A Paradigm Evaluation of Richard Baxter's Practical Works

The Practical Works of Richard Baxter comprise four large books. The pdf files that Google made of Baxter's Practical Works comprise twenty-three volumes. Therefore a 30-page paper must be something of a survey rather than a comprehensive analysis of so much writing.

I found a Nook book modern version of Baxter's Practical Works for .99 cents that eliminates the difficulties in reading the 1825 version via Harvard and Google. Unfortunately one cannot transfer a Nook book to a PC.

Baxter has so many peers that were excellent Christian reformed writers like Watson and Brooks that I was a little put off initially by his style so full of 'directions' . Yet that first impression quickly disappeared as I learned about the personality of Richard Baxter and his personal experiences and methods of addressing the challenges of his day. His style is to my knowledge unique amidst the Christian theological writers; he might be a street-wise Christian sociologist writing to the saved and lost alike. He is more than that; the good conscious with good information writing the truth.

Baxter may be regarded, I think, as a contemporary of the French rationalist philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes's Meditations treat of the mind from 'first principles'-a self awareness reflection of what might be known in mind itself-as if without learning and experience one might not be an idiot. Baxter treats the mind with a comparative dualism though-Cartesian dualism is a cliché sort of philosophical genre. Baxter has the mind or spirit in distinction to the 'sensitive' or sensual/sensing. I think that the sensitive is the body with its sensory nature.

I would not make a large issue or over-stress the Baxter criteria of spirit vs sensitive. it is possibly the case that it is not a physical versus mental distinction that he intended to describe. It may be that it is simply a behavioral choice of how to use one's own existence.

These are perennial issues. Sartre in Being and Nothingness continues Descartes's inquiries to describe all experience subjectively as mental experience. He does go so far as to include the body as a mental experience. Even if it is physical, subjective awareness of the body is completely mental. A brain dead individual has no more experience of the body than does a statue.

So in a way, there are similar points in Baxter's and Sartre's epistemology-each regard the mind-body distinction as in fact two parts of one nature. One knows the animal or corporeal side with mind, even as the spiritual side is mind in-itself and self-cognition. In chapter eight section one Baxter provides directions for the government of the senses. His point of view is comparable to that of Socrates regarding virtue as superior to sensuality. Baxter wrote that reason must govern the senses and that in the unsaved the senses tend to be prior to reason. He wrote that brutes are ruled by the senses and have no sense of guilt that must arise within reason for brutish behavior. His opinion is that sanctification occurs primarily within reason, and that with reason one must pursue heaven and things of God; subordinating the senses to reason so far as possible.

Contemporary physics has several issues wherein the practical difference between and unobserved side is effectively no a meaningful question. Perhaps that pertains in the mind-body two-aspects of one nature renormalization too. One never experiences a body without a mind, though the mind does have a subconscious that influences and computes data for the conscious mind. Virtual reality and phenomenal spacetime experiences may be unique and have meaning as living things for-oneself that occur as events greater than the sum of the parts. People that are pure materialists might ask how material evolutions can generate spirit with incredulity while being aware of the limits to knowledge of mass and energy's ultimate origins (besides saying that it appears from a mysterious field out of nowhere that existed from eternity-and that seems like borrowing from Genesis) and that spirit too might be phenomenal, contingent and emergent.

Gershner's wondered if man's spirit might not be phenomenal, since if it could not really be eternal in the same sense as God's, and it could not have coexisted forever like the trinity. If the mind or spirit is comparable to a computer operating system, one made by God yet unlike a computer actually a living spirit, it could be continued forever in one direction of eternity at least-like an infinite line originating at a Cartesian point location 0,0.

Baxter writes thousands of lines of good, practical advice and directions about how the spiritual should overcome, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the sensitive and its predisposition to sin. If the mind-body problem is not so much a dualism of substances and is more of a circumstance of a unified mind with a sensitive corporeal extension as body that is known with mind/spirit, is it easy to understand Paul's paradigm of sin persisting through the sensitive (body) even as he was being spiritually sanctified . '

Gershner talked about the spirit going directly to heaven at death, yet the new and improved, fit-for-eternity body is not returned to unification with the spirit until the day of judgment. I believe that the body at that time will lack the capability of having characteristics of sensations that God would regard as sin. Though heaven will be a joyful experience forever for worshiping God, it is probably not a place where one would worry about mind-body dualism.

