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A27055 A true believer's choice and pleasure Instanced in the exemplary life of Mrs Mary Coxe, the late wife of Doctor Thomas Coxe. Preached for her funeral by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1680 (1680) Wing B1433; ESTC R218157 25,373 74

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give you hopes of a better life or you must live and dye in meer despair And shall that be your wilful choice 2. Consider how unvaluable a mercy it is to man yea to sinful miserable man that God should vouchsafe to give him such an everlasting Heritage and such security for it and that on the meere thankful acceptance of the sinner And how worthily will they be undone that by wilful refusal are deprived of freely offered Felicity 3. And consider how suitable an Heritage and Security it is that is offered us and how fit for our joyful acceptance and esteem The thing promised is no less than endless glory with God our Redeemer and all the blessed it is in the world where we must be for ever It is the perfection of that which every holy Soul desireth It is our best our all it must be that or nothing that or Hell The Word or Covenant which is our Trust 1. Is Gods own Word 2. It perfecteth and secondeth natural revelation and hope 3. It beareth on it self the impress of God even his power wisdom and love in wonders prophecies and grace it is sealed by the blood of Christ by his own and his Disciples multitude of miracles and by the gift of his sanctifying Spirit to all true believers to the end It is confirmed to our Souls by the experience of the Power of it and the blessed effects and this in-dwelling Spirit the witness of Christ and by the answer of prayers by many providences and by the experience of all Believers to this day It is excellently suited to all our needs to our wants our dangers our fears our doubts yea and our sinful unworthiness in the freeness of Gods mercy and all his gifts Indeed man had rather live by sight and would fain know by seeing whither Souls go and what they are and have and do hereafter But it is not we but God that is the Ruler and fittest to choose both the gift and means the end and way If we thankfully trust and improve a promise we shall quickly see and have possession Blessed be God for the light of his Gospel to guide us up to the light of glory O that we had hearts to trust it love it and rejoice in it as we have just cause 4. And is it not a great mercy of God that he hath herein called us to a life of happiness and present joy If he had bid us only weep for sin to the last breath the condition had been easie as for pardon and hope of endless mercy but he hath given us a word which he would have to be the rejoycing of our hearts and do we not love joy or have we any better I have not now time and I much more want my self such a mind and heart as I should have to tell what cause of daily joy God hath given us in his word and Covenants But this I will tell you that our want of joy is our daily sin and shame as well as our loss and suffering and among all the discoveries of the sinful weakness of our Faith Hope and Love our want of rejoycing in the word of promise and hope of glory is not the less O what an Enemy is Death in this respect that standing between it darkneth and affrighneth us from our joys But Christ hath conquered Death to deliver those that through fear of it are subject to Bondage Heb. 2.14 And though we cry O miserable men who shall deliver us we ye thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And I must second the Testimony of our deceased Friend in professing for your encouragement my own experience I have taken God's Testimonies for my Heritage and they have been these fifty Years or near the pleasure of my life and sweeter than Honey and preciouser than thousands of gold and silver As we tell men in charity of the things which we have found good the Medicines that have healed us and commend the persons that have been friendly to us and as man's nature is inclined to propagate the knowledge and communicate the good which we partake of and grace increaseth this inclination so I take it to be my duty to add herein my own experience if it may contribute to the determining of your cho●ce and reason teacheth all men to regard that means and remedy and good the more which many have had experience of and it is not to be taken for vain ostentation to profess that which all must have in some degree that will be saved Though the natural and sinful fears of pain and death too long deprived me of much of the joy which I should have had in the thoughts of the unseen world and too much doth so to this day yet I must say that the Word of God and the persons that love and practice it and the holy way of life and peace and all the means and things that here savour of Heaven have been so good and pleasant to me as enableth me to assure you that on earth there is nothing so worthy of your desire and joy And to encourage you I will tell you by my own experience what benefit may be expected from this kind of delight agreeable to Davids and our Friends experience 1. By this means my life hath been almost a constant pleasure 2. This pleasure hath much upheld me under almost constant bodily infirmity and pain 3. It hath made all my sufferings from men and crosses in the world to be tolerable and very easie to me had not Gods Word been my delight I had lived uncomfortably in constant pains and sorrows and had perished in my trouble 4. It hath saved me from the snares of sinful pleasures mans nature will seek for some delight and they that have it not in good-will seek it in things hurtful and forbidden it is only greater things that can overcome our mistaken choice of lesser In my Childhood I was sinfully inclined to the pleasure of Romances and of Childish Sports but when I tasted the sweetness of Gods Testimonies and Ways I needed no other but spit out those luscious unwholesome Vanities And though common knowledge called Learning be pleasant to mans nature and I cannot say that I have not overvalued it yet I must say that the relish of these greater matters hath made me see how much of it is vanity and hath saved me from the pursuit of that part of it which doth but please curiosity and fancy and tendeth not to use and to greater things and sensual pleasures I had no need of 5. It hath by this means made that pleasure which I had to be such as my reason did approve and justifie whereas if I had sought it in preferment wealth or sensuality a foreseeing Conscience would have afrighted me out of all my pleasure and I should have had more of the pricks than of the Rose of the sting than of the Honey Of this pleasure you need not fear too much but