way to him Repress wrath and hate unpeaceable Counsels Our way and our time must be only Gods way and time Self-saving men are usually the destroyers of themselves and others Peter that drew his Sword for Christ denied him the same Night with Oaths and Curses Fools trust themselves and Wise Men trust God Fools tear the Tree by beating down the Fruit that 's unripe and harsh and Wise men stay till it is ripe and sweet and will drop into their hands Fools rip up the Mother for an untimely Birth but Wise Men stay till Maturity give it them Fools take red hot Iron to be Gold till it burn their Fingers to the Bone They rush into Seditions and Blood as if it were a matter of jest but Wise Men sow the fruit of righteousness in peace and as much as in them lieth live peaceably with all men All men are mortal both oppressours and oppressed Stay a little and mortality will change the Scene Gods time is best Martyrdom seldome killeth the hundredth part so many as Wars do And he is no true believer that taketh Martyrdom to be his loss And Christ is more interessed in his Gospel Church and Honour than we Queen Maries cruelties and the Bishops bonefires made Religion universally received the more easily when her short Reign was ended We may learn wit of the Fool that seeing great Guns and Musquets ask'd what they were to do and the answerer said to kill men saith he Do not men die here without killing In our Country they will die of themselves VIII Be sure that you keep up Family Religion especially in the careful Education of youth Keep them from evil company and from temptations and especially of idleness fullness and baits of lust Read the Scripture and good Books and call upon God and sing his Praise And recreate youth with reading the History of the Church and the Lives of Holy Men and Martyrs instruct them in Catechisms and Fundamentals IX Above all live in Love to God and Man and let not selfishness and worldliness prevail against it Think of Gods goodness as equal to his Greatness and Wisdom and take your selves as Members of the same Body with all true Christians Blessed are they that faithfully practise those three grand principles which all profess viz. 1. To love God as God above all and so to obey him 2. To love our Neighbours as our selves 3. And to do as we would be done by Love is not envious malignant censorious it slandereth not it persecuteth not it oppresseth not it defraudeth not it striveth not to gain by anothers loss Get Men once to love their Neighbours as themselves and you may easily prognosticate peace quietness and concord happiness to the Land and Salvation to the peoples Souls Finally Brethren live in love and the God of love and peace shall be among you The Lord save you from the evils of which I have here and often warned you Remember with thankfulness the many years of abundant mercy which we have enjoyed tho too much mixt with our sins and vilified by some 1 Thes 5.11 12 13. Comfort your selves together and edify one another even as also ye do and I beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in Love for their work sake and be at peace among your selves And the Lord deeply write on all your Hearts these blessed words 1 Joh. 4.16 We have known and believed the Love that God hath to us God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him And remember 2 Pet. 3.11 12 13. Seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God wherein the Heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat Nevertheless we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness I need not lengthen my Counsels further to you now having been called by the Will and Providence of God to leave behind me a multitude of Books which may remember you of what you heard and acquaint the world what Doctrine I have taught you And if longer studies shall teach me to retract and amend any failings in the writings or practice of my unripe and less experienced age as it will be to my self as pleasing as the cure of any Bodily Disease I hope it will not seem strange or ungrateful to you Though we must hold fast the truth which we have received both you and I are much to be blamed if we grow not in knowledge both in Matter Words and Method The Lord grant that also we may grow in Faith Obedience Patience in Hope Love and desire to be with Christ Now the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep through the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen Heb. 13.20 21. FINIS These Books following are lately Printed for and Sold by B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West end of Pauls A Full Treatise of Episcopacy for the Primitive sort only Poetical fragments Heart Imployment with God and it self The Concordant Discord of a broken healed heart Sorrowing rejoycing fearing hoping dying living By Richard Baxter in Octavo Price bound 1 s. Of the Immortality of Mans Soul and the nature of it and other Spirits Two