Since I am commenting on Baxter and society then and now via Schopenhauer, I will add that Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are equally aliens to the Nazi Universe. The Nazis were pure animals devoid of spirit. Hitler's fascism was that of plain self-interest assertive tribalism; another ancient social mode. Nietzsche wrote a book titled appropriately to the era 'Twilight of the Gods'. That title was apropos for Nietzsche and Schopenhauer's affectation with Zarathustrianism and ancient religions. Each philosopher were of the last of the west aqssociated with ancient eastern faiths. Plainly Neitzsche included Christianity in the genre of ancient religions in twilight too. He foresaw a world arising not unlike Schopenhaur's evil Universe were evil animal spirits would dominate all of society as supermen.

While the ancient religions of the east were dying and scientific atheism arising in the west, a paralell reactive populism of romanticism. escapism and faithlessness appeared' then and now. faithless eras tend toward submergence and transmogrification of faith in populism, irrationalism and imperialism. The breakdown of social morality leads into imperialism or other forms of authoritarianism as personal boundaries, social borders and extreme libertinism permits elites to rule with prima facie benevolence from a financial distance with concentrated wealth and Universalism.

Christianity is true, and the open door to God through the Son. Baxter recognizes and replies to numerous problems of unbelief and reasons with readers about them. If Nietzsche and Schopenhauer lived in the twilight of the Gods era. Americans and Europeans live in Elton John's 'N.Y. Times said God is dead era.' Modern man has built several institutional biases against Christianity today that make it difficult for pastors and theologians to enable faith and belief to appear amidst to lost secularists given over to scientifically cultured animal spiritlessness. It is a reactionary animal status with recurrent attitudes against spirit. It is irrational materialism motivated by physics and quantum energy. It is matter with transformative equivalence into energy. It yields itself to quantum phenomena and monads as infinite small mathematical points overcome with quantum nominalism. Society is spiritual destroyed and a supermen like Olympian Bruce Jenner transformed into a bride of Frankenstein doll representing nothing more than mass. Social management and society are depersonalized as quantum phenomena. It is another mass disaster looking for a place to happen.

With some reading of Ethics I formed an opinion that Baxter writes like a scholastic theologian such as Aquinas, except his theology is limited to Barth's criterion of theology being strictly scripture based. Baxter reasons and develops points rather methodically including proofs for the existence of God, yet these points in his writing to graceless unconverted sinners are not of a dry, academic style. They are practical, polished pedagogic prose understandable to anyone literate.

There are four primary texts comprising the Practical Works of Richard Baxter. They are Ethics, Economics, Ecclesiastics, and Politics. The first; Ethics, is on my book book of 3500 pages. Of course with a lesser type font size it may be reduced to a thousand pages. The original 1825 edition is of about 526 pages I seem to recall. There are this many ways to write a 30 page paper; several approaches that could be developed would present various accents and insights of value. Instead of writing a paper a mile wide and an inch deep in content, I will concentrate more on the first volume; Ethics, and save the other three volumes for another work, if should ever happen to get to that.

Presently I have numerous theology books of reformed writers that I have not had the opportunity to read. In modern America with all of the absolutely idiotic foreign policy approaches and domestic economic administrative perfidy regarding purpose and method it would be somewhat remarkable to just disregard news broadcasts and contemporary concerns that do seem to stupid and misdirected and simply read reformed theologians from four-hundred years past in some cases. That does seem a healthy and definitely edifying choice however. Some time in the future I hope to read all of the Economics, Ecclesiastics and Politics even while the electro-magnetic spectrum of rave politics is passing overhead like drone propaganda stealth fighters.

Baxter's introduction, or advertisement at the start of his vast publication, is interesting reading. I am sure there are expert historians of the period that would know fat more than I about the time. Baxter wrote the four part book in 1664-1665, though he wrote far more on contiguous matters that were not completed before his death.

