1. Can you truly say that all the known sins of your past life are the grief of your heart, and that you have felt that everlasting misery is due to you for them; and that, under a sense of this heavy burden, you have felt yourself a lost man, and have gladly entertained the news of a Saviour, and cast your soul upon Christ alone, for pardon by his blood?
2. Can you truly say that your heart is so far turned from sin, that you hate the sins which you once loved, and love that holy life which you formerly hated, and that you do not now live in the wilful practice of any known sin? Is there no sin which you are not heartily willing to forsake, whatever it cost you, and no duty which you are not willing to perform?
3. Can you truly say, that you have so far taken the everlasting enjoyment of God for your happiness, that it hath the most of your heart, of your love, desire, and care; and that you are resolved, by the strength of divine grace, to let go all that you have in the world rather than hazard it, and that it is your daily and your principal business to seek it? Can you truly say, that though you have your failings and sins, yet your main care, and the bent of your whole life, is to please God, and to enjoy him for ever; and that you give the world God's leavings, as it were, and not God the world's leavings; and that your worldly business is but as a traveller's seeking for provision in his journey, and heaven is the place that you take for your home?
Richard Baxter
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.....If you seek a physician in your sickness, you would have him tell you the truth, though it were the worst—much more here. For there the knowledge of your disease may, by your fears, increase it; but here you must know it, or else you can never be recovered from it. I much fear that you are yet a stranger to the Christian life. For if you were a Christian indeed, and truly converted, your very heart would be set on God and the life to come, and you would make it your chief business to prepare for everlasting happiness; and you durst not, you would not, live in any wilful sin, nor in the neglect of any known duty. Alas, what have you done? how have you spent your time till now? Did you not know that you had a soul to be saved or lost, and that you must live in heaven or in hell for ever, and that you had your life and time in this world chiefly for the purpose of preparing for another? Alas, what have you been doing all your days that you are so ignorant, or so unprepared for death if it should now find you? If you had but as much mind of heaven as of earth, you would have known more of it, and done more for it, and inquired more diligently after it than you have done. You can learn how to do your business in the world, and why could you not learn more of the will of God, if you had but attended to it? You have neighbors that could learn more, that have had as much to do in the world as you, and who have had as little time. Do you think that heaven is not worth your labor; or that it can be had without any care or pains, when you cannot have the trifles of this world without them, and when God had bid you seek first his kingdom and the righteousness thereof? Alas, my friends, what if you had died before this hour in an unconverted state; what then had become of you, and where had you now been? Alas, that you were so cruel to yourselves, as to venture your everlasting state so desperately as you have done. "What did you think of? Did you not all this while know that you must shortly die, and be judged as you were then found? Had you any greater work to do, or any greater business to mind, than your everlasting salvation? Do you think that all that you can get in this world will comfort you in a dying hour, or purchase your salvation, or ease the pains of hell?"
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
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