The crucifying of the world by the cross of Christ with a preface to the nobles, gentlemen, and all the rich, directing them how they may be richer / by Richard Baxter.

Benefit 2.

THE second Benefit is this. If you are truly Crucified to the world, Your minds will be free for God and his service; When the minds of worldlings are like imprisoned hampered things. What a toylsom thing is it for a man to travail in fetters, or to run a race with a burden on his back? But knock off his fetters, and how easily will he go? and take off his burden, and how lightly will he run? Do you not feel your selves that the world is the clog of your souls? and that this is it that hindereth you from duty, and hindereth you in duty, and keepeth you from the attainment of an heavenly con∣versation? When you should chearfully go to God in secret, or in your families, the world is ready to pull you back: Either it calleth you away, by putting some other business into your hands; or else it dulleth and diverteth your Affections, so that you have no heart to duty, or no life in it; or else it creepeth into your

Thoughts in duty, and taketh them off from the work in hand, and makes you do that which you seem not to be doing: And if you shake off these thoughts, and drive them out of your way, they are presently again before you, and meet you at the next Turn. But in that measure as you have Crucified the world, you are freed from these disturbances. The Apostle Peter describeth the miserable estate of Apostates, 2 Pet. 2. 20. to be like a bird or beast that had escaped out of the snare that he was taken in, and after is taken in the same again; Having escaped the polluti∣on of the world, &c. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, they are again entangled therein: as a beast in a snare, that cannot escape or help himself; So 2 Tim. 2. 4. its said, no man that warreth entang∣leth himself with the affairs of this life: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c. So that you see that the world is a snare that en∣tangleth mens souls, and holdeth them as in captivity. The table of the wicked becometh a snare to them, and so▪ do all the bodily mercies which they possess.

But the mortified Christian may look back on all these dan∣gers, and say, Blessed be the Lord that hath not given us as a prey to their teeth: Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped, Psal. 124. 6, 7. Oh with what ease and freedom of mind may you converse with God in holy Ordinances, when you are once dis••entangled from this snare? Now that which formerly drew off your hearts, and clog'd your affections is Crucified and dead: that enemy that kept your souls from God, and was still casting baits or troubles in your way is dead▪ As the Apostle saith of sin, Rom. 6. 7. He that is dead is freed from sin; So I may say of the world: He that is dead to the world, in that measure as he is dead to it, is freed from the world. Let us therefore lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us▪ and then we may run with Patience, the race that is set before us, Heb. 12. 1.

This makes a poor Christian sometimes to live in more content and comfort in the depth of adversity, then he did before in the midst of his prosperity: because, though his flesh hath lost, his soul hath gain'd: though he want the fleshly accommodations which he had, yet the world is now more Dead to him then be∣fore; and so his mind is freer for God; and consequently more with him. How blessed a life is it to converse with God with

little disturbances and interruptions! A runner in a race is wil∣ling to be rid of his very cloathes, that should cover him and keep him warm, because they are a burden and hinderance to him in his race: But the lookers on would be loath to be so stript. Take away prosperity from an unmortified man, and you take away the comfort of his life: When if the same things be taken from the mortified believer, he loseth but his burden. How rea∣dily will that man obey that is dead to the world, when he is com∣manded to do good, to relieve the poor according to his power, to suffer wrongs, to let go his right, to forgive and requite evil with good, to forsake all and follow Christ. When to another man these duties are a kind of impossibilities; and you may as well perswade a Lyon to become a Lamb, or a beast to die willingly by the hand of the Butcher, as perswade an unmortified world∣ling to these things. They think when they hear them, These are hard sayings, who can bear them? Or at least, they are duties for a Peter or a Paul, and not for such as we. There is a very great part of Christian obedience, that will be easie to you when you are Dead to the world, which no man else is able to endure, nor will be perswaded to submit to.