The Westminster Standards were assembled beginning in 1643 under the Presbyterian-Puritan dominated Long Parliament during the English Civil War. Cromwell eventually rose to power and forced out the Presbyterians. One history comments that Cromwell favored independency, and Gill for example also appeared to favor congregationalism rather than Presbyterianism that some theologians believe is not a valid church office-that is, it is out of compliance with first century Christian ecclesiastical intent.

In 1660 the monarchy was restored. Episcopacy and subscription to it was required for pastors.

Thomas Watson and perhaps Baxter continued being banned from pubic preaching I would think. There was an Indulgence in 1672 that let non-conformist ministers return to public work.

Baxter's advertisement at the start of his work where we learn that he was forbidden by law to preach is a qualification and explanation for the form and history of development of the work. It is a remarkable piece in-itself.

Baxter had no library with him for references and quotes. He points out that he thus avoids charges of plagiarism. The Google photocopy version of Baxter's writings that I have will not apparently allow me to copy and paste any quotations from Practical Divinity, so I cite a technical reason for not making lengthy quotations in the present paper.*

Baxter opined that people complain if he writes too little and complain if he writes too much. Some criticize his promulgation of directions as too holier-than-thou an lacking humility. Baxter basically said that he was just being practical and providing instructions to those that need them.

Against charges of pride and self-conceit for writing so much Baxter replies that it is unfortunate that so much is wonted. Baxter notes that there is too much to remember therefore he wrote it down. Baxter accounts for the several ways in which his work is criticized from offending the godly to offending the zealous with his pacific, unifying air. If Baxter had lived in more stable times in a continuum of religious and theocratic settlement he probably would not have written with the apparent blunt eloquence that he did. When government and leadership classes change rather swiftly in historical terms the bureaucratic sycophants of church and state haven't sufficient time to get their stores straight to follow along with whatever it is they believe the rich and powerful want delivered unto their eyes and ears. Baxter had to write what he thought as a kind of principle of the faith-a facsimile 17th century disciple of Christ, writing like James to the people of his day.

Yet lest I appear too hasty to hagiographize St. Baxter I will point out that he was of the generation of reformers that began with compilation of the Westminster Standards during the period of Presbyterian domination of the Long Parliament before the rise of Cromwell who preferred more non-conformist Puritans I think-John Bunyan was in his cabinet I see to recall. In other words, without being kicked out of the insider set Baxter might not have ever taken up the pen to produce his voluminous works. In that regard Baxter is more like Israel when the physical Temple was not available for worship, becoming more into the written form.

* I have since found that a .txt file of Baxter's books, at least on ethics, is available on-line. So I downloaded it and found it full of typo errors that are probably a result of taking the pdf Google photocopy version of the 1825 publication in the Harvard Library and running it through a photo-into-text program that misunderstood many words/spellings. Even so it is a very helpful text and potentially can be corrected by someone with the time to do so.

I have corrected a portion of Baxter's writing that I will reprint in the commentary on chapter one- to unconverted, graceless sinners. My intention is to comment on each of the ten primary sections of Baxter's 'Ethics', in the order in which they appear in his book.

Baxter's writing, as one proceeds through the Ethics, reads like a good conscience comprising an armor-of-God defense ensemble against every sort of wicked attack that might arise, so far as possible, without especially seeming so. It is challenging to imagine anyone writing such a work today with even a portion of the acuity and effectiveness.

Even so it is a little amusing to consider how some Christian with a philosophical, theological and pastoral inclination might approach reinforcing contemporary Christians and unbelievers-the graceless, unwashed or overly body-washed, disposable culture, neo-sophisticated pseudo-globalist corporatist followers of existential multi-isms-in a world with a multi-cultural, networked, scientifically stamped Satanic over-weaning and ubiquitous enemy.

One might consider the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer a little for insight. People so far as they know who Schopenhauer was-The author of The World as Will and Idea, regard him as a misogynist. He threw some woman down a stairway-it might have been his land-lady demanding rent-it is difficult to know. Reading Schopenhauer in a feminist error is generally condemned as anyone doing so must be regarded as misogynist too-a hater of women sympathizer or embodiment example of the kind that have oppressed women for millennia.