Discourses one in a Letter to an unknown doubter the other in a reply to Dr. Henry Moors Animadversions on a private Letter to him which he published in his Second Edition of Mr. Joseph Glanvils Saducismus Triumphatus or History of Aparitions By Richard Baxter in Octavo Price bound 1 s. 6 d. Richard Baxters Dying Thoughts upon Phil. 1.23 written for his own use in the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness in Octavo Price bound 2 s. 6 d. Aâ—ditions to the Poetical fragments of Richard Baxter written for himself and communicated to such as are more for serious Verse than smooth in Octavo Price stitcht 6 d. Truth and Peace promoted Or a Guide to young Christians in the way of Salvation past the danger of errors and difficulties of curiosity In a familiar Dialogue between a Minister of Christ and a devout private Christian With an Appendix concerning the length of a Sabbath days Journey By Adam Martingdale a Minister of the Gospel in Cheshire Price bound 6 d. Isa 30.20 Heb. 12. from v. 1. to 〈…〉 1 Cor. 13.3 Matth. 5.10 11 12. Eph. 4.18 19. 1 Cor. 15. John 3.6 Prov. 7.22 23. Rev. Luke 14.28 33. Rom. 8.17 18. Tim. 2 Cor. 4.18 Mat. 6.20 21. Col. 3.1 2 â— 4. Luke 22.44 Luk. 8.37 Math. 25.41 Mat. 7.23 Luk. 13.27 1 Pet. 1.6 7 9. Ps 119.67.75 Ps 129.1 2 3. Isa 49.13 Psal 18.27 2 Pet. 24. Jude 6. * Or as Amyraldus Paraphras Cum olim evigilabunt praesens eorum felicitas erit instar somnii quod somno discusso dissipatum est quin etiam antequam evigilent in ipsa illa urbe in qua antea florebant vanam istam felicitatis poâ—pam in qua antea volitabant reddes contemnendam tanquam umbram aut imaginem evanescenteâ— in qua nihil solidi est * Nubecula est cito evanescit said Athanasius of Julian When Julian's death was told at Antioch they all cried out Maxime fatue ubi sunt vaticinia tua Vicit Deus Christus ejus Abbas Vrspargens pag. 91. Gen. 4.7 Numb 32.23 Heb. 11.25 26 c. Ps 9.7 8. Psal 43.2 3 4. Mat. 27.43
the corrections which are not improved by us to our amendment and reformation But the promise belongeth 1. to those sorrows which in sincerity we undergo for the sake of Christ and righteousness 2. To those sorrows which we our selves perform as Duties either for the dishonour of God or the sins or miseries of others or our penitential sorrows for our own offences 3. And to those sorrows of chastisement which we patiently submit to and improve to a true amendment of our hearts and lives For though sin be the Material cause or the Meritorious cause yet Love which maketh Reformatâ—on the effect will also make the end to be our Comfort Vse 2. If this be Gods Method condemn not then the generation use 2 of the just because you see them undermost in the world and suffer more than other men Think it not a dishonour to them to be in poverty prisons banishment or reproach unless it be for a truly dishonourable cause Call not men miserable for that which God maketh the token of his love and the Prognostick of their joy Methinks he that hath once read the Psal 37. 73. and Mat. 5.10 11 12. Joh. 13. 15. 2 Thes 1. and well believeth them should never err this old condemned Errour any more And yet it is common among carnal men to do as some beasts do when one of their fellows is wounded they all forsake him so these stand looking with pity or fear or strangeness upon a man that is under sufferings and slanders as if it must needs be a deserved thing and think it a great dishonour to a man how innocent soever when they hear that he is used as offendours malefactours are forgetting how by this they condemn their Saviour and all his Apostles and Martyrs and the wisest best and happyest men that the earth hath born And all this is but the blind and hasty judgment of sense and unbelief which hath neither the wit to judge by the word of God nor yet the patience to stay the end and see how the sorrows of the godly will conclude and where the triumph of the hypocrite will leave him And yet some there be that are apt to err on the other extream and to think that every man is happy that is afflicted and that such have all their sorrow in this life and that the suffering party is alwaies in the right and therefore they are ready to fall in with any deluded sect which they see to be under reproach and suffering But the cause must be first known before the suffering can be well judged of doctrine 2 Doct. 2. Christs death and departure was the cause of his disciples sorrrows This is plain in the words Ye Now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again And the causes of this sorrow were these three conjunct 1. That their dear Lord whom they loved and whom they had heard and followed and put their trust in must now be taken from them If the parting of friends at death do turn our garments into the signs of our sad and mournful hearts and cause us to dwell in the houses of mourning we must allow Christs disciples some such affections upon their parting with their Lord. 