Richard Baxter · 2 of 8

Preface

To all unsanctified Persons that shall read this Book; especially of my Hearers in the Borough and Parish of Kiaderminster.

Men and Brethren,

THE eternal God, that made you for a life everlasting, and hath redeemed you by his only Son, when you had lost it and yourselves, being mindful of you in your sin and misery, hath indited the gospel, and sealed it by his spirit, and commanded his ministers to preach it to the world, that pardon being freely offered you, and heaven being set before you, he might call you off from your fleshly pleasures, and from following after this deceitful world, and acquaint you with the life that you were created and redeemed for, before you are dead and past remedy. He sendeth you not prophets or apostles, that receive their message by immediate revelation; but yet he calleth you by his ordinary ministers, who are commissioned by him to preach the same gospel which Christ and his apostles first delivered. The Lord seeth how you forget him and your latter end, and how light you make of everlasting things, as men that understand not what they have to do or suffer. He seeth how bold you are in sin, and how fearless threatnings, and how careless of your souls, and how the works of infidels are in your lives, while the belief of Christians is in your mouths. He seeth the dreadful day at hand, when your sorrows will begin, and you must lament all this with fruitless cries in torment and desperation; and then the remembrance of your folly will tear your hearts, if true conversion now prevent it not. In compassion of your sinful miserable souls, the Lord, that better knows your case than you can know it, hath made it our duty to speak to you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19. and to tell you plainly of your sin and misery, and what will be your end, and how sad a change you will shortly see, if yet you go on a little longer. Having bought you at so dear a rate as the blood of his son Jesus Christ, and made you so free and general promise of pardon, and grace, and everlasting glory; he commandeth us to tender all this to you, as the gift of God, and to intreat you to consider of the necessity and worth of what he offereth.—He seeth and pitieth you, while you are drowned in worldly cares and pleasures, and eagerly following childish toys, and wasting that short and precious time for a thing of nought, in which you should make ready for an everlasting life; and therefore he high commanded us to call after you, and tell you how you lose your labour, and are about to lose your souls, and to tell you what greater and better things you might certainly have, if you would hearken to his Call, Isa. lv. 1, 2, 3. We believe and obey the voice of God; and come to you on his message, who hath charged us to preach, and be instant with you in season and out of season, and to lift up our voice like a trumpet, and shew your transgressions and your sins, Isa. lviii. 1. 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2. But alas! to the grief of our souls and your own undoing, you stop your ears, you stiffen your necks, you harden your hearts, and send us back to God with groans, to tell him that we have done his message, but can do no good on you, nor scarcely get a sober hearing.—Oh! that our eyes were a fountain of tears, that we might lament our ignorant, careless people, that have Christ before them, and pardon, and life, and heaven before them, and that have not hearts to know or value them! that might have Christ, and grace, and glory, as well as others, if it were not for their wilfill negligence and contempt! O that the Lord would fill our hearts with more compassion to these miserable souls, that we might cast ourselves even at their feet, and follow them to their houses, and speak to them with our bitter tears: For, long have we preached to many of them in vain: We study plainness to make them understand, and many of them will not understand us; we study serious, piercing words, to make them feel, but they will not feel. If the greatest matters would work with them, we should awake them; if the sweetest things would work, we should entice them and win their hearts; if the most dreadful things would work, we should at least affright them from their wickedness; if truth and certainty would take with them, we should soon convince them; if the God that made them, and the Christ that bought them, might be heard, the case would soon be altered with them; if scripture might be heard, we should soon prevail; if reason, even the best and strongest reason, might be heard, we should not doubt but we should speedily convince them; if experience might be heard, even their own experience, and the experience of all the world, the matter would be mended; yea, if the conscience within them might be heard, the case would be better with them than it is. But if nothing can be heard, what then shall we do for them? If the dreadful God of heaven be slighted, who then shall be regarded? If the inestimable love and blood of a Redeemer be made light of, what then shall be valued? If heaven have no desirable glory with them, and everlasting joys be nothing worth, if they can jest at hell, and dance about the bottomless pit, and play with the consuming fire, and that when God and man do warn them of it; what shall we do for such souls as these?