Arthur Schopenhauer was actually a brilliant as well as an anachronistic philosopher at the same time-quite and achievement. He is also known as a pessimist. His ego was rather large occasionally too-in his introduction to The Principle of Sufficient Reason e describes himself as the greatest philosopher in Europe I seem to recall, and laments that he is not recognized as such.

Schopenhauer had a well developed sense of self in a difficult period in Germany, and it must be recalled that the average life span was about 25 then and people dies young a lot with social ethics often being based on the use of force to keep order and expel disorder micro-and macro-socially. Being a philosopher couldn't have been well paying,yet some intelligent guys might strive for that sort of thing. Some more well known philosophers were wealthy or of a class able to consort with the wealthy-and of course that tradition isn't entirely historical yet continues to a certain extent though the prosperity of the middle class has made professional philosophy rather common.

Schopenhauer's Principle of Sufficient Reason' is the most brilliant and perhaps one of the very few things written after Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' that continues the work of the Critique in rather concrete terms. While much commentary was written about the Critique and the summary 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics' , little if anyone else besides Schopenhauer understood it so well as to be able to continue the work and apply it somewhat with a few interesting proofs. Unfortunately for Schopenhauer his 120 pages or so of interesting reading in The Principle of Sufficient Reason' was not all that he wrote.

Schopenhauer's anachronistic side was in his religious and philosophical world-view that exceed by far the rather technical philosophical Kantianism in The Principle. It is as if another philosopher existed within his own brain-as if he dual booted two philosophical-mind operating systems; one of ultra-modern (in that era) epistemology and the other of the most ancient religious and philosophical dualism. It is Schopenhauer's dualism that let to his misogyny.

Like ancient Romans and those of other societies, Schopenhauer believed women were inferior, shorter, broad-based beings disfavored by the dime-urge that created the world. Like Hindus and Buddhist Schopenhauer believed the world is illusory or very contingent being. Like the Zoroastrians with the perennial battle being good and evil deities Schopenhauer believed that good and evil were in conflict regarding the whole of creation that is commonly called the Universe. Schopenhauer however believed that evil had won and the world is entirely evil.

Schopenhauer also believed that it is a bad thing to be born into the evil world. Their sins of women were either carried over from prior lives and their form was a kind of karmic pay-back, or perhaps some evil demi-urge simply chose them to be in such wretched form. Schopenhauer thought that everything in existence is evil I suppose, and that further the world is an evil place and hence the people in it to including women must be wicked. This idea is not the same as original sin, yet is important to recognize that Schopenhauer's late 18th and early 19th century ideas were in a way last-generation syncretistic archetypes of some very ancient and wide-spread ideas from across Eurasia. He seemed to have no sense of Reformed Christian ideas nor even of Darwinism. I would guess that if Schopenhauer learned of evolution paradigmata from pre-Darwinian scientific philosophers-and such existed, he would have viewed the human phenomena of being as some sort of grotesque morphing of broken and misshapen forms wherein over the tragedy of time everything expresses itself in agony, wickedness and pathos and dies after oozing forth another generation of poor players walking and strutting about for an hour on stage forgetting its pathetic lines.

Moderns I suppose regard women as more phenomenal, though not statuesque, than as competition creatures of less ability and with juicy attributes. In post-dark ages Europe continuing to America clothing sometimes was made to give one a larger appearance-how tall was Abe Lincoln with a stove-pipe hat? Presently women are viewed I think as phenomenal evolutionary creatures of beauty, yet almost never as somewhat wicked neo-dwarf spawn of a wicked demi-urge being punished for sins of past-lives. It is a little amusing that in the abeyance of primitive competition, women become more competitive in society. If their skulls were as thick as those of men, they too would probably want a pro-football league to incur brain damage from helmet-to-helmet collisions.

