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tradition_n father_n holy_a scripture_n 2,746 5 5.8863 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27016 A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ... / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1662 (1662) Wing B1382; ESTC R6046 353,617 442

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in the love and service of this God and in the practice of holiness and in the hopes of Heaven How meet are they for Hell that will venture upon it deliberately and upon choice to scape the trouble of living in the holy Love delight and service of the ever blessed God that is to scape the trouble of Heaven Is it so great a sin to shut up the bowels of compassion against our brother in his need 1 John 3. 17. And is it not more unnatural to deny compassion to your selves in your own necessity and in the greatest necessity O poor sinners remember your Necessities Your own your great your absolute Necessities When you hear men that gather alms cry Remember the poor doth it make thee think What a poor necessitous soul have I to remember As Paul saith of Preaching to others I may say much mote to you of minding and practising this great work of your salvation Necessity is laid upon you and woe to you if you do it not 1 Cor. 9. 16. Woe to you that ever you were born and that ever you were reasonable creatures or rather that ever you so abused your Reason if you neglect and miss of the One thing necessary I know you have other wants to be supplyed and other matters to look after in the world But alas how small are they God will supply all your other wants if you will first and saithfully look after this Phil. 4. 19. Matth. 6. 33. 1 Pet. 5. 7. Or if life and all go you will find all in heaven But if you miss of this One thing nothing in the world can make supply or do you good And though now your feeling tell you not these things alas how quickly will God make you feel and teach you by that sensible way that you would needs be taught by Awake then you sluggish careless souls Your house over your heads is on a flame The hand of God is lifted up If you love your selves prevent the stroke Vengeance is at your backs The wrath of God pursueth your sin and woe to you if he find it upon you when he overtaketh you Away with it speedily Up and be gone return to God make Christ and mercy your friend in time if you love your lives The Judge is coming for all that you have heard of it so long till you believe it not You shall shortly see the Majesty of his appearance and the dreadful glory or his ●a●● and yet do you not begin to look about you and to ma●e ready for such a day Yea before that day your separated souls shall begin to reap as you have sowed here Though now the partition that stands between you and the world to come do keep unbelievers strange to the things that most concern them yet Death will quickly find a Portal to let you in and then sinners you will find such doings there as you little thought of or at least did sensibly regard on earth Before your Corpse can be wrapt up in your Winding-sheets you will see and feel that which will tell you to the quick that One thing was necessary If you do die without this One thing Necessary before your friends can have finished your funerals your souls will have taken up their places among the Devils in endless torment and despair and all the wealth and honour and pleasure that the world afforded you will not ease you This is sad but it is true Sirs for God hath spoken it Up therefore and bestir you for the life of your souls Necessity will awake the sluggard Necessity we say will break stone walls The proudest will stoop when they perceive Necessity The most sloathful will bestir them when they feel Necessity The most careless will look about them and be industrious in Necessity Necessity is called the Tyrant of the world that can make men do any thing that is possible to be done And yet cannot Necessity make you cast away your sins and take up a Holy and Heavenly life Necessity will make men fare hard and work hard and travel hard and go bare and suffer much yea it will even cut off a leg or an arm to save their lives And yet can it not prevail with reasonable creatures to cast away the poison of a fruitless filthy deceitful sin and to be up and doing for their salvation O poor souls Is there think you a greater Necessity of your sin then of your salvation and of pleasing your flesh for a little time then of pleasing the Lord and scaping everlasting misery I beseech you consider your own Necessities 2. COnsider also that It is but One thing which God hath made Necessary for you And I shewed you before how that the means themselves though they are many have a certain unity in their harmony and connexion and as they center in the ultimate end which is One. If God had sent you upon such a multitude of errands as the flesh and the world doth and set you on such disagreeing contrary works then you had been excusable if you had neglected some of them But he hath sent you but upon One errand even to seek and make sure of everlasting life and therefore if you neglect this One you are unexcuseable If the world be divided into a thousand opinions or go a thousand several wayes they may thank themselves who are the Authors of this confusion but God is no cause of it or friend to it He hath made them but One work and set them but One way to heaven and given them One Master Jesus Christ to teach that way and written but One Law even his holy Scripture to be their sure and constant guide And if men would stick to this One Master and not make flesh and blood their master or the multitude their master or the Rulers of the world or the custum of their fore fathers the master of their fatih and if they would stick to this One Word of God and not run after the Traditions of men they would not be in such a maze nor of so many minds as now they are But they do in their doctrines as they do in their practice God hath marked them out but One way in the holy Scripture which is the good and the sure way the way that Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles went to heaven in and this way will not serve mens turns but they will run an hundred waies instead of this One and they must make new wayes which the Apostles of Christ were never acquainted with If God had loaded your memories with many things you might possibly have said we cannot remember them all but he hath set you finally but one thing to remember even to lay hold on everlasting life and press on to the Crown that is set before you and he hath an ill memory that cannot remember One thing and such a thing as this is too It may be you are Ignorant and cannot learn