2. And the Manner of his death no doubt did much increase their sorrows That the most innocent should suffer as a reputed malefactour that he that more contemned the wealth and pleasures and glory of the World than ever man did and chose a poor inferiour life and would not have a Kingdom of this World and never failed in any duty to high or low should yet be hanged ignominiously on a Cross as one that was about to usurp the Crown That deluded Sinners should put to death the Lord of life and spit in the face of such a Majesty and hasten destruction to their nation and themselves and that all Christs disciples must thus be esteemed the followers of a crucifyed usurper judg if we had been in their case our selves whether this would have been matter of sorrow to us or not Had it not been enough for Christ to have suffered the pain but he must also suffer the dishonor even the imputation of sin which no man was so far from being guilty of and of that particular sin usurpation of Dominion and Treason against Caesar which his heart and life were as contrary to as light to darkness And was it not enough for Christians to suffer so great calamities of bodies for righteousness sake but they must also suffer the reproach of being the seditious followers of a crucifyed malefactour whom they would have made a King No! our Lord would stoop to the lowest condition for our sakes which was consistent with his innocency and perfection Sin is so much worse than suffering that we may take this for the greatest part of his condescension and strangest expression of his Love that he should take not only the nature and the sufferings of a man but also the nature and the Imputation of sinners Though sin itself was inconsistent with his perfection yet so was not the false accusation and imputation of it He could not become a sinner for us but he could be reputed a sinner for us and die as such And when our Lord hath submitted to this most ignominious kind of suffering it is not fit that we should be the choosers of our sufferings and say Lord we will suffer any thing except the Reputation of being offenders and the false accusations of malicious men If in this we must be made conformable to our head we must not refuse it nor repine at his disposal of us 3. And their sorrow for Christs departure was the greater because they had so little foresight of his Resurrection and return It is strange to see how dark they were in these articles of the faith for all their long converse with Christ and his plain foretelling them his death and resurrection and how much of their teaching Christ reserved to the Spirit after his departure from them Joh. 12 16. Luk. 18.31.32.33.34 Then took he unto him the twelve and said unto them behold we go up to Jerusalem and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spightfully entreated and spit upon and they shall scourge him and put him to death and the third day he shall rise again And they unstood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Had they known all that would follow and clearly foreseen his Resurrection and his Glory they would then have been troubled the less for his death But when they saw him dye and foresaw him not revive and rise and reign then did their hearrs begin to fail them and they said Luk. 24.21 We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel Even as we use
lose their first innocency and wellfare is unknown to us But we have a promise of being for ever with Christ 2. Nor shall Devils deprive us of that joy Neither by those malicious temptations wherewith they now molest and haunt us Nor by the unhappy advantages which we have given them by our sin to corrupt our imaginations and thoughts and affections or to disturb our passions or pervert our understandings Nor by any terror or violence to molest us 3. Nor shall any Men take from us that joy The blessed will increase it Their Joy will be ours and the wicked will be utterly disabled They will be miserable themselves in Hell They will no more endanger us by flattering temptations nor terrify us by threats nor tread us down by their power nor hurt us in their malice nor render us odious by false accusations nor triumph over us with pride and false reproach They that said of the Church as of Christ He trusted in God let him deliver him now if he will have him for he said I am the Son of God they shall see that God hath delivered his Church and he will have it Use And will not a firm belief of all this rejoyce the Soul under all disappointments and sufferings on Earth And doth not our dejectedness and want of Joy declare the sinful weakness of our faith O Sirs our sadness our impatience our small desire to be with Christ the little comfort that we fetch from Heaven do tell us that Christianity and a life of Faith is a harder work than most imagine And the Art and Form and Words of Holiness are much more common than a holy Heavenly mind and life Christ speaketh