Of all the statuary made in ancient Rome, 99% was destroyed or ground up for construction. Those pagan once-painted pieces of the ancient world remaining today are faded reminders that some made caryatids of women holding up society while some ancient Greeks also thought of them in a way similar to Schopenhauer. While the cult of Dionysus was making human sacrifices Sappho was writing beautiful dactylic hexameter. The world was as confused and variegated socially then as now. It was more dangerous from natural causes and crime, yet not capable of mass destruction. Human society itself because of its economic methods assures mass-species extinctions and alteration of the entire ecosystem. The Christian religion is failing to adapt and upgrade because their is no pressing need or  Schmalkaldic War lurking, to post-millennialism , Genesis time scales comprehensive of general relativity, and a priesthood of believers with just three offices in which all members progress supported by planetary attendance records and support networks. It seems like a comedy of ignorance, tragic in many respects, yet one that God can and will attend to in his own time.

In modern society, after evolving through symbolic logic, scientific empiricism, evolutionary capitalism and authoritarian mass-market government, existential consumerism and Hollywood brave-new-world militarism and patriotism, ordinary people have become clustered in cities and suburbs while the wilderness has become eroded with the greatest mass species die-off in 65 million years resulting from human demographic and technical sprawl. Christian theologians may encounter incorrect creation theory of their own, incorrect eschatology and incorrect ecclesiastic and lack the reforming vigor of 16th and 17th century reformers to change it in order to move closer to understanding the truth of scripture. A reformer's insight into scripture could produce a modern church that would be relevant rather than apocalyptic or museum like.

I believe that Schopenhauer's intellectual and social paradigm is in some ways illustrative as a kind of archetype of men and women in present day America. He was in some ways brilliant, with a sense of the divine yet overcome by the pervasiveness of perceived evil, uncertain of any sort of truth, tentative and syncretistic on epistemology and metaphysics, and in some respects pagan.

With the active presence of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit Arthur Schopenhauer was too much like the general run of humanity in that day, and perhaps in all times, and too willing to tolerate wickedness. Like Ivan Karamazov talking with his monk-brother Alyosha in a restaurant, people may express themselves as cultured, worldly skeptics ready to say, like Bill Clinton-'been there, done that' as they have moved through their 'bucket list' before time expires. Unlike modern Americans with such willingness to be irresponsible that they allow imperialism to return to the nation through British globalism and the concentration of wealth, Schopenhauer with his wrong religious metaphysics or Nietzsche with his somewhat comparable Zaratustrian bent, those German philosophers were not terribly happy unsuccessful in success writers of ideas. Americans too have Andy Warhol kind of mass-produced pop lives these days though the tomato-cans are splattered more in movies than in Vietnam. It is difficult to communicate with these people in drive-in churches with parking lots full of nice cars, and ministers with gel goop on their hair, sometimes with nice homes that have never known a day of hardship or sleeping outside involuntarily.

Even American intellectuals may have complex mind-collages with large elements of mass production. Christianity is not mass-produced however. God transcends every material thing and human construct or even expression from any pastor. Baxter's directions are a continuous conscientious coaching to return to thinking about God and the will of God for human conduct and salvation unto eternal life. Who can write like that today? Who can write with sufficient knowledge of how the ecosphere works, of how society works, of who cosmology works to the limit of modern physics, with complete understanding of scripture so far as the grace of God permits adequate learning to resemble nominal completeness of the major points at least?

Fortunately Baxter's Practical Works are still relevant today.

Part I - Christian Ethics

"Chapter 1: Directions to Unconverted, Graceless Sinners, For the Attainment of Saving Grace"

Following is a typo corrected version along with a few usage updates I made to an excerpt from this section of Baxter's 'Practical Divinity';

quote-" If ungodly, miserable sinners were as few, as the devil and their self-love would make themselves believe, I might forbear this part of my work as needless. For the whole need not the physician, but the sick. If you go into twenty families, and ask them all. Whether any of them are in an unsanctified state, unrenewed and unpardoned, and under the wrath and curse of God? you will meet with few that will not tell you, they hope it is better with them than so; and thou they are sinners, as all are, yet that they are repenting, pardoned sinners. Nay, there is scarce one of many of the most wicked and notoriously ungodly, but hope they are in a penitent, pardoned state. Even the haters of God will say they love him ; and the scorners at godliness will say that they are not ungodly; and that it is but hypocrisy and singularity that they deride:: and it were well for them, if saying so would go for proof, and he that will be their judge would take their words.

