A26892:324
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.
§. 1. Remember that without him you can do nothing, John 15. 5. Nor can any thing you do be acceptable to God, any other way than in him, the beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased. As your persons had never been accepted but in him, no more can any of your services: All your repentings, if you had wept out your eyes for sin, would not have satisfied the Justice of God, nor procured you pardon and justification without the satisfaction and merit of Christ. If he had not first taken away the sins of the world, and reconciled them so far to God, as to procure and tender them the pardon and salvation contained in his Covenant, there had been no place for your Repentance, nor faith, nor prayers, nor endeavours, as to any hope of your salvation. Your Believing would not have saved you, nor indeed had any justifying object, if he had not purchased you the promise and gift of pardon and salvation to all Believers.
§. 2. Objection. But perhaps you'll say, That if we had Loved God, without a Saviour, we should have been saved: for God cannot hate and damn those that Love him: To which I answer, You could not have Loved God as God, without a Saviour: To have Loved him as the giver of your worldly prosperity, with a Love subordinate to the Love of sin and your carnal selves, and to Love him as one that you imagine so unholy and unjust, as to give you leave to sin against him, and prefer every Vanity before him, this is not to Love God, but to Love an Image of your own fantasy; nor will it at all procure your salvation. But to Love him as your God and Happiness, with a superlative Love, you could never have done without a Saviour. For 1. Objectively; God being not your Reconciled Father, but your enemy, engaged in Justice to damn you for ever, you could not Love him as thus related to you, because he could not seem amiable to you: and therefore the damned hate him as their destroyer, as the Thief or Murderer hates the Judge. 2. And as to the Efficiency; your blinded minds, and depraved wills could never have been restored so far to their rectitude, as to have Loved God as God, without the teaching of Christ, and the renewing sanctifying work of his Spirit. And without a Saviour you could never have expected this gift of the Holy Ghost. So that your supposition it self is groundless.