A26892:1236
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Part 1 › Chapter 3 › Direction 10 › Directions for faithful serving Christ, and doing Good.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 15. Direct. 12. Prefer a durable good that will extend to posterity, before a short and transitory good. As to build an Alms-house is a greater work than to give an Alms, and to erect a School, than to teach a Scholar; so to promote the settlement of the Gospel and a faithful Ministry, is the greatest of all, as tending to the good of many, even to their everlasting good: This is the preeminence of ⟨p. 130⟩[…] ⟨p. 131⟩[…] ⟨p. 132⟩Good Books before a transient speech, that they may be a more durable help and benefit. Look before you with a judicious foresight: and as you must not do that present Good to a particular person, which bringeth greater hurt to many, so you must not do that present good to one or many which is like to produce a greater and more lasting hurt. Such blind reformers have used the Church, as ignorant Physicians use their patients, who give them a little present ease, and cast them into greater misery, and seem to cure them with a dose of opium or the Jesuits powder, when they are bringing them into a worse disease than that which they pretend to cure: O when shall the poor Church have wiser and foreseeing helpers?
§. 15. Direct. 12. Prefer a durable good that will extend to posterity, before a short and transitory good. As to build an Alms-house is a greater work than to give an Alms, and to erect a School, than to teach a Scholar; so to promote the settlement of the Gospel and a faithful Ministry, is the greatest of all, as tending to the good of many, even to their everlasting good: This is the preheminence of ⟨p. 130⟩〈…〉 ⟨p. 131⟩〈…〉 ⟨p. 132⟩Good Books before a transient speech, that they may be a more durable help and benefit. Look before you with a judicious foresight: and as you must not do that present Good to a particular person, which bringeth greater hurt to many, so you must not do that present good to one or many which is like to produce a greater and more lasting hurt. Such blind reformers have used the Church, as ignorant Physitions use their patients, who give them a little present ease, and cast them into greater misery, and seem to cure them with a dose of opium or the Jesuits powder, when they are bringing them into a worse disease than that which they pretend to cure: O when shall the poor Church have wiser and foreseeing helpers?