But God will not be deceived, though foolish men are wise enough to deceive themselves. Wickedness will be wickedness when it hath clothed itself with the fairest names : God will condemn it when it hath found out the most plausible pretenses and excuses. Though the ungodly think to bear it out in pride and scorn, and think to be saved by their hypocritical lip-service, as soon as the most holy worshipers of the Lord, yet "shall they be like chaff which the wind driveth away: they shall not be able to stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous*." And if God know better than foolish men, then certainly the flock is little to whom the "Father will give the kingdom'*." And "wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat": because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

When Christ was asked, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" he answered, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; for many I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." But, alas! we need no other information than common experience, to tell us whether the greatest part of men be holy and heavenly, and self-denying; that seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and love God above all, and will forsake all they have for the sake of Christ, and undoubtedly none but such are saved; as you may see Heb. xii. 14. Matt. vi.20, 21. 33.

Seeing then the godly are so few, and the ungodly so many; and that God will take nothing for holiness that is not such indeed ; and seeing it is so terrible a thing to any man that hath his wits about him, to live one day in an unconverted state, because he that dieth so, is lost for ever; methinks it should be our wisdom to be suspicious of ourselves, and careful lest we be deceived in so great a business, and diligent in searching and examining our hearts, whether they are truly sanctified or not ; because it can be no harm to make sure work for our salvation ; whereas presumption, carelessness, and negligence, may betray us to remediless misery and despair.

I do not here suppose the reader to have any such acquaintance with his heart, or care of his salvation, or obedient willingness to be taught by Jesus Christ, as is proper to those that are truly sanctified ; for it is ungodly persons to whom I am now speaking. And, yet, if I should not suppose them to have some capacity and disposition to make use of the Directions which I give them, I might as well pass them by, and spare my labour. I tell thee therefore, reader, what it is that I presuppose in thee, and expect from thee, and I think thou wilt not judge me unreasonable in my suppositions and expectations.

1. I suppose thee to be a (hu)man, and therefore that thou has reason and natural free-will (that is, the natural faculty of choosing and refusing), which should keep thy sensitive appetite in obedience; and that thou art capable of loving and serving thy Creator, and enjoying him in everlasting life.

2. I suppose that thou knowest thyself to be a (hu)man; and therefore that thy sensitive part, or flesh, should no more rule thee, or be ungoverned by thee, than the horse should rule the rider, or be unruled by him ; and that thou understandest that thou art made on purpose to love and serve thy Maker, and to be happy in his love and glory for ever. If thou know not this much, thou knowest not that thou art (hu)man, or else knowest not what a (hu)man is.

3. I suppose thee to have a natural self-love, and a desire of thy own preservation and happiness; and that thou has no desire to be miserable, or to be hated of God, or to cast out of his favour and presence into hell, and there to be tormented with devils everlastingly: yea, I will suppose that thou art not indifferent whether thou dwell in heaven or hell, in joy or torment; but would fain be saved and happy; whether thou be godly or ungodly, wise or foolish; I will be bold to take all this for granted: and I hope in I this i do not wrong thee.

4. I suppose thee to be one that knowest that thou did not make thyself; nor give thyself that power or wisdom which thou has; and that he that made thee and all the world, must needs be before all the world; and that he is eternal, having no beginning (for if ever there had been time when there was nothing, there never would have been any thing; because nothing can make nothing); and I suppose thou dost confess that all the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the whole creation set together, is less than the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the Creator; because nothing can give more than it hath to give. I suppose, therefore, that thou dost confess that there is a God ; for to be eternal, infinite Being, and the most powerful, wise, and good and the first cause of all created being, and power, wisdom. and goodness, this (with the subsequent relations to the creature) is to be GOD. If thou wilt deny that there is a God. thou must deny that thou art a (hu)man, and that there is any (hu)man, or any being*.

