What if you had seen haven open as Stephen did, and all the saints there triumphing in glory, and enjoying the end of their labours and sufferings, what a life would you lead after such a sight as this! Why, you will see this with your eyes before it be long.Thou hast the more cause to doubt a great deal, because thou never didst doubtl and yet more because thou hast been so careless in thy confidence. What do these expressions discover, but a wilful neglect of thy own salvation? As a shipmaster that should let his vessel alone, and mind other matters, and say, I will venture it among the rocks, and sands, and gulfs, and waves, and winds; I will never touble myself to know wheter it shall come safe to the harbour; I will trust God with it; it will speed as well as other men's vessels do. Indeed, as well as other men's that are as careless and idle, but not so well as other mens's that are diligent and watchful. What horrible abuse of God is this, for men to pretend that they trust God with their souls only to cloak their own wilful negligence! (290-291)
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About Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was English 17th-century english puritan church leader and theologian. Richard Baxter was an English Nonconformist church leader and theologian from Rowton, Shropshire, who has been described as "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". He made his reputation in the late 1630s by his ministry at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, when he also began a long and prolific career as a theological writer. Read more on Wikipedia →