Once more, in the name of the God of heaven, I shall do the message to you which he hath commanded us, and leave it in these standing lines to convert you or to condemn you; to change you, or to rise up in judgment against you, and to be a witness to your faces, that once you had a serious call to turn. Hear, all you that are drudges of the world, and the servants of flesh and Satan! that spend your days in looking after prosperity on earth, and drown your consciences in drinking, and gluttony, and idleness, and foolish sports, and know your sin, and yet will sin, as if you set God at defiance, and bid him do his worst and spare not! Hearken, all you that mind not God, and have no heart to holy things, and feel no favour in the word or worship of the Lord, or in the thoughts or mention of eternal life, that are careless of your immortal souls, and never bestow one hour in inquiring what case they are in, whether sanctified or unsanctified, and whether you are ready to appear before the Lord! Hearken, all you that, by sinning in the light, have dinned yourselves into infidelity, and do not believe the word of God. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear the gracious and yet the dreadful call of God! His eye is all this while upon you. Your sins are registered, and you shall surely hear of them again. God keepeth the book now; and he will write it all upon your consciences with his terrors; and then you also shall keep it yourselves: O sinners, that you knew but what you are doing! and whom you are all this while offending! the sun itself is darkness before that Majesty, which you daily abuse and carelessly provoke. The sinning angels were not able to stand before him, but were cast down to be tormented with devils. And dare such silly worms as you so carelessly offend, and set yourselves against your Maker! O that you did but a little know what case that wretched soul is in, that hath engaged the living God against him! The words of his mouth, that made thee, can unmake thee; the frown of his face will cut thee off and cast thee out into utter darkness. How eager are the devils to be doing with thee that have tempted thee, and do but wait for the word from God to take and use thee as their own! and then in a moment thou wilt be in hell. If God be against thee, all things are against thee: this world is but thy prison, for all thou so lovest it; thou art but reserved in it to the day of wrath, Job xxi. 30. the Judge is coming, thy soul is even going. Yet a little while, and thy friend shall say of thee, “He is dead;” and thou shalt see the things that thou now dost despise, and feel that which now thou wilt not believe. Death will bring such an argument as thou canst not answer; an argument that shall effectually confute thy cavils against the words and ways of God, and all thy self-conceited dotages. And then how soon will thy mind be changed? Then be an unbeliever if thou canst; stand then to all thy former words, which thou wast wont to utter against a holy and a heavenly life. Make good that cause then before the Lord, which thou wast wont to plead against thy teachers, and against the people that feared God. Then stand to thy old opinions and contemptuous thoughts of the diligence of the saints; make ready now thy strongest reasons, and stand up then before the Judge, and plead like a man for thy fleshly, thy worldly, and ungodly life. But know that thou wilt have One to plead with, that will not be outfaced by thee; nor so easily put off as we thy fellow-creatures. O poor soul! there is nothing but a slender veil of flesh between thee and that amazing sight, which will quickly silence thee, and turn thy tone, and make thee of another mind! As soon as death hath drawn this curtain, thou shalt see first which will quickly leave thee speechless. And how quickly will that day and hour come! When thou hast had but a few more merry hours, and but a few more pleasant draughts and morsels, and a little more of the honours and riches of the world, thy portion will be spent, and thy pleasures ended, and all is then gone that thou settest thy heart upon; of all, that thou soldest thy Saviour and salvation for, there is nothing left but the heavy reckoning. As a thief, that sits merrily spending the money in an alehouse which he hath stolen, when men are riding in post-haste to apprehend him, so it is with you. While you are drowned in cares or fleshly pleasures, and making merry with your own shame, death is coming in post-haste to seize upon you, and carry your souls to such a place and state as now you little know or think of. Suppose, when you were bold and busy in your sin, that a messenger were but coming post from London to apprehend you and take away your lives; though you saw him not, yet if you knew that he was coming, it would mar your mirth, and you would be thinking of the haste he makes, and hearkening when he knocked at your door. O that you could but see what haste death makes, tho’ yet he hath not overtaken you! No post so swift! No messenger more sure! As sure as the sun will be with you in the morning, though it hath many thousand and hundred thousand miles to go in the night, so sure will death be quickly with you; and then where is your sport and pleasure? Then will you jest and brave it out? Then will you jeer at them that warned you? Then is it better to be a believing saint or a sensual worldling? “And then whose shall all these things be” that you have gathered? Luke xii. 19, 20 , 21. Do you not observe that days and weeks are quickly gone, and nights and mornings come apace, and speedily succeed each other? You sleep, “but your damnation slumbereth not,” you linger, “but your judgment this long time lingereth not,” 2 Pet. ii. 3, 4, 5. to which “you are reserved for punishment,” 2 Pet. ii. 8, 9.—O that you were wise to understand this, and that you did consider your latter end,” Deut. xxxii. 29—“He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear the call of God in this day of his salvation.”

