A26892:2395
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 6 › Tit. 5. Directions to the Melancholy about their Thoughts.
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.
§. 8. Direct. 4. Be not too long in any secret duty, which you find you are not able to bear: Prayer 1it self, when you are unable, must be performed but as you can: Short confessions and requests to God, must serve instead of longer secret prayers, when you are unable to do more. If sickness may excuse a man for being short, where nature will not hold out, the case is the same here, in the sickness of the brain and spirits. God hath appointed no means to do you hurt.
- 1Direct. 4.
§. 9. Direct. 5. Where you find your selves unable for a secret duty, struggle not too hard with your 1selves, but go that pace that you are able to go quietly. For as every striving doth not enable you, but vex you, and make duty wearisome to you, and disable you more, by increasing your disease: Like an Ox that draweth unquietly, and a Horse that chaseth himself, that quickly tireth. Preserve your willingness to duty, and avoid that which makes it grievous to you. As to a sick stomach, it is not eating much, but digesting well that tends to health; and little must be eaten, when much cannot be digested: So it is here in case of your meditations and secret prayers.
§. 9. Direct. 5. Where you find your selves unable for a secret duty, struggle not too hard with your 1selves, but go that pace that you are able to go quietly. For as every striving doth not enable you, but vex you, and make duty wearisom to you, and disable you more, by increasing your disease: Like an Ox that draweth unquietly, and a Horse that chaseth himself, that quickly tireth. Preserve your willingness to duty, and avoid that which makes it grievous to you. As to a sick stomach, it is not eating much, but digesting well that tends to health; and little must be eaten, when much cannot be digested: So it is here in case of your meditations and secret prayers.