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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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way and went far and by going further might have attained to Salvation The heart of many a Minister hath been glad to see their Hearers humbled and bewailing sin and changing their minds and lives and becoming forward Professors of Godliness when a few years time hath turned all this joy into sorrow and one of our hopeful seeming Converts doth grow cold and lose his former forwardness another falls to desperate sensuality and turns Drunkard or Fornicator or Gamester another turns worldling and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of Riches and the cares of this life and another if not many to one is deluded by some deceiver and infected with some deadly errors and casts off duty and sets himself like a hired instrument of Hell to divide the Church oppose the Gospel and reproach and slander and rail at the Ministers and Professors of it and to weaken the hands of the Builders and strengthen the ungodly and serve the secret enemies of the truth Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their Conversion do break our hearts by their Apostacy and subversion and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ and greater Plagues to the Church of God that those that never professed to be Religious Those that were wont to joyn with us in holy worship and went up with us to the house of God as our companions do afterwards despise both Worshippers and Worship Whereas if these men had been rooted and confirmed you should never have seen them fall into this misery O how many Prayers and Confessions and Duties do these men lose How many years have some of them seemed to be Religious and after all have proved Apostate miscreants and the World and the Flesh and Pride and Error swallow up all See then what need you have to be rooted confirmed and built up in Christ. 4. Consider also How much of the Work of your Salvation is yet to do when you are Converted You have happily begun but you have not finished You have hit of the right way but you have your Journey yet to go you have chosen the best Commander and fellow Souldiers but you have many a Battle yet to fight If you are Christians indeed you know your selves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer and many a temptation yet to overcome and many a necessary work to do And there is a necessity of these after-after-works as well as of the first For these are the use and end of your conversion that you may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World denying ungodliness and wordly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 And how can Infants go through all these works Which of you would desire an Infant or Criple to be your servant But though God be in this more merciful than man yet he may well expect that you should not be still Infants What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition O pittiful blindness that any man that knows that he hath a Soul to save should think an Infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting Life In the matters of this Life you feel the need and worth of strength you will not think an Infant fit to Plow or Sow or Reap or Mow or Travel or play the Souldier and yet will you rest satisfied with an Infant-strength to do those great and matchless works which your Salvation lyeth on 5. Moreover the weak unconfirmed Souls are usually full of trouble and live without that assurance of Gods love and that spiritual peace and comfort which others do possess One would think no other Argument should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and Diseases than the pain and trouble that alwayes attendeth them It s more pain to a sick man to travel a mile than to a sound man to go ten To the lame or feeble every step hath pain and all that they do is grievous to them when far more would be a recreation to one that is in health O therefore delight not in your own languishings Choose not to live in pain and sorrow But strive after Confirmation and growth in Grace that overgrowing your infirmities you may overcome your sad complaints and groans and may be acquainted with the comfortable life of the Confirmed O how roundly and cheerfully would you go through your work how easy and sweet and profitable would it prove to you if once you were strong confirmed Christians Alas the Souls of those that are not confirmed lye open to every temptation of the malicious enemy of their peace and how small a matter will disquiet and unsettle them every passage in Scripture which they understand not and which seems to make against them will disturb them A Minister cannot Preach so plainly or so cautelously but somewhat which they understand not will be matter of their disquiet Providences will trouble them because they understand them not Afflictions will be bitter to the mind as well as the body and will immoderately perplex them because they understand them not or have not strength to bear them and improve them The sweeter mercies of prosperity will much lose their sweetness for want of holy Wisdom and strength to digest them And what man would choose such a weak and languishing state as this before a confirmed healthful state Will you run up and down for Physick when you are sick and will you no more regard the health and stability and spiritual peace and vigour of your souls 6. Moreover it is the strong confirmed Christian that hath the true use and benefit of all Gods ordinances Meat is digested by the healthful stomack and it s seen upon them and we use to say It is not lost It is sweet to them and doth them good and they are strengthened more by it And so is the confirmed Christian by Gods Ordinances But to the weak unconfirmed Soul how much of the means of Grace is even as lost How little sweetness do they find in means and how little good can they say they get by them I deny not but some good they get and that they must use them still for though the sick have little relish of his meat yet he cannot long live without it and though it breed not strength or health yet it maintaineth that languishing life but this is all or almost all What a sad thing is this to your selves and unto us when Ministers that are as the Nurses of the Church or Stewards of the Houshold to give them all their meat in due season must see that all that ever they can do for you will do no more than keep you alive Yea how often are you quarrelling with your food and you do not like it or you cannot get it down somthing still ails
