BAXTER'S FAREWELL SERMON. 031 but make it the sum of all your religion, care and business, to be ready for a safe and comfortable death; for, till you can fetch comfort from the life to come, you can have no comfort that true reason can justify. III. Live"as in a constant war against all fleshly lusts, and love not the world, as it cherisheth those lusts. Take heed of the love of money, asthe root of manifold evils ; think of riches with more fear than desire ; seeing Christ bath told us how hard and dan- gerous it maketh our way to heaven. When once a man falls deeply in love with riches, he is never to be trusted, but becomes false to God, to all others, and to himself. IV. Be furnished beforehand with expectatioq and patience for all evils that maybefall you ; and make not too great a matter ofsufferings, especially poverty, or wrong from men. It is sin and folly in poor'men, that theyovervalue riches, and be not thankful for their peculiarblessings. I am in hopes that God will give you more quietness than manyothers, because there are none of you rich : it is a great means of safety to have nothing, that tempt- etls another man's desire, nor that he envieth you for;, despised men live quietly, and he that hath an empty purse can sing among the robbers ; he that lieth on the ground feareth not falling. When 'Judea (and so when England by Saxons, Danes, &c.) was con- quered, the poor were let alone to possess and till the land, and had more than before. It was the great and rich that were de- stroyed, or carried, or driven away. Is it not a great benefit to have your souls saved from rich men's temptations, and your bodies from the envy, assaults, and fears, and miseries that they are 'under ? V. Táke heed of a self-conceited, unhumbled understanding, and of hasty and rash conclusions : it is the fool that rageth and is cohfident; sober men are conscious of so much darkness and weakness; that they are, suspicious of their apprehensions : proud self-conceitedness, and rash, hasty concluding, causeth most of the mischiefs in the world; which might be prevented, if men had the humility and patience to staytill things be thoroughly weighed and tried. Be not ashamed to profess uncertainty, where you are in- deed uncertain. Humble doubting is much safer than confident erring. VI. Maintain union and communion with all true Christians on earth; and, therefore, hold to catholic principles of mere Christi- anity, without which you must needs crumble into sects. Love Christians as Christians, but the best most: locally separate from none, asaccusing of them further than they separate from Christ, or deny you their communion, unless you will sin. The zeal of a sect, as such, is partial, tárbúlent, hurtful to dissenters, and maketh s
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=