5. I suppose thou knowest that God, who gave a being unto all things, is by this title of creation, the absolute Owner or Lord of all : and that he that made the reasonable creatures, with natures to be governed, in order to a further end, is by that title, their supreme Governor; and therefore hath his laws commanding duty, and promising reward, and threatening punishment; and therefore will judge men according to these laws, and will be just in judgment, and in his rewards and punishments. And that he

that freely gave the creature its being, and all the good it hath, and must give it all that ever it shall have, is the Father or most bountiful Benefactor to his creatures. Surely I screw thee not too high in supposing thee to know all this; for all this is no more than that there is a God. For he is not God, if he be not the creator, and therefore our owner, our ruler, and benefactor, our absolute Lord, our most righteous governor, and our most loving father, or benefactor.

6. I suppose therefore that thou art convinced, that God must be absolutely submitted to, and obeyed before all others in the world, and loved above all friends, or pleasures, or creatures whatsoever. For to say, ' He is my Owner,' is to say, ' I must yield myself to him as his own:' to say, 'I take him for my supreme Governor,' is to say, that 'I will absolutely be ruled by him:' and to say, 'I take him as my dearest Father or chief Benefactor,' is to say, that 'I am obliged to give him my dearest love, and highest thanks:' otherwise you do but jest, or say you know not what, or contradict yourselves, while you say, 'He is your God.'

7. I suppose that thou art easily convinced, that in all the world there is no creature that can shew so full a title to thee as God ; or that hath so great authority to govern thee, or that can be so good to thee, or do so much for thee, as God can do, or hath done, and will do. if thou do thy part; and therefore that there is nothing to be preferred before him, or compared with him in our obedience or love: nor is there any that can save us from His justice, if we stand out against him.

8. I suppose that as thou knowest God is just, in his laws and judgements, so that he is so faithful that he will not, and so all-sufficient, that he need not deceive mankind, and govern them by mere deceit: this better beseems the devil, than God: and therefore that as he governeth man on earth by the hopes and fears of another life, he doth not delude them into such hopes or fears: and as he doth not procure obedience by any rewards or punishments in this life, as the principal means (the wicked prospering, and the rest being persecuted and afflicted here), therefore his rewards or punishments, must needs be principally hereafter in the life to come. For if he have no rewards and punishments, he hath no judgment ; and if he have no judgment, he hath no laws (or else no justice); and if he have no laws (or justice), he is no governor of man (or not a righteous governor) ; and if he be not our governor (and just), he is not our God ; and if he were not our God, we had never been his creatures, nor had a being, or been men'.

9. I suppose thou knowest that if God had not discovered what he would do with us, in the life to come,. yet man is highliest bound to obey and love his Maker, because he is our absolute Lord, our highest ruler, and our chief benefactor; and all that we are or have is from him. And that if man be bound to spend his life in the service of this God, it is certain that he shall be no loser by him, no not by the costliest obedience that we can perform ; for God cannot appoint us any thing that is vain ; nor can he be worse to us than an honest man, that will see that we lose not by his service. Therefore that God for whom we must spend and forsake this life, and all those pleasures which sensualists enjoy, hath certainly some greater thing to give us, in another life.

10. I may take it for granted at the worst, that neither thyself, nor any infidel in the world, can say that you are sure that there is not another life for man, in which his present obedience shall be rewarded, and disobedience punished. The worst that ever infidel could say was, that 'He thinketh that there is no other life.' None of you dare deny the possibility of it, nor can with any reason deny the probability. Well, then, let this be remembered while we proceed a little further with you.

11. I suppose or expect that you have so much use of sense and reason, as to know the brevity and vanity of all the glory and pleasures of the flesh; and that they are all so quickly gone, that were they greater than they are, they can be of no considerable value. Alas, what is time! How quickly gone, and then it is Nothing! and all things then are nothing which are passed with it! So that the joys or sorrows of so short a life, are no great matter of gain or loss.

