A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian EthicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Direct._ XI. And when you are casting up your account, as you put all
that sin and the world will do for you in the one end of the scales,
so put into the other the comforts both of this life, and of that to
come, which you must part with for your sins.
Search the Scriptures, and consider how happy the saints of God are
there described. Think what it is, to have a purified, cleansed soul;
to be free from the slavery of the flesh and its concupiscence; to
have the sensitive appetite in subjection unto reason, and reason
illuminated and rectified by faith; to be alive to God, and disposed
and enabled to love and serve him; to have access to him in prayer,
with boldness and assurance to be heard; to have a sealed pardon of
all our sins, and an interest in Christ, who will answer for them all
and justify us; to be the children of God, and the heirs of heaven; to
have peace of conscience, and the joyful hopes of endless joys; to
have communion with the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit, and to
have that Spirit dwelling in us, and working to our further holiness
and joy; to have communion with the saints; and the help and comfort
of all God's ordinances, and to be under his many precious promises,
and under his protection and provision in his family, and to cast all
our care upon him; to delight ourselves daily in the remembrance and
renewed experiences of his love, and in our too little knowledge of
him, and love to him, and in the knowledge of his Son, and of the
mysteries of the gospel; to have all things work together for our
good, and to be able with joy to welcome death, and to live as in
heaven in the foresight of our everlasting happiness. I would have
orderly here given you a particular account of the privileges of
renewed souls, but that I have done so much in that already in my
"Treatise of Conversion," and "Saints' Rest." This taste may help you
to see what you lose, while you abide in an unconverted state.
_Direct._ XII. When you have thus considered of the condition you are
in, consider also whether it be a condition to be rested in one day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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