A26892:34
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.
And as to the number and length of my Writings, it is my own labour that maketh them so, and my own great trouble, that the world cannot be sufficiently instructed and edified in fewer words. But 1. Would not all your Sermons set together be as long? And why is not much and long preaching blameable, if long Writings be? 2. Are not the works of Augustine and Chrysostom, much longer? Who yet hath reproached Aquinas or Suarez, Calvin or Zanchy, &c. for the number and greatness of the Volumes they have written? Why do you contradict your selves by affecting great Libraries? 3. When did I ever persuade any one of you, to buy or read any Book of mine? What harm will they do those that let them alone? Or what harm can it do you for other men to read them? Let them be to you as if they had never been written, and it will be nothing to you how many they are. And if all others take not you for their Tutors to choose for them the Books that they must read, that is not my doing, but their own. If they err in taking themselves to be fitter Judges than you, what tendeth most to their own Edification, why do you not teach them better? 4. Either it is Gods Truth, or Error which I write. If Error, Why doth no one of you show so much Charity, as by Word or Writing to instruct me better, nor evince it to my face, but do all to others by backbiting? If Truth, What harm will it do? If men had not leisure to read our Writings, the Booksellers would silence us, and save you the labour: For none would Print them. 5. But who can please all men? Whilst a few of you cry out of too much, what if twenty or an hundred for one be yet for more? How shall I know whether you or they be the wiser and the better men?
And as to the number and length of my Writings, it is my own labour that maketh them so, and my own great trouble, that the world cannot be sufficiently instructed and edified in fewer words. But 1. Would not all your Sermons set together be as long? And why is not much and long preaching blameable, if long Writings be? 2. Are not the works of Augustine and Chrysostome, much longer? Who yet hath reproached Aquinas or Suarez, Calvin or Zanchy, &c. for the number and greatness of the Volumes they have written? Why do you contradict your selve• by affecting great Libraries? 3. When did I ever perswade any one of you, to buy or read any Book of mine? What harm will they do those that let them alone? Or what harm can it do you for other men to read them? Let them be to you as if they had never been written, and it will be nothing to you how many they are. And if all others take not you for their Tutors to choose for them the Books that they must read, that is not my doing, but their own. If they err in taking themselves to be fitter Judges than you, what tendeth most to their own Edification, why do you not teach them better? 4. Either it is Gods Truth, or Error which I write. If Error, Why doth no one of you shew so much Charity, as by Word or Writing to instruct me better, nor evince it to my face, but do all to others by backbiting? If Truth, What harm will it do? If men had not leisure to read our Writings, the Booksellers would silence us, and save you the labour: For none would Print them. 5. But who can please all men? Whilest a few of you cry out of too much, what if twenty or an hundred for one be yet for more? How shall I know whether you or they be the wiser and the better men?