Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A26917
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Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace with motives opening the lamentable effects of their weaknesses and distempers / by Richard Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1669
(1669)
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Wing B1249; ESTC R15683
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216,321
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412
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to God He hath respect to the humble contrite soul. Isa. 57.15 and 66.2 Psal. 51.17 The hungry he filleth with good but the rich he sendeth empty away Luk. 1.53 He giveth more grace to the humble when the proud are abhorred by him 1 Pet. 5.5 The Church of Laodicea that said I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing was miserable and poor and blinde and naked Rev. 3.17 As many that are proud of their honour and birth run out of all by living above their estates when meaner persons grow rich because they are still gathering and make much of every little So proud Professors of Religion are in a Consumption of the Grace they have while the humble increase by making much of every little help which is sleighted and neglected by the proud and by shunning all those spending courses which the proud are plunged in Be sure to keep mean thoughts of your selves of your knowledg and parts and grace and duties and be content to be mean in the esteem of others if you would not be worse than mean in the esteem of God DIRECT V. Exercise your selves daily in a life of Faith upon Jesus Christ as your Saviour your Teacher your Mediator and your King as your Example your Wisdom your Righteousness and your Hope ALL other studies and knowledg must be meerly subservient to the study and knowledg of Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 That vain kind of Philosophy which St. Paul so much cautioneth Christians against is so far yet from being accounted vain that by many called Christians it is preferred before Christianity it self and to shew that it is Vain while they overvalue it they can shew no solid worth or vertue which they have got by it but only a tumified mind and an idle tongue like a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13.1 and 12.31 and 2.4.14 15 16. and 1.18 19 20 21 23 24 27. Col. 2.8 9. We are compleat in Christ in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ver 10. No study in the World will so much lead you up to God and acquaint you with him especially in his Love and Goodness as the study of Christ his Person his Office his Doctrine his Example his Kingdom and his benefits As the Deity is your ultimate end to which all things else are but helps and means so Christ is that great and principal means by whom all other means are animated Remember that you are in continual need of him for direction intercession pardon sanctification for support and comfort and for peace with God Let no thoughts therefore be so sweet and frequent in your hearts nor any discourse so ready in your mouths next to the excellencies of the eternal Godhead as this of the design of mans Redemption Let Christ be to your Souls as the Air the Earth the Sun and your Food are to your bodies without which your life would presently fail As you had never come home to the Father but by him so without him you cannot a moment continue in the Fathers love nor be accepted in one duty nor be protected from one danger nor be supplyed in any want For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell Col. 1.18 19. And by him it is that being justified by Faith we have peace with God and have access by Faith unto this Grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God Rom. â— 1 2. And it is in him the Head that we must grow up in all things from whom the whole body doth receive it's increase Ephes. 4.15 16. You grow no more in Grace than you grow in the true knowledg and daily use of Jesus Christ. But of this I will say no more because I have said so much in my Directions for a sound Conversion DIRECT VI. Let the Knowledg and Love of God and your obedience to him be the Works of your Religion and the everlasting fruition of him in Heaven be the continual end and ruling Motive of your Hearts and Lives that your very Conversation may be with God in Heaven YOu are so far HOLY as you are DIVINE and HEAVENLY A Christian indeed in casting up his accounts being certain that this World doth make no man happy hath been led up by Christ to seek a Happiness with God above If you live not for this everlasting happiness if you trade not for this if this be not your treasure your hope and home the chief matter of your desires love and joy and if all things be not prest to serve it and despised when they stand against it you live not indeed a Christian life GOD and HEAVEN or GOD in HEAVEN is the Life and Soul the beginning and the end the Sum the All of true Religion And therefore it is that we are directed to lift up our Heads and Hearts and begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven and end them with ascribing to Him the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever It is not the Creatures but God the Creator that is the Father the Guide and the felicity of Souls and therefore the ultimate end and object of all Religious actions and affections Dwell still upon God and dwell in Heaven if you would understand the nature and design of Christianity Take God for all that is for God Study after the knowledg of him in all his Works Study him in his Word Study him in Christ And never study him barely to know him but to know him that you may love him Take your selves as dead when you live not in the Love of God Keep still upon your hearts a lively sense of the infinite difference between him and the Creature Look on all the World as a shadow and on God as the substance Take the very worst that man can do to be in comparison of the punishments of God but as a Flea-biting to the sorest death And take all the dreaming pleasures of the World to be less in comparison with the joyes of Heaven than one lick of honey is to a thousand years possession of all the felicities on earth Think not all the pleasures honours or riches of the world to be worthy to be named in comparison of Heaven nor the Greatest of Men to be worthy to be once thought on in comparison of God As one straw or feather won or lost would neither much rejoyce or trouble you if all the City or land were yours So live as men whose eyes are open and who discern a greater disproportion between the portion of a worldling and a Saint Let God be your King your Father your master your friend your wealth your joy your All. Let not a day go over your heads in which your hearts have no converse with God in Heaven when any trouble overtaketh you on Earth look up to Heaven and remember that it is there that Rest and Joy are prepared for believers When you are under any want or cross or
