A26892:1870
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.
§. 47. 12. You have men of great Mutability to please: That one hour may be ready to worship you as Gods, and the next to stone you, or account you as Devils, as they did by Paul, and Christ himself: What a Weather-cock is the mind of man? especially of the vulgar and the temporizers? When you have spent all your days in building your reputation on this Sand, one blast of Wind, or Storm at last, doth tumble it down, and all your ••st and labour is lost. Serve men as submissively and carefully as you can; and after all, some accident or failing of their unrighteous expectations, may make all that ever you did forgotten, and turn you out of the world with Wolsey's groans, [If I had served God as faithfully as man, I had been better rewarded, and not forsaken in my distress.] How many have fallen by the hands or frowns, of those whose favour they had dearly purchased? perhaps at the price of their salvation? If ever you put such confidence in a friend, as not to consider that it is possible he may one day prove your enemy, you know not man; and may perhaps be better taught to know him, to your cost.
§. 47. 12. You have men of great Mutability to please: That one hour may be ready to worship you as Gods, and the next to stone you, or account you as Devils, as they did by Paul, and Christ himself: What a Weather-cock is the mind of man? especially of the vulgar and the temporizers? When you have spent all your dayes in building your reputation on this Sand, one blast of Wind, or Storm at last, doth tumble it down, and all your ••st and labour is lost. Serve men as submissively and carefully as you can; and after all, some accident or failing of their unrighteous expectations, may make all that ever you did forgotten, and turn you out of the world with Wolsey's groans, [If I had served God as faithfully as man, I had been better rewarded, and not forsaken in my distr•ss.] How many have fallen by the hands or frowns, of those whose favour they had dearly purchased? perhaps at the price of their salvation? If ever you put such confidence in a friend, as not to consider that it is possible he may one day prove your enemy, you know not man; and may perhaps be better taught to know him, to your cost.