equal motion. Away with your worldly fleshly lives; and live in faith and holiness, a just, a spiritual and heavenly life, but one year, or one quarter, or one moneth, and then if by experience you find just cause for it, reproach a holy life, and spare not.
II. TO the second sort, (that speak evil of men upon differences of opinion, especially while they profess the same Religion, in all the essential necessary parts,) I shall propose these aggravations of their sin, for their humiliation.