his hand or the Fornicator to cure his lust than to put out his eyes it were a cheap remedy A cheap and easy superficial Repentance may skin over the sore and deceive an Hypocrite but he that would be sure of pardon and free from fear must go to the bottom DIRECT XX. Live as with Death continually in your eye and spend every day in serious preparation for it that when it cometh you may find your work dispatcht and may not then cry out in vain to God to try you once again PRomise not your selves long life Think not of death as at many years distance but as hard at hand Think what will then be needful to your peace and comfort and order all your life accordingly and prepare that now which will be needful then Live now while you have time as you will resolve and promise God to live when on your death-bed you are praying for a little time of tryal more It is a great work to die in a joyful assurance and hope of everlasting life and with a longing desire to depart and be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1.21 23. O then what a burden and terror it will be to have an unbelieving or a worldly heart or a guilty Conscience Now therefore use all possible diligence to strengthen Faith to increase love to be acquit from guilt to be above the World to have the mind set free from the Captivity of the flesh to walk with God and to obtain the deepest most delectable apprehensions of his love in Christ and of the heavenly blessedness which you expect Do you feel any doubts of the state of immortality or staggering at the Promise of God through unbelief Presently do all you can to conquer them and get a clear resolution to your souls and leave it not all to do at the time of sickness Are the thoughts or God and Heaven unpleasant or terrible to you Presently search out the cause of all and labour in the cure of it as for your lives Is there any former or present sin which is a burden or terror to your Consciences Presently seek out to Christ for a Cure by Faith and true Repentance and do that to disburden your Consciences now which you would do on a sick-bed and leave not so great and necessary a 〈◊〉 to so uncertain and short and unfit a time Is there any thing in this World that is swâ—â—tâ—r tâ— your thoughts than God and Heaven 〈◊〉 which you cannot willingly let go Mâ—rtiâ—iâ— it without delay consider of its vanity compare it with Heaven Crucifie it by the Cross of Christ cease not till you account it loss and â—â—ung for the excellent knowledg of Christ and life eternal Phil. 3.7 8 9. Let not death surprize you as a thing that you never seriously expected Can you do no more in preparation for it than you do If no why do you wish a death to be tryed once again and why are you troubled that you lived no better But if you can when think you should it be done Is the time of uncertain painful sickness better than this O how doth sensuality besot the World and inconsiderateness deprive them of the benefit of their reason O Sirs if you know indeed that you must shortly die live then as dying men should live Choose your condition in the World and manage it as men that must shortly dye Use your Power and Command and Honour and use all your Neighbours and especially use the Cause and Servants of Christ as men should do that must shortly die Build and plant and buy and sell and use your Riches as those that must die remembring that the fashion of all these things is passing away 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Yea pray and read and hear and meditate as those that must die Seeing you are as sure of it as if it were this hour in the name of God delay not your preparations It is a terrible thing for an immortal Soul to pass out of the body in a carnal unregenerate unprepared state and to leave a World which they loved and were familiar with and go to a World which they neither know nor love and where they have neither heart nor treasure Matth. 6.19 20 31. The measure of Faith which may help you to bear an easie cross is not sufficient to fortifie and encourage your souls to enter upon so great a change So also bear all your wants and crosses as men that must shortly die Fear the cruelties of men but as beseemeth those that are ready to die He that can die well can do any thing or suffer any thing And he that is unready to die is unfit for a fruitful and comfortable life What can rationally rejoyce that man who is sure to die and unready to dye and is yet unfurnished of dying comforts Let nothing be now sweet to you which will be bitter to your dying thoughts Let nothing be much desired now which will be unprofitable and uncomfortable then Let nothing seem very heavy or grievous now which will be light and easy then Let nothing now seem honourable which will then seem despicable and vile Consider of every thing as it will look at death that when the day shall come which endeth all the joyes of the ungodly you may look up with joy and say Welcome Heaven This is tho day which I so long expected which all my dayes were spent in preparation for which shall end my fears and begin my felicity and put me into possession of all that I desired and prayed and laboured for when my Soul shall see its glorified Lord For he hath said John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If any man serve me him will my Father honour Even so Lord Jesus remember me now thou art in thy Kingdom and let me be with thee in Paradise Luke 23.42 43. O thou that spakest those words so full of unexpressible comfort to a sinful woman in the first speech after thy blessed Resurrection Joh. 20.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN AND SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER AND TO MY GOD AND YOVR GOD. Take up now this Soul that is thine own that it may see the Glory given thee with the Father Joh. 17.24 and instead of this life of temptation trouble darkness distance and sinful imperfection I may delightfully Behold and Love and Praise thy Father and my Father and thy God and my God Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Luke 2.29 Acts 7.59 And now I have given you all these Directions I shall only request you in the close that you will set your very hearts to the daily serious practise of them For there is no other way for a ripe confirmed state of Grace And as ever you regard the glory of God the honour of your Religion the welfare of the Church and those