A26892:1335
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 11 › Directions for Loving God as our Father and Felicity.
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.
Do not forget him, or unbelievingly deny him, and then say, he is not here: Do not say, that the Sun doth not shine, because thou winkest. O do not quench thy Love to God, by feigning him to be out of reach, and taken up with other converse! Turn not to inferior delights, by thinking that he hath turned thee off to these: And love him not as an absent friend: But as the friend that is always in thy sight, in thy bosom, and in thy heart; the fuel that is nearest to the flames of love.]
Do not forget him, or unbelievingly deny him, and then say, he is not here: Do not say, that the Sun doth not shine, because thou winkest. O do not quench thy Love to God, by feigning him to be out of reach, and taken up with other converse! Turn not to inferiour delights, by thinking that he hath turned thee off to these: And love him not as an absent friend: But as the friend that is always in thy sight, in thy bosome, and in thy heart; the fewel that is nearest to the flames of love.]
§. 20. Direct. 4. All other Graces must do their part in assisting Love, and all be exercised in subservience 1to it, and with an intention (directly or remotely) to promote it. Fear and watchfulness must keep away the sin that would extinguish it, and preserve you from that Guilt which would frighten away the soul from God: Repentance and mortification must keep away diverting and deceiving objects, which would steal away our Love from God: Faith must show us God as present, in all his blessed attributes and perfections: Hope must depend on him for nearer access and the promised felicity. Prudence must choose the fittest season, and means and helps from our special approaches to him; and teach us how to avoid impediments: And obedience must keep us in a fit capacity for communion with him. The mind that is turned loose to wander after vanity the rest of the day, is unfit in an hour of prayer or meditation to be taken up with the Love of God. It must be the work of the day, and of our lives, to walk in a fitness for it, though we are not always in the immediate lively exercise of it. To sin wilfully one hour, and be taken up with the love of God the next, is as unlikely, as one hour to abuse our Parents, and provoke them to correct us, and the next to find the pleasure of their love; or one hour to fall and break ones bones, and the next to run and work as pleasantly as we did before.