O careless sinners! that you did but know the love that you unthankfully neglect, and the preciousness of the blood of Christ which you despise! O that you did but know the riches of the gospel! O that you did but know, a little know, the certainty, and the glory, and blessedness, of that everlasting life, which now you will not set your hearts upon, nor be persuaded first and diligently to seek, Heb. xi. 6. and xii. 28. Matt. vi. 12. Did you but know the endless life with God which you now neglect, how quickly would you cast away your sin, how quickly would you change your mind and life, your course and company, and turn the streams of your affections, and lay your care another way! How resolutely would you scorn to yield to such temptations as now deceive you and carry you away! How zealously would you bestir yourselves for that most blessed life! How earnest would you be with God in prayer! How diligent in hearing, and learning, and inquiring!—How serious in meditating on the laws of God! (Psal. i. 2.) How fearful of sinning in thought, word, or deed; and how careful to please God and grow in holiness!—O what a changed people you would be! And why should not the certain word of God be believed by you, and prevail with you, which, openeth to you these glorious and eternal things?

Yea, let me tell you, that even here on earth, ye little know the difference between the life which you refuse, and the life which you would choose. The sanctified are conversing with God, when you dare scarce think of him, and when you are conversing with but earth and flesh.—Their conversation is in heaven, when you are utter strangers to it, and your belly is your God, and you are minding earthly things, Phil. iii. 18, 19, 20. They are seeking after the face of God, when you seek for nothing higher than this world.—They are busily laying out for an endless life, where they shall be equal with the angels, Luke xx. 36. when you are taken up with a shadow and a transitory thing of naught. How long and base is your earthly, fleshly, sinful life, in comparison of the noble, spiritual lfe of true believers! Many a time have I looked on such men with grief and pity, to see them trudge about the world, and spend their lives, and care, and labour, for nothing but a little food and raiment, or a little fading pelf, or fleshly pleasures, or empty honours, as if they had no higher things to mind.—What difference is there between the lives of these men and of the beasts that perish, that spend their time in working, and eating, and living, but that they may live? They taste not of the inward heavenly pleasures which believers taste and live upon.—I had rather have a little of their comfort, which the fore-thoughts of their heavenly inheritance afford them, though I had all their scorns and sufferings with it, than to have all your pleasures and treacherous prosperity. I would not have one of your secret gripes and pangs of conscience, and dark and dreadful thoughts of death and the life to come, for all that ever the world hath done for you, or all that you can reasonably hope that it should do. If I were in your unconverted carnal state, and knew but what I know, and believed but what I now believe, methinks my life would he a fore-taste of hell: How oft should I be thinking of the terrors of the Lord of the dismal day that is hastening on! Sure death and hell would be still before me. I should think of them by day, and dream of them by night; I should lie down in fear, and rise in fear, and live in fear, lest death should come before I were converted. I should have small felicity in any thing that I possessed, and little pleasure in any company, and little joy in any thing in the world, as long as I knew myself to be under the curse and wrath of God. I should be still afraid of hearing that voice, Luke xii. 20. “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.” And that fearful sentence would he written upon my conscience, Isa. xlviii. 22. and lvii. 21. “There is no peace, faith my God, to the wicked.”—O poor sinners! it is a joyfuller life than this that you might live, if you were but but truly willing, to hearken to Christ, and come home to God. You might then draw near to God, with boldness, and call him your father, and comfortably trust him with your souls and bodies. If you look upon the promises, you may say, they are all mine: If upon the curse, you may say, from this I am delivered! When you read the law, you may see what you are saved from!—When you read the gospel, you may see him that redeemed you, and see the course of his love, and holy life, and sufferings, and trace him in his temptations, tears, and blood, in the work of your salvation. You may see death conquered, and heaven opened, and your resurrection and glorification provided for in the resurrection and glorification of your Lord. If you look on the saints, you may say, “They are my brethren and companions.” If on the unsanctified you may rejoice to think that you are saved from that state. If you look upon the heavens, the sun, and moon, and stars innumerable, you may think and say, “My Father’s face is infinitely more glorious; it is higher matters that he hath prepared for his saints; yonder is but the outward court of heaven: The blessedness that he hath promised us is so much higher that flesh and blood cannot behold it.” If you think of the grave, you may remember that the glorified Spirit, a living Head, and a loving Father, have all so near relation to your dust, that it cannot be forgotten or neglected, but more certainly revive than the plants and flowers in the spring, because that the soul is still alive, that is the root of the body; and Christ is alive, that is the root of both.—Even death, which is the king of fears, may be remembered and entertained with joy, as being the day of your deliverance from the remnants of sin and sorrow, and the day which you believed, and hoped, and waited for, when you shall see the blessed things which you had heard of, and shall find, by present joyful experience, what it was to choose the better part, and to be a sincere believing saint. What say you, Sir? is not this a more delightful life, to be assured of salvation, and ready to die, than to live as the ungodly, that have their hearts overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that day comes upon them unawares? Luke xxi. 34, 36. Might you not live a comfortable life, if once you were made the heirs of heaven, and sure to be saved when you leave the world?—O look about you then, and think what you do, and cast not away such hopes as these for very nothing. The flesh and world can give you no such hopes or comforts.