Richard Baxter

“ I will cast myself headlong from the top of a steeple, but yet I will not kill myself.—I will thrust this knife into my heart, but yet I will not take away my life. I will put this fire into the thatch of my house, but yet I will not burn it.”—Just so it is with wicked men; they will be wicked, and they will live after the flesh and the world, and yet they would not be damned. ”

“ Alas! that you should think it a greater pleasure to live in foolish sports and merriments, and please your flesh, than to live in the believing thoughts of glory, and in the love of God, and in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, in which the state of grace consisteth! Rom. xiv. 17. If it would be a greater pleasure for you to think of your lands and inheritance (if you were lords of all the country) than it is for a child to play for pins: why should it not be a greater joy to you to think of the kingdom of heaven being yours than of all the riches or pleasures of the world? ”

“ As if you were not born after the flesh, and had not lived after the flesh, as well as others! Is it not as great a sin as any of these, for a man to have an earthly mind, and to love the world above God, and to have an unbelieving, unhumbled heart? Nay, let me tell you more; that many persons, that avoid disgraceful sins are as fast glued to the world, and as much slaves to the flesh, and as strange to God, and averse to heaven in their more civil discourse, as others are in their more shameful and notorious sins. ”

“ Are the matters which we are made for, and which we live for, too high for us to meddle with? This is plainly to unman us, and to make brutes of us, as if we were like them that must meddle with no higher matters than what belongs to flesh and earth. If heaven be too high for you to think on and provide for, it will be too high for you ever to possess. ”

“ Wilt thou undertake to prove that God is mistaken, and that thou art in the right? O what an undertaking is that!—Why, either he or you are mistaken, when he is for your conversion, and you are against it: He calls upon you to turn, and you will not; He bids you do it presently, even to-day, while it is called to-day, and you delay, and think it time enough hereafter.—He saith it must be a total change, and you must be holy, and new creatures, and born again; and you think that less may serve the turn, and that it is enough to patch up the old man, without becoming new. ”

“ Could you by every sin obtain the highest thing on earth that flesh desireth, it were no considerable value to persuade you in reason to commit it. If it were to please your greatest or dearest friends, or to obey the greatest prince on earth, or to save your lives, or to escape the greatest earthly misery; all these are of no consideration to draw a man in reason to the committing of one sin. If it were a right hand or a right eye that would hinder your salvation, it is the gainfullest way to cast it away, rather than to go to hell to save it ”

“ God will be your friend, and Christ, and the Spirit, will be your friend, and every Christian will be your friend. You will get one friend that will stand you in more stead than all the friends in the world could have done. The friends you lose would have but enticed you to hell; but could not have delivered you: But the friend you get will save you from hell, and bring you to His own eternal rest.
Is it your pleasure that you are afraid of losing? You think you shall never have a merry day again, if once you be converted. ”

“ But your own reason might teach you better, if you believe not the scriptures: for you see God sets not so light by us, but that he vouchsafeth to make us, and still preserveth us, and daily upholdeth us, and provideth for us; and will any wise man make a curious frame for nothing? Will you make or buy a clock or watch, and daily look at it, and not care whether it go true or false? Surely, if you believe not a particular eye of Providence observing your hearts and lives, you cannot believe or expect any particular Providence to observe your wants and troubles to relieve you. ”

“ Because there are many, will you be of that way that you may be sure is wrong? None are farther out of the way than worldly, fleshly, unconverted sinners; for, they do not only err in this or that opinion, but in the very scope and drift or their lives. If you were going a journey that your life lay on, would you stop or turn again, because you met with some cross-ways, or because you saw some travelers go the horse way, and some the foot way, and some perhaps break over the hedge, yea, and some miss the way? ”

“ There is never a soul in hell but knows, by this time, that it was a mad exchange to let go heaven for fleshly pleasure, and that it is not a little mirth, or pleasure, or worldly riches, or honour, or the good will or word of men, that will quench hell fire, or make him a saver that loseth his soul. Oh! if you had heard what I believe, if you had seen what I believe, and that on the credit of the word of God, you would say there can be no reason to warrant a man to damn his soul: you durst not sleep quietly another night, before you had resolved to turn and live. ”

“ All the pleasure of fleshly things is but like the scratching of a man that hath the itch; it is his disease that makes him desire it; and a wise man had rather be without his pleasure than be troubled with his itch. Your loudest laughter is but like that of a man that is tickled; he laughs when he hath no cause of joy. ”

“ A man can have no reason to cross his ultimate end. Heaven is such a thing, that, if you lose it, nothing can supply the want, or make up the loss: and hell its such a thing, that, if you suffer it, nothing can remove your misery, or give you ease and comfort. And therefore nothing can be a valuable consideration to excuse you for neglecting your own salvation ”

“ So that, consequently, these men are willing to be damned, though not directly; they are willing to walk in the way to hell, and love the certain cause of their torment; though they be not willing of hell itself, and do not love the pain which they must endure.
Is not this the truth of your case, sinners? You would not burn in hell; but you will kindle the fire by your sins, and cast yourselves into it; you would not be tormented with devils for ever, but you will do that which will certainly procure it, in despite of all that can be said against it. ”