I may therefore suppose that thou canst easily conclude,that the bare probability or possibility of an endless happiness, should be infinitely preferred before such transitory vanity, even the greatest matters that can be expected here; and that the probability or possibility of endless misery in hell, should engage us with far greater care and diligence to avoid it, than is due for the avoiding any thing that you can think to escape by sinning ; or any of the sufferings of this momentary life. If you see not this, you have lost your reason ; that the mere probability or possibility of a heaven and hell, should much more command our care and diligence, than the fading vanities of this dreaming, transitory life.

12. Well, then ; we have got thus far in the clearest light. You see that a religious, holy life, is every man's duty, not only as they owe it to God as their creator, their owner, governor, and benefactor; but also, because as lovers of ourselves, our reason commandeth us to have ten thousandfold more regard of a probable or possible joy and torment which are endless, than of any that is small and of short continuance. And if this be so, that a holy life is every man's duty, with respect to the life that is to come, then it is most evident, that there is such a life to come indeed, and that it is more than probable or possible, even certain.

For if it be but man's duty to manage this life, by the hopes and fears of another life, then it must follow, that either there is such a life to come, or else that God hath made it man's duty to hope, and fear, and care, and labour, and live in vain; and that he himself doth tantalize and cheat his creatures, and rule the world by motives of deceit, and make religion and obedience to our Maker to be a life of folly, delusion, and our loss. And he that believeth this of God, doth scarcely believe him to be God. Though I have mentioned this argument in another treatise, I think it not unmeet here to repeat it for thy benefit.

13. And seeing I suppose thee to be convinced of the life to come, and that man's happiness and misery is there, I must needs suppose that thou dost confess, that all things in this life, whether prosperity or adversity, honour or dishonour, are to be esteemed and used as they refer to the life to come. For nothing is more plain, than that the means are to have all their esteem and use in order to their end. That only is good in this life, which tendeth to the happiness of our endless life ; and that is evil indeed in this life, that tendeth to our endless hurt, and to deprive us of the everlasting good. And therefore no price or motive should hire us to sin against God, and to forfeit or hinder our endless happiness.

14. I may suppose, if thou have reason, that thou wilt confess that God cannot be too much loved, nor obeyed too exactly, nor served too diligently (especially by such backward sinners, that have scarce any mind to love or worship him at all) ; and that no man can make too sure of heaven, or pay too dear for it, or do too much for his salvation, if it be but that which God hath appointed him to do. And that you have nothing else that is so much worth your time, and love, and care, and labour. And therefore though you have need to be stopped in your love, and care, and labor for the world, because for it you may easily pay too dear, and do too much ; yet there is no need of stopping (humanity)men in their love, and care, and labour for God and their salvation ; which is worth more than ever we can do, and where the best are apt to do too little.

15. I also suppose thee to be one that knowest, that this present life is given us on trial, to prepare for the life that shall come after; and that as men live here, they shall speed for ever ; and that time cannot be recalled, when it is gone ; and therefore that we should make the best of it while we have it.

16. I suppose thee also to be easily convinced, that seeing man hath his reason and life for matters of everlasting consequence, his thoughts of them should be frequent and very serious, and his reason should be used about these things, by retired, sober deliberation.

17. And I suppose thee to be a man, and therefore so far acquainted with thyself, as that thou mayst know, if thou wilt, whether thy heart and life do answer thy convictions, and whether they are more for heaven or earth ; and therefore that thou art capable of self-judging in this case. Perhaps you will say, that while I am directing you to be holy, I suppose you to be holy first ; for all this seemeth to go far towards it. But I must profess that I see not any thing in all these suppositions, but what I may suppose to be in a heathen ; and that I think all this is but supposing thee to have the use of thy reason, in the points in hand.

Speak freely: Is there any one of all these points that thou canst or darest deny? I think there is not. And therefore if heathens and wicked men deny them in their practice, that doth but show that sin doth brutify them, and that, as men asleep, or in a crowd of business, they have not the use of the reason which they possess, in the matters which their minds are turned from.

18. Yea, one thing more I think I may suppose in all or most that will read this book ; that you take on you also to believe in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier, and that the Scriptures are the Word of God, And if you do so indeed, I may then hope that my work is in a manner done, before I begin it: but if you do it but opinionatively and uneffectually, yet God and man may plead with you the truths which you profess. "