of Christ have their communion. What excellent precepts of clemency and beneficence hath Seneca ? Yea, what abundance of self-denial doth he seem to join with them? And yet so strange was this highest naturalist, to the truest charity or self-denial, that it is self that is his principle, end, and all. For a man to be sufficient for himself, and happy in himself, without troubling God by prayer, or needing man, was the sum of his religion. Pride was their mastervirtue, which with us is the greatest vice. And for all his seeming contempt of riches and pleasures, yet Seneca keeps up in such a height of riches and greatness, as that he was like to have been emperor. And sometimes to be drunken he commends, to drive away cares and raise the mind; pleading the example of Solon and Agesilaus; confessing that drunkenness was objected even to Cato, their highest pattern of virtue; affirming, that the objectors may sooner make the crime honest, than Cato dishonest.

Among all this seeming charity and self-denial, that proveth not a sanctified heart, how excellent (but too rare) is the true self-denial and charity of the Christian; who hath quit all pretence of title to himself, or any thing that he hath, and hath consecrated himself and all to God; resolving to employ himself and it entirely for him; studying only to be well informed, which way it is that God would have him lay it out. And among these saints themselves, how rare is that excellent man, that is covetous and laborious for God, and for the church, and for his brethren; and that doth as providently get and keep, and as painfully labour, (how rich soever he be) and as much pinch his flesh (in prudent moderation) that he may have the more to give and to do good with, and make the best of his master's stock, as other men do in making provision for the flesh, and laying up for their posterity.

Sir, as far as you have proceeded in this Christian art, you are yet in the world among the snares and limetwigs of the devil, in a station that makes salvation difficult; and therefore have need of daily watchfulness, and to proceed and persevere in an enmity to the world, and a believing crucifixion of it, if you will be saved from it, and restore it to its proper use, and captivate it, that captivateth so many. As some help hereunto, I crave your perusal of this Treatise. And that it may do you good, and the many blessings pro

mised to the charitable may rest upon you, and on your yokefellow, (that hath learned this crucifying of the world) and upon your posterity, shall be the prayers of

Your Fellow-soldier against the Flesh and World,

RICHARD BAXTER.

February 20, 1657.

THE

PREFACE,

TO THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY, AND ALL THAT HAVE THE RICHES OF THIS WORLD.

Honourable, Worshipful, &c.

HAVING written here of a subject that nearly concerneth you, I have thought it my duty to give you a place, and according to your dignity the first place in the application of it. Of which I shall first tender you my reasons, and then set before you the matter of this address.

1. You are among us the most eminent and honoured persons, and therefore not to be neglected and passed by: you are first, and therefore should first be served. You hold yourselves most worthy of any temporal honour that is to be had; and therefore I shall honour you so much more, as to judge you fit to be first spoken to by the ministers of Christ, in a case that doth much concern you. As you have, and would have the precedency in worldly matters, here also you shall have the precedency. It is pity that you should be first in hell, that are first in a Christian state on earth; or that you should be least in the kingdom of heaven, that are greatest in that which is esteemed in the world. 2. You are pillars in the commonwealth, and the stakes that bear up the rest of the hedge. Your influence is great in lower bodies. You sin not to yourselves only; nor are you gracious only to yourselves. The spots in the moon are seen by more, and its eclipses felt by more, than the blemishes or changes of many of us inferior wights. You are our first figures, that stand for more in matters of public concernment, than all that follow. You are the copies that the rest write after, and they are more prone to copy out your vices than your graces. You are the first sheets in the press.

You are the stewards of God, who are entrusted with his talents for the use of many. You are the noble members of the body politic, whose health or sickness is communicated to the rest if you be ungodly, the whole body languisheth; if you live and prosper, it will go the better with us all : for your wisdom, and holiness, and justice will be operative; and your station alloweth you great advantage to work upon many, and to emulate a kind of universal causality. Interest is the world's bias, and all power hath respect to use. You that have possession of the treasure that is so commonly and highly esteemed, may do much to lead the sensual world by it, which way you please. Be it better or be it worse, they will follow him that bears the purse. If money can do wonders, you may do wonders. As money can persuade the blind to part with God and life everlasting, and to renounce religion and reason itself, so no doubt but it might do something, were it faithfully used, though not directly to sanctify the heart, yet somewhat to incline it to the means by which it may be sanctified. You that have power to help or hurt, to make it summer or winter to your subjects, and to promote or cross the interest of the flesh, are hereby become a kind of gods in the eyes of them that mind this interest, (as in higher respects you are unto believers). Especially seeing they want that eye of faith, by which they should know the Sovereign Majesty, who at his pleasure doth dispose both of you and them; these purblind sinners can reach no further, but are contented to be ruled by you, as terrestrial deities: they see you, but they see not God; they know you, and perceive the effects of your favour and displeasure; but being dead to God, and savouring only fleshly things, they scarce observe his smiles or frowns. They see that which is visible to the eye, which they have the use of; but the objects of faith are to them as nothing, because they have no eye to see them. And seeing you have such public interest and influence, it is our duty first to look after your souls, and to see that you receive the heavenly impress. 3. To which I may add, that no men have usually more need of advice and help than you; for your temptations are the strongest. The world killeth by its flatteries; it is not the having it, but the loving it, that undoes men and he is much more likely to overlove it, that hath what he would have, and liveth in plentiful provi

sions for his flesh, than he that hath nothing from it but trouble and vexation. It is not poverty, and prisons, and sickness, that are the flattering panders of the world, but prosperity and content to the flesh. Though I know that many of the poor do most of all overvalue the world, because they never tried so much of its vanity, but standing at a distance from prosperity, do think it a greater felicity than it is; for those are most in love with the world, that least know it; as those that least know him, are least in love with God and eternal glory. But yet it is pleasing, and not displeasing, flattering rather than buffeting, that is the means of deceiving silly souls, and stealing their hearts from God to the world: your mountains lie open to stronger winds than our valleys do: and gulfs and greater streams are not so fordable as our more shallow waters. He never studied God and heaven, nor his own heart, that knoweth not that it is a very difficult thing, to have a heavenly mind in earthly prosperity, and to live in the desires of another world, while we feel all seems to go well with us in this. How hard to be weaned from the world, till we suffer in it; yea, till we are plunged into an utter despair of ever receiving here the satisfaction of our desires! 4. And truly we have too much sad experience of the sensuality and ungodliness of most of the rich, to suffer us to think that you have least need of our admonitions: which leadeth me up to the matter of my address, which is first to complain of you to yourselves, and then to admonish you, and lastly to direct you.

1. I know I speak to those (for the most part) that profess to believe a life to come.; but O that you had the honesty to live as you do profess! You durst not put it into your creed, that you believe that earth is more desirable than heaven, and that it is better seek first after carnal prosperity and delight, than for the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. You would be ashamed to say that it is the wisest course first to make provision for the flesh, and to put off God and your salvation with the leavings of the world. And do you think it is not as bad and as dangerous to do so, as to say so? Would it bring you to your journey's end, to be of the opinion that you should be up and going, as long as you sit still? Right opinions in religion are so unlikely to save a man that crosseth them in his practice, that such shall be beaten with many stripes. I had ra