Servants as Superiors in Gifts or Places or Inferiors or equals as Neighbors and companions In our Teaching and learning ruling and obeying buying and selling Be conscionable in all these which are your own Relations if you will live as Christians and be acceptable unto God An ungodly or oppressing Magistrate a murmuring rebellious Subject an ungodly negligent or factious Pastor an unteachable refractory ungodly Flock a Husband Parent or Master without Religion Love or Justice a Wife or Child or Servant without Love and dutiful obedience and faithful diligence a proud contemptuous Superior a malicious censorious inferiour an unjust uncharitable Neighbor a deceitful buyer or seller borrower or lender and a self-seeking friend and seducing unprofitable companion are all as far from pleasing God by the rest of their works or profession of Religion as they are from being obedient to his will They provoke him to abhor their Prayers and Profession and to tell them that he will rather have Obedience than Sacrifice If you are false to men you are not true to God It is he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness that is accepted of him and the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God DIRECT XVI Live as those that have all their powers receivings and opportunities to do Good with in the World and must be answerable how they have improved all And as those that believe that the more Good they do the more they do receive and the greater is the honour the profit and the pleasure of their lives TO do no harm is an honour which is common to a stone or a clod of Clay with the most innocent man If this were all the excellency that you aim at it were better that you had never been born for then you would certainly have done no harm Remember that to do good is the highest imitation of God supposing that it proceed from Holy Love and be done to the Pleasing and Glorifying of God that the Principle and the End be sutable to the work Remember who hath told you that it is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20.35 And hath promised that He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall receive a Righteous mans reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a Cap of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward supposing that he have no better to give Matth. 10.41 42. Give to every man that asketh of thee according to thy ability Give and it shall be given to you Luke 6.30 38. and 12.33 Take that day or hour as lost in which you do no good directly or preparatorily And take that part of your estate as lost with which directly or remotely you do no good Remember how the Judgment must pass on you at last according to the improvement of your several Talents Matth. 25. When your time is past and your estates are gone or your understandings or your strength decayed and your power and greatness is levelled with the poorest it will be an unspeakable comfort to you if you are able to say We laid them out sincerely to our Masters use and an unspeakable terror to you to say They were lost and cast away on the service of the Flesh. If therefore you are Rulers and are entrusted with Power study how to do all the good with your Power that possibly you can If you are Ministers of Christ lay out your time and strength and parts in doing good to the Souls of all about you study how you may be most serviceable to the Church and Cause of Christ. If you are rich men study how to do all the good with your Riches that possibly you can do not violating the order appointed you by God In your Neighbourhoods and in all your Families and Relations study to do the greatest good you can Take it thankfully as a great mercy to your selves when opportunity to do good is offered you And content not your selves to do a little while you are able to do more Gal. 6.7 8 9 10. Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap For he that soweth to his Flesh shall of the Flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap everlasting Life And let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all men especially unto them who are of the houshold of Faith 2 Cor. 9.6 He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Every man according as he purposeth in his heart so let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a chearful giver Heb. 13.16 To do good and to communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased Ephes. 3.10 For we are his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Let doing good be the business and imployment of your lives Preferring still the publick good before the private good of any and the good of mens Souls before that of the body But yet neglecting none but doing the lesser in order to the greater Object But I am a poor obscure person that have neither abilities of mind or body or estate and what good can I do Answ. There is no rational person that is not entrusted with One Talent at the least Matth. 25. and that is not in a capacity of doing good in the World if they have but hearts and be but willing If you had neither money to give nor tongues to speak for God and to provoke others to do good yet a Holy humble heavenly patient blameless life is a powerful means of doing good by shewing the excellency of Grace and convincing the Ungodly and stopping the mouths of the enemies of Piety and honouring the waies of God in the World Such a holy harmless exemplary life is a continual and a powerful Sermon And for giving if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8.12 If you are unseignedly willing to give if you had it God taketh it as done What you would have given is set down on your account as given indeed The Widdows two mites were praised by Christ as a bountiful gift and a Cup of cold water is not unrewarded to the willing Soul No one therefore is excusable that liveth unprofitably in the World But yet men of Power and Parts and Wealth have the greatest reckoning to make Their ten Talents must have a proportionable improvement It is a great deal of good that they must do For to whomsoever much is given