A26892:1724
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.
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.
§. 34. Direct. 31. Judge not of so great a thing, by sudden apprehensions, or the surprise of a temptation, 1when you have not leisure to look up all the evidences of faith, and lay them together, and take a full deliberate view of all the cause. It is a mystery so great as requireth a clear and vacant mind, delivered from prejudice, abstracted from diverting and deceiving things; which upon the best assistance, and with the greatest diligence, must lay all together to discern the truth. And if upon the best assistance and consideration you have been convinced of the truth, and then will let every sudden thought, or temptation, or difficulty seem enough to question all again, this is unfaithfulness to the truth, and the way to resist the clearest evidences, and never to have done. It is like as if you should answer your adversary in the Court, when your witnesses are all dismissed, or out of the way, and all your evidences are absent, and perhaps your Counsellor and Advocate too. It is like the casting up of a long and intricate account, which a man hath finished by study and time, and when he hath done all, one questioneth this particular, and another that, when his accounts are absent: It is not fit for him to answer all particulars, nor question his own accounts till he have as full opportunity and help to cast up all again.
§. 34. Direct. 31. Iudge not of so great a thing, by sudden apprehensions, or the surprize of a temptati•n, 1when you have not leisure to look up all the evidences of faith, and lay them together, and take a full deliberate view of all the cause. It is a mystery so great as requireth a clear and vacant mind, delivered from prejudice, abstracted from diverting and deceiving things; which upon the best assistance, and with the greatest diligence, must lay all together to discern the truth. And if upon the best assistance and consideration you have been convinced of the truth, and then will let every sudden thought, or temptation, or difficulty seem enough to question all again, this is unfaithfulness to the truth, and the way to resist the clearest evidences, and never to have done. It is like as if you should answer your adversary in the Court, when your witnesses are all dismist, or out of the way, and all your evidences are absent, and perhaps your Counsellor and Advocate too. It is like the casting up of a long and intricate account, which a man hath finished by study and time, and when he hath done all, one questioneth this particular, and another that, when his accounts are absent: It is not fit for him to answer all particulars, nor question his own accounts till he have as full opportunity and help to cast up all again.