many words of pity to his Servants under sorrows and sinking grief which some mistake for words of approbation or command Why are ye afraid O ye of little faith were words both of compassion and reproof I am sure the great unbelief that appeareth in much of our dejectedness and sorrow deserveth more reproof than our sufferings deserve to be entertained with those sorrows Use 2. I will therefore take my farewel of you in advising and charging you as from God that you be not deceived by a flattering World nor dejected by a frowning World but place your hopes on those Joys which no Man can take from you If you cannot trust the Love of God and the Grace and Promises of our Saviour and the witness of the Holy Spirit you must despair for there is no other trust So many of you seem to have chosen this good part the one thing necessary which shall never be taken from you that in the midst of our sorrows I must profess that I part with you with thankfulness and joy And I will tell you for what I am so thankful that you may know what I would have you be for the time to come I I thank the Lord that chose for me so comfortable a station even a People whom he purposed to bless II. I thank the Lord that I have not laboured among you in vain and that he opened the Hearts of so great a number of yours to receive his Word with a teachable and willing mind III. I thank the Lord that he hath made so many of you as helpful to your Neighbours in your place as I have been in mine and that you have not been uncharitable to the Souls of others but have with great success endeavoured the good of all IV. I rejoyce that God hath kept you humble that you have not been addicted to proud ostentation of your Gifts or Wisdom nor inclined to invade any part of the Sacred Office but to serve God in the capacity where he hath placed you V. I rejoyce that God hath made you Unanimous and kept out Sects and Heresies and Schisms so that you have served him as with one Mind and Mouth And that you have not been addicted to proud wranglings disputings and contentions but have lived in Unity Love and Peace and the practice of known and necessary truths VI. I rejoyce that your frequent meetings in your Houses spent only in Reading Repeating your Teachers Sermons Prayer and Praise to God have had none of those effects which the Conventicles of proud Opiniators and Self-conceited Persons use to have and which have brought even needful converse and godly communication into suspicion at least with some that argue against duty from the abuse Yea I rejoyce that hereby so much good hath been done by you You have had above Forty years experience of the great benefit of such well ordered Christian converse increasing knowledge quickening holy desires prevailing with God for marvellous if not miraculous answers of your earnest prayers keeping out errors and Sects VII I am glad that you have had the great encouragement of so many sober godly able peaceable Ministers in all that part of the Country round about you and mostly through that and the Neighbour Countries Men that avoided vain and bitter contentions that engaged themselves in no Sects or Factions that of a multitude not above two that I know of in all our Association had ever any hand in Wars But their principles and practices were reconciling and pacificatory They consented to Catechize all their Parishioners House by House and to live in the peaceable practice of so much Church Discipline as good Christians of several parties were all agreed in And you have lived to see what that Discipline was and what were the effects of such agreement VIII I am glad that you were kept from taking the Solemn League and Covenant and the Engagement and all consent to the change of the constituted Government of this Kingdom I took the Covenant my self of which I repent and I 'le tell you why I never gave it but to one Man that I remember and he professed himself to be a Papist Physician newly turned Protestant and he came to me to give it him I was perswaded that he took it in false dissimulation and it troubled me to think what it was to draw multitudes of men by carnal interest so falsely to take it And I kept it and the engagement from being taken in your Town and Country At first it was not imposed but taken by Volunteers But after that it was made a test of such as were to be trusted or accepted Besides the illegality there are two things that cause me to be against it 1. That Men should make a meer dividing engine and pretend it a means of Unity We all knew at that time when it was imposed that a great part if not the greatest of Church and Kingdom were of another mind And that as Learned and Worthy Men were for Prelacy as most the World had such as Usher Morton Hall Davenant Brownrig c. And to make our terms of Union to be such as should exclude so many and such Men was but to imitate those Church Dividers and Persecutors who in many Countries and Ages have