If the wicked be converted, he must be gluttonous and drunknen no more; he must live in pride, vanity, worldly-mindedness and sensual pleasures no more; and therefore he draws back from a holy life as it were from death itself. But what is this to those who have 'mortified the flesh with the affections and lusts'? Consider also that these forbidden pleasures are the greatest impediments, both of our holiness and of our truest pleasures. One of the reasons why God forbids them is because they hinder us from better. And if for our own good we must forsake them when we turn to God, we should therefore be the more willing to die in order to be free from the danger of them; and especially since death will transmit us to infinitely greater pleasures. [Richard Baxter]
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