A26892:1783
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.
§. HYp•crisie is the acting the part of a Religious person as upon a stage, by one that is not Religious 1indeed. A seeming in Religion to be what you are not, or to do what you do not. Or a dissembling or counterfeiting that piety which you have not: To counterfeit a state of Godliness is the sin only of the unregenerate, who at the present are in a state of misery: To c••terfeit some particular act of Godliness, or some higher degree, is an odious sin, but such as a regen••••• person may be tempted into. This act of Hypocrisy doth not denominate the person an Hypocrite; but the state of Hypocrisy doth. Every Hypocrite therefore is an ungodly person seeming Godly: or one that indeed is no true Christian, professing himself a Christian. Of Hypocrites there be two sorts: some desire to deceive others but not themselves, but know themselves to be but dissemblers; and these are commonly called, Gross Hypocrites: And some deceive both themselves and others, and think they are no Hypocrites, but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity, as if they were no dissemblers at all: But yet they are as verily Hypocrites as the former, because they seem to be Religious and sincere when indeed they are not, though they think they are: and profess themselves to be true Christians, when they are nothing less. These are called, Close Hypocrites, because they know not themselves to be Hypocrites; (though they might know it if they would.) This is the commonest sort of Hypocrites.
§. HYp•crisie is the acting the part of a Religious person as upon a stage, by one that is not Religious 1indeed. A seeming in Religion to be what you are not, or to do what you do not. Or a diss•m•ling or c•unterfeiting that piety which you have not: To counterfeit a state of Godliness is the sin only of the unregenerate, who at the present are in a state of misery: To c••terfeit some particular act of Godliness, or some higher degree, is an odious sin, but such as a regen person may be tempted into. This act of Hypocrisie doth not denominate the person an Hypocrite; but the state of Hypocrisie doth. Every Hypocrite therefore is an ungodly person seeming Godly: or one that indeed is no true Christian, professing himself a Christian. Of Hypocrites there be two sorts: some desire to deceive others but not themselves, but know themselves to be but dissemblers; and these are commonly called, Gross Hypocrites: And some deceive both themselves and others, and think they are no Hypocrites, but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity, as if they were no dissemblers at all: But yet they are as verily Hypocrites as the former, because they seem to be Religious and sincere when indeed they are not, though they think they are: and profess themselves to be true Christians, when they are nothing less. These are called, Close Hypocrites, because they know not themselves to be Hypocrites; (though they might know it if they would.) This is the commonest sort of Hypocrites.