A26892:551
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.
§. 4. So also in the study of other good Books, he will tempt you to fix upon all that seems difficult to you, and there to confound and perplex your selves: And in your Meditations, he will seek to make all to tend, but to confound and overwhelm you; keeping still either hard or fearful things before your eyes; or breaking and scattering your thoughts in pieces, that you cannot reduce them to any order, nor set them together, nor make any thing of them, nor drive them to any desirable end. So in your prayers he would fain confound you, either with fears, or with doubtful and distracting thoughts about God, or your sins, or the matter or manner of your duty, or questioning whether your prayers will be heard. And so in your self-examination, he will still seek to puzzle you, and leave you more in darkness than you began, and make you afraid of looking homeward, or ⟨p. 55⟩conversing with your selves; like a man that is afraid to lye in his own house when he thinks it haunted with some apparitions. And thus the Devil would make all your Religion to be but like the unwinding of a bottom of Yarn, or a Skein of Silk that is ravelled; that you may cast it away in weariness or despair.
§. 4. So also in the study of other good Books, he will tempt you to fix upon all that seems difficult to you, and there to confound and perplex your selves: And in your Meditations, he will seek to make all to tend, but to confound and overwhelm you; keeping still either hard or fearful things before your eyes; or breaking and scattering your thoughts in pieces, that you cannot reduce them to any order, nor set them together, nor make any thing of them, nor drive them to any desirable end. So in your prayers he would fain confound you, either with fears, or with doubtful and distracting thoughts about God, or your sins, or the matter or manner of your duty, or questioning whether your prayers will be heard. And so in your self-examination, he will still seek to puzzle you, and leave you more in darkness than you began, and make you afraid of looking homeward, or ⟨p. 55⟩conversing with your selves; like a man that is afraid to lye in his own house when he thinks it haunted with some apparitions. And thus the Devil would make all your Religion to be but like the unwinding of a bottom of Yarn, or a Skein of Silk that is ravelled; that you may cast it away in wea•iness or despair.