A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ... / by Richard Baxter.

AND now I have shewed you the Honour of Godliness, let us briefly, (and but briefly) consider of your Honour that reject it, and see then whether the godly or ungodly are more Honourable.

1. Ungodly men have the Basest Master in the world. Would you know who? Let Christ be Judge, John 8. 44. [Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.] 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are taken captive by the Devil at his will; that is, to do his will: It is he that stirreth you up to filthy talk∣ing, to speak against Godliness, to curse and swear, and you do his will. His will is, that you should neglect a holy life, and you do his will. His will is, that you live not after the spirit, but after the flesh, and you do his will. O poor souls! Do you think it is only Witches that expresly Covenant with him, that are his mi∣serable servants! Alas, it is you also, if you do his will. For (if you will believe either God or common reason) [to whom you yield your selves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.] Rom. 6. 16. The godly themselves were the servants of sin, till they obeyed from the heart the doctrine of the Lord, v. 17. And are you not come to fair preferment, to be the Devils drudges! Though he should cloath your Bodies with Purple and fine linnen, and feed you sumptuously every day, yet indeed you are no bet∣ter, as the case of that miserable man may tell you, Luke 16. It is the greatest Baseness to have so Base a Master.

2. And it is but an ignoble Base de sign that the ungodly carry on in the world. What is it but to provide for, and please their flesh? It aimeth at nothing beyond this life. And a beast can eat, and drink, and sleep, and play, and satisfie his lust, as much as they. A swine can carry a mouth full of straw to his lodging, and a bird can build a nest for her young ones. And what do un∣godly men more in the world! whether Gentlemen or Beggars, the flattered Gallants or the poor day-labourers, if they be not such as first seek Heaven, and live to God, what do they but make a pudder in the world, about a little dirt or smoak? and find themselves somewhat to do that is next to nothing, instead of that for which they were created; and busie themselves about nothing till their time is gone, and the night is come when none

can work? If you would judge of a mans Designs, fore-see his Attainments. If you can tell what End it is that they come to, you may know how to judge of their intentions and their course. Their corpses you know, have no greater a Happiness, (after a few foolish merry hours) then to lie in the earth as filth or dust. You can see no Honour attained there. It is a child indeed that thinks a guilded Monument over a rotten carkase, is any great matter of Honour or Benefit to it. And if you look after the soul, (by the prospective of the Word of God) alas, it goeth to far greater dishonour. And is this it that worldlings make such a stir for?

3. The work also that they are employed in, is like the Design. Sin, which is the Basest thing in the world, is their employment. The work of a Scullion, or the basest honest trade you can ima∣gine, is a thousand times less dishonourable, then sin: Yet flat∣tered Gallants believe not this, when they can please their flesh without losing the teputation of worthy Gentlemen! Nor will our common ungodly people be perswaded of it, that are more ashamed to be found praying then sinning, and to be called a Puritane then a Good-fellow or a Swearer: and that think they are as good men as others, when up to the ears in the drudgery of the Devil: As if the filth of sin were no dishonour to them, which nothing but the Spirit and blood of Christ is able to wash out. These are the men that Paul mentioneth with weeping, Phil. 3. 18. that mind earthly things, whose God is their belly, and who glory in their shame.

4. Moreover, it is a Base disposition that ungodly men are possessed with. Though their Natures are essentially noble as being the work of God, and capable of most glorious things; yet have they made them Dispositively Vile: They are fleshly∣minded, earthly-minded, ignorant of Heavenly things, not savouring the things of the Spirit, but like the Serpent, crawling on earth, and feeding on the dust Grass is sweeter to a horse then junkets; and a little money or vain-glory is sweeter to a fleshly mind then God and Glory, and all the treasures of Saints and Angels. A swine never thinks of God or Heaven, but of his draffe and stie: Ease, and good chear, and money, and the flattery of men, are the God and the Heaven of sensual men. And are not these men of Base dishonourable spirits? Un∣worthy men! might you have an Everlasting life, and will you

preferre a few dayes fleshly pleasure? As surely as you may know the Basenss of a swine or dog by what they feed upon, so surely may you know the baseness of a carnal mind, by the base∣ness of its desires and delights.

5. It is also a Base Society that ungodly men are members of. They are in the Kingdom of darkness, Col. 1. 13. Acts 26. 18. and are dead in sin, in which they walk according to the course of the world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now walketh in the children of disobedience, among whom they have their conversations, Eph. 2. 1, 2, 3. Devils are their invisible companions, and wicked men their visible: but they have none of the presence and favour of the Lord, nor any communi∣on with him in the spirit.

6. The greatest Dishonour of the ungodly is, that the God of Heaven refuseth to Honour them: yea he despiseth them: yea he dishonoureth them with most contemptuous titles. And cer∣tainly God knoweth what he saith of them; and it is impossible that he should do them wrong. Yet doth he call them the seed of the Serpent, that stand at enmity with his flock, Gen. 3. 15. he calls them his enemies, and accordingly will use them, Luke 19. 27. He calls them Dogs and Swine, and the Children of the Devil, John 8. 44. Matth. 7. 6. They dishonoured and despised him, and he will dishonour and despise them, and hath resolved that their very names shall rot, Prov. 10. 7.

7. But it is the Everlasting shame that will tell us what was the Honour of the ungodly. When Christ shall be ashamed of them before his Father and the Heavenly Angels, Matth. 8. 38. and shall tell them that he never knew them, Matth. 7. 23. When all their former pomp and splendour, will be turned into per∣petual shame and sorrows, then where is the Honour of the ungodly world? Where then are their flatterers? Who boweth to them, and calleth them Right Honourable and Right Worship∣full any more? Where now are their sumptuous houses and attendance? Now they have other kind of servitours; and other language, and other usage then they had on earth. And the poor wretches that stormed at a faithful Minister for fore∣telling these woeful changes to them, and speaking so disho∣nourably of them, as to tell them of their sin, are at last say∣ing

an hundred fold worse of themselves, then ever we did say against them. Then they shall need none to call them fools, and vile, and wretches, but their own Consciences, that will speak it out, and speak it again ten thousand times, and never be bribed to forbear. O how base a despicable Generation will the ungodly then be (that now speak so stoutly and look so high) when God shall everlastingly frown them into contempt and misery, and the glorified Saints shall look down upon them without compassion, even prasing the Justice that for ever doth torment them! Then let the Kings and Nobles of the earth maintain their antient Honours if they can: Or let them take comfort in the remembrance of their former dreams: and try whether this will be to them instead of a drop of water.

Well, Sirs, I have faithfully told you from the Word of God, of the Honour of the Godly, and the Baseness of the ungodly, that you may be resolved, which is the Better part. If yet you will not see, you shall see and be ashamed, Isa. 26. 11. When you have heard your last and dreadful doom, and seen the Lord make up his Jewels, then shall you discern between the Righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not, Mal. 3. 17, 18.