“ Heaven is a state of perfect holiness, and of continual love and praise to God and the wicked have no heart to this. The imperfect love, and praise, and holiness, which is here to be attained, they have no mind of; much less of that which is so much greater: The joys of heaven are of so pure and spiritual a nature, that the heart of the wicked cannot desire them.
So that by this time you may see on what ground it is, that God supposeth that the wicked are willing their own destruction; they will rather venture on certain misery than be converted ”

“ They are become slaves to their flesh, and drowned in the world to make provision for it. Their lusts, and passions, and appetites, have distracted them, and got such a hand over them, that they cannot tell how to deny them, or how to mind any thing else. ”

“ Men are naturally in love with the earth and flesh, and their nature hath an enmity to God and godliness, as the nature of a serpent hath to a man: And when all that we can say goeth against an habitual inclination of their natures, no marvel if it little prevail.
2. They are in darkness, and know not the very things they hear. Like a man that was born blind, and hears a high commendation of the light: But what will hearing do unless he sees it? They know not what God is, nor what is the power of the cross of Christ, nor what the spirit of holiness is, nor what it is to live in love by faith ”

“ Yea, by this atheistical objection you make God to have made and upholden all the world in vain. For, what are all other lower creatures for, but for man? What doth the earth, but bear and nourish us? ”

“ It is one of the fullest discoveries of the horrible wickedness of carnal men, and the stark madness of such as sin, that so silly a mole dare contradict his Maker, and call in question the word of God: Yea, that those people in our parishes, that are so ignorant, that they cannot give us a reasonable answer concerning the very principles of religion, are yet so wise in their own conceit, that they dare question the plainest truths of God, yea, contradict them and cavil against them, when they can scarce speak sense, and will believe them no farther than agreeth with their foolish wisdom. ”

“ If you were to die this day, had you not rather die in the case of a converted man than of an unconverted? Of a holy and heavenly man than of a carnal earthily man? And would you not say, as Balaam, Numb. ”

“ As it is but foolish childishness that makes children so delight in toys that they would not leave them for all your land, so it is but foolish worldliness, and fleshliness and wickedness, that make you so much delight in your houses, and lands, and meat, and drink, and ease, and honour, as that you would not part with them for the heavenly delights. But what will you do for pleasure when these are gone? ”

“ I am sure it can be no good reason which is against the God of truth and reason. It cannot be light that is contrary to the sun. There is no knowledge in any creature but what it has from God; and therefore none can be wiser than God. ”

“ Perhaps you speak as you think: worldlings think the world is at the best, when it is agreeable to their minds, and when they have most mirth and worldly pleasure. And I doubt not but the devil, as well as you, would say, that then it was a better world, for then he had more service and less disturbance. But the world is at the best when God is most loved, regarded, and obeyed. ”

“ Can you be madder than you are already? Or at least, can there be a more dangerous madness than to neglect your everlasting welfare, and wilfully undo yourselves?
2. A man is never well in his wits till he be converted; he never knows God, nor knows sin, nor knows Christ, nor knows the world, nor himself, nor what his business is on earth, so as to set himself about it, till he be converted.—The scripture saith, “That the wicked are unreasonable men,” 2 Thess. ”

“ Your wills have the command of your lives. We may certainly conclude that you are unwilling to turn, when you do not turn. And, why will you not? Can you give any reason for it that is worthy to be called a reason? ”

“ Whatever hypocrites are, it is not so with those that are sanctified. God hath thousands and tens of thousands that are otherwise; though the malicious world doth accuse them of what they can never prove, and of that which never entered into their hearts. And commonly they charge them with heart-sins, which none can see but God; because they can charge them with no such wickedness in their lives as they are guilty of themselves. ”

“ So exceedingly great are the matters of eternity, that nothing in this world deserveth once to be named in comparison with them; nor can any earthly thing, though it were life, or crowns, or kingdoms, be a reasonable excuse for the neglect of matters of such high and everlasting consequence. ”

“ So if you be carnal and ungodly, and will not be converted, nor use the means by which you should be converted, but think it more ado than needs, you may as well say plainly, you will be damned. For if you have found out a way to be saved without conversion, you have done that which was never done before.
3. Yes, this is not all; but the wicked are unwilling even to partake of salvation itself. Tho’ they may desire somewhat which they call by the name of heaven, yet heaven itself, considered in the true nature of its felicity, they desire not; yea, their hearts are quite against it. ”

“ If God should sometimes suffer any weak-headed persons to be distracted by thinking of eternal things; this is because they misunderstand them, and run without a guide; and, of the two, I had rather be in the case of such a one, than of the mad unconverted world, that take their distraction to be their wisdom. ”

“ Some are so carried away by the stream of evil company, that they are possessed with hard thoughts of a godly life, by hearing them speak against it; or at least they think they may venture to do as they see most do, and so they hold on in their sinful ways; and when one is cut off and cast into hell, and another snatched away from among them to the same condemnation, it doth not much daunt them, because they see not whither they are gone. ”

“ Isaiah lix. 8. “The way of peace they know not; there is no judgment in their goings; they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” They have the word and the oath of the living God for it; that, if they will not turn, they shall not enter into his rest.—And yet wicked they are, and wicked they will be, let God and man say what they will; fleshly they are, and fleshly they will be, worldlings they are, and worldlings they will be; though God hath told them that “the love of the world is enmity to God ”