PA iz T I. ReverendMr. Richard Baxter: i3 3 fperity, and intenfively and radicatedly in the Winter of Adverfity ; yet ufually their Night is longer than their Day, and that Day its felt hath its Storms and Tern- pelts. For the Prognoflicks are evident in their Caufes : x. The Church will be hill Imperfenand Sinful, and will have thofe Difeafes which need this bitter Remedy. 2. Rich Men will be theRulers of the World ; and Rich Men will be generally fò far from true Godlinefs, that they muff come to Heaven as by Human Impafbilsties, as a Camel through a Needles Eye.;.TheUngodly willever have anEnmity againft the Imageof God, and he that is bornof the Flefh will perfecute him that was born after the Spirit, and Brotherhood will nctt keep a Cainfrom killing an Abel, who offereth a more acceptable Sacrifice than htmfelf : And the Guilty will Bill hate theLight, and make a Prey to their Pride and Maliceof a confcionableRe- prover. 4. The Paftors will be flill troubling the Church with their Pride and Avarice and Contentions; and the worn will be feeking to be the greaten, and they that Peek it are liken to attain it. r. Hethat ishigheft will be Rill impofing hisConceits upon thofe under him, and Lording it over God's Heritage, and with Diorrepbes calling out the Brethren, and ruling them by conftraint, and not as Vo- lunteers. 6. Thofe that are truly judicious will ftill comparatively be few ; and confequently the Troublers and Dividers will be the Multitude ; and a judicious Peace-maker andReconciler will be negle&ed, flighted, or hated by both Extreams, 7. The Tenour of the Gofpel Predietions, Precepts, Promifes and Threatnings, are fitted to a People in a fuffering State. 8. And the Graces of God in a Believer are monly fui,ed toa State ofSuffering. 9. Chrinians muff imitate Chriff, and fuffer with him before they reign with him ; and his Kingdom was not of this World. co. The Obfervationof God's dealinghitherto with theChurch in every Ageconfirmeth me : and his befooling them that have dreamed of glorious Times. It was fuch Dreams that tranfported the Munffer Anabaptins, and the Followersof DavidGeorge in the Low Countries, and Campanella, and the Illuminati among the Papins, and our Englifh Anabaptins and other Fanaticks here, both in the Army and the City and Country. When they think the Golden Age is come, they Phew their Dreams in their extravagant Altions: Andas our Fifth Monarchy Men, they are prefently upon force unquiet rebellious Attempt, to let up Chrif in his Kingdom whether he will or not. I remember how Abraham Scultetus in Curricu- to Firs fate confeffeth the common Vanity of himfelf and other Protenants in Germany, who Peeing the Princes in England, France, Bohemia, and many other Counttys, tobeall at onceboth Great and Wife, and Friends to Reformation, did prefently expel the Golden Age : But within one year either Death, or Ruines of War or Back-hidings, had expofed all their Expeótations to Scorn, and laid them lower thanbefore. 29. I do not lay fo great a Serefs upon the external Modes and Formesof Wor- (hip, as many young Profeffors do. I have fuffpe&ed my felt, as perhaps theReader may do, that this is from a cooling and declining frommy former. Zeal ( though the truth is, I never much complyed with Men of that Mind) : But I find that judgment and Charity are the Caufes of it, as far as I am able to difcover. I can- not be fo narrow inmy Principlesof Church-Communion asmany are ; that are fo much for a Liturgy, or fo much againtt it, fo much for Ceremonies or fo much againtt them, that they can hold Communion with no Church that is not of their Mind andWay. If I were among the Greeks, the Lutherans, the Indepen- dants; yea, the Anabaptins ( that own no Herify, nor fet themfelves againft Charity and Peace) I would hold fometimes occafronal Communion with them as Chrinians (if they will give me leave, without forcing me to any fmful Subfcription or A&ion) : Though my mon :dual Communion should be with that Society, which I thought mon agreeable to the Word of God, if I werefree to chufe. I cannot be of their Opinion that think Godwill not accepthim that prayeth by the Common-Prayer-Book, and that filch Forms are a felfinvented Worfhipwhich God rejeð : Nor yet can I be of their Mind that fay the like of extemporary Prayers. go. I am much lets regardful of the Approbation of Man, and let much light- er by Contempt or Applaufe, than I did longago. I am oft fufpicious that this is not only from the increafe of Self -denial andHumility; but partlyfrom my be- ing glutted and forfeited with human Applaufe : And all worldly things appear molt vain and unfatisfalory when we have tryed themmolt. But though I feel that this bath force hand in the Eifel, yet as far as I can perceive, the Knowledge of Man's Nothingnefs, and God's tranfcendent Greamefs, with whom it is that I 1 have molt to do, and the fenf of the brevity of humanethings, and the nearnefs of
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