A26892:1774
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 4 › Part 2: Directions against Hardness of Heart.
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.
§. 10. Direct. 7. Live if you can possibly under a lively quickening Ministry, and in the company of 1serious lively Christian•: It is true, that we should be deeply affected with the truths of God, how coldly soever they be delivered: But the question is not, what is our duty, but what is our disease and […] and the proper remedy: All men should be so holy, as not to need any exhortations to […] at all: But shall Ministers therefore neglect such exhortations, or they that need them •••• away their •ars? Hear if possible that Minister that first feels what he speaks, and so speaks what •• feels, as tendeth most to make you feel: Isa. 58. 1, 2. Cry aloud; spare not, lift up thy ••••• like a Trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins: Though ••c• •• seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a Nation that did righteousness, and forsook n•t •••• Ordinances of their God. God is the chief agent, but he useth to work according to the •••••• of the instrument. O woeful case! to hear a dead Minister speaking to a dead people, the living truths of the living God! As Christ said, If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch: And if the dead must raise the dead, and the ungodly enemies of a holy life must bring men to godliness and to a holy life, it must be by such a power as once made use of clay and spittle, to open the eyes of the blind. It seems it was a Proverb in Christs days, Let the dead bury their dead: 2But not, Let the dead raise the dead: God may honour the bones of the dead Prophet with the raising a Corps that is cast into its grave, and toucheth them: A meeting of a dead Minister and a dead people, is like a place of graves; and though it be a lamentable thing to hear a man speak without any life, of life eternal, yet God can concur to the quickening of a soul. But sure we have no great reason to expect that ordinarily he should convert men so miraculously, without the moral aptitude of means. It is most incongruous for any man in his familiar discourse, to speak without great seriousness and reverence, of things concerning life eternal: But for a Preacher to talk of God, of Christ, of Heaven and Hell, as coldly and sleepily, as if he were persuading men not to believe him, or regard him, that no more regards himself, is less tolerable.