N21487:203
A call to the unconverted, to turn and live
A call to the unconverted, to turn and live; and accept of mercy, while mercy may be had; as they ever would find mercy, in the day of extremity from the living God. / By his unworthy servant, Richard Baxter.
Philadelphia: printed for Matthew Carey, 1795Philadelphia: printed for Mathew Carey, 1795
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.
2. Perhaps you speak as you think: worldlings think the world is at the best, when it is agreeable to their minds, and when they have most mirth and worldly pleasure; and I doubt not but the devil, as well as you, would say, that then, it was a better world, for then, he had more service, and less disturbance. But the world is at the best, when God is most loved, regarded and obeyed; and how else will you know when the world is good or bad, but by this?
Object. 10. Th•re are so many ways and religions, that we know not which to be of, and therefore we will be even as we are.
Answ. Because they are many, will you ⟨p. 88⟩be of that way that you may be sure is wrong None are farther out of the way than worldly, fleshly, unconverted sinners; for they do nor only err in this or that opinion, as many sects do, but in the very scope and drift of their lives. If you were going a journey that your life lay on, would you stop or turn again because you meet with some cross ways, or because you saw some travellers go the horseway, and some the foot-way, and some perhaps break over the hedge, yea, and some miss the way? or would you not rather be the more careful to enquire the way? If you have some servants that know not how to do your work right, and some that are unfaithful, would you take it well at any of the rest that would therefore be idle, and do you no service, because they see the rest so bad?
Answ. Because they are many, will you ⟨p. 88⟩be of that way that you may be sure is wrong None are farther out of the way than worldly, fleshly, unconverted sinners; for they do nor only err in this or that opinion, as many sects do, but in the very scope and drift of their lives. If you were going a journey that your life lay on, would you stop or turn again because you meet with some cross ways, or because you saw some travellers go the horseway, and some the foot-way, and some perhaps break over the hedge, yea, and some miss the way? or would you not rather be the more careful to enquire the way? If you have some servants that know not how to do your work right, and some that are unsaithful, would you take it well at any of the rest that would therefore be idle, and do you no service, because they see the rest so bad?